Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

"No, Uther," I said, with a smile. "You won't kill her. Not now. But for a moment there, I thought you would have. Is it bleeding?"

He checked again. "No. But it might have been. The bitch!"

I grinned at him. "Come on, Uther! She didn't even bite hard. I was watching. You were more shocked than hurt, admit it. Your pride suffered more than your cock."

He glowered at me. "What do you know about it? You didn't feel her teeth!"

"Let's have a look at it, then. Is it marked?" I stepped towards him, but he cupped himself in a protective hand and I laughed outright in my relief, forgetting about his pride. "From the size of it now, it looks as though she bit three- quarters of it off!" Only then did I notice how upset he still was and realize that I should not be baiting him. I continued, however, to make light of it, hoping to make him see the humour in the situation. There is no more effective poultice for wounded pride than the ability to laugh at oneself. "Hey!" I said. 'That was a jest! It'll probably work just as well as ever once you stop thinking about it. Girls, why don't you try to see if Uther's staff is still strong enough to lean on?"

They were willing enough and clustered round him in glowing, warm-fleshed nudity, but he would have none of it. He slapped them away and got to his feet with a scowl, grabbing his tunic and pulling it on as he did so. "I'll see you in the morning," he snapped on the way out, and left the five of us sitting there staring at the closed door.

I got up and poured myself some wine from the jug on the table. "Well, ladies," I said. "He'll be back when he's cooled off." I toasted the four of them silently. "In the meantime, why don't we try to see how many times one will go into four?" The fire had burned low and there was only one lamp left burning in the room by this time. One of them, the one with the long, pink tongue, blew it out as I approached them.

IX

I was wrong. Uther did not come back that night, and to this day I know of only two people who might have seen him in the course of the next week. The first of these was the guard on duty in the courtyard when Uther stormed out of the games room; the other, the girl, Cassandra.

I awoke just after dawn the following morning and left my four bedmates asleep in a tangle of limbs. I had had no more than two hours of sleep, and when I finally dropped off, at least two of the girls were still pleasing each other. As I dressed, I noticed that Uther had not returned, but I thought nothing of it at the time. I went to the stables and saddled my horse and galloped down to the villa, letting the crisp, cold air of the frosty morning clear my head, and anticipating the humid, seductive warmth of the bath house, where I could steam and soak the previous night's excesses out of my body.

There was a regular Council session scheduled for noon that day, and I had nothing to do until then, so I spent an hour or so rooting around in the villa. For many years the focal point of the Britannicus family, it was an empty, echoing place nowadays, barely used since the entire family had moved up to live in the hilltop fort years before, although servants still kept it in first-class condition as guest quarters and maintained its magnificent bath house. The fort had baths of its own, of course, but they were utilitarian, makeshift and barely functional—primitive beside the luxury offered by the facilities at the Villa Britannicus.

It was mid-morning by the time I finally went back up the hill to the fort, where I changed into more formal clothes and began to make my way to the kitchens to eat before getting ready for the Council meeting. On the way there, I heard my name being called and I turned to see, Lucanus, the head of our medical staff, looking towards me and waving. I stopped to let him approach me, wondering what he could want. He was an able surgeon, our best in fact, but I chose to think he was not himself an amiable man. He asked me whether I had seen Uther.

"No, Lucanus, I haven't. Not since last night. Is there a problem? Can I help you?"

He frowned and nibbled at his lower lip. "Yes, Commander, there is a problem, but I don't know..."

"You don't know if I can help. Well, neither of us will know the answer to that until you tell me what the problem is." He still looked unsure of himself.

"Well? Come on, man, spit it out!"

He grimaced. "It's the girl, Commander."

I frowned at him, not knowing what he meant. "What girl, Lucanus? I'm not a mind reader."

"The woman, sir. The one Commander Uther brought back yesterday."

My mind clicked. "Cassandra. What about her?"

"I have her in my quarters, Commander."

"Do you, indeed?" I grinned at him. "You'll get little cooperation out of that one, Lucanus. Be careful of her teeth."

The man had no sense of humour. He frowned, heavy; browed with displeasure. "She has been badly beaten, Commander. Brutally beaten, almost to death." My breath stopped as he went on. "Some soldiers found her this morning, in the stables against the west wall. They brought her to me. I thought that since Commander Uther is her protector, he should be told immediately, but I have been unable to find him. When I saw you, I thought you might be able to tell me where he is."

I had a sick sourness in the pit of my gut, but the lie came to my lips of its own volition. "No, I can't tell you. He rode out of the fort last night on a private matter. I have no idea when he will be back. Bring me to the girl." I followed him back to his quarters, stopping only to tell one of the men heading towards the Council Hall that I might be detained and that the session should proceed without me and without Uther.

Lucanus had not exaggerated. The girl lay naked on a cot, hidden from view by folding screens. She had been beaten without mercy with a club of some kind, and the contusions on her white skin would take weeks to heal. Most of the blood had been washed away, and several of the angrier-looking cuts had been stitched together. Her eyes were puffed and bruised completely shut and her startling mouth, which I was immediately sure had been the cause of this, was a shattered, bloody mass. "I'll find her later and teach her a lesson she won't soon forget!" I could hear Uther's voice and my skin crawled in loathing. How could he have done this to a skinny little girl? My mind could not accept it, but there was the evidence, lying naked and smashed in front of me.

"Has she been violated?"

"I think you could say that."

I heard the sarcasm in his voice and rounded on him in a fury. "Sexually, I mean, you fool! Has she been raped?"

His eyes were glacial. I had made an enemy. "Yes, Commander. She has been brutalized and sodomized. Both by extreme force. Her vagina and her anus are both badly torn."

I felt the room swaying around me. "Will she live?"

"I think so, if she wants to."

"What do you mean by that?"

He shrugged his shoulders and ducked his head in a curious manner, pursing his lips as he did so. "Just what I say. If she wishes to live, she will live. People can die by simply choosing not to live. This young woman has had a terrible experience. Is it true she is mute?"

I looked down at her again. "We don't know. She hasn't spoken since we found her, but we found her beside the bodies of two people who might have been her parents.

Commander Uther thought at first that she might be in some kind of trance brought about by witnessing their deaths."

"How did they die?"

"We don't know that, either. There were no signs of violence, and we saw no indications that they had been sick. They were just dead, and the girl knelt beside them."

He made that peculiar gesture again. "I suppose that could be true. She might have been in what we call shock. The body's defensive systems are a wonder we know practically nothing of. How long has it been since she was found?"