61 A.D. (Bachiyr, Book 2) (12 page)

The hell with this,
he thought. He strained his arms against the wood, hoping to break the lock, but it held. The coagulated, rusty brown stain on the floor told him well enough why. Ramah had spilled and wasted a great deal of his blood. He needed more. Without it he was too weak to break free.

“Theron?” The voice came from his left. Taras. He sounded weak as well.

Theron ignored him and again tried to break through his bonds. Once again they proved too strong for his blood-starved body.

“Theron?”

Theron ignored him again and put his mind to the task of escape. His body couldn’t get him out, so what could he do? He could try to bribe Ramah, though he didn’t have anything the Councilor would want or couldn’t take by force. Perhaps he could shout for help, hoping some human would wander by. But that might bring Ramah all the faster. Or the Lost One. The room wasn’t freezing, so he knew the cursed thing wasn’t near, but it couldn’t be far. Ramah would have it with him at all times.

He needed to think.

“Theron? Are you there?”

“Damn it, Roman. Where the hell else would I be?”

 
“Dead would have been my guess,” Taras replied.

“Not yet.”

“That was a Lost One, wasn’t it?”

“Nasty things, aren’t they?” Theron suppressed a shudder. The Lost Ones curdled his skin. “Nasty, but effective. Now be quiet.”

For a moment it seemed Taras would do what Theron asked, but then his voice came through the silence again. “Ramah wasted a great deal of your blood.”

“I can see that,” Theron said, looking again at the large dried puddle beneath him.

“Why didn’t he drink it?”

“I don’t know. Ask him.”

“Is our blood poisonous to other Bachiyr?”

“Of course not. Ramah just enjoys torture. Now be quiet and let me think before I remove your head from your shoulders.”

Taras managed to remain silent for a count of thirty, then he started again. “When I get out of this, Theron, I’m going to kill you.” Taras said.

Theron chuckled, a thick, wet gurgle. “I doubt you’ll get the chance. Ramah will kill you just to keep that pleasure for himself.”

“Ramah will not touch me once he talks to Lannis,” Taras said. “He obviously doesn’t know about our deal. Once she explains it to him, I will be free, and you will be dead.”

“Lannis?” Theron asked. “
Councillor
Lannis? How in the Nine Hells do you know her?”

“She came to me a few nights ago and told me you were in Londinium. She offered me clemency from the Council if I helped capture you, which we did. Once she talks to Ramah—”

Theron couldn’t help his laughter, which cut through the room and silenced Taras’
s
stupidity. Now everything made sense. “You are a bigger fool than I thought, and I thought you were quite the fool, already.”

“We’ll see,” Taras replied. “When Lannis returns—”

“That wasn’t Lannis,” Theron said, still chuckling. “That was Baella. A renegade Bachiyr that the Council has been hunting for a very long time. She always seems to pop up and make things messy, then disappears again. I bet she vanished the second she saw Ramah, didn’t she?”

Silence from Taras.

“I thought as much,” Theron continued. “You fell right into her trap, Roman. I’m not sure what she wanted with you, but now that Ramah has you, you will probably not live to see the moon rise tomorrow.”

Taras said nothing, thankfully, and Theron returned to the task at hand. Namely, escaping the stocks and getting the hell out of Londinium before Ramah came back. It wouldn’t be easy, even if he did manage to get out of this room. Ramah wasn’t the only one out in the city looking for him. Besides the Lost One, there was also Baella.

Theron didn’t have any idea what she would be doing with someone like Taras, but it didn’t surprise him. Nothing she did surprised him. He, and the rest of the Council, had been hunting her for centuries. Her name was whispered in the Halls of the Bachiyr like a curse, as if just by saying it she might appear to wreak havoc. The Council of Thirteen had been trying to corral her almost from the very beginning of his race.

 
No one knew much about her. Her origins and age were a mystery. Some speculated she was as old as Herris. To be sure, she’d been around at least as long as 3,900 year old Jui Jyn, the Council’s youngest member, and probably longer. Very few had ever seen her, and fewer still lived to tell others about it. Some Bachiyr even considered her a myth, but Theron knew better. He and Ephraim had cornered her once in the Library of Alexandria, just a few decades before the debacle that had made Theron a renegade, himself. Theron had set fire to the building in an attempt to destroy her. Ephraim had been inside at the time, and none too pleased that he had almost been killed along with the renegade.

Their relationship had never been the same after that. From good friends to a cool, detached distance, and then Ephraim fell under the spell of that damn Jewish rabbi and ruined everything. Theron should have killed the bastard in Alexandria and saved himself a great deal of trouble.

A shadow fell over his face, interrupting his thoughts. He looked up to see Taras standing over him, fangs extended and eyes burning.

“Who is the fool now?” Taras asked.

Theron stared at
Taras’s
hands. They had shrunk. As he watched, they returned to their normal size, filling in and swelling like rising dough.

“How...?” Theron began.

“You mean you don’t know?” Taras shook his head. “Then why the hell would I tell you?” Taras stumbled, but managed to steady himself by placing a hand on Theron’s stocks. He stared at Theron and his ice-blue eyes shifted to red, his ragged face framed by dirty yellow hair. He grinned, revealing his fangs. “Thank you for answering my questions. I would never have known our blood was safe if not for you.”

14

Lannosea was sitting in her chair tying her long hair back with a leather thong when Heanua stormed in, still angry with her mother for sending her to fetch her sister like some house servant. Lannosea started when she saw her, nearly falling out of her chair. Her expression was a mixture of fear and guilt.
She doesn’t even have her armor on
, Heanua noted. Lannosea wore nothing more than her shift, as though she had no intention of coming along for the battle. Had her sister turned into a coward?

“What are you doing?” Heanua asked. “Why aren’t you ready? Mother is waiting for us at the head of the army.”

“Tell her I will be there shortly,” Lannosea replied, and turned her attention back to her hair, twisting it into a tight bun before securing it with the thin leather strap.

“I’ll do no such thing. I’m not your servant.” Lannie had always been a bit spoiled. The result of her stunning beauty and her station as an Iceni princess. In the past, she had gotten her way with a subtle flash of her ice blue eyes and a well timed shift of her hair. Heanua, whose brown hair and gray eyes rarely attracted notice, had been forced to play second to her younger sister for most of her life. While Heanua was also an Iceni princess, it was widely believed that Lannosea would someday marry a more powerful husband, and thus assume the
queenship
of the Iceni people.

Yet here she was, languishing all but naked in a cushioned chair on perhaps the most important day in the history of their people.

 
“Lannie, you need to get ready. Now. Or I will drag you to Mother as you are.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You know I would.” Heanua crossed her arms over her chest. “Today is important. Today we strike back at Nero.”

“As we did at Camulodunum?” Lannosea asked, her voice soft, muffled. “Do you remember the sound of thousands of people dying, Heanua? Their screams as they pleaded for mercy? Did it please you?”

“Of course,” Heanua said. “The dogs of Rome deserved nothing less.”

Lannosea turned her face away, but not before Heanua caught sight of the tears building in her eyes. “We are far from Rome, sister. The people of Camulodunum, like the people of Londinium, have done nothing to us.”

“Do you remember the sound of your own screams?” Heanua shot back. “I was there, as well, remember? Your cries for mercy went ignored, as I recall. How can you sit in your chair and pretend the Romans deserve compassion?”

Lannosea didn’t answer, but Heanua heard the sound of her breath as it hitched in her throat. Was she crying? Today, of all days? By the gods, what was wrong with her?

“That’s enough, Lannie,” Heanua said. She strode across the room and grabbed her sister’s wrist, yanking her to her feet. Lannosea yelped at the sudden jerk, but recovered enough to pull her arm back from her sister’s grasp.

“Don’t touch me,
Heannie
!” she screeched, her face streaked with tears. “Don’t touch me again or by the gods I’ll—”

Heanua slapped her sister across the face. “I don’t know what is wrong with you, Lannie. But you are coming with me if I have to drag you all the way to Londinium. Now I suggest you grab your armor and get moving before I—”

Heanua stopped short, her breath caught in her throat. Lannosea’s clothing had shifted when she got to her feet, and now Heanua saw what she’d missed before. When Lannie had been sitting in her chair, the bulge at her middle had been hidden by her clothes. But now that she was on her feet it was easy to tell.

 
“No,” Heanua whispered. “No, it can’t be. Lannosea...”

Her sister’s expression crumbled, and she slumped back into her chair and dropped her face to her hands. Her shoulders bobbed up and down as she sobbed into her fingers, the severe bun in her hair coming loose and sending stray locks of hair spilling down around her shoulders. “One of the Romans...” she said.

Heanua understood. The rapes. One of those Roman bastards had created what would be another Roman bastard. And her sister, an Iceni princess, would be forced to live with the shame of it. No wonder she hadn’t been acting normal. Even after the Iceni and Trinovante
 
reclaimed Britannia from Nero, Lannosea would never rule. Indeed, the likelihood of her ever finding a husband at all was slim. No one would want her now. Not after word spread that she’d given birth to a bastard child of a Roman legionary. It wouldn’t matter that the child was born of rape. Few men, certainly no man of any standing, would want to touch her.

“You can’t keep this child,” Heanua said softly.

“I don’t want it,” Lannosea said. “The devil take it, I never wanted it. I tried to kill it, early on, but the potion failed. Now I don’t know what to do. I still have five more months before delivery, and I’m only going to get bigger. I’ve sent away all my servants so no one would know, but that won’t last much longer. Soon I will be stuck in this tent, or worse, hiding somewhere like a criminal.”

“How are you going to hide this from mother?” Heanua asked. “She’s waiting for us to lead the attack on Londinium.”

“I don’t know,” Lannosea replied. “I tried to strap on my leathers, but they don’t fit anymore.” At this, Lannosea fell into another round of sobbing. Heanua looked at her shoes, a small twinge of remorse worming its way into her breast. She should have known better. Her sister wasn’t a coward. She had never been afraid to fight. But she
was
afraid of what the Queen would say.

“Stay here,” Heanua said. “And stay hidden. I have to get back to the front line. We’ll figure out what to do about this when I return.”

“What about mother?”

“I’ll handle mother. You just make sure no one sees you like this. Dress in something loose and flowing, and don’t leave this tent.”

“People will think I’m a coward.”

“People will think what mother tells them to think.”

“And what will that be?”

“I don’t know yet,” Heanua said, turning to leave. “But I hope I can think of something by the time I reach her.”

***

Ramah returned from hunting. Over his shoulder he carried the body of an elk, recently killed and waiting to be cleaned. His talk with his mother hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped.

“She’s bewitched you,” she had said when he told her of his plans to marry her. “The filthy
Chalika
has cast her spell on you.”

Ramah had struck her then. His own mother. His hand sent her to the floor. If he lived a thousand years, he would never forget the shocked look on her face. He’d left her sitting on the floor, rubbing her face with her hand, to go hunting. He’d needed something to calm his nerves.