Slave Princess. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘She threw a bowl at me. They can starve for all I care.’

      ‘That’s what you get if you don’t wear your helmet,’ Quintus said, dismissively. No wonder the Emperor wants rid of her, he thought. He’d not want her death here in Eboracum. Miles away, perhaps, but not here under his roof. Another glance up at the captive’s face, however, alerted him to the probability of that fate if something was not done immediately to reverse it. She was swaying dangerously, her eyes half-closed in pain.

      ‘Come down,’ he said, sternly. ‘Take my arm. Come on.’

      The guard looked dubious. ‘She’ll not let you touch her, sir.’

      But the stern command had reached through a cold haze as if from a long way away, and the hand she put out to steady herself touched something firm and warm that supported her, keeping her from falling. Not for the world would she willingly have allowed any Roman to touch her, nor would she have touched one, but now she found herself being placed carefully upon the floor and helped to sit unsteadily beside her maid’s feet that stuck out from beneath the gold fringe of a cloak. Seated on the edge of the bed, she felt her head being pushed slowly down between her knees in a most undignified manner.

      ‘Let me up!’ she gasped. ‘I’m all right.’

      The guard let out a yelp. ‘Ye gods! That’s the first time she’s said a word, sir. Honest. We all thought she was word-struck!’

      ‘There’s something to be said for it, in a woman,’ Quintus remarked, removing his hand from her head, ‘but I have a suspicion we shall hear a lot more of it before we’re much older.’ Bending, he picked up the beaker of water from the floor and placed it in the woman’s hand. ‘Take a sip of that,’ he said. ‘Then you’d better listen to me.’

      She refused his command, preferring instead to place a hand under her maid’s head and offer the water to her parched lips. With closed eyes sunk deep into brown sockets, the girl could take only a sip before bubbling the rest of it away down her chin, coughing weakly.

      ‘Are you going to let her die, then?’ said Quintus. ‘Can you not see she has no strength? You may be able to last out a few more weeks, but she won’t. Do you want her death on your hands? No one regards your protest, woman. You’re wasting life for no good reason.’

      The captive pulled herself up straight, her back like a ramrod, a token of inflexibility. Her hands trembled around the beaker of water, her mouth panting.

      ‘Listen to me,’ Quintus said. ‘I’ve come to offer you a choice. Either you come with me and give your maid a chance to recover, or you allow her to die through your own neglect. No good mistress would do that to her maid.’

      ‘It is not how you think, Roman,’ the captive whispered. ‘That fool knows nothing. My maid is not neglected. She is mine.’ Her hand rested tenderly on the maid’s hip, then slid down to take the claw-like fingers in her own. She was close to desperation, knowing that although her voice was weak, the hard edge of physical effort had been mistaken for a mistress’s authority and ownership. Already she had decided that the death of her maid would coincide with her own, using the window-bars and her tablet-woven girdle to speed her into the next world. Tears in her proud eyes sparkled in the sunlight, tears that had been suppressed during days and nights of isolation, unwelcome, shaming tears to be brushed away impatiently with one flick of the wrist.

      Quintus kept up the pressure. ‘Correction!’ he snapped. ‘She is not yours. She is mine, as you both are. You belong to me now. Yes, you, too.’

      The woman’s gasp was audible as she jerked her head up to look him full in the face, her eyes blazing with furious tears like watery blue-green gems. The very notion of being owned by a Roman was impossible for her even to contemplate. ‘Never! Never!’ she growled, her voice raw with fury. ‘I belong to no one except my father, the chieftain of our tribe. Leave me, Roman. Get out!‘ With an astonishing resurgence of energy, she glared at Quintus with all the contempt she could summon, not having the slightest notion, in her trembling rage, what a picture of sheer animal loveliness she presented as the sun caught the edges of the blazing red hair surrounding her face. Like the sheen on water, her skin was almost translucent, her mouth wide and pale, her eyes dark-lashed. Too large, and too full of rage.

      A frail hand caught at her sleeve, tugging gently. ‘Please, mistress,’ the maid whispered, her voice almost too low to hear. ‘We should go, for your father’s sake.’

      ‘Don’t shame me,’ the woman whispered back, angrily. ‘Where is your pride? You think my father would want us to belong to a Roman? Rather we should die first.’

      The little hand fell away. ‘It could not be worse than this,’ the girl said on a sigh of resignation. ‘Accept his offer.’

      ‘Well?’ said Quintus. ‘I’m not going to carry you out of here kicking and screaming. If you’re determined to stay …’ He turned towards the door, signalling the guard to go.

      ‘No. wait!’ The woman held out a hand to him. ‘Save her. Take her with you. She can go. There’s just a chance.?’

      ‘It’s both of you, or neither. Make up your mind.’

      ‘You don’t understand,’ she replied, trying not to plead. ‘I cannot be owned. I cannot be so shamed. I am a chieftain’s only daughter.’

      ‘And I’m not ecstatic about having to take you where I’m going either, if you must know. I have neither the time nor the inclination to act as nursemaid to two women intent on self-harm when there are thousands out there trying to find cures and enough food to keep themselves alive. I suppose you think your deaths would be an heroic gesture, do you? Well, I think it’d be a bit of a waste when you could help others to stay alive, but the decision is yours. Either you accompany me down to the south, or you stay here and—’

      ‘What? South, did you say?’

      ‘That’s what I said. Tomorrow I’m off down to the healing spa at Aquae Sulis. Not exactly in your direction, is it?’

      The captive princess stood up. Too quickly. Unfocused, her eyes swam, fighting the sudden pain in her head. ‘I’ll come,’ she whispered, swaying.

      ‘Then you’d better tell me your name. I cannot keep on calling you Woman.’

      Her knees melted and the growing roar in her ears brought with it a cold blackness to envelop her in a drowning tide. ‘Brighid,’ she said.

      Quickly, he caught up the sinking body in his arms, wincing at the twinge in his knee. ‘What in the name of Hades have I let myself in for?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘Go on,’ he said to the guard. ‘You carry the maid and I’ll take this one.’ Still frowning, he looked down at the limp figure in his arms, at the mass of red hair on his shoulder and the angelic face deep into her swoon, and briefly he wondered why they could not have captured some worn-out old crone who would not last out the journey instead of this high-flown goddess.

       Chapter Two

      The wagon swayed and jolted without mercy as Brighid tried once more to pack another sheepskin beneath her aching limbs, falling back against the pile of cushions as the effort took its toll of her, reminding her yet again of her weakness.

      Her obvious discomfort alerted her travelling companion, who sat СКАЧАТЬ