Barbarian's Soul (6 page)

His inspiration came from the elements, the spirits of the rich, dark earth, the cool, verdant serenity of the forests, the fragile beauty of blossoms, the ordered formation of rocks upon a hill. When a series of whorls were etched onto the band of a bracelet, it represented more than a pleasing design. It symbolized a connection with the very essence of life.

Bran sighed heavily. At least back home in Eire it had. There was nothing inspiring in this world. When he’d taken up his tools again, his soul had been too damaged to create anything meaningful. He’d replicated a few basic designs from his previous life, which he found dull and unimaginative. But the Romans were enthralled with them. Ornate jewelry with barbarian designs were fast becoming the highest fashion.

“A moment, if you please,” said Strabo, bowing as he left them standing in front of a closed door.

It was a storeroom, well away from the activity of the house, well away from valued customers catching sight of Paulin conducting business with someone as low as he and Menw. Bran pressed his lips together. It grated against his pride, had from the very first visit when Paulin had implied that perhaps he’d rather send his servant to see to the transactions rather than come himself. A craftsman, the wily merchant had insisted, should not exert himself with the mundane tasks of trade.

Bran had refused, remembered with pleasure the disbelief and irritation that had crossed Paulin’s face. It was not that he did not trust Menw explicitly, he did. He trusted his clansman with his life. But he knew what value his pieces held and would negotiate his own terms. And a good thing too. Paulin Cornelius was a shrewd man who had underestimated the
barbarian’s
knowledge of sound trade.

Strabo came hurrying back, an iron ring in his hand. Bran clenched his jaw as the slave fumbled with keys. It should not be so difficult, not when the man used them on a daily basis. Hell, he could kick the door in quicker than this.

“Take your time, Strabo,” said Menw in a soothing voice though he shot Bran an accusing glare. “My master has no pressing matters.”

By gods, he did. He wanted his money and he wanted to get out of this blasted place.

Strabo gave Menw a weak smile and selected another key—which did not fit. As if reading Bran’s mind, Menw widened his eyes in silent plea. Bran clenched his jaw harder, certain he would crack a tooth. But despite what his clansman thought, he was no fool. As much as he wanted to bash the incompetent fool over the head he wanted his silver more and giving into his anger would only cause him to lose it.

He crossed his arms lest he throttle Strabo and find himself owing Paulin the cost of a slave. Idly, he faced the courtyard while the man dropped the key ring. In truth, he hated exposing his back to unseen threats.  A trio of household slaves were hard at work weeding the flower beds. He recognized two of them from his previous visits. Pretty girls, he thought, both just out of childhood, purchased by Paulin not only for their beauty but their youth as well. The jeweler was known to favor young bedmates.

And he was the one called barbarian.

The third one was unfamiliar. Though her back was to him, Bran guessed her to be older if the shapely bottom jutting up in the air as she bent to her task were any indication. Only a woman would possess such enticing curves. His cock twitched as her firm little ass wriggled as she pulled at a stubborn weed.

Twice in one day his head had been turned by a female. Not so unusual when he thought on it. He’d not been with a woman since Beatrix. The heaviness in his chest shifted at the memory of the
gladiatrix
. A year. Had it already been a year?

He managed to ease the ache in his groin if not the pain in his heart thinking he’d seek out one of the willing females in his sister’s household though he could not recall any with violet eyes. His gaze drifted back to the third slave girl. She worked alone, a fair distance from the others near the rear wall. She seemed not to have mastered the gardening task she’d been assigned, a suspicion that was confirmed when she plucked a white flower out of the soil. The corner of his mouth quirked when she hid it beneath a low-growing bush.

He watched her scan the garden. Her posture lacked any hint of servility nor did she act fearful of being punished for poor work. She should. He also knew Paulin to have a heavy hand when it came to disciplining his chattel.

A ripple of concern went through him at the thought of her being punished. With a disgusted growl, Bran turned his head away. It was none of his concern. She was a slave just as he had been one. She would survive, or not. Most likely not, he thought, his gaze drifting back in her direction. Her entire manner spoke of pride. Instead of shoulders hunched over in subservience, hers were squared. Instead of head bowed in submission, she held hers high as if she were the owner instead of the owned.

A tingle of sensation like bee stings streaked up his spine. His brows drew together and he looked closer at the girl. Her tunic was different, not as good a quality as the rest of Paulin’s slaves. Yes, they were slaves and undeserving of decent clothes in the eyes of society but the jeweler prided himself on appearances and clothed his servants in tunics simply made but of fine-woven fabric of dull blue.

Instead her dress was gray woolen, the sandals on her feet were creased and worn in patches along the thin brown leather straps. A length of dingy cloth was wrapped around her head, knotted behind her neck and doing a poor job of keeping locks of black hair from curling at her nape. What color were her eyes, he wondered absently.

Suddenly, her head snapped up, reminding him of a red deer who had scented a hunter. She spun around and looked straight at him. Violet. Her eyes were a deep shade of violet and set in the face that haunted him.

Bran stared, an inexplicable joy rising in his chest followed by a sinking sensation. Somehow he’d managed to believe at the fringes of his mind that they might meet again. A ridiculous notion shown for its foolishness in the reality before him. She was a slave. She was owned by that wretch Paulin. Strabo’s voice shattered Bran’s keen disappointment.

“Ah, here it is.” He unlocked the door and stood to one side.

“Are you coming?” asked Menw beneath his breath, “Or are you going stand there gawking at that female like an untried youth? You’ve seen women before.”

The glare he threw Menw had no effect on the man’s exasperated expression as he stood to the side for Bran to precede him into the makeshift reception room. Bran glanced back over his shoulder.

She was gone.

Menw risked his subservient demeanor with a roll of his eyes. Bran scowled and stalked into the room.

“My master will be here momentarily,” said Strabo, positioning two stools next to a wooden table.

Bran dropped onto the closest one and rubbed his eyes.

“What ails you?”

Bran cast a sideways glance at his clansman. “Nothing that a pouch full of gold will not cure.” At least he hoped so, else he thought he might be going mad. How else to explain two women appearing and disappearing like spirits? It had to be madness because he’d lost the ability to imagine long ago.

He just needed to go home.

Every fiber of his being yearned for Eire, had ever since waking with a blinding headache and an egg-sized lump on the back of his head, bound hand and foot in the bottom of an
Ileni
boat. He’d longed for the cool, sweet hills that surrounded his clan’s
dun
as he’d choked on the hot, dry sand of the Egyptian gladiator school. Through the beatings and lashings he’d kept fixed in his mind the clear, blue lakes, the barley fields ripe and ready to be harvested, the fatted cattle grazing in the pastures. With the crowd’s jeers ringing in his ears he’d envisioned finding Bryna, Menw, Gair, his other men, buying a
curragh
and sailing across the sea, seeing the cliffs of Eire shrouded in clouds. Free and safe.

He shot a look through the small window of the room, disappointed to see the courtyard deserted. Those types of wishes had been every bit as useless to him then as the irrational one he held now to catch a glimpse of the violet-eyed beauty.

“Perhaps you should abandon this business,” Menw said beneath his breath as he positioned himself at Bran’s back, “You’re as tense as a rat caught in an Egyptian cat’s paws.

“I’ve seen an Egyptian caught in a lion’s paws,” replied Bran dryly. “He was well beyond tense.” He forced the horrific image of the mauled dead man from his mind.

Menw snorted.

Bran squared his shoulders. “This is the only way I have to earn coin.” He cast a challenging look up to Menw. “There are no farms to till, no stock to tend. The Romans have no need to pay for labor when there are slaves for every task.” He swung his gaze back to the table, his jaw clenched. “There is only one other skill I possess.”

Gladiator.

No matter that he could earn large amounts of silver doing it. Success for a gladiator could be measured in other ways than death. Victory in the arena brought monetary rewards as well, enticing some to continue to fight even after gaining a
rudis
, a wooden sword symbolizing their freedom. He might be reduced to eating dirt, but he would never return to that world.

The sums were not large in Rome’s provinces and his master had reaped the larger portion when Bran had been actively competing. But in a thin attempt to appear more successful than he was, that rodent Hapu had allowed his gladiators to keep a small sum from each prize won.

Bran had hoarded his, refused to spend it on wine and whores like the rest and when the sponsor of his final match—a provincial government official—had awarded him his freedom along with a sack of silver pieces he’d added that to his lockbox.

A sharp ache pierced his chest as it did every time he thought of that last battle. So many lives had changed the day Beatrix had died. Reeling with shock and grief, he’d left the arena a free man to fulfill the promise he’d made his lover; to safeguard her children.

As clear as if it had happened yesterday, he could see the grief, the confusion, the terror in three pairs of young eyes when Beatrix’s trainer had claimed they were his property. Bran had reminded him of his agreement with his champion
gladiatrix
and had changed the man’s mind at the tip of his sword.

The three months that followed were a blur. Still searching for his sister, he’d stayed on at Hapu’s school, earning a meager wage for instructing the rest of the
luda
slaves on how to survive Rome’s brutal sport. Bran closed his eyes, remembering the rigorous training he’d put the men unfortunate enough to be purchased by the Egyptian through. They’d cursed him, challenged him but they’d also learned from him. When he’d left Alexandria, only one out of twenty had been lost to the mob’s bloodlust.

But it had fed the children and provided them with shelter.  Acting on a rumor of a barbarian slave owned by a local farmer, he located Menw and used over half of his scant resources to purchase his freedom. Living in Alexandria and providing for his expanded household had eaten a hole in the remainder. Even when he’d found Bryna he’d had to remain. How could he leave when she’d wed a Roman? Believing she would come to her senses, he’d followed her and her new husband to Rome where his expenses shot to the sky. Gods, the cost of food alone was triple what he’d paid in Egypt.

Bran eyed the two girls who entered the room with a tray of coarse bread and goat’s cheese. Neither of them had ebony hair or any discernable spirit. They kept their eyes downcast like dutiful slaves even as they placed bronze chalices before them, filling them with inferior wine from a clay
amphora.
Bran snorted. Of course the jeweler would not waste a finer vintage on a barbarian.

He took a long drink, welcomed the burn in his throat and waited for the wine to loosen the tight knot in his chest. Not too much, he thought as he took another smaller sip. He could not risk a slip in the rigid control that kept him from losing his mind. Two disappearing females in one afternoon had him worried that that control was slipping. “Where is the bastard?” he muttered.

Menw sent him a sharp look. “It’s well you speak in Gaelic when you’re being exasperating. If our client overheard you, we could well lose the deal.”

Bran pressed his lips together to keep more exasperation, more curses, from spilling out. Menw was correct. The coin garnered from this one transaction alone would be more than enough to reimburse Jared for the use of his ship. The ship that would take him home.

And by Danu, he would go home.

Chapter Four

T
he man was going to be a problem.

Adria peeked through the small window into the tiny room. The one-armed servant sat on the stool facing her, his eyes closed. He wasn’t asleep; she could see his lips moving. Praying, she was certain, for deliverance from his surly master.

She shifted her focus back to the other man’s broad back. Their eyes had met only for the space of a breath before she’d slipped behind the hedgerow. Even if she had not recognized that rugged, scowling, handsome face, the bolt of awareness that had shot through her core would have told her he was the man from the Forum.

Was he a slave? She tilted her head and considered him. His tunic was a finer weave of linen, his boots a good grade of leather. He wore cuffs of beaten gold on his wrists and his demeanor was pure arrogance. No, he was no slave.

He absolutely dominated the room, had dominated the street in front of Paulin’s
domus
. Power emanated from every movement, even in the way he sat on the stool, like a king on a throne.

He folded his arms in a gesture of impatience, the cloth of his tunic stretching and molding against sculpted ridges along his ribs. Her gaze traveled down, pausing to appreciate the firm line of his buttocks, before moving onward to his legs. Long and well-formed they were braced apart, his feet planted as if he expected an attack. Adria rubbed at the clenched muscles of her belly.