'Now.' He stood. 'You're still captive, but not a slave. You're tied up as a free woman under Celtic law, and thus are the equal of your mistress.' He walked away.
Valeria watched him angrily. 'He's very arrogant. Pay him no mind.'
'I certainly won't.' Yet Savia watched Arden go with some regret, and felt guilty at her own longings. 'Being free under him is more frightening than being slave under you,' she finally offered. 'It's an empty promise he made.'
'He's a brute and an animal and an ambushing murderer, whatever he says about fair combat,' Valeria said. 'The cavalry will come, you'll see, and all these terrible brigands will hang. If they sleep, we might slip these bonds and reach the horses-'
'I can't outride these barbarians!'
'You will, or you'll stay here to mop out their pigsties. Or worse.' She glanced around. 'Those cavalry mounts are closest and… oh!' She gave a little cry, staring at the nearest picketed horse.
'What?' Savia said, turning.
'Don't look!'
So of course the slave did. What she saw were four Roman heads, gaping and sightless, tied with twine and suspended from the four horns of the saddle. Whenever the horse shifted its feet, the heads rocked in unison, as if to give a mournful shake of warning.
By late morning they were moving again, riding ever farther from the Wall. Valeria had been unable to sleep and felt increasingly exhausted. Her body was sore from the kick she'd received, the long ride, and the hard ground. Her refusal of food had been a mistake. Yet no one offered her anything more or even bothered to look at her. She wasn't used to being ignored, and that annoyed her as well.
In the daylight she began to get a better sense of the barbarians' country. They rode a few fragments of old Roman roads, long abandoned after the retreat from Caledonia and recognizable principally for their straightness. Yet their general direction was more circuitous, as if to confuse both hostages and any pursuers of direction, so for the most part they followed the meandering cattle tracks and game trails that doubled as human pathways. There were no towns and few fences, the farmsteads scattered so widely that livestock grazed free. All the homes were Celtic in style, the squat round huts topped by conical thatched roofs, but they seemed meaner and poorer than the habitations south of the Wall: lower to the ground, stained by the smoke of peat, and with more rubbish in the side yards. Chickens roamed, dogs barked, naked children played in the doorways, and each habitation stank of smoke, cooked meat, hay, manure, and leather. Yet a few paces away were fields of grain, meadows of high green grass, and flocks of sheep and prancing ponies.
Their abductors never stopped. Maybe this Arden was more frightened of pursuit than he pretended. They rode into a snarl of hills, the ridges cutting off distant vision and any sense of progress, their gallop occasionally setting off an avalanche of sheep as they breasted a flock. On and on they cantered, even the Celts beginning to slump, and just as Valeria felt so dizzy, sick, and weak with hunger that she feared she might tumble from her saddle, they finally paused for evening. She was in a daze. Her home and her Marcus already seemed impossibly far away, the Wall lost in a blur of hard riding. The stabbing of Clodius was like an unreal nightmare. The country ahead looked steadily higher and more rugged, its farmsteads degenerating into grubby hovels and its fields giving way to raw moor. She was being swallowed by the wilderness.
Their camping place was by a stream in a grove of pine, brown needles forming a cushioning carpet. The horses were picketed once more, a fire was built, and the smell of cooked meat and porridge made Valeria's stomach twist with anxious longing. Brisa brought them cheese again, and this time she accepted it eagerly, gobbling like a wolf. A skin of some kind of liquid was offered, and she squeezed it to release her first taste of acrid, foamy beer. It was awful but she drank anyway, sensing the nutrition in its dark grain. Thoughts of escape had been replaced with sheer exhaustion.
Then the Celtic woman strung her longbow, notched an arrow, motioned for Valeria and Savia to get up, and pointed to her crotch and some bushes.
'You don't have to be crude.' Valeria spoke for the first time in Celtic. 'I understand your tongue.'
The woman was instantly wary. 'How does a Roman know the language of the free tribes? You've never been in our country.'
'I've been learning from the Celts at Petrianis.'
'Why? Are you a spy?'
'I wanted to understand your people.'
'You learned from your slaves, didn't you?'
'My helpmates.'
'Your captive dogs, whipped and shorn of pride. They are Celts no more.' Brisa glanced at Savia. 'Does this woman know our tongue?'
'Enough to answer you,' Savia said.
She considered them. 'I admit that it's a novelty to meet Roman girls less stupid than the donkeys that pull them about. I've never seen one who cares for anything but her own comforts.'
The savage pretended to superiority! 'If you'd rather, we can try your Latin,' Valeria said to put her in her place.
She motioned them to move. 'You can piss,' she allowed, 'but if you run, I'll kill you.'
The women did their business and then went to the stream to wash as the barbarian leader had. The water was shockingly cold but also restorative, jerking Valeria from weary fog to harsh, all-too-vivid life. How grubby she already felt, just a day removed from her daily bath, her combs, and her table of paints! She mourned her imagined appearance, her hair unfixed, her clothes stained, her jewelry left behind in her reckless thirst for adventure. It wasn't comfort she craved, but simple decency. She must look as rustic as the Celtic woman sitting silently behind her… except in truth the woman didn't look all that plain but was strangely compelling in her warrior garb, a bright necklace of silver at her throat and bracelets at her wrists. A baldric and belt held a short sword, her mail had a sheen like raindrops on a window, and the laced boots that reached to her calves were of doeskin. Her cloak was a deep green, and she displayed the same animal grace as the man Arden.
'What are you doing here?' Valeria asked her bluntly.
The woman understood what she meant. 'I'm Brisa, daughter of Quint and a warrior of the Attacotti tribe. No man has yet won me, so I ride with the men.'
'But you're a woman.'
'What of it? I can shoot straighter than any man here, and outrun them too. They know it, and fear and respect me for it. When my brother was killed, I took his armor and sword. We Celtic women aren't soft and stupid like you. We go where we please and do what we wish and lie with who we want to.'
'Like animals.'
'Like free women of choice. We fulfill nature's demands by openly lying with the best men, while you Romans commit your adultery with the worst. You boast of how superior you are, and then chain yourself with fear and custom and hypocrisy. I wanted to see this wall of yours, and now I've seen it and am not impressed. I could scale it in a heartbeat.'
'And be arrested just as quickly.'
Brisa snorted. 'I haven't seen you Romans catch one of us yet.'
'It isn't natural for a woman to dress like a man,' Valeria insisted doggedly.
The Celt laughed. 'I'm dressed for war and riding! What isn't natural is to dress without sense, like you do. Maybe those men over there, the ones dressed like me, are dressed like women! Have you considered that?'
This Celt was turning everything around! 'How did you learn to shoot?'
'My father taught me, as my mother taught me weaving. I could teach you, if we decide not to kill you.' It was a matter-of-fact offer, as if the precariousness of her future was obvious enough. 'To shoot, at least. We'll see if you can hit anything.'
Valeria eyed the bow, secretly intrigued. 'I don't even know if I could draw it.'
'You pull each day, and each day you can pull it a little farther.' Brisa sprang up, enjoying this opportunity to boast. 'Here, I'll show you.' She pulled off a bracelet. 'Take this and walk twenty paces back toward the pine where you were tied.'
Valeria hesitated.
'Go on, I won't hurt you. But I might hurt your companion here if you don't do what I say.' She nodded toward
