The Lion and the Lark

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Claudius knew that he was definitely not at home any more.

  He looked up at the end of one missive, suddenly aware of the passage of time, and saw by the calibrated candle melting away before him that it was time to dress for dinner. He had just risen from his chair when Ardus knocked and then entered, glancing around the room at the spartan bed and the rough wooden furniture. The amphora Claudius had requested was in his hands.

  “Not exactly the Leonatus estate, is it?” Ardus said dryly.

  “We’ve both seen worse,” Claudius replied, pulling his tunic over his head and removing a fresh one from his chest. It smelled of the amber it had been packed with and the fine wool had been folded so carefully that it was almost unwrinkled.

  “At least we’re not sleeping under canvas in some Gallic barnyard,” Ardus said.

  Claudius nodded. “How’s the barracks?”

  “Like this. We have a few more chairs.”

  Claudius laughed.

  “What’s in this thing?” Ardus asked curiously, indicating the jar he held.

  “Sandalwood and ambergris balm from eastern Thrace. Lady Scipio likes cosmetics.” He donned his leather breastplate and skirtguard and picked up his cloak, leaving his weapons on the bed.

  “Better to wear those,” Ardus said.

  Claudius looked at him. “To a dinner party?”

  “I’ve been talking to some of the old hands here, and they tell me that after dark these Celts come over the wall with knives between their teeth and attack any officer they see.”

  Claudius sighed and buckled on his scabbard. “I hope Lady Scipio will understand,” he said.

  “If she’s been here for six months, she will.”

  Claudius fastened his cloak over his shoulder and blew out the clock candle as well as the lamp on his desk. The torches he left burning; they would last until morning.

  The night was chilly once they left the headquarters building, but Claudius found the brisk air a tonic after the sometimes oppressive heat of Rome. He smiled as they approached the Scipio house, with its concrete facade and rectangular, two storied design.

  “I see that Drucilla has tried to recreate the Via Sacra in the wilds of Britain,” Claudius said to Ardus.

  “Good luck to her,” Ardus replied. “It will take more than building an Appian style house.”

  Drucilla met them at the door, waving away the servant who had answered it.

  “Welcome to Britain, Claudius Leonatus,” she said, offering him her hand. “It’s so wonderful to see a friendly face from home.” She nodded at Ardus, who inclined his head.

  Claudius kissed Drucilla on both of her cheeks and presented his gift, watching indulgently as she lifted the lid of the jar and sniffed the contents appreciatively.

  “Sandalwood,” she said. “The scent of Venus. Thank you so much, Claudius.”

  Lady Scipio led them through the hall, past the cabinets containing wax masks of the Scipio ancestors, and into the tablinum, an open parlor flanked by shrines to the household gods. The house was far less elaborate than the Scipio home in Rome, which Claudius had also visited. But Drucilla had managed to bring along enough heirlooms and precious objects to convince even the casual visitor that its inhabitants were wealthy and important people.

  Lucia was waiting in the parlor with a tray of wine goblets and a platter of sliced fruit and salted sea bass. As Drucilla and Ardus made small talk, Claudius compared the two women.

  Drucilla had been a great beauty, and she was still, at thirty-eight, a very handsome woman, exquisitely dressed in an ivory sleeveless tunic of Persian silk which flowed gracefully to her sandaled feet. It was topped by a gold bordered diploidion the color of hibiscus, and she wore around her neck a golden chain which was complemented by earbobs studded with amber and carnelian stones. By contrast her daughter was very simply dressed in a pale green gown with silver armlets and a matching zona , a woven belt impregnated with mercury to make it shine. Her hair hung loosely about her shoulders, and Claudius remembered that she had never favored the elaborate, piled high hairstyles so popular in Rome, even when she lived there. He had always liked the little Scipiana, and when her father proposed her for marriage he had considered it. Briefly. She was suitable in every way but one: there was no fire between them, and the girl knew it too. He sensed her relief when the negotiations broke off over the dowry requirements, and now that she was engaged to another he could approach her in a friendly fashion without fear of being misunderstood.

  “Lucia,” he said, as Drucilla showed Ardus an Etruscan vase, “what do you think of Britain?”

  “I don’t equate it with Hades,” the girl replied dryly, and Claudius laughed.

  “It’s too cold for Hades,” he said.

  “Tell that to my mother.”

  “I gather she is not happy here,” he said.

  “She thinks the natives belong in a cage.”

  “That seems to be the prevailing opinion.”

  “Tribune, let me ask you a question,” Lucia said, putting down her drink. “If our country was taken over by an invading army of strangers from the other side of the sea, strangers who demanded obedience and tribute for no reason other than they were more organized, more numerous and more powerful, how would we behave?”

  Claudius was silent for a long moment, then said, “You sympathize with them, then.”

  “I understand their desire to be free.”

  “And Drucilla does not?”

  “My mother wants to go home. That’s about all she understands. She can’t see the natural beauty of this place or its people, she wants to shop in the forum and attend dinner parties and eat Italian food again. She wants well trained servants and Greek physicians and stalls filled with the finest goods from Carthage and Numidia and the farthest reaches of the shipping lanes.”

  “And she hasn’t even experienced her first winter here yet,” Claudius said archly.

  Lucia rolled her eyes.

  “What are you two talking about?” Drucilla asked, joining them.

  “The British winter,” Claudius replied quickly.

  Drucilla shuddered delicately. “I hope we don’t all freeze in our beds,” she said. “My husband said the last one nearly killed him.”

  “I was talking to a sentry who was here last year,” Ardus offered. “He told me that the best to be said for it is that there are plenty of trees for wood to burn.”

  “I’ve never seen snow,” Lucia observed curiously.

  “You will see much more of it than you want to soon enough,” Ardus said.

  Claudius shot him a warning glance. This was not a subject he wanted to pursue while Drucilla was within earshot.

  A servant appeared and announced that dinner was ready.

  “Thank Zeus for Antonia,” Drucilla said, referring to the serving woman who had just left. “She’s the only help I brought with me from Rome and if it weren’t for her I’d go mad. I can’t talk to the local people and none of them can understand me.”

  “If you made some effort to learn their language I’m sure you could communicate with them better,” Lucia said to her mother, with more sharpness than she had intended.

  “You call that a language!” Drucilla said contemptuously, as she led the way out of the parlor. “More like a series of barks. It doesn’t even have a written form, the few that can write have to use Latin or Greek for official documents.”

  “And of course that makes them slugs underfoot,” Lucia said.

  “Your dining room is lovely,” Claudius said to Drucilla as they entered the triclinium, to defuse the tension.

  The traditional three couches were laid out with the heads almost meeting in the center, the low serving tables placed so that the people reclining on them had merely to reach out a hand to touch the food. Three native servants were already in the room, and as the guests sat they moved forward to put out the first course.

  Drucilla apologized for the food throughout the meal, explaining that this
fare was the best she could do with the raw materials at hand. Claudius tried to divert the conversation to politics back in Rome and a number of other subjects, but somehow Drucilla always brought it around again to the horrors of life in Britain. Claudius began to feel a little sorry for Lucia, adrift in a foreign country with no company but her unhappy, complaining mother. By the time he and Ardus had said their goodbyes and left for the barracks, with one of Drucilla’s native servant boys walking before them carrying a torch, Claudius was glad he’d spent only a few hours in the Scipio house.

  They had moved just a few feet away from the front entrance when they heard groaning from the bushes lining the path.

  “Hold the light aloft!” Claudius said sharply, gesturing to indicate what he wanted when the boy stared at him blankly. As the torch was raised all three looked down at what appeared to be a bundle of rags. Claudius bent closer and saw that it was an old woman, face down in the dirt and groping blindly for a hickory switch cane.

  Claudius took her arm and got her on her feet, handing her the stick. She leaned on him heavily, adjusting her black veil and gazing up at him, turning her head to use her one good eye, as the pupil of the other was filmed by a milky cataract.

  “Get away from her!” a female voice suddenly said sharply behind them, in slightly accented Latin. “Leave her alone!”

  Claudius whirled to face the speaker, surprised to see a young girl glaring at him from the shadows. She stepped forward to take the old woman by the shoulders and turn her away from Claudius, as if his touch had besmirched her.

  “I meant her no harm,” Claudius replied. “We found her on the ground by the side of the path and I was trying to help her.”

  The girl questioned the old woman sharply in Celtic, and she responded in the same language. She evidently confirmed what Claudius had said, because the girl didn’t say anything else, merely stared at the two Romans with naked hostility.

  Claudius stared back at her, transfixed.

  She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life. Golden red hair streamed over her shoulders down to her waist, and in the torchlight her skin glowed like precious ivory, her huge turquoise eyes framed by reddish brown lashes several shades darker then her hair. Her loose homespun gown was belted at the waist but did nothing to disguise the lush curves beneath it, and a striped knit shawl was tossed loosely over her shoulders against the night chill.

  Claudius realized he was gaping at her and said quickly, to disguise his reaction, “What are you doing abroad in the fort after dark? You must know about the curfew for natives.”

  “I have permission to escort Maeve home when she works late in the Scipio kitchens. She has a bad eye and can’t see well. You can check with your general’s wife, she arranged it.”

  Claudius looked at Ardus, who shrugged to indicate his ignorance of such a plan.

  “We all must cater to the Scipiana’s convenience,” the girl added derisively.

  Claudius hesitated, trying to think of something else to say to detain her, feeling foolish.

  “You may go,” he finally said. “I’ll send the boy here along to light your way.”

  “Don’t bother,” the girl replied dismissively. “We’ve gotten back safely many times without Roman help.” She tugged on the old woman’s arm, but the crone shrugged her off and moved back to Claudius, reaching up to touch his cheek. She said a few words softly in Celtic.

  Claudius was startled; there was something eerie in the hag’s manner that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

  “What did she say?” he demanded, looking at the girl.

  She seemed alarmed too, but quickly assumed an impassive expression when she saw him looking at her searchingly.

  “Nothing important. She’s just a silly old woman who talks a lot of garbage.” She spat the last word, purgamentum, then grabbed the ancient’s arm and practically dragged her away as the crone looked back over her shoulder at Claudius.

  It was several moments before Claudius realized that Ardus was speaking to him.

  “What?” he said, tearing his gaze away from the departing figures, who rapidly vanished into the dark.

  “I was stating the obvious, telling you that she was a very pretty filly,” Ardus said.

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No. They’re all pretty around here, and all nameless. It’s courting death to sleep with one of them, though, they’ll slit your throat as soon as your eyes close.”

  “I wonder why she spoke Latin so well.”

  “Who knows? Maybe her mother changed Caesar’s linen and brought her to work in his house when he was staying here. I’m told that you’d be surprised how many of them know what we’re saying, but they never let on. You always have to watch your conversation around them. I’ve talked to some men who’ve been here a while and know the natives a little better than Scipio’s wife. They say we should not underestimate the Celts, they are very far from stupid.”

  Claudius nodded, his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.

  “Come on, let’s go. It’s late,” Ardus said.

  Claudius gestured for the torchbearer to walk on and fell in behind him slowly, his mind still on the red-haired girl.

  “Why did you say that to the Roman officer?” Bronwen demanded of Maeve as they walked through the gates of the fort. The night watch knew them by sight and let them pass.

  “I felt the goddess whisper inside me and so I spoke her prophecy aloud,” Maeve replied.

  “That he would find his destiny in an Iceni woman?” Bronwen demanded

  incredulously.

  The crone grinned at her toothlessly. “He’s very pleasing in appearance. Do you hope it will be you?”

  “Oh, go to bed, old woman,” Bronwen said irritably, opening the door of Maeve’s hut, which stood a short distance outside the gates of the garrison. She could hear Maeve cackling as she went inside and lit a candle which showed through the window.

  Maeve had been her grandmother’s best friend and the midwife who attended Bronwen’s birth. Maeve had outlived her whole family and Bronwen felt responsible for her. She brought her food and clothing and looked out for her whenever possible, but the old woman could be a formidable challenge to patience and endurance. When the candle went out and she knew Maeve was in bed, Bronwen mounted the horse she had left tethered nearby. She rode home by the scant light of a new moon, following a route she had used since childhood and could have traveled without benefit of sight. She remembered how the Roman had offered to send the Scipio torchbearer with her and smiled to herself scornfully.

  As if she would need such assistance.

  Then she thought about Maeve again, and the smile faded. She didn’t believe Maeve’s babble for a moment. But it WAS a strange coincidence that the officer Bronwen had noticed as the new Romans arrived had been at the general’s home to aid Maeve when she fell.

  Bronwen had recognized him right away; he was even more striking at close range, with large dark eyes and a full, sensual mouth. He had stared back at her with such intensity that the memory was difficult to dismiss. He’d spoken the crisp, round voweled Latin of the upper class, and he talked to her as if she were an equal, without the subtly contemptuous note that crept into the conversation of most Romans when they spoke to the natives. He’d referred to her as keltoi, which was the word her people used for themselves, rather than indigenae, a slightly disparaging term the Romans used for the original inhabitants of the countries they conquered. Bronwen was very sensitive to the nuances of Latin, and the respectful way he had addressed her surprised her. Perhaps she was giving him too much credit, maybe he had merely been trained to be polite, but the lack of arrogance in his manner had been noticeable.

  Bronwen reined in her horse and bit her lip. What was she thinking? The man was a Roman dog, after all, and it didn’t matter if he treated her courteously or with the disdain he must surely feel. She hated him as she hated all the rest of them.

  She stared u
p at the thin crescent moon, pulling her shawl tighter around her and patting the restive horse’s neck.

  Then she kicked his flanks smartly and galloped the rest of the way home.

  Scipio returned to Britain at the end of September, and the Iceni received their weapons from the Trinovantes at about the same time. The uneasy peace was shattered immediately as the newly rearmed Celts began staging raids, gathering in intensity as the leaves turned colors and fell from the trees. Claudius did not have time to notice the glorious seasonal changes, he was too busy battling the natives in every possible arena. The Romans couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without being attacked; the Celts materialized from behind boulders, jumped down from trees, appeared out of nowhere like the wraiths their myths described so vividly. The constant harassment wore down troop morale, as did the worsening weather, and the garrison was losing far too many men to the kind of warfare for which the Romans had no preparation, or indeed respect. By the beginning of November over one thousand of the new arrivals were dead, and winter had not even established a firm grip yet.

  Scipio knew from experience that the superior weaponry and training of the Romans were causing heavy losses on the other side as well, but he was also aware that the Celts would continue relentlessly on their current path no matter how grievously they suffered. As he tallied the Roman dead and watched the temperature fall each day, he contemplated the future with a heavy heart.

  Claudius did not see the red-haired girl again. He looked for her, but soon learned that the old lady she had come to escort home had moved into the Scipio servants’ quarters. There was no reason for the young woman to return to the fort. He had no idea who she was, but she lingered in his mind, surfacing in dreams which woke him with their disturbing intensity. During the day he was too busy with warfare to think about her, but she came at night, like an incubus, and robbed him of sleep.