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Chapter Seventeen
She’d recognised one of the riders. His distinct style of hair had formed a silhouette against the sky. He was one of the two men she’d overheard in Luguvalium talking about Ceadda. They had ridden off, but not in haste or very far.
The other travellers they’d met in the last few days had nothing to tell her and her careful questioning had only raised Felix’s suspicions she was up to no good. She despaired at ever finding anything out Ceadda’s fate until she saw the trio on the hill. Even if it meant defying Felix and regardless of the danger, she couldn’t miss the opportunity to speak to them again. She waited for Felix and Rufus to disappear around the bend in the track—the snares in their hands—and made an impulsive decision.
Gathering her skirts, she ran in the opposite direction to her master, up and over the craggy little hill, and immediately spied the three men watering their horses at a stream. They’d not gone far and were all dismounted. If she could get closer, she might be able to speak to them without them seeing her. She used the scattering of boulders to cover her approach. However, when a few birds took flight, the men turned and stared in her direction. She darted behind a rock and kept her head out.
“Who’s there?” growled the man with spiky hair.
Bethan dropped her voice lower and deeper. “Don’t come near me. I’m armed with a bow… and spear.”
“Aye,” he laughed. “I’ll believe that! Come out, girl, let us see your bow and spear.”
They didn’t believe her, which wasn’t surprising. She attempted a different tack—one based more on honesty. “I can’t. My master has forbidden me to speak to you, but I must. I just want to know something.” She stayed behind the rock. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed to drum against her breast.
“Come here, girl from Carvetii, and we’ll tell you everything,” yelled another of the three. He had recognised her dialect.
“The boy with the coloured eyes, the one blue, the other brown, what became of him?” she asked, sticking her head up again, then quickly down. She saw only two men, not three. Oh, gods! This wasn’t working. She shouldn’t be alone and it was obvious now that she could never outrun them.
“What became of him?” the first man chortled. “He’s held at the fort of Lagentium and is likely to be sent south to the ports and the galleys.”
The galleys? Poor Ceadda hated the sea and he would never survive for long if he had to row day after day. Most galley slaves lived a year or two, if that.
“Aye. He’ll be gone in a few weeks. So if you want to come with us, we’ll take you to him.”
A false promise; Bethan had no faith in it. She edged backwards away from the boulder. She’d tarried long enough. Stumbling on the heather, she fell straight into the arms of a man.
“Got you,” he growled into her ear. “I’ve got the wench,” he shouted to his companions. “And a fine girl she is too.”
She kicked his shins and tried to twist out of his clutches. Sweeping aside his long black hair, he hitched her up and over his shoulder with little effort. As he marched toward the horses, she paddled his back with her fists.
“Fighter, this one.” He dropped her on the ground at the feet of the spiky-haired man who had rope in his hands. As the other two held her fast, the man she first spied in Luguvalium, and now wished she’d never met, bound her ankles together, then her wrists. He mounted his horse and with Bethan screaming obscenities, the other two bundled her over the horse in front of the rider.
“No, no! You can’t take me. I belong to another,” she squawked.
“Now, you belong to me,” he snarled. “And once I finished with you, then we’ll sell you to one of those Roman forts. They always want women: fresh or used.” He kicked the horse’s flank.
Back to where; to Atticus and his men? A nightmarish fate. The horse’s hard shoulders rose and fell as it trotted over the rough ground. The movement pummelled her belly and she struggled to breathe. All the blood had rushed to her dangling head, making her dizzy, and if it wasn’t for his grip on her bound wrists, which were pinned to the small of her back, she’d had fallen off. Tears poured out of her eyes in despair. She had to escape somehow.
“Please, please,” she begged. “Let me sit before you. I’ll be good. You can do what you want with me, just let me sit.”
“You’ll be good right where you are, girl. In fact, so good, I’ll take a look to see if you’re worth a fair price.”
He started to hitch up her skirts and snagged the seam of her stola on
his dagger. A bracing wind blew across her bare thighs and she squished them closer together.
He laughed loudly, calling to the other to draw closer so they could see her naked legs. Bethan sobbed. How foolish she’d been to think they would just answer her questions and leave her be.
A voice bellowed from behind them. “Stand fast!”
Felix!
She heard the hooves galloping in pursuit. The spiky-haired man reeled his horse about to face her rescuers. She lifted her head to see Felix and Rufus astride their steeds with their swords drawn and helmets on. The sun’s weak rays bounced off their bronze breastplates and greaves. She muted a cry of relief at their arrival. However, she was still bound and held over the horse, and it was two against three.
She should not doubt her masters’ abilities. They were two champion gladiators, Rome’s best, and they knew how to use both horse and weapons. Rufus circled the three riders at such a pace it made her dizzy. He released a bloodcurdling cry and it sent shivers down her spine. It was a distraction and it worked. Felix stood on the back of his horse and launched himself through the air onto the startled man with long black hair. Felix toppled him off his mount and sent him hurtling to the ground where he landed with his arms and legs flailing. Felix dropped down next to him, swung his arm back and knocked him on the head with the hilt of his sword.
One man disarmed and unconscious in seconds. If she wasn’t so afraid, she might applaud Felix’s amazing feat.
