Descendants of Rome (#3 in Gladiator Series)

Chapter 32

Chapter 32 

"Take only what you can carry." Marcia told the stream of people that passed her. Mostly women and children that were huddled together, cradling each other as they were about to be omitted from the fortress. 

Marcia lifted her head and looked down the line of displaced people. People that had lost their homes and came here for protection. They had started to find their footing before they once again ordered to move on. 

As she looked into their eyes she saw a lost and terrified look to them.

Marcia caught sight of an elderly man watching her with his life story written across the lines on his face, but his eyes were firm and steady as they caught her gaze. 

She froze, simply watching him move further and further away, being swept away by the crowd.

A few months ago Marcia would have rushed over to help carry his bag, but her first thought at that moment was the firm belief that he would not survive the journey to safety.

He would die trying to find his freedom. 

That thought rattled through her mind like a prophecy. 

"Marcia?" 

Marcia looked away from the old man as she heard her mother approach.

"Marcia, what are you doing?" Frieda stopped beside her daughter, bending down to pick up a wooden toy that a young girl had dropped in front of them. 

"There you go, sweetie," Frieda smiled as the girl's mother hurried her along, before she turned back to Marcia, waiting for an answer.

Marcia stared after the little girl, and the mother's guiding hand on her shoulder, trying to remember when she had been that young.

"I'm helping." Marcia told her.

"You should be resting," Frieda urged her to listen.

"I'm fine," Marcia told her for what felt like the the thousandth time. 

Her mother gave her a soft smile, "I know, I just worry." 

Marcia wanted to tell her mother that she shouldn't, that she would be fine, but she couldn't. Marcia had already been captured and tortured once, to her regret her mother had reason to worry. 

"I came to tell you that I will be leaving shortly with Leonidas."

Marcia gave her mother her full attention, "Has something happened?" 

"No, no," Frieda reassured her daughter, "Not yet, anyway."

The smile that came across her mother's lips unsettled Marcia a little bit, "What do you mean?"

"If those legions from Rome are to meet up with Octavia they will have to take the mountain path, the same which Octavia must have taken." 

"Yes?" Marcia frowned, unsure of where this was leading.

"If that path was somehow blocked, let's say, by a rock slide," Frieda smiled, "the Romans would have to divert around, delaying their arrival . . ." 

"And giving us more time to prepare," Marcia saw the bigger canvas and liked it, "Clever. Who came up with it?" 

Frieda lost the smile as she grumbled her father's name. Marcia laughed.

"I just came to say goodbye and ask you to stay inside the fortress until I return . . ."

Marcia opened her lips to protest.