Louise Allen - Virgin Slave, Barbarian King

Wolf King? What else, she thought, sensing her own desire to laugh hysterically, and biting it back with hard-won discipline. ‘Thank you, Wulfric, son of Athan…Athanagild.’ Julia managed to get over the cumbersome syllables. ‘I would be grateful if you could escort me to the Basilica where I hope to find my father. Naturally, we will not be ungrateful for your assistance.’

The wolf padded back down the alley from wherever it had been exploring and sat down beside its master, tongue lolling in the heat. Two pairs of green eyes regarded her; she could have sworn there was amusement in both.

‘So, you would be grateful for my escort, would you, Julia?’

‘Julia Livia,’ she corrected. He was a barbarian, she could not expect him to understand how to address the daughter of a patrician Roman family correctly.

Now Wulfric was openly amused. His beard was clipped close enough for her to see the lines of his mouth, which just now were curling unmistakeably. ‘How grateful, Julia?’

‘I am sure they will reward you suitably with gold,’ she said stiffly. ‘My family, that is, and also my betrothed, the Senator Antonius Justus Celsus.’

‘But I can take all the gold I want,’ he said softly. ‘I can take anything I desire from this city. Why do you think we are here, if not for the wealth within these walls?’

‘For your king, Alaric, to speak with the Emperor Honorius. I know there has been some misunderstanding over a promise of land…’ Half-heard discussions between the men over dinner, debates she had only partly understood or ignored. The Visigoths had entered Rome before, demanded a vast bribe in gold, then they had gone away, leaving political turmoil. But that was all settled now. Honorius was back in control in Ravenna…

‘No misunderstanding. Treachery. We fight for your emperor for many years, we hold back the Hun hordes from the east from your lands, even as they overrun ours, and he promises us land, grain, security. And gives us lies. Now we have come to take what is owing. Two years ago we entered Rome, but it seems you Romans do not learn from the past.’

He stood there, as solid as the stone pillar behind him, as alien as the wolf that walked by his side, and she could believe that he would take anything he wanted. And there were thousands like him pouring into her city while frightened, overcivilised men in togas or silk tried to talk away the danger. Two years ago it had seemed they had placated Alaric. They had been wrong.

‘Honorius is not here; he is in Ravenna.’ Behind impregnable walls, equipped for the longest siege, while here the food was already running out. The invaders would find gold and silver, but they would find precious little to eat.

‘We know. The time for talking is past. Come.’ He turned on his heel and began to walk down the alleyway. Julia stood watching his back. Broad shoulders carrying a chain-mail shirt as easily as though it was linen, bare arms, tanned to a golden colour so different from her own olive skin, long legs in cloth trousers tucked into leather boots like a legionary’s. The broad belt cinched around his waist was legionary kit too, but the tall figure was anything but reassuringly familiar. Everywhere about him was the living glow of gold and the sullen blood red of garnets. His sword hilt, the scabbard, the buckle on his belt, the gold bands that strapped his biceps and wrists, all gleamed.

He was bigger than any man she had ever been close to—as big as the emperor’s German guard—and he moved with the predatory grace of a gladiator in the arena.

Behind her the burning shop collapsed across the alley with a crash. There was nowhere to go but to follow him. ‘You will take me to the Basilica?’ She had to run to catch him up.

‘We may go there.’ Wulfric stopped at the end of the passageway and surveyed the cross-street. A man peered out from a doorway, saw him and slammed the door to. Julia heard the thud of a falling bar. A woman, a child in her arms, ran past, shied away with a shrill scream and hurried on. At both ends, where the street opened out onto wider thoroughfares, there was a chaos of carts and mules and people shouting and shoving.

‘What do you mean? We may go there?’ She put her hand on his forearm and shook it when he did not immediately reply. Wulfric looked down at her, one corner of his mouth lifting, and she saw that the green eyes had lost their chill. Julia lifted her hand off his arm with elaborate care and stepped back, her heart thudding in response to the heat in that look. ‘No. No…you wouldn’t…’

‘Wouldn’t…’ He searched for a word. ‘Wouldn’t ravish you? I do not approve of ravishing women, as you saw just now. You need not fear that. Now, come.’

Relief made her snap at him. ‘Come where? I want to go to the Basilica.’

‘But what you want is no longer important. Come with me. I told you we had come to take what is owing. And we need it to be portable. Grain, horses, gold, silver and slaves—we take all of those.’

‘But…you want me as a hostage?’ Incomprehension turned to cold fear. She had leapt from the skillet into the fire.

‘No.’ She had amused him again. It was perversely insulting. ‘We already have the best hostage after the emperor. We have his sister. We do not need any more; hostages are hard work. They need looking after.’

‘You have Galla Placidia?’ A gracious lady, one who lived closer to the people than her brother. She had stayed in Rome, not fled to the thick walls and high towers of Ravenna at the first hint of danger.

‘Yes. Now come.’

‘Where? Why?’

Wulfric turned on his heel and studied her with the air of a tutor confronted by a dense pupil. ‘With me. You are now mine. I need a household slave. You will do very nicely.’

‘A slave? Me? You are jesting.’ There was no hint of teasing in the calm regard. ‘A…’ He meant it. ‘No!’ Julia took to her heels. Ahead the turmoil of the street, once so terrifying, now seemed to offer sanctuary. The breath tearing in her throat, she yanked up her skirts and ran. Only a few more yards, a few more steps.

A blur passed her and then stopped in front in a scrabble of claws on stone. The wolf. Julia juddered to a halt. It wasn’t showing its teeth. ‘Good boy, there’s a nice wolf. Stay! Sit?’ It regarded her impassively then padded forwards. She spun on her heel. Wulfric hadn’t moved. If she could just make it to the door that stood ajar…

Something hard and wet and hot closed gently round her right wrist. She looked down. The animal had her arm between its jaws. It was not biting, just holding with a pressure that would not crack an egg, yet which had all the potential to rip her flesh from her bones.

Wulfric whistled loudly. There was a disturbance in the milling crowd and a horseman pushed his way through and into the side road, another horse on a leading rein behind him. No, not a man, a youth, she realised, sixteen at most. He had a leather jerkin over a linen shirt, no helm on his head, but a long dagger hung from his belt and he controlled the horses with ease.

He spoke to Wulfric in a tongue she did not know.

‘Speak Latin, else how will you ever have it perfect? This is Julia, she comes with us. Take her up behind you.’

The boy turned interested blue eyes on her. ‘The new slave? The one you said you would find to cook for us? That is good, I am tired of cooking, it is women’s work.’

‘I am not a slave, I am not going with you! I am a noblewoman!’

‘You do not appear to be in any position to argue.’ The infuriating man strolled towards her.

‘You mean you would let your wolf savage me if I try to escape?’ Julia enquired sarcastically. ‘I wouldn’t be much use as a slave then.’

‘True.’ He picked her up with startling suddenness and tossed her up behind the boy, whipping a leather thong out of his belt and lashing her hands to a ring in the youth’s broad belt. ‘Don’t forget she is there, Berig,’ he advised. ‘You do not want her landing on top of you when you dismount. Oh, no!’ He grabbed Julia who was trying to slide off the far side. ‘Berig is not very big yet, but he is heavy enough. I advise you to sit still.’

He swung up onto the other horse, a rangy, ugly grey. ‘Now, we go and find ourselves some more gold.’

With the wolf trotting at his heels, he forced his way out into the crowded street, the very sight of him sending terrified citizens diving into side alleys. The boy Berig followed. Julia slid, gasped and tightened her hands on to his belt in an effort not to fall off. Sooner or later they have to untie me. That wolf can’t be everywhere, sooner or later I can run…

‘Hwa namo thein? Er…What is your name? Are you a good cook?’ Berig tossed back over his shoulder as he steered his mount in his master’s wake.

‘Julia Livia. And, no, I am not,’ Julia snapped back. ‘I cannot cook. I do not need to cook. I have slaves to do that.’

The boy gave a snort of amusement. ‘Then you had best learn fast, because you have no slaves now and my lord has a good appetite and no patience if kept hungry. This is good. Now we have you, I do not need to kill chickens, or cook anything, or fetch hot water, or wash clothes or even scrub my lord’s back. You can do all that.’

Scrub his back? Julia stared furiously at the broad figure in front of them. Oh, I’ll scrub his back all right—with an axe in my hands!

As though he felt her thoughts, Wulfric turned in the saddle and looked at her steadily. She felt her flimsy defiance shrivelling. This was real. He was a savage, uncaring, immovable force and she was in deadly serious trouble. For the first time in her life her position in society, her connections, her status meant nothing. All she had to fight this man with was her courage and her strength and she very much feared that they would count for nothing against those muscles and that cool green-eyed intelligence.

Courage and strength, Julia mocked herself bitterly as she gripped Berig’s belt and fought for balance on the horse’s rump. And what opportunities do you ever have for exercising those, Julia Livia? Do you even possess them? When had she ever had to stand up for herself and use her own initiative?

Shop here, wear this, go to this party, not to that one. Be friends with those girls, that one is unsuitable…Marry Antonius Justus Celsus. Yes, Father, yes, Mother. Whatever you say. He is boring and smug and he’ll have two chins in five years, but it is the right thing to do to marry him. So suitable.

Being carried off as a slave by a golden giant with a wolf and a boy at his heels was not suitable. But how do you learn to fight if you have never had to before?

‘This one?’ Berig’s voice snapped her out of her whirling thoughts. They had halted in front of the plain high wall and closed doors of what she guessed must be a prosperous merchant’s house. ‘It looks a poor place.’

‘With these walls and those locks?’ Wulfric leaned over and hammered on the unyielding planks. ‘I don’t think they want to let us in. Why do you think that is?’ Julia smiled inwardly; her own home had doors and walls that were even better than these.

Wulfric edged the ugly grey horse up to the wall, and stood up on its back with a smoothness that had her gaping. He reached high, grasped the top of the wall and hauled himself up, muscles bulging with effort. With a grunt he straddled the wall, then vanished.

‘You are thieves, all of you,’ Julia spat at Berig’s back, fury at her own reaction to that display of brute strength lending venom to her words.