Descendants of Rome (#3 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Frieda crouched down behind a small mound of dirt beside Diomed, her fingers clutching at her armed bow.

A sword was strapped to her waist. Frieda may have become more accustomed to the bow since she married Diomed but she had good memories that involved a sword.

And she was too sentimental to let it go.

Thinking of Diomed, her eyes travelled down his arm and glanced at his stump.

Cut just above the wrist the flesh had been stretched to cover his bone. Red scars still decorated his skin where the dagger had cut him. She could not believe that so many years had passed since it had happened.

Frieda looked away, the memory still too raw in her mind.

Instead, Frieda chose to focus on her surroundings, it helped to dull the pain of remembering.

Hunkered down in a small ditch near the forest that bordered the east side, Frieda and Diomed had broken off from the main party and waited.

She could see her breath in the cold air, a shiver running across her exposed flesh.

Reaching up to remove a strand of hair that had escaped its braid, Frieda let out a small grunt of frustration.

Diomed turned and regarded her curiously, a single blonde eyebrow raised in question. He had learnt from years of marriage how to approach her moods.

Frieda could remember when she first met Diomed. His hair had been removed in great chunks, marking the flesh on his skull, and his body was taut from starvation.

Now his body was lean and athletic, muscles rippled beneath his bronze skin, and his hair had returned but the scarred flesh made it grow at awkward angles. The colour of straw, it stuck up in short spikes. Diomed foolishly had allowed Frieda to cut it.

"Why do we have to be the bait?" Frieda sighed in boredom as she glanced around her, waiting for Krista's plan to come to fruition.

The corner of Diomed's mouth tilted up in a smile, he had been waiting for her latest complaint.

"Why could it not have been Leonidas and Cato?" Frieda dislodged a small rock from the earth and kicked it a few metres to her right, "The Gods know that they could have done with being put in mortal danger."

Diomed laughed, "And we know exactly what would have happened if Krista had suggested Leo and Cato, do we not?"

Frieda acted coy.

Diomed wasn't accepting it, "You would have been the first to complain and offered your services. And mine." He added as an afterthought, he too had to be sat here on the cold ground.

Frieda narrowed her eyes; it was unnerving how much he knew her.

"Yes, well," Frieda removed the arrow from her bow and inspected it casually, "Why change the habit of a lifetime?"

The comment had meant to be clever but as Frieda said it she saw Diomed's eyes flicker away from her face, remembering something.

Probably that they had been fighting for more years of their life than they had not.

It was depressing to think it, but Frieda wouldn't have changed it for the world.

The way she had been treated, being shipped to Rome, had enabled her to meet the love of her life, though she had despised him when they initially met, and she had a family because of it.