“No.”
“No? Has little Cassia made you hate her?” He stroked Cassia’s raw back; she flinched. “I thought you indifferent,” Nir continued.
“I don’t hate her,” Sara said.
He turned so that she could see his profile. “Has your conscience swollen along with your womb? You do like to save women from me, don’t you? You even took one of my cast-offs as your maid.”
“Rochelle,” Sara said softly. She remembered her gentle blonde maid. Remembered listening to Rochelle scream and knowing that it was herself Nir truly wanted to hurt. Just like with Cassia.
“Well? If you wish to save her, shouldn’t you be pleading with me? I do like the sight of you on your knees,” he added crudely.
“Pleading won’t change your mind,” Sara said with certainty.
His eyebrows went up, and he fingered the whip in his hands. “Then why are you here?”
“To distract you.” At least that was what Wettar had told her to do.
The skin over Nir’s cheekbones tightened. “You’re not doing a very good job.” To prove it, he cracked the whip.
Another line of bright red blood appeared on Cassia’s back, crisscrossing the others. She shrieked.
“Go on. Distract me,” Nir said, lifting the whip again. “Or be responsible for her suffering.”
His logic was false. Nir chose to hurt Cassia, not Sara, but something in Cassia’s raw screams cut at Sara. She set her mind to stopping Nir.
What did he want?
To subjugate her.
He was waiting for her soul to return so he could break her. For the baby’s sake, she needed to avoid pain and violence. What did that leave?
He wanted to tame her. For that to happen she needed to be wild first.
The first time I saw you, you were racing on horseback, wild as a Grasslander.
He’d wanted to chase her down then, and had seemed disappointed when Sara didn’t steal a horse her first day as a slave. So she’d let him have his wish now.
Sara looked him dead in the eye. “I’ll be back.” Before he could respond, she whirled from the tent and ran down the main camp aisle, bare feet thudding on the hard ground.
She half expected Nir to pursue her on foot, but Wettar stumbled in her wake instead. “What are you doing? Get back in there,” he puffed.
Sara slowed when she reached the stables. Because the Fourth Legion had been stationed here for a long time, the stables were as solidly built as any Temple of Jita.
Sara dodged around the legionnaire guarding the horses. “Tell him I need the black mare,” she called to Wettar.
The black whinnied a greeting when Sara unlatched her stall. Sara let the mare smell her breath, and in return the mare let Sara bridle her and climb on her bare back. “Let’s go, girl.”
The legionnaire on duty made a sound of protest.
“Let her pass,” Wettar ordered him, “then saddle Nir’s gray stallion.” He studied Sara critically and shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Sara believed her plan would work, but she lacked the words to persuade him; she was acting on instinct. She pressed her knees into the mare’s flanks, nudging her into a trot as they passed out of the stables.
Her burgeoning pregnancy rendered her balance a little off-center, but she compensated easily. Fortunately, the babe hadn’t grown big enough yet to make horseback travel difficult.
“Hike your skirt up!” Wettar called after her.
Sara heeded his advice—she didn’t want the flapping nightgown to startle the mare—then bent low and whispered, “faster” in the mare’s silky black ears.
The horse responded instantly, stretching out her gait.
Sara reined in the mare in front of Nir’s tent. A whipcrack from inside made the mare sidle nervously, though no scream followed. Was Cassia unconscious? Sara put a soothing hand on the horse’s neck before calling, “Nir! I challenge you to a race.”
Seconds later, Nir shoved aside the tent flap. “What?”
“We race.” Sara gestured toward Wettar, who was leading Nir’s stallion. “Winner decides Cassia’s fate.” She kicked the mare into motion without waiting for his response.
The mare loped down the via principalis of the camp, causing two legionnaires to spring out of the way. Another leered and made a crude comment about her legs. Sara ignored them, guiding the mare toward the waist-high earthwork that partly barricaded the gate.
There was space for a horse to pass between the earthwork and the wall, but she would have to slow the mare to a walk and persuade the two legionnaires on sentry duty to let her pass.
The taller legionnaire, alerted by the ruckus, was watching her approach, but his partner diligently scanned the darkness for enemies.
Sara had discovered something on the ride from Tolium to the camp: the black mare loved to jump.
She leaned forward over the mare’s neck, keeping her body low and her weight balanced, urging the mare. Straight toward the earthwork.
The tall legionnaire’s eyes widened in alarm. He reached for his spear, then hesitated, probably recognizing either Sara or the horse as Nir’s property.
Three strides to go...
“Make way!” Nir bellowed behind her.
The legionnaires dived to either side, out of the way. The black mare gathered her hindquarters and jumped, seeming to hang in the air for an instant—
—then they were over the earthwork, jolting down on the other side. Sara absorbed the impact in her knees, clinging like a burr. She reined the mare parallel to the walls.
Looking back, she saw Nir’s big gray stallion take the jump, stumbling slightly on landing, but coming up uninjured. “Once around the stockade!” she called over her shoulder. After that she focussed her attention forward between the mare’s ears.
Hooves pounding the earth, the night wind in her face, tearing the pink scarf from her head, muscles moving under her, ground flying by...
Exhilaration built inside her. Sara caught herself smiling.
First corner. In the dark, Sara almost missed it and the mare overshot, slowing in confusion when Sara pulled on the left rein. The mare circled around and began to gallop again, but Nir gained on them.
Sara paid closer attention to the stockade wall and slowed the mare before the second corner. The mare swung around it in a tight circle, and Sara bent low again. “Faster, faster,” she urged, rattling the reins.
Hooves thudded behind them, only one length separating the horses now. Then their lead dropped to half a length as the big gray horse shouldered between them and the stockade wall. They ran neck and neck. Nir’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight, a gloating grin stretching his lips.
Third corner. The stallion didn’t corner well, but the black mare was forced to travel farther on the outside. She snorted in annoyance.
Sara whispered encouragement. “You can beat him. Faster, faster!”
The stallion’s strides were longer, but Nir weighed more than Sara, which might tell as the race lengthened.
Fourth corner. Sara reined back, letting the stallion turn first, then nipped into the inside track. “Go, go!” The earthwork gate was already in sight, only two hundred feet ahead.
The mare bunched her muscles and poured her heart into the home stretch. She galloped ahead of the stallion, who labored under his heavier load.
The whites of Nir’s eyes flashed in the darkness. He raised his hand, and the whip sliced through her thin nightgown, cutting her skin with exquisite ease.
The mare galloped past the earthwork, winning by a head.
Sara eased back into a sitting position, the reins loose in her hands, letting the mare slow at her own pace. “Good girl.” She stroked the mare’s mane. The black snorted, probably disturbed by th
e scent of blood trickling down Sara’s back.
Nir thundered up on his gray. He leaned over and snatched her from the mare’s back while sliding off his own mount. They hit the ground together.
The breath slammed from Sara’s lungs. Before she could get it back, Nir pinned her to the ground and ravaged her mouth.
Though he’d taken her body many times, this was the first time he’d kissed her. Even this he transformed into an act of pain. He forced her jaw open too wide and mauled her lips, bruising them, then invaded her mouth with his tongue.
She couldn’t breathe. The impact with the ground had knocked the wind from her, and now Nir was blocking her air passages.
Her first instinct was to struggle, but she’d learned over the last month that fighting made Nir react with violence. Instead she lay still and concentrated on the different physical sensations: the taut skin of her abdomen over the baby bump, the cold wetness of the dewy grass, the pain in her jaw and lips, the way her vision was graying over...
She blacked out.
When she regained consciousness, Nir stood five feet away, kicking the turf and cursing her. Unless the “twotch” he was referring to was Cassia.
She rolled onto her side, breathing deeply. The baby kicked.
Nir spun and glared at her. “I’m going to win this battle. Soon you’ll betray yourself. You’ll flinch, or your hand will go to your womb, and I’ll know your soul has returned.”
His words should have been mere sounds, but a chill slithered up her back. It had taken effort to concentrate on the pain this time and not fight.
She suppressed a shiver, something inside her insisting it was very important that she not show fear.
Instead, she sat up and met his gaze. “I won the race.”
“Yes, you did.” Nir’s jaw knotted. “And what’s your decision regarding your rival? Shall I shave her head and make her crawl naked across the camp?”
“Wettar wants to transfer her papers to another.”
He grunted. “Wettar didn’t win the race. You decide.”
For some reason the thought of shaving Cassia’s head appealed to Sara. She’d told the stupid woman not to wear the wig. But punishing Cassia wouldn’t solve the problem, nor would Wettar’s solution. “If she stays in camp, she’ll return to your bed no matter who owns her. Sell her to Blorius.”
Chapter Nineteen
“He’s going to get her killed.”
Edvard’s outburst made Lance look up from feeding wood into the forge fire. “What’s that?” He brushed bark from his palms and resisted the urge to scratch the crop of red bumps covering his face, neck and chest.
“Rhiain. Fitch treats her like a weapon, and she lets him.” Edvard furiously pounded on the bent buckle he was straightening.
Lance couldn’t deny it. Edvard’s plot to show Rhiain his brother had feet of clay by directing her to the Temple of Desire had backfired badly. After sulking for two days, she’d returned even more devoted to Fitch, as if trying to prove herself worthy. Lance didn’t like it either, but he felt helpless to do anything about it. Some heartaches had to be lived through.
“Rhiain’s a warrior,” he said, carefully avoiding the topic of Edvard’s brother. “We can’t keep her out of battle, nor should we want to. But I confess I’m worried about her, too.”
Rhiain and Fitch were both off, setting an ambush, and Lance guessed part of Edvard’s anger came from being left behind.
Lance himself was furious at being forbidden to leave the camp. Again.
And when he’d sneaked away on his own, he’d promptly become lost. Willem had silently led him back to camp the next morning.
Not that either Fitch’s order or fear of getting lost would’ve kept Lance here without Loma’s promise. The weeks since then had dragged, despite all Lance did to fill his hours with smithing and storytelling to the newly freed slaves.
His thoughts turned, endlessly, to Sara. Goddess help him, he was terrified for her. Just the thought of what she might be enduring made his stomach clench and bile rise in his throat.
Sara might claim she’d sold herself into slavery to save the babe, but Lance feared her desire for pain had skewed her decision.
Not that he’d been able to come up with another solution.
A storm of anger and fear churned inside him. His helplessness made him grit his teeth.
He and Edvard made quite a pair.
“I wish I could fight beside her as a shandy,” Edvard said passionately. “I wish—”
He threw down the hammer; it bounced once on the bare earth.
Lance could fill in the rest: Edvard wished he wasn’t crippled. The prospect of crushing his legs and then healing them filled Lance with misgiving, but the moment Loma called, he would go to Sara. He couldn’t, in conscience, put off the healing much longer.
“Your legs,” he said abruptly. “Tomorrow we’ll figure out a way to re-break them.”
“Truly?” Edvard’s brown eyes shone with hope.
Lance nodded. “Yes.” If nothing else, it would distract him from his grinding worry for Sara.
* * *
“There goes the signal fire,” Fitch said with satisfaction.
Turning her head, Rhiain saw a greasy column of smoke stream up into the blue sky ten miles distant. She quivered with eagerness, impatient for the Fourth Legion to take the bait.
Gotia’s new governor had paraded a chest of gold through four towns, stopping at every Temple of Jut and proclaiming their destination to be the Temple of Fertility in Dunbridge. Upon arrival, the governor’s escort of two centuries had peeled off and publicly returned to their Legion.
According to Sara, Nir hoped the rebels would be unable to resist the lure of gold, and would attack. Once they were committed, his legionnaires would fall on them from ambush.
Five thousand men were difficult to hide. It hadn’t taken Rhiain long to sniff them out where they lay in wait on the other side of a hill just outside Dunbridge. She and Fitch spied on them from a field of tall grain.
“The commander’s seen the smoke signal...he’s giving the order to reinforce Lethium,” Fitch reported, grinning fiercely.
The town of Lethium wasn’t actually under attack. Willem and some of his Gotian archers had shot fire arrows into Lethium’s stack of dry wood and oil, igniting the signal fire. They would melt into the forest and be long gone by the time the Legion arrived.
And in the meantime, Dunbridge would lie undefended.
“They’re taking the bait,” Fitch said. They watched tensely as the Legion left their hiding spot on the hill and marched double-time down the road.
Finally, the road to Dunbridge lay clear.
Fitch stood and raised his voice. “There’s our invitation to the wedding! Spring Colt, give me a quarter hour to take care of the governor, then attack! Rhiain, you’re with me,” he added on an underbreath.
Thrilled, Rhiain loped by his side down the hill.
She had no trouble picking out the Temple of Fertility from the rest of the village. Two identical, white-domed structures stood so close together she wondered why they hadn’t just built one longer building.
Children’s voices rang from one side. Fitch avoided them, going around to the left building.
“Shh.” He held his finger to his lips, then crept up to the open window. Rhiain slunk forward on her belly and joined him. She peeped through the branches of a thorn bush.
The room beyond was paneled in amber; Rhiain sniffed at the faint resinous scent.
“It isn’t right,” a wrinkled old woman said querulously from where she sat propped up by pillows. She wore a yellow silk gown that bared the top of her sagging breasts and the folds of loose skin under her arms. “How can I ask the Goddess to bless their union when the bride’
s too young to have had her moon blood?” she complained.
“My bride is young, but healthy,” a double-chinned lord with black curls said soothingly. He lounged on a couch at right angles to hers. “There’s no reason to think she won’t be fertile, so I see no harm in holding the wedding early.”
The old woman snorted, a large sound for such a tiny hunched figure. “And what about you? You were married to your first wife for five years, and she bore you no children. How do I know you’re fertile?”
The lordling flushed. “My wife may not have been blessed, but I assure you I’ve fathered several brats on couerelles. My fertility is proven.”
“The same slave women who conveniently vanished from your father-in-law’s villa? Some proof.” The old woman humphed again. “And you’re both the child’s uncle—”
“Only by marriage,” Drencis objected.
“—and her guardian. You ought to be looking for a suitable match for her in ten years, not claiming the prize yourself, and tossing her dowry around as if the gold were yours.”
“Now see here,” Lord Drencis started angrily.
“Her hip pains her.” A black-haired woman, who’d been standing attendance at the old woman’s shoulder, winked conspiratorially at Drencis. “Just let me fetch her mercia.”
“I don’t need a potion!” the old woman snapped. “You overstep yourself, girl! A large pair of breasts and sickly twins don’t outrank fourteen grown children—”
Breasts. Rhiain suddenly realized why there were two Temples of Fertility capped with domes.
“Please, Priestess, we talked about this, remember?” The younger acolyte smiled apologetically at the lordling. “Governor Drencis acknowledges the wedding is slightly irregular, which is why he’s making a special offering to our goddess. Remember? We’ll be able to build the special addition to the temple for new mothers that you’ve wanted for so long.”
The old woman stiffened, her watery blue eyes narrowing. “The Goddess of Fertility can’t be bought! He must observe the forms, including proof of virility.”
“Oh, that I can prove,” Lord Drencis murmured, his gaze lingering on the younger acolyte’s backside. Her hair hung in a curtain to her buttocks—which Rhiain thought foolish beyond words. Hair that long would be constantly in the way.
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 34
