Chapter Eleven: Journeys and Arrivals
Sometime after midday, following a long night of hard riding, they reached the boundary marked by Amazon totems that were there to warn off the unwary. Here it was that Eponin called a halt to the group and fished out the key to unlock the heavy manacles that still graced raven haired woman's wrists. She quickly unlocked them and handed the restraints to one of her warriors, as she watched Xena briskly chafe her skin where the irons had sat.
Eponin handed over the woman's, leathers armour and weapons before coughing softly to draw the warrior's attention, the Weapon's Master gave her friend a smile, "I'm glad things were worked out okay .. I was worried there, for a while, but I should have known that Gabrielle would work her usual charm."
"Know what you mean, Ep," agreed Xena as she hurriedly re-clothed herself and re-placed her armamnets.. "Speaking of Gabrielle .. I want you to make sure that she stays safe. She's in a lot of danger right now, which is why I'm leaving her with you .. don't disappoint me," she warned, a hard edge creeping into her tone.
"We'll take care of her, Xena," promised the Weapon's Master, "You have my word."
"Good enough," acknowledged the warrior as she swung up onto Argo's golden back and waved a farewell, "Take care of yourself too, Poni!" she called as she headed, away from Amazon lands, at a fast canter, heeled by Patroclese.
Eventually, Xena allowed the pace to slow, somewhat, although she kept a wary eye out for any trouble, all too certain that Mavrikios and the other bounty hunters would be waiting for her somewhere. They would know that she would be unable, or unwilling, to stay in one place for long and she had no doubt that there would be fast mounted messengers posted at strategic points around Amazon lands ready to pass the word of her emergence .. it was, after all, what she would have done!
It was early evening when she found the perfect place for a campsite. In a small, difficult to find, valley she discovered a fair sized pond. Being off the beaten track, it was unlikely anyone would stumble across them, unless they were closely following the pair's trail, but she had taken steps to hide their passing as far as possible. Not only that, anyone seeking to approach could only come from the direction they had entered the valley from themselves, and the entrance was a tight winding cleft that a grandmother could hold with a broom.
"Do you like fishing?" Xena asked the healer eying the pond speculatively.
"I don't think I've ever tried it," he replied.
"Guess it's going to be down to me then," she told him. "You see if you can get a fire started. With a bit of luck we'll have something to eat other than trail rations."
Patroclese looked confused, "But you haven't got any fishing line?" he told her.
She looked at him as if he'd just told her that she couldn't defend herself because she didn't have a sword, "You just make sure you get the fire started," she told him as she began to peel off her armour, leathers and boots, before wading into the cold water in her shift.
Patroclese had barely finished collecting the wood and getting a blaze going, when the Warrior Princess returned with four fat trout, "Why don't you see to the horses, while I see to these," she told him sitting by the fire to dry off.
"How did you do that," asked the healer as he started to get up to do what she had suggested, "I mean, that was so quick and ..."
"I have many skills," she told him levelly. But then she added, "However, cooking isn't one of them, so I'll clean these, but I hope you can do something with them, otherwise we'll have to risk my culinary expertise."
"No! I can cook," Patroclese told her hurriedly. He'd listened to some of Gabrielle's descriptions of Xena's cooking as they had travelled to Amazon territory.
By the time he got back from unsaddling the animals and hobbling his own horse .. Argo needing no such restraint .. the trout were all ready to be cooked and Xena was back in her leathers, although she had left off her armour.
Patroclese proved to have many skills of his own. He'd gathered some wild onions, after seeing to their mounts, and one or two wild herbs that he knew went well with fish. The meal he produced elicited a compliment from Xena, who rarely seemed to take much notice of the quality of the food she ate.
Both tired from a long day, and the tension of the trial, they fell asleep early. Xena, however, frequently roused herself to check the perimeter, just in case their camp had been spotted and enemies were on the prowl.
When the sun made it's sluggish appearance, the two were already on the road and heading for a village called Daxion. It was a small community, and so they were eager to welcome the young healer as the village boasted none of it's own .. other than the grandmothers who dispensed herbs as best they could for any given ailment.
As Patroclese climbed down off his horse outside the village's only inn, he turned to the Warrior Princess and offered her his hand. She clasped it warmly in the warrior's grip, hand to wrist, as he wished her, "Safe journey."
Xena inclined her head slightly for his good wishes, "Take care, healer," she told him. "You've been a good companion and friend over these last days. Don't let anything happen to ya, y'hear?"
"I'll be fine," he promised, "Just you avoid anymore arrows." he called after her as she waved a goodbye and headed Argo down the road.
The big problem was to achieve her aims in a way that didn't seem obvious to those after her. The last thing she wanted them to figure out was that she was deliberately leading them away from Gabrielle. It required a subtlety and a finesse that gave her almost as much enjoyment as the dangers of battle. - In fact - she conceded to herself, in the privacy of her thoughts, - this is fun! -
Once she had managed to make sure that all the warrior bands showing an interest had begun to move towards the west in her wake, she started to get a little more creative. Things would become far safer for everybody if one or two warlords managed to cripple their opposition .. after all none of them wanted to share the bounty with a rival. So Xena began to 'arrange' for contending groups to stumble across each other as they chased her. The results were fully satisfactory and managed to eliminate several of her hunters.
She did have an added problem, however: not all of the groups hunting her were behind her! There were several newcomers to the game and they were travelling east to where she had been reported to be. Some were a little smarter than others and set ambushes for her as their scouts reported her presence. She managed to avoid at least six of these, and in four cases had managed to lead those chasing her to spring the ambush for her. However, two had been particularly well lain, and she had found herself in real trouble, needing all of her far from inconsiderable fighting skills to get her out of the pot without being scathed. She frowned at those memories, knowing that she had escaped more through luck than skill.
The first time, the warriors had been so certain that their trap had worked that they moved in too quickly and, after a tough fight, Xena had been able to take advantage of the gap that had opened up around her, and dive through on the back of Argo. It sounded fairly innocuous when she replayed the description in her mind, so she could tell Gabrielle about it, but she knew that she'd been within a hairsbreadth of going down and the trap sealing on her.
The second time had been an even closer call. She'd been playing tag with Mavrikios' men, and they'd got a bit close to her tail feathers. She'd sorted out an emergency escape route for just such an eventuality, but unknown to her, one of the new boys had set a beautifully laid ambush in a gorge she'd had to traverse. With her attention on her pursuers, she'd been brought down and netted before she'd realized the ambushers were there!
Of all things, it was Mavrikios who saved her. He'd continued to push on behind her and had stormed into the gorge just as her captors were trying to get her secured. With the confusion created as the two sets of warriors started to fight for possession of her, she was able to cut the ropes, that bound her hands behind her, on a sword that fell close in the melee, and from there it became a relatively simple task to gather her weapons, extract herself from the fighting and retrieve Argo with a whistle.
Shaking her head for the luck that had delivered her, she could only be thankful that Gabrielle hadn't been there, because she was certain it would have taken far more than luck for the two of them to wriggle from either of those two traps! Keeping her senses on full alert, she pushed on.
Travelling the back hills and the little used tracks, she made good time as she moved out of Epirus, round the province of Ambracia .. where she'd sent her false trail .. through the region of Dolopia to get to the province of Acarnania, where she headed for the port town of Astakos.
About a days walk from the port, she sidetracked into a little backwater village bearing the name of Tassos. She'd been here before on more than one occasion, but rarely stayed longer than was necessary to leave Argo in good hands. Not wishing to become the topic of gossip for villagers who rarely saw a stranger, Xena waited until deep night, when the farmers had long since sought their beds and the village lay dark and silent.
With almost unnatural stealth, the Warrior Princess worked her way around the quiet houses, until she reached the blacksmith's shop. A village as small as Tassos was lucky to have a blacksmith as a resident, but Xena knew that Kolianis hadn't always followed his peaceful trade. He had in truth been a farrier in her army at one point, until he grew sickened by war and sought out the peaceful life in a remote village normally too far off the beaten track to draw more than a handful of visitors a year.
When she reached the smithy, Xena whispered to Argo, "Wait here," before slipping around to the dwelling, where she found Kolianis' window with a sure proficiency that spoke of her having done so more than once. She scratched lightly on the shutters, knowing that the smith was a light sleeper, and waited for him.
"Who's there?" his deep base voice rumbled like a giant bee as he tried to whisper.
"Xena," the Warrior Princess told him softly, so as not to disturb her friend's wife.
"A moment," rumbled the voice.
Quietly, Xena slipped back to where she had left Argo, knowing that Kolianis would soon join her there. She began to remove the gear that she would require for the rest of her journey, slinging a long brown cloak around her shoulders and, after checking through the contents of her saddlebag, she swung it over her shoulder, just as the smith arrived at her side.
"Xena," he greeted with a smile, clasping her arm in greeting, "Been a long time. What brings you here?"
"Trouble," Xena told him seriously.
"So?" he asked, "What's new?"
"Cynic," she told him shortly but with affection. "Can you take care of Argo for me for a while?" she asked.
"You know I will," Kolianis answered her, "Where're you headed?"
"I can't tell you that, my friend. Just at the moment the less people who know where I'm bound, the safer I'll be," she told him.
"Bad?" he questioned quietly.
"Bad enough," she answered him, "Things have been worse, but not for a while," she looked into the smith's eyes, "I'm not sure how long I'll be either."
"No worries," he told her, always a man sparing with his words, "Argo'll be fine 'til you get back."
"Thank you, my friend," Xena told him warmly as she headed into the darkness.
"Luck!" he called after her in his rumbling base whisper.
"How much for passage?" questioned Xena, knowing that she'd have to haggle.
"Thirty-five dinars," he told her.
"What!" she demanded incredulously, "I want to buy a passage, not the whole ship."
"I can guarantee a fast journey," he told her. "We're shipping spices and if I get to Narbo ahead of the competition I'll make a fortune."
"Well then," she told him quickly, "you won't need to charge so much for my passage."
"Money's money," he responded equally swiftly.
"How fast's the ship," she said casting an expert eye over the lines of the vessel and liking what she saw, even if she didn't show it.
"The Gull's about the fastest ship around these parts," the captain assured her with more than a touch of pride.
"Tell you what," she said, "I'll give you twenty dinars."
"Thirty and not a copper less," he returned firmly.
"Twenty five," came Xena's counter-offer, "and if we run into any trouble I'll help out."
"Got any experience," he asked almost insultingly, because he'd recognised the way she'd taken the measure of the Gull in that glance.
"I've sailed a ship or two in my time," she told him in an offhand manner. "I'm also a fair hand at fighting off pirates."
He looked her up and down and recognised her for a warrior to be respected, "Well then, I'd say we've got ourselves a bargain," he agreed. "Name's Bellis," he told her holding out his hand.
"Xena," she told him, grasping him firmly, wrist to wrist. "When do we sail?"
"This afternoon," he informed her. "Haul your gear on board when you're ready,"
"Got everything here," she assured him, patting her saddlebags, "so I might as well come aboard now." She quickly counted out the money and handed it over to Bellis.
By mid afternoon, with the tide running high, The Gull put out to sea and Xena stood by the rails looking back. Not at the port, but far away in her minds eye, to the east where the Amazon homeland lay. She'd been right to insist that the bard remain in safety. She wouldn't have been able to keep them both safe in the scramble to out fox the bounty hunters: it had been a close thing sometimes just on her own.
Still, standing alone by the deck rail, with nothing to do to keep her occupied, the full force of her isolation descended upon her. She felt a loneliness that she was unused to. A lack of something important at her side. In the silence of her soul she admitted to herself - I miss you Gabrielle! -
"Don't carry it so high," Eponin told her sharply, as she stung Gabrielle's hips with a swift blow.
"It's hard not to," the bard admitted, "my usual sparring partner is quite a bit taller."
Eponin ignored the remark as she feinted with a blow to the shoulder and swung a quick reverse to whip Gabrielle's legs out from under her, "You must learn to be more flexible," she scolded, "You need to adjust your style to the opponent you face." The Amazon reached out a hand to pull her Queen up out of the dust.
"That's why I lost to Ephiny and Uri? Because they're smaller than I'm used too?" asked Gabrielle.
"Nope," Ephiny chimed in, "You lost to me because I'm better than you."
"Says you!" scoffed the bard. "I've seen Solari trounce you and I've beaten her every time we faced off."
"Solari just doesn't want the Queen to lose face too often," Ephiny told her lightly, getting a serious frown from the Amazon enforcer, "On the other hand, I'm quite happy to show you just how much you still need to learn."
"Ignore her, Gabrielle," Eponin told her. "You beat the taller opponents because your used to practising with a tall woman. You're also able to deal with their greater strength because you're used to fighting someone far stronger. The problems you have are all to do with opponents who are smaller, attack lower, and use guile often in place of power. As I said, you need to be aware of this and allow you style to become flexible enough to compensate for it."
Looking around the field, Eponin announced in a loud voice, "Practice is over for the day. Time for you all to get on with some serious work."
"You know," Gabrielle smiled at Ephiny, "If I can get the hang of what Eponin's been trying to teach me, I might just manage to give Xena a real surprise next time we spar."
"Are you daydreaming again?" Ephiny laughed, "I've yet to see anyone who could fully best Xena with any weapon."
"God's, has she been paying you to sing her praises?" demanded the bard. "Every time I tell her I'm going to get her back for something she's done to me, she always says more or less the same sort of thing that you've just said."
"Pardon?" asked the blonde Amazon, irritatingly.
"You know what I mean," Gabrielle told her with a laugh, "But one of these days I am going to surprise her."
They laughed together over the mental picture of the event that sprang to their minds. The two had been steadily cementing their friendship in the nine days that Xena had been gone. Ephiny was doing her best to instruct the bard in the culture of the Amazons and how to rule. Things did not always go smoothly, but they were beginning to develop an understanding, in the area, that was gradually improving with time.
They had almost reached the bard's house when she heard a familiar voice call out, "Gabrielle!"
"Patroclese?" questioned the bard in confusion as she turned to see a scout party bringing the healer towards her, "What are you doing back here?"
The tall fair haired young man tried to push past his Amazon guards but they expertly prevented him from getting through their spears. Frustrated, he looked pleadingly at the Amazon Queen and said, "I've got to speak to you privately, Gabrielle!"
Motioning for the warriors to let him pass, Gabrielle signalled the healer to follow her and included Ephiny with a quickly glanced invitation. They hurried to the bard's home where, as soon as the door was closed behind Ephiny, she turned and demanded of Patroclese, "What's the matter? Is it Xena?"
He nodded slowly, almost reluctant to speak now he had the chance.
"What's happened?" Gabrielle demanded, as her stomach clenched in alarm.
"Nothing .. Yet ... As far as I know," he faltered, agitation plain in his mannerisms and speech pattern.
"Nothing? Then what's got you so worked up?" demanded the bard as she quickly added, "And just what are you doing back here?"
"Please just listen, Gabrielle," he pleaded and waited for her acquiescence before he continued, "After leaving here, Xena dropped me off at a village called Daxion. the village hasn't got a healer and so I've been able to spend several days treating the sick and injured and earning enough for food and lodging at the inn, as well as a little more besides."
He noticed that the bard was beginning to become impatient with him, and hurried on, "Three days ago, some soldiers came into the village, one of them needed patching up. From what they were saying, Xena's been heading west. They were part of Mavrikios' force, but when they got cut up by another band of warriors after the bounty, these three decided that they'd had enough and cut and run."
"What's this got to do with anything?" Gabrielle demanded, "We knew that Xena was heading west!"
"I know, I know," agreed the healer, trying to calm her down. "One of those men had a pretty nasty cut across the face. I needed a herb to help clear it of infection, and I went to get it from my kit. On the way back, I heard them talking."
"Go on," encouraged the bard.
"They were talking about the bounty. They said that it wasn't worth the money they got even just to chase her," he licked his lips nervously, "They said that they pitied the poor bastards in Narbo who tried to pull the trap closed."
"What!" Gabrielle erupted grabbing the healer's arms and squeezing them tightly as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. The thought sprang into her mind, "The only reason she's going to Narbo is because of the message you brought her from that merchant."
"Isumbrus," agreed Patroclese dejectedly, "I know," he told her as he saw the look of accusation in her face, "That's why I had to get back here to warn you. I feel a fool. I was tricked into delivering a message that has baited a trap for a woman I've come to admire," he told her miserably. "I thought that maybe, between us, we could come up with something to warn her or, if the need arose, to rescue her. I've got to do something. I must make up for my part in this, even if I was tricked into it by a man I've always counted as a friend."
Swallowing her fear, Gabrielle touched the healer's cheek softly and said, "It's not your fault, Patroclese," her mind was whirling with plans and odd images that flashed through her brain leaving vivid pictures that caused her to clutch her temples as if in pain.
"Are you all right?" asked Ephiny who moved to her friend's side, recognising some kind of problem.
"I'll be fine ... in a moment," Gabrielle told her, although she was grateful for the support Ephiny's arm gave. The Amazon guided her to a chair. "A little much exercis and sun," she tried to reassure the Regent. She looked up at the healer and told him. "We need to get to the nearest port that has ships bound for Narbo, or as close as we can get to it in Narbonensis."
"Xena told you to stay here," Ephiny told her sternly, "She told me to keep you here," she added.
"Everything's changed now, Ephiny," the bard told her briskly. "Xena's walking straight into a trap and I've got to try and stop her."
Ephiny looked mutinous, "Xena knows what she's doing. She's quite able to take care of herself. You going after her might just get her into the kind of trouble she can't get you both out of. You know! The reason she wanted you to stay here in the first place."
"I know Ephiny," Gabrielle agreed with her, "I know. But Xena thinks she's going to help an old friend. She thinks she's left all of Caesar's traps behind her. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't try to warn her, would I."
"We could send a couple of Amazon scouts .. or I know Poni would go if I asked her," protested the Regent.
"They'd stand out like sore thumbs and you know it, Eph .. at least I'm used to travelling outside the Nation. If Patroclese comes with me it will act like a disguise they're not going to be looking for a man and his .. wife, now are they?" argued Gabrielle persistently.
Ephiny sighed in defeat, before a grim determination came over her. She crossed her arms across her chest and asked, "How many sisters should I ready to go with us?"
"Pardon?" questioned the bard taken by surprise.
"How many sisters?" repeated Ephiny.
"Ephiny, you can't come," Gabrielle told her firmly, "You're needed here as ruler."
"That's your task," reminded the blonde.
"I have another one to perform,' she said to the Amazon, "And I'm not taking any of the sisters, either," she declared firmly. "They'd attract too much attention, and I'm going to need to try and be as inconspicuous as possible."
"Is there anything I can do for you, then, my Queen," was Ephiny's flat response.
"Cut that out, Ephiny," Gabrielle told her shortly, "We're friends. Don't go all formal on me just because you don't like a decision."
Ephiny looked mutinous again, but she slowly controlled herself and sighed once more, "Is there anything I can do for you, Gabrielle?" she asked in a milder tone.
"Yes. Will you please take Patroclese and find some supplies and a horse for me. I'll join Patroclese after I see you back here." the bard told her.
Nodding her assent, the Amazon lead the healer away with her, giving Gabrielle a chance to bundle her things together hastily. Then, with the images she had seen still burned into her mind, she took three sheets of paper and wrote three almost identical letters. She sealed them with wax she softened over the candle flame, inprinted the sels with the Royal Amazon crest and wrote three different names on the outside.
By the time that Ephiny got back, she had finished and was ready to leave, "Can you make sure that these get delivered as quickly as possible?" she asked her friend.
Ephiny looked quizzically at the names and shot Gabrielle an intrigued glance.
"It's a feeling, that's all," the bard told her. "Sometimes I see things. I think that they might be some help."
"Well, it's certainly a mixed group," the Amazon told her, "Patroclese is down by the stable. Good luck, Gabrielle," Ephiny told her as she gave a quick parting hug. As the bard left the house, she added, "Be safe, my Queen."
The pair posed as husband and wife on their journey for, although Xena had done an excellent job in drawing off the warrior bands after the bounty, both Patroclese and the bard thought that precautions were in order. As they were certain that any hunters would be looking for two women, it seemed reasonable to assume that she would pass detection as a travelling physician's wife.
However, no matter how quickly they were managing to make the journey, the crease of worry seemed to be permanently on the bard's features as she tried to convince herself she would get to Xena in time. After all, the Warrior Princess had had to drag half way across Greece to achieve her aims, so with luck they might even make it to Narbo ahead of her.
Yet still the doubts persisted, and Patroclese frequently heard his companion mutter, "She has to be alright."
"She will be," assured the healer for what must have been the hundredth time, "We'll get to her and find her in one piece, I have no doubt," he told her although there was an edge of concern in his tone that belied his words.
Torone was a rapidly expanding commercial port with ships from many different lands. It was a thriving, noisy, bustling place that quickly swallowed two newcomers into its mass with an impartiality that can only be found in such a big town that was indifferent to it's populace. All were welcome here .. those hiding, those seeking. Identity mattered nothing to the city watch .. their only concern was to keep the peace .. however violently they needed to do it.
"We better get down to the docks and see if we can find a ship heading for Narbo, or somewhere close," Gabrielle told the healer, eager to be on her way.
"Um, Gabrielle," responded her companion, "It might be better if we got you somewhere out of sight while I go and find us a ship." He looked into the blonde's green eyes, concern etched on his face, "There are still men looking for you, even if we have got this far without any problem. But the docks might be different ... There could be people down there with a description of you, there just on the off chance that they'll be able to grab you."
Gabrielle smiled and shook her head disparagingly, "Oh come on, Patroclese. Have you seen anyone look at me twice?" she asked him. "I think Xena's pulled everyone away from this whole area who has any interest at all in trying for the money."
"Do you think that Caesar, won't have planned for the chance you might take a ship to go after Xena?" he asked her seriously, "He seems like the kind of man who lays deep plans when he wants something." He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadow of an alleyway as he became aware of a warrior beginning to take too much notice of them.
The man emitted a coarse laugh and shouted, "If she's any good, let me know. I might try her myself," as he grabbed suggestively at his crotch.
Gabrielle flushed redly in the shadows, flustered by the man's obvious meaning, and annoyed that she hadn't realized that she was being watched. Although Patroclese had his arms around her in a 'lustful' embrace, he effectively ignored her close proximity as he concentrated on the warrior who, luckily, lost interest in them when one of his mates drew him into a tavern.
"Look," he scolded as he turned towards the bard, "Do you really want to risk everything on the chance that I'm wrong about this?"
Gabrielle wanted to tell the healer that he was being over cautious, but there had been a look in the warrior's eye that hinted at something other than what he'd suggested, and the bard knew that she couldn't afford to take the chance that Patroclese was wrong. Finally she shook her head, knowing that frustration and impatience could bring disaster if not held in check. - Focus - she thought - Xena's always telling me to focus! - She nodded her agreement and added, "Okay. Let's find a quiet inn somewhere. I'll keep a low profile while you find us that ship."
Relieved at her agreement, the healer guided her through the crowded streets, taking sudden detours if he thought anyone was paying them too much attention. Eventually they came to an inn, set back away from the popular sailors district, obviously geared to cater for the needs of travellers who wished to be close to the docks, without being intruded upon by the raucous sailors on shore leave.
A room was quickly secured with Patroclese telling the host, "My wife needs to rest, she's in the early stages of a delicate condition, and I don't want to drag around the docks while I find passage on a ship."
The innkeeper nodded his understanding and, once the healer was satisfied with the hosts assurances of good lodging, led Gabrielle to a small, but comfortable room at the end of the upper landing, while Patroclese, left for the docks and, she hoped, to find a ship that would suit their purposes.
While he was gone she paced the floor restlessly. He seemed to be taking forever, and she had unconsciously began to count her steps as she moved between the window and the wall, avoiding the small table in the centre of the floor, - One, two, three, four, five six, seven and turn - she counted in her mind, a litany to give her something to concentrate on other than just where Xena was and if she was safe.
Although it had seemed like much longer, Patroclese had returned within two candlemarks. When he rapped on the door, the tension she had been building up inside her was so great that she almost leapt three foot off the ground! She cautiously went over to the door and asked, "Yes, who is it?"
"Me," came the answer, "Patroclese," he clarified, just in case she hadn't recognised his voice. She quickly opened the door for him and he slipped in shutting and locking it behind him once more.
"Did you find one?" she asked at once.
He smiled broadly, "The Perinax is sailing on the midnight tide bound for Elne, which is no more than two days hard travelling from Narbo. With luck we'll be there before Xena." Gabrielle started to gather their things together, but he stopped her with, "We better wait until dark."
"Why not get aboard now," demanded the bard still impatient to be doing something .. anything .. that got her closer to her goal.
He looked at her calmly and told her, "There a far too many people around the docks asking after a blonde bard," he told her. "Getting to the ship at night should help us disguise you a bit, especially if we wrap a cloak around you."
Much as she hated to, Gabrielle could only agree with his logic and be grateful for the fact that the healer seemed almost desperate to make up for his inadvertent betrayal of the Warrior Princess. His thoughtfulness and help had kept her clear of trouble so far, and his knowledge of Narbonensis, its geography, people and their ways, would be invaluable. With a deep sigh of impatience, they settled down to wait for darkness. Gabrielle returning to her pacing, while the healer sat on the bed and watched her.
The Perinax was a large ship, or so it seemed to Gabrielle. It looked sleek which spoke of speed, "With luck we'll get a quick passage," she whispered to the healer as he guided her to the gang plank. She sensed rather than saw his smile in the darkness.
"Let's get aboard," he urged her.
"I hate boats," muttered the bard, at least thankful that Xena had taught her how to control the nausea that always assailed her on sea trips.
She followed Patroclese up onto the main deck of the ship where he motioned for her to wait while he went and spoke to the captain. After a brief conversation, he signalled for her to join him and said, "Let's go below to the cabin."
Gabrielle followed him down the companionway steps that ran under the ship's bridge. He led her to a door at the end of a small corridor and opened it for her, motioning for the bard to precede him. She stepped through into a small windowless cabin that was dimly lit with a smoky lantern. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized that they were not alone. Two, fully equipped, Roman legionaries stood before her.
"Quick, get out!" Gabrielle screamed at the healer as she snapped her staff up to menace the soldiers, "You've been tricked. It's a trap."
The limited space in the cabin was not really the best place to try and use a weapon of the staff's size, but as the soldiers advanced on her, Gabrielle used the tip to jab the closest man, hard in the gut, doubling him over so that she could deliver a quick downward blow to his head to drop him to his knees. She followed through with the swing and used the momentum she had gathered to whip the second soldier's feet out from under him. Covering the soldiers with her staff, the bard backed her way towards the cabin door, and instructed Patroclese, who had stood motionless just inside the cabin, "C'mon, we've got to get out of here."
"I'm sorry, Gabrielle," he told her, a twinge of true regret in his voice, as two more Romans grabbed her from behind and wrested the staff from her hands. Gabrielle struggled violently, but she was no match for the two burly soldiers and she could see, another four just behind them as well.
"Why didn't you get away while you had the chance?" she questioned the healer, a touch of reproach in her voice, "You might still have been able to get to Xena and warn her about the trap."
Ignoring her look and her words both, Patroclese turned to the men restraining the bard and barked with an air of authority, "Let her go. There's no reason to be rough with her."
Realization hit her like a forceful blow. Patroclese was far from the friend he had pretended to be. As soon as the legionaries released her, Gabrielle whirled on him and slapped him as hard as she could across the face, "Traitor!" she hissed at him, now fully aware of his authority over the soldiers by the way they had obeyed him, "How could you do this?" she demanded sick to her stomach that she had fallen into his artfully laid snare.
"No traitor," he protested calmly, "I've served Lord Caesar man and boy, as my family have served his for generations." He looked at her with a tinge of sadness in his eyes, "I regret that this had to be, but I owe my allegiance to Caesar and but follow his commands. You should understand that, Gabrielle. It's not far from your argument about Xena not being a traitor to the Amazons, because she isn't one."
The bard looked daggers at him, unable to refute his logic, she hated him the more so because he was right. The fact that he had betrayed both her and Xena by first befriending them and leading them into traps, was unpalatable to her, but fully understandable considering the master he served.
He signalled for the legionaries to leave the cabin, "The door is to remain locked, unless I give instructions otherwise, and a two man guard is to be on duty at all times." He turned back to the bard and smiled in a friendly, compassionate way that Gabrielle personally found totally unsuitable for the occasion, "Make yourself comfortable, Gabrielle," he told her, "we've got a long voyage ahead of us." As he reached for the door handle he looked at her and said, "If you should need anything, just get the guards to let me know. I have no wish for you to be uncomfortable."
She quickly snapped back, "I need my freedom."
A slight smile played on his lips as he answered, "Sadly that is the one thing I cannot give you."
Struggling further was going to get her nowhere, but she needed to vent her frustration and defiance so she snapped at him, "Enjoy this little victory while you can. Your precious Caesar hasn't got Xena yet, and when she finds out the part you played in this you'll be lucky if you can escape with your life."
"No doubt you are right," Patroclese agreed, "You know Xena best. But I don't think even she will be able to avoid capture this time." Patroclese slowly, almost reluctantly swung the door closed and turned the key in the lock. Gabrielle was left in the confined cabin, knowing that she had been caught as neatly as a fly in a spider's web.
The Gull finally docked at Narbo and, although the passage hadn't been slow, it hadn't been particularly interesting either. Xena would almost have welcomed a skirmish with some pirates, just to take her mind off of her loneliness. As it was, she was grateful to be on dry land again. Unusually, the confines of a ship had left her on edge and eager for something to occupy her attention other than the nagging concern that something was very wrong.
Thanking Bellis for his hospitality and the fast passage, Xena swung her cloak around her shoulders, as she left the ship, with a cheery wave to the crew. The cloak effectively hid her armour and weapons from prying eyes, and a little bit of caution often saved an awful lot of mending. Besides, Narbo was full of Roman Legionaries. A thing in itself that was not surprising because Narbonensis was a Roman province and supported at least four Legions that were champing at the bit to get into the fighting in Gaul.
However, she wasn't looking for trouble with them, and it was unlikely that anyone here would recognise her. The only Roman she held a grudge for, currently, was Caesar and, last she heard, he was still trying to play Emperor in Rome, well away from her, and any chance of her inflicting the vengeance on him that she believed he richly deserved.
As she wandered along the busy docks, she plucked an apple from a trader's cart and threw him a copper for it, before biting into the crisp, juicy flesh. Enjoying the sights and sounds of the port, she was in no great hurry to find her way to Isumbras' establishment, but as she roamed, she began to develop a distinctly 'itchy' feeling, almost as if she was being watched.
Ducking into a side street, she made a couple of quick turns and doubled back so that she could check to see if anyone had tried to follow her. Finishing the remains of the apple, she sucked the juice from her fingers and discarded the core in a refuse heap at the corner of an alleyway, all the while reaching out with her senses and using her eyes to try to locate the reason for her unease.
Long moments were spent in a futile search that revealed nothing to her. The 'itch' had not intensified and there was nothing to suggest that she was either being watched or followed. Reluctant to mistrust her feelings, Xena could only put her worry down to the problem caused by the bounty and the depth of her loneliness, along with the nagging doubt that something didn't quite add up. She wasn't certain that they were the reasons, but with nothing else in evidence, she was almost ready to credit them.
Taking a roundabout route, just to satisfy herself that she hadn't missed anything, she slowly wound her way back towards the warehouse district of the docks. Stopping at the corner of a street, she dropped a small coin to one of the many beggars that littered streets (victims of the fighting in the area) and asked for directions to Isumbras' establishment.
"Just continue on down the road, lady," the beggar told her in a scratchy voice, "it's a big place with a big sign. You won't be able to miss it."
"Thanks," Xena told him and continued down the thoroughfare, still irritated by the feeling that she was being shadowed, yet unable to locate the source of that irritation. She sighed inaudibly trying to shake off her qualms - There's nothing there, for Zeus's sake! - she swore to herself, as yet again she twisted off her planned path and ran a backtracking pattern to check her trail.
When she found the warehouse, she ducked into an alleyway to observe the comings and goings before she committed herself to going in. She watched a heavily laden wagon, pull out of the huge double doors at the front of the building, that she watched swing closed and heard barred with a heavy beam, that was dropped into place once the wagon was clear, "That's Isumbras all right," murmured Xena to herself, "Always a cautious man with his goods." Still she continued to wait.
At just after midday, a stick insect of a little man, let himself out of a small wicket door that stood next to the big double gates. He had hunched shoulders and the obvious look of a clerk off for his lunch somewhere. Deciding it was time for a little closer investigation, Xena moved stealthily out of the alleyway, and made a quick tour of the big warehouse.
Apart from the doors at the front of the building, and a window on the side, not far around the corner from the wicket door, a peek into which showed the clerks small office with manifests neatly piled on the desk, there didn't appear to be any other ways in or out. Not that she didn't believe that Isumbras had some hidden escape route in case of emergencies, but it was well disguised and not identifiable, even with her practised eye.
Still concerned that things felt 'other' than they should, Xena proceeded cautiously as she let herself into the clerks office through the small door. Taking her time and satisfying herself that there was no one else there, she moved stealthily to the rear of the office and listened at the door to the sounds of men working in the big building.
As she eased the door open, her highly attuned senses began to scream at her to proceed with even more caution. The 'itchy' feeling had intensified to such an extent that her skin began to prickle. Her normally graceful movements, became extra fluid as her fighting instincts took control of her body.
Silently dropping her gear, and the cloak, in the office to give herself full freedom of movement, Xena slowly drew her sword before proceeding further into the warehouse. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary here. There were the expected sounds of a few labourers moving about their business in the depth of the heavily stocked building. Long, neat rows of barrels, packing cases and crates, covered the floor space, each in blocks with walkways between them.
The building was brightly lit, so there were few shadows where danger could be lurking. A glance up to the roof revealed nothing other than a wooden gantry that ran around the edge of the building, allowing workers to find cargo that might be hidden from sight at ground level. To the eye, everything appeared as it should be, but there remained an indefinable tenseness in the atmosphere that the Warrior Princess was reluctant to ignore.
Moving with panther like smoothness, Xena glided silently along the central isle of the stacked piles of goods. Her senses were alive, listening for the sound that would warn her of an imminent attack, and hearing nothing other than the rowdy laughter of the workers. As she came to each junction in the walkways, that crisscrossed the warehouse between the stored cargo, she made a careful inspection both to the right and left, before continuing on her stealthy way. She was unsure whether she was glad that nothing seemed to be lurking in ambush, or whether she'd rather something happened to clear the tension that seemed to crackle in the air.
As she neared the far end of the warehouse, she hung back as she inspected a raised platform that stood against the back wall of the building. Upon the platform stood a heavy desk and a scattering of chairs. Behind the desk was a door, probably leading to a back room and the way up to the gantry, if she didn't miss her guess. Sitting at the desk, seemingly working on an inventory, was a man she recognised. He was older, greyer and more lined than when last she had seen him, but she knew Isumbras as soon as she saw him. She would never be able to mistake the greedy ferret like features, nor the eyes that were constantly in motion, gathering information.
Still unwilling to ignore her senses, that were screaming warnings at her to be careful, she waited and watched for a while. No one seemed to be working in the area near her, but she observed three or four men over on the far left hand side of the warehouse, organising a load that was obviously going out in some shipment. A large crate stood covered by a tarp on a flatbed wagon.
Her eyes flicked up to the gantry that ran around the upper part of the building. If the warehouse hadn't been so well lit, it would have made an ideal place to conceal archers for an ambush. No doubt Isumbras had surprised unwanted guests that way more than once, but for now there was no one hidden there.
Nothing seemed out of place, yet the feeling of wrongness persisted. If there was a trap laid here, it was a well hidden one. She had little doubt that Isumbras would betray her if he felt that it was in his interest to do so, and 250,000 dinars was an awful lot of interest! - Well - she berated herself silently, - You can't stand here forever while you make up your mind. If there is a trap here, I'm already up to my neck in it! So I might as well spring it and get things moving before old age creeps up on me. -
She flicked her eyes over the area for one last time, before moving lightly into the open, her sword held, seemingly casually, at her side as she greeted, "Hello Isumbras."
He gave a start as he looked up from his work, and a smile lit his face as he leaned back in his chair and replied, "Xena! You took your own sweet time getting here." He looked thinner she noted as he motioned her forward, "Have a seat," he invited.
"No thanks," she declined politely as she moved forward onto the front edge of the dias, preferring to be able to move quickly if the situation should warrant it.
"Still as suspicious as ever," he noted with a mirthless smile, "I'd heard you'd changed."
"Not that much," she told him, "What did you want me for."
"Ah, straight to the point, as ever," Isumbras laughed, "Well, I asked you to come because a friend of mine wanted to see you," there was an odd gleam in his eye as he said that and a predatory set to his features.
Xena moved back, senses alive to an expected attack, her sword levelled in Isumbras' direction, but her eyes searching for the men she now knew were waiting to rush her. A movement on the gantry made her eyes flick upwards, to an instantly recognisable figure.
"Hello, Xena" greeted his familiar voice. One that stoked the burning rage within her to a white heat.
"Caesar!" she snarled in reply as she began to weave her sword in lazily complex movements ready to cover any assault.
"Are you going to surrender and save us a lot of time and effort? And you a lot of pain!" he drawled in a tone that seemed to make it clear that it made no difference to him one way or the other.
"I don't see anyone here to help you," she told him, well aware that he wouldn't have set this up without a body of armed men for his own protection, not if had any hopes of leaving alive with her either dead or a prisoner. - Depends what he's got in mind! - her inner self told her. She needed to draw them into the open, so she knew what she had to fight.
"You intend to make this difficult?" he arched an eyebrow at her, his brown eyes mocking.
She shook her head and snarled, "Oh no! I intend to make it impossible!"
"Very well, my men could use some exercise!" he scowled.
"If they're anything like that bunch in Rome they need more than exercise!" she sneered.
"Oh, believe me, Xena. These are good. Nothing but the best for the Warrior Princess." He snapped his fingers and a trumpet blared out a single note. Instantly, crates burst open to spew forth legionaries armed with a variety of heavy clubs, staves and nets.
She shot Caesar a mirthless smile that never came close to touching the cold fire that burned in her eyes. Within an instant, stillness became rampant death dealing action as Xena lashed out at the soldiers who rushed her. Two men went down to a sizzling right fist that crashed from one jaw to the next as she swung in a vicious arc. Another eager Roman got a boot in the groin as he tried to grab her from behind. Swinging her sword around her head she cleared a space for herself as men scrambled back, suddenly reminded of their mortality.
With the mad light of battle shining from her eyes, she let loose her fearsome war cry, "Yi,yi,yi,yi,yi,yi!" before leaping high into the air and landing, perfectly balanced, on the gantry rail, her eyes seeking out Caesar. Now was her chance to avenge herself on the man that had twisted her soul into something evil. Without Gabrielle here, there was nothing, and no one, to hold her back and payment was long overdue.
He was still on the gantry, but now surrounded by a dozen soldiers. She smiled eagerly, her whole being infused with the heat of battle and the certainty of revenge. She was preparing to charge Caesar's force when her senses suddenly screamed at her. Left hand moving faster than the eye could follow, she snatched a shaft from the air, noting that it had a blunt head as she did so. The arrow was meant to stun!
Leaping back she was just in time to avoid a volley of similar arrows that thudded heavily into the wooden wall before dropping to the gantry deck. Xena threw a glare to where Caesar had been standing, only to find him gone. He'd taken the opportunity, presented by her pre-occupation with the arrows, to remove himself as a potential target.
Gritting her teeth, the Warrior Princess made the hard decision that it was time to get herself out of this mess. The warehouse floor seemed to be teeming with legionaries and the ones on the gantry were charging towards her with more appearing from the doorway all the time. Much as she hated to lose her chance at Caesar, her enemy had the upper hand here and retreat was her only viable course of action. She promised herself that there would be another time.
Sliding her sword back into it's sheath on her back, she flipped off of her perch, just before the first soldier reached to grab her, performed a tuck roll high in the air, avoiding more stun arrows as she did so, and landed neatly on one of the pile of crates. Legionaries below her, thrust long staves at her, trying to bring her down. Xena kicked them aside and leapt for another pile of crates more to the centre of the warehouse, putting some distance between her and the gantry. As another staff wielder made to prod at her, she pulled the weapon from the soldiers grasp and used it to help her vault from pile to pile avoiding the men who were trying to snare her.
Arrows began to zip at her from archers who had taken up positions on the gantry. She avoided them as best she could, although her body, arms and legs, were getting struck more frequently as she found it difficult to dodge everything coming at her, she did manage to protect her head, however, reducing the chances of them doing major damage.
Using a new tactic, a group of men clambered up onto the stack of wooden boxes ahead of her. Others were closing in around her as they lowered themselves down from the gantry. Confronted by four soldiers directly in front of her, Xena gave voice once more to her ululating battlecry as she rushed them, her captured staff held horizontally before her to sweep them from the crates back to the ground below.
Using her momentum, she leapt the gap onto a stack of barrels that proved to be, unfortunately, unstable. Unable to hold her balance, she went crashing down with them and took a pounding from the heavy casks as they bounced around her. The fall did, though, give her a clear view of the clerk's office .. one look at the main warehouse doors told her that she had no chance of getting them unbarred before the legionaries would be able to overwhelm her. Once into the office, she'd have two options .. crashing through either the door or window, whichever looked to be the most feasible at the time.
As she struggled to her feet, a double handful of Romans rushed into her path, cutting her off from her objective. She drew her sword with a confident flourish, ignoring the bruises garnered from her fall, and growled menacingly, "Out of my way, boys!"
"Get her!" came the order from a decurion, sending the legionaries in to attack.
Xena parried the first club that slashed towards her, reaching out with her free hand to draw the luckless wielder into a smashing head butt. A sweep of her sword cut through the defence and armour of a second man, laying him open from chest to hip.
She dodged to one side to avoid a heavy swipe, but was a little slow and the club hit her solidly on the right upper arm, making it instantly numb and causing her to drop her sword. She dealt the successful soldier a wicked side on kick to the gut that left him heaving on his knees as he tried to suck breath into tortured lungs.
Ducking, she launched herself into a forward roll along the ground to avoid the legionaries who sought to sandwich her. Instead of grabbing the Warrior Princess, the pair ended up colliding with each other as they watched Xena roll away. As she came to her feet, Xena hit the soldier in front of her with a crushing straight left that dropped him like a poleaxed steer. As he fell she saw she had a clear path to the office door. Not hesitating she dived for the opening ... straight into the heavy confines of a special cargo net that had been slung as an obvious contingency if she should escape the trap within the warehouse.
Net and Warrior Princess, fell to the floor of the office in a tangled mess, small sharp hooks in the netting, catching on leather, armour and flesh. But Xena was not ready to give up yet. Drawing the knife from her boot she set to work to cut herself free from the prisoning mesh. An almost blind panic assailed her at the thought of being in His power once more and she fought with an unreserved ferocity that was incredible to behold.
Seeing that their quarry had still not given into the inevitable, the soldiers descended upon her with clubs, intent on beating the defiance out of her, incredulous that she would continue to fight in such a hopeless situation. Slowly, the resistance went out of her, as her bruised and battered body refused to respond to the unfair demands that she was trying to make on it, until she lay still, breathing painfully and heavily.
Her sight was blurred and she felt groggy as the net was hauled off of her. Oblivion beckoned, but she struggled against it and fought feebly as she felt the cold metal of heavy manacles being fastened to her wrists and ankles. Hands pulled her to her knees, while another grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back to stare up at the face of a man who stood calmly before her.
Caesar coldly examined his prize. She fought like twenty kinds of demons and he had little doubt that she would spend her last breath to kill him if she could .. and believe it to be well spent! A soldier approached, handing him her sword which he studied along with the chakram that had been taken from her belt. His smile was like the chill of winter as he looked down upon his one time lover.
Her face was swollen with one eye closed and her lip split in two places. Heavy bruising marred her smooth skin wherever it showed. Her breathing was laboured and her one open eye looked disorientated. - But, - he noted with grudging admiration - she shows absolutely no sign of conceding victory. - In her position he wasn't sure that he'd be able to maintain that air of defiance.
"Well, Xena," he said at length, the smooth tones that once thrilled her, now sent the icy fire of rage coursing through her veins. "Maybe you should have taken the chance to surrender to me after all. I warned you about the pain you faced."
Gathering her fast fading reserves of strength, and ignoring the screaming protests from every part of her body, Xena used her will to force herself to her feet. For the barest second she stood eye to eye with her nemesis, before spitting full into his face. Caesar gave no flicker of emotion, nor did he move, but an unseen fist crashed into the side of her jaw and blessed darkness rushed to claim her.
The Roman general carefully wiped the spittle from his face as he dispassionately observed his unconscious prisoner. - Gods, but the woman could fight - he thought to himself, glad that he hadn't had to face her himself .. not that he feared her .. he just knew that his destiny lay elsewhere other than on the end of her blade. Yet, he'd never seen her match and he privately admitted that she was absolutely magnificent - But far more dangerous than a pride of rabid lions - he told himself.
He turned to Brutus whom he'd given the task of setting the net to snare their game, while the rest of them had kept her busy in the warehouse. - That net - thought Caesar looking at the heavy rope that the cargo net was made from - should have stopped any mere mortal in their tracks. But she almost cut herself free from it's strictures. - "Get her under lock and key," he ordered, anxious that she should get no opportunity to effect an escape.
He studied the battered form at his feet for a few moments, "There is never to be less than twenty guards on duty around her. When you get her to the dungeon, strip her of her armour and boots, make sure she hasn't got any more weapons tucked away," he instructed examining the quality of the weapons he held. "Once that's done, she is to remain chained at all times." He handed the sword and chakram to the soldier who brought them, "Have those delivered to my apartments," he instructed.
Turning back to Brutus he told him crisply, "We leave for Nemausus at first light. I want the cage on a covered wagon with six guards, and another twenty around it at all times." he fixed his second in command with a hard stare, "Make sure that the men know I'll have one in ten of the whole special watch lashed if she gets anywhere close to escape, and I'll Crucify every fifth man should she manage to get away from them."
Brutus nodded, they'd heard the order before and the men knew what awaited them if they should fail Caesar, "What of the girl?" he questioned as he signalled for Xena to be taken away.
"Patroclese will keep her safe once he lands." He watched as the Warrior Princess was lifted roughly and carried back into the warehouse where the flatbed wagon now stood, a wooden cage evident upon it. As soon as Xena was bundled into it, the tarp was used to cover the cage making it appear to be a covered crate. "With that irritating blonde in my hands, I'll have Xena just where I want her." he explained.
Caesar's battered, elite, hand picked, maniple of almost two hundred men, (assembled for the specific task of capturing and guarding one woman warrior) formed up around the precious cart and, at their commander's order, marched back to the garrison barracks where they could lodge their dangerous charge behind stone walls and iron bars.
He held his palms up to inspect the blisters that were raw on his hands and shook his head in rueful disbelief. It had been so long since he'd done honest chores that he'd become soft. He scooped up the waterskin that lay beside him and took a deep swallow, then poured some of the cool liquid on his throbbing hands before allowing the water to gush over his head. Shaking his long black hair from his eyes, he reached for his shirt.
He'd cut quite a stack of firewood to replace the depleted pile in the inn's woodshed. That he'd had to cut so much in one go, was testimony to the fact that he disliked the job and had put it off as long as possible. However, when his mother had started to threaten to do the job herself, he had reluctantly undertaken the arduous chore. - Well it's done now - he thought gratefully. - Maybe I can get Tomas to go hunting with me tomorrow. Mother could use some fresh game to flesh out the stores. - He glanced up at the sky and realized that the sun was lowering, - Thinking of food, - he grinned to himself, - time to get something to eat. - he thought as his stomach rumbled its agreement.
Pulling his shirt over his head he hurriedly tucked the tail into his trousers, leaving a substantial amount sticking out in a lopsided hang. He gathered the waterskin and the small pannier that he'd carried some lunch in, so that he wouldn't have to make himself halfway presentable to go back into the inn at midday, and headed for the kitchen door.
His mother met him with a towel and a bar of soap, "Wash up before eating," she told him lightly.
With a look of feigned patience upon his face, he swapped the things he carried for the wash gear, and headed for the well. There he drew himself a bucket of fresh water and proceeded to clean the sweat and grime, which had accumulated, from his well-muscled torso.
Reluctant to put the sweaty shirt back on, he threw it over his shoulder and, whistling cheerfully, he made his way back to the kitchen where his mother waited ready to take the soap, towel and shirt and hand him a fresh one. "You know," she told him patiently, "You'd find it a much easier if you tackled the chores in small amounts, rather than waiting for things to build up into mammoth tasks."
He smiled at his mother patting her cheek fondly, bringing an echo of the impatient child he had been with it when he said, "I guess I'm too old to change my ways now, Mother," he told her. "What's to eat? I could demolish a whole roast ox."
"Nothing so grand," she told him with a smile. "There's some cold mutton and fresh vegetables."
"Ah!" he sighed irrepressibly, "A banquet fit for a king."
"Get on with you!" she scolded as he gave her a hug. Since he'd been home, he'd done that a lot ... once they got over the strangeness of being around each other after such a long parting. She only wished her other children were home ... but, while she was at it, she might as well have wished for the moon!
She watched contentedly as he sat at the kitchen table and proceeded to demolish the large helping of food that she had prepared for him. - It was good to cook for family rather than just the customers, - she decided, and smiled as he helped himself to more. A sudden thought crossed her mind. - The letter! - She moved with her light easy step to the mantle shelf, where she had put it when it had arrived in the morning. The inn had been busy, and he had been working so well with the woodpile, that she had decided to wait to give it to him until he stopped to eat.
She smiled quietly to herself as she remembered the courier who had delivered it. The girl hadn't been more than seventeen summers, but she moved with an arrogant assurance that would have drawn attention even if she hadn't been wearing such exotic clothing. - Amazon, - had been her guess then, and remained so now. What they could want with her son, she wasn't about to guess, but she hoped that it wouldn't be something to take him away.
As he pushed his plate away with a sigh of contentment, she said, "A letter came for you today. An Amazon delivered it."
"An Amazon?" he questioned in amazement, "Do we know any Amazons?"
She shrugged, she had her private thoughts about who had sent the letter, but she didn't want to speculate when the answer was to hand, "Open it and see what it says," she suggested.
He looked at the red wax that had closed the document and guessed that it was a Royal crest imprinted into it. Carefully breaking the seal, he scanned the contents and a worried frown descended upon his features, "It's from Gabrielle," he told his mother who was showing signs of becoming impatient. "She says that Xena's in trouble and needs my help. Here," he said handing her the letter as he stood and made for the stairs to his room, "I've got to get my things."
She read the bard's message and she felt the blood draining from her face. For Gabrielle to write asking for help, things had to be pretty bad. She sank into the chair her son had vacated and fought back the tears that threatened to come. He must go to her aid, but it would be so hard to lose him again, and yet if Xena was in danger .... "Be strong, my little one," she whispered to herself. "Be safe."
As he listened to the birds trilling their songs, and the gentle lapping of the water as the river ran lazily on its way, his eyes were beginning to close in response to a hard morning's, serious fishing. That was when the clatter of metal brought him awake instantly. Springing to his feet, the small, muscularly built, blonde haired man, leapt up and grabbed the branch that grew about two feet above him. With practised ease, he pulled himself into the cover of the foliage and swung his legs up to screen himself until he could see what was coming.
The noise grew more pronounced as whatever it was drew closer to the blonde's refuge. He could see little through the thick growth of leaves, so he used his ears to judge the appropriate moment when the moving noise stopped beneath him. He then showed his acrobatic ability as he swung down, legs hooked over the branch like a trapeze, to grab the figure in front of him. He was just about to plant a right fist in the intruder's face, when he realized who he had hold of and exclaimed, "You! What are you doing here?"
"Hey!" came the reply, the voice akin to that of a startled puppy, "Watch the suit." He said wriggling out of the blonde man's grip, tripping on a tree root and landing heavily on his backside in a clatter of loose metal attachments, "What did ya do that for?" he demanded in a hurt tone.
The smaller man swung easily out of the tree, brushed the odd leaf from his shoulders and replied, "You know you shouldn't come creeping up on someone uninvited like that."
"Creeping," the voice sounded incredulous. "Me? No, no, ya got that all wrong. I was just walking along minding my own business when this madman appears hanging upside down in a tree and threatens to hit me!" he complained as he scrambled to his feet in the accompanying cacophony of sound that marked his every movement. He glanced at the fishing pole, "Think you've got a bite," he said helpfully as the pole began to bend alarmingly, "Do you want me to get it?"
"No!" snapped the blonde as he grabbed the pole and started to work the fish. It seemed like he had a big one and soon became absorbed in the task.
"You're gonna lose it," the second man warned him pleasantly.
"Shut up!" responded the smaller man, "I know what I'm doing." The pole bent dramatically and the line snapped just as he said the fateful words.
"Told ya," pointed out his uninvited visitor unhelpfully.
Throwing the pole to the ground, the blonde turned on the other and shouted, "All a man wants is a nice peaceful day's fishing and what does he get?" he threw his hands into the air, "Uninvited know it alls who ruin the whole day!"
The collection of metal pieces seemed to shrug, "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just do better," he was told and then the blonde added, "Go and find someone else to bug."
"Can't," he began, but was cut off by female voice.
"Is this a private fight or is anyone allowed to play?" it asked.
"Hey! How'd you do that?" asked the tin can, as his reluctant companion whirled round looking for the source of the voice.
"That wasn't me ...." he began, but was cut off by the voice.
"No it was me," announced an Amazon as she stepped out from behind the tree where she had been concealed.
"What is this!?" demanded the smaller man, "Is someone out there selling tickets to this place? Is there a sign out there pointing 'this way to the fisherman's retreat?"
"Calm down," the woman said, "I'm not stopping. I just need to deliver this to you," she said handing over a sealed letter.
"What's this?" he asked as he took it from the Amazon.
"It's a letter, dummy," said the second man, "She just told you that."
"I know what it is!" he snapped at him, "it was just a manner of speech."
"Oh sorry," sniggered the walking rust bucket.
"Hey where you going," smiled the blonde as the Amazon started to run off.
"Home!" she called back over her shoulder. "I told you, I was just here to deliver a letter."
"Great!" grumbled the blonde as he opened the seal, "A good-looking woman comes and goes, and I get left with you." He scanned the neat hand before him and swore, "Zeus in Tartarus!"
"What's wrong?" asked his companion.
"Xena's in trouble and Gabrielle wants my help," the small blonde replied, gathering his gear together quickly. The walking scrap iron merchant, looked back toward where he could see the Amazon disappearing into the distance, "Hey don't you have a letter for me!?" he yelled after her. He shrugged in placid acceptance, thinking to himself - Must have got lost in the post! - He turned back to see the blonde heading in the other direction and ran noisily to catch him up, "Hey wait for me, I'm coming too."
Finally she succeeded in controlling her vision, limited as it was, enough to take stock of her surroundings. She was in a stone walled room, bare of all furnishings other than the four torches set high in the corners of the cell. In front of her was a door, heavily studded with iron and supporting a barred grill through which came the sound of many overlapping and confusing voices that seemed to roar and fade with no consistency. An effect that made her heave the contents of her stomach up before darkness reached for her once more. She fought, but her foe was too strong and expertly pulled her into its velvety, vicelike, grip. Imprisoning her in oblivion until she could once more break free of its clutches and reach for the light.
With his hands free, he pulled a lockpick from about his person, and searched out the four delicately intricate locks securing the glass panelled, ironwork case to the stand, "C'mon," he encouraged as he probed the first with his sensitive touch, "C'mon, talk to me." With a soft click the first mechanism sprang open, and he moved his attention to the next in line, "Tell me what I wanna hear," he encouraged, as his fingers worked the pick with expert assurance. He smiled a moment later as he murmured, "Halfway there." The third lock proved to have no resistance to his skilful fingers and opened quite easily, "Now," he murmured seductively, "Come to Papa," as he coaxed the fourth lock into abandoning its duty. "That was the easy bit," he told himself dismissively, "Now comes the hard work."
He reached out his hand for one end of the rope that hung beside him attached to a second pulley. Carefully he secured the rope to the decorative ironwork surmounting the glass. With that done, he began to, very slowly, inch the casing into the air, away from it's base, to give himself access to the prize beneath. The work was long and tiring, for although the casing was not inordinately large, the thick panes and the heavy ironwork made it a cumbersome and time-consuming task. He also had to make sure that he carefully curled the trailing end of the rope, as he was well aware that the floor was weight sensitive, and he preferred not to be disturbed by unhelpful guards as he laboured.
After long and careful effort, he had managed to move the casing high enough to be able to reach the jewelled dagger that lay on a bed of purple velvet beneath it. The thief, carefully took the strain of the glass and iron on one arm, and inched the fingers of his left hand down to claim the dagger. His grasp closed around his reward and he retrieved it swiftly, thrusting it through his belt for safe keeping as he returned the dome to it's base, beads of perspiration appearing on his brow as the strain began to increase with the time it took.
Finally, having returned the case to its original place, he was ready to remove himself from the scene of the crime. That was when the vault door opened and admitted the King of Tressia's High Chamberlain, "Now what did he want to do that for?" muttered the thief as the Chamberlain spotted him and yelled.
"GUARDS!"
Releasing himself from his gear, the tall dark thief dropped lightly to the ground, ignored the cacophony of bells that erupted when the alarm was triggered. Showing a nimbleness on his feet, he dodged around the Chamberlain as well as the two guards who had rushed immediately to his summons, "You'll have to do better than that," he taunted them as he ducked out of the doorway, "if you want to catch the Ki.... Ullpp!" and straight into the path of half a dozen guards rushing toward the vault.
Thinking quickly, the thief dived forward toward their feet, bringing the whole lot of armour plated soldiers down into a tangled heap around him. He easily escaped the mess, springing to his feet and sprinting up the passageway as fast as his legs would carry him.
"After him!" roared the Chamberlain.
The guards scrambled up and pounded down the corridor after their quarry. The thief took a quick left turn and heard one of the chasing men shout, "Now we've got him!"
At the end of the corridor stood a window, that opened high above the market square outside the palace walls, "Whoever heard of a vault being built in a tower, anyway?" muttered the thief as he leapt onto the windowsill.
"There he is!" came a roar from close behind.
Further along the wall, a flagpole stood out. It was too far away for him to leap to, but .... He pointed his arm, flexed his wrist and a small metal object shot out, trailing a thin, very strong cord behind it. As the first guard pounded up to the window and aimed a wild slash at the thief, the dark haired criminal sang out, "Yodalayheehoo!" and launched himself off of the cill to swing, via the cord, down to the ground. He turned back to the window and gave the seething guardsmen a mocking salute, before he turned to disappear into the crowds of the city.
The thief took several twists and turns to make sure that no one would easily be able to track him, before he stopped to regain his breath. Ever the vain egotist, he paused to stare at his reflection in a water trough, smoothed his dark hair and stroked a satisfied finger over his moustache. Then a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
He considered his options, and decided to try to bluff and then run as hard as he could, "Hey," he began, "I don't know what you want me for," he said turning to face whoever was behind him, "but I have nothing to ...."
"Relax," a woman's voice interrupted him.
"You're an Amazon!" he exclaimed.
"They told me you were bright," she said sarcastically.
"Look, I haven't done anything to, or stolen anything from the Amaz ..." he began.
"I said relax," the woman told him again, "I'm just here to deliver a letter," she said pressing a piece of sealed parchment into his hands, then abruptly turned to leave.
He watched her go, before breaking the seal and reading the contents, "Whew!" he whistled, as he read through the letter for the second time, "Well, I'm sure they'll be able to sort things out themselves."
"There he is!" yelled an unfriendly voice. "The King wants him caught so he can be publicly disembowelled for his effrontery in stealing from the Royal vault!"
- On the other hand - he decided, - a change of scenery might just be what's needed right now! -
- Pain means I'm alive! - she told herself firmly as she tried to establish herself in her current reality.
She was still in the little stone cell and she seemed to be hanging from her wrists. She moved her head to see what was above her and had to fight off another bout of nausea as her vision swam and hammers thundered out a chorus on her brain. - Slowly! - she reminded herself.
Resting her head against her raised arms, she waited until the world stopped spinning and she was sure that she would be able to resist the fingers of darkness that clawed the far reaches of her mind. She inched her throbbing head into a position where she could see that her manacles were chained to a ringbolt in the ceiling above her.
- Okay, - she breathed hard, - So, what's with my legs? -
Again, moving with ultimate slowness, she edged her head forward until she could see the ground below her. Her vision slammed in and out of focus with a violence that made her want to throw up again, but she forced herself to resist, knowing that the heaving wasn't any good for her injuries.
Closing her eye, until things had steadied once more, she slowly forced it back open to look at her legs which were buckled at the knees. - Well at least if I can stand on my feet, I'll be able to take some of the pressure off my wrists. - she decided.
Thinking of an action and performing it was, however, proving to be poles apart in terms of effort. It took Xena what seemed to be an age to get her feet flat on the ground beneath her. Then it took far more time to encourage her tortured, abused, muscles into action. Her legs quivered like a banner in a breeze as she tried to get them to support her weight. But however unsteady they were, it did help to relieve the torment she was suffering in her wrists, arms and shoulders.
The next task was to take stock of her injuries. If she was going to have any idea of what she was capable of doing, she needed to assess the damage that Caesar's goons had inflicted. She took a deep breath and winced sharply. - Bruised, probably cracked, ribs! - she decided - and at least one is broken and pressing on the lung. No puncture though, or I'd be coughing blood. - She thought about that for a moment. She didn't remember coughing, blood or anything else, but then again she wasn't really sure of anything at the moment.
- So, damaged ribs, - she catalogued and allowed a gasp to escape her lips as her head swam violently again. When everything had stopped spinning, she added to her list, - Heavy concussion. - Her legs seemed fine, other than being battered and bruised. She couldn't recognize the pain of a broken bone there, so at least that was something. Her arms seemed to be more or less functional, although she was certain that her left shoulder was dislocated. Everything else amounted to scrapes, bruises and fatigue.
- Could be worse, - she told herself, trying to buoy up her courage. - I'm not dead and I don't think I've got anything a little rest won't fix ... If he gives me a little rest. - She resisted the impulse to dwell on what Caesar had in mind for her fate. He obviously didn't want her dead, at least not immediately, or she'd be taking a cruise on Charon's boat by now. Ergo, he had something else in mind for her.
She gently rubbed her throbbing head against her arm. Sluggishly her brain registered the feel of metal around her neck. A cold ring of metal that could only have one meaning, - A slave collar? - she thought incredulously. - He wants to keep me as a slave? - A humourless bubble of sound, that should have been a chuckle, escaped from her battered lips as she thought, - Gods, but the man's arrogant! -
She had no idea of how long she'd been in the cell, or how long they intended to keep her there. She knew that her only chance to escape, was to recover from her injuries faster than they believed she'd be able to. Towards that end, she slowly began to work on regaining control of her muscles: tensing and relaxing different areas of her body to get the blood flowing smoothly and force strength back into the weakened limbs.
- Caesar won't hold me for long! - she swore to herself. She'd never be anyone's slave, let alone a man she hated with a passion so rare in its strength and intensity. - One way or another, - she promised herself, - I'll escape him! -
In the fullness of time, the awareness of being observed forced her to open it once again. Her suspect vision revealed a blurred image of a man peering through the barred grill of the door, his voice was like the roaring tide as it at once crashed and faded to the rhythm of the waves, "CENturiON! shES AwaKE!"
There seemed to be the bustle of movement in the room that lay beyond the confines of the door. The Warrior Princess, prepared herself as best she could for the invasion of her cell. Her survival instincts were still functional, even if her brain was failing to cooperate with her needs fully.
She heard a key grate in the lock and the heavy double 'BOOM!' as two large bolts were thrown back. She braced herself as the door was swung open and seven men, six armed with heavy batons, entered her space. The officer - The Centurion, - she told herself, looked her up and down, eyeing the many obvious signs of the pounding she had taken during her capture.
The men seemed to rush forward and back at her as she vainly endeavoured to focus on them. The apparent uncontrolled movement made her feel sick, and she was forced to close her eye to steady herself once more and regain control of her rebellious stomach.
"My name is Publius Flavius Flaccus," the Centurion announced. When she gave no response, as she fought her inner battle for control, Flaccus used his vine staff of office to strike her thigh, "You will pay heed, slave!"
The word stung her more than the blow had. The white fire of rage coursed through her, driving away the clouds that fogged her mind, allowing her to open her eye and focus on what she saw before her. - Flaccus, - she decided, - is one of those hard disciplined officers that the Roman army boasts of. And, - she considered, - he enjoyed his power! - That made him a hard task master, and one ready to enforce his authority with strong punishment.
Having succeeded in gaining her attention, Flaccus continued, "My men and I are responsible for your security. If you cause us problems, you will suffer, because my men will suffer. Failure to obey an order, will earn you a beating. Resisting a guard, will gain you a beating. An attempt at escape will bring a beating. Believe me when I say, that you will break before I bend an inch." His voice was cold and hard, perfectly suited to the craggy, scarred face and gray hooded eyes of a career officer in the Roman army. She believed every word he said .... almost. She remained silent, refusing to be bowed by his threats.
"Do you understand what I have said, slave?" he demanded, obviously requiring an answer from her.
- C'mon Xena! - she told herself, - Don't let your pride get the better of you. Now isn't the time for this! -
As she hesitated to respond, the staff descended with a heavier blow on her unprotected thigh, raising a red welt over the purple bruising. She bit back the agony as her leg collapsed beneath her throwing her weight onto her arms once again, and causing her dislocated shoulder to scream in protest. Her damaged ribs sent shock waves of torment searing through her, forcing her to gasp for breath and making her screw her face up in anguish.
Flaccus observed her distress with professional dispassion, waiting for her to regain control over her shuddering breathing before asking calmly, once again, "Do you understand, slave?"
"Y...yes," she responded in a hoarse, tortured whisper that barely made it through her bruised lips.
He probably couldn't make out the identity of the word she struggled to pronounce, but he took it to be an agreement to his question. He looked at Xena with an indifference that made it plain she meant nothing to him. Guarding her was just a duty he had been ordered to perform, one that he would execute with brutal efficiency.
He turned to a soldier who hung back in the doorway, "Give the animal some water, and try to get some porridge into her. We move out at first light, so I want her ready to be moved in less than a candlemark." He glanced at the Warrior Princess before adding to his men, "She might be in no condition to give you trouble now," he warned them, "but take no chances. The whole guard detachment will operate as if she has her full fighting capabilities ... at all times!" he ordered.
"Yes Centurion!" responded the men in the cell in unison.
Flaccus marched from the cell, allowing the soldier, carrying a variety of equipment including two water skins, a bowl of food and some rags to enter. The other six guards took position around the edge of the stone room, batons at the ready, should they be needed.
"Well now pretty," said the soldier softly. He was a thin wiry man of about Gabrielle's height, with graying hair and a clean shaven face. "I can see they've made a real mess of you. Let's get you back on your feet a bit, and then I'll see it I can't clear some of the blood of your face before we get some food and water into you."
"Remember what the Centurion said, Cornelius" growled one of the guards around the cell.
"You lot are here to take care of all that," retorted the man they'd named as Cornelius, "I'm just the physicians mate. I might not be able to take care of all the damage that your treatment has done to her, but it's my job to do what I can," he rebuked them while he used the liquid in one of the skins to gently wash the blood, and accumulated dirt from her face.
Xena winced at the acrid bite of the fluid, and recognised it as being a vinegar wash, used by Roman medics to clean wounds and help prevent infections. Her lips stung like wildfire as he worked around the two splits there. When the caked on blood had been removed he produced a needle already threaded with gut and, as gently as he could manage, put a stitch into each of the cuts on her lips and two into one above her right eye.
"Not much I can do about the bruising," he told her, as he finished his ministrations, "How about a drink, now," The Warrior Princess inclined her head slightly. With the fading of her rage, the sensitivity to movement had regained a hold. Cornelius, held up the waterskin, and allowed the fluid to trickle slowly over her lips, into her parched throat.
- How long has it been since I had anything to drink? - she wondered.
"Slowly now," he warned. When he judged she'd had enough for the moment, he took a careful look into her open eye, "I'd say you've got a concussion," he mused. "I'm no physician, but I've seen soldiers with eyes that do that. Can be dangerous," he added.
He lifted the waterskin to her lips once more and Xena found that she was able to swallow more of the fluid, taking bigger mouthfuls to release the water to run slowly down her throat, "Thanks," she croaked a little more audibly, although the battering her jaw had taken made forming words difficult.
"Any other problems ... other than the obvious ones, I mean, that I should be aware of?" he asked her as he began to clean the abrasions over the rest of her body, with the vinegar wash, "You'll know better than I. I hear you're skilled in medicine."
"Ribs," she managed to tell him, "one broken several cracked. Dislocated shoulder," she added although her words sounded slurred in her own ears.
"I can't do anything for those," Cornelius told her apologetically, "I don't have the training, but I'll let an officer know. Can you manage some food?" He held up a spoonful of the meat porridge and encouraged her to eat some of it, "You're going to need to eat, you know, if you want to heal," he told her.
With his insistence, she managed to swallow about three quarters of the bowl's contents before she couldn't face any more. Cornelius gave her some more water and, unable to do anything else for her, told her, "I'll see you later, pretty. Try not to upset the Centurion. He doesn't like things that don't conform to the rules."
"Thank you," Xena mumbled for his kindness. She doubted that anyone else was likely to show her any.
With the medic assistant finished, Flaccus returned to oversee the transfer of his charge from the cell to the wagon that awaited to transport her to Nemausus. As the chain to the ceiling ringbolt was unlocked, the Warrior Princess found it impossible to make her rebellious legs support her weight, leaving her to slump to the cell's floor.
Flaccus ordered his men to take her out and she was grasped firmly under each shoulder, causing the dislocated joint to sear red hot with a lacerated fire, as she was roughly dragged along, driving all her hard won control from her, to send her plunging back into the dark pit that swallowed her consciousness.
The legionaries hauled her through the crowded guardroom that was astir with men preparing to move out on a long march. She was taken through a series of torch lit corridors, out of the guardhouse area of the barracks into an enclosed courtyard, where a large, covered wagon stood amidst the bustle of a Roman maniple preparing for movement.
Xena remained unaware of her surroundings as she was taken to the wagon and thrown roughly up onto it's bed. The six soldiers who had been detailed to travel with her, swiftly took charge of their prisoner, and moved her inert body into a three foot square iron cage that was locked shut with a large, heavy padlock.
Flaccus appeared at the rear of the wagon and admonished his men, "You keep your eyes on her at all times. You'll be relieved in three candlemarks. Stay sharp."
"Yes sir!" they responded.
She closed her eyes, focusing inwards, trying to blot out the pain and discomfort that had invaded her life. She sought refuge in her memories, seeking solace in her remembrances of good times, good friends and, as ever the smiling face of a bard from Potidaea. As she warmed herself in the glow of friendship and love, she attempted to take advantage of any rest she could manage, knowing that her body needed time and rest to recover from the ravages of the last day.
- A day! - she thought, - Has it only been a day? - She did not know for sure, and had no way of telling. She believed that it had only been the morning before when she had landed in Narbo, but she was not certain, could not be certain of that. Nothing seemed certain any longer. Except ... she had the certainty of Gabrielle! They couldn't take that from her. She had her memories (she almost smiled as the bard's face sprung forth in her mind's eye) and she had the comfort of knowing that her friend was far from the brutality of her present existence. - Stay safe, Gabrielle! - she sent out a silent plea.
It was a candlemark before midday, when they drew to a halt, and she became aware of many men around the wagon, stopping to eat their lunch rations of journey bread, cheese and olives, washed down with some of the watered, sour tasting wine that they carried in their flasks.
Cornelius drew back the canvass cover and hopped nimbly into the wagon carrying a waterskin and something wrapped in a cloth. The six guards recognised him and allowed him to approach the cage bars where he stopped and touched Xena lightly on the arm to draw her attention, "How goes it, pretty?" he asked as he handed her the waterskin, for her to slake her thirst.
She took a long grateful drink before answering, "Could be better," she mumbled wryly, pleased to note that the slur in her voice had definitely lessened.
"Here," he ordered, "Let's have a look at that eye again," He reached through the bars with both his hands and gently helped her tilt her head until he could get a good look at the one showing pupil. "That begins to look better," he said pleased, "The dilating has slowed and isn't so erratic either. You heal fast, pretty."
"So I've been told," she said carefully, trying to form the words so they would be understood.
He unwrapped the cloth bundle so the guards could see what it was, and handed her a wedge of soft, crumbly cheese, "I didn't think you'd be able to chew anything hard," he told her, "so this will have to do for now."
"It'll be fine," she answered, knowing that she still didn't have the stomach for too much food. She lay the cheese on her lap and took another long drink from the waterskin, before handing it back to Cornelius.
"We'll be on the march again shortly," smiled the wiry little man. "Get what rest you can." She inclined her head to him in agreement and watched as he left the wagon the way he came before carefully taking a bite of the cheese.
The guard was changed again at midday and her new clutch of watchdogs proved to be no different from those she had previously shared the wagon with. All were silent, for which she was thankful as her head still throbbed, if not with quite the vehemence that it had previously. They never seemed to take their eyes from her, though. Her slightest movement brought an intensified look as if they thought she was about to break free of her shackles and burst out of the cage like some god - Or demon! - she thought was more likely. Pushing them from her mind, she forced herself to take what rest she could. There would be time enough for planning an escape when she was in a better condition to execute it.
Xena saw none of the activity, although she could hear it. She also knew that her wagon was drawing curiosity as it was not left with the baggage train, but established within the centre of the camp. The distant mutters of curiosity suggested to her that there were soldiers who had no idea exactly what the wagon held.
Her suspicions were further confirmed when she heard faint murmurings about treasure. She had to concentrate her senses to pick out the conversations kept at some distance, which intimated that the hand picked maniple of guards had orders to keep other soldiers away. This in turn allowed her to make the educated guess that she was travelling amongst a far larger body of men, maybe even an entire Legion, from the volume of sound in the camp around her.
The possibilities intrigued her. She discarded the ridiculous idea that Caesar would waste a whole Legion purely as guards for her, which meant that the troops must be being moved for another purpose, - Perhaps staging for an assault on Gaul? - she guessed. The possibility that interested her most, however, was the thought that should she be able to get away from her screen of guards, the majority of soldiers in the camp would have no idea who she was! - Providing I could find a way to get out of these chains, - she told herself, and then added, - and find a way to disguise the collar until I can get rid of it. -
With the wagon remaining stationary she was able to get some undisturbed rest. She was uncomfortable in her cramped conditions, but she felt far better than she had when first she recovered consciousness. In fact, her miraculous internal healing system seemed to be performing its usual amazing feats. Although she retained a dull headache, she no longer felt the nauseous lurchings as she struggled to keep the gyrating waves of unfocused dizziness, and threatening darkness, at bay.
Her ribs would take longer to heal, and she needed a way to force her dislocated shoulder back into it's socket. But her arms and legs, although stiff and sore, also seemed to be far more responsive, and she was certain that she'd now be able to do just a little more than support herself, if called on to do so.
His plans for her were complex, but her ability to recover quickly from injuries might prove to be valuable. He'd probably have to wait to satisfy himself on that score until Patroclese rejoined him, although the thought of waiting annoyed him. In the meantime, he'd be just as happy, if the Warrior Princess remained too weakened by her injuries to even think of causing any trouble.
He stroked his smooth chin, his brown eyes lost in thought. The Centurion and the medical auxiliary stood at rigid attention and would remain so until dismissed by their General, "So, you say she has spent practically the entire day sleeping?" he questioned suddenly.
"Yes, sir!" snapped back Flaccus with brisk military correctness.
Caesar frowned, irritated by his inability to get the exact answer he required. He felt an urgent need to judge just how much her injuries were now effecting her. It wouldn't alter his provisions for guarding against her escape, but it might be important to know just how much strength she had managed to regain in just one day. After the beating she had taken, any normal person would have likely hovered close to death for weeks, if not actually dying within candlemarks. She on the other hand, seemed to be on the road to recovering her fitness.
"Two candlemarks after dark, I want her brought to me in here," he said suddenly, making up his mind to take a chance to see if he could harvest some information. "Two guards will do for an escort. Let's see how my pigeon is faring, shall we?"
"Sir," said Flaccus, not at all sure his commander was making sense, considering the elaborate and heavy guard arrangements that he'd put in place up until that point.
"You can both go, Caesar told the Centurion and Cornelius. Both snapped off smart salutes and quickly exited his presence.
"My Lord Caesar," Brutus spoke from behind him, concern evident in his voice. "Are you sure that two guards will be enough? I'm certain that the Warrior Princess would like nothing more than to get a chance at killing you, and she may see this as her opportunity."
"Almost certainly," agreed Caesar, his mind busy, "Two for the escort should be enough for what I have in mind ... she is after all a chained woman who needs to be supported to even stand at the moment." He looked at Brutus with a secretive smile on his lips, "Worry not, my friend. All will be well. Here's what I have in mind ...."
At the appointed candlemark, Flaccus unlocked the cage that housed Xena, and detailed two men to take her into Caesar's tent. As she was pulled out of her confinement, she stifled a moan as her pain filled shoulder protested the treatment, but was no longer assailed by the waves of blackness that had claimed her that morning.
The guards got her out of the wagon without much assistance from her .. even though her arms and legs were stiff and sore, she knew that some measure of strength had returned to them, but she had no intention of letting her Roman guards know that. - Knowledge is power, and what they don't know helps me! - she told herself.
With the soldiers bracing her under the shoulders again, she had to grit her teeth against the lancing agony that shot through the joint as she was dragged towards a large tent. - Command tent, - she registered with a practised soldier's eye. She took the opportunity to glance around and, from what she saw, she became certain that Caesar marched with an entire Legion. - The VII, - she thought as she located and recognised the eagle and banners that proclaimed the unit's identity. - A crack, core of hardened veterans. -
She was guided through the canvass tent flap into the brightly lit accommodation belonging to Caesar. Her good eye was dazzled for a second as it adjusted from darkness to light, and she blinked several times to try and focus the images around her. The guards halted about five foot from a table laden with the remains of their commander's meal. Xena appeared to struggle to get her feet solidly under herself so that she could stand to face her enemy ... her legs appeared rubbery.
Caesar looked at her with a measuring glance, noting the slight tremor in her knees as her pride held her upright before him. That she refused to acknowledge his superiority, did not surprise him. That she would be forced to accept his mastery, was something he was determined to see.
At a slight nod from their commander, the two guards kicked their charge in the back of her unstable legs, forcing her to her knees before the man who claimed ownership of her. Unable to restrain herself, the Warrior Princess directed a look of bleak, cold, hatred at her enemy. A lesser man would have recoiled from the sheer intensity of that look, but Caesar returned it with a cool one of his own, that further fuelled the fires of her rage.
She, unconsciously, strained at the irons that held her wrists. Yet even though she had broken chains in the past when gripped by her dark emotions, her muscles weren't recovered enough to duplicate the feat.
Caesar continued to observe her with seeming placid superiority, "Don't bother, Xena," he told her conversationally, "Those chains were forged especially for you. Even with your full fitness you would find it impossible to break free of them. They're far thicker and stronger than usual. You see the stories about you have given me the information I need to contain you." He poured himself a goblet of wine and plucked a grape from a dish of fruit as he studied her.
Her face, he noted, was heavily bruised. Her right eye swollen shut, the left only able to partly open. The whole of her normally sleek body was mottled by dark purple, blue and black marks. Yet marred and chained as she was, she managed to maintain her air of majesty, as if she was in control of all around her.
He took a sip of the wine as he watched her. Saw the tightness around her mouth, the tension in her muscles. Stubborn, arrogant pride was written into her every look, her every movement. Breaking her to his will was going to be a long and arduous task, a test of patience, but worth the effort if it could be achieved. And there was the difficulty, - Can it be achieved? - he thought to himself.
His destiny was to become Master of the World. He had know this for many years, had even shared the vision of his destiny with the young, immature Xena, who had captured and ransomed him so many years ago now. He had shown his mastery then, by taking her, along with her crew of pirates, and having them all crucified. But she had survived, lived to mature and grow in her hatred of him, to become ... if not a threat, at least an irritant that he needed to exorcise. Besides, something within him demanded that he bend this woman to his will. Her strength mocked him, and he needed to dominate.
He placed the goblet back on the table before him and picked up a thin metal collar, inspecting the inscription he'd had written on it. It was a very expensive item. Forged from the metal extracted from a rock that had fallen from the heavens. It's twin was around her neck, and the pair were unique.
"Do you know what this is, Xena?" he asked her pleasantly, holding the collar up for her to see. His only reply was the icy stare, but that didn't worry him. He hadn't expected her to answer, "Of course you do," he supplied the answer for her, "It's a slave collar. A match for the one around you own, normally, quite lovely throat."
He locked his eyes on her. "These collars are unique. Made from a skyrock. That's enough to make them unique, you know, but these also have inscribed upon them, 'Property of Caesar'. That's you, by the way," he told her with a laugh, "and these collars are the only two in the world that bear such a legend. Add to that the fact that the metal from a skyrock is one of the most valuable commodities in the world, as well as being one that is invulnerable to the metals we normally use, you can see how much I truly value you."
He failed to provoke a response.
"Of course, I had the other one made for you irritating friend. Did I tell you that she'll be joining us in a few days?" he threw this piece of information into his monologue and noted the way her glare intensified and her muscles almost cracked in the desire to break the chains that held her. Yet still she refused to respond verbally to his taunting.
He smiled patiently. - Everything would come with patience. - he told himself. "Have you eaten this evening?" he asked, knowing she hadn't and gesturing to the scraps that remained from his own meal. It was a calculated insult, scraps to be offered to a dog. The insult continued his campaign to goad her into showing her strength.
He was now certain that she was better recovered than she was pretending to be. Her whole demeanor proclaimed it in a hundred, almost imperceptible, ways while she fought to keep that information hidden from him, "Why don't you ask me for some food, Xena?" He said sitting forward in his chair to look at her intently, "Why don't you ask me to let you friend go free?"
"I'll ask nothing of you," she ground out sullenly. "I'll give you nothing you want! And I don't believe you even know where Gabrielle is!"
He leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly, "You're wrong you know," he told her with confident certainty, "You're going to give me everything I ever dreamed of ... you and your little bard friend. She's on the way to Nemausus, by the way. The same as we are"
Xena stared back at him, trading glare for smile. Her rage had been banked to white hot and the molten fire that flowed through her veins cleared away all thought of physical pain. - He can't have Gabrielle. It's impossible. She is safe with the Amazons. And yet! ... - And yet, she knew that Caesar was not a man to make an idle boast.
Even as she struggled to control her fear and anger, her eye had been attracted by something small and metal on Caesar's table. She was aware of what Caesar was trying to do here. The sudden relaxation of the guard detail, shouted loud that he was fishing about her capabilities. Give her just enough room and she'd supply all the answers to the questions he needed to be solved. - Well, maybe I will! - her anger flared. - but not for the reasons he providing. -
She had no doubt that there were a good twenty soldiers within a call's distance, her acute hearing picked up the sounds that most people would miss. But, the thin, small piece of metal on the table called to her. Even though she risked more heavy handed treatment, she needed to make the most of opportunities as they presented themselves. She doubted she would be offered many such.
Beginning to feel that his goading was not going to get her to show her hidden strength, if indeed she had any and he was not just reading something into her that wasn't there, he suddenly grew wearied of the game. He looked at the guards and ordered, "Return her to her cage."
As the soldiers pulled their, previously helpless and pliant, captive to her feet, they suddenly found themselves trying to keep a hold on a force of nature. With double fisted swings, backed by the heavy metal of the shackles, she felled the two hapless guards with jaw cracking power.
With her ankles too constricted by the chains they bore to move her quickly, she executed a forward roll that took her to the table before Caesar. As she rose up from her tumble, she grasped its edge and heaved it at the man as he struggled to his feet, throwing him off balance as he grabbed for his sword and screamed, "Guards!"
She knew that she had bare moments before she would be overpowered. She had to make it look as if Caesar was the target of her efforts. She snagged the object that she'd been aiming for, and managed to force the small, sharp tool into the hem of her shift as she moved to confront her hated tormentor.
In the moment it had taken for her to secure and hide the object, Caesar had regained his balance and drawn his sword with an ease born of long practice. As she moved towards him, he was ready for her and levelled the blade to her throat just touching her skin. They stood, thus, in a frozen tableau as the tent suddenly filled with men. Strong arms grabbed her from behind, and pulled her roughly away from the Roman. She quirked her lips in a dark, chilling smile, letting him know that his control of her was illusory. She forced herself to relax as she was pushed back down to her knees. Not that she was in any real condition to resist. She had used her reserves to steal her prize, a fine metal toothpick that she would harbour against her next slim opportunity.
Caesar's face burned with fury. That he'd been right about her did nothing to soothe his nerves about her getting so close to him. He glared at the luckless, unconscious, legionaries who had been his 'bait' to test her, "Take those fools out and give them twenty five lashes each when they wake up. Maybe it will teach the rest of you to remember just how dangerous she is ... at all times!"
"Why blame your men?" she purred insolently at him, "We both know who's fault it was." She knew her barb had hit the mark. His plan had been transparent to her from the start, but even so she hadn't been able to resist the opening he had given her.
Caesar felt shaken by the sheer intensity of the woman. He had very little doubt that she would have done her very best to kill him if she'd been able, and be damned to the consequences. - It will be different, - he told himself, - when I have the bard in my hands to use against her. But for now, - "Yes we know whose fault it was," he snarled, "Yours!" He glared angrily at her, annoyed that she could so easily irritate him when he held all the trump cards, "It's time you started to learn the realities of your new position, Xena," he turned to Flaccus, "Give her twenty lashes here, now, before you put her back in the cage."
Two guards pulled her roughly back to her feet and hauled her over to the tent's thick central support post. Just above head height was a metal spike, used to hang a lantern from. The lantern was quickly removed and Xena's shackles hung over the spike in the lantern's place. Forced to stand on her toes, her shoulder, once again screaming protests at the abuses it was suffering, her ribs shooting exquisite torment through her frame, causing her to take short painful breaths, she could do nothing to resist the flogging that had been ordained for her.
The Centurion ripped open the back of her shift exposing more of the heavy discolourations that covered her body. Flaccus stepped back to give himself some room to swing the whip that had hung curled at his waist. No sign of emotion showed on the Centurion's face. He had warned the woman the price for transgressing the bounds. He would perform this task as he would any other ... with efficiency.
Xena closed her eyes and gripped the post as firmly as she was able. She heard the lash whistle through the air before it struck her exposed flesh, cutting deep, drawing blood. The shock was enough to drown the pain ... at first.
"One!" announced the Centurion as he drew back his arm for the second strike.
Clamping her jaws together as hard as she could, Xena tried to anticipate the descent of the whip, arching her back to ride the blow as far as possible, but the way she had been hauled up, gave her little chance of achieving her aim. The vicious leather bit again, causing her to jerk against her chains in reaction.
"Two!" came the count.
Breathing became added torture as her ribs made their condition felt. Sweat beaded her brow as she waited for the next blow to fall. She tracked the motion of the whip with her ears, hearing it fly back away from her body, then whistle forward again, with pitiless impartiality. It struck lower, across the small of her back, forcing her to draw breath sharply.
"Three!" she heard announced.
She leaned her forehead onto the pole, trying to gather her will to withstand the brutality of such punishment. As the lash slashed across her back from shoulder to hip, the slow heat of gradual pain began to increase as shocked flesh started to register the torment being inflicted upon it.
"Four!"
Blocking out the sound of everything around her, other than the whip's movement and the count of the blows, she moved her hands to take a firm hold on the chains above her and gripped them with white knuckled ferocity.
"Five!"
- God's! - her mind cried out as her back began to flame with burning fever as the lash bit deep once again.
"Six!"
She could feel the trickles of blood run down her back, as the wounds cut by the stinging leather increased in number. Sweat glistened from every pore of her body, mixing with the crimson flow drawn from her skin, further adding to her torment as the salty fluid fed into the cuts.
"Seven!"
Her jaw ached with the effort she used to keep from crying out. Her pride, her stubborn pride, was trying so hard to hide her agony from Him. She knew it was a vain effort, but she would withstand the suffering as long as she could.
"Eight!"
Another slashing diagonal cut roasted her tormented hide. She stifled a soft whimper before it could escape her. - Not even halfway through the ordeal! - she berated herself. - Some Warrior Princess! - she flogged herself with contempt at her perceived weakness and stiffened her resolve.
"Nine!"
- I've suffered worse. - she told herself. - The Gauntlet, the capture. I will survive this! - She shuddered as the heavy blows further damaged the cracks in her ribs, finally breaking them forcing her breathing to come in agonized short gasps.
"Ten!"
- I can endure whatever I have to. - she told herself, - But please let Gabrielle be safe! -
"Eleven"
- Does burning feel like this? - she asked herself, her mind wandering, as white hot needles of agony lanced through her lacerated back. - Did the people of Cirrah feel this pain? -
"Twelve!"
Her torment took her into the nightmare depths of the dark recesses of her soul, - So many deaths. So many pointless deaths. Is any punishment too great to bear for what I have done? -
"Thirteen"
A grudging groan battered past the shield of her clenched jaw. Torture of body and soul combined to break her iron resolve.
"Fourteen!"
"Ugghh!" grunted Xena, no longer able to contain the torment inflicted upon her.
"Fifteen!"
Molten lava dripped where her back had once been. The excruciating rawness drove all thought, all other feeling, from her sensibilities.
"Sixteen!"
Another, louder cry was drawn from the Warrior Princess as the whip continued it's scouring of her flesh. Gone were all vestiges of human thought, she was enveloped in pure animal pain that had need to cry it's anguish.
"Seventeen!"
Again the searing lash slashed deep into the mangled skin of her back. The torment, that, in the deepest recess of her mind, she believed could become no worse, intensified.
"Eighteen!"
Her whole body shuddered, jerking in her bonds like a broken puppet. The brutal abuse that it had suffered in less than two days should have been enough to kill any normal being. Yet she survived! She would endure! She no longer cared that she could not stop the cries of pain that her agony demanded she release.
"Nineteen!"
- I will get through this! - the thought bubbled to the surface of her screaming mind. - The screams that he has drawn from me will not break me. He will never break me, No one will control my will but me! -
"Twenty!"
As the final stroke was laid on, Xena sagged from her rigid brace. Her thoughts ran like scattered raindrops, as the searing fire that raged across her back refused to allow her to focus. Yet slowly, floating to the surface, came the determination that Caesar would not see her fall at his feet. As the guards released her from the post, she defied her legs to buckle. Using all of her stubborn strength of will, she stood before Caesar unbowed, unbroken.
She forced her breathing into a normal rhythm and, refusing to let her pain show in her voice, she told him with cold venom, "Reality is what you make of it Caesar. My reality will never be yours to control."
"Take her away," Caesar instructed coldly and watched, reluctantly impressed, as Xena shook off the hands that reached for her and exited the tent unaided, if unsteadily. A feat of superhuman strength of will that was not lost on the Roman. - Something has to be done to slow the speed of her recovery down, until she knows for certain I hold the bard. - he decided.
"Flaccus!" he snapped, making an instant decision, "She's to have only a cup of water morning and night until we reach Nemausus. Let's see if a little starvation will dampen her spirits, and keep her from regaining too much strength too quickly." He gave a bleak smile. "Oh, make sure that the Seventh's healer sees to her ribs .. I think several of them broke under your ministrations .. after all the trouble I've been to, I don't want to puncture something that will rob me of her. Other than that, her injuries can wait for Patroclese to attend them in Nemausus."
Outside the wagon she heard Cornelius' voice asking to be allowed entrance to treat her wounds. She winced, unable to stop herself from shuddering at the thought of the vinegar wash being used on the bleeding lacerations that the whip had left.
"She needs to be treated to make sure there's no infection," explained the little man patiently.
"Sorry," came the rough answer, "No one but the detailed guards gets to see her now. After coming so close to killing the General, she's lucky to still be alive."
"How long do you think she'll live if those wounds become infected?" demanded Cornelius.
"Look," came back the reply of a soldier beginning to grow tired of the conversation, " The healer from the VIIth saw her last night and bound up her ribs to make sure she don't go and die on us, as for anything else, I'm just following my orders. If you don't like it, take it up with the Centurion. Or better yet, go and see the General." There was an accumulation of laughter as the guards around the wagon found the thought amusing.
"I might just do that," shouted the little medical auxiliary as he stamped off.
Time passed and Cornelius did not return. - So! - thought Xena cocooned in a well of misery and pain, - it seems that I shook his confidence. I wonder if it was enough to shake him from his plans? Maybe he'll let me die now. - The thought didn't worry her. Buried deep in the purgatory of her mortified flesh she found it difficult to care whether she lived or died.
A face swam in front of her eyes, "Promise me!" it demanded.
"Gabrielle?" she mumbled, unsure whether she had spoken aloud or not. Uncaring either way.
"Xena! Promise me you won't give up. Don't die on me again." insisted the bard's image. "Promise me, Xena!"
"Promise," the Warrior Princess had whispered, although it seemed to be one of the hardest things she had ever had to do, "I promise." Her hand clutched at the hem of her ruined, blood crusted, shift. The toothpick remained safe, a talisman held against her eventual escape from the awful mess she found herself in.
Halfway through the journey she began to lapse in and out of consciousness, taking longer to struggle back from the dark pit that closed around her each time. By the sixth day she had developed a high fever and could no longer be roused for the ration of water she was allowed morning and night. The guards administered it to her unconscious form anyway. Caesar had ordered that she drink morning and night, so the soldiers took the time to trickle it slowly down her throat.
Although Xena was unaware of time or travel, her passing did not go unnoticed. The heavy wagon that carried her was stationed in the middle of the marching Legion and dictated the pace of the march. Guards were thick around the wagon, keeping inquisitive ordinary soldiers, and peasants, alike well away from it. Such strong precautions were bound to lead to speculations, and the rumours of Caesar's treasure, wondered about (half joking) by the Legionaries, became the focal point of conversations for all the villages that they passed through on their route north.
For the rest of the trip, Caesar ignored his prisoner, other than to hear a daily report from Flaccus about her worsening condition. The Roman general was concerned to hear of the deterioration, but a messenger had arrived informing him that Patroclese had arrived at Nemausus safely with his charge, and he felt confident in Xena's ability to survive her ordeal until she could be treated by the physician he trusted. - Besides, I still want her too weak to cause problems. At least until I have another means of control to hand! - he noted grimly.
They reached the large garrison city of Nemausus at dusk on the eighth day. The VIIth legion was given orders to encamp outside of the city walls, while the special maniple, and the wagon they guarded, followed Caesar and his personal guards within the walls. Even at the late candlemark, there were men and women eager to stand on the street and cheer the great Julius Caesar as he rode by at the head of his troops.
And news, at it so often does, had run before him speaking of the great treasure that travelled in a covered wagon and was closely guarded. It almost seemed that more eyes were turned to the wagon than were on the heroic Caesar! If Xena had been aware of any of the interest that was being shown, she might just have laughed. Hearing herself described as Caesar's treasure might have been a joke that even she would have been unable to resist the humour of.
The column wound it's way to the centre of the city and the sprawling Roman barracks that held the standing garrison for the area. They were admitted through the huge, heavy, gates that allowed deeper access to the complex and the wagon, with its attendant guards, finally came to a halt in an enclosed courtyard that had been cleared of all other personnel.
Under the shroud of the gathering darkness, Xena had been dragged unresisting from her cramped cage and, oblivious to all around her, into the grim portals of the garrison and through twisting, torch lit, damp corridors, until they had reached the extensive dungeons.
The dungeon was a large one, for it also served as the city's main prison. The outer guard room seemed almost akin to a large stone cavern. It stretched thirty-six foot by forty foot, and provision had been made for up to forty men to sleep there, in bunks stacked four high around the edges of the room. There were also benches and tables scattered around, for the use of those on duty, where the soldiers could eat, gamble, or attend to the 'housework' that was required to keep their kit in order. The only door into the chamber was made of thick wood and was heavily bound in iron. It stood at one corner of the room and was diagonally opposite a single cell that stood with two walls made of stone, and two of thick iron bars, that allowed any prisoner held there to be under constant scrutiny.
In the centre of the wall, opposite the entrance door, stood a metal barred gate that gave access to more conventional prisoner accommodation. Standing at the gate and looking to the right, the corridor was lined with eight small, enclosed cells, each sealed by heavy wooden doors with small grills set into them. The left hand side of the corridor had three, large, communal cells, fronted by floor to ceiling bars and inhabited by the usual scum that got into trouble in a city the size and importance of Nemausus.
Upon entrance to the dungeon, Xena was dragged directly to the cage, in the main guardroom, where dangerous prisoners were kept. The cell was bare other than for a wide stone bench that served as bed and seating both and two rough woollen blankets. The Warrior Princess was deposited on the bench, on top of the blankets, and left face down in her unconscious state while forty men of the guard maniple moved into their new quarters.
He tossed the chakram onto his ordered desk, scattering some of the papers laid for his attention as he did so. The healer noted that his master rubbed at the scar on his right hand. That scar had been made from a splinter of wood that had stabbed Caesar after the Warrior Princess had split a moving javelin, down its centre, with the chakram. He knew that for a fact, unbelievable though it seemed, for he had treated the wound for his master.
"She needs your ministrations," the Emperor told him, changing tack suddenly. "She took a heavy beating during her capture, but within a day she had recovered enough strength to take out two guards and attack me. I took steps to keep her in a weakened state, but I may have been too drastic." He turned the full penetration of his brown eyes on the healer, "I want her to live, Patroclese. She is the key to so many of my plans. You can have what time you need, and whatever help and equipment that you require. But you make sure that she recovers."
"Might I enquire about the extent of her injuries?" asked Patroclese politely.
"Heavy bruising, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder and twenty lashes for trying to kill me." Caesar told him evenly.
"The Xena I know would have been well on her way to full recovery of such injuries by now," the healer offered quietly.
"So she would," agreed his Lord. "My life nearly answered for just how quickly she can mend. As I told you, steps were taken to counter that. She's had no treatment of any kind since the flogging, other than to bind the ribs to ensure that they didn't cause internal damage. I'm told that her wounds have become infected and that she has a fever. She's been more or less unconscious for the past four days. She also hasn't eaten in seven days, and has had a rationed amount of water, just two cups a day." He sighed heavily, "I almost regret the necessity of employing such methods, but I could take no chances with her until she becomes certain that I hold her irritating friend as hostage for her behaviour."
Patroclese was deep in thought, "Speaking of Gabrielle, sir. I would like permission to use her as a nurse for Xena."
"Not unless you have a compelling reason for such a request," stated Caesar bluntly, "I don't want to give Xena any chance, whatsoever, of making an escape. With the bard close to her hand, she might just be tempted. I'd far rather keep the pair as far apart as possible."
"In principle I agree with you sir," assured the healer, "but from the injuries and symptoms you have described, I think that I may need Gabrielle as a goad to make Xena want to stay alive." He went on to explain his thoughts, "I think Xena would allow herself to die if she could thwart you in doing so. What she won't allow is for Gabrielle to remain in your hands. She'll battle the harder to regain her health as soon as she knows beyond doubt that the bard is also held."
"I follow your reasoning," admitted Caesar but still sounded reluctant.
"Another reason is that Gabrielle, will not let the Warrior Princess abandon her life easily. There is a strong bond between the two, my lord, as you suspected. She will be an invaluable aid to me in this. Besides," he added persuasively, "From what you describe, Xena is in no condition to even sit up, let alone effect an escape from a heavily guarded cell. I'll monitor the Warrior Princess's recovery and as soon as I judge her to be regaining her strength, we can have the bard removed to a place of safety."
"Very well," agreed Caesar, "You can have the bard. Just make certain you keep her safe for my use. There's a medical orderly, Cornelius his name is, assigned to my special maniple. You should be able to make use of him. He seems a sound man."
"As you command, my Lord," agreed Patroclese as he bowed and turned to leave.
"Oh, Patroclese," Caesar called after him, plucking up the chakram once more to play with, "Congratulations on a job well done."
"My lord is gracious," smiled the healer as he bowed once more then quickly left the room heading for the dungeons.
He sent a runner for Cornelius to meet him in the dungeon with fresh water, the vinegar astringent, four charcoal braziers, half a dozen blankets and as many of the thick soft lounging pillows, from the officers quarters, that he could collect together. He also gave the orderly the authority to requisition such help as he needed in Caesar's name.
Having collected his equipment, Patroclese had hurried down to the cells, gaining entrance to the gaol only by using Caesar's authority himself. He had expected security to be tight, but had not realised just what lengths his master was willing to go to in ensuring that his prize remained in captivity. Flaccus had been notified to expect him by Caesar, but until he was identified by the centurion he was not admitted.
"Cornelius will be arriving with some more of the equipment that I require," the healer told the career soldier brusquely. "Before he gets here, I want to see your prisoner and evaluate the situation for myself."
"As you will, healer," acknowledged Flaccus with military briskness. It was known throughout the maniple that the physician was to join their elite band, and was to have total co-operation from the soldiers, on all matters medicinal regarding the slave.
Flaccus escorted the healer across the crowded guardroom to the cell where Xena lay without movement. Patroclese noted that six guards stood at attention watching the interior of the cell as if the hounds of Hades were within it, rather than one obviously very sick woman.
The Centurion took the key to the cell from around his neck and used it to unlock the door. The hinges squeaked as he pulled it open to admit the healer, and again as he shut the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. Patroclese turned and gave him a quizzical look. "Orders, healer," Flaccus responded to the unasked question, "The cell is to remained locked. Just call if you need to be let out."
Patroclese gave a slight nod and hurried over to his patient. He screwed his face into a wince as he looked at the bloody ruin of her back. Dried blood lay caked over the rib strapping and the visible cuts that showed the mottled discolouration of infection. He would have no idea of how bad that all was until he could get the wrappings off and the whole mess cleaned.
He noted Xena's shallow, laboured, breathing and the thick sheen of fever induced sweat soaking her whole body which was covered with the yellow, brown and purple remnants of the pummelling her frame had taken over a week previously. He gently turned her head so he could get a look at her face. The bruising and discolouration that covered the rest of her body was evident there also, and his fingers tingled with the raging heat of her fever that burned unchecked.
Taking a sharp knife from his instrument case, he used it to cut away the remnant of the garment she still wore and threw it behind her on the bench. Then, with infinite care and gentleness, he cut through the linen wraps around her torso and began the slow painful process of pulling the crusted mess of bandage, blood and oozing pus from her skin.
It took some time as he tried not to cause the unconscious woman any more agony than necessary. Once he had achieved his that aim, he allowed a livid hiss of exasperation to escape his lips. Xena's back was cris-crossed with bulging weals of putrid flesh where maggots feasted on the decay. Red and purple veins scattered haphazardly from the wounds visual proof of extensive infection.
Unable to start work on cleaning until the rest of the equipment he'd requested arrived, Patroclese made a careful examination of his patient to determine the extent of the rest of her injuries. He carefully ran his fingers down her sides, probing gently as he located the broken ribs. Three on the right side and five on the left one pressing dangerously against a lung. The dislocation of her left shoulder was obvious to the eye, and would be relatively easy to deal with once she was fit enough to take the strain. The damage around her eyes were healing, and the stitches in her lip and brow looked about ready to be removed.
A noise at the guardroom door, drew his attention away from his patient, and he turned to see, a small, wiry man, obviously Cornelius, lead a troop of soldiers in with the things he had ordered to be brought. Flaccus let the orderly into the cell, and the soldiers dumped the things they carried where Patroclese indicated. Turning to Cornelius, the healer said, "Clean her up as best you can. I need to be able to see just what more trouble is lying under all that muck. I'll be back in a few moments." As the healer left the cell he could her the little auxiliary speaking softly to the unconscious woman, "Easy there, pretty. We'll soon get you back to rights." He couldn't help but smile at the words, and wondered just what the Warrior Princess thought about anyone daring to call her 'pretty' as a term of address.
Flaccus responded to his call to be let out and escorted him as Patroclese led him through the iron gate into the main cell area. The healer led him down the length of the corridor to the last of the small cells on the right hand side and looked through the grill at the prisoner within.
Gabrielle sat in the seclusion of her prison and tried to utilize her time to compose the stories that she had been meaning to record, but had never seemed to have the time to do so before. She had been in Nemausus for four days now, the Roman ship that carried her had made good time. She knew her little cell intimately. It was no bigger than six foot by eight foot and held a small truckle bed, with a small table and chair that Patroclese had secured for her upon their arrival.
Thoughts of the healer made her angry once again, and all hope of composition was lost as she considered the treachery that had lead her into this fix. Patroclese had made a considerate gaoler, but he was still a gaoler and Caesar's pawn. The writing materials he had provided for her were mostly unused, as her mind whirled in too much of a turmoil to be able to concentrate on rhythm and metre. Most of what she had written was of little use, and she knew that she would be in no state to write until she knew what had happened to Xena.
She threw down her quill in disgust and buried her head in her hands as, for the thousandth time she dwelt on her concern for the Warrior Princess. - Where is she? Has she escaped Caesar's trap? Is she dead? - The uncertainty was becoming an inescapable torture that she generated for herself.
She heard the key grate in the lock of her cell door, and looked up to see who it could be. Patroclese normally visited her in the mid morning to check on her well being and see if she required anything. She knew by the candlemark that it was late. She had no window in her cell, but the candle that stood on her table had burned low, and by it she reckoned that night must have fallen.
The door opened admitting Patroclese and, behind him, standing in the open portal was a stern looking soldier whom she didn't recognise. The unexpected visit roused her curiosity somewhat, making her wonder what had brought him so late. Yet despite her interest in his visit, she met him with the angry glare that reminded him that she hadn't forgotten, or forgiven, his treachery.
"Gabrielle ...." Patroclese began, but was interrupted.
"You're here late. What's the matter? Guilty conscience keeping you from sleeping? Perhaps you can't face your dreams. Treacherous acts usually lead to bad dreams," she sniped acidly.
"Gabrielle ...." he tried again, but got no further.
"You know, you just might never sleep well again!" the bard sneered at him.
"Quiet, Gabrielle!" he snapped at her, using the tone of authority she had only heard him employ with the soldiers under his command on the trip here. He fixed her with a determined look as she subsided into rebellious resentfulness. "Xena's here," he told her getting her immediate and undivided attention, "and I need your help."
"Frightened she's going to beat you to a pulp?" she grinned smugly. "If you want me to intercede for you, you've got the wrong bard. I might just join in and help her."
"Gabrielle," he told her firmly, "She could be dying."
The bard looked at him for an instant as if he were speaking some foreign language to her, "What? What are you saying?" she demanded as she scrambled to her feet and tried to push past him.
Patroclese grabbed her shoulders and looked down into her eyes, explaining, "She was hurt when she was captured, Gabrielle. Badly hurt. And since then she hasn't been treated kindly."
"What did you expect from Caesar," she demanded shaking his hands off and wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye with the heel of her hand, trying to blink back her hard pressed emotions.
"Most of it was her own fault. She attacked Caesar, and tried to kill him, on her way here and was flogged for it. Her wounds haven't been treated. There's an infection and she's running a high fever. I don't think she's fighting it." He drew a breath as he told her, "She'll die unless we give her a reason to live. Will you help me keep her alive?"
Gabrielle looked at him blankly. - Do I have the right to make Xena endure life under Caesar's captivity? Am I being selfish wanting my best friend to survive? - Probably, but she knew that where there was life there would always be hope. She looked at Patroclese and nodded her assent.
The healer gestured for her to precede him, and her arm was grasped firmly by the silent soldier who had stood unobtrusively in the doorway during the conversation. She was taken down the corridor to the guardroom, which she barely registered as being full of soldiers as her hungry eyes sought out the location of the Warrior Princess.
Flaccus took her over to the cage cell and unlocked it to allow the bard and Patroclese to enter. Gabrielle stood just inside the cell door and looked at where Cornelius was working. The woman who lay naked on the stone bench looked only a little like Xena. Where the Warrior Princess was strong and physically impressive. The figure before her seemed like a poor imitation. She was gaunt, her broken ribs showing through taught flesh, her bruised features looked haggard from the fever that had left its obvious mark, and she could tell that she hadn't been eating. The brutality of the beatings she had taken had turned her flesh into a grotesque parody of the healthy skin that should be there.
Suddenly, as if aware of the bard's presence, the injured woman's eyes flickered open, revealing the startling blue orbs that Gabrielle knew so well, before falling heavily closed one more. Biting back a small cry of anguish, she rushed to Xena's side, and brushed aside the damp wisps of hair that clung to her face, "Xena," she said softly, "Don't do this to me again!"
At the sound of the bard's voice, the eyes opened once again, the blueness filled with fever, pain and confusion, "Gabrielle?" she breathed, "Promise, I prom..." before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
"He did this to her," Gabrielle said grimly.
"Forget that for now, Gabrielle" Patroclese told her, "We have work to do."
"Get those brazier's lit," the healer ordered Cornelius, as he searched through his medicines for the powder he sought.
"All of them sir?" questioned the little orderly.
"Yes. We're going to have to break this fever before it kills her. I want this cell like an oven." Patroclese explained and watched Cornelius set off about the task.
The healer reached for a cup and the water skin closest to him. He uncorked it, sniffed the contents, recognising the astringent smell of vinegar, and replace the stopper, before getting the second skin and pouring a measure of water into the cup. He poured in some of the powder he had retrieved and shook the container to help dissolve it in the water.
"What's that?" asked Gabrielle suspiciously.
"It will help dull the pain for a while," he told her. "Get her to drink it all."
As Gabrielle climbed onto the bench and turned Xena so that she could coax the medicine into her, Patroclese turned to Cornelius and got him to bring one of the braziers close. As soon as he had it he began arranging several sharp bladed knives over the heat, "Has she drunk it all?" he questioned the bard, without looking at her, watching his instruments as the heat from the fire began to slowly turn the blades red.
"Yes," the blonde told him. "What are you going to do?"
"I've got to clear the source of the infection before it poisons her blood," he pointed to the red and purple skin that was forming around the wounds, "Unless we can clear out all of the infection, it will seep into her blood and be carried around her whole body. At that point there will be nothing we can do. As it is, we may be too late. That colouration is the beginning of the process. We can only hope that if we do a good job, her natural healing ability will pull her through."
He checked his knives and then snapped out, "Cornelius, come and help hold her down. Gabrielle, you're going to have to be strong here,' he warned.
He took one of the hot blades from the brazier and delicately began to open up the infected wounds, carefully expressing each area, removing all evidence of the infection that he could find. The work was long and arduous and agonizing for the patient, even with the pain killing potion that Patroclese had provided. Gabrielle could feel Xena's torment as she writhed weakly beneath her hands. The fact that the bard had no difficulty in restraining the Warrior Princess, showed just how weakened Xena truly was. Gabrielle had no idea how long it took Patroclese to complete his task, but it seemed to take candlemarks that were filled with the stench of infection and burning flesh as the hot knives seared the wounds.
When at length he had finished, he took the skin containing the vinegar wash and liberally doused the raw wounds of Xena's back with the biting liquid that would serve to help kill any infection remaining. Xena cried out in pain as the astringent bit into her, but did not regain consciousness.
With the first stage of the treatment completed, Gabrielle relaxed a little. As Patroclese checked through his kit, the bard noticed, really for the first time, the shackles that her friend bore. She looked at the healer and asked, "Are those really necessary?"
"First rule, Gabrielle," he told her, "under no circumstances is the Warrior Princess to be released from her restraints. She's far too dangerous to give her the slightest edge. No, she stays chained and we work around it."
Gabrielle knew that there was nothing that she could say or do to influence a change in that decision. Xena's reputation was what dictated such measures and Caesar would take no chances with her. She leant forward to pick up and discard the bloody and torn shift that still lay next to them on the bench. As her fingers grasped the material, she felt Xena's hand clench around her wrist, and she looked down to see her friends blue eyes on her.
Gabrielle gave her friend a puzzled frown, but reading her friend's need she shielded her from unfriendly observation, while the warrior ran her shaking fingers over the scraps of material, until she found and retrieved the metal toothpick that she had paid so dearly to secure. She slipped the pick into the hem of the blanket that she was laying on, gave the bard a weak smile and lightly squeezed her hand, before her eyes shut once more. Gabrielle gathered up the tattered cloth and threw it onto the nearest brazier, before wiping sweat from her brow. It was beginning to get very warm within the cell and the guardroom.
She watched as Patroclese began to smear a pungent smelling salve over the open wounds. Then he picked out some rolls of bandages and told the bard and Cornelius, "We need to get her sitting up. She's got a lot of broken ribs that need to be strapped to support them and make it easier for her to breathe, and the strapping should help guard against a reoccurrence of infection in some of those whip cuts .. if we keep a regular check on them."
Carefully, with gentle slowness, Cornelius and Gabrielle managed to lift Xena into a sitting position on the bench. Then the pair gently lifted the warriors arms so that Patroclese could get to work with the strapping, "Be careful of that left shoulder, he warned, "it's dislocated and likely very sore."
"Can't you put it back into place?" demanded Gabrielle.
"Not until her ribs have healed a bit," explained Patroclese patiently, "I'm going to need to lever it back into situation and those ribs need to mend before we try that," he smiled. Having finished wrapping the tight linen around Xena's ribs, he instructed, "Keep her upright while I do something for those sores around her wrists, where the chains bite."
He carefully bathed the wrists in the vinegar solution, where the chaffing manacles had open raw sores, before smearing the thick salve around them and binding them with fresh bandages. He then did the same for her ankles. Once finished, Patroclese and Cornelius arranged the thick, stuffed cushions, that had been brought, on the bench before covering them with one of the new blankets.
Xena was laid carefully onto the cushions, "She needs to rest on her back to help those ribs," he explained, "but the cushions should help her protect her a little." He then took the other five blankets and wrapped them around the Warrior Princess tightly, before telling Cornelius, "Go and get a pot of good vegetable broth from the kitchen. No meat mind," he warned. The medical orderly left, and Patroclese mixed another cup of water with a powder from his kit, "Here get her to swallow this," he instructed the bard, "but slowly, just a sip at a time. It should help her to fight the fever, but shouldn't be taken too much in one go."
Gabrielle settled on the nest of cushions with Xena's head in her lap. She occasionally poured some of the concoction in the cup between her friends lips, and spent the rest of the time gently soothing her fevered brow. After a while, she became aware of those blue eyes looking up at her, "Hey. How y'doing?" she asked softly.
"Oh, fine, " came the weak reply with the ghost of a smile, "I thought I'd left you with the Amazons."
"Long story," Gabrielle told her neutrally, "I'll tell you about it when your stronger."
Xena nodded slightly and leaned into the bard's protective arms. Gabrielle brushed a stray wisp of hair away from her friends closed eyes. It felt odd to be in the position of protector .. that was normally Xena's role. But she intended to act out the part to the best of her ability.
Patroclese leaned over them and touched his hand to Xena's brow and then felt the pulse at her throat. He brought the braziers closer making the heat surrounding the pair almost unbearable. Catching Gabrielle's look the healer told her, "We must break that fever quickly. She's too weak for it to run it's normal course. We need to force the issue if we are to have any chance of saving her."
Cornelius returned with the vegetable broth which was placed by one of the braziers to keep warm, "When the fever breaks, and she wakes, she'll be hungry. She can have a little of the broth, but only in small amounts. She hasn't had any food for a week and her system won't be able to handle it."
The rest of the night was spent in a hellish nightmare of artificial heat designed to drive the fever from the delerious woman. Gabrielle stayed awake, making sure that Xena got as much fluid as Patroclese deemed necessary. The healer hovered protectively, checking on the fever's progress, while Cornelius curled up out of the way, but ready to respond to any order.
All three had worked their best to ensure that the warrior had her chance to fight for life, and all three were past tiredness and well into the realms of exhaustion. None of them slept other than for fitful dozes, passing the night , following day and the next night with slowly increasing concern as the fever continued to build within the restlessly stirring woman they watched over.
Just after cock crow on the second morning, Patroclese checked, yet again, on Xena and a slow, cautious smile split his lips, "I think the fever's broken," he announced.
"Thank the gods!" Gabrielle offered up a heartfelt prayer, the healer's words rousing her from an opened eyed stupor, and brushed her lips over Xena's hot, but cooler brow.
She allowed her eyes to flicker open and they lazily focused on a sleeping face. A beloved face. A face that, at one time, she believed she would never see again. Xena allowed a faint trace of tenderness creep into her eyes as she gazed up at the motionless bard. Gradually, she realized that she lay with her head in Gabrielle's lap, - That's a change! - she thought ironically.
As she lay still, so as not to disturb the bard, she became aware that she was being roasted alive by suffocating blankets. Trying to move gently, Xena attempted work her arms out from within the swaddling, only to find that her strength wasn't up to the effort, - Gods! - she swore to herself, - A new born kitten has got more strength than I have! -
Weak as Xena's struggles had been, they were enough to jolt the bard into wakefulness. She looked down at the Warrior Princess, concern written large in her expressive eyes as she studied her friend for any sign of the reoccurrence of fever, and found none. She smiled. It was an expression full of love and worry and it dazzled Xena with it's brilliance, "Hi there," said the bard.
"Hi, yourself," the warrior greeted weakly.
"Glad to have you back with us," Gabrielle told her, "You had me worried there, for a while."
There wasn't a lot that Xena could say to that, so she struggled again to free herself from the confinement of the sweltering blankets, "Can you get these off of me, Gabrielle?" she asked in frustration when she failed to achieve her aim, "It's like the inside of an oven in here." Her voice was a little hoarse but gaining in strength.
"Patroclese said that you were to remain wrapped up," the bard told her firmly. "He said a chill on top of that fever would probably kill you now. He still doesn't know how you managed to survive anyway."
"The healer's here?" questioned the Warrior Princess as she turned her head, and registered the bars of the cell for the first time. "Where is here, anyway? and how long have I been out of it?" she asked irritably. She hated the feeling of disorientation she was experiencing.
"We're in the Roman barracks in the city of Nemausus," Gabrielle told her, "and yes, Patroclese is here too. He's the reason I'm here, Xena. He's Caesar's man, and he lead us both into Caesar's trap. You've been here five days with a raging fever. The worst of it broke the second night, but it's taken until now for you to fight it off," she said carefully feeling her friends forehead pleased that her skin had cooled considerably.
The news didn't surprise the Warrior Princess. She regretted the healer's part in the affair, she had rather liked him. But all the parts now fell into place and made perfect sense to her, "Well, it's no good worrying about what's past. We've got to work on a plan to get out of here."
"Well, there's no point in worrying about that until we get you back on your feet. At the moment you can't even fight your way out of your blankets, let alone out of this cell and through all the guards," Gabrielle pointed out.
A look of determination flared in Xena's eyes as she focused her will and began to wriggle, trying to work her arms free, just to show Gabrielle that she was not going to be treated like a helpless invalid ... even if she was one!
"Quit that Xena," the bard told her firmly, or I'll call Cornelius in to help me snag you up in those blankets so tight you'll never get out." She watched anxiously as the Warrior Princess continued to struggle. "One of these days I'm going to learn to keep my mouth shut," she muttered, knowing that her friend found it impossible to resist a challenge. "Well not this time, Xena." she told her and drew a breath to call the little orderly who had left the cell to get some sleep in one of the bunks close by.
"Alright, alright, you win," growled Xena testily, more over the fact that she wasn't making much headway as for Gabrielle's threat.
"That's a first!" the bard told her with feeling. She looked at her friend and tried to warn her, "Xena, you've got to try and stop fighting the whole world. One of these days it's going to fall on you."
"Funny, from where I'm laying it feels like it already did." grumbled the irritated warrior.
A commotion amongst the guards, as the cell block door was opened, revealed the return of Patroclese who had left about a candlemark before Xena awoke to inform Caesar of the current medical situation. Xena turned her head to watch the confident young man stride across the outer chamber, escorted by Flaccus. The Centurion unlocked the cell door and swung it open to the normal accompanying screech of the hinges, before closing and locking it after the healer entered.
Patroclese moved directly to where Xena lay, and quickly felt her brow with a cool hand, "Warm, but that's only to be expected. The fever has finally broken. How are you feeling?"
"Hungry," admitted Xena, "and like a herd of centaurs just ran over me."
"That's to be expected too, considering what you've been through," he told her professionally.
Xena looked at him with a cold icy glare, "Tell me about it," she said chillingly. "It seems your responsible for all of this."
"No," he replied mildly and with self assurance, "I just followed my masters orders. All of the injuries you have suffered you brought on yourself. Weren't you offered the chance to surrender?"
She wasn't going to answer that! She also couldn't blame him, fairly, for his part in bringing about this situation. He was right. He was doing his master's bidding and had no real part in the intense animosity she felt for Caesar who bore the responsibility for all of this.
Patroclese moved to where the fresh batch of vegetable broth had been kept warm since being brought to the cell at first light. He ladled out a half a bowl full for Xena, and a larger amount which he gave to Gabrielle, "I'll feed her while you have something to eat," he told the bard. "You're not going to be able to nurse her if you collapse from lack of sleep and food."
"I slept!" objected the blonde indignantly.
"How much?" questioned the healer as he sat on the edge of the bench and carefully began to spoon some of the broth into the Warrior Princess.
"Some," admitted the bard reluctantly, "I wasn't tired," she told him defiantly as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a betraying yawn.
"Uh huh," Patroclese said.
Both of the women ate their lunch and Xena thirstily drank down a measure of water that the healer allowed her, Patroclese decided that it was time to check on her wounds, "I don't like having to undo those strappings around the ribs, " he told her, but I've got to make sure that we got out all the infection from those whip cuts." With Gabrielle's help, the healer released Xena from her prison of blankets and helped her to sit up. Her breathing became a bit shallow and ragged as the pain from the ribs bit, and a bead of perspiration dripped from her forehead and down her nose.
Patroclese took a small pair of scissors and, carefully, cut through the bandages and gently peeled them off where they had stuck to the wound's bloody furrows. With Gabrielle supporting her friend from the front, Patroclese scrambled up onto the bench and began to gently probe the wounds to check them for any sign of festering and inflammation. Xena winced involuntarily as his fingers worked over a particularly tender spot.
"Looking better," he told them, quietly satisfied as he began to smooth salve over the wounds again. When he had finished, he wrapped fresh bandages tightly around her ribs once again.
Between them, they got Xena laying back comfortably on the cushions once more and, despite her voluble protests, snared her once again in the blankets, "She's never been a very good patient," Gabrielle said scoldingly. "She's great at making sure others follow her medical advice, but she hopeless when it comes to taking it herself."
"That I can see," agreed Patroclese. He gave Xena, who still struggled weakly to free herself, a thoughtful look, "I think I can fix it so that she lies still and gets some rest,' he told the bard as he prepared a cup of water mixed with another powder.
"Will you two stop talking about me as if I'm not here," growled the disgruntled and reluctant patient, "It's ... it's rude," she told them in annoyance. She looked suspiciously at the cup in the healer's hand, "What's that?"
"Just a sleeping draft. You need to rest without all the struggling." he told her.
Xena looked rebellious, "I've had enough sleep to last me a lifetime," she glowered.
"You have a choice here," Patroclese told her calmly, "Either you can drink this down of your own choice. Or I can call half a dozen guards in here with a funnel and force feed it to you."
Gabrielle took the cup from him and said, "C'mon Xena, You want to be up on your feet as quickly as possible, don't you?"
Giving both Patroclese and the bard a withering glare, Xena drank the potion down without further resistance. Within just a short while, she found her eyes drifting shut as a deep, dreamless sleep claimed her, and allowed her body the rest it needed to begin it's healing work.
Passing the time was spent in trading news of how they had been captured, remembering happier times and occasionally brooding darkly about the future. Gabrielle did her best to chivy Xena out of those moods, but the feel of the shackles and more especially, the slave collar, caused a bleakness to settle into her friend that was hard to dispel.
By the seventh day, after Patroclese had cleansed the infection from her back, he was pleased to announce that, not only had the flesh knitted together healthily, he fully expected there to be none of the scarring that normally remained after a flogging. Also, after gently probing the areas of the broken ribs he had found that they were setting satisfactorily. Her breathing had improved with the ribs' mending, and although they remained a little sore he made the decision to refrain from strapping them again.
"Do you feel up to me trying to put that dislocated shoulder back in place?" asked the healer as he packed up his equipment.
When Xena nodded her agreement, Patroclese called for Cornelius to join him. The little medical auxiliary had fussed around Xena over the past five days like a broody hen with just one chick. Gabrielle had had to cover the smile that sprang to her lips every time she heard the little man call her big intimidating friend, "Pretty," and had earned more than one icy look from Xena in the process.
With Xena sitting on one end of the bench, Cornelius sat on the other and took a firm grasp of the Warrior Princess's left arm, before raising a booted foot to brace under it. The manacles complicated things but they worked it out.
"Wait a moment," Patroclese ordered hopping up on the bench behind Xena's back. He worked an edge of blanket between Cornelius's boot and the woman's unprotected skin, "Now when I say go, pull strong and steady. The joint's been out for quite a while, so it probably won't go back easily. I'll manipulate it from above, you just keep the strain constant, understand?" he asked the little man.
"Yes sir," agreed Cornelius. He smiled at Xena, "You ready, pretty?"
The Warrior Princess glowered as Gabrielle covered a smirk with a cough, "Do it!" she told him firmly.
Cornelius leant back and pushed with his foot, seeking to draw the joint apart from where it lay, a bit like a rack would work. Patroclese probed with strong fingers looking to guide the joint back into it's true socket. Finally, after an agonisingly long session, and with an audible "Pop!", the shoulder sprang back into it's correct alignment.
"Ahhhh!" Xena yelled as the joint was reconnected. It had hurt worse than she had bargained for, and she knew the arm would be all but useless for a day or so as it recovered from it's rough treatment.
Taking, cautious, deliberate steps, Gabrielle supported the Warrior Princess as she shuffled around the entire twelve foot square area of the cell. Xena's legs were weak and unco-operative, from their long period of inactivity. She felt unsteady and light headed after her illness, but it could no longer be doubted that she was mending fast.
"Well, at least we've got you back on your feet," encouraged Gabrielle.
"Uh huh," agreed the dark haired woman as she gritted her teeth and concentrated on staying upright.
"Any chance that you might be able to summon up that power from Chin and blast a way out of here for us?" the bard asked more in jest than expectation, knowing that her friend had never been able to recreate the incredible feat.
Xena shook her head, and explained, "I think I have to be empty of all emotion. Just now I'm filled with a raging hatred and a desire for revenge." she looked at the bard, "I know you think that revenge isn't the answer, and that we need to find forgiveness in our hearts, but I don't think I can, Gabrielle. Not for him. Not for all he's done," she said bitterly.
"I understand," the blonde told her, "and I can't blame you for that. I know how hard it is for you. But for your sake I wish you could set it aside." She was rewarded with a blank stare and knew that now was not the right time to be preaching forgiveness to her friend.
They took a few more heavy steps as the bard gathered her thoughts to ask the question that had been bothering her since she first saw the Warrior Princess here, "Xena?" she asked hesitantly, and looked full into the blue eyes of her friend as she turned her head towards the bard, "Were you trying to die?" There was an almost indefinable look of hurt lurking in the shadows of the blonde's eyes, that her friend identified immediately.
They had reached the starting point of their walk and the warrior sank gratefully back onto the bench before answering her friend's question, "I don't think so," she answered slowly, unsure in her own mind whether she had been or not.
"You don't think so?" pressed the bard who needed more of an answer than that.
Xena put her hand on the bards shoulder and looked at her full in the eyes to show that she wasn't trying to hide anything, "I think I had in mind that Caesar wants me for something. I didn't think he'd let me die until he had achieved what he wanted from me. I suppose if I'd have been willing to beg him for treatment, food and water, he would have been delighted to give it. But I'll ask nothing of him, Gabrielle, not now. Not ever." she said that with a voice like granite, "So, I suppose the whole thing became a test of will and nerves," she said with a rueful grin and finished with, "I won this time ... I think!"
"Xena, what if he'd decided that he didn't want you after all?" asked Gabrielle in concern. "Patroclese wasn't certain that he'd be able to save you, even at the time he began treating you. If it had been another day ...." her voice trailed off.
The Warrior Princess looked at the bard with a hint of compassion in those, oh so blue, eyes, before saying almost too softly for Gabrielle to hear, "I think Caesar miscalculated, but it might have been for the best."
The bard rounded on her, green eyes blazing with anger and more than a touch of fear, "Don't you say that!" she growled with a terrifying intensity, "Don't you ever say that!" She punched Xena's right shoulder to emphasise her point. "Too many people rely on you ... need you," Gabrielle swallowed hard to stop the tears from flowing, "I need you," she told her, " and you promised me!"
The chains clanked as Xena rubbed her arm where the bard had hit her. It hadn't really hurt, but the atmosphere had suddenly become way too tense and the Warrior Princess felt an instinctive need to back off and lighten the atmosphere that surrounded them, "Go on," she said with a small grin, "hit a woman when she can't defend herself." She watched as the anger slowly washed from Gabrielle's eyes although more than a tinge of concern remained in evidence.
"Xena, we will get out of this, somehow," the bard promised.
"Of course," agreed Xena with a false heartiness that didn't fool the bard at all.
"You know, we may get some help," Gabrielle told her seriously.
"Sure," agreed the Warrior Princess moodily, "Ares will show up any time now and promise to free us if I agree to return to him and lead his army."
"No I'm being serious," the bard told her in a barely audible voice. "I had a vision ... kind of ... before I left the Amazons, and it scared me so much that I sent off three letters before heading out to try and catch you."
Xena looked at her with curiosity. She knew her bard friend had occasional flashes of the future, so she was not about to make light of what she said, "Who to? and what for?" she asked.
Gabrielle got a distant look in her eyes, "I had this feeling, a premonition, a vision, something," she tried to describe. "Whatever it was I felt that something was going to go very wrong, so I sent out those letters. One to Toris," she ignored the vexed look from Xena, "another to Iolaus and the last one to Autolycus."
"There's no great chance that they'll come," Xena said seriously, and tried to hide a faint grin as she said, "Autolycus?" in partial disbelief.
Gabrielle grinned and shrugged spreading her hands, "I know it's a long shot, but ...."
"Autolycus?" grinned Xena again. Gabrielle just shrugged and both broke into grudging laughter at the thought of the thief coming to their rescue.
"I've lead a tough life," Xena told him flatly, "and I've learned a few things along the way," she said thinking back to Lao Ma and all that she had been taught and shown by that incredible woman. "Now you've finished prodding and poking me, don't you think it's time that I got some clothes?" she demanded, "A blanket is all very well, but it's hardly the height of fashion, even in a place like this." She gave a very definite glare at the six sentinels that stood, as ever, watching her every move.
Patroclese let a faint smile ghost across his lips as he pulled a pair of cloth trousers and a creamy wool shirt from a bag he'd been carrying, "These should fit you well enough, and you'll find them more functional than one of those shifts you wear."
"My leathers would be better," she told him flatly.
"Not a chance," he grinned.
Xena bared her teeth at him in what could be taken as a smile, but any humour in it failed to reach her cold eyes. She was still not fully certain of her attitude towards Patroclese. He had a manner she liked, and there was something in him that she appreciated, perhaps a form of integrity. The god's knew he had betrayed her and Gabrielle to Caesar, but as he was already Caesar's man, could it really count as betrayal? The Warrior Princess reserved her opinion of him.
"Might be a touch difficult getting the clothes on over these," she told him as she rattled her chains at him.
"Yes," agreed the healer with a perfectly straight face, "that problem had not escaped my attention." He looked at Xena as if assessing his options. "There is a standing order that you are never to be released from those shackles without direct authority from my Lord Caesar." He made eye contact with her penetrating, clear, blue, gaze that could cause such fear when she chose. "If you give me your word not to attempt some futile escape, or resist being re-shackled, I have the authority to release you while you dress."
Xena's eyes flicked over Patroclese to the six guards alert around the cell, to the rest of the forty garrisoned within the guardroom. Added that she was barely strong enough to stand on her own, so even if she could batter down a locked cell door she doubted very much, with the best will in the world, that she'd be able to fight her way clear of the guards before the noise brought a hundred more men running! "Agreed," she told him, "You have my word."
Patroclese produced a key and unlocked the left wrist cuff of her manacles, allowing Xena to pull the shirt over her head and work her arms in, with Gabrielle guiding the chain and cuff through the sleeve. Once it was on, Xena fixed the healer with a cold stare and held up her wrists for Patroclese to snap the chain back into place. The same process was followed with the leg irons with a minimum of fuss.
"What about some boots," asked Xena, wriggling the toes of her bare feet.
"Sorry, that's all you get," shrugged the healer. "I'll be back this afternoon, just to check that you haven't taken too much out of yourself with the walking this morning."
As Patroclese left, Gabrielle admired Xena's new 'look', "Different," she said, and after another considering inspection, "Suits you."
"Yeah, well," drawled Xena unconvinced, "its better than nothing, as I well know, and it's a lot warmer too." She wriggled her toes again, "Pity about the boots, though."
"Oh yeah," grinned the bard, "they know how hard you can kick with boots on." She sat down close to the Warrior princess and said in a whisper, "Xena, if you've got any ideas of how to get us out of here, I think we'd better discuss them soon," an urgent note registered in her tone, "I don't think they're going to let me stay with you much longer."
The tall, dark haired warrior rubbed her friends arm in a reassuring gesture, ignoring the clank of the chains as a minor irritation,"I think they'll move you this afternoon when Patroclese comes back, " she agreed. "I'm back on my feet now and healing fast. they'll want you safe so that they can use you to hold me. Caesar won't want to take the chance that I'll get loose and break you free at the same time. In fact I'm surprised that they've let you stay so long." She tensed her muscles, testing her strength against the metal of the chains, "Perhaps Patroclese thinks I'm still too weak to put up a fight."
"Xena, you're barely able to stand up on your own. I think Patroclese might be right." She saw the dangerous glint in the Warrior Princess's eyes that said she'd rise to the challenge, "Don't even think about it, Xena," the bard warned. "You've only just started to mend. I want you to promise me that you'll wait until you're fit enough to stand a chance of success."
Xena had that stubborn look that the bard knew only too well, "Gabrielle, if there's any chance ...." she began.
"That's just the point," the bard broke in quickly, "there isn't any chance. So I want you to promise me that you'll wait," she insisted.
"Gabrielle ...."
"No, Xena. I want that promise," repeated the bard.
A look of angry frustration flickered across the Warrior Princess's features. She knew that she had to make the promise or Gabrielle would nag at her for the rest of the time they had together and she didn't want that, "I promise," she said reluctantly.
The bard smiled in relief, "I don't know what's going to happen to us, Xena. But let's try and make sure we survive if we can. You can't make Caesar pay if you get yourself killed you know," she said shrewdly hitting Xena's weak spot.
"I know," agreed the warrior, "Believe me I know."
He'd been in Narbo for three days, and his discrete enquiries had gleaned for him the information that someone answering his sister's description had got off a ship about nineteen days previously ... maybe! - This is so frustrating! - his mind raged! From there he had a possible sighting near the warehouse quarter, but very tentative enquiries at Isumbras' establishment had been met with stoney silences and less than vague threats about what would happen to him if he didn't remove himself post-haste!
The dark haired man glared into his cup of wine, as he shoved the letter back inside his tunic, and tried to work out what he should do next. Things were a lot more complicated than he had expected. Not only couldn't he find much trace of Xena, but there was also no word of Gabrielle ever having been in Narbo. On top of that, he'd also heard rumours that there were other men asking the same, or similar, questions to the ones he sought answers for.
He took a long swallow of the wine and muttered to himself, "Okay," as he tried to concentrate his thoughts, "Xena and Gabrielle have disappeared and there's barely a trace of them to be found." He brooded on that for a moment, but unless he could get some information out of Isumbras he didn't think he was going to be able to get much of a lead to their whereabouts.
- So what does that leave me with? They're in trouble. - he thought yet again, - But how can I help them if I can't find them? - He banged his fist on the table in anger at the seemingly impossible task he's been set.
A shadow fell across him and Toris looked up to see two very oddly matched men before him. One was fair, short and muscularly compact. The other was a joke! He looked like a walking ironmonger's shop and had a face like a tame ape. It was the blonde who spoke for them, "Can we sit down?"
Toris wasn't really in the mood for company, but the tavern was full and the only seating free outside was at his table. He nodded and tried to ignore them as he sought to concentrate on his problem.
A harassed serving maid, found her way to the table and asked, "What's your pleasure gentlemen?"
The blonde grinned and answered gallantly, "A pretty girl like you shouldn't go asking questions like that of strangers," he smiled.
The serving girl laughed giddily and offered, "Oh sir, you know I was enquiring about what you fancied."
His grin broadened into a smile as he replied, "There you go again, well if I was to answer truthfully, would it shock you?"
She blushed prettily before giggling, "Oh sir, you are awful .. you know I was talking about what drink you would like."
"I admit I did, sweetheart," laughed the blonde man, "but as it brought a smile to your eyes it was worth the time to say it. Bring us some wine please," he said handing over a few coins.
The metal, next to him, rattled as if with embarrassment, "Do you have to do that with every girl we meet?" he questioned.
"What?" asked the blonde with a grin.
"You know," said the second man, true embarrassment now evident, "flirt with them."
"Of course," answered the blonde. "A kind word and a friendly smile can take you a long way."
"Yeah," agreed the tin can, "like right to the end of a jealous boyfriend's sword!"
"That was all just a misunderstanding," the blonde told him, "we straightened it all out."
"Oh yeah. Finally. After you agreed to pay damages," agreed his companion, "Just be careful what you do here," he warned. "We're trying not to attract unwanted attention .. remember?"
The serving maid returned with the mugs of wine and smiled prettily at the blonde, who seemed inclined to respond to her before his friend dug him in the ribs with a sharp elbow, "Remember why we're here," he muttered darting a glance at the dark haired man they shared the table with.
"Right," agreed the blonde.
Toris had done his best to ignore the by-play between the pair, but their bickering irritated him. He was trying to concentrate his mind on his problem, so he wasn't in the best frame of mind when the blonde fixed him with a hard stare and said firmly, "I hear you've been asking around town about some friends of ours."
Toris pointedly ignored him. He wasn't sure if it was if it was safe for him to say anything to them having no idea who they were. They could be some of Xena's enemies trying to find out who he was and just what he knew. - Which is, - he thought disconsolately to himself, - a big fat zero! - he looked at them blankly waiting for them to continue.
The tin can obliged. "Hey, look pal! Our friends have gone missing an' if your involved I'm gonna take you apart piece by piece." He reiterated his words with a pointing finger that he hastily shoved under the table when Toris turned his cold blue eyes upon him. - Wow, - came the suddenly worried thought, - he looks just like .... - he allowed the thought to trail off as he cocked his head to look quizzically at the raven haired man.
"Shut up, Joxer!" ordered the shorter man, all evidence of the happy go lucky Romeo now disappeared. He turned his serious gaze back on Toris, "Look. We know you've been asking questions about two friends of ours. All we want to do is pool some information. You know, maybe work together to find them if you're a friend too."
Toris looked at them uneasily. He was almost certain that the fool, - Joxer? Have I heard that name before? - was too big a joke to have had anything to do with Xena's disappearance. He doubted that the man would be able to harm a fly, let alone his ominously dangerous sister. But the blonde man looked as if he was more than able to hold his end up in a tight situation. Anyway, he hadn't been able to get anywhere on his own, it might be worth the risk. - I'll decide that when I know who they are .. and what they have to do with Xena. - he told himself before asking, "Just who exactly are you?"
"My name's Iolaus," offered the blonde holding out his hand, "I'm ...."
"He's Hercules' best friend, is who he is," contributed Joxer enthusiastically, "and I'm Joxer the Mighty, close friend and companion of Xena, the Warrior Princess and her bard, Gabrielle!"
"For Zeus' sake, Joxer," hissed Iolaus obviously angry, "do you think you could have spoken any louder? I don't think they heard you up at the garrison!"
"Ya think so?" asked his companion ingenuously, then realized that he was supposed to keep his connection to their friends quiet, "Oh, right." he said obviously abashed.
Iolaus turned back to the other man at the table and offered his hand again, "I didn't catch your name, friend," he invited.
Toris looked at them levelly. He'd heard of Iolaus of Corinth, knew some of the stories that linked him to Xena, but he didn't know anything about this clown, Joxer. However, if a man like Iolaus travelled with, and trusted him, he felt he should be able to ... to a degree. He held out his own hand and clasped the blonde arm to arm saying, "My name's Toris ... I'm," he hesitated a moment, licked his lips, before committing himself, "I'm Xena's brother."
Iolaus smiled but his muscles tensed as he said, still in a friendly enough tone, "Wait a minute. Xena told me her brother's name was Lyceus and that he died fighting a warlord by the name of Krykus,"
"Wrong. The warlord was Cortese and Lyceus was our younger brother," Toris told him angrily. He'd gotten over all the guilt and suffering of the past, but it still made him angry at times.
"Just testing," admitted Iolaus, "I needed to be sure. Xena's never really said a lot about you."
"Yeah. Well Xena and I hadn't seen each other for about eleven years, until our paths crossed when we both hunted down Cortese for what he had done." explained Toris flatly.
"Right," said Joxer, nodding his head suspiciously, "Gabby told me that story. Something about metal masks and you being on this warlord's payroll."
Toris got angrily to his feet and made a grab for Joxer, who toppled off the bench in his hurry to avoid Xena's brother. Toris looked at him coldly, his eyes almost the image of Xena's, but without the deep intensity that she transmitted. In a low, deadly voice he growled, "I was with Cortese's band so that I could get close enough to kill him for what he did to my brother, my village and my little sister."
Joxer gulped and swallowed quickly before saying hurriedly, "Gabby said that too," he agreed.
"Hey!" said Iolaus, trying to calm things down, "We're on the same side, here."
"That's right," nodded Joxer as he picked himself up and returned to his seat a little warily, "What brings you here anyway?" he said and then added with a cheesy worried smile, when he saw the storm clouds in Toris' eyes, "If you don't mind me asking."
Toris fingered the parchment under his tunic and answered slowly, "The girl .. Gabrielle .. sent me a letter. She said she thought Xena could be in big trouble and asked me to get to here as quickly as I could. She also said a man called Isumbras would probably know what had happened to her, but not to trust him."
"I got the same message," agreed Iolaus, "though she also said that I should try to find a healer by the name of Patroclese if I couldn't find her or Xena. She said she thought he might be able to help us."
"How come I never got a letter?" complained Joxer. "You'd have thought Gabby would have sent me a letter too. Perhaps she knew I'd be with you," he said to Iolaus, "Or maybe I was right and it got lost in the post. Gabrielle would never have left me out of something as dangerous and important as this." he muttered on to himself, ignored by the other two men.
"You must be telling the truth," said Toris at length. "She put that in my letter too." He sat back down and took a sip of his neglected wine. "What have you managed to find out?" he asked.
"Practically nothing," admitted the smaller man with a shrug of his shoulders. He swallowed some of his own drink before adding, "We think we know when Xena landed, and Joxer found a beggar who directed someone, who answered Xena's description, to Isumbras' warehouse. After that," he shrugged again, "nothing."
"We've tried to get in to see this Isumbras, but his men won't talk to us and in any case he seems to have disappeared," Joxer added before saying in a worried tone, "And we've found no trace of Gabrielle, or this Patroclese, anywhere."
"Have you found anything more helpful?" questioned Iolaus.
Toris looked despondent. They hadn't got any further than he had. He'd hoped that they'd managed to turn up something he'd missed, "No," he began in answer to the blonde's question when he was interrupted.
"But I have," said a voice that both Joxer and Iolaus recognised immediately.
"Autolycus!" groaned Iolaus, "What are you doing here?"
"And it's good to see you too, Shorty." greeted the suave thief, "How's the big guy? Is he here. No of course not or I'd have seen him by now," and went on before his somewhat rhetorical question could be answered, "So you're Xena's brother," he said to Toris, "I was wondering about you, but you look enough alike that I should have guessed."
Toris looked completely out of his depth as he surveyed the man before him. He was tall, slim, well built with dark, handsome good looks that boasted a moustache , a thin slither of a goatee beard and a devil may care attitude that irritated everyone around him.
"Hi, Autolycus," greeted Joxer, who had been ignored by the newcomer thus far.
"Who brought him," asked Autolycus in a disparaging way.
"No one brought me," said the tin plated man belligerently, "I brought myself."
"Oh well, I suppose he can't get into too much trouble, can he?" asked the stranger noting the uncomfortable looks the others were trying to hide. "Just who are you?" demanded Toris, his hand resting threateningly on the sword hilt at his belt.
"My! You are like your sister, aren't you?" smiled the infuriating man. "Very well, may I introduce myself?" he didn't wait for an answer, "I, am Autolycus, the King of Thieves," he told Toris as he smoothed his moustache with an aristocratic flourish of his right index finger.
"But what are you doing here?" demanded Iolaus impatiently. His relationship with the thief tended to be a little strained at best.
"Well," drawled the King of Thieves, "Firstly I was having a little trouble in Tressia."
"You took something that didn't belong to you," interpreted the smaller man.
"An exquisite jewelled dagger belonging to the King actually," Autolycus told him with a boastful swagger, "It was a masterly operation spoiled by one fatal flaw."
"You got caught," interpreted Iolaus again.
"Naturally, I needed to be somewhere less ... dangerous to my immediate personal well being," he told his audience.
"What were they gonna do to ya?" asked Joxer with a grin.
"Publicly disembowel me, was the announcement I heard," confessed the thief with a jaunty smile. "So when an Amazon delivered my invitation to this little party, how could I possibly say no!"
"What else made you come?" asked Iolaus suspiciously, feeling that however much the thief 'liked' Xena, he'd need a large inducement to make him risk his own safety for someone else.
"Well, on the way here, I started hearing these incredible rumours about some fabulous treasure that Caesar is supposed to have." Autolycus told him candidly.
"Treasure!" sneered the blonde, "I might have known you'd be more interested in something to steal than in helping us find the girls."
"On the contrary," replied the thief blandly as he tried some of Iolaus's wine, "Mmm. Not bad. Quite a nice fruity tang to it."
"Autolycus," growled the blonde, half rising.
"Alright, alright, I'm getting there Curly," the thief swayed out of the way of Iolaus's attempted grab, "I'll admit, with my varied interests in life, I did take the opportunity to investigate the treasure."
"I knew it!" declared Iolaus in disgust.
"Hey! What'd you expect?" put in Joxer, "The guy is a thief after all."
"King of Thieves," corrected Autolycus.
"Look!" interrupted Toris, beginning to lose his temper, "What's any of this got to do with my sister?"
"Just this," said the thief smugly leaning towards the others conspiratorially, "Did any of you jackasses realise that Xena disappeared right about the same time that the rumours of this fabulous treasure started to emerge?"
Iolaus looked at him, making the connection suggested by the thief's words, "So?" he encouraged him to elaborate.
"So, this 'treasure' left Narbo before first light on the morning after Xena disappeared. Caesar himself was with it and there was an elite guard of close to two hundred men, detailed to watch over a covered wagon, attached to the entire VIIth Legion that went with them. That wagon," he said disparagingly, "for those of you having trouble following this, contained the 'treasure'." He buffed his fingernails on his coat, "That's got to be more that a coincidence, don't you think?" he asked no one in particular.
The others sat in silence digesting the possibilities that this new information offered until Joxer queried, "What about Gabrielle?"
"Now of her," admitted Autolycus, "I could find no trace. But that treasure travelled to Nemausus. I'd bet my favourite lockpick that if we find Xena there, Gabrielle won't be far away."
"Is there any way of getting some verification on all of this?" asked Toris, wondering how far he could really trust his newly discovered companions.
Autolycus looked at him straight in the face and told him, "Short of finding Isumbras and getting the story out of him, then I'd say the only way we're going to find anything out, for sure, is by going to Nemausus."
"How long would it take to get there?" asked Toris, overcoming his doubts and eager to trace any clue that might solve the mystery disappearance of his sister and her friend.
"On horseback, pushing hard? I'd say we could probably do it in two days," ventured the thief.
"We?" questioned Iolaus, incredulously.
"Why sure," asserted the thief, "How else am I going to find out whether it really is a treasure or not?" then he added almost too quietly to be heard, "Besides, I like those two." He noticed the rather wry looks he was getting from Iolaus and Joxer and decided that a change of subject was definitely in order. "Where is Hercules by the way? We could probably use his help."
Iolaus finally recovered his cup of wine from the thief as he rose from the table with the others and answered, "If he'd known about this he'd have been here. But he's off tracking down some hydra that torched a village down in the south." He raised the cup to his lips and cursed when he found it empty, "Autolycus, you thief, you owe me a cup of wine."
The others chuckled as they headed down the street and made plans for their projected journey to Nemausus, while Iolaus and Autolycus wrangled intermittently. All four knew that if Xena and Gabrielle were truly captive of Caesar, they would have a difficult time in effecting a rescue.
There was a bustle amongst the guard unit as they manoeuvred some heavy object into the guardroom behind the screen of soldiers that trailed at Caesar's heels. Whatever they were doing would become obvious in time. For now, both women's attentions were rivetted upon the Roman Emperor.
As usual, Patroclese entered the cell, leaving Caesar outside flanked by guards .. the door remained open, a noticeably unusual occurrence! Xena sat rigidly on the stone bench with Gabrielle beside her. Outward appearances suggested that the Warrior Princess was calm and relaxed, but there was a tenseness to the line of her jaw, and her eyes remained fixed, beyond Patroclese, on her enemy.
Gabrielle had become instantly aware of Xena's rigidity and the reason for it. Caesar acted as an unfailing goad on the Warrior Princess whenever he appeared. The bard touched her friend's arm lightly and gave it a gentle squeeze of reassurance, and as a reminder of her promise.
Patroclese noticed the looks and the touch, and tried to give an encouraging smile of his own. He liked these women. He had tried not to, but there was something about them. Gabrielle had a purity, and for all the death and destruction she had witnessed, an innocence that burned bright. - And Xena? Well, the woman was terrifying, - he was willing to admit, but she also had an honourable integrity that he hadn't expected. The stories about her varied so wildly from a cold, merciless, evil killer to a woman who fought for the innocent against malignant warlords that preyed upon them, that it was almost impossible to find the real woman in them. "Let's have a final look at your back, Xena," he ordered.
It was almost a physical struggle for the Warrior Princess to break eye contact with Caesar. But she complied with the healer and stood carefully, turned her back on him and raised the shirt back with difficulty, hampered as she was by the manacles, and waited while Patroclese traced the fading outlines of the scars. The wounds had healed quickly and well, as the healer already knew. Faint white lines crisscrossed her skin, and the physician was certain, within time, these would also disappear. Patroclese stepped softly to one side to allow Caesar a clear view of Xena's back.
The Roman pursed his lips thoughtfully. He'd been kept fully informed, by Patroclese, of the seriousness and extent of the damage done to his 'prize'. He was well aware that many men had died from far less serious injuries than she had accumulated. Recovery, from any of the wounds that the Warrior Princess had sustained, was usually a prolonged affair. In fact the two hapless guards who had taken a flogging that same evening, still had livid wounds and had been excused from duty.
Yet, here was Xena, once more on her feet. She had been close to death. And now? Well, all of her injuries were healed. The visible indications were fading into nothingness and she showed every sign of regaining her full phenomenal strength within a few days. It was uncanny!
Patroclese was no less impressed, at a nod from Caesar, he moved back behind Xena and once more probed her ribs. All signs of the bruising had long since gone and the bones felt strong and healthy beneath his knowledgeable hands. If he hadn't known that the breaks had been there he would never have been able to identify where the damage had been located, "All healed up nicely," he commented.
Allowing the shirt to drop back in place, Xena turned around to find that Caesar had entered the cell with four of his soldiers, each armed with the heavy batons that they used to quell riots, and to discipline unruly prisoners. The sudden close proximity of her enemy triggered her instinctive reflexes as she dropped to a fighting stance, ready to launch an assault.
Gabrielle stood quickly and grabbed her friend's arm, "Xena," she cautioned in a low tone, concern evident in her voice.
The bard's warning was enough to restrain her warrior impulses; even as the guards snapped their batons forward in readiness for use against their highly dangerous prisoner, the Warrior Princess modified her stance which melted into casual relaxation that belied the readiness for violence just moments earlier. Her eyebrow rose in a half mocking challenge as she stared insolently at Caesar.
"Very good, Xena," the Roman complimented her, his voice full of smug sarcasm as he added, "Perhaps you can be taught obedience." He smiled mirthlessly as he saw her fists clench, her knuckles turning white with the strain required to control her anger.
As Xena looked into her tormentor's eyes, she silently berated herself for allowing his taunts to antagonize her. No one else was capable of doing that. Only him! It sometimes seemed that all he had to do was enter the same room and her hackles rose, causing her to react without thinking and often regretting it. That she seemed to have an almost identical effect on him was no real compensation. She gave him a cool look and said frigidly, 'Have your fun while you can, Caesar," she warned him, "You won't hold us for too long. I seem to remember two other occasions ...."
Caesar interrupted her, full of his brash arrogance, "Ah, but this time is different, Xena. I know everything there is to know about you now," he told her full of self-satisfaction, "and there will be no opportunity for you to escape. The guards know they face death if that happens."
"You're a butcher," she retorted her tone larded with the contempt she felt for him.
"The men are rewarded well for their vigilance," he told her. "It's only fitting that the penalty for failure should be commensurate. And, because I reward them well, any of my men would march with me against the gates of Dis if I asked it of them."
"Did Crassus agree to follow you, or should I say, precede you to Hades .. sorry, Dis?" Xena stabbed at a very tender spot, and had the satisfaction of drawing a glare before she added, "I wonder if his shade respects your decision to execute him." She smiled knowingly as she saw her barb strike home. Anger flared in the brown eyes before he crushed the emotion ruthlessly.
Caesar fumed inside as he contemplated the only person who could manipulate his inner feelings as easily as he normally manipulated others. - I have to avoid responding to her jibes! - he scolded himself. - She's my property. And she will submit to my will! One way or another. -
He brought his hands out from behind his back where they had been hidden by the folds of the scarlet cloak he was wearing. He held up the thin, metal slave collar that he'd shown Xena in the first night's camp on the road to Nemausus. He watched as Xena began to raise her right hand towards the one that rested around her own neck, before forcing it to stillness once more. He noted that the icy fire in her eyes sparked with rancour and frustration.
Gabrielle had remained silent throughout the exchange between the two old enemies. She recognised the explosive chemistry between them. She was well aware that, once, Xena had been totally infatuated by the Roman, but it had turned to a violent, deadly hatred that had set her friend's feet on the path of a dark destiny that she now struggled to leave behind.
- Caesar has so much to answer for! He used Xena towards his own ends and he continues to do so when he can! And yet, - thought the bard as she watched them spar with each other, - their hatred of each other is so passionate it's almost love! - She looked from one to the other and changed her mind, - Not love, but lust! -
The bard shook her head, trying to throw off the concern that she felt for her dark haired friend. She knew that Xena was seething inside, consumed by her lust to kill Caesar, even if it cost her own life! Caesar's lust was far more complex. He needed to dominate. The Warrior Princess was probably the only person he had ever encountered whom he could not bend fully to his will.
Gabrielle knew that she bore an awesome responsibility here. She was the only thing holding Xena back, even in her current weakened condition, from finalizing the account with Caesar. While the Roman held the bard, the Warrior Princess could be constrained to accept whatever punishment, insults or demands he cared to inflict upon her.
So far, Xena had managed to control her ferocious impulses remarkably well, but Gabrielle had seen the fire leap in her friends eyes as her hand had started to reach for the slave collar at her throat. She knew that the twin collar, in Caesar's hand, had caused that reaction, and she watched as the Roman passed it to the guard on his left, who then moved forward purposefully towards the bard. Xena reacted automatically, stepping in front of her friend, drawing the younger woman protectively behind her.
Gabrielle glanced anxiously at the soldiers, outside the cell, who stood prepared with nets and batons in abundance. This was obviously going to be a test of Xena's tractability. "It's not the time for this, Xena!" she hissed a warning to her friend as she moved past her and confronted the guard carrying the collar. "If that thing's for me, you better put it on."
A quick look at Caesar to gain his nod of approval, and the soldier took a firm grasp on Gabrielle's arm and led her from the confines of the cell, to where a brazier, a small anvil and a hot rivet awaited use. Xena saw the bard pushed to her knees beside the anvil and the collar placed around her neck.
As she was bent forward so that the protruding tangs could beaten closed by the fastening of the rivet, Xena moved a pace forward, only to be caught in the strong grip of two of Caesar's men. Her strength, she found, was not sufficient to throw them off. She favoured Caesar with a glare, "You don't need to do that, Caesar!" she snarled.
He smiled. The smile of a teacher instructing a particularly slow pupil, "Ah, but Xena," he began, as a hammer pounded the rivet flat, "as I told you before. Those collars are unique. They are impossible to remove, so should either of you slip through my hands, you will easily be identified for what you are .. runaway slaves! .. and returned to me as soon as you are re-taken. And believe me Xena, you would be re-taken!"
He watched her like as eagle would study the rabbit it was about to take for it's dinner. Gabrielle was brought close to the cell, between two guards, and the Roman could see a flicker of concern in his prey's eyes as the bard tried to keep the hot metal away from her skin.
"You know," he told them both, "those collars are worth a king's ransom. You should feel flattered about how highly I prize you both."
"Great!" said the bard with feeling, "Just what a girl needs. A slave collar that's worth more than she is."
Caesar smiled unpleasantly at her, before turning an amused glance at Xena, "Now did I say that?" he asked, his voice almost purring with pleasure. "Have I given you the wrong impression?" He cocked an eyebrow waiting for some form of reply. When it wasn't forthcoming, he continued, "Believe me, you are both worth far, far more than those bounties I put on you. The collars are merely a compliment to how much I do value you."
He nodded to the pair of guards who held Xena. They forced her back towards the stone bench, where the third of the soldiers, who remained in the cell, became busy trailing a long thick chain through the bars, up through a thick ringbolt in the stone ceiling, and down to where he waited further instruction. Xena strained against the men who held her firmly, while Caesar looked over at his physician, "Your medical opinion, Patroclese?" he asked curtly.
The healer had remained unobtrusive and silent throughout the contest of wills between his master and the Warrior Princess. However, when his professional opinion was sought, he answered promptly and to the point, "She'll be back to her full strength in no more than three days, my Lord."
"As I expected," Caesar said with satisfaction. He motioned for the soldier to continue his task.
A heavy padlock was produced and the chain fastened to Xena's manacles, "You'll have the freedom of your cell," Caesar explained to her, "but that chain will give the guards a measure of further control, should you chance to become fractious. It can easily be hauled in from outside of the cell to restrain you." he pointed out unnecessarily. Xena had recognised the chain's function immediately. Digging deep into her re-establishing reserves of strength, she finally shook off the soldiers holding her. But in spite of her urge to rip out Caesar's throat, she remained standing where she was.
Caesar's lips twisted into a sardonic smirk,"Gabrielle will go to the accommodation I've had prepared for her." He saw and recognised the distrust in Xena's eyes, "Don't worry, you'll see her each day. She'll be brought here so that you can see she's unharmed. I won't let anything happen to my key."
"Key to what," asked Xena idly as she gently tested the resistance of the new chain.
"You of course, Xena!" Caesar gestured expansively, "While I've got your irritating little friend tucked up somewhere safe, I've got the way to control you, my sweet," he told her chillingly. "Everything fits into my plans perfectly."
Xena's penetrating stare intensified as she asked coldly, "And those plans would be?"
He smiled at her patronisingly, "All in good time, Xena."
- He is frustratingly insufferable when he becomes smug! - she reminded herself.
"I'll let you know what I want you to know, when I want you to know it," he told her.
Xena made eye contact with him, before she seated herself with elegant slowness on the cushions covering the stone bench. In spite of the chains she looked like a queen giving audience from her throne. Her poise was so cool and self assured as she projected an image of power and control.
Caesar had seen it all before, yet she still impressed him .. although he masked his admiration well, "Make sure you recover your strength quickly, Xena. We have a long journey to make and I wouldn't want you to fall ill on me again."
"A journey?" she probed, although her tone was one of boredom.
"All in good time," he told her condescendingly, '"for now, learn a little patience and obedience."
His words and tone stung and she flared back, "Or what? You'll have me flogged again. I almost escaped you through that the last time." She heard Gabrielle's sharp intake of breath at that, but ignored it as she focused her attention fully on Caesar.
The Roman's face took on an almost demonic cast as he tilted his head and the shadows, thrown by the torches that lit the cell, shifted, "Oh, no," he told her, a maliciousness evident in his tone that was not lost on the Warrior Princess, "I'll have Gabrielle beaten."
Xena threw the bard a wild look of anxiety as she sprang from the bench and took a step towards Caesar. She saw him wave the soldiers into stillness and halted when he barked commandingly, "Just stop, Xena!" He waited to make certain she would obey him, but as she took another step he told her, "Every time you baulk, rebel or fail to respond to an order, it won't be you who receives the punishment," he said with cold intensity, "it will be her," he snapped, pointing at the bard but never taking his eyes off of the warrior.
Xena halted her forward momentum. She was caught in a cleft stick. Her whole being rebelled at the thought of conforming to Caesar's dictates, but he had Gabrielle. She couldn't allow Gabrielle to be harmed. Caesar knew he had her and moved in to complete his victory. He slowly walked to where she could easily get at his pressure points. He could be dead in less than thirty seconds. Her dark soul screamed to be allowed to exact it's revenge, while she ruthlessly crushed it as she thought of Gabrielle.
"Do you want to test the process?" he asked grasping her jaw with his right hand to turn her head towards where Gabrielle struggled against the two men who held her. Flaccus stood behind the bard with a baton that he bounced against the palm of his left hand. "She'll take the punishments for your transgressions, and the only person you'll be able to blame is yourself, for your arrogant pride."
She shook free of his grip and struggled to control the rage that flared within her demanding vengeance. She turned furious eyes upon him, but inflicted a rigid command over herself, her body almost quivering with the violence of emotions that gripped her.
"What's it to be, Xena?" he asked her solicitously in much the same tone he'd ask someone if they enjoyed a meal, "Are you ready to become the biddable slave?" she nearly winced at the words, "Or do I order a beating? How much do you think she can take?"
Breathing deeply to try and calm herself, Xena backed off a step, and then another, "You seem to have the upper hand for now," she conceded reluctantly.
"Not for now, my sweet," he smiled with good humour, "for good." He flipped a hand and watched as the bard was pulled away, towards the dungeon exit. "Xena!" called Gabrielle, shooting looks of anxiety, and sorrow, mixed with a plea that warned against rash actions.
The Warrior Princess watched powerless as Caesar turned his back on her and left the cell, closely followed by Patroclese and the three soldiers. She stood, following him with her eyes, as he moved unhurriedly across the guardroom to exit by the prison door in the wake of Gabrielle.
Under the watchful gaze of her attendant guards, Xena felt constrained to give a performance of calm acceptance of the situation. Inwardly seething, and seeing no answers to the problem at the present time, she could only struggle with her frustration and rage as they gnawed at her. - There has to be a way out of this mess, - she told herself, - I just have to focus on the problem and work out the solution! -
Chapter Nineteen: An Unexpected Visitor!
Escape still seemed an impossible dream. The guards remained as vigilant as ever, perhaps even more so since she had regained her full physical strength. She snapped the chains at her wrists irritably, making them crack like a whip as she strained at them. Caesar hadn't lied about the strength of her bonds either; they were far tougher than the run of the mill shackles that were normally used. The noise the chains made drew instant alertness from all around her cell. No one took anything she did for granted. - It's like being the prize attraction at a menagerie! - she thought sourly as she turned her back on them.
She sat down on her stone bench, now boasting only the two original blankets. "Pillows are not for slaves," she had been told when they were removed by Flaccus and his men. She couldn't have cared less! She was far more used to the hardness of the ground, anyway, so the stone bench served her quite well enough.
Sitting brooding over the prospect of escape, she considered what she knew of her location and surroundings. She was aware of the total environment of her prison with intimate detail. A twelve foot square room, with two solid stone walls, two heavily barred walls and a stone ceiling with a thick ringbolt set into it next to a, barely, head sized, barred, air vent that, maybe a rat could wriggle through.
Beyond her cell she knew only of what she could see and what Gabrielle had told her before being removed from the cell. The guardroom with its watchful occupants, the standard cells where the bard had been kept and, an uncertain description of the corridors beyond the dungeon door. That was it. She'd never been to Nemausus before. She had been unconscious when she had been brought to the cell. She had no idea of the layout of the garrison, or the city streets, or just how many soldiers were around that she might have to fight her way clear of. No matter how she attacked the problem, what angle she considered, what plans she made and discarded, everything came unstuck on one problem. Gabrielle!
The bard was brought into the guardroom for a quarter candlemark visit each day, but was not allowed within the cell. All that Xena knew of where she was held, was that it was a tower room. An added frustration to everything else. The chains snapped again as she strained against them without effect.
Sighing, she glanced at her one real luxury and very minor consolation. Patroclese had started visiting her for a candlemark or two each day, and he had brought with him a lightly constructed travelling stool, .. so flimsy it had no value as a weapon .. upon which he had set a board and some carved figures, "Chess," he had answered to her question about what it was, "It's a game that you should be good at, Xena. It's really a kind of battle board where you use strategy and cunning to defeat your opponent."
He had patiently taught her the movements of the pieces and she had quickly grasped the concept behind the game. As Patroclese had predicted she learnt swiftly and was soon displaying a natural ability that the healer found himself hard pressed to match.
As she studied the game in progress, Xena thought, not for the first time, - It's more closely akin to directing a campaign, rather than just a mere battle. - It suited her competitive nature and gave her something to think about other than her present situation .. which was probably the healer's aim.
She stifled a sigh, realizing it would be some candlemarks before Patroclese showed up for his daily visit. Although she still harboured a resentment for his part in causing her problems, she had grown to appreciate his company. She had never felt a great need for talking in her life. But being around Gabrielle had accustomed her to being spoken to. It was something she missed.
She lay on the bench and closed her eyes and ears to the racket from the soldiers around her. If she couldn't escape physically, there was nothing to keep her within the cell mentally. She allowed her imagination to take her far away, to the fields and woods of home which she had haunted with her younger brother Lyceus.
Lacking a father's presence, and with their mother fully occupied in running the family business, the two youngest children of the family had led a wild idyllic existence as they romped and played, hunted rabbits and spent candlemarks fishing without the constricting influence of adults. It was the happiest time of her life, when innocence was in full flower and nothing evil had slithered into the darkened corners of her mind. Life was full and fresh, with new things to learn, new places to see, and all with a child's curiosity that gave zest to each new experience. Now, the memories were a sweet escape and a form or pure torture for her.
With a startling jolt, her awareness was suddenly pulled back to her current reality. Retaining the outward appearance of total relaxation, she allowed her senses to seek for the 'something' that had warned her of a change in the environment around her in some way. She turned her head to study the soldiers within the guard room. Nothing seemed to be out of place. The currently appointed six attendant watchdogs were keeping their usual vigilant observation of her. The men beyond were occupied with their normal practices; some diced, others mended kit, some took the chance to write letters while others worked nicks out of their sword with whetstones.
She flicked her eyes to where Gaius Blasius sat. He was one of the junior officers and it was his turn to command the guard detail during the present watch. He was a big thickset young man, with a permanently dark shadow around his chin .. no matter how often he shaved .. and a mean look in his eye. He was a bully, both with the men and with Xena.
She'd had several confrontations with him since she'd been back on her feet, although nothing major had come of them with the Warrior Princess having to keep a firm clamp on her temper. Xena knew that he was looking for an opportunity to prove his power over her. He was the kind of man who liked to push around people whom he thought couldn't push back. At the moment he was fully occupied in dressing down some hapless soldier who had gotten on his wrong side.
Nothing unusual there, then, to have disturbed the delicate hair trigger on her senses. Yet something was different. She could feel someone other than the six guards watching her, and if the feeling wasn't coming from the soldiers, then there was only one other location for an observer to be hidden ... the air vent!
Her eyes sharpened to narrow slits as they swivelled in the direction of the vent and sought to penetrate the darkness within. She hadn't been mistaken! Above her, looking out from the small, barred, hole was a face she recognised.
Moving slowly, as if stretching tight muscles, she brushed a finger across her lips to command silence. The head nodded it's agreement leaving it to Xena to work on a way to allow communication between them. The Warrior Princess thought quickly. She was going to have to get up to that air vent if she wanted to exchange words with her visitor. The guards were going to see her do it, no matter how she went about it. Her only option was to take them by surprise, and ignore them as long as possible. The conversation would have to be quick, but it was the best she could do. She just hoped that the repercussions wouldn't be too severe.
Getting to her feet, she stretched .. as far as she was able to .. theatrically, and within the blink of an eye, she had launched herself upwards to catch the ceiling ringbolt, "Autolycus?" she whispered, as she swung on the ring. If she could make it look like a form of exercise it might gain her time.
"Sir!" yelled out one of the guards, "You better look at this," she heard him say.
"Fancy finding you here," grinned the thief impudently, "More to the point, how do we get you out of here?"
"You don't!" she whispered back at him. "Find Gabrielle and get her away. I'll find a way of getting myself loose as soon as I know she's safe."
"What's going on?" demanded Blasius' deep voice.
"She's here?" asked Autolycus softly, relief evident in his voice, "We hadn't been able to find any trace of her." He thought quickly, "Do you know where she is."
"A tower room, somewhere in the building," she hissed back as she watched Blasius heading for the cell door.
Hey!" shouted Blasius at her, "What do you think you're doing? Get down from there now!"
"What about you?" asked the thief, concerned about the situation he saw developing.
"Just get Gabrielle out and I'll be fine." she told him softly, barely moving her lips, as she watched the progress of the guards. The key was being fitted into the lock and it looked like a good ten men were going to enter the cell.
"Liar," Autolycus told her, "but we'll do what we can. Try not to upset everyone."
"Who me?" she returned mockingly, "As if!"
"You .. slave!" shouted Blasius, fury evident in his every move, "Get down here, now!"
Xena did a couple of extra long swings on the ring, before using the trailing chain to climb down in a neat display of the skills she had learned in her piratical past. She came to rest gently on the floor of the cell in front of Blasius and assumed an attitude of insolent relaxation to make sure she kept his full attention on her while Autolycus moved silently out of sight.
"What do you think you were doing?" he demanded with angry suspicion, his eyes looking up to the ring and sliding over the air vent with a dismissive flick.
Xena looked at him, her eyes mocking. She arched an eyebrow at him and replied with flippant sarcasm, "I was getting ready to escape through the hole up there."
With absolutely no warning, Blasius hit her powerfully across the jaw with a balled fist, cracking her head to one side with the force of the blow. He seemed a little shocked that it hadn't felled her, but he ground out, "Slaves are not permitted to speak to Romans in that manner!" She slowly turned her head back until she was able to look him full in the face. She didn't move or speak, but the junior officer took a hurried step away from her as her eyes seemed to promise imminent death. "We'll see what the Centurion has to say about this," he told her, trying to regain the upper hand in the situation, but unwilling to make eye contact with her again.
He made a signal and four of the soldiers, outside of the cell, began hauling in on the chain until, with her arms hoisted above her head and her toes barely touching the floor, they were satisfied that she could cause no harm. Blasius looked at her smugly, and snarled, "Hang around for a while, 'til the Centurion gets back. I'm sure he'll be interested to hear all about this."
The guards left the cell and Xena looked up critically at her wrists. She could probably alleviate some of the pressure by climbing up the chain again, but she knew that would just stir more trouble. Hanging there was uncomfortable, but she could bear it, while necessary.
Time would reveal what repercussions would emanate from her little chat with Autolycus. If she was lucky, nothing would come of it. If Caesar felt she needed a lesson, then she knew it would be Gabrielle who suffered. The thought hurt! But if Autolycus and the others - He said we! - she thought wondering just who else was with him, were able to get Gabrielle away, then it might have been worth the risk.
- The man doesn't know any other way to move! - thought Xena irritably. Her wrists were chaffing with painful weals cut into the flesh and her hands felt alternately numb and afire with vicious needles being stuck into them.
The cell door swung open to admit the Centurion and his junior officer, along with four baton wielding guardsmen. Flaccus stood directly before her and looked her up and down, much as he would inspect a body of troops on parade, "What did you think you were doing?" he demanded.
Xena had considered what her answer should be. She had been flippant with Blasius, because the man's bully boy attitude irritated her and she despised him. Flaccus was a different kettle of fish altogether. He was a hard taskmaster, true. But he was generally fair and administered punishment only where he judged it to be warranted.
"She looked at him levelly and gave him an answer, "I was taking some exercise," she explained. "You know a warrior's body needs to be conditioned to remain at it's peak."
"You are slave," he pointed out, "as such you have no right to do anything other than what you are ordered to do, that includes taking exercise, if that was indeed what you were doing."
He looked at the ringbolt above them and then looked intently at the air vent. He knew full well that his prisoner could not escape through such a small space, but could she have been communicating with someone. There were rumours of men asking questions within the city. It was one of the things he had been summoned to discuss with the Emperor. - The question is, could one have found a way to use the air vent to talk to the woman? -
He turned his attention back the Warrior Princess, "You disobeyed an order, slave. You know the punishment for that." He looked at her jaw where the evidence of Blasius's fist was beginning to show in a purpling patch of skin, "It seems, however, that you have already received some punishment.." He turned the full force of his, not inconsiderable, gaze upon Blasius in silent reprimand. The junior office's arrogant stance wilted before his superior's look.
Flaccus turned his focus back to her considering for a moment, "However, there are rules, and you will learn to heed them. When is the bard due for her next visit?" he snapped at Blasius.
"She should be here any time, sir," answered the junior officer promptly. Eager to regain his commander's favour.
"When she gets here she's to receive three strokes as punishment for this slave's failure to respond to an order. Then she is to be taken right back to her own cell. There will be no communication between them today," he said allowing his glance to stray back to the vent. Then Flaccus pronounced. "Keep her close hauled," he said pointing to Xena with his thumb, "You can relax the restraint after the bard has been strapped and removed."
He looked hard at Xena who returned his gaze with cold silence, "Do you have anything to say?" he questioned flatly, then added when she failed to respond, "A wise decision."
He marched from the cell, trailing his men in his wake. Xena boiled with impotent anger, and just hoped that Gabrielle would understand, eventually, what had happened to cause the beating she was going to receive. - Autolycus, - she offered up silently, - I just hope you can get her out of here soon. -
She had been brought over to the cell bars and had been instructed to take a firm grip on them. Which she did, although she was far more concerned to see Xena hauled up off of her feet. By the look of the colour of her hands, she'd been like that for some candlemarks. "In punishment for the slave, Xena, failing to obey an order," Flaccus intoned, "the slave, Gabrielle, will receive three strokes of the strap."
The strap was a wide leather belt that would inflict maximum pain, without unduly damaging the flesh of the victim, and could be administered without removing the clothes. A young soldier had been given the task of delivering the punishment .. a task that Blasius would have obviously have liked to have been given. The soldier wasn't light handed, but he didn't swing the strap in the brutal way that Blasius would have done.
As the first blow landed, Gabrielle drew a sharp intake of breath and expelled it quickly with a pained grunt.
"I'm sorry," mouthed Xena to her.
The bard shook her head, as if to say, it was alright, she'd be fine. The second blow fell causing her to gasp and her eyes blinked back the tears that were forming behind them.
Xena locked her eyes on her friend, trying to will some of her own fortitude into the bard, remembering all too well the agony of the whipping she had endured. With Gabrielle looking directly at her, she mouthed the name, "Autolycus."
Looking at Xena in astonished surprise, the bard failed to tense for the third and final stroke and so, with her body more relaxed, rode the blow a little better, although she still gave a cry of pain, as much through shock as anything. She was given no time to speak, as the guards instantly hurried her from the dungeon.
Xena watched her go and hoped that the bard had understood the meaning she was trying to convey. She thought it likely, but it was impossible to tell for sure. With luck, Gabrielle would be alert for any sign that the King of Thieves .. and whichever companions he had to help him .. was looking to rescue her.
Lost in her thoughts, Xena had failed to register the guard as he moved to release the restraining chain. Yet she instinctively dropped lightly back to the cell floor, where she slowly, began to massage some feeling back into her hands.
As for her importance to Caesar, she had few illusions about that. He cared little or nothing about her, personally; she was merely the instrument to ensure Xena's total compliance with his wishes. Without the Warrior Princess, Caesar would have no use for a bard from Potidaea!
She wandered around her, comparatively, comfortable 'room'. She had a reasonably good bed, a small desk for her writing materials, a chair and even some reading scrolls, courtesy of Patroclese, who continued to visit her each day, for a short while, before her guards turned up to escort her for her daily visit with Xena.
The journey to the dungeon was quite a long one. Caesar had taken pains to see her lodged as far as possible from the Warrior Princess. The entire length of the garrison complex had to be traversed before reaching the dungeons where Xena was kept under close guard.
Her visits to the prison never lasted long .. usually just time enough to allow the Warrior Princess to see that the bard remained unharmed .. so long as both parties obeyed the rules and behaved themselves. There was little time for much talk, and what they did manage was closely monitored. Everything had been designed to limit their opportunity to conspire in the slim possibility of an escape attempt.
She felt frustrated, used and helpless. She was angry at her treatment and furious over the treatment of her friend .. although she had been pleased to note over the past few days, that Xena was displaying growing signs of health and vitality. She knew that with the Warrior Princess at her physical peak, they stood a far greater chance of extricating themselves from their predicament.
Sighing she sank onto her bed, only to rise again with a sharp, "Ow!" as she was reminded of the reason for her early return to her cell, that last stroke had descended squarely over her buttocks. Unable to settle, she wandered over to the only window in her accommodation. It was a good sized opening that let in plenty of light, but had been recently equipped with a thickly barred grill that prevented any possible chance of escape.
- Even without those bars, I'd never be able to get out of here on my own, - she thought as she looked out at one of the city's main market squares, some distance below her. The thought of climbing out the window in an escape attempt made her shiver with fear, - Coward! - she accused herself, but knew that didn't make her any less afraid of heights.
As she had frequently come to do, she lost her thoughts in the milling masses that haunted the market square. She liked to pass the time by imagining herself free to wander around the stalls to look at the goods, and maybe haggle with a seller over the price of a scarf, - Or a new frying pan, - she smiled to herself, - if Xena's managed to bust one up in some fight! -
Something familiar attracted her attention, she wasn't quite sure what it had been .. the way someone walked, the set to a pair of shoulders, a hat, maybe, or .. - That was it! A warriors helmet ... well at least a helmet! - she knew that the man under it was far from any real warrior she'd ever met!
Her eyes searched frantically, trying to find that unique piece of headgear once again. She went rigid when she spotted it and willed the face under it to look up and see her, so she could make certain of what she so desperately wanted to see, - Gods! I must be going stir crazy to be desperate to see him! - she thought.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, the crowd seemed to open up, and not only Joxer, but Iolaus also, looked up at her. Their eyes made contact with hers and she felt a warm glow as smiles of delight lit their faces, dazzling her in the emotion of the moment. Friendly faces become a resource to treasure when you are surrounded by enemies and strangers. She waved extravagantly to them and saw Joxer start to raise his hand in reply, before Iolaus knocked it down and gestured with his jaw at the walls of the garrison, - Soldiers on duty! - was Gabrielle's immediate thought.
Her attention was drawn away by a commotion as a squad of Legionaries bulled their way through the crowd towards the spot where Iolaus and Joxer had been standing. Gabrielle swung a worried look back to where she had last seen her friends, but the swell of the crowds had swallowed them, and the pair were no longer to be seen.
Turning away from the window, the bard felt a lightness of heart that she had almost forgotten could exist. She didn't know how Joxer had come to be there with Iolaus, but at least she now knew for sure that they had friends close-by. The fact that Xena had mouthed Autolycus' name said clearly she had at least seen him .. how, she had no idea .. and if she knew their friends at all, they would be working on some way to free both her and Xena from Caesar's captivity.
Chapter Twenty: A Hurried Departure!
However, it wasn't the local beverages that were souring his mood. He and the others had been in Nemausus for four days now (the journey from Narbo had taken closer to four days than the two that Autolycus had predicted, mainly due to the amount of military traffic on the roads), and had found out almost nothing except that there was a fabulous treasure being closely guarded in the garrison.
He took a draft of the mead and grimaced at the taste. He'd spent the best part of the morning moving from tavern to tavern trying to find any information on either Xena or Gabrielle. News on either was not forthcoming, although he had heard talk of a good hearted healer named Patroclese, who was Caesar's personal physician, and was resident in the garrison building in the city.
Now, Toris sat waiting for the others to return. Iolaus and Joxer had been doing the rounds of the market places, looking to see if they could overhear any rumours that would help them place the bard in the city. They were all, more or less, convinced that the 'treasure' had to be Xena. They could think of nothing else to explain her mysterious disappearance and the sudden emergence of such a valuable cargo. But the other's were adamant that they needed to find Gabrielle as well.
As for Autolycus .. well the thief had been very closed mouthed about what he intended doing that morning. He had mentioned something about a lead that might get him into the garrison, but would not be drawn on it, and refused to allow anyone else to accompany him, pointing out that, "I'm the professional here, so let me do my job."
He looked up as he became aware of the return of Joxer and Iolaus. The pair wore happy grins, and Joxer looked like he was going to burst with the news that he was eager to relay to Toris. "What have you found out?" demanded the dark haired man as the other two sat down at the table.
Before Iolaus could reply, Joxer answered jubilantly, "We've seen her!", provoking warning glares from his companions who preferred that the whole taproom didn't know their business.
"Quietly, Joxer," hissed Iolaus, before turning his attention to Toris and explaining, "We've seen Gabrielle. She's being held in the high tower at the southern end of the building." He grinned, relief evident in his look, "At least we know she's there now. perhaps we can start to do something to get her out."
"What about Xena?" hissed Toris. "Did you see any sign of her?" he demanded, his voice low and vibrant.
"No," admitted the blonde, "but we can be certain that if Gabrielle's there, then Xena is going to be there too. Especially as Caesar's there, and that treasure hasn't moved either."
"That Patroclese is in there as well," Toris told them. "He's Caesar's personal physician. It looks fairly obvious that the man managed to trick both Xena and the bard into Caesar's trap."
"What are we gonna do?" asked Joxer, "I'd give up my life to get them free, but Caesar's got a whole legion in there guarding them, and I don't think the four of us are going to be able tackle all of them. I mean I'll do my bit, I am after all Joxer the Mighty, but I can hardly expect those of you who aren't mighty warriors to fight trained soldiers."
Iolaus scowled at the wannabe warrior, "There's not a legion in there, Joxer, but there's more than we can handle on our own, at least head on." He signed, a note of frustration in his tone, "We can't do anything until Autolycus gets back," he told them. "We need to get into that garrison without raising too much fuss, and he's our best hope for that."
"Do we go up to our room, or do we wait here?' asked Toris.
"Upstairs I think," Iolaus told him, sending a glance at Joxer, "There's less chance that our conversation will be overheard."
Joxer looked at him with an offended frown, "Hey, I know how to keep quiet, when it's necessary."
"It's necessary right now Joxer," Iolaus told him, "Try not to say another word ... ever."
"Ha! Ha!" responded his companion sarcastically.
The three of them made their way to the stairs climbing the three flights to their attic room. It had been the only one left in the establishment big enough to take all four of them. Besides which, it commanded a good view of the streets around them and they had sight of the main road to the garrison. It had proven to be perfect for their needs.
Inside, they found Autolycus busy trying to divest himself of the thick dust that covered him from head to foot. He sneezed heavily, sending up a cloud from his hair and clothing. The other's waved hands in front of their faces and coughed as the dust tickled their throats.
"What in Hades' name have you been doing?" demanded Iolaus as Joxer swung the door shut behind them. The small man moved to the window and opened it to let some fresh air into the room. There was a narrow ledge just outside that allowed the Landlord some access to his roof in case it needed fixing at any time.
Autolycus ignored him as he stripped off his tunic and took it to the window where he waved it frantically, trying to get rid of the worst of the accumulated grime, before hanging his head out and rubbing it with his hands vigorously. When he was satisfied that he'd removed the worst of the debris, he turned back into the room and chose one of the four beds to lounge back on.
There was a glint in his eye that spoke volumes. He had news and was eager to share it. He waited as Toris and Joxer took seats on one of the other beds, while Iolaus leaned against the wall by the open window, "Come on Autolycus, what have you found out," the smaller man encouraged.
"They're both in the barracks," the thief told them with a satisfied smile.
"We've seen Gabrielle," chirped in Joxer, keen to get in his contribution, "She's in the high tower at the south end of the building. She waved to me and Iolaus, so at least she knows we're here."
"The soldiers seem to know we're here too," pointed out Iolaus. "I don't know if either of you have noticed anything, but while Joxer and I were in that market square this morning we had to step pretty smartly to avoid a squad of legionaries who looked like they were heading in our direction."
"It was bound to happen," Autolycus answered, although he sounded a little concerned, "With people asking questions, about an obviously sensitive issue, Caesar was sure to get interested at some point. We just have to make sure we stay clear of trouble until we can work a way to get them out ... which I might add is not going to be easy."
"What's up?" demanded Toris, certain that the thief's reply alluded to a problem over his sister. "Have you found anything out about Xena?" he asked sharply.
Autolycus debated with himself over just how much he should reveal to the Warrior Princess's excitable brother. In the time that they had known each other, he had assessed that Toris did not always think things through before taking action. He tended to have his sister's burning anger, but lacked her iron control. In this present situation it could prove to be a problem. However, he guessed that should he try to keep something back from Toris, the man could erupt like a volcano and destroy any chance they had of getting the two women free.
"C'mon, Autolycus," prompted Iolaus impatiently guessing that something had worried the thief within the garrison, "tell us what happened. The four of us should be able to calmly work out what to do once we have something to go on." It was obvious that the small blonde understood his concerns by the emphasis he'd put on the word 'calmly'. Iolaus would help to control Toris and his volatile temper.
The thief played idly with a lockpick as he told them, "I've seen her and spoken to her," he told them simply, watching their reactions.
Joxer let out a low whistle, "How'd you manage that?" he asked, obviously impressed.
"Being a thief has it's advantages," he told them buffing his nails on his tunic, "and being the King of Thieves gives me more advantages than most."
Iolaus looked as though he was going to be sick over the sound of the thief's egotism, but instead he readied himself to make an impatient demand for more information, while Toris looked ready to explode, so Autolycus continued quickly, "I found a way into the garrison through an old pipe that led into the hypercaust and from there into some air shafts that run throughout the building. I poked around in there until I happened across the one that ran above the dungeons. As luck would have it, there was a vent from the shaft above Xena's cell."
"Then why didn't you get her out of there?" demanded Toris without thinking.
"Listen, hot stuff," Autolycus told him with heavy sarcasm, "Just how was I supposed to get her through an air vent smaller than her head?"
"You didn't say that before," subsided Toris grumpily.
"Use your brains," the thief told him. "Don't you think I'd have got her out if I could?" he demanded, and then added, "Besides, there are other problems."
"Like what?" asked Joxer ingenuously.
The thief scowled, "Like she's in a cell that's open to view by the soldiers in the guardroom. Like she's wearing a heavy set of leg irons and manacles that are fastened to a ringbolt in the ceiling. Like there's at least forty guards in that guard unit around that cell. Like she's watched at all times by at least six men, and like she refuses to go anywhere until she knows Gabrielle's safe." Autolycus told them, ticking off the points on his fingers.
"Hold it," said Iolaus puzzled, "back up! Just how did you manage to talk to her in those circumstances."
"Quietly, my friend. Very quietly," the thief told him seriously. He sat upright and gave them the gist of how Xena had arranged to get a few brief words with him, "As soon as the guards came rushing into the cell, I had to pull back out of sight. The Xena I know wouldn't meekly give in to those Romans like she did. They must be doing something to force her obedience to their orders. My guess is they're threatening Gabrielle, which is why Xena won't think of going anywhere until she knows the bard's safe."
"Damn," swore Iolaus, thinking hard, "How do we get her out of that?"
"There's something you're not telling us?" Toris said intuitively.
Autolycus sighed, "Look, you gotta understand that to those goons, your sister is something akin to a cross between a hydra and a demon from the pit, though she seems perfectly well and healthy," he assured Toris hastily.
"But?" prompted the dark haired man.
"But they're not treating her any too kindly. I saw that young officer punch her before I left ... hard enough to have left me seeing stars. She's also got a slave collar on, though I'll tell you I've never seen anything like the metal it was made from."
"What does Caesar think he's up to?" questioned Iolaus in perplexity, trying to find some kind of sense to it all, "I mean from everything Xena's told me about him, I'd have thought the first thing he'd have done was to have her executed ... but try and make a slave of her? What's he think he's going to do? He's having to tie up men and resources keeping her under constant watch. I just can't figure out what he's up to."
Toris looked at each of the men in the room as they pondered over the question. Not for the first time he wondered how his sister had managed to collect such a disparate selection of men as friends. In their own ways, each of these men knew far more about Xena than he ever would. Oh, he had all the childhood memories, that none of them could really know or share, but they had been a part of her adult life that he'd been excluded from due to their long separation and the total divergence of their lives since Cortese's attack on Amphipolis. "Look," Toris growled in frustration, "can someone please tell me why this Roman hates my sister so much?"
The others looked at him in surprise, taking it for granted that he knew the background to the situation. Joxer blurted out incredulously, "Doesn't your family ever talk? I know Xena isn't a great one for chatting, but surely she must have talked to her family at some time?!"
Toris looked at him, something of a pained expression lay under the mask that he was trying to draw over his emotions, "Xena and I haven't been close for many years. The only things that I'd heard about her were bad," his eyes became distant with memory. "Until I met up with her, a while back, I'd had no idea that she'd turned her back on the evil she was pursuing."
He pursed his lips in an expression that was strongly reminiscent of the Warrior Princess, "We didn't' have a whole lot of time for talking when we were together. She told me something of what happened after I'd left home, but she didn't go in to any detailed explanations of her history, and I didn't ask. It didn't seem relevant at the time."
Iolaus, Autolycus and Joxer looked at each other in surprise. They all knew the basic outline of Xena's history; Joxer probably knew most of her more recent life, but Iolaus had a better, over-all, grasp of the entire story. Getting a nod from Autolycus, Iolaus began to fill in some of the gaps for Toris, before Joxer could launch into a rambling monologue. Trying to cover the details as briefly as possible, Iolaus began, "After Xena had beaten off that warlord at Amphipolis ...."
"Cortese," put in Toris with grimace. Thoughts of that time were still painful for him.
"Right," agreed the blonde man, "Anyway, she started to get ambitious. Protecting Amphipolis became an urge to conquer and she ravaged more territories, eventually expanding her operations into sea raids."
"I know that part," Toris told him, "Where does Caesar fit into all of this?"
Iolaus thought for a moment, "On one of those sea raids, her men captured a young Roman noble by the name of Julius Caesar. She ransomed him for the huge sum of 100,000 dinars and, while she waited for delivery of the ransom, she became charmed by the Roman and fell in love with him. When she got the money for him, she released him and he promised to find her again."
"And?" demanded Xena's brother.
The small man looked hard at Toris before continuing, "When he did meet up with her again, he came not as a lover, but as an enemy. He took her captive with a trick and crucified her and every man in her crew."
Toris swallowed hard. Crucifiction was a hard, painful way to die. But in honesty, he had to admit to himself, piracy merited no less. Still, he had to know what had happened, "How did she survive that?" he asked, "Did she managed to free herself from the cross somehow?"
"Not quite," butted in Joxer, "Caesar also ordered that her legs were to be broken. None of the others, just her. The man she loved really betrayed her. There was no way she should have escaped from that."
However," continued Iolaus, "a slave girl she had befriended rescued her and took her to a healer. But Caesar wasn't ready to let her go. He sent a squad after her with orders to kill her. When they caught up to Xena, at the healer's, the slave girl was killed in the fighting. The whole rotten affair seemed to twist something in Xena and she turned into the monster that so many of the stories tell of."
Toris shook his head. It was so hard to believe. He'd missed so much of Xena's life that, when hearing about these things, it seemed like he was hearing the story of some stranger. He looked at Iolaus, "But why, after all this time is Caesar still holding a grudge?"
Iolaus smiled tightly, "They've had at least a couple of run ins since I've known Xena. Your sister recently orchestrated the rout of Caesar's troops, by Boadicea's army in Britannia. More recently still, she was in Rome where, the rumours say, she tried to assassinate him. All in all, I'd say if there were two people in this world that hated each other more, I've never heard of them."
Toris looked bleak. His sister's troubled path through life had not been easy. He was aware that his own life was driven by powerful emotions that forced him into courses of action without him always being aware of it. But by comparison to Xena, his motivating forces were little more than a tricking stream in relation to the raging torrent of a major river in flood. He looked at Iolaus, "Then why is she still alive? If their mutual hatred is so great, why hasn't Caesar finished what he started long ago."
Iolaus shrugged, "That's what I said."
Autolycus had been studying and weighing his companions as Iolaus delivered his history of the Warrior Princess. Joxer, of course was ... Joxer! An innocent abroad, so to speak. Inept but loyal to a fault. Just occasionally he could come up with a brilliant flash of inspiration at the right moment to solve a problem. But, at the moment he showed no sign of shedding light on the situation.
It was so easy to dismiss Iolaus as Hercules' tag along sidekick. But experience had taught the King of Thieves that the small man was both resourceful and competent in difficult situations. However, like Joxer, the short blonde had no idea of what Caesar was after, or how they were going to get their friends loose.
Toris was the type of man who sought quick easy solutions without understanding the full consequences his actions might bring. He actually knew less about his sister than any of the other men in the room and so the likelihood of him being able to provide the answers to the questions, "What's going on?" and "How do we solve the problem?" looked to be very slim.
That meant it was down to him. His ego was big enough that he could normally take such responsibilities in his stride, and so he set his mind to twisting the few facts that he was aware of into some kind of hypothesis. "Go along with me on this, for a minute," he said to the others when the tension and silence in the room had become something tangible. A nod from each of the men gave him sanction to continue. "We know that if Caesar was running true to form, he would have had Xena and Gabrielle executed. He's got everything he needs to do it. Xena's been convicted of piracy, she's directed rebellion in Britannia and she tried to assassinate the man in Rome. Gabrielle was at least involved in the revolt in Britannia so he has the legal right there too."
"Does Caesar really care about legalities?" asked Iolaus irritably, gazing moodily out of the window.
"Probably not," admitted the thief, "but we know he has the legal right, and we know that he has pursued their deaths in the past, ergo, if he hasn't killed them yet he wants to use them for something ... and I don't mean just as slaves," he added hurriedly as he saw Joxer start to ask a question.
"Seems like we've, more or less, said the same thing already," pointed out Toris quietly, trying to keep a lid on his impulses and finding it something of a struggle.
"Just hear me out," encouraged Autolycus. "We can be fairly confident that he's using Gabrielle as a hostage for Xena's good behaviour."
"Obviously," put in Joxer with impatient sarcasm.
"But why bring them both here to Narbonensis?" asked the thief ignoring Joxer's comment.
That had them all thinking for a while, but Joxer grinned brightly, "They had to come here to spring the trap at Isumbras' warehouse. Xena was hardly likely to walk into Rome again so soon." he finished with a smug sneer at what he saw as Autolycus's short sightedness.
"No wait a minute, Joxer," said Iolaus, suddenly seeming to understand what Autolycus was getting at, "Why didn't Caesar just get on a boat for Rome when he'd caught Xena? Why drag her up here to Nemausus? And why bring Gabrielle here at all, when it would have been quicker and safer to take her straight to Rome?"
Toris looked a little confused, "Whatever he wants Xena for has something to do with Narbonensis?" he asked puzzled.
"No!" disagreed Autolycus, his face seeming to light up as the last piece of the puzzle dropped into place, "Not Narbonensis, but Gaul!" He looked at the bemused faces around him. He knew he was going to have to explain his thoughts to them, "We know that Xena went to Rome and that she was arrested for trying to assassinate Caesar. Well at the same time that all that was going on, a Gaul chieftain was going to be executed by Caesar."
"Verchinex," offered Joxer.
"Bless you!" came the identical response from the other three men.
"No!" drawled Joxer as he tried to make them understand, "The Gaul's name was Verchinex. I read about it in Gabby's scrolls. Xena tricked Caesar so that she could rescue this Gaul."
"But I heard that the execution took place," objected Toris.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," put in Autolycus, "I heard some rumours about that. Something about it not being the Gaul executed, but Crassus, the third member of the triumvirate. Everyone dismissed the rumours because it was a known fact that Crassus died in Syria."
"That was the name of the other man in Gabby's scroll," announced Joxer, "Gabrielle switched this Crassus for Verchinex before the execution could took place."
"Whew!" whistled Iolaus, impressed, "Caesar must have been boiling mad over that."
"It also explains why Caesar's here. He promised the subjugation of Gaul to the Roman's. With Verchinex back with his people, something's got to be done before the whole thing blows up in his face."
"I don't see how Xena and Gabrielle are going to be any use in dealing with that," grumbled Joxer disbelievingly.
"Neither do I," admitted Autolycus, "but I'll bet my reputation that Caesar's got something planned involving them."
"Heads up!" said Iolaus suddenly, as a noise from the street attracted his attention. "You know I was worried about those soldiers in the market this morning? Well it looks like we can worry about them being here, now!"
Toris and Joxer scrambled to look out of the window, while Autolycus dived for the door and stuck his head out to hear the heavy thump of Roman soldiers charging up the stairs. He slammed the door shut, locked it and yelled, "Give me a hand to block this."
A bed was quickly dragged across the doorway and other bedding and beds thrown up against it as a hammering began on the other side. Wood splintered as an axe was used to cut through the obstruction.
"That's not going to hold them long," Toris said as he drew his sword, ready to defend himself, "We need another way out of here ... and quick!" he added as the axe blade bit again to remove a large splinter of wood.
As Iolaus pulled his own blade and Joxer fumbled his out, Autolycus grabbed for his bag of tricks and pulled out his specially constructed, high powered, pistol crossbow, "If we've got just a few moment's I can get us away from here," he told them as he darted for the window.
"Be quick," Iolaus encouraged him, as a large chunk of the door began to disappear now under the assault of two heavy axes.
Autolycus climbed out onto the small ledge outside the window, and swayed backwards quickly as a volley of arrows shot up from the road, "That was close," he muttered. "Good thing that the angle's wrong for them."
He took careful aim with his crossbow and sent a small, heavy set, dart winging across the street to a lower house, trailing a thin, very strong cord behind it. The dart bit into the gable of an attic window with great penetration. Autolycus swayed out of the way of another shower of arrows, before using the bow to shoot another bolt into their room's gable, and then stretched the cord tight.
"Hurry," shouted Iolaus as the door caved in under the axes and the soldiers began to push at the obstruction made by the bedding.
"Ready," returned the thief, "Toris you first."
"Why me?" asked Xena's brother, eager to get the chance to fight against the Romans who were abusing his sister.
"Because you're worth most to Caesar, so don't argue, and bring a blanket!" yelled back Autolycus.
Toris slid his sword back into it's sheath and climbed hurriedly onto the ledge with the blanket, a question in his eyes. He glanced back when he heard the clash of steel as Iolaus and Joxer tried to discourage the Romans from what they were doing, "Throw the blanket over the line hang onto it and swing down to the next roof," the thief explained quickly. "Don't look down and try not to worry too much if an arrow or two flies your way. When you get to the other side hang on for Joxer, then climb over the roof and get out of here."
Toris nodded his understanding and pushed himself off, careening wildly down the rope, to land heavily on the roof of the next building. The move had taken the archers below completely by surprise, so he at least didn't have to worry about that.
"Joxer," called Autolycus, "You next."
"Go on, Joxer," insisted Iolaus, as he parried a thrusting spear that probed through the doorway. "I'll hold them off."
Joxer sheathed his sword, grabbed a blanket and climbed unsteadily out beside Autolycus, "I really don't like heights," he said sickly, as he swayed forward dizzily.
The King of Thieve's grabbed his arm, threw the blanket over the line and tightened Joxer's grip around the end's. "Don't look down," he told him.
"Perhaps, I'd better stay and help Iolaus," he said to the thief, but before he could let go of the blanket, Autolycus gave him a strong push that sent him careering over the edge, "Watch out for the archers!" he yelled.
"Arrrhhhhhh!" screamed Joxer as he flew across the intervening space to be caught by Toris.
"Nicely phrased," muttered Autolycus as he turned to yell for Iolaus.
The small blonde man, swung his sword in a wide arc to encourage the soldiers to back off to give him enough time to grab a blanket and leap for the window. He swung it over the line and with the thief holding one side and him the other they launched themselves off the ledge for the safety of the next building.
"Yodalayheehoo!" yelled Autolycus as they sped down at an increasing rate and felt the brush of close passing arrows as they went.
Toris was busy hauling Joxer up over the apex of the roof and Autolycus, with Iolaus, scrambled quickly to join them. As he reached the top of the roof, Autolycus, ever the showman, turned back to the frustrated Legionaries and gave them an impudent bow, before following his friends down the other side, where they were able to shin down a trellis and disappear into the crowded streets of the city.