Roman (18 page)

But better he not know that just yet. She waited to see what his next move would be, and she didn't have long to wonder.

“Anyone waiting for you in the cart?”

Isra shook her head.

“Good slave tells the truth. I watch it for hours and know the answer.” He urged her forward by pressing his groin into her bottom until she was trapped between him and the cart bed. “I take my hand from your mouth. If you scream, I knife your kidney; it shall not damage the parts I'm interested in. Now, go.”

Isra gasped a breath in through her mouth, relieved that the sewage stench of the man's flesh was gone. She grasped the edge of the bed and hoisted herself up very carefully, slowly, thinking through each inch of movement. She forced herself to be still, not to scream or kick out, when the man grasped her buttocks with both hands.

He was bluffing; he wasn't holding a blade.

For some reason, the idea that he intended to rape her without thinking he needed a weapon to restrain her increased Isra's rage tenfold. Her jaw trembled in her fury—she couldn't still it; her eyes felt wide in their sockets, as if her eyelids had disappeared. She was a wild animal, moving, acting solely on instinct.

She clambered over the end of the bed and onto her pallet with exaggerated care, stretching out her arms beneath the satchels and parcels tossed against the board behind the driver's seat as the man behind launched himself up against the wood and hooked a boot over the end.

Isra's fingers scrambled under the pillow of her satchel and then she turned to rest on her heels and brace herself with her hidden hands as she watched the man pull himself the rest of the way inside.

He crawled clumsily, quickly, over the blankets toward her, pushing his stench ahead of him, his shadow rising above her against the canvas ceiling. She pulled Maisie Lindsey's long dagger from beneath her satchel and held it forth in the darkness.

“Do not come any nearer,” she warned, but it came out as a strangled whisper.

He descended. “Shut up, sla—”

Isra felt the pop of the blade tip piercing the man's clothing—or his flesh—reverberate up her arm as he fell onto her, and his answering scream nearly pierced her eardrums. She launched herself backward on her heels through the front flap of canvas, leaving the blade stuck somewhere inside her attacker. She fell over the driver's seat, hitting her head on the footboard as she landed in the narrow well beneath the bench, while inside the cart the man continued to scream. She didn't know where the blade had touched him, had been unable to see more than shadow on shadow in the pitch black of the shelter. He could be seriously wounded, or he could only be scratched and able to come after her.

She scrambled to her feet, trying to find her bearings to get down from the cart, but the world was spinning, tumbling her around and around.

“Roman!” she cried out, her voice still strangled in her panic-clenched throat as she clawed her way up from the foot well. “Roman!”

She fell out of the cart onto her shoulder and face in the dirt. Her cheek felt seared and she heard the crack of her pretend crown as it slid sideways and was crushed beneath her head. Above her the cart rocked as the man shouted and thrashed as if he could not find his way out of the blackness. She staggered to her feet, her screams becoming clearer, louder, as she backed away from the wagon.

“Roman!
Roman!
”

She heard the sound of footfalls pounding in the dark, the cry of a hunting bird pierce the alley. “Isra? Isra! Where are you?”

“Roman!” She seemed to be unable to say anything but his name.

In the next heartbeat, he grabbed her arm, turned her around. “What is it? Are you hurt?”

“A man,” she stammered as the roar of many running feet grew and the glow of carried torches bobbed and flashed between the carts. “A man in the cart. He—he attacked me.”

More of the band reached them then, and the torchlight cast Roman in black silhouette even as she was revealed by it.

Asa van Groen was the next to reach them. “Good God, what's happened? Is that blood?”

Roman released her and leaped onto the driver's seat in two great bounds.

Isra looked down to see her pristine flaxen gown splashed with bright red and thought of the leg of lamb Nickle had earlier procured for Kahn.

That was what Fran had intended: that Isra be offered up as a sacrifice. To be devoured by the fiend in the cart.

But she had no time to think on it, for in the next moment there was a gurgled scream and the cart lurched a final time. Something thudded onto the dirt beyond the cart and half the band left Isra and van Groen in a run to investigate.

Isra turned and saw Roman approaching her again, but this time his face was nearly unrecognizable. It was as if he wore a mask resembling the man she had come to know, but this man's features distorted the pleasant expression into something undeniably dangerous and fearsome.

“Is he dead?” Isra asked, her voice breathy with anxiety and dread when faced with this different Roman. “Did I kill him?”

“What in hell is going on?” Asa demanded. “Is who dead? Why are you covered in blood?”

Roman ignored the man. “Yes, he's dead.” Even his voice sounded different; flat, emotionless. “But you didn't kill him. I did.”

Zeus came around Roman from behind. He glanced at Isra apologetically and then looked to van Groen.

“We have a problem, boss.”

A
sa van Groen swept past Isra, touching her arm in what might have been meant as a comforting gesture, to follow his man around the side of the cart. The rest of the band, who had been standing there staring at Isra, followed, leaving her alone with this huge blond man who looked so much like Roman but at this moment was not.

“Are you hurt?” he asked again in a gruff voice, his eyes sweeping over her ruined gown. She could only barely see the dark washes over the wide skin of his forearms in the gloom.

Isra shook her head and then wondered if he could see the motion. “No.” She didn't know if she had cut her head when she'd fallen, but she couldn't feel anything now, so she chose to believe it was only bruised.

“I'm sorry, Isra,” he said, and she could hear the loosening of his voice, as if the Roman she knew was trying to return. “I should never have allowed you to return to the cart alone. I failed to protect you. Please forgive me.”

Even though an instant ago terror had still gripped her, turning her skin to ice, her heart galloping in her chest, his words melted her fear like a scrap of old candle wax dropped into a fire. Her chest seemed to expand, her nostrils flared.

Here before her stood the most noble, capable, honest man she'd ever known. So completely had he assumed the responsibility of her that he was prepared to bear the burden of wrong perpetrated by a lecherous, soulless criminal. He'd killed a man for the sake of protecting her, and Isra knew full well the weight that action carried on a person's heart, no matter how much the one killed might have deserved his fate. What that man had tried to do could in no way be Roman Berg's fault.

But Isra knew whose fault it was.

“I owe you my life, again,” she said, struggling to make her voice steady.

It was Roman's turn to shake his head. “You did well enough on your own. I'm only sorry you were forced to defend yourself.” He paused, his head turning toward the cart slightly for a moment. “Everything in the cart is ruined. The bedding, the clothes.”

Isra rolled her lips inward. The blade must have struck the man in a vital location. Now Roman had lost many of his possessions and Isra had nothing once again. Her anger grew.

She knew whose fault it was.

“I wish to return to the fire now, my lord.”

“I'll come with you,” he said, stepping to her side.

“No,” she said, holding up her palm. “I will be safe there.”

“Roman.” Asa van Groen stepped from behind the cart. “A moment?”

Roman looked back to Isra, his uncertainty obvious.

“Only nearer the fire,” she promised. “In the light.”

“Van Groen can wait.”

She laid her hand on his chest when he approached her, and she could feel the steady thump of his heart through his thick musculature. What a precious organ it was beneath her palm, what a pure and spotless soul it powered. Her eyes shimmered with tears and she was glad for the darkness.

“I will be fine,” she said.

He reached up and grasped her wrist with his palm but did not remove her hand from his chest. “I feel as if I can never let you from my sight again,” he said.

“I am too much trouble,” she acknowledged in a whisper.

His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist. “No.”

“Roman?” van Groen called again.

She pulled away from him through sheer will—a will to exact an answer for what he had been forced to do for her sake. “Asa needs you.”

“Wait for me at the fire,” he said, and she knew it was no command but rather his way of giving his blessing for leaving, his way of telling her he trusted her judgment in whatever it was she meant to do, even after she had so recently failed him.

“As you wish.”

And then she turned and left him, heading toward the communal area that had been all but abandoned now by the members of the band, called away from their revelry by the disastrous goings-on at Roman and Isra's cart.

She stepped into the close, quiet ring of conveyances, her eyes scanning the wooden and canvas walls until she spied the small, expertly painted wagon directly across the fire. The woman had to be inside it; she was nowhere else to be seen and she certainly hadn't come at Isra's panicked screams.

Isra walked steadily toward Fran's wagon, her eyebrows lowered, the ghostly echo of Roman's heartbeat still thumping against her palm.

* * *

“This is not good, Roman,” van Groen said as Roman came to his side. The strongmen joined them in standing over the crumpled body of Isra's attacker, while the rest of the band clustered some distance away, whispering among themselves and casting furtive glances in their direction.

“You had no choice, I understand,” van Groen assured him, “and I am in your debt for not allowing harm to come to Is—” He broke off. “Our queen.”

Roman grimaced in the dark. He hadn't realized until now that he had shouted Isra's name in his panic to locate her. He didn't know who else had heard him besides van Groen at his very heels, but Roman's respect for the man grew more than a bit at the idea of him catching himself and not repeating her name before those gathered.

“Who knows what other mischief he might have caused,” van Groen added. “But now . . .”

“Now we have a body to contend with,” Roman finished for him.

“You want we should take it to the shore?” one of the men asked.

Van Groen shook his head. “No, the gates are already closed. Besides, that won't work this time with the tide.”

“This time?” Roman asked, raising his eyebrows and looking to the leader of the group. “Do you oft find yourselves with unwanted corpses?”

“We've yet to possess a wanted one,” van Groen quipped and then squatted down. “It's the guard from the gate.” He flicked the fringed purse on the man's belt, slid some sort of folded wooden measuring device partially from its leather holster and then returned it. “He'll be recognized when he's found. And we have all of the morrow to wait until our performance.”

“Surely the city wouldn't immediately blame anyone here,” Roman suggested. “He could have been killed by any number of people. You witnessed his behavior at the gate, van Groen. He likely had enemies, considering what he attempted this night.”

“Oh, certainly,” van Groen agreed, rising to his feet and brushing his hands together. “But that's an inherent danger of our trade, I'm afraid. And it's why, for the most part, we avoid staying long in the cities; we are easy targets upon which to blame the more distasteful transgressions. It is infinitely more palatable for the officials to seize our things, hang one of us, and send the rest of us packing than to contend with the political strife of trying one of their own.”

“Especially if one of their own happens to be a noble or official,” Zeus offered bitterly, and Roman wondered about the man's experience in that situation.

“Indeed,” Asa agreed. He looked to Roman. “And it's why we are oft not permitted entrance to the cities. Things seem to . . . happen when we're about.” He looked down at the body again. “Things such as this.”

“What do you . . . typically do?” Roman asked. “In a situation such as this?”

“Well,” Asa sighed, “as I see it, we have two options. One, we hide the body in our midst until after our performance. Then we leave it somewhere it will not likely be discovered until we are well out of sight and out of reach.”

“What's the other option?” Roman asked.

“We leave Dubrovnik at first light, as soon as the gates open, eschewing the morrow's performance and dumping the body into the sea. The first option allows us to at the very least double our profits, although we run the risk of him being discovered. After all, your cart might resemble a slaughterhouse in the light of day. The second option gives us a better opportunity of distancing ourselves from the area before the body begins to decompose and stink in this mild weather, but our abrupt departure after such a gracious invitation to stay on by the mayor himself will inevitably seem suspect.”

Roman nodded. Van Groen was incredibly composed about such things, and it gave him confidence in the man. “We'll not be sleeping in the cart now. We could hide him within.”

“Aye, stay,” Zeus said. “We need the coin.”

“Stay,” another strongman added.

“My advisers have spoken,” van Groen said, “and I must admit I agree. Of course we must speak with the queen to be certain she will be able to perform again so soon after enduring such an ordeal. All right, lads, let's get him up and into the cart.” He turned to Roman when he bent to take hold of an arm. “No, man, not you. You've eliminated the threat; we shall dispose of it. Your job continues to be looking after our lady.” He leaned to look around the side of the cart. “Where is . . . ?”

“She went to the fire,” was all Roman said, because in truth it was all he knew. “I'll see if there is aught she requires from the cart, though I doubt it.”

“As do I,” van Groen acknowledged. “Quite the spot of luck she had, hitting that vein in the dark. It certainly made a hellish mess, though.” He held out the long dagger, hilt first, to Roman. “I don't know if she'll wish this returned or not.”

Roman took the blade. “It was a gift from a friend,” he murmured, looking down at the fantastically forged handle. He wondered that Maisie Lindsey hadn't set out to save Isra's life that morning they'd left Melk. “She'll want it. Eventually.”

“Very good,” van Groen said, unfastening the green velvet of his frock and shrugging out of it. He hung it on the edge of the cart bed and squatted with the men to take hold of the corpse. “I'll join you both in a trice,” he wheezed as they lifted the body in one motion.

Roman began backing away. “My thanks, van Groen,” he said, and found that he truly meant it. He turned toward the fire and was halfway through the maze when he heard a woman scream in fear for the second time that night.

* * *

Isra had not bothered to knock on the low door at the back of Fran's wagon. She'd seized the latch and pulled, and the door had swung wide.

“Thought I'd leave it unlocked because you had so foolishly returned my key,” the woman slurred from somewhere within the blackness of the shelter. “Come in, my Roman.”

Isra's heart pounded like a hammer in her chest. The woman had thought to have Roman well busied while Isra was being raped. Instead, Fran had forced that good and noble man to commit murder. The only time in the whole of her life Isra could recall being in more of a rage was the black day when she'd found Huda.

She climbed into the darkness of the wagon readily, flung herself into the unknown environment with her hands outstretched, her fingers hooked, clawing through the blackness. She felt her nails skitter across flesh for the briefest moment, and the woman gave a shriek.

“Roman? Ow! What—?”

Isra lashed out again just above where the sound of the woman's voice emanated, and her fingers tangled in silky hair. She tightened her hand into a fist and gave a scream of rage, yanking the woman after her as she backed out of the wagon.

Isra hopped down through the door, dragging the screaming Fran. She gave a mighty heave and the woman fell away into the dirt, the firelight playing over her rumpled skirts and undone hair. From somewhere over her head, Isra thought she heard Lou screech.

Fran looked up, her face a pale mask of fright with reddened eyes. When she saw Isra, though, those eyes narrowed with ill-concealed malice.

“Who do you think you are, coming into my wagon and putting hands on me?” she demanded.

“Get up!” Isra shouted.

Fran suddenly looked about her and saw that the fire ring was deserted. Her face shot back around. “Where is everyone?”

“Get up!”
Isra screamed.

Fran's porcelain features hardened so that they resembled polished ivory and she drew her knees beneath her, her hands steadying her as she staggered to her feet, her eyes never leaving Isra.

“I would have thought you busy with your little admirer,” she slurred, swaying on her feet. It was obvious Fran was more than a bit affected by drink, but Isra didn't care.

She drew her arm back and struck Fran in the face, spinning the blond woman around and knocking her to the dirt with a cry.

“Get up,” Isra insisted again.

Fran looked up sideways at Isra, and it appeared a touch of reality had come back into the blonde's eyes as she took in Isra's bloodied appearance.

“What's wrong with you, you savage?”

“
I
am the savage?” Isra asked, taking slow, measured steps closer to the blonde, who began to pull herself along the ground, trying to increase the distance between them. “Did you hope he would kill me? Or just humiliate me?”

“I—I—” Fran stammered. She gave up and looked around the fire again. “Mother!” she cried out, seeing the old hag who had shuffled over to tend one of the numerous pots over the fire. “Mother, help me!”

The old woman looked up and frowned in their direction. “What's this about now, Franny?”

“She's going to kill me!” Fran shrieked.

Mother looked to Isra. “Well,” the hag drawled, “we should likely confer with Asa before all that. I'll fetch him.” She began to shuffle away into the darkness.

“Mother, no!” Fran cried. “Don't leave me here with her.” Fran's head swiveled back around. “You stay away from me, you . . . you rubbish! Leech! Asa will throw you out of the band now, attracting the like of such predators!” she taunted.