Isobel Read online

  Aemelia shrugged.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to be a noblewoman. Claudio was right, the Romans are going to come here. And he can keep you from being important, in their empire. But the Greeks are another thing, entirely. We will introduce you as a princess, and they’ll treat you like a queen.”

  That sounded okay to Aemelia.

  “But we’ll leave the island?” she asked.

  “As long as you like, this will be home, but we’ll spend the fine months away, and someday you’ll go to Greece and stay there.”

  “My mother was Greek?”

  Isobel nodded.

  “We’d used mixed language before that, but after she left, we only spoke Greek, here. I thought I could at least raise you as her daughter.”

  “And you want me to be Greek.”

  “I want you to be whatever you want to be.”

  “Can I be Egyptian?”

  “No.”

  She’d heard funny stories about Egyptians. She thought she’d at least ask.

  “I’ll be Greek, then.”

  Isobel nodded.

  “Good. It’s settled, then.”

  “Can I go play now?”

  Isobel smiled.

  “Yes. Go play.”

  Augusta

  Augusta leaned against a tree, reading the tracks. Somewhere to her left, Claudia was in cover, ready to pounce on anything Augusta flushed, and Simone was off to her right, following rabbit traces. Augusta felt the warm, worn grip on her spear where the fabric and leather tied there had absorbed the sweat off of her palms. Her spear.

  She missed Maximus, sometimes. But not while she was hunting. He never would have stood for his wife to be out in the fields, matching wits with wild animals. Maximus had been aspirational like that.

  They said Bethany had been the first one. The only survivor of a tribal spat somewhere around here, with a baby sucking milk. She’d stumbled onto Isobel and just thrown herself on the mercy of the strange woman.

  And Isobel had cared for her.

  It probably wouldn’t have been anything, except that the Gauls were barbarians.

  Barbarians.

  The Romans took a settlement, they at least had the decency to take everyone left standing as slaves. A pair of brothers, Gauls, had split a kingdom. A sad little range of forest, really. And then one of them said something about the other one’s wife, or something equally trivial, and they’d launched a war. The problem was, one of the brothers was an idiot, and the other, a sadist. The sociopath had led his men to the slaughter of the idiot’s army, a warband of scarcely a dozen men, and when his men had gone to take the spoils of war - mostly additional wives, in a land where no one had anything - the sociopath had forbidden it. He said he was going to let them fend for themselves. Starve. That the entire community would be extinct by spring.

  Only Isobel and Bethany found them, first.

  The first winter was rough. Women died. Children starved. Because while Gaelic women were tough - Augusta had to give it to them - they didn’t hunt. That was men’s work. Isobel taught them, and they made it. They’d lived hand-to-mouth for another year - Augusta had found them early that fall - and then the men started to hear rumors of a community of hunting women, just ripe for the picking.

  And the raids had started.

  Women had died.

  Children had gone missing.

  But they’d held them off.

  Every time, everyone was sure it was going to be the last time. The men outnumbered them, often as not, and they were better equipped and more experienced.

  Isobel told her the secret once. The reason that they always won.

  Most of the women had children.

  And they thought of their little camp as home.

  And women fighting for their children and their home were fearsome.

  Augusta had seen mild-tempered Latin women put spears through men’s bodies. She’d done it herself. Isobel knew.

  The tracks on the ground in front of her were recent. There had been rain the night before, and she could tell from the spacing how much the deer should weigh, and by the depth, how moist the ground had been when the animal went by. Augusta hefted her spear again, following on soft, leather-bound feet. She’d worn wooden shoes in Rome. Even a few stone ones, when that was in fashion. She’d never imagined how much her feet could know about the world simply by resting on the ground. She left the prints clear, in case someone else needed to follow them later, and kept to mossy stones when she could. Isobel taught them that leaving no trail meant being safer. They had a territory. Everyone knew their territory, but their camp moved. They were hard to find. It had meant a couple of brutal massacres, here lately, where one of the scouting women had found a raiding party before they’d gotten anywhere close, and had gotten back in time for the hunters to set up an ambush. They hadn’t even taken any injuries.

  The only ones allowed in were the traders. The traders came, but usually the same ones. Fearfully. Isobel was a terrible woman to negotiate with, but Rome’s hunger for leather was insatiable. Leather clothing, leather goods, leather weapon-parts, leather armor. And the women here who did the tanning kept the skins piled high.

  The second spring, Isobel had sent them out hunting wolves.

  When you need something, kill the competition first, she’d said. They’d killed several packs of them that ran on the land, but some of the Gaelic women had taken puppies as hunting dogs. Augusta didn’t trust them. They were still wolves, lanky and aloof, but she had to admit that they took down deer better than a spear. They had to keep the balance right, to ensure that they weren’t taking too many deer to feed the wolves, but meat they had. It was the skins.

  The skins.

  There was a rustle in a bush nearby, and Augusta was on it. Maximus had preferred her curvy, but two years, now, of full-time hunting and warring had made her lean and hard-skinned. Thorns brushed off her skin and her feet found their way through tangles and stony ground, chasing after the deer. Four legs to two, she was not fast enough, but the deer bolted through a clearing and she heaved her spear. It struck true, and she ran after it, never having had any doubt. She might only get a shot at a deer every few days; she made them count. She landed on the deer almost before it fell, slashing its throat. She waited, then pulled the spear and cleaned it. She tied the deer’s hooves with a leather thong and called Claudia, but the other woman had heard the chase and was already there. They found a fallen tree with branches thick enough and broke one off, carrying the deer by its legs on the branch, one end on each of their shoulders.

  They had little gardens scattered throughout the territory, and the children gathered fruits and nuts and roots, speaking a frightening mishmash of Latin and Gaelic and half a dozen other languages. But they hunted. And they killed. And they ate meat.

  She’d asked Isobel once what happened to her husband. They all had their stories. Maximus had been on the wrong side of a political maneuver that had gotten him killed. For all the underclass in Rome complained about the lavishness of the upper class, they didn’t find themselves tossed onto the street with two young boys because their family was in disrepute and their husbands made the wrong friends.

  But they all had their stories.

  Isobel said that her husband was away at war. Had been for six or seven years.

  “You know he’s dead, right?” Augusta had asked. Isobel had given her a dark, mirthless smile.

  “He’ll return for me when he’s done.”

  Augusta had assumed it had been a grim religious reference and didn’t ask any more.

  Claudia was the daughter of a merchant whose family had disowned her when she found herself pregnant. Augusta had never asked how it had happened, and Claudia had never brought it up. Simone was a slave from the northern reaches of the empire who had just walked away one day when she found she was pregnant with her master’s child.

  They all had their stories.

  There were
tribes that lived around them, defining the borders of their territory. They were afraid of the band of women. Ungoverned by men, Augusta had heard they thought, they’d gone mad and turned into animals.

  They were tough, true enough, and violent when they needed to be, but they were very much a sisterhood. Isobel had told them of stories of a band of women far to the south who had lived this way. They hadn’t had children, but warrior women. It was a story Augusta knew, though the details were distinctly Greek, in Isobel’s case. Augusta had refrained from correcting her.

  Some of the women argued about what would happen when the little boys grew up. Whether they would be turned away. Make the band into a permanent group of outcasts. Isobel insisted that the circumstances that had brought them together absolutely did not dictate how they would live. The boys were part of the community. Several of them were teenagers, now, and were showing interest in forming families with the older girls. A tribe, they were.

  They were the wolf women.

  Aileen

  Aileen sat on the wall around the fighting yard and watched the Caledd men, the pride of the local tribes, train. Several of them wore torcs, young princes, stripped to the waist with everyone else, grappling or practicing with bows and staffs. Rafa leaned against a wall, watching. He caught Allie’s eye and winked. She wasn’t supposed to be here, but he never enforced it. It was her mother who didn’t appreciate her interest in the fighting. She wanted to learn, but she was lean even for a girl, and the men would have had no difficulty breaking her into pieces. Not to mention that it was unacceptable for girls to fight.

  There were voices behind her, and she hopped off the wall into the fighting arena, ducking.

  “Drest is restless. Our stocks of Roman silver are low, and he wants war,” Gede said.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Isobel answered.

  “Convince him,” Gede said. The king’s man came often to see the young men training, and if he caught Allie watching, he’d have her whipped. The training ring was away from the main house, surrounded by old trees. Rafa had won approval to cover over a sacred grove for his training, because war was a sacred art. At least it was to the Caledd. Allie’s family had viewed it as always necessary, often profitable, and sometimes all-too-expected, but never sacred. The things that walked in the woods were sacred. Men doing battle was simply honorable.

  The trees meant that Allie never saw them coming until it was too late. Gede caught her here at least once a month. The boys would circle to watch her punishment then, bored, return to their training.

  “This way, little one,” someone murmured in her ear as she crouched behind the wall.

  “You’d have better luck convincing me to join,” Isobel said, much closer. A warm hand kept Aileen’s back low as she scuttled along the wall.

  “Either he is one of us or he isn’t,” Gede said. Another pair of hands jerked Allie upright and she bit back a squeal of surprise. She found herself looking at a pair of slick backs, two of the boys leaning against each other as they laughed.

  “I’ll get you next time, cur,” the one who had snapped her upright said.

  “Not likely,” the other, the voice in her ear, said.

  “Line up,” Rafa said. The rest of the boys came over to join the two in front of Allie, and suddenly she had a wall of men between herself and Gede. One of them peered back at her.

  “Over the wall,” he hissed in a fragile tenor. The one who had helped her stay below where Gede might have seen her glanced over his shoulder and winked at her with a cheerful half-smile. She flashed him a grin and made good her escape. She lay in the short grass outside of the arena, keeping as much distance between herself and Gede as she could as he paced. He called out matches or individual boys to demonstrate a skill, and they stepped up obediently enough. She’d heard them talk at meals, though. None of them considered themselves kings’ men. They were Rafa’s army, given over to war, in any form. Some of them would probably kill each other, some day, but there was no animosity over it. That was just the way of this place. Rafa taught them to kill. It was assumed they would do it.

  Gede and Drest were among a very few men who could make Rafa’s life difficult, if they decided he was no longer welcome. So the young men played along, happy for the break and not minding the recognition from Gede. The king’s administrator called for Aedan and Drude to fight, and Allie poked her head above the wall to watch, trying to keep the group of boys between herself and Gede. Drude was a great, hulking redhead, the pride of Drest’s line, and friendly to a fault. Aedan was his best friend, a cousin whose father had died in battle and whose mother had returned to Drest’s house when his uncle took the throne in their clan. The woman would have been welcomed when she returned, Allie understood, but Aedan’s mother had never felt that she was with family.

  The thought made Allie sad, when she considered it. Family ties ran deep here. Your first loyalties were to your clan and your kin.

  The two boys circled each other, and Allie slid along the wall as Gede paced. He was such a nervous man, his feet never staying in the same place. Her eyes were drawn to the fight. They weren’t two of the best. They had years left before they’d develop the hardened war physique that many of the other boys - now men, really - developed under Rafa’s training. But they were clever and they’d fought so many times before, even from boyhood, that their matches were among the most intense, and as both of them were of the king’s line, Gede took regular interest in them. Allie found her head creeping up to watch them, and once Rafa stepped in front of her as Gede swung into view again. She ducked, feeling shamed. The sound of the fight, though, drew her attention again.

  It was traditional wrestling, and no one would have ever expected Aedan to be competitive. He was slim, compared to Drude, and several inches shorter, but he was quick and he was smart. Allie admired him. He would reach out to slap at Drude, hitting his arms, his shoulders, distracting him, then diving out of the way when Drude lunged after him. Eventually, Drude would get a hold of him, a wrist, an ankle, maybe a full tackle, and the scuffle that resulted as they battled for a fast, early advantage often drew blood. Drude won more than he lost, but not by that much. Aedan was just that fast.

  Allie found herself standing, watching them, and looked over just as Gede noticed. The man roared and she ducked again, stupidly.

  “How many times?” he yelled, his voice moving around the ring. “You shouldn’t be here. Women aren’t allowed.”

  She’d always wanted to ask why Isobel was allowed, but knew better.

  “Run, Allie!” Aedan called. She hadn’t realized he knew her name. Her feet answered on their own, taking her tearing out into the woods. She took a hard left once she was through the underbrush far enough that they couldn’t see her, and circled back, moving silently.

  Gede was looking after her like a worried goose. He spun back.

  “You,” he said, pointing at Aedan. You’ll pay for her.”

  Gede started over the wall, pulling a short staff from his belt that he’d used on Allie more times than she could count. She braced herself to go back, but Rafa stepped in the way.

  “That’s where I draw the line, Gede. He’s mine.”

  “He encouraged her,” Gede sputtered. “He thinks the old laws can be ignored without consequence.”

  “He’s mine,” Rafa said.

  “No one seems to care when Isobel comes here,” Aedan said.

  Gede’s mouth fell open when an answer to that escaped him. Isobel was special. They all knew it, but no one was willing to try to say why.

  “Go home, Gede. Tell Drest the boys continue to make good progress and that they’ll be ready when the council of kings calls on them.”

  “How did you know we were convening it?” Gede hissed.

  “I know many secrets,” Rafa said, not attempting to keep his voice low. “But the fact that the Romans brought up a general out of Rome is hardly a secret. Both sides are waiting for the other to br
eak the last treaty. They’re not that unlike the Caledd.” Rafa paused, glancing back at the boys. “Always hungry for spoils.”

  There was a murmur of amused consensus at that, and then the crowd broke. It was lunchtime. Allie slipped toward the path, waiting for Aedan and Drude to go by. She stepped out from behind her tree to walk with them. Aedan cocked his head as he looked down at her.

  “She is,” he said. Drude nodded.

  “Told you.”

  “What?” she asked. Aedan shrugged, then dropped a wet arm across her shoulders.

  “We’ve been talking, and most of us have decided that you’re our forest pixie good luck.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “So?”

  Hard to argue with that.

  “Why would you take a beating for me?” she asked. He laughed, the sound coming out of his ribs as much as his throat.

  “Gede can hit me with that walking cane just as soon as he can keep me from taking it away from him and chasing him with it.”

  “There are no rules, little one,” Drude said. “Only what you can do and what you can’t do.”

  Allie thought with a grim smile of what her mother would say of that.

  “Next time,” Aedan said, “don’t act caught. If he tries to hit you, run. He can’t keep up with you.”

  “He’s an old man,” Drude said.

  With a strong grip, Allie thought.

  “Easy for you to say,” she said. “You’re not the one who’s going to get whipped.”

  Aedan’s arm tightened across her shoulders.

  “He’s not going to hit you. Ever again.”

  Allie sat with the boys at lunch, and there was a sort of jocular celebration of her beating Gede. They pushed food onto her plate as it went by and elbowed each other when they crowded her. She tried to listen to all of them at once, and still eat while the food was there. Normally she sat with her mother for meals, and was only a distant spectator to the boisterousness at the main table. Being in the middle of it thrilled her.