The Warrior's Bride Prize. Jenni Fletcher

now?

      ‘Stay here. I’ll go and see what’s happening.’ She slid herself out from beneath the sleeping child. ‘Take care of Julia for me.’

      ‘Shouldn’t we wake her...just in case?’

      ‘No.’

      Livia shook her head emphatically, bending over to press a kiss into the spiral curls of the little girl’s hair. It was every bit as wild and untamed as hers had been at that age, as well as the same shade of blazing copper red, a legacy from her own mother that she wished Julia might have avoided.

      If only her daughter could have had dark hair like Julius, she thought regretfully. If only Julia could have looked anything at all like him, then mother and daughter might never have been in their current perilous situation. Julia might have been a rich heiress and she an independent widow, safe from her brother—half-brother, she corrected herself—Tarquinius and his scheming. Strange how great a difference something as trivial as hair colour could have on a person’s life...

      She straightened up again, dismissing the thought as unhelpful. Now wasn’t the time for regrets. Now she had bigger problems to worry about and she had to be brave for her daughter as well as her terrified maid.

      ‘There’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure of it.’

      She squeezed Porcia’s hand reassuringly and then climbed down from the carriage, glad to be out of the confined space for a while, no matter what the circumstances. It was more comfortable than horseback, better for Julia, too, but her muscles were still cramped and stiff from so much prolonged inactivity. Cautiously, she looked around, searching for some sign of an enemy attack, but there was none. On the contrary, it was hard to imagine a more peaceful, springlike scene than the one before her. The sun was high in a cloudless sky and shining for the first time in days, warming the air and giving the woodland road along which they were travelling a fresh, almost sparkling appearance. The trees on either side were starting to bud, too, if not yet bloom, and the birds within chirruping loudly, as if to celebrate the fact that the long, hard winter was finally coming to an end.

      It was a whole different world to the makeshift camp they’d left, shivering and cold that morning, as if some enchantment had fallen over the carriage during her brief nap, turning the hours into weeks. But then time seemed to have been working differently during the seemingly endless days of their journey north. Hardly surprising when they were travelling as far from Rome as they could possibly go, following the great road beyond Eboracum to the very limits of the Empire and the great wall built less than a century before by the Emperor Hadrian—a massive eighty-mile structure stretching from one side of the country to the other.

      Despite the relentless pace of their journey, however, there’d been days when she’d had the uneasy feeling they might be travelling for ever, trapped in some never-ending loop. Then again, there’d been days when she’d hoped that they might never arrive in Coria, one of the northernmost settlements of the frontier. Being sent to marry a stranger of her half-brother’s choosing wasn’t an experience she’d relished the first time. It certainly hadn’t been one that she’d wanted to repeat, yet now it was happening all over again, barely two months after Julius’s funeral, as if her past were repeating itself in the present and she was powerless to do anything to stop it.

      How many more times would Tarquinius use her as a bargaining tool? she wondered. How many more times must she be humiliated? Bad enough that he had so much power over her life, but now he was controlling Julia’s, too. Her only hope was that her new husband might prove a different kind of man to Julius. If not, then it was surely only a matter of time before her second marriage turned just as sour as her first... If he did prove to be different, however, then there was still hope. If he turned out to be good and honourable, then perhaps she could talk to him, perhaps even tell him the whole truth about herself before Tarquinius got a chance to interfere.

      Of course, that was supposing they survived their current danger and made it to Coria in the first place. Not that it sounded very dangerous, she reassured herself, heading around the front of the carriage in search of Tullus, the leader of the small band of men entrusted with delivering her safely to her new husband. She could already hear his voice at the front of her escort, talking calmly enough—in Latin, too, which was another good sign—though oddly without his usual bravado.

      She caught sight of his back at last and then stopped, rooted to the spot in amazement at the view before her. The road was blocked by tens upon tens of Roman soldiers, a whole century of them by the look of it, all standing in perfect formation and dressed in full military regalia, shields and spears at the ready, as if they were marching into battle. They looked even more impressive and imposing than the ones she’d seen on parade in Lindum, their burnished shoulder plates and polished helms gleaming like molten gold in the spring sunshine. And there at the front, wearing a transversely plumed helmet that immediately signalled him out as a Centurion, stood their leader, the man—surely it had to be him—that she’d come to marry.

      ‘Oh!’

      She didn’t intend to utter the exclamation aloud, but it came out anyway, too loud in the silence that greeted her arrival, and the Centurion’s gaze shifted towards her, sweeping briefly over the long folds of her stola before their eyes met and held. For a few moments he didn’t move. Then he inclined his head, courteously enough, though his gaze never left hers. His eyes were dark, she noticed, like pools of black tar, deep and mysterious and compelling, though the expression in them looked strangely arrested.

      ‘Livia Valeria?’ He broke the silence at last.

      ‘Yes.’

      This time her voice sounded too quiet as she forced her feet to move forward again. She couldn’t think of a single other thing to say either. How was she supposed to greet the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with? A simple Ave seemed insufficient.

      ‘I trust that you’ve had a good journey, lady?’

      ‘Yes,’ she repeated, wincing inwardly at the repetition. ‘At least, as good as we might have hoped for in springtime.’

      He glanced up at the sky. ‘The weather’s been milder than usual.’

      ‘Ye—True.’

      She corrected herself just in time, tucking her red curls back behind her ears self-consciously. In her haste to discover what was happening outside, she’d left her palla behind in the carriage, leaving her hair uncovered. Now she felt uncomfortably exposed, wishing she’d brought a shawl to cover her stola as well. The silken fabric felt too thin and flimsy in front of so many men, but then she’d dressed to impress her new husband, just as Tarquinius had instructed her to...

      As awkward as their first encounter felt, however, at least this got it over with quickly. It wasn’t exactly the way or the place that she’d expected to meet him, on a woodland road in the middle of nowhere, but perhaps it was as good as any. She’d sent a rider ahead with news of their imminent arrival the day before, though she hadn’t expected any response. Having never met him in person—Tarquinius not having considered a meeting necessary prior to their marriage—she’d had no idea what he thought of their union, but surely this had to be a good sign, his coming to greet her with an honour guard of soldiers.

      ‘Are we close to the wall?’ She asked the first question that sprang into her mind.

      ‘About ten miles away.’

      ‘So close? Then we should be there before nightfall.’

      ‘Even sooner. It’s barely half a day’s march from here, lady. We’ll get you there for dinner.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      She smiled nervously and he reached up to remove his helmet, revealing a head of light brown hair, close-cropped like most soldiers’, above a ruggedly handsome face, with prominent cheekbones, a slightly crooked nose that looked as if it must have been broken at some point and a resolute-looking jaw. Judging by the ingrained frown lines between his brows, he didn’t smile very often,