It was a long ride, and a very uncomfortable one for me, slung across my captor’s horse like a pair of his saddlebags. We went steadily at first, as the soldiers picked their way out of the crags, then the speed picked up when we hit the slopes, thundering across the high mountain ridges.

I saw nothing but the flanks of the horse, the movement of its hooves, and the blur of the ground beneath us as the horses ate up the miles. Even my fear grew tired and listless, leaving me feeling almost numb inside, which may have been a blessing. Afraid of struggling or even moving for fear I might fall off, I lost all track of time, but it was evening when we finally slowed up and my captor gave my ass a firm slap.

“You alright there? You’ve been very quiet.”

I managed to raise my head, trying to suppress the urge to vomit. Now that the world had stopped moving, I suddenly felt dizzy.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“This is the Trans-Alpine Highway,” said the soldier. “Or, it will be when it’s finished. Lord Vulpus is building a road straight through the mountains, to make things easier for our army when we come to conquer the south.”

People had been saying stuff like that for years but, for once, I managed to keep my trap shut on the subject.

“Why am I here?” I asked, my tongue thick in my mouth, my question uncharacteristically timid.

“What have you got there?” Before the soldier could answer my question, he was posed another by a large, uniformed man with a red face, striding towards us.

“New recruit, Sergeant,” said the soldier, upending me off his horse so I fell at the sergeant’s feet like a sack of potatoes.

The sergeant looked down at me. “Don’t reckon she’ll be much use at road building.”

“We’ve needed a new serving girl since Tisia had her accident,” the solider continued casually. “This one fits the bill. Stronger than she looks. And a pretty thing, too, which doesn’t hurt.”

The sergeant shook his head. “I think we’d have been better off with an ugly one. Tisia wouldn’t have had her…accident if she’d had a face like a badger, and this one’s prettier than that, I’d say. Still,” he looked me over and shrugged, “we do need someone and I guess she’ll do. Anything else to report?”

“The terrain gets pretty grim that way. Bandits, too. I think we’d be better off bearing west.”

The sergeant nodded. “We’ll see. Get her bedded in, make sure she knows the rules.”

The ‘bed’ was a pile of straw in with the horses, the ‘rules’ were simple enough: talk back and you’ll be beaten, disobey and you’ll be beaten, work hard or you’ll be beaten, try to escape and you’ll be killed.

For a naturally disobedient person, servitude was not an ideal profession.

I curled up in the straw and tried not to cry as my thoughts once again turned to home.

What would they be thinking? In the end, it was not the thought of my own predicament that finally had tears streaking down my cheeks, it was the knowledge that my mother and father were probably frantic right now.

I’ll find my way home somehow, Mother. I swear it.

Fear and exhaustion was a powerful combination because I slept like the dead until I was kicked awake early the next morning, when the sun was barely a blush on the horizon,

I was immediately given a set of chores, which I did as fast and well as I was able. Most of them involved looking after the workers, fetching them food and water, applying bandages where their manacles chafed them. The building work was being done by convicts, men who had been taken prisoner for one reason or another and were now paying their debt to society by building this road. Maybe the knowledge of what they were colored my judgment, but they struck me as an ugly, rat-faced bunch – every one of them looked like a criminal.

All except one. I saw him on the second day of too many.

His name, I’d gathered from the other convicts, was ‘Taka’. He was probably in his late-twenties or early thirties – still ten years older than me. His head was shaved, contrasting with the thick stubble on his face. He was tall and powerfully built, easily shifting loads of loose rock that defeated other men, his biceps straining with effort while his face barely registered it.

In fact, his face barely registered anything; there seemed to be a wisdom in his eyes beyond his years, and an almost serene expression that suggested complete control of every situation. Even the awful one in which he now found himself.

He worked with quiet, conscientious diligence, almost as if this was a job for which he was paid and not slave labor issued as punishment for his crimes. I could not imagine what those crimes might be.

Taka seemed to have no temper – always calm and collected, silent and meditative. The insults of the guards washed off his back without even a change of expression, though I noticed that none of them actually mistreated him, his silence seeming to make them fearful of what he might do if riled.

The only one of the other convicts he spent any time with was a man named Hob, whom he helped out at work, I guessed because Hob was older and struggled with the heavy work of the chain gang. But mostly, Taka kept to himself. In the evenings, when I carried around a heavy pitcher of water for the men, he sat cross-legged in the corner, a blanket resting about his shoulders, his eyes half-closed. He could remain in that posture for hours.

It was one evening, like so many before it, while performing this task, that I saw another side to Taka. It had been a long, hard day as the chain gang had started up one of the steeper slopes. I had spent hours walking up and down, with pitchers of water, till my feet were aching and raw, wishing I was anywhere but here, longing for home and having no idea how I might get there.

I was more than ready for sleep, but I still had to take the water round for the evening ration. It had been a hard day for the convicts, too, of course, and this had made them rowdy. As I worked my way around the group, Deren, a cutthroat from the north, squeezed my ass roughly. I started and accidentally splashed water over Feroc, a mugger said to have five kills to his name.

“Watch out, you silly bitch!”

“Sorry,” I apologized hastily, but Deren wasn’t going to let me off that easily.

“It’s not her fault, Feroc. She’s bound to be jumpy surrounded by all these men. I bet you’re not the only one who’s wet.”

The room rocked with laughter at my discomfort. I tried to move on but Deren grabbed my arm.

“Now, where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to…”

“Seems to me your job is to take care of us and I’ve got something that needs taking care of.” He massaged the front of his loose, prison-issue pants to make his meaning clear, and my stomach lurched in revulsion. “They can’t parade a little piece like you in front of us every day and expect us to do nothing. It’s one torture too many. So, how about you come here and see if you can’t make us both a little more comfortable.”

He pulled me towards him and I struggled to keep away.

“Let her go.”

At first, I thought one of the guards must have come back in, but then I realized that the low, even voice had come from the corner, where Taka sat, cross-legged, unmoving. I stared, unblinking, as I tried to determine if it had been him who’d spoken. He didn’t even seem to be looking at me.

“It’s none of your business, Taka,” growled Deren. “You can have your turn with her, too, when I’m done if--”

“Let her go.” Taka now looked up, his cool expression meeting Deren’s fiery one. His tone had actually been more remonstrating than threatening, as if he was dealing with a naughty schoolboy.

“To hell with you.” Deren yanked me into his arms, pawing at my body, giving my breasts a painful squeeze.

But before I could even react, Taka, moving like lightning, was barely a flash as he crossed the room and yanked me away from Deren. The cutthroat launched himself at Taka who, with apparently little effort, caught him and hurled him across the room, using the man’s own force against him.

“Stand back,” he muttered, shoving me behind him.

Feroc was next to attack Taka – not in support of Deren, I was sure, but just on the principle that I was community property – with another two men backing him up. Taka’s hands moved, swift and sharp, and with devastating force. A fist like iron landed on Feroc’s jaw, an elbow into another man’s gut, doubling him up. The third, Taka grabbed about the neck and spun to knock over the first two before driving his face into the straw of the floor. Finally, Deren, recovered from being thrown across the room, grabbed the pitcher I had dropped to smash it over Taka’s head. But Taka was too fast, catching the pitcher as it dropped and wrenching it from Deren’s hands. He politely passed it back to me then grabbed Deren by the throat and spoke in his usual mild tones.

“Don’t ever do that to…” he paused and shot me a quizzical glance, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name?”

“Keira,” I stammered, swallowing hard.

“Don’t ever do that to Keira again.”

He shoved Deren to the ground and then went to resume his seat in the corner, cross-legged, eyes half-closed, as if nothing had happened.

For a second, I was frozen, unable to move as adrenaline pounded through me. But as the men groaned and struggled to their feet, I padded slowly toward Taka on shaking legs and knelt in front of him.

“Thank you.” It hardly seemed enough, but it was all I could manage at the time.

He said nothing, but his eyes opened a fraction more and the suggestion of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. My belly tightened, and this time, it had nothing to do with disgust.

There was something else about Taka that I had not mentioned earlier. He was very handsome. I was a little scared of him, and although he had been protecting me, the events of that evening actually made me more scared, because they revealed what he was capable of. I had no idea what was going on behind those impassive features and that soft, yet firm, mouth, that never seemed to be either frowning or smiling and yet, was somehow doing both. I could not guess at the thoughts that dwelt behind his grey eyes that reminded me of the mountains in winter. But for all that, or perhaps because of it – that potent combination of fear and mystery – I found myself drawn to him. Wanting to move closer.

I straightened, shaken by the thought, and moved away, wanting to be gone before the bastards who’d tried to hurt me got their wits again. But as I walked away, I could feel Taka’s eyes on me and I replayed all the times I’d watched him before. The way he moved, the subtle flex and fluidity of his lean muscles, the total confidence of his gait – even though he was a prisoner, Taka did not move like a prisoner; he moved like a prince and, so far, nothing I’d seen had beaten down his spirit or taken that surety from him.

It was that train of thought that got me to wondering.

How had a man like this been caught?

More importantly... How had a man like this not escaped yet?