His blood ran cold at the answer.
B
eneath closed lids, colors swirled in a jumble of black, brown and stormy grays. Bryna tried to see beyond the vortex, strained to see glimpses of blues and reds and greens. But the darker shades held rein and she struggled against an overwhelming sense of doom.
Eager to be free of the dirge, she forced her eyes open. A blinding pain shot through her skull, tempting her to clamp her eyes closed again. But an inner warning told her she needed remain awake. With great difficulty, she kept her eyes open.
A curved ceiling loomed over her, its surface made of bare rock interspersed with cracks of varying width. For a moment she became lost in the pattern they wove, following them down to the wall of the room where they disappeared into packed earth.
She frowned, tried to collect her scattered thoughts. She had been waiting for Bran, in that garden. Voices drifted from her memory. People talking about... She squeezed her eyes tight, tried to remember what was said. She needed to think more clearly. She tried to sit up but couldn’t. Twice she raised herself only to be held down tight. Slowly, the fog in her head cleared.
Looking sideways, she found her left arm bound to an iron ring driven into the narrow slab of stone where she lay. Her other arm too, as well as each leg. She was completely immobilized. Bile rose in her throat. Images of the young slave boy in the prison flashed in her mind.
“It’s about time you woke.”
The disembodied voice oozed out from behind her. Bryna pulled futilely at her bonds. The faint sound of leather slapping against the soles of feet seemed magnified a thousand times.
She slammed her eyes shut again, could scarce control the rising tide of panic that was causing her breathing to come in short gasps. Each footfall seemed to keep time with the skipped beats of her racing heart. Her vision blurred again. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. It was important that she regain control. Oh gods, when had she ever been in control in this Roman world?
A sharp bark of laughter prompted her to open her eyes. The somber colors of her vision melded into a black shape, made all the deeper by the evil and deception imbued within its dark form.
“It’s quite useless to try to break free. Unlike Hapu, I make sure my plans don’t go astray.”
Closer now, standing next to her, the voice joined with the colors confirming what she’d only hoped she’d dreamed.
Gideon!
A torch was offered by an unseen hand. The fire flickered, cast shadows against his harsh visage. Her senses reached out of their own accord, looking for something, some shred of compassion. But there was only a void.
Gideon peeled his lips back into an uneven smile. Bryna stared into his dark eyes, bright with triumph and madness. “What? No greeting for family? Surely even a barbarian like yourself has the manners to welcome relations.”
Bryna moistened her parched lips. “Please let me go.” She groaned inwardly at the futility of the request.
Gideon arched his brow. “Release you? I think not.” He took a few steps down, tested the tension of the rope binding her left foot. She cringed, tried to pull her ankle away, scraped her heel across a jagged edge of the raised dais.
“You have been quite a thorn in my side. How I let that incompetent Egyptian talk me into using those special talents of yours to lead Jared into my trap. . .”
“You were the man at the
taverna
, the one who paid Coeus.”
Gideon smiled again and bowed. “Oh yes, I wanted to see the deed done.” A frown twisted his features. “Though I barely made it there ahead of the whelp. You did an excellent job my dear. Your performance convinced Jared to go to the warehouse. I could not have done it without your assistance”
She refused to let guilt distract her. She had to stall him, give her time to see a way out. “You sold him into slavery?”
“Actually, my strategy did not include such a luxury.” His expression darkened, his lips drew back into a snarl. “I wanted him dead!”
The vehemence of his statement shook Bryna to her bones. Lunacy gave Gideon’s eyes an unearthly brilliance.
“Then how...” she managed to choke out.
Gideon’s insanity thrived on reliving the details.
“The greed of the gladiators Hapu employed to carry out the deed.” Gideon began to pace back and forth. A spark from the torch landed on her arm, but she stifled her cry of pain.
“I was enraged when Hapu informed me Jared had been sold. I had worked so hard to lay the groundwork for his disappearance. Only when he assured me he had been sold to the Iberian salt mines could I be comforted.”
“The salt mines?”
Gideon looked down at her. “Why, yes, my dear. The salt mines. Slaves who labor there live no more than half a year at best and die a horrible death. Their lungs fill with the dust of the salt. Chained in the bowels of the earth, they pray for death.”
Bryna could only stare at the man who so relished the thought of his own flesh and blood perishing in such a hideous manner. Poor Jared, to have trusted this man, his uncle, who hated him so much. “You coveted Jared’s wealth so much as to murder him?
Gideon stopped his pacing, stared down at her as though she had grown a second head. “His wealth? I have no need for his pitiable bit of wealth. My skills as a merchant far outweigh his.”
The question was in her eyes and Gideon wasted no time telling her. “Crimes must be avenged, dear girl! Sins atoned for, the purity of the cause cleansed.”
“What sin did Jared commit?” she whispered. Gideon stared past her, the unholy light of insanity glazing his eyes. Madness not to listen to reason, she knew. Bryna twisted, desperate to be free of the restraints. But the leather used to bind her only tightened.
“Shifra, my sister. Oh, how it crushed my heart the day she chose to marry a Roman! The enemy, the conquerors of Abraham’s descendants.” He started his frenetic pacing again. “Then, if that was not shame enough, she bore that hafling brat! Sullied our family name with his impure blood!”
Her own blood went cold. “But you took him in, raised him.”
Gideon sneered. “My wife insisted. Women are weak minded, soft, not a bit of logic in them. I refused at first, until I realized how it made that Roman scum Flavian suffer. To steal his son from him was like sticking a knife in his heart. Then I relished it.”
Gideon resumed his pacing, mumbling as though he held a conversation with another. She scanned the area surrounding her. The slab upon which she was bound sat in the center of a large cavern carved out of the earth. The meager light from the torch illuminated only Gideon, but she sensed they were not alone. Suddenly, the room filled with a bone chilling cacophony of snarls and shrill cries. Her heart raced, she pulled desperately at her bonds.
“It is not too late for redemption.”
Bryna’s attention snapped back to Gideon. He had paused again. This time the light from the torch glinted off the long blade of a knife in his hand. He stared down at her, the depth of malice in his eyes so black she held her breath.
“Shifra was to be saved that night. As head of the family, it was my responsibility to save her soul. Her devil child was to be the sacrifice. It was supposed to happen so smoothly. The Roman garrison only needed a small bit of information to convince them to hunt for zealots.”
Keep him talking, she thought desperately. Keep him distracted. “But Shifra died.”
Gideon leaned close to her face. Bryna refused to turn away, yet having the evil so close caused her to shudder in revulsion.
“Yes. The sacrifice was not completed. But tonight Shifra’s soul will be saved.” He raised the long knife above his head.
Bryna’s heart slammed against her ribs, her gaze fixed on the deadly blade. Gideon would have his sacrifice. Jared would never know it was his uncle, a man he trusted, a man he loved who wished him dead.
Worse, she would never be able to tell him how she loved him. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. He would never hold the child she carried.
A deep throated roar sounded again. Gideon tilted his head toward the noise then looked down at Bryna, a crooked smile twisting his face.
“A sacrifice more befitting a barbarian.” He motioned to someone beyond the circle of light.
Suddenly, Bryna felt the tension on her ankles lessen. Her heart clutched. If she could get free from Gideon’s makeshift altar there was a chance she could break free.
Just as quickly, the leather ropes were twisted back around her ankles, effectively squelching her hope. Still, she tried to sit up when the ropes slackened on her arms. Bucking wildly, she fought with all the strength of desperation. A muffled curse came from the darkness as her fist connected with a fleshy jaw.
“Baram! You are so inept!”
Bryna stared at Elizabeth who held the torch up higher. It was just enough time for her husband to finish tying her wrists together. “Elizabeth! You must stop him.”
Elizabeth sneered. “Stop him? I intend to help him. My parents died that night in the village. It’s Jared’s fault and it is only justice that he lose someone he loves.” Elizabeth stood regally by her uncle’s side, the hatred that fueled Gideon’s delusions shining in her eyes.
Bryna stared in disbelief. “Did you not hear your uncle? He sent the soldiers. He killed your parents, not Jared.”
“Be quiet both of you!” snapped Gideon. He grabbed Bryna by her bound arms, swung her to an upright position.
Bryna tossed her hair from her face, met Gideon’s dark gaze. “Do you not have enough blood on your hands?”
“Blood? The God of my fathers bade us cleanse ourselves from all that is corrupt. It is the beginning of reparation!”
Baram was sweating profusely, uncertainty played across his jowled features. Could it be that Elizabeth’s insipid husband had a conscience? “Baram, do not let this thing happen! Jared has been good to you. He has helped you set up your own business. He has given much to you.”
Baram smiled weakly. “That is true, but with him dead, I can have so much more and without half the effort.”
Despair sank into her stomach as one of Gideon’s slaves stepped forward and hoisted her over his shoulder.
Using her bound hands, Bryna beat at the man’s neck, jabbed him in the ear with her elbow. She wriggled and kicked. It may well be that she was going to die, but she would not die easily.
The sound of snarling grew louder. The man stopped, set her down on her feet, both arms wrapped securely around her. Elizabeth walked around the room lighting torches set into iron scones bolted to the walls. In front of her was a cavernous pit.
Bryna’s eyes widened at the sight below her. A half dozen lions, a male and five females paced back and forth, looking up at them, yellow eyes gleaming with anticipation, snapping their jaws over razor sharp fangs.
Her feet were planted just at the edge of the abyss. The slave holding her loosened his grip, eliciting a gasp of terror from her. He laughed, dragging her to the other side.
“How fortunate to know the owner of a gladiator school,” said Gideon. He watched, morbid fascination playing across his face as the cats tried to leap up the sharp incline to reach them. “They look hungry.”
The slave holding Bryna looped another length of rope around those binding her wrists. She watched numbly as the lead stretched up to slide through a wooden winch set in the roof over the pit, ending around a spoked wheel anchored to a wooden rack.
Gideon drew out his knife. She braced herself for the killing blow. Instead he bent and drew the sharp tip along her calf.
She hissed at the stinging pain and watched blood flow down her leg, soaking the bonds at her feet. Gideon then nodded to Baram, who began to spin the wheel.
Bryna’s arms were stretched upward until she was lifted into the air. Baram stopped when she dangled directly above the pit, several feet above the lions. She stared in horror as the blood from her wound dripped into the pit below, stirring the starved beasts into a frenzy.
“Accept the blood of the sinner’s whore as reparation for the sin of impurity visited upon my family,” Gideon intoned.
“Let the sacrifice begin.”
“I think not, Uncle.”
***
Sheer terror gripped Jared when he saw Bryna hanging and bleeding into the pit. He wanted to run and snatch her to safety but with Baram standing with his hands on the wheel he could not risk it.
Threatened with the promise of a slow and miserable death, Hapu had wasted no time in divulging all. Jared had listened. Listened with the pain of betrayal with which he was so well acquainted. From the first theft through his kidnapping, his ruin and demise had been planned and implemented. All at the direction of Gideon.
Outraged and wounded as he had been to hear of his uncle’s plotting, it had not begun to match the horror of discovering Gideon had taken Bryna. Vaguely, he remembered Bran howling a deep throated battle cry, Damon cursing as Hapu slipped out of the warehouse, running for his life.
Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he walked toward the pit his sword hanging loose in his hand struggled to keep his gait unhurried when in truth he wanted to launch himself at Baram and the wheel he held.
A loud snarl erupted from the pit, reverberated off the walls. It was answered in kind by the other cats thirsty for blood.
Jared chanced a look at Bryna. She was grasping the rope that suspended her, reaching futilely upward, trying to climb away from the danger. Her cheeks were tearstained. Deep green eyes locked on him with complete trust. He swallowed convulsively as a tawny paw edged with inch long claws and dappled with Bryna’s blood—leapt from the abyss. It missed her foot by a hair. He turned, fixed his deadly gaze on his uncle.
Gideon stood as if rooted to the ground, his expression devoid of any emotion, except for his eyes. His black eyes burned with hatred. “Release my wife,” Jared said. “And I will let you live.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “You, the abomination whose very existence calls for cleansing of our bloodlines, dares to give orders?” He lifted his hand. Baram grabbed the handle of the wheel.