Defy the Eagle (58 page)

But it was not. The process was repeated that night and three times the following day. Jilana stayed beside Caddaric while the fever raged, trying to soothe him when he grew agitated and sponging him with cool water to try and bring his temperature down. At first he was quiet, but then he grew restless, kicking off the blanket or trying to tear the bandage from his chest until they were forced to tie his hands together so that he could not injure himself further. Then his ravings began—at least, in the beginning, Jilana thought they were nightmares, but when she listened more closely, she found that Caddaric was reliving old battles fought when he was a legionary.

As the fever rose, his nightmares took him deeper into the past, to his adolescence and then, to his childhood. From Caddaric's lips fell the story of his father's abrupt appearance in his life, a stranger to the son he had left behind. All the hurt and confusion felt by the boy poured forth while Jilana held the man's bound hands and offered comfort that would not be heard. The worst, however, was the destruction of Caddaric's village by the Roman invaders. In horror, Jilana listened and learned that Caddaric had hidden in the trees and seen his brothers carried off to meet their fate in the Roman auxiliary. He had also seen his mother and sisters cruelly raped and then killed by the legionaries while he had watched helplessly from his place of concealment. Tears scalded Jilana's cheeks and she cried for the boy who had lost so much in his life.

He spoke of Jilana as well, alternately cursing her and calling brokenly for her. She discovered how deeply she had hurt him by calling him a barbarian and a fool. And she learned how badly he wanted her and how badly his own desire frightened him. He hid his battered and scarred heart from her, afraid that one day she, too, would leave or, worse, reject him.

"I did not mean it," Jilana told him, her hands lovingly stroking the planes of his face. 'Twas foolish, of course, he neither heard nor understood her, but she drew some small comfort by talking to him. She rested her cheek against his. "Oh, Caddaric, all I wanted was for you to care for me." Raising her head, she looked at Caddaric's face and discovered his eyes were slitted open, watching her. They still bore a fevered glaze, but there was no mistaking the recognition in them.

"Ji.. .lana," Caddaric said on a thread of sound. "You stayed ."

"Of course I stayed," Jilana responded, straightening. Flustered, she set about sponging his face. "Where else would 1 be?"

"Water?"

Jilana hastily poured a cup of water and held it for him while he drank.

Caddaric's eyes surveyed the tent. "Have we kept up with... the war band?"

"We have not moved, nor has the rest of the column," Jilana quickly assured him. "The Queen has decreed that we stay here a week in order to gather provisions."

Caddaric sighed and relaxed against the pillow. "Stay with me," he whispered just as Jilana had decided that he was asleep again.

"Aye." Jilana covered his bound hands with hers and watched sleep claim him.

The third day after the battle Caddaric awoke and his fever was gone. He was weak, scarcely able to move, but his eyes were clear and when he demanded they untie his hands, Jilana knew he would live. She hovered over him, feeding him the beef broth Heall had made, bathing him. He seemed to enjoy the attention she lavished upon him until she brought him a battered basin and reached for the blanket.

"What are you doing?" Caddaric demanded, retaining a grip on the covering with his good arm.

Jilana blushed to the roots of her hair, but she was not about to be deterred. "I thought you might, ahh, that is, you must need to—umm—relieve yourself."

Caddaric looked amused. I do, but I can manage on my own." He nodded toward the tent flap. "Out."

"Do not be ridiculous, Caddaric," Jilana retorted. "I have seen everything you possess—more than once, I might add—and you are still weak. It will not embarrass me—"

"Did you stop to think that it might embarrass me?" Caddaric questioned with a mocking lift of his eyebrow. "Out, Jilana. If I need help I will call for my father or Heall."

Which was exactly what he did. Jilana was allowed back inside the tent only after all his bodily needs had been seen to.

Caddaric greeted her return with, "Heall tells me you have not slept in three days."

Jilana stared at him. Had it been three days? She frowned, counting, and agreed, "Aye, it has been three days." Strange, but she did not feel sleepy. In fact, she was filled with such energy that she felt positively giddy.

"You. need to sleep," Caddaric stated decisively. "Now."

"In a moment." Jilana gathered up the soiled cloths for laundering and took them outside to Heall. Next she straightened the tent, filled an ewer with water and placed it where it would be within easy reach for Caddaric, brought a small bowl of figs and dates and set them beside the pallet, and laid fresh wood for the evening fire.

As she straightened, Caddaric reached out with his good arm, grasped the hem of her tunic and pulled. "Rest, Jilana. Now."

Jilana twisted so that she could look at the hand holding her hostage. "I will get a blanket—"

But Caddaric had guessed her thoughts. Another tug of his hand brought her heels against the pallet. "Now. Here. With me."

"But, Caddaric, you are hurt and—"

"I will take the risk that you will injure me further," Caddaric informed her dryly. "I will not have you sleeping on the ground when there is room enough for us both on the pallet. Come to bed."

With an exasperated sigh, Jilana sat on the edge of the pallet and took off her shoes. "You will wake me if you need anything?" she worried as she carefully slid in beside him.

"I swear it," Caddaric promised as her head came to rest beside his shoulder.

"You had better," Jilana admonished. "I really am not the least bit tired, Caddaric."

"Close your eyes." He watched as she did so, and a smile touched his mouth. When he softly called her name a few minutes later, her response was a deep sigh. His smile slowly faded as he realized that she was now a free woman. She had cared for him because she believed she was his steve, and a slave had certain duties to her master. When she learned she was free what would she do? Certainly not share his pallet again, Caddaric grimly concluded. It never occurred to Caddaric to withhold the truth from her; nor did it occur to him that Jilana might already know she was free. He closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.

Jilana awoke late in the evening to the feel of something tugging at her hair. Still half asleep, she smoothed a hand over the back of her hair and was startled when it met warm flesh. Turning, she saw that Caddaric was awake and the tugging she felt was her braid being undone. She did not mind the small intimacy in the least.

"How do you feel?" Jilana asked, one hand smothering a yawn.

"Better." Caddaric allowed his gaze to skim over her before returning to the business of unbraiding her hair. "Heall made soup for the evening meal. Are you hungry?"

Jilana shook her head and settled more comfortably onto her back. "You should be resting."

"I am," Caddaric protested innocently. "I am flat on my back, in bed. What could be more restful?" Finished with the braid, he lifted the heavy mass of hair onto his chest and began combing the fingers of his left hand through the red-gold length. "You have beautiful hair, Jilana. Did I ever tell you that?" When she shook her head, he sighed. "Of course I did not. There are many things I should have said that I have not, beginning with how sorry I am that I placed those cursed manacles on you."

"You were angry—"

"That did not give me the right to treat you the way I sworn never to treat another human being!" Caddaric interrupted. "Gods! When I think of how I treated ---"

This time it was Jilana who interrupted. "I forgive you, Caddaric." She laced her fingers together and studied them. "When you first put the irons around my ankles, and then later, when you ordered me chained to the wagon, I hated you for it. But I do not hate you any longer."

"Truly?"

Jilana raised her eyes to his. "Truly. I am very lucky that Boadicea gave me to you."

Caddaric looked away from her trusting expression, remembering how he had manipulated the events of that night so long ago. "You are not mine any longer," he informed her gruffly. ' 'Boadicea has freed you.''

"I know." The startled look on his face brought a smile to Jilana's mouth. "Clywd told me the day of the battle."

His hand stilled on her hair. "Then you know you do not have to stay here."

"Aye, I know." Raising up on one elbow so that their faces were level, she asked, "But, Caddaric, how could I leave you?" His eyes, so dark a blue they were nearly black, bored into her, and she slowly brought her mouth to his. They kissed with their eyes wide open, watching, seeking, and when Jilana withdrew she said quietly, but with pride, "I love you."

Caddaric could not reply to her declaration. He cared for her as he had cared for no other woman, but to give voice to his emotions now, when he held his dream in the palm of his hand... Perhaps the gods were, even now, watching; waiting for him to open his heart so they could brutalize it yet again. He had mocked the gods so often in the past that, if they in fact existed, surely they would be waiting to take their revenge. With his good arm he pulled Jilana against him so that her head rested against his shoulder and said nothing, knowing himself to be a coward.

Jilana lay quietly, understanding his silence. By his actions he showed his love for her, even if he could not bring himself to say the words. It was enough for now; later— the gods willing, years from now—he would feel secure enough to give her the words as well, but she would not press him.

Long minutes later, Caddaric heard the faint chanting and the screams that came to their camp on the evening air. He stiffened, as did Jilana, but 'twas she who broke the silence.

"Tis Lhwyd," Jilana told him when she felt the tension tightening his frame. "He claimed the survivors from the city."

Caddaric remembered the girl who had wounded him and hoped that she was not among the captives.

****

The week following the fall of Londinium the war band rested. Hunting parties roamed the countryside; the rivers and streams abounded with fish which provided a distraction for those too young to hunt; those who still had livestock slaughtered it, and meat was plentiful once again. Caddaric's recovery was, in Jilana's eyes, nothing less than miraculous. Once his fever had broken, he chafed so at remaining in the tent that Jilana capitulated and fixed a place for him by the fire. From there he could watch as she and Heall went about the business of preserving as much meat as they could. Clywd doted on his son with a fierceness that both amused and touched Jilana, but Caddaric seemed not to mind.

Visitors to their camp laughingly commented that the wound seemed to have improved Caddaric's disposition, but the way Caddaric's eyes followed Jilana's every movement did not escape their attention. Neither did the fact that when Jilana sat, her place was at Caddaric's side.

The week's respite grew into two and though Jilana enjoyed the rest, Caddaric did not. The war band was losing the urgency which had possessed it after the fall of Venta Icenorum. Women longed for their homes; children grew querulous now that the sense of adventure had worn off; and men fretted over what they would find upon returning home. The war band had to march, and soon, before desertion weakened both the morale and the number of Boadicea's force. Even though he knew it would be difficult for him to travel, he also knew that delay now could prove fatal. Suetonius Paulinus was no longer safely tucked away on Mona. When the word was passed through the host that Boadicea had ordered a resumption of the march, Caddaric breathed a sigh of relief.

"But surely there is no reason for your concern," Jilana asked. It was late and she was engrossed in bathing from the basin while Caddaric lay upon the pallet, watching.

"The governor-general is no coward," Caddaric replied. His eyes wandered over the enticing swell of her breasts as she washed first one and then the other, and his loins tightened uncomfortably. "He evacuated Londinium because it was indefensible. I do not doubt that even now he is marshalling his forces and picking a battle site that will favor the legion."

Jilana rubbed the cloth over her stomach, considering. "Boadicea has nearly seventy thousand warriors and warrior maids. Does Suetonius Paulinus have that many legionaries at his disposal?"

While Caddaric watched, the linen cloth dipped between her thighs and he felt the sweat pop out on his forehead. Her shyness with him was gone, but he was not certain if that was a blessing or a curse, for she was constantly warning him to take care lest he open his wounds again. If she only knew where his thoughts were wandering—

"Caddaric?"

At the sound of his name, Caddaric wrenched his eyes up to hers. He had not answered her question and now she was frowning at him as she rinsed out the cloth. "Aah, Paulinus. Nay, I doubt he can command an equal number in the field."

Jilana smiled and shrugged into the tunic she wore to bed. His tunic. "Then there is no need for concern, is there? Boadicea will defeat him easily enough." Blowing out the lamp, she slid onto the pallet beside him and settled into the crook of his arm. "Good night, my love." She reached up to kiss him gently on the lips.

The kiss she planned upon was not the sort he wanted. When Jilana would have withdrawn, Caddaric cupped the back of her head in his hand and held her fast. His tongue probed achingly at her mouth and, after a moment's hesitation, her lips opened on a soft sigh. He explored her mouth at leisure, sometimes bold, at times gently questing, until he felt her body press against his and her fingers curl into the hair on his chest.

"Caddaric," Jilana protested when his lips left hers in order to explore the line of her throat. "Your wounds... ahh " This as his hand closed around her breast.

"Hush," Caddaric admonished, his fingertips seeking her nipple through the material and teasing it awake.

Fiery sensations danced through her breast and arrowed down through her stomach. His mouth reclaimed hers, and Jilana boldly plunged her tongue into his mouth. Caddaric's hand drifted downward from her breast to cup her and her hips instinctively arched against the palm of his hand. Their mouths mated wildly while his hand slid beneath the hem of her tunic and caressed the soft flesh there.

"Take off the tunic," Caddaric ordered when he pulled his lips from hers. She hesitated and he slowly dragged her hand down his chest and stomach until it grazed his manhood. "I ache for you, little wicca; do not deny me again tonight." And with that he closed her hand around him

and showed her all the desire which had been building in him.

He was as vulnerable as she, Jilana realized as she stroked him. A tremor ran through his strong frame; his hand fell away and he groaned while she explored that mysterious part of him. Emboldened, she rained kisses along his jaw, and when he tugged at the hem of her tunic, she struggled out of it and tossed it aside. Caddaric rolled to his back and watched Jilana return to him through heavy-lidded eyes. Her skin was a pale blur in the moonlight and when he reached out to run a finger from the hollow in her throat to her belly he felt her tremble.

"Wicca" Caddaric murmured, cupping her breasts. "You are everything I have ever wanted."

Resting her hands on his shoulders, Jilana bent and kissed him with all the love in her heart. His hands moved, stroked the length of her back and the firm mounds of her buttocks, then clasped her thighs and drew her upward so that her breasts were positioned above his mouth. Drawing each nipple into his mouth in turn, Caddaric laved the hard buds with his tongue and sucked gently on them. His long fingers teased the curls at the juncture of her thighs and, above him, Jilana cried out softly.

I want you, Caddaric, Jilana thought deliriously, or perhaps she said the words aloud; she did not know. All she knew was that his touch set fire to her blood and she wanted to be consumed by the flames. Sanity returned briefly when he gasped in pain and Jilana realized that she had rested her weight against his wound. "Caddaric, wait."

"Nay," Caddaric said thickly. His head tipped back and even in the moonlight, she could see the fierce glitter in his eyes.

"But your shoulder—" Jilana faltered. "How—"

"Watch." Caddaric drew one of her legs over his hips so that she straddled him. "Take me inside you, wicca."

She gasped when- he entered her, but his lips were upon hers, swallowing the sound. His hands held her hips, lifting, guiding, teaching, and Jilana felt the world fall away.

The veil of her hair fell around them, touching Caddaric's thighs with a sensuous brush that threatened his sanity. He felt the change in Jilana when she took control of their embrace and he gave himself up to the riotous sensations she was creating. Her fingers dug into the hard muscles of his waist, and above the heavy thud of his own heartbeat, he could hear her softly cried endearments as she reached for her own fulfillment. With a wildness he had not known he possessed, Caddaric thrust violently upward and at that moment Jilana cried out and went rigid above him. A hoarse moan was torn from his throat when his own release came a heartbeat later.

Jilana collapsed upon his chest in a trembling heap, dazed but pleasantly sated. Caddaric's hand was tangled in her hair, holding her close, and she pressed a kiss onto the damp flesh over his heart. "I love you, Caddaric."

His hand tightened on her hair in response. "You are mine, Jilana. Nothing can take you from me now." He felt Jilana's smile against his skin and knew the strength of the magic between them.

Reluctantly, Jilana eased herself away from her love so that they were lying side by side. "What will we do when the rebellion is ended?"

Caddaric laced the fingers of his left hand with hers and silently studied them in the moonlight.

When he did not answer immediately, Jilana asked fearfully, "Caddaric?"

Sensing the path her thoughts had taken, Caddaric said, "We will be together, little wicca, do not fear."

"That is not an answer," Jilana pointed out, but inwardly she was relieved. Their changed relationship was still too new for her to be totally confident of it.

Caddaric sighed. "To think beyond the war," he said slowly, "is to tempt the Fates."

"I thought you did not believe in the gods, whether they be Roman or Iceni," Jilana could not resist teasing.

Caddaric gave her a fierce look that dissolved into a gentle, lingering kiss when she smiled at him. "The time to consider the future is when the final battle has been won, not before." Even as he said them, the words left a cold spot of fear in his heart.

"But we will be together," Jilana persisted, smoothing away the lines that suddenly appeared between his brows. "Always."

"How could you think otherwise?" He drew the blanket over them and settled her more comfortably against side, effectively ending the conversation.