Celtic Fire(104)
Rhiannon shot him a glance, and though the night was dark, he did not miss the questions in her eyes. She wondered about the extent of his injuries. He steeled himself against her concern. She’d told him too many lies and owed him too many answers.
He paused at the corner of the fort workshop. The wide expanse of open air between it and the perimeter wall was useful for preventing flaming enemy arrows from firing the fort buildings, but proved a daunting barrier to a wounded man, a woman, and a boy who wished to reach the gate unnoticed. The tall doors between the south towers were ajar, affording a tantalizing glimpse of the fort village beyond. A knot of dicing soldiers hunkered nearby.
“A dog to my Venus,” one of them announced in a self-satisfied tone. “The prize is mine.” His opponents grumbled as they shoved their coin in his direction. Less than ten paces from the gamblers, a man was on the ground, pumping his seed into a plump woman. As Lucius watched, the soldier grunted and rolled to the side. The woman then lifted her arms to a second man. The newcomer threw down a coin and took his comrade’s place between her thighs.
Marcus tugged Lucius’s tunic. “How will we get past?”
“Can you walk unaided? Just until we pass the gate?”
He nodded.
Lucius cast a glance over Rhiannon. Most of the men had seen her enter the fort with the rutting bastard who had been her husband. She would be recognized when they tried to pass the gate. After a moment’s thought, he paced back to the dead men and cut their shirts from their bodies.
He returned to his companions. “When the show starts, slip out the gate behind us,” he told Marcus.
Rhiannon’s eyes showed her confusion. “Show?”
Lucius plucked Brennus’s dagger from her hand and shoved it back into the sheath at her waist. Then he threw one stolen shirt over Rhiannon’s head and the other around her torso. “I hope this is disguise enough,” he muttered. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, one palm firmly fixed on her buttocks.
She went deathly still, whether from shock or desire he couldn’t tell.
“Struggle,” he told her.
The dead man’s shirt muffled her voice. “Nay. You’re hurt.”
“We’ll all be dead soon enough if you don’t start screaming.”
She must have guessed his plan then, because she began to twist in his arms and shriek loudly enough to wake the dead in the fort cemetery. He made a motion to Marcus and staggered toward the gate.
The gamblers looked up as he neared. “Got a reluctant one there,” one of them commented.
“Aye,” Lucius replied in Gaulish. “To my thinking, they’re the best kind.” He shut his mouth, hoping to the gods he wouldn’t be forced to continue the banter. Neither his Gaulish vocabulary nor his accent would suffer much more conversation. He slapped Rhiannon’s rump hard enough to make his hand sting.
“Let me go, ye brute!” Her fists pummeled his back in what Lucius suspected was genuine outrage.
“Certainly, love.” He gained the gate and heaved her upright, pressing her against the wall and pinning her there with his lower body. He let one hand roam her breasts while the other lifted the hem of her tunic. Her struggles made his cock go hard. The gambling soldiers stopped their game to watch.
His lips took Rhiannon’s in a savage kiss. She responded with brutal ardor, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, fingers clawing his neck. If her passion was solely for the benefit of their audience, she belonged on a theater stage.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marcus slip through the gate. Abruptly Lucius released Rhiannon. Grabbing her hand, he hauled her past the tower and into the village.
Gauls and Celts crowded the center lane of the tiny settlement. Men sprawled in the road; sounds of coupling came from the huts. Afraid one of Rhiannon’s kinsmen would recognize her, Lucius tugged her through the alley between two dwellings and into the barley fields beyond.
Marcus collapsed between the rows. Rhiannon flung off the soiled shirts and dropped to her knees at his side.
“I’ll be all right,” the boy panted. “I just need to catch my breath.”
“You need herbs and a sennight’s rest,” Rhiannon replied.
Lucius crouched beside her. “You needn’t stay. I can care for my son.”
Her eyes gleamed gold in the moonlight. “Are you so eager to be rid of me, Lucius?”
Marcus grabbed her hand. “No! You must stay.”
Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose. “Marcus …”
Gently, Rhiannon disentangled herself from the boy’s embrace and rose.
“Marcus and I will travel south,” Lucius said. “To Eburacum. I must inform the commander there of the mutiny.” No doubt Brennus had not sent Lucius’s request for reinforcements.