The sexes unite equally matched and robust. (Tacitus)
My chosen horse sensed my nerves as I strapped my bag to her back. She shied away from my brusque touch and tossed her head against her ties. Jotapa and Konrada whispered and shot glances my way, punctuated by giggles.
Their little friendship was quickly turning into an annoyance for me.
“What are you whispering about?” I tightened the girth strap on my saddle pad once more. As expected, the mare had been bloating her stomach to keep the strap loose.
“Nothing,” they answered in unison, then giggled more.
Konrada jumped to sit atop a barrel, produced a small knife, and began picking at her dirty fingernails. “Are you sure we shouldn’t come with you? It’s a long way alone, and your family…”
She didn’t have to finish that last part. Levin had provided more of a buffer than I’d realized. Without him, every moment in my home was one flint strike away from conflagration. Fortunately, Wout’s limp and recovery left him weak. Lennart seldom acted on his own initiative, and Segestes had been subdued since the winter raid. None of that meant I was safe or that they weren’t liable to take action against me.
It was only a matter of time before they roused themselves to the task, or I did something so egregious they couldn’t ignore it. Like taking off to meet with Reimar—and Arminius—the moment the Chatti messenger told me I was needed. There was no hiding where I went and why, so I didn’t bother with any lies this time. I also didn’t bother to tell anyone I was leaving, except my friends.
“Don’t bother arguing with her,” Jotapa said. “It’s no use, not when when she’s set her mind to something.”
“You say that like it’s a character flaw.” I tied an extra grain sack and water skin on the side opposite my traveling bag. “Konrada, you have your own family to see to, and Jotapa has duties here to attend.”
After much discussion, I agreed to let Jotapa perform my usual rounds in the village. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what needed to be done, who needed to be tended to, or that she couldn’t be trusted. I trusted her implicitly. However in fifteen years, I’d so seldom passed my duties on to anyone else, it was as if I never had at all. It was always me. A year earlier, and I might have refused altogether. Much had changed in the intervening time, and my new role as a general of the uprising pulled me in so many new directions, I simply couldn’t be all things at all times.
And that was, I discovered, fine. Jotapa would see to everything.
It liberated me in a way I never expected.
It liberated me until Segestes, Wout, and Lennart stormed into the barn and reminded me that not everything could work in my favor.
“No!” Segestes roared and shook his finger in my face. “I forbid this! I told you what would happen if you kept this up. I told you! You think you can carry on like this in broad daylight, for all to see? You cannot shout your treachery to the sky and expect no consequences.”
Before Lennart could reach for me, I yanked my sword free from the sheath at my hip.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Wout demanded.
“I’m—” I stopped as soon as I caught sight of Jotapa brandishing a pitchfork like a spear. Wout’s question was for her, not me.
With my left hand, I reached out and lowered Jotapa’s weapon. As a scalc, taking a weapon to a free man called for a lashing, followed by banishment. It was as close to a death sentence as we came.
“Don’t,” I said with a quick shake of my head.
Then I saw Konrada with a bow drawn, arrow nocked and aimed at Segestes. I hadn’t even realized she’d brought the weapon with her.
Segestes blanched at the sight. He shook his head as if to clear the confusing image away. “I am your chief,” he sputtered.
She shrugged one shoulder.
My heart raced. It was too much to believe they both put their lives and freedom at risk for me.
“You haven’t been chief of the Cherusci for a long time,” Jotapa said. I almost hissed for her silence but stopped myself. She was right, more so now than ever before. He lived in a shell, sending his crippled son out to do his bidding, little as it was. “She is the chief, and everyone knows it.”
Though I appreciated Jotapa’s words, if she kept this up, I’d be forced to keep her with me until the uprising. For her own safety.
“She’s nothing.” Lennart spat and took a half-step toward me, until Konrada swiveled her arrow his direction. May the gods above help me, she tsked at him.
“I’ll make you a promise, Father.” My sword remained ready in my strong hand. “You stay out of my way, and I won’t kill your sons and then you.”
Wout and Lennart made noises of protest, but Segestes silenced them. His chin tipped up, a gesture I knew I often mirrored.
With stunning clarity, I realized Jotapa was right. Segestes had his councils with his chieftains, the collection of men he favored, but I had everyone else. Even the chieftains often deferred to me without question. Some part of me had known since I first insisted the Cherusci would rebel with Arminius. For the same reason they turned to me during the winter raid and women from myriad tribes turned to me with their griefs, the Cherusci would rebel if I told them it was the thing to do. My chest swelled with a rush of pride, and I found myself standing straighter.
“The Cherusci don’t answer to you. Not the way they answer to me. The rebellion will happen, whether you like it or not, and our tribe will lead it. If you come at me like this again, I won’t hold back. If that’s what you want, if you want us to fight to the death, then say the word and we’ll finish this right here, right now.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled and I noticed the deep grooves and wrinkles in his skin. “You would kill your whole family just to bring our whole tribe to ruin?”
“Of course she would.” Lennart spat a thick glob of mucus on the ground at my feet. “She thinks she’s better than us.”
“Enough!” Segestes shouted and his voice broke. “Enough of this. We’re not going to kill each other, for fuck’s sake. Thusnelda, that’s not what I want. But if you push me, I will take this matter to Vala and Varus himself. I will protect our family and our tribe with whatever tools you leave me.”
Thanks to Arminius and his bravado, I didn’t worry about Varus. I did worry about Vala, with his shrewd, sunken eyes. I kept my face in a hard mask.
“Go ahead. Tell them. They won’t believe you, not over Arminius.” I hoped my voice didn’t shake and reveal how much I questioned that statement.
Segestes nodded and gestured for my brothers to back off. Wout took a lurching step forward, rounding on him.
“What are you doing? We have to stop her!”
Segestes nodded. “And we will, but not like this. I am not putting my daughter in chains, and I won’t see you at each other’s throats. I will handle this.”
Wout and Lennart looked mutinous.
“I mean it,” Segestes said. “From now on, you stay out of it. Now go.”
With a few dark glares, they relented. I lowered my sword. Segestes stayed by the open barn doors, haloed by morning sun.
“I haven’t been the father you wanted me to be,” he began. “But I do want you to be safe and taken care of. I hoped your betrothal to Reimar would temper some of this in you, but I see now that was a mistake. If you think the Romans won’t take the threat of an uprising seriously, you are a fool beyond measure. I will go to them, they will investigate, and all I can do is pray that you are not fool enough to get caught in their net.”
He walked away without waiting for my reply, or to hear my sharp intake of breath against the pain in his voice. It was easy to hate him when we were so different, so often at each other’s throats. It was easy to forget he was my Papa, once.
* * *
Reimar stared at Arminius. Arminius stared at Reimar. Ermin chewed loudly on a roll, exchanging pointed looks with Berut. They communicated through brow raises, and I suspected a silent wager was taking place in Raginmar’s hall.
“What the fuck do you mean the chieftains are backing out?” Arminius ground out each word. We sat around Raginmar’s table with his chieftains, the men who saw to the outlying Chatti settlements, and a squadron of Arminius’ ala.
Reimar shrugged a big shoulder. “News of that fourth legion spread quickly. The chiefs still want war, but their chieftains...”
He trailed off and finished his alehorn, holding it up for a scalc to fill.
“The chieftains should follow their chief,” Arminius clipped back.
Raginmar said, “Boy, you can’t have been away for that long. If they lose confidence in their chief, they won’t do a damn thing he says. The Sugambri are split, as are the Marsi and the Bructeri. The Chauci wouldn’t commit to a fight if it was burning their longhouse down. The Tencteri remain loyal, though.”
I groaned inwardly. The Tencteri were a small, weak tribe who added little to our efforts.
“What of their honor?” A vein pulsed in Arminius’ neck. “It’s one more fucking legion.”
“No honor in suicide,” Raginmar said. “They’re not stupid. It’s not one more fucking legion, as you say. They’ve got soldiers posted across our land. What about the legions across the Rhine?”
“They’re gone.” Arminius shook his head. “What you see out there is a farce. Augustus called almost everyone back to Pannonia to end the uprising there.”
“And that,” Wiltrud raised her voice, “is also a problem. What if they wipe out those rebels and come for us? I believe in your plan, but I know what the Germani are thinking.”
Arminius pushed away from the table to pace behind his seat. “So, what, then? It’s all over because the Germani are afraid of what might happen? The Pannonians have been rebelling for years, and Rome still hasn’t put it down. Those legions are just as likely to never return to our borders. I assure you that after they’re done with Pannonia, there will be something else. They are spread too thin.”
Raginmar stroked his beard and hummed in thought.
“We’re forgetting something important,” he said. “The will of the gods. What we need is a good omen. That will lift their spirits and put iron in their spines.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Arminius dragged a hand through his short hair. “The will of the gods? All I need is some superstitious drivel to secure the loyalty of twenty thousand warriors?”
“He’s right,” Reimar said. “Most of us still believe in the gods. Her included.”
He inclined his head toward me, and I sank deep into my seat. Arminius narrowed his gaze on mine, and I sensed him willing me to contradict Reimar. I started to speak as he willed, then stopped. He was being pig-headed about this for reasons I didn’t understand, and I didn’t owe him blind allegiance. I was the third corner of this plot and a leader in my own right.
“It’s true that I believe the gods express their will in ways we don’t understand,” I said. “Regardless, most Germani believe strongly in our priestesses, divination, omens, all of it. It can’t hurt to have a priestess or two on our side.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Fine. I have enough coin to guarantee a few good omens from the right people.”
Raginmar hissed a breath between his teeth and colored with anger. “You were gone too long. Our priestesses are not like your petty priests. We cannot buy them with coin or sacrifices.”
“What do you mean, my petty priests?” Arminius stood and took a threatening step toward Raginmar. The Chatti in attendance, including Reimar, jumped to their feet, hands to swords and daggers. Arminius halted and raised his hands in deference.
He looked about the room, chest rising and falling in deep breaths. “Need I remind everyone here that I’m doing this precisely because I am not one of them?”
The entire hall went silent, every eye on him.
“I am going to lead Varus and his legions into the Teutoburg.” He spoke softly. “We are going to kill every last one of them, and when we’re done, we will march on every outpost, every fort, and the settlement, and kill them to a man. By the time we’re finished, Rome won’t have the heart to try again. I don’t need a damned omen.”
At that, he looked at me, expression twisted with hurt and confusion. His expression was so at odds with his rousing speech, with the way it made my heart pound and my eyes go wide, seeing what others saw in him, I almost laughed. A man so convinced of his invincibility, so passionate about his goal, had no business being hurt by a perceived slight. A man like that couldn’t be hurt by anything.
“I will call on our priestesses tomorrow. If the omens are good, we will spread the word. If they are bad, despite what my husband says, we can, in fact, buy their silence.” Wiltrud squeezed Raginmar’s shoulder.
He stewed on this for a moment before resuming his seat. The rest of the hall followed suit. They quickly forgot most of the tension as the warriors and soldiers resumed their drinking and eating, two favorite activities of any Germani tribesman, outranked only by battle and sex.
“If we don’t get good omens, we will find a priestess willing to provide them,” Arminius said almost to himself, an insistence that he could control something fundamentally uncontrollable. Even I knew that.
His plate remained full for the rest of the evening. I accepted a private room for the night, since I didn’t desire a night sleeping in a hall full of men. Drunk men, no less, as the night wore on. I longed for Jotapa’s presence at my side.
Now and then, I caught Arminius watching me from across the table. Each time our eyes met, my blood heated. Shame, anger, frustration, wanting; it all roiled in a confusing, pulsing mass. Shame because I sat next to Reimar and sided with him, or so Arminius assumed. My teeth clenched at the thought. Gods, but I desired him so badly I ached with it. My pulse thumped between my legs for wanting him so much.
When he excused himself from the table, I fought my own battle to keep from rushing after him. I wanted to soothe his wounded pride. I wanted to punch him for taking that one step toward Raginmar in the man’s own hall. I wanted to be in his arms.
Sitting next to Reimar, sharing a meal with him, scraped me raw. Conversation flowed around the table, but I heard none of it. He performed the duties of a husband, ensuring my plate and cup were full, all without looking at or speaking to me. He spoke to others, gruff, but still speaking.
The prospect of a silent life with him yawned in my future, expansive and cold. I’d been naive to think I’d ever embrace such a life with open, satisfied arms. No, I wanted heat, warmth against our dark winters. There was enough coldness in our world without adding to it in the marriage bed.
When the dinner ended, I made my excuses and hurried to the small room Wiltrud had shown me earlier. It had once belonged to Reimar’s sisters and now sat empty, waiting for guests or, during the winter, served as another place to pen animals out of the cold. Unlike my room, it had no window. It did have a hatch in the roof that, I discovered, led to the attic, which featured several offnüngs, the central of which was large enough to squeeze through.
I found Arminius tending to a horse that didn’t need tending. The slight tensing of his shoulders told me he knew I was there. He kept on brushing the animal while it chomped at the already nicked-thin grass of the pasture.
“We’ll get good omens,” I said. My voice carried over the still night. It was late enough that most villagers were abed. With no light, he was a large shadow, marked out by his red tunic and off-white undergarments.
“I know,” came his reply.
“The gods have blessed our endeavor.”
He stopped brushing and faced me in the shadowy darkness. Not even the moon offered its light.
“I don’t need the gods’ blessings, because I have a damn good plan.”
I stepped through the fence and walked to him, close enough to discern his features.
“Maybe, maybe not. You said yourself we can’t control everything that happens. Blessings from a few priestesses will strengthen our cause in the eyes of other tribesmen.”
He looked to the heavens and the blanket of endless stars.
“Do you not believe in me?” His voice came out small, softer and more hesitant than I’d ever heard him speak.
“Of course I believe in you.” I took his hand and he let me have it. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. It’s only that we are going to need all the help we can get. That means Donar and Wodan and Tyr and all our gods. That also means you can’t sneer at superstitious tribesmen and expect them to follow you.”
He breathed a long sigh. “You’re right. The fourth legion he brought, the Sixteenth, came as a surprise to me, too. Everyone at Vetera told him they’ll get called out to Pannonia. He wasn’t thinking right, bringing them here.”
I brushed a hand along the bristles of his jaw with new understanding. “He did something you didn’t expect, and now you doubt yourself.”
“I cannot afford to doubt myself.” He shook his head, took the palm I held to his cheek, and kissed it. “If the Sixteenth stays in country, we may have a more arduous battle, but we can win it.”
When he pulled me into his arms, I let him take whatever comfort I could offer. “I believe in you. With the priestesses, the others will, as well.”
His fingers traced up and down my back, an action with the power to quickly render me into a pleasant stupor.
“Please don’t marry him,” he breathed into my ear and another piece of my heart fractured and fell away. “I can protect you. Wiltrud is too shrewd to throw everything away over a broken betrothal. We won’t lose them.”
Whatever need I felt for him slammed against an immovable barrier: What he suggested violated our honor. In truth, I had no choice but to believe he truly did want to marry me, because there was no good reason to do it. I was already his ally, he didn’t need to feign a romance to gain my support. Pursuing me only stood to hurt us.
“And everyone else who sees you as a man willing to betray an ally over a woman?” I leaned back to look him in the eye. “They won’t follow you if they don’t trust you.”
An owl hooted as it soared overhead. Insects and toads sang their eerie songs. Horses snuffled around us on the hunt for more to chew. The night went on, heedless of two people repeating the same argument over and over.
His lips pulled tight. “You won’t say yes to me, will you?”
“I won’t.”
He brushed his fingertips through my hair. “How long can I have you for?”
I almost couldn’t form the words. They were too final, a date too soon. I had to voice them.
“We’re to be married during Haustblot, as we were supposed to last year. Everyone will be there. We can complete our plans at the feast.”
“Right. Right.” He sucked his tongue over his teeth. “Very well.”
He snatched my hand and led me on a quick march to the lean-to where his men had stored their saddles and gear. After grabbing a blanket, he set out again, faster this time.
“What are you doing?” I trotted to keep up, glancing over my shoulder at the rapidly diminishing longhouse. In moments, we were deep in the woods, surrounded by all the familiar trees. It was at once quieter and louder without the lingering traces of human settlement in the Chatti village.
He tossed the blanket to a relatively clear spot at the base of an alder and took my face in his hands. His thumbs skimmed over my cheekbones, and my eyelids fluttered shut of their own volition.
“If I only get to have you for a little while,” his nose brushed against mine, “then I am going to keep you for as long as I can, my Amazon.”
He spread the blanket over the ground. Around us the forest went silent.
Unsure, I stood back and watched him make quick work of our natural bed. His movements were rushed and jerky, a far cry from his typical smooth confidence. Not unlike his panic after saving me during our fight against the Mattiaci. His hands shook. He wanted this in a way I still didn’t understand. I craved his presence in my life, and I craved his touch. This, however, was physical proof that he desired me in the same way, maybe more so. I’d never been on the receiving end of such need and fought my instinct to mistrust it. To declare him a liar and a manipulator who wanted something from me.
But he wasn’t using me, at least not in the way I initially believed.
“Arminius...”
He stripped off his belt and boots.
“I surrender,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.
“What?”
“I said I surrender. We won’t marry, but I will make you mine first.”
He held out his hand and let me come to him. He always did that, offered his hand and waited, never compelling me to do anything I didn’t want to do.
I cared for him. I enjoyed his quick smiles and humor as I lusted for his powerful fists and the way he sat his horse like a great conqueror who hadn’t decided to conquer anything yet. This conqueror had done more than choose me, he surrendered to me. Every reason I’d repeated to myself to keep him at a safe distance evaporated. I wanted him, he wanted me, and since I might never get to feel what he made me feel again, I jumped into the abyss again.
First, I removed my belt, then I loosened the ties of my tunic. Arminius’ hungry eyes drank in my every move. Gooseflesh prickled along my arms, and my skin turned oversensitive. The slightest movement of air hitched my breath and my fingers shook clumsily.
There was no reason to be nervous. I’d done this before, and Arminius and I had already crossed every line up to this point. If I interpreted his intentions correctly, we were about to cross a line from which there was no coming back. I might even get his child. Since it was too much to contemplate, I pushed that thought away.
I took my time removing my boots. The next thing I knew, my tunic was off and he was kissing me. They were drugging, his kisses, better than the poppy a Roman medicus could offer or anything our grandmothers kept in their healing stores. My breasts brushed against the soft wool of his tunic and I wanted more.
We undressed each other in a rush. I snickered when he lost his balance doffing his trousers and almost fell, then we collapsed into each other, laughing, kissing, reacquainting ourselves with each other’s bodies in the cool night air.
His fingers found my core aching and needy. Frigg, I had waited so long for this, I didn’t even care that my betrothed was a short walk away. He kept at it, pumping and rubbing with his palm against the bud at the apex of my cunt until I rocked against his hand like a wanton creature, nothing but a slave to pleasure.
“Now, please,” I said, unable to bear any more of this game, this teasing hint of the pleasure he could give me but withheld.
He didn’t hesitate this time. There was no pulling back, no whispered pleas to marry him. To my surprise, he rolled onto his back and guided me to straddle his nude body. I let myself enjoy the sight and feel of this powerful man prone beneath me. The coarse hair of his thighs rubbed the soft skin of my bottom and his cock lay proud, hard, and swollen across his belly.
I took the opportunity to first brush it with my fingertips, then, when his entire body twitched, I wrapped a hand around it. I felt its weight, its heat, the smooth skin stretched over an iron core. His back arched off the ground, and he hissed as though in pain when I stroked once, twice, three times.
“I can’t.” He pushed the words out between clenched teeth and pulled my hand away by the wrist. He gripped my hips and kneaded at the flesh there. Those long fingers reached far enough to massage into the globes of my rear.
The gentle pressure of his touch made me throb. I breathed in the cool scent of wet moss and earth and delighted in the quivering muscles beneath my fingertips as I traced the ridges and valleys of his body. My very own terrain map laid bare in the wilds and I loved it.
He shifted his hips and we both groaned into the night as my sex rubbed against his. My core beat in time with my pulse, faster and faster, desperate to be filled by him and only him.
I lifted on my knees, and he took himself in hand, guiding me down by his grip on my hip. I lost control of my senses, no longer able to stop my thoughts from pouring free of my mouth.
“Yes, yes, yes.” The words spilled out, no different from the trances our priestesses entered.
His cock stretched and filled me and I needed more. Climax overtook me when he sank to the hilt. I would have been shocked, or embarrassed, by my near instantaneous response had wave after wave of rippling joy not washed over me. I was so lost in it; he took over from beneath me, holding me in place while he fucked me through each throbbing quake.
Part of me must have known this is how it would be with him, from that first moment in Varus’ tent when we met again, from the power of our kisses, from the way we touched.
When that endless climax abated, he supported me as I melted into a puddle of sensitized nerves.
He had his own litany for me. I was perfect, wet and warm and tight, so beautiful, amid curses that sounded more like prayers to the gods, and promises, so many promises.
His rhythm faltered and turned to a frenzy. I dropped to my forearms and we shared a messy kiss, blending the sweat of our brows and bodies.
I murmured words of encouragement, begging him to finish and take his pleasure in my body, in a way only I could give him.
Then he surprised me. Arminius lifted me free of him and spent himself on his belly. Contentment over what we’d just shared warred with hurt. Even in this moment, he kept a wall between us, a wall I was, irrationally, more than willing to tear down. I understood his reasons, his refusal to see another man raise his child. It was senseless; he was right in that regard, yet this one action still wounded me. I was the one who kept safety measures between us, not him.
We lay side by side in the dark, tucked into each other, each lost in our own private thoughts, and the music of the forest returned. The world released the breath it held and continued on like nothing had happened.
He took a corner of the blanket and cleaned himself off with a grimace. From my position in the crook of his arm, I listened to the galloping of his heart, showing no signs of slowing.
I wanted to yell at him and storm away. I wanted to kiss him and start all over again. He shifted up on his elbow so he loomed over me and carefully touched each scar he found on my body.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, pausing over an old scar on my belly. His featherlight touch tickled, and I squirmed under it. He smoothed my hair away from my face. “I love you. I’m never going to stop.”
Tears burned behind my eyes. His words weren’t a surprise. His every action betrayed him. There was a finality, though, something more profound than a mere profession of love. Any two people could say the words, even feel the truth behind them. This, the two of us wrapped together, wrapped in the night, was the indelible bonding of two souls.
“You know I don’t want to marry him, don’t you?”
He smiled weakly. “I know.”
“I...” my throat closed around words fighting to break free.
“Don’t say it. Not until you mean it.” He cupped my face and kissed me, slow and deep. “Perhaps I should take the gods more seriously,” he said when he pulled back. “Only they could be so cruel to show me what’s possible and give me no way to attain it.”