The Lion and the Lark (4 page)

     Claudius did not reply.  It always amazed him that men like Ardus, who were first in their seats for gladiatorial combats to the death and who cheered when conquered enemies like Vercingetorix were publicly strangled, had a delicate conscience about human sacrifice in “barbarian” religions.  What, after all, was the difference?

     “They put their captives into woven baskets, hang them in trees, and then burn them alive,” Ardus added gloomily.

     “You’ve heard a lot of nonsense, like everyone else,” Claudius said sharply, though he admitted to himself as he looked around that the atmosphere WAS somewhat otherworldly.  “The natives are human, they breathe and bleed, and Caesar conquered them.”

     “He’s not here,” Ardus said darkly.  “And Hibernia to the west is worse, even great Caesar didn’t venture there.”

     “Enough,” said Claudius, who tolerated the other man’s impudence because of his twelve years of service with him.  Ardus would always speak the truth, even if it was not what others wanted to hear.

     “I notice that Scipio is in no hurry to come back,” Ardus concluded pointedly.

     Claudius ignored him, turning and giving the order for the anchor to be dropped.  He felt the sudden lurch as it sank into the sand below him, and then he called for the small boats to be lowered.

     The Romans had dredged the inlet when they first came to Britain, but it had filled in since then, and the latest charts indicated that this was as close as they could come to the shore without striking a sandbar.  As the men boarded and lowered the landing boats with pulleys, Claudius looked back at the flotilla sailing in behind him and wondered where he was leading these men.  Before them lay the home of a people so fierce that even Caesar, who had seen everything during his campaigns, was impressed, calling the Celts
optime forte
, the bravest of the brave.

     Claudius turned toward the shore and saw the garrison perched in the hills and overlooking the water, the only building of any kind visible from his current vantage point.  He was not frightened but perplexed, wondering just what it was about these people that made them unique to the Roman experience.

     He supposed that he was about to find out.

     By the time the troops were assembled on the shore, the detachment from each legion carrying its own standard and the Roman eagle held aloft before all, Claudius had put aside his misgivings and was concerned only with getting his men to the fort without incident.  He had been thoroughly briefed before he left Rome and knew the tactics of the locals.  The Iceni were experts in the art of sneak attack, suddenly rushing from cover on horseback and doing as much damage as possible in a short period of time, then melting back into the trees.  They had a reputation for being quick witted and flexible, turning as one man and changing strategy as if able to communicate without words.  Claudius had everyone on the alert for covert movements in the woods and had sent scouts ahead to clear the way.  Once they were on the march routine concerns dominated his thoughts and he hardly noticed the spectacular scenery emerging from the dreamy haze as the sun rose.

     He would have plenty of time to look at it later.

     “There they are,” Brettix said disgustedly.  He looked down from his perch in the tall maple tree as the scarlet wave of humanity advanced up the single road the Romans had carved through the forest.  “We should jump them right now.”

     “With what?” his friend Parex said.  “It will take at least three weeks for us to get the necessary weapons from the Trinovantes.  Do you plan to beat the Romans to death with sticks?”

     “It’s so hard to see them marching through here as if they owned the country,” Brettix said between his teeth.

     “They do.”

     “Don’t say that!”

     Parex shrugged.  “As of this moment, Brettix, they do.  And we won’t be able to rout them until we can buy more arms, so you’d better practice patience.”

     Brettix dropped from the tree like an ape and joined Parex on the ground.  “They’re all as arrogant as princes.  What army wears red?  An easier target would be difficult to imagine.”

     “The color disguises the blood shed in battle,” Parex said.

     “That’s just what they want you to think, to intimidate you.”

     “I’m intimidated,” Parex said soberly.

     “I’m glad that you fight a lot better than you talk,” Brettix said furiously.

     “Did you see the weapons they have?  Each man has a double edged sword two arms long, and a dagger and a four arms length brass shield and two javelins.  What do we have?  Leather covered boards for shields and cutting swords of inferior metal so soft it often bends after the first stroke.”

     “There shouldn’t be a second stroke,” Bretix said darkly.  

     “Not to mention the
ballista
  on that wagon,” Parex continued, as if Brettix  hadn’t spoken.  “They brought it with them, Brettix, in pieces to be assembled here.  It throws stones the size of a six year old child.  What are we going to throw back at them this time?  Seashells?”

     “We’ve done pretty well so far.  If they weren’t worried they wouldn’t be sending in reinforcements.  They’ve always been better equipped, and soon we’ll have the weather in our favor.”

     “If we live that long.”

     Brettix walked over to his horse, untied its tether from a bush, and mounted it lithely.

     “You talk like a coward, so I’m leaving,” he said to Parex, who watched him go, his expression a blend of admiration and concern.

     Brettix rode toward the Iceni settlement, sticking to the paths he knew through the forest, inwardly seething.

     What plans did these new invaders have for his people?  They had landed at the seaport instead of sailing up the river from the place they called Londinium, which meant they had come this time with bigger ships and more people.  It was clear that the recent success of the Iceni raids had fueled the Roman determination to dig in and hang on at all costs.  And he didn’t trust the people he was relying on for weapons, the Trinovantes.  They changed loyalties with the wind, establishing the first treaty with the  Romans and profiting from the trade they had conducted over the last decade with the invaders.  Right now they were willing to help, but that might change tomorrow.

     The Iceni were really alone, and Brettix knew it.

     As he neared the camp he saw Bronwen hoeing corn in the garden patch behind their house.  She looked up as he cantered past her.

     “Brettix!”

     He slowed the horse as she ran to catch up with him.

     “Is it true?  Are they here?”

     He nodded, wondering as always how she managed to know so much, so soon.

     “Show me,” she said, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand.  “I want to see.”

     “Bronwen, I have things to do.  They look exactly like every other Roman...”

     Bronwen ignored him, dropping her hoe and running lightly to jump up behind him on the horse.  She hitched her skirt up to her thighs and gripped the animal’s flanks with her knees, putting her arms around her brother’s waist.

     Brettix resigned himself to his fate; he knew how persistent she could be.  He might as well do as she requested or he would just wind up doing it later.

     He took them back the way he had come, judging from the pace of the march he had seen where the Romans should be.  As they came to the edge of the trees on a forested overhang they could see the column below them, still moving at the same deliberate rate, as organized and deliberate as worker bees.

     “They’re so close,” Bronwen murmured.  “You can almost see their features.”

     “Keep your voice down or they’ll be seeing yours,” Brettix whispered in response.

     Bronwen watched in silence for a while, touching her brother’s arm when a man in front of the column turned and held up his hand.  He was taller than the others with some kind of gold insignia on his breastplate.

     “Who is that?”

     “The leader, I guess.  What does it matter?  They’re all the same.  Murderers.”

     “Why did he stop them?”

     “For a rest.  See, they’re sitting down.”

     Bronwen looked on as the Romans broke ranks and sprawled on the grass, taking sips from the jugs in their packs and splashing their faces with the water.

     “Why do they need to stop?  I thought they were all invincible gods, able to march sixteen
mila
  a day on nothing but bread and vinegar laced water.  It can’t be five mila from the inlet to the fort.”

     “They’re stopping because that leader is smart,” Brettix said, reluctant admiration in his tone.  “He wants them to look refreshed and strong as they pass close to our camp.”

     “He seems young to be in charge of this whole expedition,” Bronwen said softly, staring down at the tall man as he removed his cloak and wiped his face with it.

     “They start training early,” Brettix said dryly.

     The Roman adjusted the scabbard at his waist, pulling his tunic close against his body.  Bronwen was struck by his lean back and broad shoulders, the way the bright sunlight glinted on his raven hair.

     “He’s handsome,” she observed.  “Too bad he’s nothing but a filthy Roman pig.”

     Brettix glanced at her over his shoulder.  “A pig who looks like a prince is still a pig.”

     “I know.”

     “I’m taking you home.  I think you’ve been out in the sun too long.”  Brettix wheeled the horse around and nudged him up the path.

     Bronwen looked back at the group of Romans and saw the leader say something to his companion and then smile.

     She would have occasion to remember, long afterwards, that moment and that smile.

     Lucia stood in the
atrium 
of her house at the fort, its roof open to the  blue sky, watching the new troops march past her door on their way to the barracks.  In the forefront she saw Claudius Leonatus, who had visited her father’s estate in Rome several times.  He looked the same, as sleek and feline as ever, true to his name.  As he walked by she remembered how her girlfriends would blush and giggle to see him, drooling over the hero of the Spanish campaigns.

     Lucia had never been able to warm up to him herself.  He was attractive enough physically, but there was something flat and withdrawn in his eyes, as if the early death of his wife and baby had killed something in him, something which she could not revive.  He was always polite when he saw her, inclining his head deferentially and flashing those perfect white teeth.  But when she tried to connect with him more intimately he would look away, fixing his gaze beyond her and then looking back at her when she spoke, as if just remembering that she was there.  When her father had put her forward to Leonatus as a marital candidate, she’d been relieved when some legal impediment was discovered and the subject was dropped.  It was her private opinion that the lion did not want to marry anyone, that he had climbed into the crypt with his young family and just his shell was walking around in the guise of a man.

     Of course, if she had known she would wind up with the tax collector, she might have tried harder to engage Claudius’ attention.

     “Very impressive,” her mother said sarcastically at her shoulder.   “I hope they fight as well as they look or we will be overrun by these barbarians by spring.”

     Lucia turned to look at her mother, at the perfectly coiffed and ringleted hair, the expertly applied cosmetics, the silken
palla
  bordered with gold, the earrings of amethyst set in polished brass.  Drucilla Scipio spent half her morning engaged in her toilette, ordering servants about like a slavemaster and changing several times, getting ready to do nothing.  Lucia wished that her brother were still alive.  He had always been able to make her mother smile, but he had succumbed to a fever while encamped with Caesar’s troops, fighting the great Vercingetorix on the Rhone River in Gaul.  Lucia loved her mother but had no idea how to help her, and the increasing distance between herself and Drucilla just made her feel bewildered and at a loss.

     “I think this new group will help keep the Celts at bay,” Lucia replied reassuringly.

     “I wish your father were here,” Drucilla said wistfully.  “I wish I were with him in Rome, I don’t know why any of us came to this terrible place.  There’s nothing of value to be obtained here and the people are impossibly stubborn.  They make very poor slaves.”

     “Father will be back soon.”

     “I don’t know.  I hope Leonatus brought a letter with him, I long to hear from the general.”

     Lucia smiled to herself.  Her mother always referred to her father as “the general”, as if he were the only one.

     “So what’s for dinner?” Lucia asked brightly, referring to her mother’s daily struggle to get the inadequate Celtic larder to produce an acceptable Roman meal.

     Drucilla sighed dramatically.  “These people have no decent fish,” she hissed.  “Have you ever heard of people living on an island who don’t know how to obtain decent fish?  Every day it’s salmon.  I hate salmon.  I have to smother everything in
garum
  to make it edible, and that is running out fast.  I haven’t tasted edible shrimp since I got here.  They have prawns, which when boiled have the consistency of the leather in my sandals.”