The Barbarian's Mistress (10 page)

Lara nodded and started walking a little faster. More than a bed, she wanted a bath. She was sticky with salt as well as sweat, and her hair had begun to itch badly.

The innkeeper had a small room at the top of the house set aside for married couples, and Vali took it, even though it was twice the cost of the dormitory accommodation. He led Lara up the steep, narrow staircase to the third floor and opened the door onto a room only big enough for a bed and a side table. Above the table was a long narrow window that had been shuttered for the day to keep out the heat. Now, Vali opened the shutters and let in the light, air and the spectacular view of the bay.

‘That’s better. The breeze will clear the stuffiness in here pretty fast. The bed looks comfortable enough.’

Lara had sat down on the bed and she nodded in agreement. Of course, it wasn’t what she was used to at home, but compared to the ground, it felt like a cloud.

‘Now, I want you to stay here with the things. Put the table against the door to keep out anyone who might try to get in. I’ll leave you the dagger. Once I’ve bathed, I’ll come back and take you down for your bath. I don’t want you wandering around by yourself.’

Having to wait longer for a bath was torture, but she understood why. They carried far too much gold with them to be left in the room unguarded, or in the bathhouse. She would do as she was bid, and be patient. Tomorrow, she’d be at Severus’ villa, and all this discomfort would be at an end. All she had to do was wait a little longer.

The sun was beginning to sink when Vali finally returned. He was freshly bathed and wearing a new tunic, cloak and sandals. He dropped his old clothes on the floor as he threw the carry-all over his shoulder.

‘Here are some fresh garments. I thought you’d prefer putting on something clean after you’ve bathed.’ He handed her a bundle of clothes. ‘I’ve found the women’s bathhouse. It should be suitable, if not as luxurious as those in Rome.’

‘I’ve never been to a bathhouse in Rome,’ she said. ‘I use
d the bathing facilities at home.’

‘Of course you did. Sometimes I forget how sheltered your life has been. Come on, and bring your new tunic, so you won’t look too bedraggled when you meet your husband to be tomorrow.’ She fingered the tunic of soft, fine wool, and several undergarments. They were not of the quality she would normally wear, but they were certainly better than what she’d worn for the last few days. She smiled at him with gratitude and followed him from the room.

When they reached the bathhouse further up the hill toward the forum, he handed her a copper ass. She looked at the small coin in surprise.

‘Pay the attendant inside. She’ll show you were to go. I’ll be standing right here waiting for you.’

She nodded and hurried inside.

Rome, LATIUM

‘What do you mean they aren’t back yet!’ Salvia spat, taking several threatening steps toward her cowering handmaiden.

‘I’m sorry mistress, but it is not my fault. Your husband has sent a missive saying Anniana is unwell, and he is forced to stay longer in Reati. What can I say?’ Mira said, her voice wobbling.

‘You can say that my fool of a husband is going to pay for this act of treachery. When he gets back with his little lamb I’m going to leave him, and take what’s mine! I’ve had enough of that old fool to last a lifetime.’

‘Yes mistress. Will you go to the Vulcanus celebration without Anniana?’

‘Of
course. I’ll have a difficult time dealing with Titus’ disappointment. But maybe it will serve to wet his appetite further. Maybe my fool of a husband is right. Maybe now isn’t the time for attracting Titus’ serious attention. He is still establishing himself. Maybe in a month he’ll be in a better position. We will see. But Bibulus will pay, nevertheless. No one thwarts me and gets away with it!’

Neopolis, CAMPANIA

That night Lara snuggled into the comparative luxury of their bed and thanked the gods for it. It had been a long and exhausting journey, emotionally as well as physically, but she now felt better than she had for days. Her body was clean, her stomach was full, and Vali lay at her side.

Outside the open window she could hear the night noises on the hot air; cicadas chirping, wind blowing in from the sea, and the rattle of passing wagons on the cobbled lane below. Vali slept at her side, and she missed having his shoulder as her pillow. She shifted so that her back rested against Vali’s naked side.

Tonight he had removed his tunic and lay down wearing only a loin cloth. It had embarrassed her at first, but she understood his reasoning. There were no mosquitoes here to make it necessary to cover up skin, and the air in their little room was hot, even with the open window. She wished she was brave enough to sleep as he did, but it was confronting enough having to share a real bed with him, without adding nakedness. Even at home, where no one but Ninia would see her, she never went naked.

She finally drifted into sleep with Vali’s soft snores comforting her …

…
and the world became a blazing cauldron, rocking and heaving beneath her feet. Everywhere she looked there were screaming, terrified people. And in the midst of them she saw a huge, sweating blacksmith, beating iron with his heavy hammer. The ground shook each time he pounded the anvil, and fire flamed high all around him. He raised his arms and snow began to fall from the smoky sky. But instead of the cold she expected to feel, as the snow touched her skin, she felt heat. And her skin sizzled and burned, turning black and cracking before her horrified eyes. The angry blood that poured out from the cracks smelled like the foul reaches of Hades.

Screaming she tried to brush the snow away, but the more she brushed
it off, the more fell to replace it. And she burned!

‘Anniana, wake up!’ She heard the name that he shouldn’t be calling her, and recognised his voice immediately. Vali was here in this fiery place, and she felt his cool arms holding her, rocking her, until the images began to fade, and she found she was once more in the Neopolis Inn.

‘Just a dream,’ Vali muttered, as he held her against his bare chest, and she breathed him into her lungs to comfort her. The moonlight pouring in through the open window painted his pale torso white as snow, and after the fiery hell of her dream it was a blessed release to feel his cool skin beneath her cheek.

‘All right now.’ His voice was little more than a deep, rumbling growl, and her senses were stroked by it. She tried to nod her head against his chest, because words would not come.

His big hands began to stroke her hair and shoulders, much as he had the horses after a hard day. He mumbled unintelligible words of comfort. Without being aware of it, her hand came up to trace the strange marking above his heart that she had never seen before tonight. It seemed to burn black against the white smoothness of his skin.

His hands stilled and he drew in a deep breath and held it. Then one hand came up to cover hers on his chest. Was it her hand that trembled or his?

‘Don’t,’ he whispered softly into her ear. She let him draw her hand away from the mark that appeared to be of three interwoven triangles.

‘What is it?’ she asked, pulling back to look up into his eyes.

‘It is a Valknut, a mark of honour for my people. It represents the heart of a giant who could defy death. A ward of great courage. I lost the right to wear it a long time ago.’ His voice broke.

She reached for his cheek with her other hand and stroked it. He closed his eyes, and seemed to focus all his awareness on the touch, leaning into it, as he drew ragged breaths into his labouring lungs.

‘It takes more courage to live than it does to die. If your gods do not know that then they’re foolish.’

‘A coward seeks to stay alive. A coward finds ways to avoid having to act. Like closing his heart.’

‘Did you fight when those pirates overran your ship?’ she asked gently.

‘Of course, but our vessels don’t have decks, so the only way we could fight was to cross onto their much larger craft. And there we were at a disadvantage. Outnumbered, corralled in
, so that to use our swords would have meant cutting each other down. I watched them kill my uncles first and throw their bodies over the side to the sharks. My father and I fought back to back for a time, until he was felled. Without him at my back they came at me from behind and pinned me, forcing my sword and shield from my hands. It took two of their largest to do that.’

She heard the pride in his voice, and she stroked the mark on his chest.

‘You fought valiantly. You were no coward.’

‘Not then. Later. As a slave… I did anything I had to, to stay alive. Ugly, depraved things you do not want to know about. I closed my heart, and did what I was bid.’

‘You survived, Vali. There is no courage in throwing your life away. Better to live to fight another day. Do you think my father would have entrusted me to you if he didn’t believe you would die to protect me? That you had that kind of courage.’

Vali turned his face to the window where the moonlight streamed in. Outside a wagon rattled by.

Finally he shook his head. ‘No, your father knew I would protect you. But what choice did he have?’

‘I’ve thought a lot about this while we’ve travelled. My father made the effort to find you when he started to see what my mother was planning. He sent you to be trained as a fighter, so that you could better protect me. He could have bought a cohort of ex-soldiers to carry out this task, but he chose just one. You.’ She stroked his cool chest, willing him to see the sense in her words.

‘You mustn’t,’ he said, taking her hand from his body. ‘Don’t encourage the beast in me. You know what I’m like when I lose control. I’ll scare you, hurt you.’

‘You’re no beast and I don’t think you’ll hurt me. You were angry then. You aren’t now,’ she answered him with more confidence than she had known she possessed. The more she came to know this Vali, without his mask, the more she realised he was not so different to the youth she’d loved with all her childish heart. Rising higher on the bed, she placed a chaste kiss at the corner of his grim mouth.

With a strangled cry he turned his head so that her mouth aligned with his own. And then he was kissing her, forcing her mouth open beneath his, and plundering it with his wild tongue, drinking from her like a thirsty man downs water.

Lara was too stunned to react. It was like the last time he took her mouth, but different. It was not anger that he communicated to her this time with his desperate kisses. It was something more terrible. He was hurting and he wanted her to make it stop. Somehow, these frenzied kisses would make the hurting stop. In a few hours, he would be gone from her life for good, and this was all he asked of her. To let him kiss her mouth in this way, let his tongue taste her in such a stunningly intimate way.

Forcing herself to relax in his arms, she tried to give him what he needed. And as she did so, her every sense became heightened by the intensity of his passion. His emotions seared her, burning her from the inside out. She drowned in his need, and began to know it as her own. Yet she was afraid of what she didn’t understand. What her body was experiencing. What it wanted.

His hands were everywhere at once, in her hair, on her shoulders and arms, stroking her, kneading her flesh as if he couldn’t get enough of it. He pushed her tunic from her shoulders and broke from her mouth to set a burning trail down her neck to her shoulder. And she arched into his touch, wanting more. Dazed and drunk with emotion she didn’t understand, with a desire she had never know
n, with a passion that threatened to spin her out of control, she let him take what he wanted. She let him gorge himself on her burning skin, and then move even lower until his hot mouth clamped over one sensitised nipple through the fabric that covered it. She bucked convulsively as he sucked hard and pulled on the peaked bud until the pain was exquisite pleasure.

He grasped her hand and placed it on the hard ridge in his loin cloth. Unsure what she felt she tried to pull away, but the draw on her nipple had her crying out with pleasure, and she closed her hand around the ridge convulsively, and heard him groan in agony.

And then he was gone, staggering across to stand at the open window, drawing in pained gasps of air, his body shaking as if with ague. His huge, muscular body was like a marble statue, braced by his arms on either side of the small window.

She felt bereft. Alone. She wanted… She didn’t know what.

‘Vali,’ she managed to whimper his name.

‘Don’t. You don’t know what you’re inviting. You don’t know what I want from you. What I’ll take from you, if I stay near you another moment.’ He ground each word out as if it were shaved glass. ‘Go back to sleep, Anniana. I will walk awhile and then return when I’m in control. Go back to sleep.’

And before she could think of anything to say to stop him, he had thrown on his tunic, and was gone. And she was truly alone. Her heartbeat still raced, and the place between her legs was strangely throbbing.

She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes, reliving ever
y intense moment of what had passed between them. Why had he stopped, and then run away from her? Was this the same as what Publius had done to Ninia? But it wasn’t. Not even that angry kiss he forced on her in the marshes had been like Publius.