Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Helmetless and stripped of his weapons and armor, Lucius fought to stay upright on the native pony. Every step of its choppy gait juddered the vertebrae of his spine and clashed his teeth if he unclenched his jaw.
The flame-haired, green-eyed she-wolf of Britannia rode his prized Hispana-bred horse, Maximus, as they hurried northward. Her lush body, the envy of Venus, swayed to the rhythm of Maximus’s smooth gait and taunted him.
Without his armor and his spatha, which she wore hung from her waist in its scabbard, Lucius felt naked. At least the inferior barbarian scum had left him his leather leggings and boots.
He would outsmart them and get free when they stopped for the night. While bumping along behind his captor, Lucius did his best to note their direction and landscape features in readiness for his escape. They continued north, making no effort to hide their tracks.
After he failed to report, Vespasian would send a search party. And find the bodies of Caius and Cassius. Lucius savored thoughts of the retribution that would be wrought on these primitives for capturing him and killing the engineers.
The way he had let himself be overwhelmed by a few youths and a woman filled him with disbelief and shame. That was soon followed by anger, which he channeled at the flame-haired woman riding his horse as if she owned it. He vowed to Nemesis, god of vengeance, that he would have his revenge.
Ahead, a large group appeared in the distance.
Was it a marauding war band of Britons?
They soon caught up. It was a large, slow-moving party of women and children walking and riding on wagons pulled by the sturdy ponies the Britons used. Not a war band, just a group of fleeing refugees, from the large hillfort to the south. At first sight he thought they lacked any men.
The tallest of the youths who had captured him cantered to the front of the column of wagons.
The rest of the boys ranged around him, bringing up the rear.
A few of the older children in the cavalcade turned to stare at him, some with eyes filled with fear, others with dislike.
A few picked up stones and tossed them at him with surprising accuracy, until the woman they called Sorcha sent them on their way with a few sharp words.
They trudged onward until the sun hung low in the western sky.
Lucius’s mount stumbled to a halt at what appeared to be an established camping ground in a clearing beside a stream.
A tall, well-muscled man dressed in the simple plaid garb of a workman organized the wagons into a defensive circle around the encampment.
A massive, hairy, Celtic hunting hound dogged his heels.
One man only!
And not a warrior.
He would easily escape as soon as he had a chance.
The woman dismounted, leaving him tied to his pony’s saddle.
The youths surrounded him with arrows nocked in their bows and aimed at his chest. She untied the rope from his saddle pommel and tugged him toward a sturdy tree.
Her green eyes glinted with malice. He stood at the full extent of his tether with the rope grasped in his hands.
When she stretched forward to circle the rope around the tree, he jerked it hard. It ripped from her hands. He sprinted into the adjacent woods, zigzagging as he ran.
A patter of arrows fell around him. They all missed their mark. He was going to escape!
Something thudded into the back of his skull. Pain exploded through his head. Everything turned black.
* * *
Lucius’s eyes scraped opened, gritty and blurry. He blinked. His head ached like he’d caroused in a three-day drunken revelry.
Perspiration prickled his forehead and one side of his body burned as hot as a bathhouse furnace. He turned his head. A campfire blazed beside him. He shuffled away from it and groaned as pain shot across the back of his head.
The tantalizing smell of roasting meat made his mouth water and his empty stomach gurgle.
Lucius struggled to sit up. His head swirled, threatening to collapse him again. He tugged on the bindings around his wrists. No movement there. He tried to stand, but was jerked back to his knees by the rawhide length that tethered him to a thick sapling stake driven deep into the ground.
His boots were gone. On his ankles were bindings used to hobble horses; but these were strengthened by iron chain.
He wouldn’t be running anywhere wearing these manacles.
“By all the barbarians’ gods,” he muttered, tugging at the rawhide tying him to the stake.
Frustration burned in his chest, hotter than the flames of the fire that threatened to scorch his tunic, if not roast him alive.
“You won’t escape.” The muscled workman he had seen earlier squatted beside him and spoke in halting Roman words. The green-eyed witch stood beside him, her eyes hard.
“What do you want with me?” Lucius asked. At least the suffocating gag was gone.
“That depends. Who are you?” Dark brown hair framed the weather-beaten face of a man of middling years.
Should he reveal his name, his rank, his exalted family connections? Would that save his life, inspire them to torture and humiliate him, or bring a swifter death?
How could he decide when he knew nothing about their purpose in taking him prisoner? For ransom or for death sport? Did the Britons pit their prisoners against each other for the entertainment of the masses, like the Romans in their amphitheaters?
Was that to be his fate?
He weighed up the options. Death by combat was honorable. Ransom was an option if they knew he was an important Roman citizen. He looked into the man’s dark eyes. They showed only enquiry, not hatred like those of the woman, whom they called Sorcha.
“I am Lucius Gallus Antonius, the son of Titus Gallus Augustus of Rome and commander of a cavalry ala attached to the Second Legion under the command of Legate Vespasian.”
The only response from the barbarian in front of him was an upward flicker of his left eyebrow.
The man’s impassive brown eyes appraised him.
“Hmmm.” He stood and strode to the other side of the fire, where he spoke with an older golden-haired woman and the cluster of auburn-haired boy savages.
Sorcha followed him and joined the discussion.
The green-eyed Briton returned with a hunk of bread, which she tossed towards him. He only just managed to catch it between his bound hands. Within seconds he had devoured it, but his stomach still gnawed at him.
And the whole time, Sorcha watched him with narrowed eyes full of suspicion and hostility. So she should, because he was determined to escape.
Throughout a long sleepless night Lucius tried to loosen his bindings.
Nothing worked.
With dawn came despair. He remained a prisoner of the barbarians. His fate was still unknown. He could only hope that his men would follow his tracks north and destroy his captors.