The Warrior's Bride Prize

‘Twelve years?’ He looked sceptical and she nodded.

‘It’s not so unusual. He lived mostly in town back then and he was still married to his first wife. It was only once he was widowed that he retired to the country. She was one of his kitchen slaves.’ She smiled sadly. ‘He used to say that he fell in love with her cooking before he even set eyes on her.’

‘Wait.’ Marius lifted a hand. ‘Go further back. What was she doing there in the first place?’

‘What do you think?’ She gave him a hard look. ‘What is any slave doing in a place that isn’t their home? Her village in Caledonia was one of those that defied the Romans when they were building the second wall.’

‘The Antonine?’

‘Yes. Roman legionnaires attacked at night so they barely had a chance to defend themselves. Everyone she knew was either killed or enslaved. She was only nine years old when she was brought south in chains and sold at market like an animal. My grandfather’s steward eventually bought her for his estate. She was a slave for thirty years.’

‘Until she met your father?’

She nodded vigorously, fighting a swell of emotion. ‘They fell in love. It sounds unlikely, I know, that she could love a Roman after everything they’d done to her, but she told me once that thirty years is a long time to hate. She said that my father wasn’t responsible for what had happened to her village and that love was love, wherever and whoever it came from.’ She rested her chin on her knees, looking inwards rather than out. ‘Though even then she refused to marry him at first.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she wasn’t his only slave. There were others, a dozen of them from all over the Empire. She told my father that she could never give herself to a man who denied happiness and freedom to other people.’

‘That’s why he set them free?’

‘Every one of them.’ She smiled proudly. ‘When Tarquinius heard about it he thought he’d gone mad. He even tried to stop the marriage, but by the time he arrived it was too late. My mother said they had a huge argument about it. He made my father promise never to tell anyone about her and never to go back to Lindum.’

‘His own father?’

‘Yes. Tarquinius was afraid of what it would do to his reputation if people found out that his father had married one of his slaves, so it was all kept secret. He probably bribed or threatened anyone who knew the truth. Fortunately, my mother didn’t care. She’d no desire to play the Roman lady and she loved my father. She thought that she was too old to have children, but then I came along and we were happy, her and Father and me. She taught me how to cook, as well as some Caledonian customs, including the language. She always told me that Caledonia was as much a part of my heritage as Rome. I grew up thinking of myself as belonging to both. It never occurred to me that other people wouldn’t think that way, too.’

‘Then what happened?’ His expression was still inscrutable.

She lifted her chin from her knees, looking at him sombrely. ‘She died. We thought it was just a cough at first, but it was more serious than we realised. One moment she was healthy and the next she was...gone. My father was heartbroken. It sent him into a decline, but he loved me and he knew that Tarquinius loathed me simply because of my mother. I think he clung on to life for as long as he could just to protect me, but eventually he got sick, too.’ She took a deep breath, blinking back tears. ‘Just before he died, he summoned Tarquinius and made him swear to take care of me, to treat me like a real sister.’

‘Did he?’

‘Maybe, although I don’t suppose that was saying very much in the first place. After the funeral, he took me back to Lindum and handed me over to his wife, but she hated me even more. She made me attend to her every whim, treating me like a slave in my own brother’s home. Then one evening, one of his business associates, Julius, a man twenty years older than me, noticed me standing in the background. I saw him staring, but I didn’t think anything of it until Tarquinius summoned me to his office the next day.’

She shook her head at the memory. ‘He walked around me, looking me up and down as if I were an animal to be inspected. Then he said that he’d arranged a marriage for me. He didn’t ask or offer me a choice. He just told me I was going to be married.’

‘To Julius?’

‘Yes. I was horrified, but Tarquinius said that I ought to feel honoured, that I ought to be grateful to him even for arranging any marriage at all considering who I was.’ Anger stiffened her spine. ‘That was how he said it, who I was, as if I were somehow repellent to him. Then he said that I should never mention my mother, not to a single living soul, but especially not to Julius, and that if anyone asked, I was to say she’d been a Roman widow from a nearby village. He said that if I told...’ She faltered over the words, the old fear reasserting itself.

‘If you told...’ Marius’s voice had a sharp edge to it.

‘If I told, then he wouldn’t be held responsible for the consequences.’ An icy shudder ran through her. ‘I was only fourteen at the time. I didn’t know what he meant, but he frightened me. He still frightens me... In any case, I went through with the marriage and I never told anyone. In ten years I’ve never spoken about her until now. It feels strange even saying her name.’

‘So that’s your excuse—’ the muscles in his jaw were bunched, as if he were clenching them all together ‘—that it’s simply become a habit not to speak about your mother?’

‘In part—’ she ignored the sarcasm ‘—although believe it or not, I wanted to tell you. I loved my mother. I was proud of her. She was so full of life and love and happiness despite how hard her life had been. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t talk about her. And Julius wasn’t a bad man, not really. He was kind to me at first. After a while I thought that he wouldn’t even mind if I did tell him the truth, but I was too afraid of Tarquinius to take the risk. Then he found out, just after Julia was born.’

‘But if you didn’t tell him...’

‘Tarquinius. After everything he’d made me promise, he was the one who told.’

‘Why?’

‘Money. He’d arranged the marriage thinking an alliance would make Julius more obliging in business. It did for a while, but he kept on pushing for more until eventually my husband refused. So Tarquinius told him everything, about my mother, about where she came from, about her being a slave. He threatened to tell the whole of Lindum if Julius didn’t give him the prices he wanted.’

‘Blackmail?’