Lance released a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure Rhiain would be able to resist sneering at them.
“Where’s her chain?” the captain asked doubtfully.
Lance’s stomach lurched. Bertramus had wanted to chain Rhiain—but Lance had overruled him. He hadn’t wanted to impede Rhiain in case she had to leap into action.
“She doesn’t need one,” Bertramus said confidently. “She’s been restrained with the rope since she was a cub. The rope held her then, so she’s convinced it will hold her now. It’s all in the training.”
The merchant’s smoothness impressed Lance. He began to see why this Chief Fitch had chosen Bertramus as an envoy.
“If you want to risk being eaten in the middle of the night, that’s your concern,” the captain said. “Be on your way, then.” He waved a hand.
The shield wall stayed up.
“Walk,” Lance said for the benefit of their audience. He lifted the end of the rope, and Rhiain gracefully came to her feet, stretching her back. Lance led her past the shield wall and the palisade, the rope slack between them. Tension coiled in his muscles. Almost time for the next act of their little play.
He waited until they were out of crossbow range then fumbled the rope. As rehearsed, Rhiain kept walking, dragging the rope behind. Lance took a step forward and bent to pick it up—only to have her skip away another few steps, as if playing a game.
The third time Lance lunged forward and deliberately fell on his hands and knees in the dust while the rope whipped merrily out of reach.
“Hnngh, hnngh,” Rhiain laughed.
Lance swore and shook his fist as he took off his pack and rose to his feet.
Bertramus got in on the act. “Catch her, you fool! Or I’ll have you whipped!”
Lance aimed a black look at his supposed “owner,” a silent warning not to go too far. Lance wouldn’t stand still while some legionnaire stripped the skin off his back—and neither would Rhiain. Or Sara.
He climbed to his feet, stretched out a hand and called, “Here kitty, kitty.”
Rhiain flattened her ears.
He sidled closer, then lunged again.
Cat-quick, Rhiain bounded away, and this time didn’t stop, losing herself among the scrubby hills.
The watching audience of legionnaires laughed and hooted. Their captain seemed less amused. Maybe he’d heard a few rumours about the shandies and the swathe they’d cut during the recent invasion. He, at least, seemed to grasp that a deadly predator was now on the loose.
Head hanging, Lance shuffled back toward his “master.”‘ Bertramus stormed up to meet him. Lance remembered to cringe as the merchant kicked his shin. “Imbecile! Idiot! Fool!”
Lance watched Sara’s reaction—he’d told her the kicks wouldn’t really hurt, but if she decided Bertramus was going too far, he didn’t know what she would do.
“I’m sorry, Master,” Lance said, head bowed. From the corners of his eyes he could see that the legionnaires had abandoned their shield wall and drifted closer, curious. “I won’t let it happen again.”
“No, you won’t, because as soon as I reach a market, I’m going to sell your worthless hide!” Another kick. That one was going to leave a bruise.
“Please don’t, Master. I’ll catch the beast tomorrow. I’ll do anything, just don’t sell me. My wife—”
“Your wife and child are already gone!” Bertramus howled. “I sold them!”
Lance fell to his knees on the ground as if stunned, and Bertramus kicked him in the side. “Their new owner picked them up an hour after we left. You’ll never see—”
Now for the most dangerous part of the act.
With a roar of rage, Lance erupted to his feet and pretended to strangle Bertramus. He dug in his thumbs a little deeper than strictly necessary—for the benefit of the watching legionnaires, of course.
* * *
Sara watched a big legionnaire clout Lance behind the ear with the butt of his spear. She started counting the blows. One.
Lance released the fat man and backed away in surrender, but received another jab to the stomach that dropped him to his knees. He grunted. Two.
Lance had told Sara not to interfere, that the legionnaires would only beat him, not kill him. That the fat man would step in after a few blows.
The fat man had risen to his feet and stood by Sara. He smiled as the big legionnaire kicked Lance’s ribs. Three.
Sara shifted her feet. Three was “a few.” Why didn’t the fat man speak? “A few” was too imprecise; she should have made Lance specify the number of blows. If the total reached five, she would act.
Then the legionnaire held his sword to Lance’s throat, nicking the underside of his chin, and she realized she’d waited too long. She could not act in time to save him.
Her chest grew tight. Lance shouldn’t—couldn’t die. He was important. But... he wasn’t important to the legionnaires, he was only important to her.
“Should I kill him?” the big legionnaire asked his captain. He smiled, displaying a missing tooth.
The fat man finally spoke, lifting his hands and moving forward. “Don’t touch my property! He’s worth fifteen gold coins on the open market.”
The captain rubbed his bare top lip. “He tried to kill you. He’ll finish the job as soon as you leave our protection.”
The fat man squeezed his hands together. “Once I chain him he’ll settle down.” He glanced sidelong at Sara as he shouldered the pack Lance had dropped.
Was that the signal? Sara said her line. “It’s getting dark.”
Everyone turned to stare at the sun setting behind the cliffs. The captain released a loud breath. “You’d better camp with us tonight. Throw the osseon in with the other slaves for now.”
This was what Lance had wanted, for Rhiain to be free and himself to be locked in the slave pen. He didn’t fight, but the big legionnaire elbowed him in the face. His lip split. Blood trickled into his beard.
Sara started to object, but the fat man clutched her arm and shook his head. Sweat beaded his hairline.
Lance had told her to stay with the fat man, so she didn’t grab the big legionnaire’s spear. But she thought about it. She thought about smashing the butt into his teeth and making blood run down his chin.
At supper the fat man smiled and laughed with the officers whose fire they shared. He uncorked an amphora of wine and sprinkled a few drops on the altar of Nir, the God of War, then portioned out the rest. The officers smiled and laughed and proposed toasts.
The one with bright blue eyes offered to share his tent with them. “I have second watch.” Gazing at Sara, he briefly closed one eye.
“You go on to bed, dear,” the fat man said, looking at her. “Warm up the blankets for me.” He tried to slap her buttocks, but she dodged.
Sara removed her pallet from the pack, unrolled it at the back of the tent then lay down and closed her eyes.
She woke when the fat man crawled under the blankets with her. At first she thought he’d forgotten to spread out his own pallet, but then he groped her breasts and pushed his stiffened penis against her buttocks.
“Let me under your skirts, ‘wife.’”
Chapter Eight
In the darkened tent, Sara’s hand closed around the haft of her belt-knife. “If he tries to rape you, disembowel him,” Lance had said. But then she hesitated, because Lance had told Rhiain they needed the fat man to guide them.
While she puzzled
over the contradiction, the fat man grabbed a handful of her skirts and dragged them up in back.
Abandoning the knife, Sara tried to wrestle free, but he threw his sweating, heavy body on top of her. She ended up on her back, under him, unable to kick effectively, her arms trapped.
Their wrestling match drew notice from outside the tent.
“Stick it to her hard, Bertramus!” one of the legionnaires yelled.
She smelled wine on the fat man’s breath as he whispered, “Stop fighting me, or I’ll betray your lover to the legionnaires.”
Sara stilled. If the legionnaires knew Lance’s intentions, they might kill him.
She shivered, though she was not cold. Lance could not be allowed to die. Therefore, she should submit.
She lay unmoving as the fat man tore open her bodice, exposing her breasts to both his gaze and a cold draft.
But... “If you expose Lance, won’t your own lies come to light?”
“I’ll wring my hands and tell them Lance duped me. Who do you think they’ll believe? A prosperous merchant, whom they’ve drunk and laughed with, or a brutish osseon?” He squeezed her left breast.
The answer was obvious. “They’ll believe you.”
He snorted. “That’s right.” He bent his head. Sara let him slobber and bite at her breasts while she thought. She soon found a hole in his logic. “You came to Kandrith for help. If Lance is arrested, your rebellion will not receive any.”
He lifted his head, sneering. “Help? I came for an army. A tame cat, an ex-slave and a woman will not help my cousin. You’re useless.” He pinched her nipple, causing a sharp pain. She didn’t flinch. “Cold twotch. You’re going to have to do better than just lie there if you want to convince me to let your lover live.”
Sara didn’t know what he wanted from her, or if it was even possible to please him.
The wiry hairs on his thighs abraded her skin as he jammed his knee between her thighs. Sara locked her legs together, but he prised them apart with a grunt of effort.
A sudden suspicion seized her. Her hand closed over the knife she’d dropped earlier. “How do I know you won’t betray Lance anyway after you finish raping me?”
He laughed as he freed his penis from his trousers. “You don’t.”
She could endure rape, endure any pain, but the fat man could not be allowed to threaten Lance. Without hesitation she drove the short blade up into his belly.
“Unh,” he grunted. His facial muscles went slack in surprise, and his penis softened.
While the legionnaires commented on Bertramus’s speed, Sara pushed him off her and onto his back. “Now you cannot betray Lance, for you need him to heal you. Lie quietly, and in the morning—”
Then things went wrong. Bertramus started to scream. “Help! She’s killed me!”
“If I’d killed you, you wouldn’t be able to talk,” Sara pointed out, but she didn’t think he heard her over his own shrill cries.
Two legionnaires burst into the tent. The stout one tore her away from Bertramus, while the blue-eyed officer shone a torch over the fat man. Their brows crinkled when they saw the knife.
The blue-eyed one drew back from her as if she smelled of manure. “Poor bastard.” He reached for the hilt.
“Leave it in,” Sara said, remembering a time Lance had healed a knife wound. “It’s plugging the hole.”
“Don’t listen to her. She’s the one who stabbed me!” Bertramus yelled. He yanked the knife out himself, which, as predicted, made his blood run faster. Soon it slicked his fingers and stained his tunic. In the shadows, the blood looked black.
She’d miscalculated. Bertramus wouldn’t live until morning. He would be lucky to live out the hour.
Lance would want her to save him.
“We need to keep the blood inside.” Sara moved to help him, but the fat man flinched away, and the stout legionnaire grabbed her arm.
“Stay back.”
“He’ll die without help,” Sara pointed out.
“You should’ve thought of that before knifing him.” The stout legionnaire tightened his grip on her arm.
They clearly didn’t trust her. “One of you could help him,” she suggested.
The blue-eyed officer shifted. “Warriors of Nir bind their own wounds and fight on.”
They all watched the fat man clutch his stomach with blood-stained fingers, but he didn’t call on Nir. “Help me, help me.” Droplets of water spilled from his eyes. “Loma have mercy,” he prayed.
Sara waited to see if Loma would come. She knew Lance could only heal with the help of the Goddess of Mercy, but perhaps Loma needed Lance to heal, too, because the blood kept flowing and the fat man grew paler and paler.
* * *
A hand from behind shoved Lance into the squalid tent serving as a slave pen. His ribs shrieked as he fell to his knees. Before he could rise, or breathe properly, the legionnaire had efficiently locked a manacle around one of Lance’s wrists.
The legionnaire retreated, careful not to turn his back, then shut the tent flap. Lance blinked. In the sudden darkness the overpowering smell of the latrine in the corner made his stomach roll.
“My name is Lance,” he said into the thick silence. “Who else is in here?”
“I’m Mara,” a woman replied after several beats. “My sister-in-law and son are with me.”
“Anyone else?”
“An old man. He doesn’t talk.”
A breath of relief. “Hiram, can you hear me?”
With a rattle of chains, the Gatekeeper crept into the thin beam of light cast by the crack around the tent opening. His face bore livid, purple bruises.
Rage flared in Lance’s heart at the sight. Two weeks ago, Hiram had looked a hale sixty; today he appeared to be a frail eighty. In addition to the beating, they’d robbed him of his cane. Monsters.
Lance could guess what had happened. The legionnaires had tried to question Hiram and concluded he was holding something back when he suddenly lost the ability to talk.
Lance dearly wished he could spend a moment alone with those responsible, but that was impossible. What he could do was ease Hiram’s suffering. “Come here.”
Hiram shuffled closer, stumbling over one of the chains radiating from the central pin. Lance clasped the other man’s elbow. The Goddess laid Her hands over his, a spring breeze, there and gone in an instant. Hiram sighed with relief.
Mara exclaimed. “His bruises are gone.”
“Yes. I wear the Brown.” From their expressions, they didn’t understand. “The Goddess of Mercy works through me. If anyone else is injured, I can heal you, too.” He reached out, but the dark-haired Mara shrank back, holding tightly to her sleeping son.
Lance didn’t press. The boy appeared to be about four years old and had blond curls. The sister-in-law had the same light hair as the boy, but was both older than Mara and plainer of face. None of them had any visible injuries beyond bruises. He would try again later.
Instead he followed the chain attached to his manacle to where the central stake had been pounded into the ground. To his dismay, the stake’s cap had sharp edges. If he tried to pull it out using the cap, he’d shred his fingers.
Staring at it wouldn’t get the job done. Sighing, Lance knelt down, grasped his chain and pulled straight up. His bruised ribs twinged, but he grimly ignored the pain and pulled again. Their plan depended on him having the strength to free the slaves from their chains. So, pull.
An hour later Lance was dripping sweat, his palms felt like raw meat, his ribs were screaming and the damn spike hadn’t moved an inch.
He sank down on his heels, breathing heavily, torn between the urge to curse in frustration or curl up in a ball and moan.
This wasn’t working. Either last time had been a fluke or the groun
d was harder here or the beating the legionnaires had administered had rendered him unable.
He needed a new plan. Rhiain was strong, perhaps she could—? But Rhiain had nothing to grip with; she’d break a tooth trying and then the legionnaires would spear her.
“Any ideas?” he rasped, suddenly angry at the others’ silence.
Hiram wrung his hands, obviously helpless. Mara just stared at him with dull eyes and rocked her son when he whimpered in his sleep. With a wince, Lance remembered that Hiram’s message had mentioned that the legionnaires had murdered her husband earlier that day.
“Give up,” the older woman said from her corner. “You’ll never get it out. Accept that you’re a slave, we’re all slaves, and will be until we die.”
But Lance wasn’t a slave. If he gave up, Bertramus would fetch him in the morning. He would be freed.
Not so the others. They’d be sold at market, probably separately, the boy torn from his mother’s arms. They’d endure short, miserable lives without even the hope of one day earning off their slavechain.
“No.” He approached the spike and wrapped the chain around his hands. “I may fail, but I won’t give up.” He took as deep a breath as his bruised ribs would allow, then pulled, straining until the muscles in his arms stood out in cords—
Nothing.
Anger flooded through him, and he let it feed his strength. He silently cursed Primus Pallax for ordering the blockade—pull—and the legionnaire who’d pounded the spike—pull—and, to be thorough, the blacksmith who’d forged it—pull—and the miners who’d dug up the ore—pull—
“It moved,” Mara said. She laid down her son and crept closer. “I saw it move that time.”
Lance held his side, panting. His arms felt shaky and weak, but hope shone in her eyes like stars. She tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress and wrapped his bleeding hands. He couldn’t stop now.
Maybe kneeling would be less hard on his ribs...He sucked in a breath. Or maybe not.
“I’m from Kandrith,” Lance panted, between upward pulls. “Friends of mine are coming to rescue us. Rhiain’s waiting for you to Farspeak her,” he added for Hiram’s benefit.
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 11
