Arminius saw her, fell headlong in love with her—and was forbidden her. (F. Matania)
I downed my ale while Varus droned on at the head of the table. The man certainly knew how to speak. Arminius caught my eye, lips twitching.
Back in our home, life continued as usual with one significant change: Every man in my family save Levin refused to look at me.
The main body of the legions was ready to march out in a few days. My stomach churned at the thought of Arminius leaving for the winter, though I couldn’t determine the source of my discomfort. They were unlikely to encounter any resistance along the route back to Vetera, their winter base. He would return in the spring. Everything calmed during our winters, when harsh temperatures dampened unrest and the Romans left behind were too few to collect more slaves and taxes. It’s not as though I needed him for any reason.
And yet his coming absence troubled me. The only reason it could unsettle me was that I’d miss him. His presence had worked its way seamlessly into my life, like he’d never been gone at all. More than that, I looked forward to seeing him. Damn it, I liked him, with his amiable smiles, his teasing, the way he heard me. When he chose to.
The entire concept of missing him left me unsettled. We were partners, friends of a sort, and nothing more. We couldn’t be anything more, and missing him wouldn’t lead to anything good.
I sat at the table with my teeth on edge listening to the Romans congratulate themselves on all their accomplishments against our savage race. Fortunately, I possessed a convenient excuse to leave.
“My apologies.” I stood and pressed a hand to my belly, as though in pain. It was a weak excuse, but men seldom questioned a woman hinting at stomach cramps.
Segestes’ only acknowledgement was a quick nod in my direction before returning his rapt attention to whatever grand story Varus told.
Once inside my room with the door pulled tight, my pulse settled. I untied the laces of my belt and set it atop my trunk before loosening the braids Jotapa had crafted. These little things had the power to lighten my entire being.
I sank onto the end of my bed with a sigh and flexed my tired feet. Hours of preparation to welcome Varus and his officers took their toll. Simply being in their presence took its toll.
A throat cleared outside my window. I dragged myself up to push the covering aside, knowing it was Arminius, before revealing his grinning face.
“You sneaking away?” He frowned. “Or is your stomach really bothering you?”
I hummed and shrugged. “How did you get away?”
“Told them I had to piss.”
“Exactly what I wanted to hear.” I rolled my eyes.
He shooed me away from the window. “Unless you want me to crawl in on top of you, make some room.”
Before I could stop him, he squeezed his bulk through the window and slid inside with a thunk as his big feet hit the floor. I whirled at the door, certain someone must have heard him.
“Get out of here,” I whispered.
He straightened, filling the small space of my room even without his armor.
“There are two dozen people in the hall; no one can hear anything.” His eyes took a turn around my room and he ran the tips of his blunt fingers along the rushes in the ceiling.
“They’ll notice when you don’t come back.” I said. “Segestes will know you’re here.”
“And what will he do about that?” Arminius sank into my straw mattress, and I ignored the way my stomach dropped at the sight of him on my bed.
“Probably have Lennart and Wout hold me down while he beats me senseless before chaining me to a post in the hall until Reimar claims me.” The three of them had threatened as much, and I believed them.
His eyes narrowed and he grew, expanding into himself until he looked even bigger. “Elda, if he so much as puts a hand on you again, I’ll have him crucified. I swear to our gods and Rome’s-”
“You will not.” I crossed my arms and leveled my most fearsome glare at him. “For the last time, you will not make me look weak.”
He cocked his head and reached for my hand, tugging me forward until I stood between his knees. “Are you upset with me?”
“No.” A lie. I was always upset with him. His every word, every look, every touch drove my senses into a lather. I didn’t want him to hurt yet more of my family to defend me, and I really didn’t want the strange way my belly flipped at the thought of him being so wild for me that he’d truly do anything to protect and keep me.
He raised an eyebrow, waiting. I couldn’t tell him any of this or how every day my marriage to Reimar drew closer, the fire burning me apart from the inside grew hotter. The days went too fast, tumbling over each other, racing to their terminus when everything would change. Putting off the marriage only delayed the inevitable.
All my life, marriage had been my future. That had been plenty of time to decide what I wanted; a powerful man, someone to be my equal, a man who wouldn’t beat me or hold me back. I wanted a chief, a warrior, and a tribe of my own to lead. Affection never entered my expectations. A partnership didn’t need it and what was marriage, but a partnership?
Arminius made me want things I had no right to want; silly, irrelevant things, like the way he rubbed my inner wrists with his thumbs and looked at me with eyes that saw everything. Humor wouldn’t feed a village. A quick smile wouldn’t protect us from our enemies. He made me want to believe his feelings were true.
Our war could end before it started, all because I wanted him.
He brought my hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of each one. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
If he suspected what I felt, the clawing need to break my betrothal and finally surrender to him, he’d never relent. Like the best hunters, he’d sight in on that opening and wouldn’t stop until I surrendered.
I jerked away from him and paced the floor. “You know, this room is my only sanctuary. I’ve been on my feet all day organizing this wretched dinner, after a week spent working from dawn until midnight getting our villagers ready for winter. I’m exhausted. I wanted a few moments to myself, one night to just rest, and here you are, on my bed, demanding more of my attention.”
At some point during my raving, Arminius stood from the bed and silently crept up behind me to capture my shoulders in his hands. I tensed under his sudden nearness, then locked up entirely when those strong, large hands kneaded into the tight muscles of my upper back.
“Easy,” he murmured against my ear. Gooseflesh rippled down my arms. “You need to relax. Let me help.”
“I’m not going to fuck you.”
His breath puffed against my neck in a soft chuckle. “No, that’s what would help me relax. I said I can help you relax.”
His kneading took on a rhythmic quality that almost made me surrender.
“What is this? What are you doing?”
With a little push, he kept on kneading while guiding me on dragging feet back toward my narrow bed.
“You,” his thumb dug into a knotted muscle and I hissed in pain and relief, “need help, whether you want to admit it or not. If this is the only thing you’ll let me do, then please let me do it. We’re leaving in the morning, so if you want to spend all winter convincing yourself I had ulterior motives tonight and nothing I did actually helped you, then you go ahead and do that.”
The man knew how to make an argument, especially when his fingers worked a special kind of magic on my shoulders.
To my disappointment, he released me and sat on the edge of the bed with his legs spread. “Sit here. I won’t even make you lay down. You’ll have an easy escape any time you want it.”
A smile tugged at my lips. Arminius could be charming, when I let him. Feeling like each movement ripped away small bits of my flesh, I sank into the space between his thighs and let him brush my hair out of the way and resume rubbing my angry back into submission. With each press and knead and dig, my resistance to him waned until I slumped into his embrace.
A strange thing happened in his arms, subject to his touch. I relaxed. The fog encircling my brain, which came on so gradually I never realized it was there, dissipated. He promised to help me relax, and I did. For the first time in recent memory, I felt downright good.
A little too good. The physical pleasure of my muscles releasing their tension gave way to something languid and warm. Everywhere we touched, even through our clothes, sparked tingles through my flesh. It went beyond the simple pleasure of human touch. I wanted more. I wanted to burrow into his heat and strength against the cold air coming through the window we’d left open. I wanted to let myself fall completely, right off the cliff into the abyss, knowing he was there to catch me.
The feeling was as heady as his skin against mine, the flex of his thighs around mine, and the sharp intake of his breath when I leaned further into him, exposing my neck.
He dragged his nose along the column of my throat and took a deep inhale. His hands tightened almost to the point of pain. Baduhenna help me, I chased that pain as surely as I chased the indulgence his touch inspired. They melded into a sensation altogether new to me, and heightened to an extreme that had my chest rising and falling almost as fast as Arminius’.
“Say the word, and I’ll stop.” One hand disappeared from my shoulder, then the laces at the back of my dress loosened and the neckline gaped open.
I didn’t want to say anything. There was something liberating about letting him have his way without a word of protest or a demand for explanation. Especially when his lips pressed into the juncture of my neck and shoulder and sucked. Especially when his teeth scraped over the skin there, chased by his tongue. My body delighted in learning that as long as I allowed it, Arminius could, in fact, make me feel good.
He made a disgruntled rumbling noise when he discovered that even loosened, the neckline of my dress didn’t open enough to push down over my shoulders. Not to be deterred, he slid a hand beneath the fabric, over my chest, and not a moment too soon. My breasts grew heavy and aching, so sensitive I mewled in shock when his palm dragged over my nipple. His other arm banded tighter around me, tugging me so close I felt the press of his erection against my backside.
If my eyes hadn’t fallen closed, they would have crossed when he closed his thumb and forefinger around my distended nipple and squeezed, a slow pressure he steadily increased until my hips rocked uselessly against him. A grasping emptiness opened at my core and pulsed in time with my rapid heart beat. That kind of thrumming need usually came under my own fingers on my sex, though in fairness I’d never done this. It wasn’t fair that Arminius should know secrets to my pleasure I didn’t. For instance, I didn’t know if I could achieve completion just from his hands on my breasts, but he might.
I didn’t protest when he started pulling the skirt of my dress up, the first man to take such a liberty since the night that now felt so long ago that I had given myself to a Marsi warrior and prayed it would change my future. There was no sense in praying for such a thing now, not when I was wise enough to know better.
“They’ll wonder where you went.” I shifted restlessly against him, my body seeking more contact, more pressure, more.
“Varus will congratulate me when I tell him about the delightful creature I found outside.” His hand finally moved to my other breast, plucking and playing me like a skilled bard.
“Oh? Was she very beautiful?”
“She is unparalleled.”
Once he hiked my skirt up my thighs to his satisfaction, he wasted no time swiping two blunt fingers through my sex. I bucked at the shock of his callouses, his unyielding touch, and the immediate wet gush that followed.
“Do you still want me to leave?” I felt his lips smile against my neck, where there was surely a bruise forming.
As I suspected, he knew how to touch me there, too, as if we’d done this a thousand times. He unerringly found the bud at the apex of my sex and touched me exactly how I often touched myself. If possible, I melted deeper into his arms and let him carry me away. No matter how often I did this to myself, it didn’t compare to the relief of letting someone else do it. And not just anyone, but the man I’d dreamt of for so many years, acting as my lover if only for this one night.
“One day,” he rubbed in hard, fast circles, “I’m going to fuck you.” He dragged his teeth up my neck. “And you’re going to see.” He pinched my nipple until I cried out. “It’s you and me, Thusnelda. It’s always been us.”
I broke apart beneath his words and his hands, pulsing and rocking, so far out of my head I saw the stars in the night sky. Never, not once had I brought myself to such a peak. His words swam in my head, reduced to a murky bog by his expert onslaught. If he wanted me confused and amenable to anything he asked, he certainly knew how to achieve it.
Belatedly I realized his hand covered my mouth. When I scowled up at his smiling face, he only grinned wider.
He tsked under his breath. “Screaming that way with your father and brothers practically on the other side of the door? You’re insatiable.”
His hands were still all over me, beneath my clothes. When I began to struggle, he tightened his hold on me, and I hissed at the sudden pressure against my overly sensitive sex.
“Easy, easy,” he said. “You’re safe, Wildberry. I just wanted you to feel good.”
As if to reassure me, he removed his hands and straightened my dress, then lightly brushed his palms up and down my arms, chasing away the flash of tension that returned. My heart still thundered, and the enormity of what I’d let him do sank in. Few Germani tribes troubled themselves over chastity the way the Romans did, but it also wasn’t looked kindly upon for a betrothed woman to fool with a man who was not her intended.
More seriously, fooling with Arminius—or letting him fool with me—gave him false hope. He thought he could convince me to abandon Reimar with promises of a queendom and physical pleasure.
There was no us, not the way he wanted.
“I can’t.” I whispered the half-formed thought.
“Shh.” He kissed my temple. “It’s all right. Will you do something for me, this winter?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps.”
His kiss turned into a laugh. “Very well. Please try to stay out of trouble, and please don’t think too hard about what we just did.”
“You know I can’t promise either of those things, don’t you?”
He tilted my chin and kissed me, slow and deep, almost enough to reignite the fire that had only just moments ago pushed me beyond reason.
“Yes, I know.”
* * *
Segestes glared at me. Wout and Lennart glared at me. Levin stared at the table. I stared at Levin. Konrada’s upset over her brother’s conscription made a new kind of sense to me.
While I’d been in my room losing my head to Arminius, Varus had been making insinuations about our family. Insinuations about our loyalty. Insinuations so serious Levin had volunteered for the auxiliary.
He was to leave with the legions the following morning. My lone ally at home, the only brother I had left in both name and action, gone all winter. Gone forever, maybe. Yes, I understood Konrada’s pain and fear in a way I hadn’t before. I owed her an apology.
My stomach turned, and I worried I’d vomit in the center of our hall.
“I told you to stay away from him.” Segestes refused to look at me, instead keeping his attention on the hunting knife he always kept on his belt, digging the point into the scratched surface of our head table. “I told you to stay out of this sedition.”
There was no point in denying or arguing the charges laid against me. I hadn’t stayed away from Arminius, and I had made myself extremely involved in the rebellion.
Wout still couldn’t stand without a crutch and spent most of his days in an opium-induced stupor, thanks to Varus’ medicus. It had worn off. Not only was he in pain, but his flesh craved the Roman drug now. There was a reason our healers avoided using those opium tinctures. Wout’s red eyes pulsed with the need to hurt me, and the need to sate his new hunger.
Since Wout was disabled and out of his head, Lennart took my discipline upon himself. He took two steps toward me before I brandished my own knife, the one I always carried, ever since that horrible day when Mama died.
“So help me, I will gut you.” I ground out each word. “I will finish what Arminius started on Wout. And you,” I turned to Segestes, “I will unman you. If any of you so much as raise your voices to me again, I will end you. I am done. I have kept this family afloat for almost fifteen years and I am done. You either fall in with me or stay out of my way.”
Lennart backed off with his hands raised and a sneer marring his otherwise handsome face. “It’s going to be a long winter. You won’t have the upper hand while you’re sleeping.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Segestes, did you hear that? One of your precious sons thinks he’s going to dishonor your name by coming for his opponent while she sleeps.”
Whatever Segestes was going to say, Levin cut him off. He jumped between Lennart and me.
“Stop. I volunteered. I’ll be back in the spring, and that’s the end of it. Don’t make me return to find you all killed each other in my absence.”
I didn’t lower my knife, but I also didn’t push any further.
“Levin,” I said, “I’ll say my farewells in the morning.”
Levin nodded and stayed between me and the rest of our family until I backed into my room. Once inside, I propped my spear against the door and checked the wooden bar securing the winter shutter on my window. No one was going to sneak up on me in my sleep.
* * *
An endless, snaking line of red tunics and polished armor marched past our village a few hours after dawn. I joined most of our people at the tree line to observe the procession. A new kind of fear chilled my blood, and it was only three legions. What if they returned with more?
On and on it went. How could we possibly think to best them?
Levin was down there, as was Ualter, and so many others. I missed him already. I missed him the way I imagined I’d miss a limb if I lost one, and he hadn’t been gone a full day yet. With a deep breath, I reminded myself that he’d be back when the snow melted, just like all the auxiliaries.
Rhythmic footsteps and clanging armor drowned out the natural sounds of the forest. Sunna and Donar flanked me, their ears attuned to the soldiers. If only I had a Roman tunic and armor of my own, I could spend the winter training them to attack legionaries. Perhaps when Arminius returned, he might supply what I needed.
My eyes scanned the march, searching for him. He’d be easy to spot, no doubt riding alongside Varus and the senior officers. I waited to find him, throat tight and palms sweating.
“Oh, look!” Jotapa squeezed my arm and pointed to a familiar face marching at the head of one square formation of soldiers. “It’s Berut.”
The man cut a fine figure, and like Arminius, always sported an easy, honest smile. I nudged her with my elbow.
“And how much time have you spent with Berut?”
“No more than you’ve spent with Arminius.” She spoke through her big grin, waving an arm. Somehow, Berut seemed to know exactly where to look to wave back and, Gods above, blew her a kiss. “His heart is still set on Ermin and like you, we spend all our time plotting.”
Berut preferring the company of other men hadn’t deterred Jotapa in the slightest, who declared he was still beautiful to look at and a delightful storyteller.
“There’s nothing going on between me and Arminius,” I said.
She snickered. “Please, Princess. You can lie to many people, including yourself, but not to me.”
Or Arminius, apparently. There were no gods powerful enough to help me if those two ever joined forces against me.
“It doesn’t matter and you know it,” I said. The wind blew more bitterly than usual today, so I pulled my cloak tighter about my shoulders. Snow would come tonight. A heavy snow would suit my mood. Let it come. Let it come and bury me until spring so I don’t have to face this winter on my own.
“I won’t pretend to understand everything about the situation,” she went on, “but perhaps you’re making too much of nothing.”
I spun on her. “You think I’m making too much of our path to freedom?”
To her credit, she didn’t flinch or back down. No, she tilted her chin up and held my stare. “Your freedom, Princess, not mine.”
Her aim was true and cut to my marrow.
“I can pay the rest of your bond,” I said, regretting the words as soon as they left my mouth.
“And what of the others?”
This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation, and I imagined it wouldn’t be the last. What she wanted—no, what we both wanted—was outrageous. Unheard of. No one would join our alliance if I called for freeing all the scalcs.
“Impossible. I’m sorry, but—”
Jotapa huffed. “Do you know why everyone is quick to follow Arminius?”
I turned my attention back to the marching troops. He still hadn’t appeared and it could be a while yet.
“He’s charismatic and offers the people something they want.”
The words didn’t sit right in my gut. There was something more to Arminius I couldn’t identify. He drew people to him. When he spoke, you believed him. People followed him without question.
“That may be part of it,” she said. “I think it’s because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘impossible.’ I don’t think it’s even occurred to him that he might fail.”
Jotapa had the right of it. Arminius was many things, but doubtful wasn’t one of them. Was that truly all it took to win these people, unencumbered confidence?
It seemed a frivolous reason to embark on a rebellion, but perhaps it was merely a convenient excuse. My people clawed for any reason to act, and Arminius, with his brazenness, his skills, and his knowledge, positioned himself as the answer to their needs.
What remarkable timing he had to arrive when Varus pressed his advantage too far and exhausted Germani yearned to fight again. Maybe this was the will of the gods. If that was so, he was right: Now was the time and he was the one to lead it.
No, not the only one. A man so convinced of his invincibility needed careful supervision. A man like that didn’t exist in the realm of mere mortals. In our mortal realm, such men were mad and dangerous.
At long last, the command element rode into view. I could have picked Arminius out if he’d been shuffling along in the auxiliary, mixed among fellow Germani. Mounted atop his horse next to Varus, he was impossible to miss.
His eyes scanned the crowd, brow pulled tight and lips turned in a small frown until he found me. The change was immediate. He grinned. He didn’t wave, no doubt to avoid any undue attention from Varus or the other high-ranking soldiers.
I got an eager nod and a wink and tried not to imagine that it might be the last time I ever saw him. Anything could happen between here and Vetera. Anything could happen while he was there. He could be discovered and executed. He could fall out of Varus’ favor. The emperor could decide Arminius was needed elsewhere.
Our rebellion seemed held together by the thinnest of threads, and that wasn’t the worst part. I would miss him terribly, damn it. No matter what he asked of me, I intended to think of our last night together through many dark, cold nights, all without turning it into something it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be a mistake I cringed over. I could let myself enjoy the memory, and let that memory warm me.
A woman to my left jostled my shoulder as she jumped and waved to someone marching by. Utterly shameless, that one. I supposed it couldn’t be helped after so many years of occupation.
I was no better than her, not really. Some part of me longed to make a show of myself leaping and shouting at my man. Had I not been raised to be a queen, had I succumbed to Segestes’ love of Rome, I could very well have been that woman. How much simpler my life might have been. Not that Arminius was mine.
Arminius and I watched each other until his head could turn no further, then I watched him ride away.
For now, I told myself, not forever.
Jotapa’s hand found mine and she gave it a gentle squeeze, the way we did when we were younger whenever one or the other was afraid.
“Let’s go,” I said. We’d lingered long enough and Segestes would be restless. Levin was gone and Arminius was gone and Wout was useless and I’d shamed my entire family into submission. At least for now.