But where was he? There was a sudden break in the crowd and she caught sight of horses and a few bloodstained soldiers. Blood! Her heart actually seemed to stop for a moment. If they were injured, then it meant there had been some kind of fighting already!
Where was he? Her eyes searched the riders with a new sense of urgency, but there was still no sign of him.
‘It might be best if you go back to the villa.’ Trenus, the quartermaster, tapped her shoulder.
‘No.’ She shook her head determinedly. How could he even suggest such a thing, that she ought to run and hide when Marius might be injured or worse?
‘You might not want to see—’
‘No!’
She leapt down the villa steps and broke into a run. Whatever protest Trenus was about to make, she didn’t want to hear it. Instead she pulled her stola up around her knees and hurtled across the fort, heedless of her appearance. It was unseemly to run, particularly into a group of soldiers, but she didn’t care. She had to find her husband, had to make sure he was all right and throw her arms around him...
She pushed her way through the crowd to the front and then stopped, still searching. The riders were all looking distinctly the worse for wear, but at least they all seemed to have come back. Up close, their injuries didn’t look so bad either.
The last of the horses rode in through the gate and she pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a cry of relief as she finally caught sight of Marius. He was still on horseback, looking as severe as ever, but unharmed. She almost sank to the ground with relief. If she’d been in any doubt of her feelings for
him before, she knew what they were now. She loved him, though until that moment she hadn’t realised how much.
She was about to start forward again when she realised he wasn’t alone. There was a man sitting behind him, although judging by his half-naked and tattooed appearance, he wasn’t Roman. His hair was a long and vibrantly red colour like hers while his hands, when she looked closer, were tied up, bound together with rope... Horror clawed at her insides. He was a prisoner, that was obvious. What was even more obvious was that he’d been fighting. There was a livid cut across one of his cheekbones as well as a bloodied patch on his arm, while Marius’s armour was scuffed and red-stained.
The contrast made her feel sick. Marius, the man she’d just realised she loved, had been fighting with him. One of her mother’s people—her people—a mere youth, too, by the look of him, barely more than Porcia’s age.
‘Livia?’ Marius caught sight of her at the same moment as she took an appalled step backwards. ‘Are you all right?’
He looked concerned and she fought the urge to laugh. Was she all right? He was the one who’d been fighting! She ought to be asking him that question, except that she seemed to have forgotten how to speak.
She nodded instead, fixing her gaze on a point beyond his shoulder as she tried not to look at either him or his prisoner. The gesture seemed inadequate somehow, but what else could she do when all she wanted was to turn and run as far away from them both as possible? As relieved as she was to see Marius, if she didn’t get away soon then she really was going to be sick.
‘Some of the men are injured. I have to make sure they’re taken care of.’ He gestured around him and she seized on the words at once.
‘Yes. I’ll go.’ She forced the words past her lips as she spun away, inadvertently catching the eye of the prisoner as she did so. He was regarding her curiously, she noticed, so that for a second she was tempted to say something, but what? What could she say to him? He might be her kinsman of sorts, but he was also her husband’s prisoner. If it came to choosing sides, then she’d already chosen...
Hadn’t she?
Chapter Eighteen
The prison door closed with a resounding thud. Marius nodded to the guard outside, hoping he’d done the right thing in bringing the patrol back so soon, though both he and Ario had agreed it would have been foolish to go on. The audacity of the attack suggested that there were more warriors ahead, possibly too many, and he wasn’t going to risk losing good men simply to prove a point. He’d seen enough to convince himself.
As he’d expected, the young Caledonian warrior hadn’t told them anything, though he hoped a few days on his own would be sufficient to change his mind. He had a few cuts and bruises, including a nasty gash on his arm—nothing dangerous, but one that could become infected if left untended for too long. He’d have to send the camp medic to him later after Ario’s men had been seen to. Injuries in battle were one thing, but he didn’t want the boy dying on him.
His conscience pricked him at the thought. He would have preferred a full-grown warrior to a boy, even if a youth was more likely to talk, but there was too much at stake for him to be squeamish about it. If the boy was old enough to wield a weapon, then he was old enough to suffer the consequences, no matter how unpleasant the thought.
He turned his weary feet in the direction of the villa. Would Livia be there? The sight of her standing, breathless and anxious-looking, beside the gate when he’d ridden back through had made his heart leap, even more than he would have expected, though her reaction when she’d actually seen him had bothered him for the rest of the afternoon. For a few hopeful moments, he’d thought she’d actually run across the courtyard to find him, but her expression when she’d finally met his eyes had been anything but pleased. She’d looked positively horrified. Had she been hoping to be widowed again so soon?
No, he dismissed the thought as too harsh. He didn’t know exactly how she felt about him, but he was reasonably certain she didn’t want him dead. Strangely enough, he’d had the distinct impression that her reaction had had little to do with him and far more to do with his prisoner. Something about the evasive way she’d been staring suggested that she’d been trying very hard not to look at either of them.
Was it the man’s nakedness that had shocked her? No, she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who’d be so easily offended. Or was it simply that he’d taken a prisoner at all? If it was, her reaction appeared somewhat excessive, but then he supposed she wasn’t used to life in the army, especially on a frontier. The reality of it could be brutal, but he had a job to do and orders to follow—above all, he had Roman lives to protect. He’d have to explain that to her.
He marched through the villa, resisting the urge to call out her name, not entirely convinced she wouldn’t hide from him if he did. As it turned out, he didn’t need to. She was in the courtyard again, perched on the low wall where they’d sat side by side the night before, hunched over with her face in her hands.
‘Livia?’ He came to stand in front of her, half-alarmed, half-irritated. How could she be so affected by the sight of one prisoner? ‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer, her shoulders going rigid, as if she were still reluctant to lift her head and look at him.
‘It’s nothing.’ With her hands over her face, her voice sounded muffled.
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ He frowned at her denial. If she were one of his soldiers, then he’d simply demand to know what was going on. If only women were so easy...