The Lion and the Lark (22 page)

     “I don’t want you to go,” she said, clinging to him when he would have released her.

     “A short time ago you were shoving me out the door of the stable,” he said, smoothing her hair.

     “I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”

     “I promise you that you will.”  He hesitated.  “What about your fiancé?” he asked.

     “I’m not going to marry anyone I don’t want to marry,” she said firmly, and he held her off to look down at her.

     “Can you sneak me into the house if I come to you?” he asked, the moon shining brightly behind his head.

     “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.  “My room is at the back, the door next to the double ones leading out to the portico.  You can’t miss it.  Come late, after they’re all asleep.  I’ll watch for you every night.”

     He embraced her again, closing his eyes.

     At last they understood one another.

     “Lucia, I have to go.”

     “How long before you return?” she asked.

     “I don’t know.  I’ll come back as quickly as I can.  How will you get into the garrison?”

     “The same way I got out.”  She told him about her escape route and

he grinned.

     “You’re a match for old Scipio any day,” he said.  He let go of her hand and mounted the horse, reining Stella in and turning her in the opposite direction.

     “Soon,” he said to Lucia, and kicked the horse’s flanks lightly, stirring her into motion.

     Lucia watched him ride off, horse and rider silhouetted against the moon.  Then she began to walk briskly over the hard packed ground back to the fort.

     Bronwen walked past the door to her bedroom, then changed direction and retraced her steps, pausing on the threshold.

     Claudius was dressed in his full uniform, his hair trimmed, his beard newly scraped.  He was folding garments and packing them into a chest, his back to her.

     “How long before you go?” she asked.

     “Tomorrow,” he said.

     “That soon?” she asked, striving to keep her tone even.

     “Scipio saw no reason to delay,” he replied, dropping a tunic on top of the pile and then closing the lid.  As he did his page appeared behind Bronwen and said, “I have polished your shield and bucklers and left them for you in the atrium, sir.”

     “Thank you,” Claudius said to him.  “You may go.”

     The boy slipped away and Bronwen said, “I take it you are reporting to the barracks today.”

     “I have to get my official orders and I want to say goodbye to some of the men.”  His tone was brisk and businesslike; he might have been talking to Ardus.

     “Will you say goodbye to me?” she asked.

     He glanced at her briefly as he buckled on his weapons belt.  “Of course.”

     “How do you feel?”

     “Fine.  The skin around the wounds is still a little tight, but that always happens.”

     “You’ll have some new scars to add to the old ones.”

     He said nothing.

     “How many times have you been wounded?” Bronwen asked him curiously.

     He shrugged.  “Always honorably in battle before this, though,” he said flatly.

     “As opposed to being jumped by a gang of barbarians?” Bronwen suggested acidly.

     “There are gangs in Rome, too,” he said evenly.  “It’s not safe to be in the area of the forum after dark, the politicians hire thugs for one faction or the other and they attack the opposition’s supporters.”

     “And I thought you Romans were all so civilized,” Bronwen commented nastily.

     Claudius looked at her.  She had been barely reasonable since he had made the decision to leave.

     “Aren’t you happy that I’m going, Bronwen?  I thought this was what you wanted.”

     Bronwen didn’t reply, because she didn’t know what to say.

     One of the servant girls tapped on the door and said in rudimentary Latin, “Quaestor Ardus Cappius to see the master.”

     Claudius nodded.  “Show him in here,” he said to the girl, who bowed her head and left.

     “I’ll take my leave of you,” Bronwen said dryly.  “I don’t think Ardus will want to see me, do you?”

     She walked down the hall and waited until she heard the quaestor’s footsteps, then the murmur of low voices.  She inched her way back until the conversation became intelligible.

     “They’re doing the weather charts now,” Ardus said.

     “So when will it be?”

     “Based on the records from previous years, it should be fine for sailing for Rome by April 3.”

    “And when will the troops be gone from Londinium?”

     Ardus said something she couldn’t understand, and then added in a louder tone, “I’ll send you a messenger later.”

     Bronwen realized that Ardus was leaving and stepped inside the open guest room door.

     She would have to get to get a look at that message.

     She dressed carefully for dinner, not sure why except that she wanted Claudius to remember her at her best.  She let her hair hang freely down her back and wore a gown the exact shade of her eyes, which made them luminous.  She put on the torque and bracelets from her wedding and a golden belt which emphasized the slenderness of her waist.  She saw Claudius’ eyes light up with appreciation when she entered the triclinium, and he watched her throughout the meal, as if he had to store up the image for the time when he would no longer see her.

     When the servants had taken away the last of the meal he produced something from the depths of his tunic and said, “I have a parting gift for you.”

     Bronwen followed his progress across the room as he came over to her

and slipped a metal object into her hand.  When he stepped back she saw that it was a golden
fibula
, a brooch with a fastening pin which Roman women used to secure their draped garments.  On the embossed surface was the image of a barefoot young woman with abundant bound hair dressed in a short, belted tunic which left her arms and legs bare.  She was pictured with a drawn bow in her hands, a quiver of arrows strapped to her back.

     “Who is it?” she asked.

     “Diana, our goddess of the hunt.  She is always depicted as wild and free, and the many stories about her emphasize her beauty and her courage.”  He resumed his position on his couch, picking up his goblet.  “You have always reminded me of her.”

     Bronwen didn’t know what to say.  “She sounds like Arduinna, the daughter of Andastra, the Iceni patroness Maeve is always talking about,” she finally managed.  “Why are you giving this to me?”

     “So that possibly you won’t forget me.”

     “I won’t forget you, Claudius,” she replied quietly.

     He shook his head, smiling slightly.  “You’re so young, Bronwen.  We’ve had just a moment in time, and Rome is on the other side of the world.  Some day when you’re an old lady your granddaughter will come across that in your jewel chest and ask about it.  And you’ll say, someone gave that to me when I was your age, a man who left and went back to his own people.  But so much has happened to me since then that the past has faded and I can’t recall him clearly.”

     Bronwen felt her eyes sting with incipient tears and she was afraid to look at him.

     “Will you keep it?” he asked gently.

     Her white fingers closed around the bauble.  “Always.  But I have nothing to give you.”

     “You gave me back my life.”

     “Maeve did that.”

     “Then you gave me a wonderful memory.”

     “Wonderful?” she said doubtfully, finally looking at him.

     “The best parts of it are.”

     Maeve appeared in the doorway and said to Bronwen in Celtic, “A messenger from Ardus Cappius to see the master.”

     “Ardus?” Claudius said to Bronwen, having heard the name.

     “Someone he sent.”

     “Tell her I’ll meet with him in the tablinum.”

     Bronwen instructed Maeve and Claudius followed the old woman out of the room.  Bronwen sipped her wine slowly, waiting for him to return, aware that this might be the arrival of the date she had been seeking.  But when he came back he had nothing in his hands and she was disappointed.

     Had he just been told the information, or had he concealed a written message somewhere?

     “I’m going to my study now, so I will see you in the morning,” he said to her.

     Bronwen nodded.  Since his recovery he had been retiring very late, using the long evenings to catch up on all the administrative work he had missed.

     He hesitated, as if he might say something else, but then merely added, “Good night,” and left the room.

     Bronwen managed to occupy herself until it was time to retire, but then as she lay awake in bed, waiting for him to go to sleep so she could search his study, she questioned what she was doing.  Was the date of the Roman troop departure really that important?  Couldn’t she just let Claudius go without violating his trust another time?  Was it necessary to prove to her brother that her loyalties were unchanged?

      Or was she really trying to prove it to herself?

     When it was long past the time when Claudius should have come to the bedroom, Bronwen rose and wrapped a shawl around her, preparing to look for him.  She slipped into the hall and down to his study, where the torches were burning and his reading lamp flickered brightly.  Scrolls were scattered on his desk and a leather courier pouch lay open, a roll of paper half visible inside it.

     But the room was empty.

     Bronwen’s pulse quickened.  This was her chance; did she dare to take it?  She didn’t know where Claudius was or when he would return, but she was tempted beyond endurance.

     The information she wanted was probably in that pouch.

     She bit her lip and hurried across the room, glancing at the doorway once before removing the scroll and holding it next to the light.  She read rapidly, trying to decipher Ardus’ arcane lettering.  But then the date of February 13th leapt out at her; on that day the last of the departing troops would leave Londinium for Magiolagos.

     She heard a step in the hall and shoved the scroll back into the pouch.  She had just dropped the bag onto the desk when Claudius came through the door, a goblet in his hand.

     He stopped short when he saw her and his glance went immediately to the correspondence on his desk.  Bronwen hoped that she’d been able to place the pouch where he had left it and walked forward to greet him, her mouth as dry as straw.

     “What are you doing in here?” he demanded, his eyes still scanning the letters, searching for something amiss.

     “I was looking for you.  Where did you go?” Bronwen replied.

     “I was thirsty and I didn’t want to wake a servant at this hour, so I got the drink myself.  I thought you were sleeping hours ago.”

     “I was,” she lied.  “But I awoke just now and when I saw that you still hadn’t retired I was concerned.”

     “Concerned?” he said, moving past her swiftly, his gaze on his littered desk.

     “You’re just out of a sickbed, Claudius.  I thought you might have had a relapse.”

     “I’m fine,” he said, picking up the pouch.

     Bronwen put her hand on his arm and he looked down at her. 

     “Claudius, I want to talk to you.”

     He dropped the pouch back on the desk and turned to face her fully.  “Bronwen, don’t you think everything has already been said?” he asked wearily.

     “Not everything,” she replied, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that she had finally distracted him.

     “What, then?”

     “I don’t want you to go to Londinium.  I want you to stay here with me,” she said.

     He stared down at her for long moment, considering, and then shook his head slowly.

     “No, Bronwen,” he said.  “You’re not going to do this again.”

     “Do what again?”

     “Dangle the prospect before me and then decide at the last moment that you can’t go through with it.  I don’t know whether you’re too young, or I’m too different, or the fates have just decided to play me for their amusement, but I have to leave you behind and go on.  Swinging back and forth between extremes is just too painful.”

     “I don’t want to live without you.”

     “You haven’t lived WITH me, not in the real sense.  We’ve been inhabiting the same prison, and my jail term is over, Bronwen.  I’m going to Londinium in the morning.”  He shook off her arm.

     Bronwen had not anticipated this reaction.  She forgot about diverting his attention from her snooping, she forgot about everything except his seeming indifference.  He had to want her still, he had to!

     “
Amo te
, Claudius.  I love you.”