Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“Umph.” Lucius sat up with a start, fully alert, muscles taut. He reached for his sword and grunted when his hand found the weapon absent from his side. He squinted up at the flame-lit faces above him. The usual Britons. Not an attack. He relaxed a little, still wary.
“Stay silent,” Garamaros hissed. Sorcha held her dagger at his throat. Its tip bit into his skin. Lucius complied with their commands.
The flickering torchlight illuminated Sorcha’s fiercely beautiful face.
His gaze roamed her features—thickly lashed eyes, generous mouth, and oval face with a determined chin, framed by wavy ginger hair escaping from a long braid.
A hint of summer flowers reached him. Did she wash with scented water?
He savored her nearness and his heart beat harder.
Meanwhile the old Briton undid his manacles before unchaining him from the stake beside the fire. “Come.”
Lucius followed passively, but his mind raced with questions and scenarios, while his heart rate climbed higher. What was going on? Where were they going? Was he facing his death now?
Garamaros led him to his wagon. The Briton rummaged around inside until he brought out a leather satchel. He pulled out a pair of plaid trousers and short Celtic tunic from within. “We’re giving you new clothes.” He handed the native apparel to Lucius, gesturing for him to dress.
Sorcha stood nearby with her dagger drawn, watchful and ready in case he tried to escape. He was utterly sure she would use it too, if he made a sudden move.
Lucius pulled on the trousers. They fit well enough, but the rough material rasped his bare legs.
Garamaros knelt to re-fix Lucius’s chains, then stood to undo the bindings around his wrists.
Once his hands were freed, Lucius rubbed his sore wrists until the blood circulated in them again. Then he pulled off his tunic.
A soft gasp to his left drew his attention.
Lucius’s gaze slid over Sorcha. Her eyes were downcast, but her face was flushed. Interesting. If she could admire his body, maybe this barbarian woman was not as immune to him as her outward aggression indicated.
Ensuring he flexed as many muscles as possible, he pulled on the worn linen tunic Garamaros handed him, a knowing smirk on his face. Without a leather belt, the garment fell almost to his knees.
Why this costume change in the middle of the night? Something was afoot. If only he could speak more of their language. “What?” he said, using the word he had heard often enough since the Britons had captured him.
Garamaros replied that Lucius would be leaving soon with Maonos and Sorcha. He rebound his wrists.
“Why?” Lucius asked.
“Your life is in danger if you leave with us tomorrow. Bledyos wants you too. You are a valuable source of information for him.”
Lucius exhaled. As long as these Britons thought Rome would care about getting him back, he was safe.
If they ever learned he had many enemies in Rome who would be happy never to see him return because of the threat he posed to their power, he was a dead man.
He prayed they never realized. “Yes,” he said with a nod.
He held up a manacled foot. “Off?”
“Soon.” Garamaros tied him to a wheel of the wagon.
Sorcha sheathed her dagger and without a word, she disappeared into the night.
Lucius dozed on the damp ground until he was shaken awake sometime later. It was the deadest part of the night, and the settlement slept in eerie silence. A feeble moonlight lit the scene. Cloying mist hugged the encampment. He shivered in the chill air.
Sorcha stood in front of him, wearing male garb and with her dagger ready. As usual, Garamaros crouched down and undid his manacles. “You go with Sorcha and Maonos quietly?”
Lucius nodded.
Garamaros tossed Lucius’s boots on the ground beside him.
Lucius thrust his feet into them. The worn leather enveloped his feet like the embrace of an old friend.
“Until later,” Garamaros told the trio. “May the god of mists assist you.” He clasped first Maonos’s forearm, then Sorcha’s in farewell. The moon broke though the cloudy sky, revealing the Briton’s brow knitted with concern.
“Move,” Sorcha hissed and prodded the dagger point into Lucius’s back.
Their steps muffled by the damp grass beneath their feet, Maonos led them to the rampart closest to their encampment.
A wooden ladder stood against fresh repairs to the earthworks.
This section had not yet had its palisade raised again on top of the rampart.
The youth shot up its rungs first, reaching the top then lying down along the rampart to wait for Lucius and Sorcha.
Lucius awkwardly grasped the rung above his head with his bound hands and climbed onto the first rung. He leaned forward until his body connected with the ladder, lifted his bound hands and grasped the next rung. Awkward!
He clawed and balanced his way upward.
Maonos held the ladder steady.
Lucius soon felt the woman’s weight on the ladder below as she followed him up, keeping him within striking distance of her dagger. She could slit his Achilles tendons in a flash, disabling him for life.
Finally, he reached the top. Maonos grabbed his tunic and hauled him onto the top of the rampart, pushing his head low.
Lucius understood. He must keep his head down so there was less chance of a silhouette against the sky should the moon came out of the clouds again.
He sucked in deep breaths of the cold, damp air to slow his racing heart.
Within seconds, Sorcha scrambled off the ladder.
Maonos set off in the direction of the fort’s main gateway.
“Follow,” Sorcha hissed, pointing to Maonos, while keeping her dagger against Lucius’s back.
Her brother led them onward, running low along the rampart.
After an eternity of ungainly progress, they came within sight of the massive timber gateway. Its observation platform above also spanned some of the adjacent earth wall.
Maonos halted and dropped to his stomach. Lucius followed him. They crawled forward until Maonos was within touching distance of the platform. If there was a sentry on guard, Lucius couldn’t see him in the darkness of the covered platform.
Maonos inched forward. He grasped one of the platform’s supporting timbers on the outer side and swung hand over hand underneath from one support to the next, moving towards the gate. When he reached the point where the rampart fused with the gatepost set beside the roadway, he let go.
There was a dull thud as his body hit the slope below. That must have hurt. Then Maonos was sliding off the rampart towards the ground level of the roadway.
Sorcha prodded Lucius with her dagger. He could easily push her down onto the bed of lethal, sharpened stakes sticking upright in the ditch below.
But he didn’t, because that would attract the attention of the guards and get them recaptured.
Lucius had noted the hard-faced chieftain of Dun Cam when he arrived, and he suspected he was better off with the youths from Mai Dun and their ferocious sister than the hardened warrior Bledyos. He turned to Sorcha and indicated she needed to free his hands.
After a moment’s hesitation, she cut the binding.
He filled his lungs, grabbed the supporting timber beam and, like Maonos, swung himself across the space beneath the platform.
He hit the earth beneath the platform hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Gasping for breath, he slid to the ground outside the gateway beside Maonos.
He peered up through the half-light at Sorcha.
Would she make it across?
Sorcha sheathed her dagger and grasped the first beam. She swung under one, two, three timber beams. Then she was falling. “Ooomph.” She hit the slope and slid fast toward the stakes below, feet first.
Without thinking, Lucius launched himself up and across the slope to intercept her. He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. She dropped into his arms, and he rolled away, back the way he had come. His feet hit the roadway where Maonos crouched, helpless to assist.
Lucius jerked Sorcha to her feet and hauled her into the deep shadows beside the gatepost, sheltered from view if anyone above had heard them and looked down.
With his heart pounding against his chest wall, Lucius sucked in deep breaths, holding her tightly against him.
Sorcha’s warm breath caressed the hollow at the base of his neck.
Her heart raced beneath his hand. Then her wide-eyed gaze connected with his, probing his mind and kicking his heart into overload.
For a few moments more she nestled motionless in his arms, warm and soft. Then she jerked out of his grip and her dagger was once again at his throat.
No gratitude there. He should have let her impale herself; then he would only have had to rid himself of Maonos. Why had he saved her?
Anger surged through him at his stupidity in losing an opportunity to escape his captors.
But would he have escaped just to be recaptured after Sorcha’s death screams woke the whole settlement? Probably.
His anger eased.
Enslaved though he was, he was better off with these captors.
Was that how his brother, Adler, had reconciled his enslavement to him—as the best option available? As a child, Adler had experienced slavery outside the Gallus household after their father sold him and his mother.
As the three of them remained frozen in the shadow of the gateway and listened for reassurance that guards hadn’t heard their commotion and weren’t already searching for them, the hideous memories of Adler replayed in Lucius head.