Celtic Fire

by Joy Nash

  Aulus had been studying the northern portion of the map. There, rocky crags and deep ravines—most likely blanketed with Britannia’s infernal fog—provided enough cover to hide several Legions’ worth of barbarian warriors. Quite unlike the bleak Assyrian desert, in which the enemy had precious few places to hide.

  By Pollux, he wished his brother had never come to this place. He turned back to Brennus. “What can you tell me of my brother’s death?”

  Brennus shifted his weight. “It was an unfortunate accident, sir.”

  “This garrison seems prone to accidents. Were you in the commander’s hunting party that day?”

  “No, sir. Commander Aquila rode out with the First Centurion and two junior officers. Sextus Gallus and Petronius Rufus.”

  “I understand the First Centurion was killed last autumn.”

  “Yes, sir. An accident.”

  “I would speak with the others, then,” he said, his gaze drifting back to the map. Perhaps Aulus was trying to tell him something about that fateful day.

  Brennus cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, sir, that won’t be possible. Both men were injured in training during the winter. Their wounds proved fatal.”

  Lucius regarded Brennus in silence for a long moment. “More unfortunate accidents,” he said at last.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He strode toward the door. “It seems the First Cohort of Tungrians is in sore need of discipline. Call the men to the parade grounds. I wish to inspect those who have somehow managed to stay alive.”

  The raven cackled in Owein’s dream, driving shards of pain into his skull.

  It had been the same every night since Rhiannon had been lost, but tonight his vision had taken an ominous turn. The great black bird no longer spread its wings in flight. Instead, it swooped low to the ground and landed. Darting forward on its twig legs, it dipped its beak and speared the eye of a newborn lamb. Its gruesome meal complete, the hulking creature rose into the air. It soared across the treetops, only to dive again almost immediately. It alighted on the rack of a magnificent stag.

  “Kernunnos,” Madog said when Owein told him. “The Horned God may take the shape of any creature, but the hart is his favorite.” He stroked his beard with one long, crooked finger. “A good omen it is. What form the power will be taking is yet to be revealed.”

  Owein let out a long breath and stared moodily into the fire in the center of Madog’s forest hut. The cloying scent of the bundled herbs drying over the flames mingled with the moldy smell of the mud and dauble walls, which leaned inward so precariously that Owein wondered if a Druid spell kept them upright. The skull of a stag guarded the only opening, a low portal hung with the skin of a wildcat. The Druid master’s iron sword and silver dagger lay on a low table. A wooden-handled scythe with a blade of gold hung from the twisted rafters. Madog’s staff—fashioned, Owein knew, from the heart of an oak struck by lightning—was not far from his hand.

  The severed head of the Roman commander perched atop it.

  Owein wondered at the skull’s presence in Madog’s hut. Until their return from the disastrous raid, the gruesome talisman had been displayed atop a stake inside the Druid circle. Now the Roman’s hollow eyes surveyed Madog’s sacred sanctuary. Dark patches on its surface—scraps of oiled skin and matted hair—seemed to dissolve in the shadows, leaving glimpses of smooth white bone.

  Owein shuddered. So long as the Roman’s head remained unburied, his soul was trapped in the formless land between death and life. His spirit was forced to lend its power to the cause of his destroyers. The dark slavery stretched into eternity with little hope for freedom.

  He closed his eyes, remembering the man’s hideous death dance. Rhiannon had cried for three full nights after Madog had thrust his sword into the prisoner’s back. Owein’s own visions had begun soon after. By chance, or were his nightmares a consequence of the Rite?

  Madog’s hand stretched toward his prize. Gnarled fingers stroked the dead Roman’s rotted skin with the exuberant pride of a man touching his firstborn son. “Soon,” he told it. “Soon.”

  Owein’s scalp prickled.

  “If Kernunnos comes to ye this night,” Madog said, “attend him well.”

  “What good be visions that speak in riddles?” Owein asked, a plaintive note creeping into his tone. “If Kernunnos had spoken more clearly before the raid, I could have prevented Rhiannon’s capture.”

  “Ye must not blame yourself that she was taken, lad.”

  Owein slammed his fist into the dirt floor. The shock of the blow traveled up his arm, but the spike of pain brought him no respite from his guilt. “I should have recognized my own arrows, at the least,” he said, his voice rising. “If I had, I could have brought my sister safely home.”

  A grunt was Madog’s only reply.

  Owein shifted on his stool. The walls of the hut seemed to draw closer. His breath rattled in his lungs, proving, much as he hated to admit it, that Rhiannon’s concern for his health had not been unfounded. He should never have joined the raid, no matter Edmyg’s taunts. He should have cowered in the dun with the women. If he had, Rhiannon would be safe within the village palisade, brewing her potions or weaving at her loom.

  He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, hands dangling uselessly between his knees. His foolhardy attack on the Roman commander had cost Rhiannon her freedom, her dignity, perhaps even her life.

  “Edmyg holds me at fault,” he muttered. “For once he has the right of it.”

  Madog stabbed a sharp stick into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. “Edmyg hurls blame like other men throw spittle, with no regard for the direction of the wind. Your dreams foretold Rhiannon’s capture, Owein. I am thinking it could nay have been avoided.”

  “What do ye mean?”

  “Kernunnos has taken Rhiannon and placed her inside the Roman fort. Cormac reports her injury is not grave”—he stabbed the fire a second time—“and that she has caught the eye of the Roman commander.”

  Owein sprang to his feet. “If the bastard dares touch her—” He ended with a foul oath, his bravado fading. Most likely, the foreign dog had already forced himself on Rhiannon.

  The blood rushed in his ears so fiercely that he almost didn’t hear Madog’s murmured reply. “Ye and your sister share one blood, Owein.” His fingers caressed the oiled skull. “Kernunnos leads you with visions. Rhiannon is close to the enemy’s throat.”

  The old Druid’s eyes shone red in the dancing light of the fire. “Such favors are nay to be wasted.”

  Chapter Four

  “What are you doing?”

  Rhiannon looked up to see Lucius’s son perched on the low roof covering the courtyard garden’s perimeter walkway. She’d been kneeling in the cool, moist dirt, so absorbed with loosening a choking vine from a clump of betony that she hadn’t heard his approach.

  “How did you get up there?” she asked.

  He pointed to the upper gallery fronting Rhiannon’s bedchamber. A stout vine climbed from the garden to entwine the railing.

  “It wasn’t hard,” he said. “I can get up on the high roof, too.”

  “You’re a resourceful lad.”

  “I suppose.” He clambered across the slates and down the vine. His dark head bobbed between the plantings as he approached. The sun’s muted rays were not yet strong in the square patch of gray sky framed by the walls of the Roman house, but morning light sparkled in the lad’s eyes.

  Rhiannon sat back on her heels and brushed a damp strand of hair out of her face. She’d awakened at dawn on this, the second day of her captivity. She’d spent the first confined to her chamber, attended by a young slave woman. In response to Rhiannon’s careful questioning, the girl—Bronwyn—revealed a fact that caused Rhiannon’s heart to leap. A man of Cormac’s description—and surely only one man fit that image—was a slave in the fort commander’s dwelling.

  She’d made her way to the garden to await him. He would come to her when he was able
, she was sure of it. Rhiannon only hoped Lucius didn’t find her first.

  A pool of water shone in the center of the courtyard. Around it, rigid garden plots overflowed with clumps of a thorny shrub Rhiannon had never seen before. A few red-green leaves had unfurled, but many more were wanted before the unsightly canes would be covered. Nestled among the roots of the odd plants were clusters of more familiar greenery—betony, coltsfoot and meadowsweet, among others.

  “What are you doing?” Marcus asked again.

  She smiled up at him. “See this bit of betony? It can’t take a breath for want of space. I’m clearing a path around it.”

  “Do plants breathe like people, then?”

  She nodded. “They speak as well, at least to those who know how to listen.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They tell why Briga, the Great Mother, has granted them life. Like people, each has its purpose—healing, coloring cloth, or flavoring food.”

  The lad hunkered down beside her and cocked his head to one side. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Rhiannon’s smile deepened. “Plants don’t speak in words. It takes much patience to learn their language.”

  “Oh.” Marcus pondered this revelation. “Will you teach me? I think I would prefer the language of the garden to that of the Greeks.”

  Rhiannon laughed at that. “Perhaps,” she hedged. If all went well, her time in the fort would be far too short to allow it.

  “I wonder if Uncle Aulus could hear them. He never wrote to me of it, but he knew a lot about plants. I’m sure he tended these himself.”

  “Your uncle lived here?” Rhiannon asked.

  Marcus’s eyes clouded. “He was the fort commander. He was killed last autumn.”

  So the man who had fallen to Madog’s sword was not only Lucius’s kinsman but also his brother. The revelation hit Rhiannon like a blast of winter wind. For a moment, she stood again in the shadow of the great stones, the dying man’s bloody fingers clutching her hem, his despair echoing in her heart.

  He’d spoken to her before he died. Tell him. Had he been speaking of Lucius? Had the dying man’s torment called his brother north to seek vengeance? An icy chill settled about her.

  At that moment, as if she’d summoned it, Lucius’s rich voice drifted from the far corner of the courtyard. Rhiannon sought him with her gaze, heart pounding. A door giving out onto the covered walkway opened. Demetrius emerged with Lucius a step behind.

  Marcus shrank down behind a cluster of bare canes. “Quiet,” he whispered fervently. “I’m supposed to be in the library translating Aristotle. If Magister Demetrius sees me, he’ll skin my hide. And take pleasure in tanning it.”

  Rhiannon ducked her head—she certainly had no desire to attract attention. She peered through the thorn branches and watched the two men traverse the edge of the courtyard.

  Her heart tripped a beat at the sight of Lucius in full uniform. Silver armor gleamed over a tunic the color of Roman wine. A sword and dagger hung at his hip and a short crimson cloak, fastened with a gold pin, fell over his shoulders. His crested helmet was nestled under one arm. His shining dark hair curled at his nape and at the edges of his strong, clean-shaven jaw. His bearing was powerful, but not overbearing as Edmyg’s was. He moved with the grace of a sleek, exotic cat akin to the one portrayed in stone on Rhiannon’s chamber floor.

  Without her conscious assent, Rhiannon’s gaze drifted lower, taking in Lucius’s bare thighs and calves and the dark sprinkling of hair on his bronzed skin. Long muscles flexed as he walked, leaving her throat dry. Roman men didn’t encase their legs in braccas as her kinsmen did. They preferred, it seemed, to leave their lower limbs bare at all times.

  No doubt Roman women were glad of it.

  Beside her, Marcus was barely breathing. “What will you do when the healer enters the library and discovers your absence?” she whispered.

  “He won’t, if Fortuna smiles on me. Magister Demetrius is bound for the fort hospital.”

  Lucius and Demetrius halted in the foyer, before a wide portal that most likely was the domicile’s main entrance. At Lucius’s command, a slave stepped from an alcove and lifted the latch.

  The door swung open. Demetrius passed under the lintel into the patch of daylight beyond. Lucius made as if to follow, then stopped. He looked to the right, then the left, then pivoted in a full circle as if looking for someone. Rhiannon’s brow furrowed. He’d performed the same odd movements in her room the day before.

  A scowl appeared on Lucius’s brow. “Go on ahead, Demetrius. I will follow shortly.”

  The door closed. Lucius wheeled about and walked to the edge of the courtyard, his attention fixed unerringly on the shrub behind which Rhiannon and Marcus crouched.

  “By Pollux,” Marcus muttered.

  The lad’s attempt at manly disgruntlement had Rhiannon stifling a laugh. Her amusement rapidly diminished as Lucius closed the distance between them and circled the shrub. His gaze flicked briefly over her and settled on his son. Marcus jumped to his feet, a blush spreading across his cheeks.

  Rhiannon tried to rise. Dull pain shot through her thigh, accompanied by a rush of lightheadedness. She’d eaten little since her capture, not trusting her churning stomach to retain the rich Roman food. Her body was beginning to feel the effects of her fast.

  She swayed on her feet, putting out one hand to catch Marcus’s shoulder. She missed and would have fallen if Lucius hadn’t stepped forward and caught her. She felt his touch far more keenly than she should have. His grasp was firm yet gentle, gifting her with the unconscious strength that seemed so much a part of him.

  He steered her to a bench at the edge of the fountain. Rhiannon sank onto the smooth stone. She felt his steady scrutiny, but dared not lift her eyes to meet his gaze. If she did, she would see the eyes of his brother as she so often had in her nightmares. So she kept her face averted, staring at the ripples on the surface of the water.

  “How in Hades did you get down the stairs?” he asked her.

  “Slowly.” She dared a quick peek at his face. His frown could have blistered the hide from a pig. No doubt it sent enemies and allies alike into spasms of terror but, curiously, Rhiannon felt no fear.

  “You might have reopened your wound,” he said. “Are you mad?”

  “No. But another hour in that chamber might have made me so.”

  “Ah. You sought the garden.”

  “Yes.” Rhiannon glanced toward Marcus, who was watching the exchange with undisguised interest.

  “You are welcome to it, then. Stay as long as you like,” Lucius said.

  She nodded, keeping perfectly still while his gaze raked over her. Her unruly heart calmed only when he turned his attention to Marcus.

  “Why are you not in the library?”

  Marcus seemed to shrink under his father’s disapproval. “I needed to visit the latrine,” he mumbled. “I was just on my way back.”

  Lucius’s gaze narrowed. “By a roundabout path, I see.”

  Marcus’s blush deepened. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then continue on your way, by all means. Aristotle awaits you. Impatiently, I’m sure.”

  The lad wasted no time in fleeing the courtyard. Lucius watched him disappear through a doorway near the foyer, then sighed. He turned back to Rhiannon. “I must depart. If you’ve need of anything, hail one of the slave women. They’ve been instructed to serve you.”

  Alone once more, Rhiannon tugged another weed from the betony. She’d expected rough treatment from her captor. Instead, he gave her careful politeness. His respect was perhaps more unsettling than violence. It diluted the terror that had sustained her in the first hours of her capture and left room for her to feel the other, more disturbing emotions he invoked.

  She pulled another root free from the dirt. He’d ordered the household staff to serve her. Another surprise. She’d expected to be given a slave’s work. Instead, she had been handed more leisure than she’d had in her entire life. O
f course, her true duties, those to be performed in Lucius’s bed, hadn’t yet begun.

  She imagined his strong, gentle hands on her bare skin, and a pleasant ache settled in her loins. What would Lucius’s loving be like? She sensed it would not resemble Niall’s fierce coupling. The Roman’s whispered words of two days before flooded through her senses. He’d said he wanted to taste her. Dear Briga …

  Her musings fizzled in a rush of horror. Did she want this man in her bed? How could she view her clan’s enemy with anything less than loathing?

  Leaning forward, she splashed her fingers in the cool waters of the garden pool to steady herself. Water was the sacred gift of the Great Mother to her children. Even here, surrounded by Roman walls, Briga’s peace flowed.

  A door at the rear of the courtyard opened. Bronwyn appeared, arms laden with linens. A squat figure of a man followed, a misshapen brute with limbs half the length of Rhiannon’s. His hands and feet, however, were huge. His head perched on his shoulders like a precarious boulder ornamented with dirty blond hair. His eyes, sharp and blue, glittered in his face like gems on the bottom of a still pond. Despite his small stature, he hefted an impressive load of firewood in his arms. Rhiannon snatched her fingers from the water, her heartbeat accelerating.

  Cormac.

  She started to rise. Edmyg’s brother swiveled his head in her direction. His gaze caught hers briefly as he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She nodded and sank down again on the bench.

  “Come along, ye lout!” Bronwyn’s tone was teasing.

  Cormac leered at her, showing a wide gap in his front teeth. He murmured a lewd suggestion.

  To Rhiannon’s surprise, Bronwyn giggled and blushed. “Lucky it is that yer cock is as strong as yer wits are weak,” she said.

  Rhiannon’s brows shot up. Cormac, witless? Hardly. He was the eldest of the three brothers and the cleverest by far. He had far more cunning than Niall or Edmyg, though he barely cleared his brothers’ navels. If he’d been born without deformities, he would have been chieftain. As it was, she’d heard tell that he’d barely escaped being killed at birth.