The Warrior's Bride Prize

Chapter Fifteen

After the first half-hour, Marius moved to the front of their small column and Livia was able to study his back at leisure, as if that might tell her something about the man she’d recently married. She had no idea who he was, not really, and their wedding night certainly hadn’t revealed anything new, primarily because they’d spent it apart.

Grateful though she’d been for the extra time with Julia, she’d felt strangely, irrationally slighted, too. She’d thought that he was attracted to her, but perhaps she’d been mistaken about quite how much. Either that or she’d simply projected her own desires on to hi

m. As mortifying as the idea was, perhaps he hadn’t wanted to spend the night with her. Common sense told her that it was only him being thoughtful again, but common sense seemed to hold no sway over her emotions. Now she was even more afraid that he’d married her out of a sense of honour. Which made her keeping secrets from him ten times worse.

As for those secrets, she’d already decided to tell him the truth—just as soon as they had some time alone together in Cilurnum. She’d spent most of the previous night unable to sleep for thinking about it, Julia clasped tight in her arms, until finally her conscience had got the better of her. No matter what the risk to her and her daughter’s future, she owed him the truth. She ought to have told him before they’d married—she had no excuse for that except that events had moved so quickly—but since she hadn’t, she had to do it as soon as possible and definitely before anything physical happened between them, if anything physical were going to happen between them, that was.

An opportunity had just presented itself when he’d asked about her mother’s tribe and she’d lied. Although she could hardly have told him now in the middle of their journey with eight guards on either side of them. She needed to sit him down, to look him calmly in the eye and tell him everything. If he was the man she thought, hoped, he was then he would understand. If not...

She pushed a lock of wet hair from her eyes, trying not to think about that. She’d deal with that if and when it happened. In any case, now definitely wasn’t the time for that conversation, not when she must look so utterly and thoroughly bedraggled. They all did, all except Marius. Somehow he was still managing to look the very epitome of a Roman soldier, his armour still polished and gleaming, despite the weather. How did he do that?

She was so engrossed in admiring the broad contours of his back that she didn’t notice it at first, a dark line emerging out of the grey drizzle on the horizon ahead of them. Then she thought it must be some kind of low-lying cloud, rising and falling as it followed the rolling undulations of the landscape, clinging to the ground like some kind of petrified wave. It was a few seconds before she felt a dawning suspicion, accompanied by a sharp jolt in her chest.

‘There it is.’ She was only certain when Marius dropped back to her side. ‘Hadrian’s Wall.’

She pulled on her reins, holding her horse steady as she stared into the distance, too overcome with emotion to speak. As if on schedule, the drizzle ceased and a few shafts of sunlight broke through the clouds, bathing the scene in a vibrant golden glow that looked nothing short of spectacular. There it really was, the boundary between the civilised Roman world and the barbarian wilderness beyond—her mother’s homeland. Her heart ached with the beauty of it. She felt tears well in her eyes and tipped her head back, letting the feeling soak in. She was here. She’d made it at last and with Marius at her side. For some reason, his presence seemed strangely fitting.

‘It’s quite impressive the first time you see it.’ He spoke softly, as if reluctant to intrude upon her silence.

‘It is.’ She blinked the tears back, unable to keep the wonder out of her voice. ‘My mother told me stories, but I never imagined anything like this...’ She twisted her neck back and forth, following the line into the distance. ‘It goes up and down. Somehow I imagined it was a flat line.’

‘It follows the shape of the land. This area is actually flatter than most, perfect for cavalry.’

‘Why are there so many towers?’

‘There’s a mile-castle every mile and two turrets between each of those. That way if there’s an attack, the soldiers on guard can communicate with flags or beacons. They can get a message from one end of the wall to the other in less than an hour.’

‘Is that Cilurnum?’

There was really no need for her to ask. The road they were riding along led directly towards a long, rectangular-shaped fort with a huge double gateway at the front and more towers at each corner.

‘That’s it.’ He nudged his horse forward again, leading them over a narrow strip of land like a bridge over what looked like a deep, man-made ditch.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed downwards.

‘The vallum. There are ditches on both sides of the wall.’

‘To defend it from attack?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’ She pursed her lips, resisting the urge to ask why the south side would need protecting if its inhabitants were, as he claimed, so in favour of Roman rule. But she’d already given away too many of her thoughts on that subject earlier, too upset about leaving Julia to mind her tongue and be cautious, and the last thing she wanted was for him to guess her secret before she had a chance to tell him.

One side of the gateway creaked open as they approached and they rode into a smaller, more compact version of Coria, though this time they took an immediate left turn away from the Via Principalis towards some stables.

‘Varro!’ A giant of a man with a thick, bushy beard and piercing blue eyes came striding towards them as they came to a halt. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Have you missed my company so much?’

‘Ario.’ Marius dismounted quickly to greet him. ‘Has your beard really grown so much in two days? There are more knots in it every time I see you.’

To her surprise, the two men embraced like old friends before Marius held an arm out towards her.

‘May I present my wife, Livia Valeria.’

‘Wife?’ Ario didn’t make any attempt to conceal his surprise. ‘Have you been keeping secrets from me, old friend?’

‘I’ll explain later. Livia, this is Ario, the man I told you about.’