William Dietrich - Hadrian's wall

"Yes, here, unless you care to object."

"Here would be good," Sextus agreed, finally recognizing the impatience of his commander. He fingered the wound on his brow. "It's a splendid time for a wedding."

"Just get on with it."

Sextus glanced around as if for guidance. "Which gods shall we use?"

"The good god Dagda," Valeria suddenly spoke up. "The god of the wood."

The soldier blinked in confusion.

"A Roman god, you fool," Galba corrected. "No blasphemy, and nothing to challenge the union later. Jupiter. Jupiter and cake. Isn't that a Roman custom? Marta, do we have some cake?"

"Not really, lord."

"Then use Mars, the god of war."

"A wedding is not war, tribune," Sextus ventured.

"This one is."

Marta was dispatched to fetch a figurine of Mars from Galba's old quarters. Sextus took a wax tablet and scratched the outline of a blessing so he'd not stumble under his commander's stare.

While they waited, the groom leaned toward his bride. "I've decided I'm going to have you after all," he told her hoarsely. "Take you until you bear me a son and thus consummate our marriage."

"I'll neither take nor give any pleasure from it."

"Nor will I. After you start fattening with child, I'm going to put you aside for the rest of your life. If any other man so much as touches you, I'll kill you both."

She closed her eyes. "What will become of Arden?"

"He'll live, but finish his days as a slave."

"If you don't keep your word to spare him, then I'll kill you."

He smiled. "I don't doubt you would, given the chance. But I never give anyone the chance."

Marta brought the small clay figure of the god Mars back and Sextus set it in an alcove of the wall alongside a candle. "Galba's god," the soldier observed.

"The sword spatha," Valeria corrected, remembering the senior tribune's comment on that day in Londinium so many months ago.

"What?"

"He told us he worshiped the sword."

"Enough! Enough! Begin!"

Sextus turned to them. "Take her hand, please."

She refused to give it.

"Don't hesitate, Sextus!"

"But why does she withhold her hand?"

Galba grabbed her arm and jerked it to him. "Begin!"

The soldier took a breath. "Very well. I call on Mars to witness-"

He got no further. Suddenly something large and heavy sailed through the doorway and hit the central dining table with a bang, making everyone jump. It skidded to a stop, gleaming dully.

"Look," Sextus said in wonder. "Galba's god."

It was Galba's unsheathed cavalry sword, recognizable to everyone by its white hilt and gold pommel and edge nicked in the recent fighting. In respect and custom to his own wedding, he'd left it sheathed and hanging on a peg in the entryway. Yet here it was, thrown as if in challenge.

The centurion Falco stepped after it. He had his own sword and armor on.

The wedding party had frozen.

"What's this, Falco?" Galba growled, uncharacteristically taken aback by this intrusion. "Can't you see I'm getting married?"

"You might need your sword, tribune. Arden Caratacus has escaped."

Valeria gasped and jerked her hand away from Galba.

"Escaped? When?"

"Just now. He's in the entry hall at this very moment, waiting to kill you."

"What! How did he get here?"

"I let him."

Galba, slowly understanding, darkened like a cloud. "So you've betrayed me, Falco."

"It's you who are the traitor, Galba Brassidias, you who let a unit of the Petriana perish outside the Wall and your commander with it. You who conspired to abduct his wife. You who murdered my slave Odo and blamed it on another soldier, setting into motion his death as well. If Caratacus doesn't kill you, I just might."

"Are you insane? It was the stripling clown who killed Odo, not me!"

"Then why, Galba, did my property have this secreted in his mouth?"

Falco tossed again, this time an object tiny and bright. It too hit the table and bounced, finally skittering to a stop. It was a ring of heavy gold bearing a red stone.

The tribune blinked in surprise, recognizing his own tactic for betraying Valeria.

"I remember you with this trophy on a bloody finger after we ambushed the Scotti for Cato Cunedda," Falco said. "What I can't remember is seeing it since the wedding. Why did the dead Odo have it, and why is it missing from your belt?"

Galba involuntarily glanced down, and as he did so, Valeria and Sextus stepped away from him. Suddenly he seemed very much alone.

"He pulled it from your waist, didn't he? He named you from the grave."

"By the gods, I'll slay you too," Galba slowly muttered. "You'll beg not to have me as an enemy. I'll spit on your corpse and possess this bitch anyway!"

"No, Galba," Valeria calmly told him. "If you kill Arden and Falco, then I'll kill myself."

And even as they turned to the entrance hall that Falco had come from, looking for Caratacus, Marta took the back way and darted from the house to give alarm.

Arden was waiting for Galba in the broad entry. He was as still as a statue, resting on the long sword of the Celts. It made Valeria remember that awful moment by the spring of Bormo when young Clodius had charged to save her and been slain by this man she now knew she desperately loved. She could hardly breathe.

Could Arden win? Galba Brassidias was no Clodius. He'd never been beaten in battle. Never been bested by the sword. The Thracian walked in with unsheathed spatha and without fear, his forearms roped with muscle, his eyes dark and wary, his torso erect, his manner deliberate. Would he kill the Celt as easily as he'd killed everyone else?

Arden, by contrast, looked dirty and tired, dressed in the ragged tunic left to him after capture. The chieftain's ankles and wrists had the chafe marks of chains, his body was scratched, and his hair was a tangled mane. What remained bright were his sword and the bold blue eyes that regarded Galba with icy malevolence. It was different from any look that Valeria had seen in the Celt, even in previous combat. It was a look not just of hatred, but of final judgment. Involuntarily, she shivered.

"So you crawled from the pit, Britlet," Galba growled.

"Falco ordered me out under pretext of interrogation." Arden glanced just a moment at Valeria, his eyes softening, and a lifetime of explanation flashed between them. Then his cold focus was once more on his opponent.

Galba snorted. "If you'd let me marry your bitch, I'd have let you live, Caratacus, and maybe even made you a petty king. I've always been your best chance."

"What a habitual liar you've become."

"I told you I'd let you through the gate! I just didn't tell you what you'd find on the other side." Galba grinned. "I played with your dreams of independence, Britlet. But I gave you those dreams, as well."

"I've realized I can't even fully kill you, Galba. You're already half-dead, rotting from the inside out. Your self-pity lives on, but whatever heart you had died long ago."

"But I can kill you, barbarian. And I will!"

Galba sprang, and their blades clashed in the entry chamber's dimness, sparks flying as the metal rang. Their arms bulged, pushing and testing each other's strength, and then they repelled with a grunt, leaping apart, each armed with some knowledge of his opponent's power. They circled warily, looking for weaknesses or mistakes.

"You didn't even dress for your wedding," Arden said, his feet light on the boards of the room. "You look as though you feared she'd stab you."

Galba's circle was smaller and more solid, his guard high. "Maybe instinct told me to dress for war. Better instinct than you."

Galba charged, his spatha flicking back and forth in a blur, and before Arden could fully knock it away, the sword found fabric and ripped, cutting a slash on the Briton's chest. Valeria screamed and wished she hadn't.