Barbarian Hero

One

114 AD

Shrieks of terror echoed off the marble walls, tumbled around the columns, plummeted to the mosaic floor, then fell silent. Death had invaded the villa. As lives were cut down, Salomeh sat frozen on her knees in a seldom-used chamber.

Garbled barbaric speech assaulted her ears as much as the death cries of those within the house. Heavy boots pounded the tiles filling the villa with thunder. Cries for mercy were cut short. Challenges ended quickly. Soon they would come for her. Only a few more rooms and they would discover this hiding place.

Four other household slaves took shelter with Salomeh. Their muttered cries called out to Jupiter, their supreme god, and Vesta the goddess of the hearth. Their words, jumbled by their tears, went unanswered as death continued to advance. They pleaded to Jupiter to save them, but he did not.

Salomeh kept silent in prayer to the only God she knew could help, Yeshua, Christus. Head bowed and eyes closed to the horror around her, she sought His comfort. My Savior, I come to You now. Forgive me for any uncleanness and take me into Your arms. Even in the chaos, peace engulfed her.

The door to their chamber banged open.

She did not move.

Stomped steps were drown out by screams for mercy.

One by one the cries around her silenced.

She waited for the deathblow to come.

Unintelligible shouts erupted near the doorway. The footsteps retreated from her. Two voices vied with one another in an incomprehensible tirade of words. Something thudded into the wall. Metal rang against metal. The argument grew—the metal echoed more insistently.

A groan.

Then silence.

Heavy footsteps crossed the room toward her.

Salomeh, eyes still clamped closed, waited. Her heart pounded in her ears, but she remained still. I am ready, Lord.

A hand crushed hers still grasped in prayer. Her eyes shot open. A bare-chested man tightened a bloody sash around her wrists and yanked her to her feet. The blond warrior towered above her. He did not pause. His hand on the other end of the tether jerked her forward.

She stumbled at the sudden movement. Trying to gain her footing, she slid on the slick floor. Frantically, she looked about the room. Blood stained the mortar between the mosaic tiles. It ran down the marble walls. She stepped over the body of a fallen barbarian. His eyes open staring at nothing and his innards spilling from a gut wound.

Salomeh turned away as bile burned the back of her throat. Stomach sour, she gazed on her master, split from throat to navel and laid across the low dining table like some gruesome main course. Salomeh’s captor jerked her forward. She fell to the cool titles and wretched. She prayed the purging of her stomach would empty her mind of all she saw.

It didn’t.

He waited as her stomach emptied of its content and yet continued to heave. Guttural shouts filled the house now adding to the clank and jingle of all Master’s possessions being stripped from within.

She fought for breath. Yeshua, help me. Tears poured from her eyes as she looked at all those dead in the villa. Christus, they did not know You. Have mercy. Her deep sobs stuttered her breaths. I have failed to share You, my God. They are lost because of me.

The man yanked her to her feet and raked the hide of a dead creature across her mouth. He stood over a head taller than her, and his blue eyes pierced her until she quaked under his gaze. His thick beard was darker than his hair. The fair skin of his bare chest lay covered in streaks and droplets of blood. His great heaving breaths warmed her clammy skin. Every muscle lay carved as though he were a sculpture of a Roman hero.

But this man was no champion. He broke into Master’s home, helped kill everyone within, and now held her tied with a bloody sash from a fallen slave. Not a hero but a nightmare. Salomeh shuddered at what he planned for her.

A bellow from the atrium caused him to turn, and his mane of hair brushed her cheek. He shouted a reply and pulled her toward the center of the villa.

They met a dozen fair-skinned warriors of equal size near the pool where rainwater collected through the opening in the ceiling. It rippled but gave no reflection from its red depths. Once, it had been a source of fresh water from the heavens; now it mirrored the rest of the house—dead and of no value to anyone.

Again, her stomach heaved. Tears streaked her cheeks. A strangled cry at seeing the body of her mistress escaped from her throat.

Another attacker rose his sword above her. Sunlight through the shattered door glinted off the metal where it could be seen through the blood.

Yes, Christus. Take me. Do not let me see more of this horror—or a worse fate befall me.

The man who held her fetter used his fearsome blade to smash against the falling sword. Metal rang against the blood-splattered wall. Her abductor blocked the strike that would have released her from this life. He stood between her and a quick death. Words were exchanged. Her captor pushed the other man away and stomped to the door. Salomeh staggered after him. Laughter followed—sneering, mocking, scornful.

Salomeh stumbled behind her captor. Logic fled. She should run—try to escape. All she could manage was to put one foot in front of the other. Hope could not be found, and freedom lay beyond her reach. Her head dropped and touched her collar. Red spatter stained her tunic. Why spare her? What did he want?

He turned, causing her to stumble into him. His already guttural words muttered over his tight lips and through his clenched jaw. His eyes narrowed, watching the men exit the house behind her, then his gaze shifted to her. His features softened. He shook his head, tossing his golden locks about his shoulder. More of the pink of his lips could be seen between his beard and moustache. He appeared alien to her, so unlike the clean-shaven men of Rome who kept their hair short. He continued to stare as though trying to decide what to do with her. His brow arched and a few words came her way.

She did not know what he wanted, but he turned back and pulled her along as the others stomped past them laden down with their spoils.

The beast at the end of her tether didn’t carry a thing—other than her lead.

Dragged away from the home she had lived in since Master was ordered here by Rome, Salomeh looked around. She alone survived. She saw a glow on her abductor’s back. The air filled with ash. She turned her head. The villa burned.

Two

Salomeh staggered to keep up with her long-legged captor as he dragged her through the brush. Her short slave’s tunic and sandals offered little protection from the rough branches and thorns that slapped against her and tore at her flesh. Her captor could only be one of the feared Germani soldiers who constantly threatened the Roman boarder. Heedless of her plight, he strolled, in his fur-topped boots and coarse braccae covering his legs, as though in a marbled hall.

She stumbled, jerking him to a halt as she fell. Her legs were caked with blood, and dirt clung to her sandals and legs. She didn’t rise so he stomped back to her. Yeshua, let him kill me now. I can’t go on.

He hovered over her.

She shook her head and pointed her thumb at her throat—the sign given by the public to end a gladiator’s life. Understand. Please, end this.

He shook his head, barked an order, and jerked her to her feet.

She waivered, unable to move forward.

He stepped to her, and suddenly she hung over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables. She bounced against him—her stomach taking the brunt of it—as he raced to take up the last position in the line of retreating attackers.

As Salomeh dangled, she glanced past her capture’s hip and saw several of his people turn at his approach. They sneered, and said something that caused him to tighten his grip across her legs until her toes tingled.

Too tired and weak to get free, Salomeh gave up and let thoughts of Master fill her. The once powerful Servius Roscius Curio had fallen from the Roman Senate’s favor. He took a post on the Limes in hopes of rebuilding his name and reputation.

The memory of Mistress Decima’s tears again filled Salomeh’s thoughts bring to mind her sobbed words. You cannot take us to live so near those Germanic barbarians. We will be killed, or worse.

At the time, Salomeh couldn’t think of what would be worse than death by a savage’s hand, but now she feared she would soon find out.

Before they even left Rome, whispers of raids by the Germanic tribes circulated among the household slaves. But Master Curio promised, The Limes have been built to protect Roman citizens from any trouble. The forts stand everywhere. Trouble could not come without a legion being immediately at hand to run the vermin back to their holes.

Trouble had come. But not one Roman soldier had arrived to aid them.

The blond captor stopped and released her. She fell to her backside unable to find her footing fast enough. A river lay before them. Most of the men were undressed and entering the water to scrub themselves free of Roman blood.

Heat flooded her face and Salomeh turned her back to them. Even in the public baths of Rome, men and women did not bathe together. Each was assigned a time to come—citizens in the morning, slaves in the middle of the day and then citizens could return in the evening. She hid herself from viewing these barbarians, but the blond at the end of her tether jerked her to her feet and led her toward the water. She fought him, pulled against her bindings, and tried again to sit. He picked her up and threw her into the water.

She came up sputtering to the laughter of the others. Salomeh did her best to swim a couple of awkward strokes with her bound hands. The current tugged at her swirling around her legs in stinging waves. Sand brushed against her toes as solid bottom scraped under her hard leather soles. Almost in the middle of the river, the water to her chin, she found a wide enough place to stand and again turned her back on the naked men.

Shouts arose behind her. Salomeh spun to see three warriors swimming toward her. She struggled to remain on her perch on the rock but fell back into the current at their advance. She flipped over and pulled herself through the water kicking out behind her. At her second kick, a hand seized her ankle and pulled her under the surface. She came up coughing to more laughter.

The man who grabbed her pressing himself against her his hand tracing up her leg.

She screamed and tried to pry herself free, but his arm encircled her pinning her bound hands between them.

A roar burst from the shore, and her blond kidnapper hurled himself into the water at the man holding her. Dunked again, Salomeh fought to free herself and surface.

The splashing and yelling of the grappling men nearby drowned out her coughing.

Her attacker vanished under the waves. The three others turned their attention back on Salomeh calling out messages she didn’t want to understand.

Sink. Drown. Go to the Savior and be free. She kicked away into the strongest part of the current and stopped fighting.

Her new master burst to the surface behind the one who had grabbed her and struck him in the head with a rock. The man slumped and fell to his back. The others rushed to tend him, and the victor swam straight for her.

His eyes searched Salomeh. He raised his hands above the water mimicking her bound wrists by pressing his together. She mirrored his action. He collected the tether in his firm grasp and swam closer motioning for her to come near.

She shook her head. Salomeh wanted no part of whatever he wanted to do.

He looked to those watching them and seized her about the waist—though not as tight as the other man. He pressed her back to his chest. Turning his back to the opposite shore he swam until his feet found solid ground. Standing with rivulets of water streaming off them, he set her on the rocky shore—unfortunately missing several softer clumps of grass. Face buried in her hands, she let the tears come. Yeshua, my God, save me.

Salomeh did not have long to wallow. While the saturated tunic still clung to her, the Germani pulled her up, and they walked again. The man he struck with the rock leaned on one of his companions. Her captor watched, maintaining a distance from them.

They must have covered over three-dozen milias. Her feet scraped along the ground. She panted for breath. Her parched lips clung to her teeth. They crested a ridge and, through the trees, she caught glimpses of rustic huts.

Close to forty of them spread out in a small clearing nestled in a long, narrow hollow. The blond walked through the middle of the settlement. Women turned and sneered—calling out words Salomeh praised God she could not comprehend. She sidestepped where one spit on the ground and ducked under the thrown remains of a dinner. The man at the end of her lead shouted at them, yanked her closer, and continued to the last hut on the edge of the others. It was half the size of every other dwelling, though not particularly small, and sat off on its own. It was just large enough for him and his animals.

Her captor jerked up on the latch and threw open the rough wood door. He shoved her inside. She fell, landing on her hands and knees on the dirt floor. The stench of animal waste overwhelmed. Bile washed her tongue. The musty smell of thatch overhead and the mud walls made the stench worse. Could she find the river again?

There was a sleeping area with a mat on the floor covered in a fur. A few chests sat against the back and right walls. She now sat in an open space about the size of the sleeping area on her right that contained the only piece of furniture—a table against the front wall. To her left,

she saw a roped off space equal to the rest of his home littered with animal droppings. A larger door led out the back of the house.

The wood door clattered closed. He secured the latch and stalked toward her.

She tried to crawl away but, with her hands tied and every muscle in revolt, she didn’t manage to move far.

He scooped Salomeh in his arms and carried her to a low mat filled with straw. Plopping her down on his bedroll, he rent a small tear in her tunic up from the hem.

She screamed.

He nodded, waving his