Seduced by Her Rebel Warrior Page 9

  It still did not explain Rab’s education. His Greek had been flawless—better than her own. If Nabataea was anything like Rome, then only landed, noble families could afford to educate their children in such a way.

  Families of camel trainers surely could not afford to teach their children to recite lines from Homer.

  Then there was the question of his appearance. The man was simply too strong for his vocation. A camel trainer would have no occasion to do the lifting, carrying and pulling required to develop such a muscular chest.

  And it was not just his chest. The short Roman tunic he donned had afforded her a glimpse of his thighs—two bulging pillars of muscle that had borne Atia herself all the way up the steep slope the previous afternoon.

  Not that she had to be reminded of his thighs—or anything else. The image of him naked inside the dressing room—his arousal growing as they spoke—was etched into her mind for ever.

  Rab was not a camel trainer, nor was he a trader. Who was he, then?

  * * *

  She watched him closely throughout the march that day. He led their small caravan with easy confidence, picking the best routes up and down the rocky canyons. When the sun became too fierce, he directed their group to a shady overhang that he seemed to conjure from the desert itself.

  He was a natural guide and shepherd—that seemed quite clear. As they took their places beneath the shade at noon, she observed him subtly taking stock of the soldiers and donkeys, ensuring that each animal was properly shaded and that any ailing soldiers were helped free of their armour and made comfortable.

  He was an experienced leader, or so it seemed, though Atia ceased to ponder the matter when she became aware that he was also taking stock of her.

  Except that it was more than a simple assessment. When she lifted her head to meet his gaze, there it was again: desire. Fierce and piercing. Hotter than the midday sun. There was no mistaking it now—she had seen it too many times. Nor did she doubt its veracity, for there was no longer any more reason for him to feign his lust.

  Time seemed to stand still and she willed herself not to look away. He desired her—despite her many attempts to put distance between them. Yearning seemed to pour out of his eyes—a great cascade of it—and she realised that she wanted to bathe in it for as long as she could.

  ‘Rab!’ called a soldier and the spell was broken.

  Atia lay her head back on her mat and remembered to breathe. She told herself not to make too much of that moment or any other. She was the only woman within a dozen miles, after all—the only woman that any of the men would see for the next six weeks. It did not matter how she looked. She was a woman and he was a man and, in the absence of other women, he had settled for her. Proximity bred desire. It was as simple as that.

  Still, it pleased her to think that he desired her—for whatever reason. At her advanced age, and with her repulsive nose, it was just nice to be desired. Nay, it was better than nice. It was wonderful.

  * * *

  So wonderful that she could think of little else all that day, or the day after that. The memory of his smouldering eyes was like a candle glowing bright within her mind—bright enough to nearly erase her other, more shadowy thoughts.

  The ones she had become determined to vanquish.

  The ones that managed to creep in at the oddest moments. Like when she lay down at night and considered that she would soon be married. Or when she thought of the look on her father’s face when he had vowed to slaughter the Nabataean rebels. Or when she thought of her sisters’ unfortunate fates, or her mother’s terrible death...

  But mostly she did not think of those things. She tried instead to focus on her legs. She told them how much they loved to walk. They seemed to believe her. They piloted her up and down the endless hills with growing vitality, and when the group camped outside the city of Pella that seventh afternoon, she noticed that her headache was gone and her trembling had ceased.

  ‘Good evening, domina,’ said one of the soldiers, cutting a bow. ‘A group of us are going to Pella to purchase supplies. Is there anything you might wish for us to bring you?’

  Atia glanced around camp, finding neither Plotius nor Rab in sight. Her heart beat faster. Pella was a large Greek colonial city with strong trading ties throughout Arabia. There would be alchemists and doctors and tears aplenty available for purchase there. ‘Will Plotius accompany you?’ she asked casually.

  ‘No, domina. The commander wishes to rest here in camp.’

  Atia’s mind swirled. She could simply tell this soldier to fetch a bottle of tears for her, flip him a gold coin and no one would be the wiser.

  Only she did not drink the tears any more. She had given them up.

  Though it would be nice to have them for an emergency. Just one small bottle, she thought.

  ‘Would you wait one moment?’ Atia asked the soldier. She crossed to her bed mat and bent to fetch her coin purse. Perhaps she would have him buy her two bottles instead of one. Then she would have one bottle for emergencies and another for occasional use. In that case, she could have just a few drops with her dinner that night and her sleep would be free of terrors.

  As she strode towards the soldier, she caught sight of Rab rising from his bed mat not ten paces away. He flashed her a grin so wickedly handsome that it made her lose her footing. She stumbled, righted herself, then smiled back.

  ‘Atia, come join me for some polentum,’ he called.

  This time it was her heart, not her feet, that seemed to stumble. Something in the way he beckoned her made her feel terribly, inappropriately happy.

  ‘Ah...one moment,’ she told Rab and, as her feet continued towards the soldier, Atia remembered the first time Rab had offered her food. It had been that second day of the march when she had been so terribly restless. He had offered her dates, but her hands had been trembling so hard that she had been unable to accept them. She knew that it was the lack of tears that had caused the trembling, as well as the shame. She never wanted to feel that way again.

  ‘What is your order, domina?’ asked the soldier.

  ‘Apologies,’ Atia replied. ‘I have changed my mind. I do not need anything after all.’

  ‘As you wish, domina,’ said the soldier with a retreating bow.

  Atia felt quietly triumphant. She had never in her life refused the opportunity for tears. She had not known she was capable of such a refusal.

  * * *

  Her reward came only a little while later when Rab brought her a bowlful of polentum. The notoriously bland stew had never tasted more delicious on her tongue. Afterwards, she found a seat on a rock just above the camp and Rab joined her there.

  ‘The sky will be beautiful tonight,’ he observed, gazing out at the crimson horizon. ‘The moon will rise late.’

  He had seated himself very close. His robed arm brushed against her own and, though it was just the touch of cloth on cloth, the contact quickened her heartbeat.

  ‘You know much about the night sky,’ she said. She smiled to herself, thinking of the special meaning that Lydia had given to the starry expanse.

  ‘The desert is my mistress,’ Rab said. ‘The night sky is her robe.’ He turned to look at Atia and her stomach plunged in a strange delight. She had a powerful inclination to conceal her nose from his view.

  ‘Do you have a favourite constellation?’ she asked instead, hoping he would return his attention to the sky.

  He thought for a moment. ‘There is a Nabataean constellation called The Balance. Three stars in the shape of a pyramid: one to hold the balance itself and two to hold the scales. It is beautiful, but mostly I love what it symbolises.’

  ‘And what is that?’ asked Atia.

  ‘Justice.’

  ‘In Rome it is the same. Libra—the scales.’

  ‘There are so many things we have in common with you Romans, but you
hold yourselves above us and treat us unfairly. You fleece us of our greatness, our wealth, our—’ He stopped himself.

  ‘Why do you cease?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I do not need to bother you with my ranting.’

  ‘Do you think I am so naive as to believe in Roman righteousness?’ she asked.

  He looked at her as if she had just sprouted wings.

  ‘I remember the day Emperor Trajan marched ten thousand Dacian soldiers on to the Campus of Mars and had them crucified one by one,’ she continued. ‘It was the greatest tragedy I have ever witnessed, though I have read about many others. I have studied history, Rab. I know how Rome bullies and batters its way around the world. The business of empire is the business of suffering and death. I only wish I did not have to take part in it.’

  ‘You do not have to.’

  She laughed softly. ‘As if I have any power at all over my fate.’

  ‘You have power. You just do not know how to use it. Your father...’

  There was a long silence. ‘My father what?’

  ‘He is a powerful demon,’ Rab said at length.

  She did not answer, but she did not contradict him either.

  There was movement in the camp below them. The soldiers who had gone to Pella had returned and fresh bread and rations of wine were being passed around. Soon the men would be deep in their cups. Atia and Rab could remain undisturbed.

  ‘Ah, look, just there,’ said Atia, pointing to two stars that had risen near the eastern horizon. ‘I think that is the beginning of Libra.’

  ‘We must wait and see,’ said Rab, though it seemed he was speaking of something other than the sky.

  Atia searched her mind for something to say, but all she could think about was how good it felt to sit beside him like this, with all the universe spreading itself out before them, as if they were not prisoners carrying out their terrible sentences, but simple travelers in a great big world.

  Rab spoke at last. ‘May I ask you a question, Atia?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘Are you betrothed?’

  She paused. It was a perfectly natural question, and yet she felt as if someone had just stuffed a scarf down her throat. ‘I—I do not know.’

  ‘You do not know?’

  It was the last thing on earth she wished to talk about with him. ‘My father said nothing to me about any betrothal. He gave me a letter and told me to deliver it to the Legate in Rekem. I do not know what it contains.’

  ‘Can you not open it to find out?’

  ‘He forbade it. I do not know if the letter contains the marriage contract or something else. I know that—’ She stopped herself. There was no reason to bring up the dowry.

  ‘You know what?’ he demanded.

  ‘I believe that there are golden aureiis in the box Plotius carries. It is perhaps a loan of some kind—maybe for a public works project. Or perhaps payment for the legion at Rekem.’

  ‘Or perhaps a dowry,’ he said.

  ‘Let us hope that is not the case.’

  ‘What quarrel do you have with marriage?’

  ‘I believe it is...dangerous,’ Atia said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My sister was betrothed once—to a wicked man. When it was discovered that she had fallen in love with another, my father punished her with twenty lashes.’

  Rab gasped. ‘Twenty lashes...for a woman?’

  ‘It was a mercy,’ said Atia. ‘Her lover received fifty.’ She bit her tongue. She had said too much.

  ‘Fifty lashes? Who could survive that?’

  Atia said nothing, for the man had not survived.

  Even in the darkness, she could sense Rab’s expression change. He scooted away from her—just enough to make room for the wall that seemed to materialise between them.

  She should not have been surprised. She had just described how her father had murdered her sister’s lover. If Rab had harboured any intentions of getting closer to her, she had just delivered them a violent end.

  ‘If your father does not send you to be married, then why does he send you to Rekem at all?’ He peered over his shoulder, as if fearful of being seen with her.

  ‘Perhaps as a punishment,’ she said.

  ‘Punishment? What terrible misdeed would warrant sending you across the desert in the middle of August?’

  ‘I believe it was—’

  She stopped herself. Hounds of Hades, was she really about to tell him the truth? I believe it was my overindulgence in tears of the poppy. She could never tell him that. Even if she could not have his desire, she at least wanted his respect.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she lied. ‘My father enjoys keeping me in suspense.’

  Rab removed his ghutrah and ran his hand through his long hair. ‘I fear you are not alone in that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your father said that if I did not deliver you to Rekem by the end of September he will kill my nephew.’

  Atia’s stomach heaved. Another innocent under threat of her father’s blade. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I will do everything in my power to—’

  ‘I do not tell you this to elicit your sympathy,’ he interrupted. ‘I only wish for us to be honest with each other.’

  ‘As do I,’ she said.

  ‘Do you?’

  Atia thought of the most honest thing she could say. ‘I know that it was you who saved me from Plotius.’

  He turned to look at her directly, but it had become too blessedly dark for him to see her. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.

  ‘I am very observant,’ she said.

  ‘That you are.’

  ‘You saved me, Rab,’ she said. ‘Why did you not simply tell me? Did you not think that I would wish to thank you?’

  ‘I do not require your thanks,’ he said. ‘I only wish to know why you agreed to such a meeting at all. Why did you do it?’

  It was an impossible question. To answer it honestly, she would have to admit to her weakness for the poppy. How much would he desire her after learning that she was willing to risk her own safety for a single drop of the tears?

  But there was another, more basic reason. To voice her weakness for the poppy would give it more power somehow. Power that she did not wish it to have. Power that it did not deserve.

  ‘I cannot say why,’ she said.

  ‘You cannot say or you do not wish to say?’

  Atia paused. ‘Both reasons.’ She sensed him stiffen. ‘It is not important.’

  ‘It is important to me,’ he returned.

  They sat together in silence for what seemed like hours. Atia was sure that Rab suspected an affair. It was the obvious explanation for why she had agreed to meet Plotius in the middle of the night so far from camp.

  Why should she not tell him the real reason she had put herself in that position? Rab had saved her from a terrible ravaging, after all. He deserved to know the truth.

  But she could not bring herself to admit it to him. The truth was even uglier than her nose, for it was caused by a flaw deep within herself. It was something so very ugly that not even darkness could conceal it.

  ‘It has been so long since I observed the night sky,’ she remarked, feebly changing the subject. ‘When I was young I would often watch the stars on the roof of our doma in Rome.’

  ‘Indeed?’ he said absently. With each passing moment he seemed to draw further away from her.

  ‘Especially in the summers,’ she chattered on in in growing desperation. ‘My sisters and I would play in the atrium pool all day and spent our nights upon the roof, gazing at the stars.’

  ‘How wonderful,’ Rab said, but there was little wonder in his voice.

  ‘Our mother would teach us the constellations. She had studied astrology as
a young woman, you see. She was so full of enthusiasm back then and so very beautiful. That was before she...’

  Atia bit her lip. She squeezed her eyes together to fight the shock of tears. She had not spoken of her mother in years.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Rab asked. Thank the gods for the darkness, for it concealed the tears she felt streaming down her face. ‘Will you not even answer that question?’

  ‘I am fine,’ she said with too much cheer. ‘Everything is fine.’ She buried her face in her hands.

  ‘It really does not seem that way,’ he said. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Please, just go away,’ she said.

  Rab exhaled and rose to his feet. ‘As you wish. Goodnight, Atia,’ he said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said and listened closely to the soft crunch of his feet against the earth as he walked away.

  But then the crunching stopped and she heard his voice cut across the darkness. ‘It is a powerful demon you face,’ he said.

  Chapter Ten

  The trail grew rougher. The rolling hills of the north transformed into steep, cliffy canyons that plunged into narrow wadis flowing only with sand.

  Atia kept her head down as she marched and took one step at a time. It is a powerful demon you face, he had told her, as if he already knew of the battle she waged.

  It was impossible. She had told him nothing of her fondness for the poppy tears.

  Surely he had been speaking of some other demon: her father, Plotius, the Legate of Rekem. Or perhaps he had been referring to the demon of grief, who had shown himself unexpectedly when she had spoken of her mother.

  What was abundantly clear was that Rab no longer wished to speak with her, for he left her to eat alone each night, and did not join her again to watch the stars come out. Whatever desire he had once had for her had waned predictably. Nor had she helped matters by describing the gruesome death of her sister’s lover.

  As if that were not enough, she had refused to answer his question about why she had gone to meet Plotius and when he had asked gently about her mother she had ordered him to go away.