The Barbarian's Mistress (27 page)

She felt her head beginning to spin. Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did his face keep going in and out of focus in front of her? What was wrong with the side of his face?

He shook her again. When she gave a hiccoughing cry, he pulled her in close. Ninia didn’t even realised she’d wrapped her arms around his waist until she was clamped, chest to chest with him, her head resting against his shoulder.

‘He drowned. I couldn’t hold him on the planks… he slipped off…’

His strong arms tightened around her, and she let them, clinging to him as she had clung to that piece of wreckage. Her father had got her onto that wood because she couldn’t swim. And then he hadn’t had the strength to get himself up with her. He’d gone under, and never come up.

‘It’s over… you’re alive. Don’t think about the rest.’ His voice was a deep growl under her ear. It made sense. She knew it made sense. But all she could see was her beloved father sinking into that boiling, sand-scummed water.

For a long time he held her. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t kind. He just gave her what she didn’t know she needed. Something to hold onto. Something living, breathing.

Eventually she drew back, flustered by her display. He let her go, and didn’t even look in her direction.

‘Was it your man who drowned?’

Ninia frowned. Her man? She didn’t have a man. Would never have a man, after what Publius had done to her.

‘You’ll find someone else. You’re pretty and young. Time heals…’

‘No it doesn’t. What would you know? It… it was my father who drowned saving me.’ She gulped back more tears that threatened.

‘I know about losing what you love. My father died trying to save me, too.’

She look
ed in his direction, some of her fierceness evaporating. It was now so dark she couldn’t see more than his general outline. ‘I’m sorry. How old were you?’

‘Ten. We need to get out of here as soon as it’s light. Those pools might give us enough water for one more drink in the morning, but after that … If this sickness comes back… you’ll have to leave me. Try to get as high as you can to get a better sense of the lay of the land. Who knows, there might be a settlement around the next headland.’

‘Why do men shy away from talking about what hurts them?’

He jerked around and scowled at her. It wasn’t that she could see his scowl, it was more that she felt it.

‘Are you calling me a coward?’

‘No. Just… it doesn’t matter. It isn’t my business.’

‘Little girl you have no idea what hurts, and why I don’t talk about it. If I told you …’

‘I know pain. I know… Don’t call me little girl, as if I’m some simpering patrician.’

‘I was buggered for four, very long years. Until I killed the last man who tried it. Is that the sort of sharing you want?’

Ninia was shocked by the crudity of his words, and the coldness in their delivery. Why had she pushed him on this? They were strangers. Their wounds didn’t need to be shared. She’d never wanted to share like this. Not even with Anni. But part of the reason for that, her little voice said, was that her innocent mistress couldn’t know what it was like. No one could, unless it had happened to them.

Like this man.

‘I…I’m sorry.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.

‘You have no idea…’His was harsh and angry.

‘Yes, I do.’

His turned in her direction again, and his stony silence challenged her to go on.

‘I don’t talk about it… Ha, just a minute ago I was complaining that men don’t like to talk about such things. I think I’m going mad… ‘

His posture didn’t change. He had taken her challenge, and now he was issuing one of his own. It would be easy enough to look away, and change the subject. He didn’t need to hear her story. Maybe he’d raped some girl himself, along the way… She might give him ideas.

But she’d started this. And she liked the respect that she’d won from him in the hours they’d been together. If she backed off now, she’d lose that. Men like him didn’t respect cowardice.

‘When I was thirteen, my master’s son wanted to punish his sister. She’d learned not to show how much he hurt her, over the years, so he was always looking for something worse to do to her… to make her cry. He knew she loved me like a sister, even though I was only a slave. So one day he mounted me like a dog, and forced her to watch. And he laughed harder, the more I struggled, the more I cried.’

‘It happened only the once?’ His voice was oddly tentative, oddly croaky.

‘Yes. His mother found out and put a stop to it. Not because she cared, but because I was valuable. You don’t break something valuable. And for a long time, I was broken.’

‘You could have poisoned him, and got away with it. ‘

Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that was the last. How could he have known that the thought had crossed her mind a hundred times? If Publius hadn’t left her alone, if he hadn’t started leaving Anni alone, she might have found some way to hurt him. The guilt over those thoughts had taken her even deeper into that dark place.

‘So you survived, as I did. Is it necessary to talk about it? Talk doesn’t fix anything.’

She tipped her head to the side, as she considered his question. Somehow, saying it out loud for the first time, in the darkness, to someone who had experienced it … was freeing.

‘I’ve never told anyone before. It actually feels… better…’

‘Never told anyone, either. Can’t say it feels any better to me. I… thought I’d die that first night. It hurt so bad. But when I didn’t, I learned to …not think about it. I learned to survive. Shit happens. To everyone. You can cry about it, or you can live through it.’

‘You’re stronger than me.’

‘You’re alive. So you lived through it. And with any luck you’ll live through this. Fuck …’ She could hear his teeth chattering again. ‘Not again. I’m starting to think I might not live through
this
.’

Without thinking, she reached out and put her arm around his shaking shoulder. For a moment he hesitated, as if not willing to show his weakness, especially after what they’d shared. Then, she felt him relax into her, h
is head dropping onto her chest so she could wrap herself around him. His arms wrapped around her.

‘I told my partner I’d take this girl we’re hunting, if her protector made it too difficult. Don’t think I would have. Forcing myself on someone weaker… that’s the act of a coward. I haven’t sunk that low yet...’

‘Hunting?’

‘Mmmm… it’s a job, an assignment.
Kill the man, return the girl to her mother. Don’t mistake me for something I’m not. I’ve been making my way in the world by shedding blood for most of my life. A pirate, a gladiator, and now a
private contractor
.’ He gave a little self-derogatory laugh, between shivers. ‘Gods my head hurts. Feels like Vulcanus is bashing his bloody anvil between my eyes.’

‘Killer for hire?’ Ninia asked, her mind suddenly crystal clear.

There was a scar on the other side of his face. When she’d panicked, she’d seen it outlined by crusted sand, but not understood what she saw. She’d only glimpsed it fleetingly.

Hadn’t one of the men at Palinurus had such a scar? His partner had missing fingers.

‘It’s a living like any other. And I’m good at it.’ He drew back a little, as if trying to read her expression in the dark. ‘I won’t hurt you. You’ve got nothing to fear from me. And if we live through this, I’ll get you back to your people. I won’t leave you unprotected…’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why would you do that for me if…if you’ve got a job to do?’

‘I pay my debts. You’ve been kind to me. I’d be dead now, if not for you. I’m not… all bad. Yet.’

A short time later, the rigidity set in and he curled up in a ball, his head on her lap. It was hard to see him as anything but a sick and damaged man, even after what he’d told her. But as she held him, the reality began to sink in. She had washed up on a deserted beach with a killer who meant to deliver Anni back into the hands of her mother. A killer, who had considered raping his quarry.

Ninia had lost her father, her only protector. All their money and possessions had gone down with the ship. All she had was the slip of vellum that was her manumission, enclosed in a small, waterproof bag around her neck. Her father had insisted on that.

How could she save Anni now? Leave this one killer to his fate here on this rocky beach, as he’d suggested she do? But that left one man still in play. And that man could hire any number of cutthroats he needed, when the time came to take Anni from Vali.

If they’d survived the wind storm. Only a day ahead of them, they would have to have been subjected to its fury. Ninia’s ship had gone down, Scarface’s may have gone down too, after he was washed overboard. There was every chance Anni’s had not made it through.

No, she wouldn’t think about that. Her companion was right. Thinking about painful things was a bad idea. They weakened you. She couldn’t afford to be weak now.

Sometime later, the chills turned into fever. Scarface began to sweat and burn. In his delirium he started to mumble and cry. Was he ten years old again? He didn’t fight her. Instead he clung to her. At one point, when he clung particularly hard to her thighs, burying his head into her lap, she thought she heard ‘Mama…’

When had he lost his mother? He only mentioned his father dying to save his life. Whether she was dead when he was taken didn’t matter. He’d lost her then, anyway. So young to be all alone. So young to be tortured, over and over again, in that debased way. Who wouldn’t become violent, after a childhood like that? Even she had considered killing after just one such episode, and she’d been three years older, and had Anni and her parents to care for her. He’d had nobody.

As the fever intensified, and his skin burned hot as a flame, she decided she had to get him cool. She remembered a physician from Africa telling her mother to cool a fever, or it would lead to madness. Being stuck on this rock with a madman was her nightmare come to life.

When his delirium abated for a time, she shook him awake and coaxed and bullied him onto his feet. Then, one torturous step after another, bearing the bulk of his weight on her shoulders, she got them down to the water’s edge. There, she had him lie in the water, deep enough so that it covered him. She sat in the shallows, and placed his head in her lap, keeping it out of the water. Then she began to sprinkle the cool liquid onto his forehead and hair, stroking the drops away with the tips of her fingers.

The water was inky black and not cold, after the first few moments. But the night breeze cooled her wet skin, as it seemed to do for her companion. Over the hours, Ninia kept up her vigil, moving them a little further out as the tide dropped lower, all the while trying not to think about the future. Trying not to think she was keeping her friend’s nemesis alive.

Sometime around first light, his body began to cool, and the fever broke. With the first rays of the rising sun, he opened his eyes. They were clear and dark, but vaguely confused. He lifted his arms, and realised he was in water. Frowning, he levered himself onto his side in the shallows.

‘Why am I here?’ His voice was croaky, and he cleared his throat.

‘You were burning up. I had to get you cool.’

He looked at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she was real. ‘You got me down here by yourself? Have you slept at all?’

She shrugged and looked away, embarrassed by the expression forming in his eyes. She had done only what needed doing. Why was he making it seem as if she was some kind of hero?

His bare, wet arm reached up and he cupped her cheek in the palm of his roughened hand. ‘Thankyou… I don’t even know your name.’

‘Ninia.’

‘Thank you, Ninia. You saved my life.’

She felt her face begin to burn, but she didn’t move away from his hand. Nor did she break eye contact. Something strange was happening in her chest, and she didn’t understand it. This man made her feel tenderness. Not like she felt for her parents, or even for Anni, but something different… more. The feeling was fragile, vulnerable, and didn’t bear examining too closely. But it made her heart hurt. So she stayed where she was, until he could hold his arm up no longer, and he slid back into the water to rest his head back on her submerged lap.

‘They call me Braxus.’

She ran her fingers over his forehead, in just the way she had for the long hours of the night. As it become lighter, the ugly scar that ran from his eyebrow to his chin on the left side of his face became more defined. Absently, she let her fingertips run the length of it.

His hand came up to stop her, but never got there. As if thinking better of it, he relaxed and let her touch him.

‘You want to know how it happened.’ His voice was hard and brittle.

‘I have asked more than my share of personal questions. And you might force me to reveal more of my painful past, if I did.’ She let a smile play on her lips, to let him know she was joking.

‘Then I’ll tell you without asking, so you aren’t obliged to reveal more than you want to of your past.

‘I did it myself. One night, after they were finished with me, one of them called me a pretty boy. “Almost as good as a girl, with a face like that…”, or some similar words. I was mad with pain and self-loathing, and grabbed a dagger from somewhere. I sliced the side of my face open. I think I thought it would make them lose interest in me. All it did was make them laugh.’