Page 9 of Taming the Eagle
“Infernus, who did this?” Marcus Camillus reined in his horse next to the legate.
Justin screwed up his face and spat on the ground. “You know who … it’s thatcarnifex, Toutorix the Wolf.”
Butcher—the chieftain of the Wolves of the North was certainly that. For the past years, Justin had kept an eye on the Wolves. Their chieftain lived at Lake Taus, or Loch Tatha, as the tribesmen called it. The lake wasn’t far from where craggy mountains rose to meet the sky—the highlands that made up Caledonia’s wild north. Toutorix’s village was a crannog, a network of densely-packed, conical-roofed lake-dwellings built upon the water.
By rights, he should have made Toutorix kneel years ago.
The last time Justin had met with Trajan, the former emperor had warned him that troublemakers should be dealt with severely. But Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, had little interest in beating Caledonia into submission. Losing the Ninth had been a bitter blow, and word had reached Ardoch that the emperor planned to start work upon a great wall the following year—one that would stretch from coast to coast.
One that would keep the barbarians at bay.
But the wall wasn’t yet built, and Ardoch resisted still. Justin was a seasoned veteran of both Britannia and Caledonia. He knew how easy it was to stir up rancor, and so he’d chosen to watch Toutorix the Wolf instead of moving against him.
He now bitterly regretted showing that blood-thirsty bastard any mercy.
“What now?” Marcus asked. Glancing the primus pilus’s way, Justin saw his face beneath his red-crested helmet was all savage angles. It was an expression that mirrored the general’s own rage. Justin’s mouth twisted. Once again, Marcus knew the answer.
“Toutorix won’t be attacking any more of our watchtowers,” Justin growled back. “I shall personally make sure of it.”
Fenella tensed, waiting for her husband to strike her again.
“Mouthy bitch.” Toutorix loomed over her, fists clenched. “Speak back to me like that again, and I’ll break your jaw.”
Cheek burning from where he’d struck her, Fenella’s chin rose in defiance. However, despair clutched at her throat. Three long, miserable years had come to this.
For a moment, husband and wife stared at each other, as the conversation around them died away. They stood near the great hearth of the chieftain’s meeting roundhouse, the largest of the dwellings built in a cluster upon the loch. The roof, thatched with reed and bracken, rose above them—a wagon wheel of rafters stretching up to where a slit let out the blue fug of peat smoke. A bed of rushes lay underfoot, and drunken warriors sat around the square hearth, celebrating their successful attack with horns of mead.
Fenella didn’t share their jubilation.
Instead, her heart raced and sweat bathed her skin. Careless fools, all of them—drinking and celebrating when they should be outside keeping watch.
But as her stare with Toutorix drew out, ire bubbled up, cramping her belly. Her husband was too free with his fists. How she longed to grab the poker from the fire and shove it into his belly. She fantasized about doing so sometimes when she lay in the furs at night next to her sleeping husband.
Marriage to Toutorix the Wolf had brought her nothing but misery.
“I was only pointing out that the men of Rome will knowyoutorched that tower and butchered their men,” she answered, stubbornness winning over good sense and fear.
Toutorix was capable of breaking her jaw and doing much worse.
Since coming to live at Loch Tatha, she’d heard whispers of what he’d done to his previous wives. The first had died after a severe beating. And although the second died in childbirth, the iron-collared slaves who served the chieftain and his household had whispered to Fenella of the numerous black eyes the woman had received, even while she’d been pregnant.
“And that being the case,” Fenella pressed on, her gaze flicking to where the poker lay within arm’s reach, “it would be wise to put extra men on the watch tonight.”
Her husband went still.
Fenella’s breathing hitched. Stillness wasn’t a good sign. It usually preceded violence. Toutorix’s temper was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Even her father’s rages paled in comparison. When the Wolf was enraged, he was capable of anything.
“I warned you,” he growled, his pale blue eyes glinting in the firelight as his right fist drew back. “A wife doesn’t need a pretty face … and you won’t have one when I’m finished with you.”
Fenella drew taut, ready to dive for the poker.
She hadn’t expected her earlier comment to enrage her husband so—but Toutorix’s mood was mercurial. She didn’t want to openly clash with him—but this evening, desperation and despair had driven her to it.
But if he wanted to beat her face to a pulp, he’d need to fight her first.
The wattle door to the meeting roundhouse crashed open then, bouncing off the wall, and causing all those inside to whirl toward it.
One of the chieftain’s warriors lurched through the doorway. “Toutorix!” His mouth gasped like a landed trout. “We’re under—”