They dragged her to the ground and pinned her down. The leader bent over her, grinning as he tugged at her dress. He lowered himself, and then suddenly looked at her in surprise. Ulrika stared up into his scarred face and their eyes met for an instant before he collapsed onto her, suffocating her with his weight. The others were suddenly on their feet, shouting. Pushing the unconscious man away, Ulrika sat up and saw Sebastianus Gallus, in a white tunic and blue cloak, come flying out of the forest, swinging a sword. She watched in amazement as the four warriors descended upon him, their swords meeting his.
Ulrika shot to her feet and searched for something to use as a weapon. She saw the dagger in the dead man's back, which Gallus had thrown on the run. She yanked it out and looked for a target, but the men were moving too quickly.
As metal clanged with metal, the Galician reached for the fastening at his throat, drew his cloak from his shoulders and threw it over the heads of Ulrika's assailants. One of them became tangled in the cloth and fell backwards. The other three continued to fight, attacking from all sides, with the Spaniard deftly meeting each plunge of a Barbarian's sword.
Gripping Gallus's dagger, Ulrika gave a cry and flew at the man with red hair, sinking the weapon into the meat of his shoulder. He bellowed and swung about. Ulrika managed to pull the dagger out and jump aside, to jab at another warrior.
With the clang of metal ringing in her ears as she thrust and hit and screamed, driven by fury and grief and self-recrimination, her eyes blinded by tears, Ulrika caught flashes of Sebastianus Gallus as he fought the Barbarians. She saw thickly muscled arms, broad shoulders, and a strong back as he swung his massive sword again and again, sending his foes reeling, staggering beneath his blows.
Gallus kept up with them, even though outnumbered, thrusting, slicing, spinning this way and that, meeting each blow that came his way until one attacker fell, and then another. With one man left standing, and Gallus advancing with his sword, relentlessly driving the Barbarian backwards, the others scrambled to their feet and ran off, shouting oaths over their shoulders as they plunged into the woods and disappeared.
Heaving for breath, Sebastianus watched them go, then he wiped his brow and looked at Ulrika. "Are you all right?"
She stared at him. "Yes—" she began. Was he truly here, or was he a vision? Why was he here? How had he found her? Gallus gulped for air, his chest expanding, muscles straining the fabric of his tunic. His closely cropped bronze hair and beard glistened with the sweat of combat. Ulrika was speechless at the sight of him. Sebastianus's sword was massive, yet he had swung it with ease.
"They will come back," he said as he retrieved his cloak from the ground and then picked up Ulrika's packs. He looked around the forest gloom. The sun had gone, night was nearly upon them. "I got separated from my party. I'll never find them in the dark. Those caves look safe for now."
Ulrika fell wordlessly into step at his side. She was numb with shock. Judging by their tribal tattoos, her attackers had been Cherusci, her father's countrymen. And yet her rescuer was really a stranger to her, with whom she had no connection, materializing out of nowhere, startling her with his strength and power—a man who sat with his abacus, counting sacks of grain.
"Here," Sebastianus said when they reached a cave surrounded by stunted trees and trailing blackberries. The fissure was small, barely visible, with just enough room for them to slip inside. "They won't find us in here."
But Ulrika held back. "No, not this one," she said.
"Why not? It's defensible. And we can camouflage the opening." Sebastianus glanced back toward the forest. They needed to find a hiding place quickly. As he stepped toward the cave entrance, Ulrika said, "No, they will find us in there."
She turned and surveyed the dark woods, listened to the stream trickling nearby. In the darkening twilight she saw ahead, on the other side of a stand of oak trees, a larger cave, with a wide opening, and no brush surrounding it. "There," she said, pointing. "We will be safe in there."
Sebastianus looked at her in surprise. "They will find us for certain in there!"
But she sprinted ahead, turning ghostly white in the purple dusk. Sebastianus ran after her. Ulrika disappeared through the entrance and Sebastianus had no choice but to follow.
Inside, he saw that the cave was deep and wide, with no openings branching off, no large rock formations behind which to hide. They might as well be sitting in the middle of a meadow! Before he could voice his objection, they heard voices—deep, angry, shouting. The Barbarians had returned and, from the sound of it, had brought friends.
Sebastianus dropped the travel packs and gripped his sword, ready to fight. But Ulrika seemed unconcerned as she slowly looked around the deep, black cave, turning in a circle, looking up at the rocky ceiling, until she was facing the entrance and Sebastianus. "We will be safe here," she said again.
Whispering a curse, Sebastianus took Ulrika by the wrist and drew her away from the opening, to press her against the cold wall while he peered around to watch the Barbarians.
But Ulrika did not mark the progress of the Germans as they tramped through the forest, drawing nearer to the cave. Instead, she found herself staring at Sebastianus's muscular arms and broad shoulders. His tunic was sweat-soaked from the fight, the fabric clinging to his back, defining hard muscles. The breath caught in her throat.
But then she saw the tear in the cloth, the red stain spreading over his upper arm. He was wounded! Ulrika placed her hand over the injury and pressed gently. Sebastianus flinched, then said, "Shhh."
They watched the Barbarians go inside nearby caves, search behind boulders, run their swords into dense brush, cursing oaths, wondering where the Romans had gone. To Sebastianus's surprise, they did not even glance toward the cave where he and Ulrika were hiding, did not come near, even though surely they must have seen it. He waited with held breath as the German warriors continued deeper into the woods, stamping over twigs and leaves until their footfall and voices could no longer be heard.
He turned to Ulrika, his face inches from hers. "How did you know they would do that?" he asked softly.
But she stepped away and opened one of her travel packs. Sebastianus watched as she sorted through the contents, bringing out a small, stoppered jar and a roll of cotton. Her dress was torn and soiled, her palla beyond repair, and her long, lion-colored hair streamed over one shoulder while still touchingly coiled on one side of her head. She looked tragic, yet proud, he thought. The bend of her slender body, the graceful movements of her hands—everything about her was fluid, elegant.
Sebastianus looked away and concentrated on watching the forest.
Even though the German warriors had moved on and could no longer be heard, Sebastianus remained watchful by the cave's entrance, his sword ready. Ulrika came up to him and, lifting the torn sleeve of his tunic, gently dabbed ointment on his wound. Sebastianus thought it a minor injury and would have let it dry and scab on its own, but she was cleaning it, and then applying more salve and finally wrapping his upper arm with strips of cotton fabric. Expertly done, he noticed, recalling what she had told him about her mother being a healer.
When she was finished, she lifted her eyes to his and for a moment both stood breathless in the darkness of the cave. Sebastianus felt the shadows move and shift about them, as if cosmic changes were taking place, and he remembered that he was cut off from his group, separated from his astrologer. Tonight, for the first time since he could remember, Sebastianus would sleep without his evening horoscope.