Chapter Seven
Verenus stood on the outskirts of the forest, divested of his armour and his hands tightly bound behind his back. The war party had escorted him here, they on horseback while he on foot. It was clear that they meant to shame him, as prisoners held no standing among the Britons, but also to prove a point. Rome had set out to be the Briton’s masters, but now he stood lower than that of a peasant.
Verenus didn’t feel the barb as he should have. All he could think about was having to leave Aurelia defenceless with these barbarians and delivering the news of impending war to a commander who will not take this news well.
Verenus turned back to the war party, eyes searching for Aurelia. She was blessedly unconscious, slumped in the arms of Kailen, who was now to be her captor.
“I swear to the Gods, if you harm her or defile her in anyway, I will kill you.” Verenus promised in a steely tone of voice.
Kailen laughed bitterly. “I believe you, or at least i believe your intention. But do not worry yourself unnecessarily. I nor my men will defile her. That is a Roman pastime.”
Verenus shook his head in disgust. He would have argued against that accusation, but it would have been pointless. Arguing will only make them angry and they would in turn take it out on the only Roman left to them.
“Your army’s fort lies just over that hill.” Kailen pointed and Verenus followed the direction with his eyes. “No Britons will harm you, you have safe passage to deliver my message.” Kailen smirked down at him. “At least, for the time being.”
Verenus didn’t reply verbally, just nodded once before looking one more time at Aurelia. He turned sharply, making his way towards the fort and all the while, feeling their eyes burning holes into his back.
By morning, these hills will be swarming with Roman soldiers and the Silures better ride like the wind if they wanted to live another night. Much good it would do them.
Rome never forgave those who set themselves as its enemy.
~
Whatever was the driving force of their success, be it luck, divine providence or devilry, may it long continue, thought Kailen.
The storm had been a blessing, making short work of the Roman auxiliary replacements that would have numbered in the thousands. They could no longer leave a bloody trail of death and despair in their wake. Kailen’s war party only had to clear up the pockets of men that had survived.
Easy pickings, really. Nothing more than child’s play.
And now they have stumbled upon the ailing rag tag group of mundanes to reveal a paragon in the form of a woman. The enemy commander’s intended had literally fallen into his lap. Gods be good. She represented everything he had hoped for in starting this journey: bait to lure the Romans out into the open, away from their fortifications, and a chance to seek revenge for all theu had inflicted on their High King’s tribe. They will be crushed, he did not doubt it. He and his own men would crush them in such a way that history would remember it as a great British victory and the Romans would lose all taste for war on this shore.
It would be a day of days.
But before they could look to the future, they had to contend with the journey home. They must make haste, if they didn’t want a Roman shock group to intercept them. Of course, the whole Roman army on their heads before they could raise arms with their own people and sister tribes. Kailen was adamant not to make any mistakes that could cost him this victory.
“It will take the soldier a day to get back to the fort with his reports,” Vaughan said as they watched Verenus’s retreating back. “If we push, we should be out of this territory by then.”
Bran snorted in disgust, his chestnut mare pawing at the ground beneath them. “We should take the fight to them. Show them what British swords can do.”
“All in good time, my friend.” Kailen assured him. “Would you deny our brothers back home the chance to exact revenge?”
Bran grudgingly shook his head in reply.
“Then we ride now and dream of the glory to come.” Kailen grinned and wheeled his horse around, mindful of the captive’s dead weight in his arms. The others soon followed suit and their war party pounded over the hills in the opposite direction of Verenus’s flight.
“Tell me, brother.” Bran’s booming voice sounded over the beat of the horses’ hooves. “How did you get that ugly looking gash on your head?”
Vaughan’s laughter rang out like clear bells and Kalien couldn’t help but join in.
“A battle wound served to me by a fierce warrior,” He replied glibly. “And now that fierce warrior is our captive and under my protection until the Romans come to collect her.”
Bran paused to stare at the woman in Kailen’s arms and then shrugged. “A shame.”
Kailen frowned. “A shame?” He questioned.
“A shame we have to give her back at all. She would do well as a shield maiden with that type of fierceness burning in her belly.” Bran explained.
Kailen’s lips tightened and he stared ahead of them. “A woman chosen by a man like the Roman Commander is no woman I would welcome into my tribe.”
After that, the war party was silent as they rode for home and the safety of the hills.
~
Aurelia woke to a living nightmare. Her hands were now bound to the rounded pommel of the saddle she sat on. Her feet were also bound, the rope passing under the horse’s belly so she couldn’t try to escape. It took all of her concentration not to slip sideways and get dragged along beneath the horse, or even trampled to death under the hooves. The coarse rope left bright red rings around her ankles, skin breaking and blood welling up to trickle between her toes.
Her shoulders cramped and her muscles ached from the tension of holding herself straight and away from Kailen who rode behind her. He was like a solid wall of heat and her body kept trying to betray her by relaxing into him, before she corrected herself harshly.
They must have been riding for hours as morning had already come and gone. Based on the direction of the sun's progress across the sky, they were heading west. The men and the horses had to be demons, as no mortal on earth could possibly go on for as long as they had, hour after hour of ceaseless riding. They pushed on tirelessly, alternating their pace from a fast walk, to a canter and then to a stomach churning trot. Aurelia felt like her insides were bruised.
“Here, drink this.” Kailen said as he shoved a pouch made of rawhide at her, the contents sloshing noisily around. The rope between her hands and the pommel had enough slack that allowed her to hold the pouch.
She looked at it with a suspicious eyes. “Water?” She asked.
Her question seemed to amuse him and the corner of his mouth lifted up. “Water.” He agreed.
It wasn’t until she took the first sip that she realised just how thirsty she really was. Her lips were dry and cracked and her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. She drank the cool liquid greedily until Kailen tugged the pouch away from her lips.
“Easy.” He admonished her, tying the pouch back to the saddle. “Not to worry, the drinking of wine will come later.”
Aurelia stared up at him in confusion. “What comes later?”
Another smirk. “Later, we celebrate our victory over the Romans.”
Aurelia turned back to face the front, too appalled to answer.
Just after sundown a brilliant full moon rose over the hills ahead, spilling light across the rounded peaks and sending it flowing down into the shallow valleys. The sea of grass turned silver as the wind brushed it into flowing patterns. It had a haunting wild beauty, this land. If circumstances were vastly different, she could learn to love a place like this.
The moon was high in the sky by the time the group rode to a crop of tall trees and stopped. The leaves and branches acted as adequate cover against the light breeze and, no doubt in Aurelia’s mind, camouflaged the War Party against prying eyes of any Roman scouts in the area. The trunks of the trees turned the space into a heathen temple.
Men set to work building a large pyre of dried wood, setting it aflame. The shadows cast by the twisting flames made the grass and branches look like they were dancing. The faces of the war party turned into ghastly masks and Aurelia felt her heart lurch in her chest at the sight. These men really were druids, devils in man’s disguise.
Kailen slid down from the horse and flexed gracefully up on his toes, working out the knots and kinks from the day’s riding. Calling to another man, he casually sauntered towards the pyre where the others were laying out food and drink.
Aurelia bit her lip to keep herself from calling out to him. As bad as he was, he was the only security she had. It was a ridiculous train of thought. The man held her life in his hands and she had no surety that he would not crush it.
The great giant of a man Kailen had called out to came towards her. She jerked futilely at the tether around her wrists, but the man gripped her ankle, pulled the ropes from them and pulled her down from the horse. He was impressively strong, and her clenched fists did no damage to him when she swung for him. In fact, her flailing seemed to amuse the spectators.
The fair headed youth said something in their strange language to the barrel chested man who was manhandling her and he let out a booming laugh that made her flinch away.
He said something back and the youth turned back to her with a grin. “Bran says that if Roman men had half the passion as you, Britain would be in dire trouble.”
Aurelia opened her mouth, about to unleash a scathing retort, when the giant, Bran, bent down and lifted her effortlessly over his shoulder. Her whole world teetered and turned on its head, her body hanging limply over his shoulder. She let out a choked cry of rage, her fists pounding on his back, but to no avail. It was like he was imperious to any glancing blow.
After a short humiliating walk, he came to the first line of trees. She expected to be thrown to the ground, with not thought as if she was a sack of potatoes. Instead, Bran slowly lowered himself to one knee and braced her as she slipped from his shoulder to a sitting position against a tree. He smiled down at her, revealing dimples under the scruff of his beard, and patted her leg as if to say ‘see? It wasn’t so bad’.
Aurelia pulled her leg away and huddled in on herself. Despite having been captured and in the company of barbarians for a day, it wasn’t until that very moment, alone on the fringe of the war party watching at least forty men drink and jest with each other, and the largest man she had ever seen looming over her, that she realised what sort of trouble she was in. She didn’t know their language, knew nothing of their culture, or their motives in keeping her. She thanked the Gods that she was spared the sword, but that left a horrible clench in her stomach. If they weren’t going to kill her now, what were they planning to do with her?
You’ve heard the stories, whispered a traitorous voice in her mind. You’ve heard how the people of Britain revere their druids, how these mystical men make human sacrifices to their heathen Gods. A Roman would make a fine sacrifice in their eyes.
Bran moved away and in his place was the fair haired youth with an earthenware bowl that was filled with what looked like some type of roasted meat and a selection of root vegetables. He held it out to her and she looked at it suspiciously, making no attempt to take it from him. Her traitorous stomach growled loudly, betraying her, but she ignored it.
“Kailen commands you to eat.” He said to her, his dark gold eyes insistent.
Not wanting to push her luck any further than she had done, she took the bowl in her tied hands as best as she could. “Who is Kailen?” She asked.
“War party leader.” He gestured over his shoulder with a careless gesture. “The man who now owns you.”
She swallowed her immediate protests at being ‘owned’ and followed his gaze to the man known as Kailen. The man who had captured her in the forest and decided on mercy rather than death.
He was sat amongst his men, drinking from a flagon. The orange light from the fire casted shadows across his face but she still recognised him. She would recognise those wintery blue eyes anywhere. And at that moment, those eyes were trained on her with unflinching directness. It was like a punch in the gut when their eyes connected, even at such a distance.
He didn’t look to be embarrassed to be caught staring, though Aurelia wasn’t sure why he should. She was now nothing more than property, after all. She couldn’t read his expression at all, it was like looking at a venetian stone statue, all smooth lines and a serene expression After endless moments, the fog lifted and the corners of his full lips tilted upwards and he toasted her with his drink.
Aurelia felt her cheeks heat up and she looked down at her food.
Definitely in trouble, she thought.