Bryna pulled the hem of her dress up and spun around lengthwise on the bench to lay her head on her bent knees. The tangle of shrubbery formed a sanctuary of sorts that hid her from view. Any other time she would have enjoyed this solitude, felt cocooned, protected, certain of her choices.
But there was only one thing of which she was certain—she was carrying Jared’s child. She pressed her forehead against her arms. Worry and indecision had plagued her every moment since the irrefutable evidence of her body’s changes. How could she leave now? How could she deprive Jared of his son? His daughter? How could she leave Bran to face his demons alone? She felt pulled in a thousand different directions. She needed someplace quiet to think.
Quiet? Bryna frowned, lifted her head. The courtyard garden, which moments before had been filled with the twittering of songbirds was now, deathly quiet.
“I’ll not stand for another botched job!”
She started at the force of the statement.
“There will not be any mistakes, I assure you,” replied another in the sniveling tone of hastily spoken words.
“Are you ready to stake your life on it, Egyptian?” the first one demanded.
Moving with great care so as not to make any noise, Bryna carefully brushed a section of greenery away and peered into the main courtyard.
There, not more than a few feet away, stood a little man, hands clasped, body bowed forward in submission, directing his comments to a much taller man whose face she couldn’t see. A gray mist enveloped her and she was sitting on the floor of her cell at Coeus’
taverna
, gazing at the cloaked man intent on evil. Shaking her head as she returned to the present, she narrowed her gaze at the man speaking with Hapu, was nearly overwhelmed by a flood of jealousy, bitterness, and hate. Her vision flared, recognition hitting her like an iron rod. Her breath caught in her throat as Gideon glanced in her direction.
“Ah, there is no reason to place such high stakes on the success of our mission honored one,” whined Hapu, bending even lower under Gideon’s intimidating glare.
Gideon raised one finely arched brow. “Oh? You think not?” He gripped his hands behind his back and began pacing in front of the nervous Egyptian. “Let us review. I instructed you two years past to systematically steal and dispose of my nephew’s inventory.” Gideon paused in his walking to pin Hapu with a cold stare. “From which you profited handsomely enough to purchase this sham of a school. Ruin his reputation, I said, destroy his credibility. Simple enough instructions, yet you bungled that as well.”
Hapu dropped his head but from beneath hooded eyes, Bryna saw the daggers he shot at Gideon’s moving form. “A difficult task to be sure, honored one. It was not easy to malign your nephew. All who know him hold him in the highest regard. A man of integrity, he was called. There were few who would listen.”
Gideon’s face flushed a deep red. She was nearly unseated by the waves of rage emitting from him. “He is an abomination! The product of a vile and evil sin of the flesh! If I could not see him humiliated, reduced to the craven state of poverty where he belonged, then I wanted him dead! And you could not even handle that!”
“You are wrong. I took him, removed him from your presence. . .” Hapu’s voice trailed off as he realized that that ultimate goal had not been met.
Gideon’s voice lowered ominously. “You were supposed to see him sold into the salt mines! He would have died an agonizing death and I would never have had to suffer his presence again!”
Hapu hung his head. “It was most unfortunate that the slaver ignored my instructions.”
Gideon towered over the slight Egyptian. “Ah, but I’m sure you did not ignore the gold added to your purse by his sale.”
Bryna’s heart beat so fast that she feared it would fly from her chest. Jared’s uncle, the man he held in such esteem, the one member of his family he felt close to hated him with a bone deep passion.
“Slaves rarely escape.” Hapu lifted his chin though it trembled beneath Gideon’s glower. “Surely your problem is easily solved now. He is a runaway slave. Merely turn him into the authorities.”
Gideon was silent. Through the leaves Bryna noted the subtle, but deadly change in his eyes. “I want a more permanent solution to the problem.”
Bryna’s hand slipped, causing the bush to rustle. Hapu and Gideon turned.
She willed her quivering body to remain completely still. Thank the gods a stiff breeze was blowing through the courtyard, rattling limbs and leaves. After a few tense moments, the two men returned to their discussion.
Bryna released the breath she’d been holding. How could she have been so blind? Why hadn’t her sight recognized him from the first? Gideon had smiled, welcomed her to Jared’s family. Such duplicity!
She had ignored the waves of resentment, contempt that had emanated in her direction. A reaction she had become used to and one that she had experienced untold times since being brought to Rome. She had absorbed those dark feelings, assumed they were directed toward her. After all, she was an outsider, a barbarian. She was not Hebrew.
Not Hebrew.
Suddenly the answer was clear. An intolerance so deeply rooted, so intense that it obliterated all other emotions. Gideon despised anything and anyone not of his race.
Jared carried Roman blood in his veins.
And Gideon could not abide it.
Bryna tried to swallow past the dryness in her throat. Jared trusted his uncle. He must be warned.
She eased her legs to the side of the bench and eyed the distance to the door leading to the training arena and Bran. As soon as Gideon and his accomplice left the garden, she would find her brother then Jared.
A loud clap sounded on the other side of the bush. Bryna peered through the bush to the empty courtyard. Seconds later, a large, sweaty hand clamped over her mouth.
“I should expect nothing less from a heathen!” Gideon hissed into her ear.
F
or the second time in an hour the muscles in Jared’s hand cramped, causing him to shift his sword into his left hand. He ignored the glare Damon sent him from across the storage room, flexed his hand until the spasm receded.
What did the man expect? They had been hiding, concealed along with a half dozen well-armed men hired since sunset. The place was filled to the rafters with the last and most valuable bit of merchandise he had left to his name. Merchandise destined for the profitable markets of Athens and Antioch. With the sale of this stock, he would be back on the road to prosperity.
Perfect bait for his enemy.
Damon had taken great pains to spread the word of its value among the seedy
tavernas
and merchant stalls in Alexandria’s marketplace. The goods were scheduled to be loaded onto a ship in the morning which meant the thief would have to make his move tonight. And so they waited. Tonight he would discover who was behind the thefts.
Jared eased his weapon back into his right hand. He was beginning to doubt Damon’s plan. It was well past midnight and not even the rats that frequented the place had stirred from their holes.
Damon sat exactly as he had when they started. Except for his eyes which constantly scanned the dimly lit room, he had not moved a muscle. He had to be made of stone, Jared decided. No one could sit so still for so long.
Jared rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to relieve the tension that threaded through him. It had plagued him since this morning and it was relentless.
It wasn’t the anticipation of confronting the scoundrel who had made his life a living hell. Not at all, though he relished the idea of discovering the wretch and seeking retribution, inch by inch, from his flesh.
It was something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on. Something to do with his dream of Bryna. They’d been stark, vivid dreams filled with images of her crystalline green eyes, dark with fear. He sensed an urgency churning inside of her. She seemed to be searching.
He didn’t believe in the power of dreams. But the impression that Bryna was in danger had grown stronger as the day progressed. He could wait no longer to seek her out.
He started to rise when a movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. Damon raised his hand in a silent signal. Jared clenched his sword tighter, squinted into the stillness of the storeroom. A growl of frustration rumbled deep in his chest. The room was as dark and still as it had been all evening.
Enough was enough. Damon was a true friend and his intentions had been sincere, but there would be no catching the culprit this night. He wanted to go to Bryna.
Jared dug his sword tip into the sandy floor beside him, made to stand, but a low pitched hiss from Damon’s direction stopped him. He looked at his friend, who motioned toward the doorway.
A sliver of light outlined the portal. It widened as the wooden door opened and the interior filled with bright torchlight.
A half dozen men entered behind two torchbearers, each strongly built and capable of carrying great loads of goods. All of them were dressed in the pale blue tunics worn by Hapu’s gladiators.
As if by rote, the men silently fanned out among the bales of grain, bundles of silk cloth and began to heft them onto their shoulders.
Jared stood in unison with Damon and his men. “I don’t believe you’ve paid for those goods.”
One of the torchbearer’s spun around and Jared found himself staring at a very startled and very frightened Hapu. The Egyptian swallowed convulsively.
“What do you mean?” Hapu squeaked. His eyes went round as Damon’s men emerged from the shadows. The gladiators set their loads down and waited.
Jared sauntered toward Hapu until he towered over him then bent down to eye level. “I mean, why are you stealing my property?”
“Stealing!” Hapu’s voice pitched higher. “We. . .we were not. I mean. . .I have only to call on my slaves!” He shifted his eyes away.
The group of gladiators made no move to defend their master, but stood silently, arms crossed, smirks plastered on their faces.
Jared grabbed Hapu by the neck of his tunic, hauled him up till his feet dangled. “I ask again. Why have you been stealing from me?”
“Perhaps the question should be, who has hired him to do the deed,” Damon suggested.
Jared looked from Damon to the contorted face of Hapu, who gulped nervously, his eyes darting back and forth.
“Somebody has paid you to do this?” Jared struggled against the urge to squeeze the man’s throat until his eyes popped out. He wanted answers. Now.
Hapu made a croaking sound.
“The answer may be clearer if you give the insect some air,” Damon said.
Scowling, Jared loosened his hold, set the man down, though he kept a firm grip on his tunic. “Well?”
“I do not know what you are asking?” stuttered Hapu.
“He asks you for the name of the one who pays you to steal,” said a thickly accented voice from the shadows.
Jared, his grip still firm on Hapu, turned and saw Bran emerge from the shadows. He was dressed in the same blue tunics as the gladiators. Bryna’s brother was in on the thefts?
It would have been easy to miss him in the crowd of men who had entered in the dim light. Is that how he had earned his freedom? By aiding Hapu in destroying him? Bryna would be devastated.
Hapu’s eyes slithered past Jared. “I have but one answer for you.”
Damon grunted as a well-placed kick from behind knocked him to the floor. A Nubian, taller than Bran and weighing nearly twice as much, all of it solid muscle, stalked toward them, the light from the torches glimmering off his bald head.
Jared released Hapu, but the little man held onto his arms, hanging on like a monkey. Jared worked to free his arm, his sword. The huge gladiator smiled and raised his blade. Hapu let go.
Jared watched the blade descending toward his chest. He found the hilt of his own weapon, knew he could not swing it in time. Futile as it was, he raised his other arm to deflect the blow. But it never came.
The man stood mere inches away, a look of sheer surprise on his rapidly paling face. Between them stood Bran, his sword buried to the hilt in the attacker’s gut. Impassively, Bran withdrew his blade, slick with blood and watched the man slump lifeless to the floor.
Jared retrieved his own weapon. He eyed Bran warily, watched as he rolled the dead man’s body out of the way with his foot. He prepared himself as the gladiator turned, pinning him with a hard, glittering eye.
“Where is my sister?”
He exchanged a puzzled look with Damon, who was currently holding a quivering Hapu by the arm. His own confusion quickly melted into a deep, numbing dread. “Bryna is not here. When last I saw her, she was at your residence, where I was assured she would be safe.” His accusatory tone found its mark. The rigid set of Bran’s jaw could not shield the anguish in his eyes.
“If she has not found her way back to your side, then I fear some harm has befallen her,” he answered gravely.
Bryna would not have left her brother. She had assured him of that the night he had sought to bring her back.
“When did Bryna leave your house?” he asked.
“She went with me to see Hapu.” Bran’s eyes narrowed at the Egyptian who still dangled from Damon’s fist. If it was possible, Hapu’s faced paled even more. “I left her concealed in the garden while I sought this piece of offal to collect my last week’s wages. His servant put me off, saying he was meeting with a very important client.”
Damon shook Hapu. “What of it? Who did you meet with?”
Hapu only shook, swiveling his bulging gaze around the room to his slaves. The six gladiators had been corralled into one corner of the room guarded by Damon’s men. None of them seemed the least bit concerned for their master’s safety.
Jared towered over Hapu. “There are many ways to die. Unless you wish a slow and painful parting of this world, you’d best be naming the one behind this treachery.” He leaned so close he could smell the little man’s fear. “And if any harm has come to my wife, there will be no stopping the length of time it will take you to die. Name him!”