and now was standing not twenty feet away, calmly taking a bite of sausage and looking perfectly at home. The thick woolen cloak he was wearing was drawn over his head and beaded with rain. His sword was sheathed, and his hands were weaponless. He made no move to come closer and looked as calm as she felt despairing, as if their reunion was the most inevitable thing in the world.
'What are you doing here?'
'Following you, of course, since no sane man would come into Iola Wood unless a particularly fine stag had run this way-and maybe not even then. It's a tangle. Do you know that when you haven't been traveling in circles, you've been riding northeast, away from that Roman wall of yours?'
'I most certainly have not!'
'You're farther from your rescuing cavalry than ever.'
She whirled around to find evidence to contradict him, but there was none, of course. The sun hid, the sky was slate gray, the forest a maze.
'How did you find me?' she finally asked.
'I've been following you for hours.'
'Hours! Then why didn't you recapture me?'
'So we wouldn't have to do this again. I don't want to cage you, lady, but you need to realize how hopeless it is to try to reach this wall of yours. You can't find your way. Even if you could, we wouldn't let you. Your only luck is that you didn't do slightly better, because that would have meant the hounds, not me. They might have chewed on you for a bit before I could call them off.' He took another bite himself, which made her stomach growl. 'Now come. I'm tired of this game.'
'Why don't you just kill me?' she pleaded miserably.
He appeared to consider this. 'Because you're entirely too valuable. Because poor Savia is at wit's end, furious that you left her behind. Because I enjoy watching the choices you make, even the stupid ones. Because you've got some spark to you.'
'I'm too wet to have any spark left.'
He grinned. 'I don't think so. We'll turn you into a Celt yet.'
They led their horses into the trees and tied them. Arden gave her a cloak he'd rolled behind his saddle, as if anticipating her recapture from the moment he'd called for his horse. His confidence infuriated her. Yet she took the garment with gratitude, her body thoroughly chilled, and watched dumbly as he gathered wood for a fire, picking dry scraps from under a log and flicking shavings with a knife. Flint and steel struck a spark. Despite her annoyance at recapture, his quiet efficiency at this vital task couldn't help but reassure her. A flame caught in the nest of duff, and he added twigs and then branches to nurse it to size, a reassuring pop sending sparks wafting upward. The heat was hypnotizing. She stood near, opening the cloak to dry her sodden clothes underneath.
'My thanks for the fire.'
'It's not for you. The smoke signals that I found you.' He handed her bread and sausage. 'It lets everyone else go back inside and get warm.'
'Oh.'
'But it's true I don't want you dead of exposure. What use would you be then?'
'Oh.' Was he mocking? Or afraid to admit kindness? The bread was ambrosia, the sausage a different kind of heat.
'I was lost,' she admitted.
'Obviously.'
'I thought you'd kill me if you caught me.'
'Well, it might have saved me a piece of bread. But then why catch you?'
So he wasn't going to kill her. He gave no sign he intended to molest her, either. Despite all her dire expectations she suddenly felt strangely safe with this man, this barbarian, this murderer, this awful hunter of heads and consorter with witches and leader of brigands: not imprisoned but rescued, as if rescued from herself. The feeling was so unexpected that it confused her. She'd felt so bold and clever to escape, and now so foolish.
'I would have found my way eventually,' she impulsively insisted.
'Your way where?'
'To my husband.'
He grunted. Mention of Marcus irked him. 'Who you barely know.'
'He's where my heart lies. Sooner or later, it would lead me to him.'
Arden shook his head. 'You've yet to feel your heart, I think. Yet to feel love. You're nothing like your husband at all.'
'You don't know that!'
'Everyone along the Wall knows that.'
'How dare you say such a thing!'
'Everyone knows about the marriage, and his appointment because of it, and the fact that you're three times braver than your husband and five times smarter. The Romans fear you, and the Celts admire you. You've come to a better place, believe me.'
She didn't believe him, not for a moment, and yet his comment about the longings of her heart disturbed her. Secretly she suspected there was some tiny truth in his presumptions, and yet he was also maddening. Who was he to say what her heart had felt, or how deeply she'd loved? Still, there was a yearning in her breast that remained unfulfilled, a formality to her marriage that seemed to belie the promises that the seer had made in Londinium. Perhaps deep love would develop, but this brigand had stolen some of her complacency. 'I know my husband is looking for me right now, at the head of five hundred armed men,' she said.
'And I know he isn't.' Arden had seated himself on a log and was ripping off great chunks of bread with his teeth, gulping them down like a wolf. The man was disgusting! And yet there was something compelling about his lack of self-consciousness, his freedom from doubt.
'He'll catch you unawares,' she argued doggedly.
'No, he won't.'
'Why are you so certain?'
'Because we've already sent him one of the heads of the soldiers we killed, preserved in cedar oil, with a warning that yours will come next if he dares try to rescue you. If he truly loves you, he'll leave you, with me.'
'No, you didn't. I saw the four heads in your Great House.'
'You saw four of what were five.'
Her heart chilled.
'Hool stayed behind for a while to package the head of the man who first tried to save you. We've sent it to the Romans.'
'Clodius? You're a monster!'
'I'm a warrior and a realist.'
Furious at herself for showing weakness, she began to weep again.
'Oh, come, lady, it's not as bad as all that. Your young soldier died in battle, the best fate of all men, and his head is being honored. It means his soul is still protecting you. I'd be flattered if our fortunes were reversed.' He reached in a leather bag. 'Here, have some dried fruit.' He held up shriveled apple and pear.
She was still hungry enough to want it but instead refused, sitting across the fire to fume. She couldn't believe Marcus wouldn't try rescue. Clodius's poor head would spur him on, not deter him!
Yet where was he?
Perhaps she should just wait for her husband. Wait in the warmth of Arden's fort.
She hated men and their cruelties.
'So,' Caratacus went on, 'the question is what to do with you in the meantime. Everything I've heard and seen suggests that you're a natural horsewoman, a Morrigan of the Romans.'
'Who's Morrigan?'
'How ignorant you Romans are about the island you've conquered! She's the goddess of war and the hunt. Her symbol is the horse.'
'I simply like horses. They seem as noble as men are base.'
'So we agree on something after all. Will you go riding with me, then?'
