“Caesar did not call them the wily Celts for nothing,” he finally said to Claudius. “It seems that we have both been duped.”
“If he is Bronwen’s brother he will take care of Lucia. You should have no fears for her safety.”
“Do you really believe that?” Scipio asked him.
“Yes. If he were just using Lucia for information while he worked in your stables he would not have come back for her.”
“And what then?” Scipio said. “My daughter spends the rest of her life in the wilds of Britain with a barbarian prince? Her mother will die of humiliation, and I don’t know what I will say to her fiancé when I get back to Rome.”
“Tell him she was kidnapped. The people at home will believe anything about the Britons, especially that.”
Scipio laughed shortly. He looked through the strip window at the gathering dark outside.
“I wish I had never seen this place,” he murmured. “Nothing good happens here.” He glanced over at Claudius. “You know that I must conduct a public execution,” he said suddenly. “There’s no other way.”
Claudius didn’t answer.
“Her father must have known he would be sentencing her to death if he
sanctioned the attack,” Scipio said.
Her father assumed she would get out of the fort before it happened, Claudius thought.
“When?” he asked.
“Noon tomorrow.”
“Why public?” Claudius asked.
“There are enough natives still working in the fort households to spread the word around the countryside to the tribes. I want the Celts to hear about it.”
“It won’t stop them. Nothing will.”
Scipio rose and put on his cloak again briskly. “I’m going home, my wife is beside herself. I’ll leave you in charge, send someone for me if you need me.”
“May I speak with Bronwen?” Claudius asked quietly.
Scipio hesitated. “Do you really want to?”
“Yes.”
Scipio sighed. “Go ahead, but don’t take her out of the cell.” He smiled. “I don’t suppose she can overpower you and the guards too.” He paused. “Do you think the Iceni will show up to try to stop the execution?”
“They knew she was a hostage when they decided to attack,” Claudius said, shrugging. “So they knew what the consequence would be.”
Scipio nodded and Claudius relaxed.
If the general found out that Bronwen had been warned about the raid he would realize she had been in touch with her brother, and the next logical conclusion would be that she had been passing on information.
Claudius did not want him to go down that road.
“Will it be arrows?” Claudius asked quietly.
“Yes.” Scipio paused in the doorway. “It’s quick,” he added.
“I know.”
The general looked at him for a moment longer and then went through the door.
It was now full dark, and Claudius was alone in the room. The unnatural quiet that always fell after a battle enveloped the fort, as exhausted men crept back into their caves to lick their wounds, spent from the fight and from burying the dead. He had been so busy trying to restore order in the aftermath of the conflict that he had managed to push the subject of Bronwen out of his mind. But now he sat, surrounded by scrolls and the other detritus of his administrative duties, a fat wax candle burning away at his elbow, wondering how he could watch his wife go to her death and do nothing about it.
Had she betrayed his trust? Unquestionably. Had she enabled her brother and his men to score a decisive victory over their occupiers? Undeniably. But had she also tried many times to get him away from the fort before the attack and then had stayed with him, knowing that her life would be forfeit once the battle ended? That was true too. What emerged was the picture Ardus had described: that of a woman of divided loyalties who had done what she could to remain true to her cause while attempting to protect the man she loved.
Should she die for that? What would he have done in her place? Though she may have entered into the marriage for the purpose of spying on him, he knew that their relationship had become complicated very quickly. It would be easier to watch her death if he thought that she had used him, coldbloodedly and without remorse. But he understood that however it had begun, she had fallen in love with him. She now felt as deeply for him as he did for her, and that made the current situation unbearable.
Claudius gripped the edge of the desk tightly, his knuckles turning white. Bronwen was only a few steps down the hall, but he couldn’t force himself to take that walk.
He was afraid that he would let her go.
As the moon rose and the fire lowered his desire to see her overcame all other considerations and he stood up, scooping the jumble of scrolls on the desk into a pouch and locking it in a chest. He walked out of the main room and down a narrow hall to the cells, where two brawny foot soldiers stood guard outside Bronwen’s cubicle. They snapped to attention and presented arms when they saw Claudius.
“You’re dismissed,” he said to them. “Report back here at the change of the watch.”
Bronwen sat up on her cot when she heard her husband’s voice. The guards exchanged glances and then left, unfastening their cloaks from their shoulders.
Claudius unlocked the cell with a cast iron key and then closed the barred door behind him, dropping the latch into place with the solid sound of metal.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come,” Bronwen said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Claudius sat on the edge of the cot and studied his wife. There was no light in the cell except for a single candle burning on the elevated windowsill, but her hair still caught fire and glowed in the scant illumination, and he could see that her eyes were red and swollen. She was wearing a simple shift which flowed in a straight line from her shoulders to her ankles, and the crude woolen blanket supplied to prisoners was drawn across her lap.
“How are you?” Claudius asked, his voice sounding congested to his own ears.
“Fine. I have not been mistreated.” She glanced at the bandage which covered his wound. “How is your arm?”
He flexed and relaxed his fist. “I don’t feel it.”
Her eyes filled again suddenly and she whispered, “Do you hate me, Claudius?”
He didn’t answer.
“Of course you do,” she said dismally, closing her eyes. When they opened again she was staring beyond him at the stone wall, focused on the past.
“I should have refused to go through with the wedding that first day, when I saw that I would be marrying you,” she said softly. “I knew what would happen, but I couldn’t admit it then, not even to myself.” She turned her head and looked at him again. “When am I to die?” she asked.
“Noon tomorrow,” he said. “When the apparitor declares that the sun is at its height.”
She nodded. “Good. Not much longer to wait, then. How is it to be done?”
“By archers.”
“Not crucifixion?”
“We rarely crucify women.”
“You crucify spies.”
“Scipio doesn’t know that you were gathering information for your father.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Bronwen asked.
“No. He considers that your life is the price of the broken treaty. That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I sought to give you the easier death. Crucifixion is...slow. In the summer its victims die of thirst, and in the winter...”
“Of exposure?”
“Yes.”
She saw his expression and smiled. “Don’t look like that, Claudius. If you no longer love me I have no wish to live.”
“I didn’t say that I no longer love you,” he said huskily.
She searched his shadowed face in the dim light and finally sighed wistfully.
“So much the worse for both of us, then,” she said softly. She reached out and took his large hand, holdi
ng his scarred and calloused palm between both of hers.
“I suppose it’s a pity that we two ever met,” she said.
“Maeve would say that such things are dictated by the gods,” he replied quietly.
“You’ll forget me,” Bronwen said.
“That I never will,” Claudius replied, trying to speak past the lump in his throat.
“You’ll go back to Rome and marry some little virgo intacta whose father is only too eager for her to become the next Leonata.”
“Bronwen, don’t,” he said huskily.
“Claudius, hold me,” she begged, losing control as she threw her arms around his neck. “I want to remember what it feels like to have your body next to mine.”
He held her for long moment and then grasped her wrists, pulling her arms away from his neck.
“Don’t do this. You’re just making it more difficult for both of us,” he said, as he rose and went to the door of her cell, lifting the latch.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked desperately.
“I’ll be there,” he said shortly, and bolted through the door. He slammed it and locked it, his fingers clumsy as he viewed their motion through a mist of tears.
He hadn’t cried since his mother died, not even when he lost his family, but he was very close to breaking down now. He walked quickly to the desk and sat behind it, his mind racing, his oath of duty warring with his love for the woman in the next room.
He could let her out and run away with her, make his life in the forests of Britain as best he could, without a career or a living to sustain them. He would do it in an instant, just throw it all away and take his chances, were it not for his family’s reputation back in Rome.
Scipio had trusted him, left him to supervise a prisoner he could easily release, a prisoner the general knew very well that his tribune loved. But the Leonatus reputation for loyalty and integrity was such that Scipio didn’t doubt for a moment that Claudius would be worthy of his faith in him. And he was right.
If Claudius abandoned the army for Bronwen he would be a traitor, forfeiting his estate to the government and disgracing his family name. The former meant nothing to him now; the latter still meant quite a bit. He loved his honor as much as he loved Bronwen, and he would have to forsake it utterly to save her.
It was a choice no one should have to make, and like Bronwen when faced with a similar decision, he was paralyzed.
He put his head down on his arms. He couldn’t live without her and he couldn’t live with the disgrace of freeing her.
After long contemplation he was finally forced to the conclusion he had been avoiding.
The only solution was for them to die together.
CHAPTER thirteen
“Do you think this plan can possibly work?” Lucia said to Brettix, who was lacing up his calfskin boots.
“I don’t know. You’re more familiar with your father than I am. Can he be reasonable?” Brettix replied.
“About as reasonable as your father was when you introduced me to him as your future wife,” Lucia replied dryly.
“His wound is festering. He’s just angry that he will be in bed with fever when I meet with Scipio.”
“He said that I was too skinny for childbearing,” Lucia replied.
Brettix shot her a glance. “I didn’t think you heard that.”
“I understand Celtic very well.”
Brettix straightened and fingered the torque at his throat. “When all this is over and Bronwen is safe he will be present when the Druid marries us,” he said firmly.
“He moved in with Parex and Cartia to leave us alone here,” Lucia said. “That doesn’t give me the feeling that he approves.”
“He wants Cartia to nurse him. I don’t hover over him as well as she does.”
“I think he’s worried about Bronwen,” Lucia said.
Brettix nodded. “He talked her into the marriage. He never thought she’d stay with the Roman.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.” Brettix picked up his cloak and slipped his arms into the sleeves, nodding toward Lucia. “You’d better get dressed yourself. Maeve said the execution was set for noon.”
Lucia stood and dropped her sagum over her shoulders. “I’m frightened, Brettix.”
“So am I. It’s not only the tribe’s future that’s in jeopardy. My sister’s life is at stake and if I don’t save her I know my father will never forgive me.”
“Not to mention that you will never forgive yourself,” Lucia said quietly.
He waited until she was attired to go, then took her hand.
“Just follow my lead,” he said. “When we approach the fort throw back your hood and let the sentries see who you are. Call to them and tell them you will only come in if I’m allowed to enter with you. They’ll be afraid to turn you away.”
Lucia nodded. Her face was very pale.
“Let’s go.”
They went outside and untethered the horses, mounting together.
“Ready?” Brettix said to her.
“Ready,” she replied, and they rode off into the frosty morning.
Claudius dressed quickly on the day scheduled for Bronwen’s execution, ignoring the breakfast Maeve had left for him. He’d spent a sleepless night in the house he had shared with Bronwen, toying with the idea of visiting his wife with a concealed knife, then opening her veins as well as his when they were left alone. But that was giving up hope that Scipio would change his mind or the Iceni would arrive at the last moment to negotiate. Claudius knew that Borrus had expected Bronwen to get out of the fort before the battle, and he couldn’t believe that the king would abandon his daughter.
But if he did, Claudius was prepared to take her life with a clean cut, and then his own. He would not let her become a bloody pulp at the hands of the infantry archers, a butchered corpse to be displayed as a cautionary tale to the avaricious eyes of onlookers. He knew how to dispatch an enemy with one stroke. He could do as much for his beloved wife if she was destined to die anyway, and then follow her by falling on his sword. The Roman code permitted suicide as a noble end to life when all else was lost, and such a death would preserve his honor and the reputation of his family. They would cut off his hand and bury it apart from the rest of his body, because it had done the final deed, and he and Bronwen would finally be at peace.
But he wanted to live with her much more than he wanted to die with her, so he waited and hoped, delaying his final scheme until he saw that it was too late to do anything else.
He reported to the garrison headquarters to find the archers on the campus, practicing for their assignment later in the day. They stood in the snow, cloaks thrown back over their shoulders, aiming flights of arrows at a target, the tree to which Bronwen would be bound when the moment came. Claudius walked past them and entered the blackened building, now half destroyed by fire, to find Scipio pacing stolidly, his hands folded behind his back.
“Ah, Claudius,” he said when he saw his tribune. “Not a happy day, is it?”
“No. Has she been alone all this time?”
“The old woman came early this morning, but your wife wouldn’t see her.”
“She turned Maeve away?” Claudius said.
“Yes. It seems she wants to be alone.” Scipio hesitated. “Will you talk to her again?”
Claudius closed his eyes, then shook his head.
“I had hoped for some communication...” Scipio said quietly.
Claudius looked at him.
“I had thought the Iceni might offer to trade my daughter for your wife,” he explained.
“Not if Brettix wants to keep Lucia,” Claudius said. “Not if she wants to stay.”
Scipio sighed and nodded. He stared at Claudius, who looked gaunt with pain, and said, “I’m sorry, son. I never thought it would come to this.”
“I know. Neither did I.”
“You can go back home if you like. Ardus will come in and cover for you.”
“I
’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind. There are too many memories in that house.”
“As you wish.” Scipio left the room and Claudius stood at the window, watching the archers at their work. They were arranged in three staggered lines, one behind the other, the spacing allowing all the arrows to reach the target. He heard the capite barking commands as the sagittarii raised their bows at the first word, drew them at the second, and let the arrows fly at the third. They acted as one man, in perfect unison. Their aim was true; only a few of the missiles fell shy of the tree, and most lodged within it.
Claudius tried to imagine Bronwen’s slender body on the receiving end of that murderous volley, and felt ill.
His last act of love would be to spare her that.
The morning passed with agonizing slowness; every time Claudius looked at the candle burning on the hearth mantel it seemed the same size. Finally Scipio came back and gave the order to bring the prisoner forward; Claudius watched as Bronwen was led past him, her hands bound behind her back, flanked by two guards who were holding her upper arms. She looked at him searchingly, but said nothing as she stumbled to keep up with her captors, her loose hair flowing down her back. He stepped forward as she went out the door, as if to aid her, and Scipio blocked his path.
“You don’t have to watch this,” he said to Claudius.
“I will. I want to tend her body when it’s done.”
Scipio moved aside and Claudius went before him, looking toward the ruined ramparts when the apparitor’s horn blew.
It was noon.
The guards were tying Bronwen to the tree when a shout went up from the ranks assembled to witness the execution. The officers looked toward the entry and saw two riders approaching, a tall man bareback on a native stallion and a young woman on a horse Scipio recognized.
“It’s Lucia,” he called to Claudius, who had edged away, moving closer to Bronwen.
Claudius’ hand relaxed on his sword. Was there still a chance?
“She’s with Brettix,” Claudius added quickly.
The capite glanced at Scipio, who held up his hand.
“Consistere!” the general said. “Halt!”
The capite gestured with his hand and the archers stood at ease.
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