The Lion and the Lark (15 page)

     “I thought you might need it,” Brettix mumbled unconvincingly, unable to meet her eyes.

     A woman came through the atrium briskly and then stopped short, her eyes widening alarmingly when she saw the two young people sitting together. 

     Both stood instantly, as if called to attention.

     “Lucia!” Drucilla Scipio said, aghast.  “What in the name of the furies is going on here?  Who is this man?”

     Brettix could see that this was Lucia’s mother.  She was about forty and dressed far more richly than her daughter, but the resemblance was marked.

     “This is Brettix, who has been giving me riding lessons.  He came to return a piece of jewelry that I misplaced at the stables,” Lucia said, striving for a calmness in her tone that she did not feel.

     Her mother’s dark gaze went to the necklace in her hand.  “That barbarian trinket!  I’m sure that senile old hag put a curse on it.  He should have buried it as an offering with the rest of the trash his people throw into those shafts they’ve dug.  As if you could reach the gods by burrowing directly into the underworld.  They’re all such children.  Who is that goddess they’re always praying to, the one who is supposed to assure them final victory over us?”

     “Andrasta,” Lucia said quietly, surprised that her mother knew so much about the local religion, which Drucilla regarded as a collection of infantile fantasies.

     “Yes, well, she’d better look sharp, their victory seems a long way off to me.  And tell this one here to take that thing away.  I don’t want it in the house.”

       Lucia glanced at Brettix.  He couldn’t understand fully what her mother was saying, of course, but the older woman’s waspish tone was obvious.

     “I want it, and Father said I could keep it,” Lucia said firmly.  “It was kind of Brettix to return it.”

     “Your father indulges you too much.  And why do you have this man in here?  He’s a servant, Lucia, you should have seen him in the kitchen.  If you had to see him at all.”  Drucilla examined the hulking Celt with distaste.  “Why are they all so big?” she asked no one in particular.  “And all that wild hair is so unattractive, he looks like a brigand.”

     “He’s the horse trainer, mother, the one Ariovistus brought back from Magiolagos.  I’m sure father told you about him.”

     “Yes, I heard about him, but I never saw him or I would have refused to employ him.  His shoes are filthy, he’s tracked up the carpets.  Ariovistus is as useless as the rest of his kind, if this is his idea of a horsemaster I shall have to have a stern talk with him.  In the meanwhile, get this lout out of here.”

     “Let’s go, Brettix,” Lucia said, her voice trembling.  She led the way back to the kitchen and then ordered everyone else out, turning to him when the rest of the servants had departed.

     “I’m so sorry about my mother,” she said quietly in Celtic.  “No wonder you hate us so much.”

     Her expression was miserable, her kohl rimmed eyes brimming with tears.

     “It doesn’t matter,” he told her gently.  “Whatever she said, it doesn’t matter.”

     “Yes, it does,” she whispered.  “It matters to me.”

     The door to the alley burst open and a slave boy came through it, his arms loaded with logs.  His expression changed when he saw Lucia and Brettix, and he stammered, “Excuse me, mistress, I was just bringing these in for the fire in the triclinium.”

     “Go on,” Lucia said, nodding for him to pass through the room.  When he had left she said tersely to Brettix, “There’s no privacy in this house, it’s like living in the middle of the forum on market day.”

     “I should go,” Brettix said, backing away from her.

     “Don’t leave yet,” she said.

     “Lucia, your mother doesn’t want me here.”

     “I want you here,” Lucia replied stubbornly, “and I live in this house too.”

     “You’ll get into trouble, Lucia,” he said desperately.  “If your mother stays angry and insists upon it your father might well cut off your riding lessons.”

     That reached her.  She sighed and nodded.

     “Go,” she said, “and thank you again for returning the necklace.”

     Brettix fled, not stopping until he had left the house behind and reached his horse.

     He had heard stories about Lucia’s mother; apparently they were not exaggerated.  He felt a sharp stab of sympathy for his young pupil, living wedged between her preoccupied father and a mother who could rival the Greek harpies.

     But he put his feelings aside for later.  Most of the Roman officers were gathering at the Scipio house tonight, so it would be a good time for Parex and his other friends to strike.  If the festival was as important as Lucia had said, the garrison was sure to be short staffed.

     He had to get word to them.

     Brettix climbed onto the horse and rode.

     Claudius did not return to the house that evening.  Bronwen knew that he was going to Scipio’s home for the Saturnalia celebration, so she didn’t begin to worry until the moon rose high overhead and there was still no sign of her husband.  She went to bed and slept fitfully, waking often to see if he had returned, and long before dawn she gave up on sleep entirely.  She roamed the halls of the silent house and then finally sat nodding by the fire, listening for any sound that might indicate Claudius was on his way to their bedroom, reviewing in her mind the incident that had driven him from their home.

         She knew she had hurt him badly.  Just when he thought she was  responding, she had turned on him viciously in a way that would wound any man.

       Why had she spoken to him so harshly?  Her need to drive him away before she could give in completely and make love to him was not something she could explain, but it had ruled her conduct that night.

     And she had not seen Claudius since. 

     He must be sleeping in the barracks, if he slept at all.

     Bronwen heard a sound in the distance and leapt to her feet, gathering her shawl about her as she ran from the warm room into the cold hall.  It was the time just before dawn and the torches were burning low as she fled through the tablinum and into the atrium.

     She opened the door herself as Maeve emerged cautiously from the servants’ quarters at the back of the house, rubbing her eyes sleepily and yawning.

     General Scipio stood on her threshold, with Ardus, the new quaestor. Behind him two guardsmen bore a stretcher on which Claudius lay, his face as white as curdled milk, his eyes closed, his limp body covered by his cloak.

     The cloak was stained a darker red with his blood.

     Bronwen gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.  Her eyes darted from Claudius to Scipio, then back again.

     No one said a word.

     Bringing up the rear of the little band were two torch bearers, the flickering illumination they provided giving an even more ghastly aspect to the awful scene.

     Bronwen swayed and would have fallen if the general had not caught  her.

 CHAPTER six

     “Is he dead?” Bronwen whispered, when she could speak.

     “Not quite,” Scipio replied, gesturing for the bearers to precede him into the house as he steadied her.

     “No thanks to you,” Ardus muttered under his breath, and the general shot him a silencing glance as the two officers entered the atrium behind the stretcher.

     “Take him into my bedroom,” Bronwen said lifelessly, going cold with shock, too stunned for tears.

     The Roman houses were all laid out the same way, so the general knew where to go.  Bronwen winced as the bearers shifted the unconscious man to the bed from the pallet, then vanished quickly as Scipio directed them to leave.

     “What happened?” Bronwen murmured, kneeling next to the bed and taking Claudius’ unresponsive hand in hers.

     “He was attacked by some of your relatives while walking around the garrison after the Saturnalia celebration,” Ardus said coldly.  “Maybe you can tell us why he felt he couldn’t come home.”

     “Some of my relatives?” Bronwen said stupidly, staring blankly at the

aide.

     “It had to be a group, Lady Leonatus,” Ardus replied, and his derisive use of her Roman title was not lost on her.  “There’s not a Celt in Britain who could take Claudius man to man.”

     “That’s enough,” Scipio said to the quaestor.

     “She is responsible for this!” Ardus said, pointing accusingly at the bed.  “You know it as well as I do.”

     “
Discede
!” Scipio barked at him.  “Go back to the barracks at once.  I’ll speak with the Leonata.”

     Ardus threw Bronwen one more disgusted glance before he left, as Bronwen held Claudius’ hand to her face.

     “He’s right,” she said tonelessly.  “I am responsible.”

     Scipio sighed, wondering how to handle this volatile situation.  His tribune and this foreign woman were obviously involved in a tangled, highly emotional relationship, and he felt responsible for bringing them together.  His neat solution to the Iceni crisis had already cost him dearly, and he did not want to add Leonatus, the most valuable of his officers, to the list of casualties.

     “I am not here to assert blame, lady, but to save my tribune’s life.  I have already sent for the physician who attended Tullius Cato.”

     “Cato is dead,” Bronwen murmured dismissively.

     “His wounds were more grievous than your husband’s.  The physician I have summoned is a Greek trained in Athens and his healing powers are extraordinary.”

     “I will take care of Claudius myself,” Bronwen said.

     “I can’t allow that,” Scipio said crisply.  “I brought him here instead of the barracks because your house is warmer and more comfortable, but my man will supervise his case.”

     Bronwen stared at him, then started to laugh.  “Do you think I would neglect him or poison him, you fool?  You Romans assume you know everything, and you know nothing.  You understand spears and shields and ballistae, but not the human heart.  I would die in his place to save him, don’t you know that?”

     Scipio knew incipient hysteria when he saw it, and he stepped forward to grasp Bronwen’s shoulders and haul her to her feet.  She stared up at him mutely, shaking violently, her aquamarine eyes wide.

     “I need you to calm down,” he said quietly, his strong fingers leaving bruise marks on her pale skin.  “He WILL die if you are incapacitated and can’t attend him, he needs to see your face and know that you are near.  I didn’t mean that you couldn’t nurse him, only that you would take direction from the physician, who has been trained in the healing arts and has experience dealing with the sort of injuries Claudius has sustained.  Do you understand me?”

     Bronwen took a deep breath and nodded.  Scipio released her, sighing heavily.

     “Leave the dressings in place until the physician gets here,” Scipio said to her.  “He has two wounds to the stomach and one to the shoulder, the last not capable of being mortal unless it suppurates.  The attack on him was interrupted or he would have been hacked to pieces, there were three men on him and he had already been disarmed.  He was defending himself only with his hands.  Apparently the universal concept of fair play has been lost in your country.”

     “I think it was lost during the Roman invasion ten years ago,” Bronwen replied tightly.  “Fighting a losing battle against overwhelming forces is our accustomed state of affairs.  For you to express outrage when one of your men faces the same odds is ludicrous, general.”

     “One of my men?  Your husband, lady,” he replied, giving the last word,
domina
, the same ironic emphasis she had placed on “general.”

     Bronwen’s eyes filled with tears, and he was sorry he had said it.  She did not need to be reminded of the grim web they had all woven together, trapping them in its fibers.  She was, after all, only a young girl, and this was a situation that would defeat the most mature diplomat.

     Scipio held up his hand to indicate that such a conversation would do neither one of them any good.

     “I must go,” he said wearily, “and attend to the business of the state, which somehow seems to be getting lost in all of this.”  He gestured toward the room, the bed, the gathering dawn outside the walls of the house.  “I will send a messenger later in the day to see how Claudius is doing, and I will bring the physician straight to you as soon as he arrives.”

     Bronwen nodded.

     Scipio shot her a parting glance and then left the room.  The second the door closed behind him Bronwen fell on her knees again beside the bed and pulled off the cloak which covered Claudius.