For the Sake of an Empire Ch. 02

Marcus rolled up the maps and then left his tent. The sun had set and he could hear his men enjoying the day's rest he had allowed them. The strict sentry rotation schedule still applied, but they were allowed to rest by a fire and share stories about their home.

His lips curved slightly as he watched his men trading drink and stories around the campfires which would burn out before the break of day when they would be roused to begin the trek again. This time they would be pushed twice as hard, not stopping until they reached Celaenia's gates. He allowed them this moment of reprieve , gathering his own thoughts.

He reached for the canteen that was offered to him. The water splashed warm, but still welcoming down his throat. On days when the sun blazed hot over the horizon, even the faint savor of the leather from the canteen, could not take away from a soldier's gratitude for it. Marcus wiped a hand across his mouth, smearing the sweat and several days' worth of grime across his lips to mingle with the staler flavor of the pigskin. In the distance he could make out the mountains that seemed to stretch on forever, but which he knew would lead them sooner to Celaenia than they might think.

They were returning triumphant after this journey, but sunburned, filthy, and lice infested. He thought, with a wry quirk of lips, that their lady Empress wouldn't know where to put her dainty nose when she welcomed back her brave soldiers.

He passed back the canteen and then turned away from the view of the hills to return to the tent where their captive was being held. On the way, he paused to get a battered tin cup, filling it with water from the communal bucket that had been hauled up from the river earlier that morning. It was likely to be the last fresh water that they would have before they reached Celaenian walls.

His footsteps thudded quietly over the rocks as he took the full cup to the tent. When the tent flap swished shut behind him, the inside of the tent once more fell into the cooler darkness that the scorching sun could not penetrate.

King Edrigu Mikalous sat with his hands and ankles bound, though the knots were more loosely tied than those that had bound the wrists of other prisoners their camp had entertained. He was a traitor to the Celaenian crown, having tried to stage an uprising instead of a peaceful surrender to Celaenian sovereignty. His soldiers had been slaughtered as they would have tried to slaughter the Celaenians had they been allowed, but his people had been spared. Those who pledged allegiance, albeit reluctantly, came out of the affair with their lives and soldiers at their city's gate.

Agsidian was now under their control, and their king would never see his homeland again. He had chosen his path. It was one of a traitor, but also a man noble enough to trade his life for those of his people. For that reason alone, did Marcus give him a portion of the respect owed to an old king.

Marcus was silent as he squatted down on his heels. He set the cup aside and then undid the old man's hands. When he had gotten some of the feeling back in his wrists, Marcus handed him the cup.

"Drink that," he said quietly. "We will be reaching Celaenian walls within a few days time. You will need your strength. "

"I do not think strength will aide me when I am put to death as a traitor before your tribunal?"

Marcus said nothing, his gaze calm and as unflinching as rock. His eyes met the other man's steadily and finally, Edrigu dropped his own gaze. Silently, he drank the water before handing back the cup.

"Thank you."

Marcus merely inclined his head slightly. "The Senators will decide your fate, not I, King Mikalous. I am simply a soldier in the Celaenian army. I have no hand in politics."

"And yet you would be King, were your uncle still alive," Edrigu said quietly. Those dark eyes watched Marcus, making no move to get away when the man knelt to retie his hands more loosely around his chafed wrists.

"I remember him. He was a hard man but a fair one in his younger years. We once had an alliance, but during these last years, he became hard and his "treaties" continually demanded more than we could give."

"I cannot speak for my uncle. He is dead and I have not been in Celaenia for five years. "

"I see. You speak diplomatically, Marcus Aurelius. You are a hard man, but you have treated me fairly. Men like you make great kings."

"I am no King. Nor do I have any desire to be. I serve Celaenia best by defending her borders and expanding her influence."

"By murdering others?"

Marcus's gaze was steady. "There is no murder where there is surrender."

"You expect the whole world to surrender to Celaenian ways of life?"

"We have brought forth many benefits to the people beneath our crown. We offer our alliances the opportunity to better themselves. What we ask for in return is loyalty."

"What you ask for are slaves; mindless and obedient."

Marcus was silent a moment, those gray eyes meeting the old King's for a moment. There was a long silence between them before he stood again, taking the cup with him. He said nothing as he walked out of the tent, nodding to the soldier keeping watch just outside.

"Keep watch. We move come morning."

"Yes General."

Marcus moved back towards the fires. He could hear drums in the distance. A dark brow arched in curiosity as he approached, watching from the outskirts. It seemed that his men had found the company of wandering dancers who used their skills to guarantee a meal and some coin this night.

Marcus watched the women from a distance more conservative than that of his men who clapped and hollered encouragements as veils swung and smooth expanses of legs and belly flashed in tribute to the gods. Bracelets jangled, enticing the men with promises that they had long been denied during warfare.

The beat was pagan, and the heat that the dancers inspired was a primal and base instinct. Marcus stayed back outside of the circle, away from the net of seduction the dream weavers cast, even as his body reacted even beneath the armor that was only removed when he bedded down within Celaenian walls.

It was the lead dancer who caught his attention. She was taller than the others, but light of frame and long of limb. From the distance, her features were obscured by the flickering shadows of the camp fire, but the long sinuous curves of stomach and thigh were clearly seen as she undulated to the music. She moved like water, motion slowly rippling from the center of her body. Her stomach, then her hips; a soft undulation bidden by the rhythmic cantos of drums. Her arms were serpentine in their graceful looseness at the wrists. Her fingers snapped. The drums quickened. Strong hands beat a staccato rhythm on the stretched hide and eight women joined her. Muslin rustled and small bells jangled at their ankles; larkish, musical, cut short and teased out with each sharp writhe.

A beat.

A step.

A call.

A look.

She could feel their eyes on her as she moved. Shadow and flame flickered over her skin and the stars burned in her eyes. But they did not burn for the leering soldiers at the edge of the firelight. They burned for the man shackled in the calf skin tent. They burned for vengeance. The woman who was called Yanamari, spun left and whipped right. She thrust her arms out and went slack at the waist, torso bending back until the tips of her dark hair brushed the dusty ground. The drums cracked. She snapped upright. Hands clapped. Hips switched. Nine pairs of feet churned the earth to the halting cadence, and the drums swelled to the tripping of Yanamari's pulse.

When she straightened, she looked at the man standing apart from the others. She smiled as she slowed. Her graceful movements seemed to be for him alone, beckoning him closer so that he could bring her into his arms and take her by the light of the fires while his men watched.

Marcus tensed. Her eyes were drowning deep and he knew that if he moved forward, all of his men would follow his example. She would not deny him once he had her in his arms where he could stroke his body deep into hers, matching his thrusts with the pagan beat of their drums.

Yet still he stayed at a distance, taking a drink from the tin cup in his hand before he passed it to the soldier closest to him so he could make his retreat. As the sound of the drum beats faded, so did the arousal which had run so rampant only a few moments earlier.

Memories of the dead whose spirits were carted away by the ferryman, while their bodies burned in the funeral fires, were sobering thoughts. Those fires boasted flames which licked at flesh as slowly as the camp dancers swayed their slender arms overhead. It was in the flames where he saw the faces of his son and his wife. In fires like those, they had perished, the flames feasting on their flesh while he was away battling an enemy who name he did not even remember. Others had shared that fate as well on that day that his wife's village had been taken by rebel forces, but in his grief, only two lives mattered.

She had been a country girl.

A woman who had adored him and given him a son.

A woman with nothing to her name except the voice of a lark, the face of an angel, and the love of a man of Celaenia.

She had been an unfit match for a son of Celaenia who was so close to the crown. His uncle had protested his marriage. She was nothing to be remembered. And yet her name HE did remember.

Aurelia...

A hand rubbed over his eyes, suddenly feeling every one of his hardened 28 years. His son had been only 4 years old when he was murdered, yet his small body had looked as ancient as a mummified corpse. His skin had flaked off in Marcus's hands when he held the little boy to his chest and shouted his grief to the gods who had allowed such an atrocity to happen.

Marcus pressed his fist to his mouth, his eyes closed to allow the moment to pass. It always did with the though thought that in his grief, he might prevent their souls from finding happiness in the next life. They had suffered enough in this life. He would not allow his pain to bind their souls to this world any longer, yet his memories would remain as would their names across his heart.

Abruptly, he turned on his heel to return to the tent where King Edrigu was being kept. When his mind was full, he became a creature of restless habit, checking to ensure the camp's continued security when there was no need. He trusted his men, but he did not trust himself to find peace in slumber this night

As he made his way back towards the camp, he heard the drums stop abruptly. Cheers and stomping mingled with the fire's smoke and the sharp scent of male desire. The eight dancers threaded themselves through the camp, many falling into the hungry arms of his long deprived soldiers.

He paid them no need. He was focused on his own thoughts and did not see the slender leader of the dancers as she moved silently to the calf skin tent, reaching for the flap at the same time as the soldier within.

The young soldier looked startled, but Yanamari took him to the shadows and made him believe that the stars of her eyes burned for him. He was so blinded by their light that he didn't see the knife. He was so lost in her mouth that he didn't feel it pierce his heart until he fell dead at her feet.

She swallowed the bile in her throat as she slipped into the tent to leave behind the musk of male satisfaction which hung thick in the air. As the fires died to coals, Yanamari crouched in the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust and lighten the shadows. In one of the corners she heard a man gasping for breath. Her voice was a whisper. "Father?"

There was a rustling sound from the same corner.

"Yanamari? Is that you?"

She moved cautiously so the bells at her ankles and wrists would not give her away. She knelt at her father's side, feeling for his shoulder. Edrigu, King of the Agsidiani , found his daughter's hand first and followed a path up her arm to her shoulders and her neck, closing his leathery palms over her face.

"Yes, Father," Yanamari whispered, touching his raw knuckles. "I'm here."

"Oh, Yanamari," he croaked, pulling her against his chest. "My beautiful, stubborn girl. My foolish girl," he added in a fierce whisper. "Why are you here? I told you to remain in hiding."

"I could not leave you here to be murdered."

"You disobeyed me."

"Yes but there is no time now for apologies," Yanamari whispered as she drew herself from his arms. "There is a soldier, just outside the tent. Take his armor and his sword."

She talked as she began to cut through the ropes binding him, with her knife. Her father stopped her.

"Someone's coming," he whispered.

The hairs on the back of Yanamari's neck rose. She caught a brief glimpse of her father's face in the waning firelight that slanted in through the opening tent flap. His eyes flickered purposefully to the knife in her hands. She hid it just as the cool steel of another blade touched the column of her throat and an unseen hand fisted in her thick curls. Yanamari gasped, not daring even to swallow.

"Who are you?"

Marcus felt her tense. He had seen the slender figure slip through the shadows and into the tent, when he was returning from the fire. It had been too slender and delicate to be one of his men. He had followed her and now he could feel her pulse fluttering in her throat like a frightened bird.

His own weight shifted, the blade held firmly against that slender throat. His other was already wrapped in thick curls that coiled about his wrist. He heard a gasp. The hair and skin were too long and soft to be male and the voice when it answered, was gently feminine.

"I...."

Yanamari swallowed, closing her eyes as the movement briefly brought her neck closer to the knife. She began to speak, but King Mikolaus cut her off.

"Just a dancer, Aurelius," he said. "She came to give an old man some company during his last few nights."

Marcus lifted a brow in the darkness, but he sensed no movement in the tent other than the slim female body that had gone stiff in his arms. Her fingers seemed too small to do the kind of damage that he was sure his guard had come to. They were tiny and delicate, with short nails that he could feel as they dug into his arm in an attempt to brace herself and keep from slitting her throat against the razor edge of his blade.

"Silence. I am speaking to the girl.

King Mikolaus obeyed immediately, but his words rang sharply in Yanamari's ears. Fresh anger blazed in her chest at Celaenia, at her father's captors and at herself for failing to free him.

No.

She would not abandon her father so easily as that. There was still hope. If she could only get this man to loosen his grip, or to take the knife away. Or...

Taking her father's lead, Yanamari pressed back into Marcus's armored chest, pushing the knowledge that he could cut her throat with a mere flick of his wrist, to the back of her mind.

"I could give you company, too," she murmured. She struggled to keep her voice steady. Nubile young curves pressed into Marcus's armored chest. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, giving her a small reprieve from the knife blade while it lined her body flush against his. Thick curls tumbled loose over her shoulders and back, brushing his arm. They were as soft as the down of a baby chick, but Marcus could feel the tension in that form that had moved so gracefully by the fire.

"A-And pleasure."

"Both things that I could take of my own will from any captive here," he said evenly. She was soft and smelled faintly of fresh water and spring. He had been without a woman for nearly a year, but the needs of the man came after the duties of a soldier.

He felt her stiffen again, a soft whimper coming from her throat as he tightened his hold.

"Are you alone now?"

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

There was no answer.When the silence stretched on longer than his patience could take it, he pulled the knife back, but kept his grip on her hair to drag her backwards with him from the tent. Pain flared in her knees as they struck the unforgiving earth. Yanamari leaned forward and put her hands on the ground to keep herself from trembling.

Yanamari held her silence out of loyalty to her father and her country. Her head dipped lower, her weight braced on hands and knees. "I am losing my patience, girl."

Those slender shoulders dipped, but she glanced up at him when he raised his hand. The light from the torches illuminated her features enough to reveal large, liquid dark eyes, a small, straight nose, and lips that were made for a man's pleasure. Hers was a face that he had known for five years of laughter and the peace a soldier dreams of after he has been fighting half of his life...

His breath caught, feeling for a moment as if Aurelia had crossed the bridge between life and death to see him tonight. But those were the thoughts of fool, and a man who wanted it far too much...

His hand clenched slowly into a fist as he met her eyes, his mind scrambling for some obvious difference between the face of this girl, and his wife. Her lashes were longer and her cheeks were fuller, but they were subtle changes that he wouldn't have noticed had he not needed to so badly. Had they been under different circumstances, he would have been convinced that the gods had given Aurelia backto him.

"Answer me," he said roughly. "Do not make me ask again. My patience is very thin, and this heart is dry and hard. It would welcome any infusion of liquid, even your blood."

Yanamari had known the dangers when she had taken on this mission, but looking into the eyes of the man who had sealed her father's death and wouldn't hesitate to do the same to her, caused a fresh flutter of panic in her chest.

"His--A member of his court."

'What is your name?"

She hesitated for a moment, but found no mercy in his eyes.

"Mara. My name is Mara. I am the last survivor of his resistance. You.." Her voice cracked and she swallowed. "You killed the rest."

Her brothers had been counted in the day's death toll. Her father was all she had left. That much was the truth and yet she held her breath as Marcus stared. He seemed to be looking into her soul and a tick appeared in his jaw when her voice cracked.

"And you wished to join them? It is high treason to assist a traitor to the Celaenian empire in any way."

"I wished to save a good man from murder," she said, her anger slowly gaining ground over her fear when he made no move to harm her. "I wished to give hope to his people and my home. It is an even greater treason against mankind, to force people to submit to your will when all they want is to live as they have for thousands of years."

"The empire of Celaenia wishes to share the knowledge it has to create a better life. "Your people live in little more than the shadows of true civilization."

Yanamrai tensed as his eyes met hers. She trembled with fear but her voice was stronger than he had expected. "You call us savages, but it is we who worship the earth and respect her."

"What do pagans know of respect? Your people attacked my men when they slept. We did not declare war on you."

"You were in our lands! Would you not have done the same if we were to scale your precious golden walls?!"

Her voice rang out and Marcus's expression hardened. He knelt down, dropping to one knee on the ground as he pressed the tip of the blade just under her throat. When her eyes widened, he had a relapse of memory.

His wife's eyes wide and staring as he pulled her nude body from the noose. The sweet scent of her skin replaced in his memory by the smell of burnt wood when he returned to the shell of her village.

Loss.

Rage.

Failure.

She flinched when he tightened his hold on the knife. Then Marcus stood. She stared as he pulled her roughly to her feet. A wave of horror washed over her so strongly that she almost swayed. He would take her offer first, she realized. He would have his way with her and then kill her.