The Lion and the Lark (33 page)

     Claudius was filthy, his cloak rent with sword slashes, his tunic practically ripped from his body, exposing his chest from collarbone to waist.  There was a fierce gash on his right cheek and his left bicep was bound with a bloody rag.

     “Are you all right?” Bronwen asked him.

     “I’m fine, no thanks to you,” he said flatly.  “Let me tell you what’s going to happen.  An escort will arrive shortly to take you to the barracks where you will be placed in a detention cell to wait execution according to the terms of the violated treaty.”  He turned his back on her and walked back toward the hall.

     “Is that all you have to say to me, Claudius?” Bronwen called after him miserably.

     “That’s all I have to say to you,” he replied, not looking at her, and then walked out of the room.

CHAPTER twelve

     The men did not return to the Iceni village until three days after the battle.  Lucia spent the time with Cartia in the house where Brettix had left her, contemplating her uncertain fate. 

     When she awoke the morning after her arrival, Brettix was gone and so was every other man in the village.  None of the women spoke to her as they went about their chores, walking back and forth in the cold between the cooking fires, the wood stores and their houses.  Although she could have addressed them in Celtic she chose to remain silent and keep to herself, acutely aware of their darting glances, as well as the curiosity and covert hostility which motivated them.  Cartia prepared meals and set them before the Roman girl, who tried to eat but left most of the food untouched.  Lucia sat before the hearth and reviewed her time with Brettix while Cartia carded wool and hauled water from the partly frozen well and took dried food down from storage and swept the dirt floor and renewed the constantly burning fire.  She didn’t ask for Lucia’s help and Lucia didn’t volunteer it.  She was too miserable to care about Cartia’s opinion of her and the Iceni girl seemed to be managing just fine on her own.

     On the morning of the third day Lucia heard the sound of drumming hoofbeats and emerged from the house to see the men of the tribe returning.  Doorways all over the village were suddenly filled with women pulling shawls around their shoulders, tallying the riders anxiously, their fear written on their faces.  Wailing commenced as the absent were noted, and Lucia saw several women turn away in grief as they realized they would never see a husband or a son again.

     Brettix and his father led the pack, which was large and ragged, the weariness of battle and lost friends visible in their bloodstained clothing, varied bandages and fatigued posture.  The horses looked just as tired, and Lucia watched as the men dismounted and tended to the animals first, then dispersed to their homes, walking slowly, some of them so spent they were dragging their weapons in the dirt.  She stepped aside to let the men go past her, searching Brettix’ face.

     He didn’t look at her as he came in, so she resumed her seat by the fire as Cartia poured corma for the men and then set about preparing a meal.  The King, whose left arm was bloody and heavily bound, glanced at Lucia several times, but Brettix and Parex simply nursed their drinks and never turned their heads.  The silence lengthened until Borrus finally said, “We’ll wait until they’ve had another day to think about the damage to the fort and their losses, then approach them with our demands.”

     “And Bronwen?” Parex said, looking at Brettix.

     “She made her choice,” Brettix said.

     His father and Parex exchanged glances.

     “You heard what the old woman said.  They’ve got her in the cell they use for criminals sentenced to crucifixion.  They’ll kill her for sure!” Parex told him.

     “She knew that when she decided to stay with her tribune,” Brettix replied.

     Lucia listened to them argue for a while, then stood and pulled on her cloak, walking out the door of the house before anyone had a chance to stop her.  When Brettix realized she had left he got up, mumbling something under his breath, and went after her.

     Lucia was standing in the clearing beyond the house, her arms folded inside her cloak, her gazed fixed on the horizon.  When Brettix came up behind her she turned to him and said, “Trade me for your sister.”

     He stared at her, speechless.

     “My father will want me back at any cost.  Send a message to the fort that you will return me to him if they let Bronwen live.”

     “So you want to go back there?” he asked, his eyes fixed on her face, which was serene with decision.

     “Why should I stay here?” she countered.

     “Because I want you to,” he answered simply.  “I want you to stay with me.”

     “It doesn’t seem that way,” she said softly.  “I’ve spent the last several days wondering if you were alive or dead, and when you finally come back you can’t even look at me?”

     “I wasn’t sure you would want me to look at you.  The last time I saw you, Lucia, you weren’t very happy with me.”

     “So you went ahead and accomplished your mission without my blessing.  I assume you carved a path of destruction and killed a great many soldiers?”

     “Yes.”

     “You must be so proud.”

     “I’ll be proud if it gets us what we want.”

     “And just what is that?”

     “Self rule.  What we had before the Romans came.”

     “So my people must pull up stakes and go home?”

     “Or withdraw to Londinium as a first step.  I don’t care as long as they are gone from Iceni territory by spring.”

     “My father will never go along with that.  He gets his orders from home and Mark Antony wants to expand the Roman presence in Britain, not go the other way.”

     “I’ll make it clear that they’ve just had a taste of what we’ll do before spring if they don’t agree,” Brettix said grimly.  “It will take months for your father to get an answer from Rome, he’ll have to take it upon himself to make a decision now.”

     “You’re very confident now that you have the other tribes behind you,” Lucia said quietly.

     “It’s the first time we’ve been united against the Romans since the invaders came,” Brettix said.

     “Then you don’t need me any more,” Lucia whispered.

     He pulled her into his arms. 

     “I will always need you,” he said, his lips against her ear.  “I’ve thought of nothing but seeing you again since I left.”

     “Then why did you take so long to come back?” she demanded, her arms around his waist.

     “It takes time to bury the dead in frozen ground,” he replied simply.

     “What about trading me for your sister?” Lucia asked, looking up at him.

     “I’m not trading you for anyone.  I’ll figure out another way to save  Bronwen.”  He kissed her cold cheek. “Now come inside before we freeze together out here.  I think it’s time you met my father.”

     They walked hand in hand back into the house.

     Claudius looked up from his notes and said to Ardus, “With the last report from the burial detail I count fifty-six men still missing.”

     Ardus nodded.  “Some of them we won’t find until the thaw.  Some of them we will never find.”  He shivered as the wind blew through the abandoned section of the headquarters building, which had been destroyed by the fire.  The work had gone on around the clock to seal it off and transfer the men to the undamaged area, but mortar didn’t set well in cold temperatures and the wall was full of chinks.  It leaked frigid air like a sieve when the northeast wind blew.

     “Build up the fire,” Claudius said.

     Ardus added several logs to the blaze and then settled into a chair across from Claudius’ desk.

     “Where’s Scipio?” he asked.

     “He went home to see his wife.  Their daughter is missing.”

     “Missing?  Taken hostage during the attack?”

     “Who knows?  The Scipiana is hysterical, as if the general doesn’t have enough to deal with as it is.”

     Ardus looked at Claudius’ tired eyes and the healing scab on his face and said, “Have you seen her?” He nodded in the direction of the detention cell.

     “No.  Not since she was brought in; at the change of the last watch her guard told me she was asleep.”

     Ardus sighed.  “I’m sorry about her, Claudius.”

     “No one is sorrier than I am.”

     “The warning she gave you prevented the battle from being a total debacle for us.”

     “The information she passed on enabled the Celts to attack and win in the first place.”

     “Scipio doesn’t know about the spying she did, does he?” Ardus asked quietly.

     Claudius shook his head.  “No.  As far as he’s concerned she’s just a forfeit hostage.  If he knew the rest of it he would want to torture her to set an example, and I’d like to spare her that.”  He smiled thinly.  “My parting gift, if you will.”

     “You still care for her, don’t you?”

     Claudius looked away from him.  “It doesn’t stop just because you want it to, Ardus,” he said quietly.

     “I think she does love you, Claudius.”

     Claudius stared at his friend in surprise.  “That’s a new sentiment from you.”

     “I’ve checked with her guards on each watch.  She’s done nothing but cry since she came here.”

     “Of course she’s crying.  She knows she’s going to die.”

     “She stayed with you when she could have gotten clean away,” Ardus pointed out to him.

     Claudius said nothing.

     “These people are fanatics, Claudius.  If she was with you only to spy for her father, she would be serene and accepting of her fate.  She would be planning for a glorious afterlife, rewarded by her gods.  She’s crying because she lost you, and she lost you because she couldn’t choose between you and her people.”

     Claudius was still silent, but he was listening.

     “You know I have never been her friend,” Ardus said, and Claudius smiled slightly. 

     “But I am yours,” Ardus went on, “even though it’s difficult for me to see things from your point of view.  I am not handsome and wealthy, I haven’t had women throwing themselves at me all of my adult life.  If you want to  let her be sacrificed without a word from you, that’s your decision, but she’s locked up in there right now simply because she refused to do the same to you.”

     The conversation halted as the outside door opened and Scipio came in, shaking a light snow off the shoulders of his cloak.  When he saw Ardus he barked, “Get over to storage depot and get me the inventory of the remaining weapons.”

     Ardus walked to the door immediately, raising his brows at Claudius behind the general’s back.  As Ardus dressed in his outdoor gear and then left Scipio poured himself some wine from a carafe on his desk and took a deep swallow of it.

     Claudius had never seen him drink anything stronger than water while he was on duty.

     “Any news of Lucia?” Claudius asked him.

     Scipio shook his head.  “Nothing.  And I spent all last night composing a letter to Rome trying to explain our latest encounter with the natives.  Of course Antony and Octavian won’t receive it until the first boat sailing from here lands at Ostia.  But if I start now by the time I have to send it I might find some way of phrasing what I have to tell them in less than disastrous terms.”

     “You’ll see Lucia again,” Claudius said, aware that his daughter’s fate was more on the general’s mind than the parlous state of his military career.  “Even if the Celts took her, they won’t kill her.  They‘ll just use her to bargain for something they want.”

     “The Celts didn’t take her,” Scipio said wearily, sitting behind his desk and rubbing his eyes.  “She went voluntarily.  She is in love with the slave who was teaching her to ride and I’m sure that she has gone to his camp with him.”

     “The slave who was teaching her to ride?” Claudius said sharply.

     Scipio looked at him.

     “Do you know who that slave really is?” Claudius asked.

     “What do you mean?  He’s some Ordovice from the west that Ariovistus found at an auction.”

     “No.  That boy is Borrus’ son, the one who supposedly died at Drunemeton.  Through some subterfuge he was able to pass himself off as a slave and wound up working for you.”

     “Who told you that?”

     “My wife,” Claudius said.  “His sister.” 

     Scipio sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.  After a long moment he began to laugh bitterly.

      “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.”