The women did their business and then went to the stream to wash as the barbarian leader had. The water was shockingly cold but also restorative, jerking Valeria from weary fog to harsh, all-too-vivid life. How grubby she already felt, just a day removed from her daily bath, her combs, and her table of paints! She mourned her imagined appearance, her hair unfixed, her clothes stained, her jewelry left behind in her reckless thirst for adventure. It wasn't comfort she craved, but simple decency. She must look as rustic as the Celtic woman sitting silently behind her… except in truth the woman didn't look all that plain but was strangely compelling in her warrior garb, a bright necklace of silver at her throat and bracelets at her wrists. A baldric and belt held a short sword, her mail had a sheen like raindrops on a window, and the laced boots that reached to her calves were of doeskin. Her cloak was a deep green, and she displayed the same animal grace as the man Arden.
"What are you doing here?" Valeria asked her bluntly.
The woman understood what she meant. "I'm Brisa, daughter of Quint and a warrior of the Attacotti tribe. No man has yet won me, so I ride with the men."
"But you're a woman."
"What of it? I can shoot straighter than any man here, and outrun them too. They know it, and fear and respect me for it. When my brother was killed, I took his armor and sword. We Celtic women aren't soft and stupid like you. We go where we please and do what we wish and lie with who we want to."
"Like animals."
"Like free women of choice. We fulfill nature's demands by openly lying with the best men, while you Romans commit your adultery with the worst. You boast of how superior you are, and then chain yourself with fear and custom and hypocrisy. I wanted to see this wall of yours, and now I've seen it and am not impressed. I could scale it in a heartbeat."
"And be arrested just as quickly."
Brisa snorted. "I haven't seen you Romans catch one of us yet."
"It isn't natural for a woman to dress like a man," Valeria insisted doggedly.
The Celt laughed. "I'm dressed for war and riding! What isn't natural is to dress without sense, like you do. Maybe those men over there, the ones dressed like me, are dressed like women! Have you considered that?"
This Celt was turning everything around! "How did you learn to shoot?"
"My father taught me, as my mother taught me weaving. I could teach you, if we decide not to kill you." It was a matter-of-fact offer, as if the precariousness of her future was obvious enough. "To shoot, at least. We'll see if you can hit anything."
Valeria eyed the bow, secretly intrigued. "I don't even know if I could draw it."
"You pull each day, and each day you can pull it a little farther." Brisa sprang up, enjoying this opportunity to boast. "Here, I'll show you." She pulled off a bracelet. "Take this and walk twenty paces back toward the pine where you were tied."
Valeria hesitated.
"Go on, I won't hurt you. But I might hurt your companion here if you don't do what I say." She nodded toward Savia.
Valeria took the circular bracelet and began to walk back to the tree.
"There! Stop and turn!"
She did so.
"Now, hold the bracelet out at arm's length…"
Valeria lifted. Before her arm had steadied, the Celt pulled and shot. A puff of wind kissed the captive's fingertips, and the shaft sang through the bracelet and hit the pine beyond. It was so sudden that the Roman heard the arrow hit wood before realizing what had happened.
She dropped the ring as if it were hot. "You could have killed me!"
Brisa walked over and scooped up her bracelet. "I didn't touch you, but I can put my arrow through any Roman's eye, so don't quarrel with me until I've taught you to do the same. If Arden lets you live." She shouldered her bow. "Which I suspect he'll do, from the way he looks at you. Come, the food smells ready. You need meat on those bones of yours if you're going to stay warm in the north."
The food and the fire were restorative, and despite her apprehension, Valeria felt a drowsy relief. The barbarians gathered around the flames afterward to sing and boast. None bothered to post a watch. No rescuers appeared. Instead, the captives had to hear their enemies crow, each in turn, about their prowess in the ambush. To these ragged people the mere deed was not enough, it seemed, but only took on true importance in the retelling. They were as vain as children. "The Romans understand our tongue, brothers," the woman told them. "Let's remind them of what they have seen."
Brisa boasted that shooting through the neck of the Celtic spy had been "like threading a bone needle in a lightless room." Luca recounted how he'd tripped the Roman tribune with a stick shoved out from the bushes. The warriors guffawed at the memory of Clodius's awkward sprawl. A Celt named Hool bragged that his second arrow at the Roman soldiers was notched and drawn before the first had even hit home. The stripling named Gurn claimed to have stolen all the Roman horses before their riders were dead.
Only the chieftain Arden stayed quiet, declining to retell how he'd killed the Roman tribune with a bold and desperate thrust. Instead he studied Valeria across the fire, as if speculating what to do with her. As the eating ended and the warriors rolled themselves up in their cloaks, swords alongside, he came around to sit by her. She stiffened warily.
"I saw what Brisa did with her arrow," he said quietly. "Don't be afraid. We're warriors, not thieves. You're a prize of war and will be kept safe."
"But there's no war."
"There's been a war ever since your husband burned our sacred grove. He united the tribes as no druid could have."
"That was because you attacked me before! The ambush, in the forest!"
"The druids had nothing to do with that."
"That's not what our spy told my Marcus."
"Told Marcus? Or told Galba?"
"They wanted to burn me in a wicker cage."
He smiled. "You know nothing of what's going on. But there are men in your cavalry who know the truth."
"Which men?"
He wouldn't answer.
She studied him curiously. He'd killed Clodius, true, but his bearing and words suggested he wasn't a simple savage. His look was thoughtful, his manner almost courtly, his bearing slightly Roman. "You don't have the beard or the mustache or the manners of a Celt," she said. "Your Latin is fluent and your swordsmanship trained. Who are you?"
"I'm of my people."
"No. You're something more."
"You seem very confident in your judgment."
"You don't conceal yourself as well as you think."
He smiled. "Roman aristocrats judge and rank people as surely as a Briton hound trails a badger."
"There, you see? You know too much about Roman aristocrats!"
He laughed. "You're my prisoner! I should be asking questions of you!"
"But you act as if you know all about me. It's I who am in your power, and who doesn't know her fate. Why have you taken me, and what are you going to do with me?"
He thought before answering, studying her features in the fire like a trophy long sought. "I'm a Caledonian of the Attacotti tribe," he said finally, "with a long bloodline among the tribes of the north. But yes, I know something of Rome." He raised an arm, revealing a tattoo. "I enlisted in your army."
"You're a deserter!"
"I'm a free man, come back to help my people remain free. I enlisted to see this Roman world of yours and learn enough to beat you. I'm a patriot, lady, fighting against the suffocations of your world."
His conviction was maddening. "I was wrong in my guess," she said. "You know nothing of Rome."
"It's you, pampered and highborn, who knows nothing. How much do you know about the commoners who groan to feed your kind?"
"I know more than you think! My father is a senator with feeling for the poor."