She and Arden had made love well into morning before falling into exhausted sleep. At some point he'd awakened, kissed her tenderly, and left to attend to the clan. She'd lain in a cocoon of heat and musk, drifting randomly, dreaming of forest gods and a gourd-glow moon and the swirling stars of a winter's night. Now she came awake as if from a spell. How magical Samhain had been!
And then, as she remembered where and who she was, her contentment began to be polluted with guilt.
She had betrayed her husband.
Everything seemed turned upside down. She was in love with a man she once thought of as a dangerous and uncouth barbarian, and impossibly distant from a man she'd traveled more than a thousand miles to wed. She felt more at home in this timbered building than in the commander's house that was a reminder of Rome. She had more freedom and authority in the wilderness than she'd ever had in civilization, and thus more power with this poor tribe than she'd had in the Roman Empire. She was happier than she'd ever been, but only because everything she once scorned she now accepted.
How strange life had turned out to be!
Now she dreaded seeing Savia. The maidservant would no doubt start lecturing her about Christian ideas of sin.
Where was Arden? Suddenly she felt lonely with her doubts. Why had he left her like Marcus? Was this the way of all men? And why was her heart so suddenly and miserably confused? What mischief were the gods inflicting on her?
She got up, filled now with disquiet and a premonition that something was more deeply awry than she knew. It was wrong to have danced as a Celtic goddess, of course, no matter how weirdly thrilling it had been. Wrong to have gone to the bed of Arden Caratacus, sworn enemy of Rome. Yet how she savored the memory of his embrace, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough! Never with Marcus had she felt the passion and ecstasy she'd felt with Arden. It made her half dizzy even to remember it. So was the greatest moment of her life a mistake? Had she lost all sense? What did that foretell for future happiness?
What if she became heavy with child, hidden here away from her husband?
Why hadn't Marcus ever come for her?
The room was cold outside the coverings of the bed, and the sky had clouded over. It was already dim, slipping again toward long winter night. She looked outside and saw men leading strange horses toward the hill-fort corral. Who would come so late in the year? Or rather, so early in the next? Smoke rose from cooking fires, and she could hear the squeal of children and cackle of chickens. Everything was normal and yet strangely warped, as if viewed in a mirror. Her life had irrevocably changed.
She dressed hurriedly and crept downstairs. The Great House was being readied for supper, and Valeria realized she was famished again. She'd never been very hungry in Rome but always seemed that way here, where food was so simple. It wasn't just her mind that had changed, it was her very body, the buds of taste, the memory of smell. How disoriented she felt, as if still drunk!
She almost bumped into Asa, the redhead looking at her warily. Valeria's position in the clan had changed. By surrendering to the chieftain, she'd gained his power, so now Asa exhibited toward Valeria the surly deference of a disciplined dog. These were people who lived at extremes, overbearing in victory and downcast in defeat. "Where's Arden?" Valeria asked.
"In the Council Hut with a visitor." The question allowed Asa a small victory. "He's not to be disturbed."
The Council Hut was one of the round and peaked Celtic houses inside the hill fort, used for meetings when there were issues that were not for all ears. No doubt the horses Valeria had seen were from another chief. Was there some business that went with the dawn of the Celtic New Year? She'd have to ask Arden.
"Where's Savia?"
"Who knows?" Asa sniffed. "She scurries like a lizard from rock to rock."
Valeria got her cloak and went outside. She wore the high Celtic boots, but the mire had stiffened anyway: Cailleach had indeed struck with her staff. The overcast was low, its color sword-steel, and Valeria's breath made quick puffs of cloud. She wanted to find her maidservant, so much like a mother, and explain what had happened. Or have Savia explain it to her. She wanted, unconsciously, her slave's blessing.
Yet Savia was not at the gate, nor at the well. The corral? Valeria walked there and noticed that saddles had been taken from the tired mounts and placed on the rail. She was about to walk by, paying no mind, when she stopped and turned.
They were Roman.
The angle of horns, stitching of leather, and embedment of small coins were as distinctive as a face. These horses had come from the Wall.
Her heart skipped a beat. Was it Marcus, come to bargain for her release? Had she fallen in love with Arden Caratacus only to leave because of ransom?
But she should leave him, of course, out of loyalty to her husband!
She should, but she didn't want to.
She went to the railing of the corral and looked at the horses.
They whinnied, trotting this way and that, fearful they'd be made to ride again before resting. But no, she only wanted to see if she could tell which horses they were…
"The black one. Recognize him?"
She turned. It was Savia, the older woman hiding her face with the hood of her cloak. She'd stolen up on Valeria from behind.
"Go on, look," the maidservant urged.
The black one? Yes, there he was, big and proud, head uplifted, nostrils wide. "Galba!"
"Yes, my lady, Galba. Or rather, Galba's horse."
"Is the senior tribune here, too?"
"Like an apparition of the devil."
"Why?"
"Come to negotiate our release, I suspect."
"After all this time?"
"Before anything worse can happen. Before we forget where we came from and who we are."
Valeria felt sick. If it were Marcus, her feelings might be more mixed. But to have to ride back to the Wall with Galba…
"Why now? Why him?"
"I don't know. But if this concerns our fate, then I suggest we do what we slaves do best, which is listen. There's a hayrick in back of the hut where two women might hide while peering through a chink in the wall."
"A chink?"
Savia held up a stick. "When I saw Galba ride through the gate, as bold as an emperor and as wary as a wolf, I made one."
Two Roman cavalrymen guarded the door, Valeria recognizing the posture and profile of Galba's closest decurions. A third was in the rear of the hut, squatting in boredom. The women burrowed through the hayrick and lay not four paces away, invisible to his eyes. Savia's slit in the daub-and-wattle wall revealed Arden and Galba sitting by the charcoal heat of a small fire, each holding wine cups but regarding each other with the stiff courtliness of men who are allies but never friends. Behind them, listening like an owl and swaddled in robes, was Kalin.
The Roman's boots were spattered with mud, and his tunic was wet from sweat, evidence of a hard ride. Galba looked all business. So did Arden. The gentle and passionate lover of Samhain had been replaced by the warrior. He was unarmed but tense, military, alert, his features chiseled. Galba's face was darker and more sunken, as if caving in on itself.
"Are you here for the woman?" Arden's question was carefully flat.
"Who?" Galba seemed uncertain for a moment what the barbarian was talking about. "Oh, her. Of course not."
Arden stayed expressionless. "She's our hostage against attack, you know."