“It belongs to Llyn ap Caradoc.” Diana yawned, stretching her arms overhead as Marcella looked around the hay bales, the harness hooks, the rows of stalls. “He usually has a steward and a few slaves, but they must have fled. Still, I knew Llyn wouldn’t mind if we borrowed his barn.”

“Couldn’t we have borrowed his house?” Marcella shivered in the morning chill, rubbing her bare arms.

“Oh, no. Britons take guest-right very seriously. You don’t ever just invite yourself into a Briton’s house.”

“You know the oddest things, Diana.”

Still, Marcella thought, a haystack was better than nothing. Even if they’d trotted half the night to get to it. The villa wasn’t far outside city walls, Diana had explained at some point last night during the long dark drive, but it was a good distance around from the Aurelian Gate, where they’d had to make their escape. She’d pulled up the horses in the yard well past midnight, and Marcella had been only too happy to pile off the chariot in Lollia and Cornelia’s wake, stagger into the barn, and collapse without a further word into the haystack.

Lollia was still asleep, curled into a ball in the hay and looking no older than Flavia, but Cornelia was just starting to stir. Marcella yawned again, and Diana put her hands to the small of her back and grimaced as she stretched. “Gods’ wheels, I’ve never hurt so much in my life,” she groaned. “Not even after my Circus Maximus race.”

She held up her hands in the gray dawn light and Marcella saw that blood had spiraled down from her blistered, sawed-open palms and dried around her wrists in brown ribbons. “Those horses pulled your hands to pieces, didn’t they?”

“I don’t mind.” Diana tugged affectionately at the old stallion’s drooping ears. “They ran like gods.” The Anemoi looked as exhausted as Diana, still standing harnessed to the chariot with their noses hanging at their knees. They’d galloped half the night and trotted the other half once they ran themselves tired, and even when Diana pulled them up in the barn she said she didn’t dare unharness them. “What if a stray raiding party comes along? We might need to make another fast escape.” The last thing Marcella had seen before her eyes snapped shut in sleep had been Diana curled up against the old stallion’s legs, stroking the heavy nose that dropped on her shoulder and gazing at the road below in search of further danger.

“I think we can unharness them now.” Marcella rubbed her bare arms again. “I doubt we’ll see any marauding legionaries this morning. They’ll all be too busy sleeping off their hangovers and guarding their loot.” She gestured at the horses. “Can I help?”

“Fetch them some water? There’s a well outside.”