The Lion and the Lark (29 page)

     Bronwen laughed.  “Claudius, you should be making speeches in the Senate.”

     “Maybe someday I will.”

     Bronwen’s expression changed.  “With a barbarian wife?” she said sadly.

     “My wife is an Iceni princess, the daughter of a king,” Claudius replied

firmly.

     “That sounds very nice, but you know most Romans have the same opinion of Britons as the Scipiana.”

     “I don’t care what anyone thinks, Bronwen.  I have enough money, and my family has enough influence, that I can afford to thumb my nose at all of them.”

     “So you won’t care if our marriage makes a political career impossible for you?”

     He sat up and looked at her.  “Have you been brooding on all of this?” he asked her.

     “Well, you keep talking about going back to Rome, and I don’t know when or if it’s going to happen, or what my life will be like when I get there.  I’ve known only this island and my own people, and before I met you my opinion of your countrymen could not have been lower.”

     “Does that mean you won’t go with me?” he asked quietly, his eyes searching her face.

     “Of course not!” Bronwen said, throwing her arms around his neck.  “I’d go anywhere with you, I have no life without you now.  But you must understand that I’m worried about it.  You’re going to be returning to Rome with a red haired wife from the wilds of Britannia.  You might as well go back with an African elephant.”

     “You’re a lot prettier.”

     “I’m not joking, Claudius.  I won’t fit in and I know it.”

     “Don’t be so sure of that.  The empire is expanding and changing, we have naturalized citizens from all over the world, freed slaves as well as colonials.  Caesar admitted Gauls to the Senate and Rome is home to all races and types of people now.”

     “You told me yourself that you were expected to marry an aristocrat from an old family like yours.”

     “I did.  She died.”

     “And so now the rules have changed?  Because your first wife died all the people like Drucilla Scipio will welcome me?”

     Claudius put his head back against the wall behind the bead and closed his eyes.  “I can’t say there will never be problems.  But they can’t be any worse than what we have already overcome to be together.”

     “And you’ll never be ashamed of me?” Bronwen asked, voicing her true concern.

     His eyes opened.  “Is that what you’re really worried about?”

     Bronwen nodded.

     He took both of her hands in his.  “If anyone says a word against you it will be because they’re jealous.”

     “Of what?”

     “The women, of your beauty, and the men of me, because they will know that every night I have you in my bed.”

     “Do you really believe that?”

     “Yes, I do.”

     “Then let’s go now.”

     He stared at her.  “Now?”

     “Yes, why not?  Scipio gave you leave to go to Londinium, why can’t we go?  We’ll wait there until the weather breaks and take the first ship bound for Rome.”

     “Bronwen, I’ve already told you.  The route south is blocked by snow and my replacement was killed on the way here.  I can’t go anywhere for a while, maybe for a couple of months, and neither can anyone else.  Don’t you remember?”

     “I remember,” she whispered.  “I just wish...” She stopped.

     “You wish what?”

     “I wish that we could get away, go someplace where nobody knows either one of us and start all over again,” she said fervently.

     He watched her face, then said thoughtfully, “Maybe we can.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “Once I’m mustered out of the army we can go anywhere we please.  I have enough money to get established anywhere in the empire: Messalia in Gaul, Carthage in North Africa, Galatia, Pella in Macedonia, the colonies on the Rhine, Judea, you name it.  Anywhere they speak Latin and accept the Roman government and coinage could be home.”

     “But what about your house, your estate?”

     “The servants are running it right now, I don’t have to be there.  I haven’t been there for any extended period in some time.”

     “You would do that for me?” she asked softly, reaching  up to touch his face.

     “I would do anything for you,” he replied simply, pulling her back into his arms.  He kissed her mouth, then her neck, then her breasts, as Bronwen held his head against her.  She closed her eyes as tears stung her lids.

     He WOULD do anything for her, he already had.  And how was she repaying that devotion?  By setting him up as a target for her brother and his friends.

     She would never get Claudius away from the fort before the raid.  Even if she could somehow persuade him to leave Camulodunum, there was really nowhere to go.

     It was hopeless.

     A month passed, during which Brettix planned furiously for the attack on the garrison, assembling as many cohorts as he could and arguing with his father daily about allies and tactics.  Lucia lay awake each night, waiting for his return, less certain with each subsequent sunrise that she would ever see him again.

     And Bronwen rode a cresting sea of swells and valleys, happy when she was in Claudius’ arms, miserable when he was away and she had time to dwell on the danger to him looming on the horizon.  Listening to him make plans for their future was agonizing, since she didn’t know if there would be a future for them to share.

     One afternoon as Bronwen was trying to read Catullus, the scroll spread out on her lap as she stared into space, Maeve tapped on her door and then entered the bedroom.  She stood silently before Bronwen, waiting to be acknowledged.

     “What is it?” Bronwen said distractedly, putting the roll of paper aside.

     “I got the items from the market that you requested.  The straw matting for the mattresses is not first quality, but I managed to get some fine linen to line the master’s new cloak.  The flax crop was not good this year so it was expensive.”

     Bronwen nodded, hardly listening.  She didn’t care about the household supplies and was content to leave their management in the hands of the servants.

     “And I saw Cartia,” Maeve added.

     Bronwen sat forward, paying attention now.  She looked toward the door, saw that it was half open, and got up to close it.

     “What does Brettix want?” she whispered to the old woman when she returned.

     “He wants you to tell the Scipiana that he is coming for her tonight, at the change of the first watch,” Maeve replied in a low tone.

     “The Scipiana?” Bronwen gasped, openmouthed with disbelief.  “The general’s wife?”

     “No, silly.  The girl.  The one he’s been teaching to ride.”

     Bronwen was silent as realization dawned.  No wonder her brother had been desperate enough to impersonate a centurion to get into the fort; his audacity had served more than one purpose, it wasn’t just to get information from her.  And he’d had the nerve to chide her about Claudius!   She remembered how she had been jealous of the Scipio girl, thinking that Claudius had an interest in her, and felt foolish. 

     All the time Lucia had been forming an attachment to her brother! 

     And Brettix was the same as ever, as sly and secretive as he was courageous.

       She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him.

     “What else?” Bronwen asked shortly.

     “He said to tell her to get out through the wall her usual way and meet him at the abandoned well near the first entry guardpost.”

     Bronwen nodded.

     Maeve hesitated.

     “What?  Is there something else?” Bronwen asked.

     “The raid is scheduled for the morning after next, at dawn,” Maeve said quietly.

     Bronwen felt a hollow pit open up in her stomach.  It was going to happen; it wasn’t just an object of discussion any more.

     “Did you know about this?” Maeve asked her.

     “I knew that Brettix was planning it,” Bronwen replied.  “Not when it would take place.”

     “What are you going to do about your husband?” Maeve asked.

     “I don’t know,” Bronwen whispered despairingly, putting her hands over her face.  “I don’t know.”

     “He’ll be a target,” Maeve said.  “He’s the second officer of the garrison, they’ll kill him.”

     “Be still!” Bronwen hissed.  “I have to think.”

     “How could you let this happen?” Maeve demanded.

     “How could I let this happen?  I was sent here by my father to MAKE it happen!”

     “But you must get Claudius away.  Can’t you find some pretext to do that?”

     “I have thought and thought,” Bronwen murmured, “and it has afforded me nothing.  He was supposed to go to Londinium where he would have been safe, but there was a change of plans.”  She opened her hands.  “I don’t know what to do.  If I tell him about the coming attack I betray my people, but if I stand by and let it happen I put Claudius in grave danger.”

     “He’s a good man, Bronwen.”

     “Yes, he is, and he loves me.  But he’s a Roman and I must not forget that,” Bronwen replied.

     “I find it difficult to remember myself sometimes,” Maeve said.

     Maeve looked at the old woman.  “Do you?” she asked.

     “Yes, and not just because I healed him and I don’t want to see a life lost that I saved,” Maeve said.  “I’ve forgotten what he stands for because of the way he treats me.”

     “Yes, I know,” Bronwen said softly.

     “‘The gods look graciously upon a kind master,’” Maeve observed, obviously quoting something.

     Bronwen nodded, smiling slightly to hear those words pass Maeve’s lips.  “Where did you hear that?”

     “Claudius said it to me one day when I asked him why he dealt so fairly with all of his servants.  Romans are not known for that, he is unusual.  He told me that when he was a boy he had a Greek tutor who said that the character of a man could be determined by the way he managed his dependents.  Needless cruelty, or even indifference, was the mark of a brute. And then he repeated that line to me.  It’s from one of the Greek writers, I forget the name.”

     “That sounds like Claudius,” Bronwen said, wiping her suddenly wet eyes.  “He’s always quoting the Greeks, and he could slay ten of them with a short knife and his eyes closed.”  She began to laugh, and the laughter segued into a flood of tears as she sank back into her chair.  “He admires the Greeks, but he can’t help being a Roman from tip to toe.  He talks about the philosophers and Aristotle and his boyhood tutor, but if you touch him in the night and take him by surprise he’ll have you on the floor with his fingers around your throat before you can blink an eye.”  She sobbed aloud and Maeve knelt before her, taking both of the younger woman’s hands in her brown, gnarled ones.

     “How can I help you?” Maeve asked quietly.

     “No one can help me,” Bronwen moaned.  “Every moment that Claudius is gone I brood on what might happen to him, and as you see I can’t seem to stop crying.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand like a child.

     “There could be another reason for that,” Maeve said flatly.

     Bronwen raised her eyes to meet Maeve’s.

     “I do the laundry,” Maeve said bluntly.  “You are past time for your monthly issue of blood.”

     Bronwen looked away from her.  “I didn’t realize you were keeping such a close watch on me,” she said.

     “Your needs are my concern,” Maeve said simply.  “I noticed that the linens I had prepared for you have gone unused and...”

     Bronwen raised her hand to forestall the rest of the statement.  “I know,” she said.  “I could be pregnant.”

     “You probably are.  You were always very regular before...”

     “Before Claudius and I began making love at every available moment,” Bronwen finished, sighing.

     “You can’t be surprised.”

     Bronwen lifted her shoulders slightly.

     “Did you think a Roman’s seed would not sprout in a British belly?” Maeve asked dryly.

     “I wasn’t thinking.”

     “But now you are.”

     Bronwen nodded.  “Too much.”  She closed her eyes.  “The worst of it is, I can’t tell him.  He lost a child already, a son, and he wants children so much.  But how can I say anything to him about this when I know what’s going to happen and he doesn’t?”  She opened her eyes again and saw that the shaft of sunlight coming through the window had moved further across the bedroom floor.  She stood again and swallowed hard, wiping her eyes with the corner of her shawl and pushing her hair back from her face.

     “I have to go,” she said.  “I want to talk to Lucia Scipio before Claudius comes home.  I won’t be able to get away from him after that.”

     Maeve rose also and put her hand on Bronwen’s shoulder.