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Then he spat out a word, one she didn’t recognise, though she didn’t need a translator to guess its meaning. It was obviously one her mother hadn’t thought suitable for a child, one that revealed exactly what he thought of her and her relationship to the Roman garrison. It made her suddenly furious. As if being judged by one side wasn’t bad enough, now she was being judged by the other, too!
‘Livia!’ She spun towards the sound of Marius’s voice. He was standing in the midst of the fighting on top of the palisade, at least fifty feet away, drawing one arm back and then hurling it forward again as he loosed a pilum into the air towards them.
It was a warning call, she realised, turning her gaze quickly back to the warrior, a warning for her not to move. This was it, the moment she’d been dreading, when she had to make a choice between her Roman and Caledonian sides. She didn’t want to choose, but in truth there was no choice. She was on Marius’s side. And she wasn’t going to let this warrior kill her because of it.
He was creeping forward now, closing the distance between them to within striking range, but she couldn’t flinch or retreat, had to hold steady so that he wouldn’t realise the danger until it was too late.
There was a hiss of air and at the last moment her attacker twisted his head sharply, diving away as the javelin came down with a thump, missing his leg by a hair’s breadth. He gave her a furious look and then charged forward, but she darted to one side, lifting her shield and thrusting the boss towards him before swinging the gladius up with all her strength, aiming for his chest. It was no use. He blocked the blow with his axe, leering as though her efforts were nothing more than horseplay. She tried again, aiming lower, but this time he grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him and raising his sword to her throat.
‘Oof!’
She dropped to the ground, landing heavily on her shoulder as Marius barrelled into the warrior from the side, knocking all three of them down in a heap. Quickly, she wriggled away, readying her gladius to help, but it was impossible. The two men were rolling over and over in the dirt, fists pounding so ferociously that she couldn’t get a clear aim.
‘Marius!’ she screamed out in horror as the warrior pulled a dagger from his boot, lifting it high in the
air before stabbing downwards. Instinctively she threw herself on top of him, grabbing his arm and clinging to it, trying to loosen his hold on the weapon. He twisted around, face contorting with rage as he shoved his elbow into the side of her head, so hard that the world seemed to go black for a few seconds before she hit the ground again with a thud.
She reached a hand to her head, ears ringing, watching through a sticky red blur as the warrior lifted the dagger again and plunged. A cry rose to her throat, but no sound came out. Her vision seemed to be dimming, too, her eyelids closing against her will as she saw Marius’s hand come up, blocking the warrior’s wrist. There was another fierce tussle, a roar of anger followed by a bellow of pain.
The last thing she saw was the warrior’s body slump to the ground.
* * *
‘Livia?’ Marius leaned over the bed, calling her name as he rubbed a hand softly over her forehead, willing her to wake up, to give some sign that she could hear him.
‘It might take a while.’ Ario stood opposite, his face and voice equally grim. ‘Head injuries can take a long time to heal.’
‘I know.’ He grimaced at the thought. ‘What the hell was she doing out there? I told her to stay inside.’
‘Trenus says she was helping the injured. She tied a tourniquet around his leg before that savage attacked her.’
Marius swallowed. He’d been fighting on the ramparts when he’d seen them. The sight of Livia wielding a paltry gladius in front of an axe-wielding warrior had made the bottom fall out of his stomach and his world. For a moment, he’d thought his very heart had stopped beating. He’d been on the verge of losing everything—and everything, he’d realised in a moment of blinding clarity, was her. He loved her with every fibre of his being. He’d never thrown a spear so hard in his life.
‘It still shouldn’t have happened. I should have protected her.’
‘You were protecting her.’
‘He still managed to do this.’
‘This—’ Ario gave him a pointed look ‘—was because she was trying to protect you. At least this answers the question of where her loyalties lie. I think we can trust her.’
‘We can.’
He sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. It was true. He could trust her, only he’d found that out the hard way, in the midst of battle, when she’d put herself in danger to help Roman soldiers. He’d told her that she didn’t have to choose sides, but she had, risking her life alongside theirs and almost getting herself killed to save him. He should have trusted her all along instead of treating her like a prisoner, a traitor... She was no more a traitor to Rome than his father had been.
‘You need to eat.’ Ario rested a hand on his shoulder on the way to the door. ‘I’ll get some food.’
‘Not until she wakes up.’
‘Don’t be a hero, Marius. She’ll need you more than ever when she does. That was just the start of the rebellion and you know it. They were testing our defences, seeing how many of us are here. We held them off for today, but they’ll be back, probably in greater numbers, and then the real fighting will begin. You’ll need to defend her all over again, but you’ll be no use at all if you don’t get some food and rest.’
‘All right, but I’m not leaving this room.’
‘I didn’t expect you to.’ Ario patted his shoulder again and then frowned. ‘How long will it take Nerva to send reinforcements, do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’ Marius ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. ‘He should have received our message by now, but it’ll depend on how many forts were attacked. I doubt that it was just us. If the rebels have broken through the wall, then the legion might be needed elsewhere.’
‘So no reinforcements?’
