Seduced By Her Rebel Warrior

Rab could almost hear the Roman man’s bones splintering as the camel’s heavy foot pounded against his shin. He collapsed to the ground, his toga tumbling into the dust. ‘Father!’ the woman shrieked. She glanced up at Rab. ‘Please get help!’

Rab staggered to his feet only to find two sets of hands seizing him by the shoulders. A fist crashed into his jaw, followed by a foot into his stomach. A throng of Roman guards was pouring into the circle and Rab watched in horror as several other guards wrenched his nephew from atop the white camel. ‘Zaidu!’ he cried, then felt a heavy blow against his side.

‘Take them to the fort!’ he heard a man shout. Rab could not find his breath. ‘And somebody call a litter! The Governor has been injured!’

* * *

At first, there was nothing but pain—sharp, mind-splitting pain and the memory of blows. Then there was the taste of blood inside his mouth and the hardness of stone beneath his head. A silken voice split the silence. ‘Awaken.’

Rab opened his eyes to find himself surrounded on three sides by walls. Before him stretched the thick iron bars of a prison cell. Beyond the bars stood a figure bathed in torchlight—a vision of curves and white linen. A woman.

She turned and he knew her instantly. It was the woman—the one from the camel races. He would have recognised her anywhere—her soft curves, her auburn hair, her strong, determined nose, so like his late mother’s. Her shadowy profile sent a strange pang of nostalgia through him, though when she neared his cell and squatted low that nostalgia quickly transformed into an unexpected lust.

She pushed a water bag through the bars. ‘Drink,’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Water. You have been asleep for many hours.’

He sensed a lie lurking behind her words, but he was too thirsty to refuse her. As he reached for the bag, her fingers grazed his. He nearly recoiled: they were as frigid as a corpse’s.

‘You are very cold,’ he remarked. Without thinking, he removed his head tie and pulled off his long white head cover. ‘Wrap my ghutrah around yourself,’ he said, pushing the garment through the bars. ‘It will warm you.’

He seemed to have forgotten that she was Roman and thus did not deserve his charity. Still, her fingers had been terribly cold and her cheeks were bereft of colour.

She gave the voluminous white headscarf a long, suspicious stare. ‘It is just a head cover. It will not bite you,’ he said.

As a gesture of goodwill, Rab grasped the water bag she had offered him and took a long quaff. The liquid tasted vaguely of flowers.

He held out his ghutrah once again. ‘Come now, you are obviously cold.’

‘How could I be cold?’ she clipped. ‘It is the middle of August in Arabia, by all the vengeful gods.’

The absurdity of the comment struck them both at once and for a second their voices mingled in laughter, bouncing off the prison walls like two parts of a song.

Her lips returned to frowning. ‘I am not cold,’ she repeated. She sprang to her feet and placed her hands authoritatively on her hips.

‘Why do you gape?’ she asked.

‘I do not gape.’

‘You are most certainly gaping.’

‘Hmm,’ grumbled Rab and looked away. He reminded himself that it was folly to engage with Romans. Their manners were bad, their greed never ending and their moods as changeable as the desert winds. Romans were, in a word, savages, no matter how lovely their frowning lips and curving hips.

He returned the ghutrah to his head and fixed it into place with his head tie. He brushed the arms of his long grey robe and folded his legs beneath him. ‘Where am I?’

‘In a holding cell beneath the Roman fort at Bostra,’ she said, and when he did not respond, she added, ‘In the Roman Province of Arabia Petraea.’

‘Arabia Petraea,’ he echoed.

As if he needed reminding. Despite over a dozen years of Roman occupation, the words still tasted vile on his tongue. Whatever name she wished to call his homeland, to Rab it would always be the Kingdom of Nabataea, with its capital not of Bostra, but of Rekem, that great southern city of stone.

‘Why do you keep me here?’ he asked.

‘Do you not recall? Your camel injured the new Governor of Arabia—a man who happens to be my father.’

‘That man was the Governor?’

Curses, he should have guessed it. The bejewelled hand, the purple-trimmed toga, the imperious demeanour. Of all the confounded ill fortune.

‘It broke his leg,’ she said with indifference, ‘though the break has been splinted and we are told it will heal normally.’

‘I did not intend—’

‘It does not matter what you did or did not intend,’ she said. ‘What matters is what my father believes.’

‘And what does your father believe?’

‘That you commanded the kick.’

‘That is impossible. Where is my nephew?’ Rab started to stand, but his legs seemed to be growing weaker by the moment.

‘Why is it impossible?’ she asked.

‘Where is my nephew, by the gods?’ Rab demanded.

‘He is in another cell not far from here. Why is it impossible that you commanded the kick?’

‘Is he injured? Has he eaten?’

She pursed her lips together. ‘He has been treated in the exact same manner as you have. Now please answer my question. I am trying to help you.’

‘So you beat my nephew and hold him in a cell and tell me you are trying to help me? He is only eleven years old!’

‘I had nothing to do with your nephew’s beating or his captivity,’ she said. Then, in a whisper: ‘And I was able to sneak him a corner of bread.’

Rab paused, feeling a strange gratitude, then reminded himself that there was no room in this conversation for such a sentiment. ‘I demand that you release us both,’ he said.

She stiffened. ‘You are not in a position to make demands.’

‘And you are?’ Rab craned his neck to observe the empty hallway in which she stood. ‘You approach my cell all alone, a beautiful woman without any protection... On whose authority do you question me?’

She appeared confused. She glanced around the prison as if she believed him to be referring to someone else. ‘On my father’s authority, of course,’ she said at last.

He struggled once again to stand, but this time the effort made him dizzy. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No,’ she replied carefully. ‘Who are you?’