The Lion and the Lark (17 page)

     Maeve nodded, resuming her spot in the chair.

     Bronwen put her hand over the old woman’s withered one.

     “I’m sorry if I treated you disrespectfully,” she said quietly.  “I’m more grateful for your help than I can possibly say.”

     Maeve snorted.  “You’re just like your mother.  She never listened to me either.”

     “A Roman killed my mother,” Bronwen said softly.

     “And I’m not suggesting that you forget that.  But life is more complicated than the location of your native country.”

     “You remember the Roman invasion of ten years ago, Maeve.  You recall better than I do what they did to our village, our people.  It’s so hard for me to put that aside.”

     “Claudius was not here ten years ago, Bronwen.  He did not kill your mother.”

     “Someone like him did.”

     “Not like him.  No.  Someone who wore the same uniform, and there the resemblance ends.  Now go, Bronwen, I can’t stay awake much longer.”

     Bronwen nodded and left the bedroom.  She looked up and down the hall, but it seemed that the rest of the servants were asleep.  She slipped into Claudius’ study and pulled the door after her, leaving it ajar just enough to catch the light from the torch in the hall.

     She removed the pouch from its hiding place under her arm and untied the leather thongs with trembling fingers. 

     Scipio had obviously not noticed the pouch in the confusion of discovering Claudius and bringing him into the house.  This was the first time she’d had an opportunity to read anything Claudius had not censored and returned to the barracks. 

     Whatever this was, he’d thought it important enough to carry it there himself.

     Bronwen was relieved to see that the wax seal on it had already been broken, but when she saw that the scroll was written in Greek she almost burst into tears.  Then she saw that there was a second sheet wound inside it; this was in Latin.  The communiqué must have been prepared by a scribe who made two copies.

     She held the Latin text up to the light and read rapidly, her lips moving with the effort.  It was a message from the commander of the Roman garrison at Londinium to the south, describing the departure of some of his men for coastal Magiolagos.  He said that the garrison was thinning its force over the winter, and by March its troop strength would be down to half.  Once the weather broke the relocated men would embark for Rome.

     Bronwen read the rest of the letter rapidly; it described garrison affairs of no importance to her, and she reread the first part of the communiqué before rolling the two sheets together and returning them to the pouch.

     So the troop strength at Londinium was lessening considerably; if the Celts struck in the spring there would be less reinforcements to send from the nearest garrison to Scipio at Camulodunum.  Magiolagos was too far for the men there to be of immediate assistance.

     This was important.  She should get word of it to Brettix immediately.

But she stood with the pouch in her hands, unable to move.

     She would have to consider the situation.

     With Claudius lying insensible a few doors away it was difficult to think of contravening his interests so directly.

     If the information resulted in a Celtic victory, would he be blamed for the breach in security?  Would the leak even be traceable to him?

     With these questions running through her mind, Bronwen went back to her bedroom to find Claudius quiet again and Maeve dozing in the chair.  Bronwen put the pouch under Claudius’ cloak and then shook Maeve’s shoulder, rousing her.

     “Go on to bed,” she said softly to the old woman.  “I’ll stay with him now.”

     Maeve got groggily to her feet and made slow progress out of the room, taking a candle with her.  Bronwen listened to her footsteps fading down the hall and then leant forward to touch Claudius’ forehead with her hand.

     Maeve was right.  It was cool and dry, and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

     Bronwen settled into the chair Maeve had vacated to watch him for the rest of the night.

     “You can go into the stables and warm yourself by the fire there,” Lucia said to the bodyguard in Latin.  “The groom will give you something to eat.  I’ll come for you when I’m done.”

     The giant Helvetian nodded and lumbered past her into the other building as Lucia led Stella toward the indoor paddock.  As they reached the open double doors a warm gush of air embraced them welcomingly and the horse whinnied.

     Brettix, who was standing inside waiting for her, was facing away and as he turned Lucia was struck by a sensation she had experienced previously when she first saw him.  There was something familiar about him, as if she had seen him before she met him because of his job, but the notion vanished when he looked at her and smiled.

     “How are you feeling today?” he asked, referring to the bruises she had sustained in her pursuit of horsemanship.

    “Still sore,” Lucia replied, “but better.”

     “Maybe we should just concentrate on the trotting today.”

     Lucia shook her head.  “I want to jump.”

     “But if you are stiff you won’t be as flexible as necessary and...”

     “I want to jump,” Lucia insisted, cutting him off abruptly.

     Brettix sighed.  It was useless to argue with Lucia when she was in this mood; she was like a three year old in her determination to do what was inadvisable.

     “Very well,” he said resignedly, assembling the obstacles in the center of the ring.

     “Higher,” Lucia said, when he moved away.  “Add another block to the middle.”

     “Lucia, you will fall.”

     “I’d like to try,” she said, mounting Stella.

     Brettix obeyed, adding a last block to the obstacle.

     Lucia cantered around the ring several times as he shouted instructions at her, trying to temper her eagerness.  She disregarded what he said and approached the jump full out, hair streaming behind her, leaning forward as he did, her chin on the horse’s neck.

     Stella tried, but lost heart at the last instant.  Her forelegs clipped the obstacle as she went over it and jolted Lucia off her back.  Lucia flew sideways and landed in a heap in the straw, her hair over one eye.

     Brettix took his time walking over to her, aware that “I told you so” was not what Lucia wanted to hear.

     “Are you all right?” he asked, bending with his hands on his knees to peer into her face.

     “I am fine,” she said tightly, rising to her feet.  She staggered and he caught her, righting her quickly.

     “I said that I’m fine,” she insisted, shrugging him off rudely.

     “I’m glad to hear it,” he said quietly.

     “Oh, don’t look at me that way,” Lucia said to him.  “I’ll never learn if I don’t try.  Even you must see that.”

     “I see that you’re not listening to me.  Why did you hire me if you won’t take my advice?”

     “I’ve taken your advice!  I do everything you say and it always ends up the same way, with me on the ground and the horse running loose around the ring!”

     “You’re too hasty.  It takes time.”

     Lucia moved forward until she was a handsbreadth from Brettix, her nose level with his collarbone.

     “I have fallen off that horse five days in a row and you just stand there and watch me.  Isn’t there some trick or technique you can tell me that will help?”

     He removed a piece of straw from her hair and dropped it on the floor.  “I can’t give you self assurance,” he said quietly.  “You have to develop that on your own.”

     “Oh, be quiet,” Lucia said darkly, jerking her arm away when he tried to detain her.  “If you knew everything my father’s troops couldn’t have taken over this whole country in the blink of an eye.  Your superior horsemanship didn’t save you then, did it?”

     It was a low blow, and she regretted the words in almost the same instant she said them.  His eyes flared and he turned his back on her, stalking away.

     Lucia darted after him and blocked his path, forcing him to crash into her.

     “
Brettus, mea culpa, me paenitet,” 
she said quickly, reverting unconsciously to her own language in her haste to apologize.  “That wasn’t fair, I’m sorry.”

     He stood looking down at her, his fists clenched, his shoulders heaving.  She knew that if he were a man he would have punched her.

     “I don’t think I can work for you any more,” he said quietly.

     “Brettix, please,” she said, near tears.  “I said I was sorry, don’t quit.  I’ll double whatever my father is paying you, I’ll get him to give you a big raise.”

     He met her eyes and then looked away from her obstinately.

     She threw her arms around his neck.  “I know I behaved like a spoiled brat, and maybe that’s all I am, but I do so want to learn.  These lessons are the only thing I have to look forward to...”

     She felt him stiffen and realized she had said too much.  She released him and stepped back, unable to meet his eyes.

     “All right,” she said softly.  “I’ll make sure my father gives you a bonus when you go.  I know it must have been awful for you, showing up every day to work with a pupil who has no talent.”

     Brettix looked down at her bent head, feeling not the triumph he’d expected, but disgust for himself.  He had established the ascendancy he wanted quite easily; she was needy and an easy target.

     But it gave him no satisfaction.

     Instead he felt like a thug.

     “You have talent,” he said quietly.  “It’s patience you lack.”

     She looked up at him hopefully.

     “Let’s try again,” he said.

     She ran for the horse.

     Bronwen was changing Claudius’ dressing when he suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her.  She could tell from his expression that he knew who she was.  Unable to speak, he twined his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand.  Then his lids dropped slowly and he turned his head.

     Bronwen sank heavily into the chair behind her and put her hand to her mouth, choking back tears.

     She blinked rapidly and wiped her eyes when a knock sounded on the door.

      Scipio entered with a short, slender man, his shoulder length light brown hair parted in the middle and secured with a woven band of gold around his forehead.  He wore the Greek
chiton
, a loose tunic which was the forerunner of the Roman toga, and surveyed the room and the patient in the bed with an air of inquiry.

     “Is he doing any better?” Scipio asked Bronwen.

     “I think so,” Bronwen replied.  “He just woke up and looked at me, and the wounds seem much less angry.”

     Scipio waved the physician toward the bed.  “This is Pallas, whom I summoned from Londinium,” he said.

     Pallas waved Bronwen aside imperiously.  She stepped back and watched as he removed the bandages and examined the wounds in the abdomen, and the one on Claudius’ shoulder.  Pallas’ lips were pursed, his expression disapproving.  They all waited as he took his time, poking and probing, pulling up Claudius’ eyelids and looking inside his mouth.  Finally he turned to Scipio and said something in Greek.

     “He wants to know who has been taking care of him,” Scipio said to Bronwen in Latin.

     “Just myself and Maeve, the old woman you’ve seen here,” Bronwen replied.

     There was another exchange between the two men and Scipio asked Bronwen, “Who is the herbalist?”

     “I guess that would be Maeve.  She uses herbs in her treatments.  She’s asleep in the servants’ quarters.”

     Scipio spoke to the physician, who shrugged and spread his hands, saying something in a wondering tone.

     “What?” Bronwen asked anxiously.  “What is he saying?”

      “He says he doesn’t know the methods used, but the result is good,” Scipio told her in a relieved voice.  “He wants to speak with the woman when she awakens.”

     Bronwen sagged with relief.  “I’ll send her to talk to him.  Is there anything more he recommends that we do?”

     Scipio translated, and the Greek reached into the bag he carried over his shoulder and extracted a jar from its depths.  He handed it to Bronwen, who sniffed its contents and wrinkled her nose.

     “What is it?” she asked, raising her eyebrows questioningly at the physician.

     He replied, and Scipio translated.  “He says that it’s a salve made from the churned cream of cow’s milk.  It’s used among the Persians as a dressing for wounds.  We have no word for it in Latin.  They call it
butter,
and swear by its efficacy.”

     “I’m to smear this on his skin?” Bronwen asked doubtfully, making a spreading motion with her hand.

     The Greek nodded enthusiastically.