The Gladiator Prince (29 page)

A girl no older than Anwen approached Prisca with another robe and helped her into it. The woman absently caressed the girl’s golden hair then lifted her chin to the guards and smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Chain him to the vault wall. I will be down presently.”

Thane tried to fight against the bonds, but they were as solid and tight as chains. He glared up at Prisca when she glided over to him, but the effort to stay conscious drove him to his knees. Long black fingers twisted through the lacings and pulled them taut, making the blood cease in his veins. Strength left him, and he fell back. He found himself laid out on a long litter that the women took hold of and lifted.

Prisca stood next to his head as blackness started to fall in on him. She ran one dainty hand through his hair and kissed him on the lips. He had no power left to fight her.

“Sleep well my handsome prince,” she cooed at him. “I will be down later to convince you that, although men may kill with precision, it takes the skill of a woman to inflict true anguish.” She laughed, and those bright white teeth looked predatory. “Send Phillius to the girl Anwen first thing in the morning,” she said to one of the guards. “Tell him he may do what he wishes to her, but to be mindful she does not die. One of my most well-endowed, if a little rough,” she said to Thane. “It will please him to have a young virgin, though I am afraid she will not be so pleased. When he is done, I swear, you will never see your little girl again. Take him.”

She faded from his view as the litter moved.

Chapter XXXIII

Phaedra and Thrasea had been at it almost an hour and they were no closer to getting Mabyn than they had been before they arrived.

The grizzled warrior, Tequelian, who must have once been well muscled and strong, was now bent with age, his voice a rough bellow that compensated for his lack of hearing. His wife, Lavinia, was much younger than her husband and seemed almost a doting daughter rather than a loving wife. They had been greeted with pleasant, if somewhat reluctant hospitality, and Lavinia had ordered fruit, bread and wine brought by the slaves.

Thrasea and Phaedra had both pressed the point to them from every angle, but they made little headway; the couple simply could not fathom how the child would be better off with her father or her own kind. They swore they would dote upon her, provide appropriate training, even find her an appropriate match when the time came. They could give her security, food, a loving home she so much deserved.

When they finally asked to see the child, the husband looked at the both of them and his voice became loud and fierce. “Due respect, Your Honor,” he sputtered at Thrasea. “You come into my house and demand to take a child we truly love away from us. What would you do, sir? Would you not also refuse? Of course you would. We love her. She will stay here.” He accentuated those final words by sitting back and folding his arms with deliberation.

“Now, Tequelian,” his wife muttered quietly patting his hand to ease his mood, “these people are not here to harm our sweet Musa.” She turned to Phaedra and laced her fingers together. “Are you a mother, my dear?”

“No ma’am, but I understand…”

“I do not think you do. Musa was sent to us by the gods.” Her eyes were the color of dark clouds, and Phaedra found herself lost inside them. “We lost our own child a while back…” the words were strained, “and the world went away for us. When Musa came, it was as if our own Helen had come back. We love her.”

“Then you must understand,” Phaedra said quietly, “that the child belongs to someone else. Someone who lost her just as you lost your daughter. She is not an orphan looking for a home. She has a home. It is where she belongs. If you just ask her…”

“She would want to stay here,” Lavinia said crisply, sitting back. “I am certain of it.”

Phaedra fell back and exchanged a look with Thrasea. “Then let me ask her. Let her make the decision. If you truly love her, you will allow her this choice.”

“She is a child,” the woman protested.

“She is a child who has more experience than many adults, madam. We have tried to explain that to you. The slavers did not care that they were taking her from the only home she has ever known, from the love and warmth of her own people. They dragged her from her world kicking and screaming so they could sell her to some random couple who had the money to buy her, as a slave.”

“We freed her,” Lavinia protested.

“She was already free…” retorted Phaedra with passion. “Born to a free people. She has the right to return to them.” Phaedra knew the words were harsh, but the woman had to listen. “Please, let me ask her.”

Something strange came over the other woman’s face; her brows furrowed, and her eyes darkened. “She will tell you she wishes to stay with us.” These words were not as compelling, and Phaedra could see the doubt skim through Lavinia’s eyes.

Phaedra rose slowly and looked down at the woman. “I can see it in your eyes. She has told you otherwise.”

The woman looked down and licked her lips. “When she first arrived.” She lifted her face to Phaedra and pleaded with her, “Please. We love her. You do not understand.”

Kneeling down, Phaedra took Lavinia’s hands. They were cold. “I do understand, mother. I need to hear it from her. If she wishes to stay, we will leave and make every effort to convince her father that she is better off here. I swear this to you. However,” she said with a sigh that eased her heart, “if the child wishes to return to her previous life, you must promise you will not stop her. You know what that would do to her.”

The woman nodded numbly and looked at the floor. “She would hate us.”

“Yes.” Phaedra got back to her feet. “Where is she?”

Lavinia untangled her hands and stood. “Follow me.”

“Wait… what?” Tequelian struggled to his feet finally taking Thrasea’s offered hand for help. “Where are you taking her?”

Lavinia turned to him and folded her arms. “To talk to the child. If Helen had been in a strange home, taken from us against her will, even though they fully loved her, I would wish that they also gave her such a choice. I have made a vow, husband. Do not dishonor me by railing against it.”

Tequelian tightened his face and glowered at his wife, but said nothing. She held his eyes for a very long time until the realization slowly replaced his consternation. With one last fierce glance, he clamped his jaw tight and nodded. Lavinia turned and left the room with Phaedra behind her.

When they arrived at an upper level floor, Lavinia led her to a doorway, nodded once and turned to descend the stairs.

For all her bravado earlier, Phaedra’s stomach twisted into knots, and she hesitated at the thickly curtained entrance. What if she failed? The thought made her heart pound and her head hurt. Thane would never understand, not about his daughter. He would probably never talk to her again, if he did not kill her. The scenarios dancing through her fear made it impossible to move.

A small sound alarmed her and the curtains suddenly flew open.

A little girl with hair the color of old wheat stared up at her with sparkling dark brown eyes so big, they dominated her face. Her brow was wrinkled.

“Are you snooping on me?” Her voice was high and lyrical, but there was an adult tone that amazed Phaedra.

“No,” she said shaking her head and trying to get her wits back. “My name is Phaedra.”

“Phaedra, you say?” The little face softened, and she looked Phaedra up and down. “You are pretty,” Mabyn stated plainly.

“So are you,” Phaedra replied still a little unsettled. “May I come in?”

The eyes moved from head to toe one more time, and Mabyn moved out of the doorway to make room for her.

After a little curtsy, the child lost all interest in Phaedra and dashed over to a lavish bed filled with clay dolls in elaborate clothing and several small balls. The toys popped up in the air when she landed with a bounce onto the mattress.

Mabyn picked up one doll and straightened its clothes. “Do you have dolls?” she asked absently.

“No,” Phaedra said, “but I did when I was your age.”

“Were they as pretty as mine?” she asked pushing the doll toward Phaedra abruptly.

She crossed to the bed and sat down on a stool too small for her. “No, not as pretty.”

“They call me Musa, but my real name is Mabyn. My father is a prince and I am a princess. Are you a princess?”

“I am afraid not, Your Highness, but I am a friend of your father’s.”

Mabyn stopped playing with the doll, and her little mouth opened slightly. Without looking at her, she said to Phaedra, “You know my father?”

“Yes, I do, Mabyn, and he is trying to find you.”

Small tears appeared at the corner of her eyes, but her expression remained frozen. “My father is dead. They told me.” The words were so quiet Phaedra could barely make them out.

“Who told you?”

“The other ones… in the village. The children.” She turned her eyes to Phaedra, and they accused her. “You are lying to me.”

Phaedra leaned in to take her hands, but Mabyn pulled them back. “The children were wrong, Mabyn. Your father is very much alive and has been searching for you. He is here in Rome. I would like to take you to him.”

It was obvious Mabyn did not believe her. Her little lips puckered in anger. “You are trying to take me away from here. I like it here. I do not want to leave. My father is dead and so is my mother. You are trying to trick me.”

This was going from bad to worse, and Phaedra did not know how to stop it. “Please listen, Mabyn. Your father is…”

A shrill shriek came out of the little pink mouth that Phaedra would not have thought possible. She put her hands against her ears to stop it, but it quickly dissolved into sobs and Mabyn threw herself among the dolls on her bed, barely larger than many of them. “You lie! You lie! You lie!” she shouted over and over again. Phaedra reached out to comfort her with a touch, but the shrill shriek came at her instead. At once, the little arms and legs began to flail against the bed, a small maelstrom amongst the toys.

Phaedra stood up and took two steps away from the child, terrified she had done something terribly wrong. Wringing her hands she tried to talk to the girl, but it was useless.

“Get out! Get out! Get out!” A barrage of dolls came hurdling from the bed, and Phaedra ran to the door to make her escape. She would let the senator talk to the child.

A thought suddenly struck her as she grabbed the curtain. It was deep and visceral, making her knees weak. The thought of letting Thane down, of disappointing him was simply stronger than her fear of the nine-year-old having a tantrum on the bed.

Closing her eyes and clamping her teeth together, she straightened her shoulders and her neck before turning slowly to the whirlwind of anger she had no idea how to tame. As if on cue, a doll came right at her face, and she reached up and plucked it out of the air inches from her eyes.

That stopped the tantrum for an instant and seemed to impress the girl, but before she could reach for another projectile, Phaedra slammed the doll to the ground, got her face straightened out, and put her hands on her hips. “That will be enough,” she huffed sternly, with every ounce of courage she could muster.

How she knew it was beyond her; the child needed to be treated with respect, as Phaedra would treat a stricken adult. It dawned on her that when she was younger than Mabyn her own world had disappeared into the harsh reality of deep secrets and suppressed desires. She knew exactly what Mabyn was going through. Her heart went out to the little girl as to no one else.

Mabyn lifted a doll to take aim, but her little face seemed confused a moment, and the toy went limp in her hand. Before she could reach for another, Phaedra crossed to the bed slowly.

“When I was younger than you are now, I also lost my mother. I had to have courage, just as you had to. I know how hard it is to stay brave… forever. You see, like you, I was also very sad.”

Her little lip poked out at the bottom, and she dropped the doll. “I am not sad,” she said, but her tone betrayed her.

“It is all right to be sad, Mabyn,” Phaedra replied sitting back down on the stool. “It took me a long time to figure that out. You have every reason to be.”

A kind of light shone in Mabyn’s eyes that made her look much older than she was. She sat down on the edge of the bed and let her legs dangle.

“Why are you sad?” Phaedra asked.

Biting the side of her lip, Mabyn got her legs swinging. “I miss it.”

“What, darling?”

One dark eye twitched up at her. “The river… the forests… my brothers and sisters and the nights we would laugh. But most of all…” She stopped to lick her lips and force back tears. Her bottom lip went tight and began to quiver. Phaedra had never met a braver child. “I miss my father.” When she lifted those large eyes and the sides of her mouth curled down, she looked ancient. The pain was very deep. “It has been so long,” she whispered. “I do not remember his face.” The terror in those few words washed over Phaedra’s heart. She wanted desperately to hold the little girl securely in her arms until all the monsters flew away… until all her own monsters flew away. She restrained her arms, her hands. It was not time… not yet.