The Phantom Queen Awakes (2 page)

“They’re fighting to protect their way of
life; we would do the same.”

“It may mean an end to us both.”

Severus nodded. “It may. No one can foretell
the fates of men but the gods.”

“So accepting of destiny. You’ve always been
that way.” Paetus rubbed a hand over his scalp, bowing his head a
little. “You and I have traveled together, fought side by side for
a long time now. I can see you slipping away within your head more
and more, Severus. Where do you go to escape the blood?”

Severus lifted his gaze to Paetus’ and allowed
a smile to flicker across his lips. “I go home, Paetus,
home.”

Paetus looked past the fire and into the
forest beyond, the slight smile he wore dropping away and his eyes
losing a bit of their shine.

At the beginning of their journey together,
they’d agreed to watch out for each other and to look after the
other man’s family should one of them fall to a Briton’s spear or
sword. It was a good pact, an honorable one. One born of pietas.
Paetus had four children, a wife, and a farm not far from Severus’
in Rasenna. Both he and Paetus were Etrusci. It made them
brothers.

Severus’ wife had borne a daughter that hadn’t
lived, but his two sons were robust. His older son was six and his
younger would be close to two by now. The child had been but a tiny
infant when Severus had left the farm. If he fell in battle, his
friend would care for them.

“Home would be a good place to be, my friend,”
answered Paetus. “Gods willing, we’ll soon be back there tilling
our fields.” He glanced at Severus. “I will keep you from slipping
over the edge of insanity until then.” Paetus clapped Severus on
the knee, laughed heartily, then rose and walked toward the cooking
fires.

The spitting fire he sat before warmed the
front of his body and left his back icy. Pushing up from where he
knelt, he made his way to the edge of the camp and into the dark
woods. He needed to be away from the men for a moment.

Twigs snapping under his boots and cold dry
branches caught his leather bracae ― one of the items of clothing
the Romans had adopted from the Britons ― as he made his way to a
half frozen river not far from camp. Here, the naked winter tree
limbs dipped bony fingers into the dark water. Camp noises could be
heard even here, but they were muffled under the heaviness of the
silent, dead forest. Ice cracked beneath his feet as he knelt and
pressed his bloody palms to the river, letting the cold leach into
his skin and blood swirl with the current.

He’d been fighting for so long now, too
long.

The tribes they fought were courageous and
bold, their battles hard won. Sometimes these people turned up in
naught but thin tunics and bracae, other times they wore nothing
but paint. But always they fought with their hearts to defend their
lands and families ― just as hard as Severus would fight to protect
his.

Severus looked up at the stars and quickly
figured out what direction home lay. Bowing his head, he raised his
near frozen hands to his face, welcoming the bite of the cold to
temporarily numb the longing for his hearth.

Water sloshed to his left and he glanced over.
A woman in a black hooded cape knelt at the river with a pile of
laundry beside her.

Severus blinked, wondering if it was an
apparition he saw. It was nighttime and they were near a
battlefield, not to mention his legion’s encampment. It was more
than passingly strange to see a local woman here; she had to be
from one of the nearby villages.

He stood. “What do you think, old woman,
coming out here so late at night?”

There were some men at camp who were riled by
the battles they fought, others had simply gone half crazy and were
lost in lust for violence and death. A frail, elderly woman like
this one would be in danger if her path crossed one of theirs. Luck
was with her this evening, that it was he who’d encountered
her.

She rocked back on her heels and turned her
face up to the moonlight. She wasn’t old at all. She was young and
very beautiful. Pale skin and long dark hair. Well formed features.
Slight of build. She wore a coarse black cloak, the hood halfway
over her head. Her narrow hands gripped a piece of clothing plunged
into the icy water, but she didn’t seem to feel the
cold.

She didn’t answer him. No great surprise. He
spoke in Latin, not knowing the dialects of these local tribal
people, and she likely didn’t speak his tongue. Still, it was odd
she should not react at all. She was clearly a woman of the area
and he was the enemy ― an invader and conqueror. The mere sight of
him under this full moon should have put the fear of the gods
within her breast.

The hair on Severus’ neck rose and a chill
that had nothing to do with the weather stole over him. What was
wrong with her?

“Did you not hear me address you?” he asked,
again in Latin since he couldn’t question her in any other
language.

Finally she turned to look at him. It was more
of a glance, really, a cool dismissal. “I am not deaf.”

So she did speak Latin. It wasn’t unheard of,
but it was unusual. Everything about this encounter was
unusual.

“You’re endangering yourself by being here. A
woman cannot venture this close to our camp under these
circumstances and not expect to be raped or worse.”

A smile flickered over her full mouth. “I can
take care of myself.”

Severus shifted, studying her. The women in
this part of the world were unlike those of Rome in many ways, but
not unlike his own wife. His wife held the fury of the gods within
her and he dared not anger her. Here, the females were even more
so. Here, they came from warrior stock and it was common enough to
find women who believed they could hold their own against a
stronger man, but generally they were mistaken.

As this one was. Such a delicate, lovely
creature wouldn’t stand a chance.

“What are you doing out here so
late?”

She held up the item of clothing she washed ―
a coarsely woven green tunic with the likeness of a hawk
embroidered with care near the hem ― and pushed it under the water
again. “It’s clear what I’m doing.” Then she wrung the water from
the tunic, placed it on the pile and stood with the laundry in her
arms. She turned toward him and tipped her face to the bright
moonlight again.

The breath rushed out of him in the full face
of her exquisiteness. Her cheeks were rosy against the perfect,
pale skin of her face. Her eyes ― in contrast to his wife’s
cornflower blue ― seemed nearly black, fathomless. Her hood had
fallen with her movements, revealing long, silky dark hair. Her
lips were as pink as her cheeks and her chin contained the
slightest cleft.

Never in his life had Severus encountered a
darker, more superb beauty.

Her expression was unreadable as she murmured,
“You have your job and I have mine.” Then she turned and walked
into the forest in a direction that led away from the
camp.

Stunned, Severus stood for a moment, and then
went after her. He told himself he was following her to make sure
the fool female made it back home unmolested, yet the truth was
that he simply wanted another look at her. Her presence was almost
intoxicating.

Yet once he stepped back into the tree line he
could see no one. Only a raven sat silently on a tree limb above
his head, watching him with eyes as dark as the woman’s.

****

The roar of dying men filled Severus’ ears.
His horse leapt over a dead Roman, a spear still clutched in
Severus’ bloody hand. The man had not even had time to release it
before he’d been cut down by the sword of their enemy.

One couldn’t tell mud from blood
now.

Across from him, Paetus swung down from his
injured horse and entered the fray. Digging his heels into his
mount, Severus surged forth past his men and the enemy tribesmen
who fought so passionately to defend what was theirs.

They hadn’t a prayer.

Not against the Roman battalion of archers who
had already laid a carpet of bodies for his mount to dance around.
Not against the first wave of spear-wielding soldiers who, more
often than not, laid down their lives and took one or more of their
enemies with them. Surely not against the cavalry who cut a bloody
swath through them, all the while mounted far above
them.

A bearded barbarian came from his left, teeth
bared and sword cleaving through the air. It bit into his mount’s
flank and Severus went down with equine screams echoing in his
ears. He hit hard, narrowly missing the heavy weight of his horse
and rolled away, colliding with the dead body of a fellow Roman. A
blade ripped through the air above him and Severus leapt to his
feet, dodging the tip and swinging his shield around to catch the
man in his throat. The edge of his shield connected with soft flesh
and the man made a gagging sound, falling backward with blood
coursing over the hands he held to his injured neck.

Severus only had a moment before the next
barbarian was upon him. A blade hit his cuirass and sent him
stumbling forward. He touched a hand to the ground, pushed up and
whirled around, cutting upward with his sword in a deadly arc and
slicing through the muscle and tendon of the man’s unprotected
throat.

The lifeless body of the attacking barbarian
fell to the ground and Severus stared down at the half headless
man, at the pool of spreading blood. There was something familiar
about him, something...

The tunic.

He’d seen it the night before. It had been the
article of clothing the beautiful woman at the river had been
washing. It was a deep green, woven with the pattern of a hawk at
the hem. He remembered it well, because it seemed as though a woman
had spent much time on the piece, someone who had loved the man
enough to make it for him.

Had it been the same woman he’d encountered
last evening? Had Severus just killed her husband?

Severus only had a moment to wonder at the
coincidence before the battle forced his mind away from the river’s
bank and back to the field.

****

Severus stepped up to the river and knelt,
plunging his hands into the water and bringing it to his face. The
cold woke him from the stupor he’d found himself in after the
battle. He’d slipped into the forest as soon as he could, as the
slaves rushed around tending the wounded and dying, fetching water
and keeping the fires stoked.

Paetus had returned to the camp victorious and
flushed with the power of a conqueror. The day had been a rout.
They’d squashed their opponents into the bloody earth with the
heels of their sandals and were that much closer to taking this
entire region for the glory of Rome.

He tipped his head toward the star strewn sky.
Mars Gradivus. “Forgive me,” he whispered.

The man with the green tunic he’d killed today
had been the husband or the brother of the woman he’d met at the
river the night before. He could find no other explanation for what
had happened.

Severus killed because that was what was
required of him. At first, he had always come back from battle
flush with triumph and pride of his country, a quality that Paetus
had not yet lost. But now, after seeing the bravery of the
barbarians they had come to slaughter, seeing the honor and passion
with which they defended their hearth and home, now...

Suffice to say that he’d never wished for nor
wanted any sort of a personal connection with those he slew. He
lowered his head and plunged his hands deeper into the water,
atonement for being one of the deadliest warriors in his legion. He
was their pride, but he took no joy of it.

A soft weeping met his ears and he opened his
eyes, looking for the source. The washer woman knelt not far away,
a pile of clothing on the icy bank next to her and that same dark
shroud-like hood half covering her beautiful hair.

Severus had not expected to encounter her
again this evening. He’d only been seeking serenity and quiet away
from the camp. Seeing her again and knowing what he’d done, made
him repeat his words. They came out ragged and low. “Forgive
me.”

She turned her face toward him for only a
moment. “There’s nothing to forgive. It is what it is. Bad men must
die and so must good men.”

“I killed your man today. I know it because I
saw you washing his tunic last night.”

She took a piece of laundry up and calmly
dunked it beneath the black water. “So it was you who killed him.”
Her tone of voice was eerily calm. It had to be from the
grief.

He made a low sound of misery and turned on
his knees to face her. “I cannot sit here on this beach near you
and say other than the truth. It would dishonor us both.” He
paused. “Who was he to you?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. Perhaps
it was better if he didn’t know.

The woman continued to wash her clothes
without a word, until she finally put aside her work and stood.
“What does it matter? He was my brother, son, husband, father. They
are all my men.”

Severus pushed to his feet, feeling his gut
clench with the agony of the thousand deaths he’d caused her
people.