Swimming towards it was not easy, especially towing the unconscious Caesar behind her, but she managed. Hauling herself up onto the 'raft' was a time consuming process that took a lot of her reserves of strength, especially as she had to hold onto Caesar so that he didn't sink under the weight of his armour. Having pulled herself out of the water, she turned her attentions to her enemy, forcing herself to slowly hoist his dead weight over the lip of the raft and onto the safety of the planking. Finally succeeding with her task, she allowed herself to collapse and, breathing deeply, recover from her exertions.
She knew that she couldn't rest for too long. She needed to find a way to secure Caesar so that he couldn't cause her any problems. As she pushed herself up from her prone position her hands brushed against the manacles that hung from the leather belt. She grinned to herself, - Well, fair is fair, - she thought, as her hands reached behind her and struggled to released the three stiff buckles that strapped the belt in place.
Xena contemplated her captive, - The breast plate will have to go, - she decided, - in fact all the armour can go. I'd better see if he's got any weapons other than his sword, while I'm at it. -
Working quickly, expert fingers released the buckles and straps that secured the Roman's armour. She tossed it to the far end of the raft before removing his sword belt and throwing that after the metal plates. Her hands worked quickly checking for any daggers that might be secreted about his person, and she found two wicked looking stilettos, one in either of his boots. She removed those throwing them to stand quivering in the wood with the other things she'd taken from him. As a final thought she took his boots and heaved them into the sea and removed his shirt, - Let's see how he fares in the hot sun without some protection. - It was a rather malicious piece of petty vindictiveness, but Xena thought she had earned the right to so be.
Rolling Caesar onto his stomach, she passed the belt around him and pulled the buckles tight, as he started to shift and moan. Before he returned to full consciousness, she turned him over onto his back and snapped the cuffs in place around his wrists and then dragged him across to the truncated mast stump and propped him up against it, moving round behind him she leaned against the opposite side of the broken remnant of thick wood and, using the chain from her collar, she wound it around the mast stump, including Caesar's neck, and held it tight by wrapping it around her left forearm. She needed to get some long overdue rest, and she wanted him where she knew exactly where he was.
She took a long look around the fog shrouded horizon and estimated that the sun wouldn't burn off the cloud for some time yet. She set her internal clock to allow herself three candlemarks sleep, and ignoring the feeble sounds coming from her prisoner, she willed herself into a light doze, from which she could snap to full alertness at the slightest hint of something wrong.
As Caesar struggled back to consciousness, his mind kept replaying the disturbing moment when Xena had appeared before him, like some vengeance seeking demon, before carrying him over the ships rail and into the sea below. Then he'd been struggling in the water, his damned heavy armour threatening to pull him under. After that he remembered nothing.
His eyes flickered open and registered the wall of whiteness that still enshrouded them, and the soft waves that lifted and lapped at the edges of the raft that he seemed to be sitting on. He winced as a pain shot through his jaw and he attempted to lift a hand to massage it, only to find it brought up short by the manacles he wore. He jerked his wrists in frustration recognising the restraints, used to hold Xena, that he'd conceived himself.
Angrily, he tried to stand, only to be made instantly aware of the chain around his neck. He reached up with his fettered hands, and his questing fingers identified the heavy links that lay there. Fuming he struggled against the shackles that held him, knowing that it was a wasted effort, realising that he had nowhere near the strength to come anywhere close to breaking free of them. After all, they were designed and crafted to hold a woman with the reputed strength of ten men.
Calming himself, he allowed his eyes to roam over the raft, or what he could see of it. His eyes were immediately drawn to the pile made by his weapons and armour at the far end of the piece of wreckage, the twin daggers standing tantalisingly just out of the reach of his foot. He strained forward, muscles stretching as he tried to work his toes close enough to the handle of the nearest one to capture it.
"Don't even think about it!" advised a steely voice from behind him.
- Of course, she had to be here somewhere, - he berated himself, for forgetting about the woman. He relaxed and willed his voice to calmness as he asked, "So, now, what do you intend? The two of us alone in the middle of nowhere, you must have a plan for this?"
"What I plan is to get a little sleep, during which time you better keep still and quiet, or I might just decide that I'd prefer to watch you drown. Do I make myself clear?" she growled menacingly.
"Perfectly," agreed Caesar, "Just try not to forget that you friends, Gabrielle, Joxer and Autolycus, all are dependent upon my continuing health, for their continuing existence." He choked as the chain around his neck was jerked with a savage strength that cut off his breathing. After what seemed to him to be forever, the pressure was relaxed and he coughed and wheezed as he tried to draw air in through a tortured throat into a body starved of oxygen.
"It's not too wise to push my patience at the moment," she told him bluntly, "I've suffered your abuse for far too long, and it might just be worth the consequences to see you crawl before I slice you open like the pig you are."
Caesar's mind warred with itself as the logical half tried to assure him that Xena would never sacrifice her friends for personal vengeance upon him, while a very real fear screamed that she would. This was the woman, after all who had butchered countless thousands in her personal rampage of conquest. - What are the lives of 'friends' to someone such as her? - an insistent voice demanded of him.
Having given her enemy something to think about other than the proximity of the daggers, Xena settled down again for some much needed rest. She'd work out just what she intended to do with Caesar when she woke up.
At the exact time that she had set herself to wake, Xena's eyes flickered open to see that the fog had thinned somewhat in the ensuing time lapse. She could hear the soft snore coming from Caesar behind her and she screened the noise out to listen for the sound of life or ships around them ... and heard nothing.
She unwound the chain from where she'd anchored it on her arm and turned to get up. As soon as the resistance on the chain relaxed, Caesar scrambled towards where the knives stood held in the planking. Reaching with his right hand towards the handle of the dagger, a heavy foot stamped down on his wrist, "Aaarrrhh!" he cried as he heard the bone snap under the force of Xena's heel.
"Ah, ah, ahh!" she told him, as she plucked the stilettos out of the wood and tossed them with negligent expertise in her hands.
White faced, Caesar glared up at her. He slowly sat, cradling his fractured wrist as he did so, "By the gods Xena, you're going to suffer for this," he told her blackly.
"Oh right!" she snarled back, "What are you going to do to me that you haven't already done, Julius. Let's see, so far on the list you've had me crucified, broken my legs, had me beaten and whipped within an inch of my life, tried to break my will with mind games, used me to force a good man into an agreement that stinks of dishonour, threatened my friends, used me as a galley slave and ... oh yes, we shouldn't leave this out should we, betrayed my youthful love and trust, turning me into a monster who's only object in life was to kill!" She reeled off the catalogue with low menace, "No, Julius, I really don't think you can cause me any more suffering than you already have!"
He backed off under the intensity of her blazing blue eyes, not stopping until he felt the solid bulk of the broken mast behind him. Seeking to try and calm the highly volatile situation, he asked her in a more reasonable tone, "Just what do you think you can achieve by this?"
Xena kept an eye on him as she strapped his sword belt around her waist, threw one of the daggers over the side into the sea, and thrust the other into the belt. The armour she ignored. He wouldn't be able to use it as a weapon, and she didn't know if it would come in useful at some point. She curled up the neck chain and hung it over hilt of the sword - At least it won't drag on me so much that way, - she thought as she considered his question.
She gave him a hard look noting the way that his usual arrogant attitude slipped back on him like a mental cloak, "Maybe I won't gain anything out of this other than the satisfaction of making you squirm before I kill you ... And I can kill you, Julius. Over the years I've become very good at killing men. Then again," she grinned wolfishly as she saw him fighting the fear from showing in his eyes, "when the fighting's finished and the winner comes back looking for survivors, it just might be the Carthaginians who pick us up."
He gave her a searching, quizzical look, "What makes you think the men of Carthage will give you anything you want? You wear the collar of a slave, and under Carthaginian law you remain my slave, even if I'm taken by them."
She allowed the crooked half smile to play across her lips, never touching her eyes, "Laws are there to be broken. I have friends in Carthage, powerful friends who owe me a favour or two. I have little doubt that I'll be able to convince them to help me ... especially since I will have delivered you to them."
Caesar glared at her, as he weighed this piece of information for any flaws that he might be able to exploit. Seeing nothing he fell back to his previously prepared position, "Be very careful what you do, Xena, you're playing with the lives of your friends. When they die the guilt will be yours. You knew the situation, and you're playing with fire here. If I die, they die!"
The Warrior Princess laughed mirthlessly, "I have no intention of killing you, unless you force me to it. I'm certain that the Carthaginians will want to ransom you for concessions in land, trade and spheres of influence. I'm going to get the return of my friends tacked onto the ransom. Once they're out of your clutches I'll decide what to do about you."
"Just what, exactly, do you mean by that?" he questioned her suspiciously.
"I mean," she said as she slowly moved forward, her leg irons dragging heavily on the planking, "that I may just come after you for real, Julius. Especially if I think you intend to keep those bounties on mine and Gabrielle's heads."
"You honestly think you can get into Rome and past my security," he sneered contemptuously.
"I've done it before," she reminded him, "Only this time you won't know I'm there until you feel my steel in your guts."
"You mean my back, don't you?" he taunted, "That's how assassins work!" he sneered again.
"I'm not an assassin," she reminded him, "and I want to see into your eyes when I yank out your guts. It'll take you a long while to die from a wound like that. Maybe days. And I know no one who can heal such a wound. Oh, yes, I definitely want to see your eyes when I do that to you." she said as she put out a hand to lightly brush the scar she had left on his face, noting the mottled purple that studded his throat where the chain links had bitten.
He jerked his head away making himself wince as he did so by causing his wrist to jar, "You know, Xena, you'd frighten me far more if I didn't know that you care so much about these friends and family of yours. You won't risk their lives if you can possibly avoid it, even if it required you to surrender your own life to save theirs," he told her placidly, refusing to rise to her bait. He, after all, had a destiny, and it hadn't yet run it's course, "It makes you weak," he taunted, "and emotional. Hardly good attributes for a warrior."
"You’re wrong, Caesar," she told him softly, "Without love and compassion all you're left with is hate and indifference. That's a cold way to live ... but you've yet to discover the truth of that," she stood and glanced around the horizon noting that the fog had dispersed other than for insignificant tendrils that were quickly dissipating under the warmth of the afternoon sun.
