The Lion and the Lark

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Claudius looked at him. “Don’t you know her?” he asked the general incredulously.

  Scipio shrugged. “She’s Borrus’ daughter, that’s all I know or need to know.”

  “She’s been to your house, to escort a cook in your kitchens. She said your wife arranged it.”

  Scipio sighed. “My wife has many arrangements unknown to me,” he replied in a weary tone. “Are you saying that you have met this girl before today?”

  “Just once. I had no idea that she was Iceni royalty. I thought she was some relative of the cook’s.”

  “She may well be. These people are all related to each other, their family ties are as complicated as Caesar’s.”

  Ardus looked up at the night sky, heavy with snow and dark except for the torchlight surrounding them. “Too many strange things happen here,” he said, in a somber tone. “I sometimes feel their gods are watching us, gods much older and more powerful than ours, and that they will triumph in the end.”

  “Stop it, Ardus,” Scipio said sharply. “That kind of talk does no good, it smacks of superstition and it saps morale.”

  “They’re assembling to escort you to your wife,” Ardus said suddenly, looking through the door of the hut at the Iceni, who were lining up by twos, torches in hand. “We have to walk you to your door.”

  The Romans stepped outside and were at once hemmed in by the Celts, which made Claudius uneasy. His hand went to his sword hilt, but it was soon clear that the Iceni were intent only on providing him with the traditional escort to his marriage bed. As the torchlit procession moved forward, with the people dressed as gods capering at the front of it, conquerors and conquered mingled peaceably for one of the few times in their troubled history.

  The gates of the fort stood open to admit them, with the Romans lined up inside and armed to the teeth, watching soberly. The Druid led the way to the house Catalinus had abandoned when the British winter proved too much for his knees, beset by arthritis after wounds sustained in Spain and Gaul. For the past week it had been cleaned and furnished by Scipio’s servants, and inside it now the Iceni princess waited.

  Waited for Claudius.

  The procession came to a halt, and the Iceni parted ranks to let Claudius pass to the front of the crowd.

  His heart pounding, he walked forward through the throng.

  “I told you the Roman’s destiny the first time I saw him,” Maeve said, strewing the marital bed with dried flower petals, preserved from the summer. “I suspected then that his destiny would be you.”

  Bronwen sighed, wishing the old woman would be quiet. Maeve had been harping on this theme since she saw Claudius at the ceremony, and it didn’t calm Bronwen’s shattered spirit to hear it again now.

  One of the other women unbound Bronwen’s hair as a third unfolded a sleeveless shift of thin Gallic silk. Bronwen stood like a doll as the entourage undressed her, slipped the shift over her head and then tucked her into the bed. She lay there staring into the flames on the hearth, which gave the only light in the room.

  Her face was flushed and her hands were like ice; there was a tightness in her throat that made her fear she would never swallow again. She didn’t move as the women bustled about the room, setting out food and wine on a side table and replenishing the fire. When there was nothing left to be done they melted away, as if by a prearranged signal. Maeve was the last to go; she stopped by the bed and whispered, “They’re here.”

  She rested her hand on Bronwen’s head for a moment and then left the room.

  Bronwen didn’t need the old woman to tell her the procession had arrived. Torchlight shone through the Roman style strip windows of the house and she could hear the murmur of the crowd. She turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes.

  He would be here shortly: in the house, in the room, in the bed. She had expected to be dreading the embrace of some fiftyish widower, not sharing her body with the young Roman officer she had met just once but not quite managed to forget.

  It had never occurred to her that the man chosen for her might be the one she had encountered outside the general’s house. Her father had said it would probably be the second in command, and she’d assumed that would be someone like Scipio, not the youthful officer with blue black hair and the sudden, unexpected smile she had seen the day the reinforcements arrived. Now Bronwen’s sense of reluctantly performing a distasteful duty had been replaced by a feverish and conflicted anticipation she didn’t completely understand.

  She heard a step in the hall and swallowed hard, turning her head to look at the door.

  He knocked lightly and then entered, his helmet under his arm. Bronwen thought she could hear her own heart banging under her ribs as he put down the headgear and took off his cloak, setting them on a chair and stopping to warm his hands before the fire.

  Bronwen watched him: her enemy, her husband, a complete unknown. His limbs were slim and well muscled, his waist narrow, the dark hair so unusual to the Celts throwing back the firelight with an ebony gleam. After a few moments he turned to face her, then walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

  Bronwen recoiled involuntarily.

  He noticed the subtle movement and his face set into an expressionless mask.

  “Do you remember me?” he asked quietly.

  Bronwen didn’t answer.

  He waited a moment and then said, “I know you understand me. I heard you speaking my language once before, the night in late summer we met outside Ammianus Scipio’s house. Do you recall that meeting?”

  “One Roman is just like another to me,” Bronwen whispered, finding her voice.

  He saw that she was going to deny this common ground and sighed inwardly. He knew she had every reason to hate him, but since the moment he saw who his bride was he had been hoping... hoping what? That she would forget the cruel history between their two peoples and throw herself into his arms?

  That was clearly not going to happen.

  “I know that you are here to do your duty...” he began again, and at the sound of the last word, pietas, she threw back the muslin sheet and stood up, pulling the silken shift over her head.

  Her movement was so swift that Claudius could do nothing but stare as she dropped the garment to the floor.

  Her skin was flawless, glowing, her hair a molten stream over her shoulders. Her breasts, partially concealed by the long tresses, were full and ripe, tipped with brownish nipples, which puckered as they reacted to the chilly air. Her slim waist flared out to womanly hips which tapered to a russet pubic patch and then long, graceful legs.

  “I am ready to do my duty,” she said spitefully, watching him with sea colored eyes that slowly filled with tears.

  She was trembling and obviously frightened, but so lovely in the firelight that his hands curled into fists as he suppressed the urge to touch. His mouth went dry and he looked away deliberately, snatching her shift from the floor.

  “Put it back on,” he said harshly, handing the gown to her. “I’m not going to rape you.”

  Bronwen did as he asked, then said, “Why not? Rape seems to be a common Roman practice. One of your countrymen raped my mother before he killed her. I was only a child at the time but I remember the scene very well.”

  He looked at her, not answering right away, as if searching for the correct thing to say.

  “We are not all the same,” Claudius finally replied quietly, feeling a little more in control with her covered up again. But not much; the memory of her beauty was too vivid. “No matter what you may think you know about us I am not in the habit of taking unwilling women, and I don’t plan to start now. However long this...arrangement between us lasts, I will never force you.”

  Bronwen didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it was not this.

  “I’ve brought the pallet from my bed in the barracks and I can set it on the floor before the fire. I’ll sleep there.”

  Bronwen was silent.

  He sat looking at her fo
r a long time, then rose and went to the side table.

  “Do you want something to eat?” he asked, picking up a baked tart from the tray on the table.

  Bronwen still didn’t answer.

  He put it back down again.

  Apparently he wasn’t hungry either.

  He took the carafe of wine and filled two goblets, walking back to where she stood next to the bed and handing her one.

  Bronwen accepted it reluctantly.

  “You can drink it,” he said dryly, “it’s not poisoned. This meal was prepared by your own women. Unless you suspect them of criminal behavior too.”

  Bronwen ignored that and took a sip. It was as bitter as aloes and she grimaced.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding, “it’s sour. A fitting commentary on our union, don’t you think?”

  Bronwen said nothing.

  “I thought the Celts were loquacious,” he said sarcastically, “great rhymers and poets and bards. You have very little to say.”

  “I wouldn’t talk to you at all if it were not necessary,” Bronwen answered in a low tone.

  He nodded again, then pulled a chair before the fire and gestured for her to sit in it. She hesitated, reluctant to cooperate with him in any way, but then realized she was being childish and sat. He went down on one knee next to her, putting himself on her eye level.

  “Neither one of us has chosen this fate,” he said, “but if we are to accomplish our mission and bring our two sides together, which will save many lives, we must behave as if this marriage is real.”

  Bronwen’s gaze was locked with his; there was a faint scar on his upper lip and his dark beard was showing against his skin. The clean shaven Romans often scraped their beards twice a day.

  “That means we live together in this house, share meals, sleep together in this room. We must be chaste, no one must suspect that it is a performance, or offense may be taken on either side. If you have a lover among your own people you must separate from him now.”

  “I have had no lovers,” Bronwen said, and saw the impact of that statement register on his face. He stared at her, seemed about to speak, then bit his lip thoughtfully before saying, “Your father must have needed this truce very much.”

  He needed me to spy on you very much, Bronwen thought. She looked down, unable to bear the scrutiny of his searching eyes, which were the color of the dark amber liquor the Hibernians drank. Ouisce . His eyes were the color of whiskey.

  “I know you don’t want me, but you’re going to have me, in this house anyway,” he said tonelessly, rising. “I’ll disturb you as little as possible, I’ll be away for most of the day anyway. I assume you’ve brought your own servants with you?”

  Bronwen nodded. “I asked to have Maeve come here with me from the general’s house, and also two of the Iceni girls who owe a tribal debt to my father.”

  “I’ll have a page from the barracks join the rest of the servants in the quarters at the back of the house,” he said. “My personal effects have already been moved to the room next door.”

  They looked at one another.

  “Can you do this?” he asked her quietly. “Do you understand that it will be difficult to keep up this...pretense?”

  “I understand that it will be difficult to pretend I have forgotten the long history of Roman oppression here and taken you into my bed,” she said tersely. “But I can do what I must.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Very well. I’ll leave you now and spend some time in the guest room off the triclinium, which I will use as my study. I’ll return after you’re asleep.”

  Bronwen watched him go, his sword hilt flashing in the firelight as he went through the door.

  She noticed he had not left his weapons behind in the bedroom.

  Did he think she would run him through while he slept? What was the point of this whole farcical wedding if the true Celtic plan was just to kill him?

  Bronwen got up and went to the chair where he had dropped his helmet and cloak. She picked up the garment and ran it through her fingers. It was triple weight wool, dyed deep red and trimmed with golden thread. She wrapped it around herself and it dropped heavily to the floor, covering her bare feet. She, like most of the Celtic women, was not short, but he topped her by several handsbreadths, which meant that for a Roman he was very tall indeed.

  Bronwen took off the cloak and replaced it where he had left it.

  The man was truly a puzzle. He had behaved very well in a situation that would have allowed him to take full advantage of her if he had chosen to do so. By contrast, she had conducted herself in a manner that it made her blush violently to recall.

  Bronwen knew from the first moment she met the Roman that he desired her; the way he had looked at her outside Scipio’s house had left little doubt of that. She had used that knowledge to taunt and humiliate him by standing naked before him and letting him feel the power her beauty exerted.

  Why had she done it? They could have had the same conversation without her dramatic display of her body.

  She knew the answer and she didn’t like it.

  She was attracted to him. She had taken the initiative to shock him and put him off so he wouldn’t come near her and test her resolve.

  Somehow Bronwen had known he would react as he did; there was a basic decency about him that had been apparent from the time they first met, no matter how much she denied it hotly and told herself that he was a Roman dog.

  Was it possible that this man was the exception to the rule, a career Roman soldier who saw the people his country had conquered as human beings rather than dirt under his feet? She sensed confidence in him rather than arrogance, the satisfaction of achievement rather than an inborn feeling of superiority, and also a loneliness which spoke to her own.

  Bronwen crossed her arms on the fireplace mantel and closed her eyes, letting the warmth from the roaring blaze caress her legs through the thin silk gown.

  This was not how she had expected her life to go. She’d been raised to think that she would be married off at the appropriate time to a prince of one of the other tribes, the Trinovantes or the Catuvellauni, perhaps the Belgae to the south. She had remained a virgin well past the time when her friends were finding husbands and having children, waiting for her father, obsessed with the Roman occupation, to make the tribal alliance for which her wedding would be the seal.

  But this alliance was one she had never anticipated. She had been married off to a prince, that was true, but a price of Italy, a favorite son of her people’s long time enemy.

  And now she had to live this lie in order to bring about his country’s loss of Britain.

  How had she ever wound up in such a situation?

  Bronwen moved back to the bed and climbed into it, wondering how long it would be before the Roman returned.

  But she was too tired to think about it for long.

  In just minutes, she slept.

  Claudius walked quietly down the hall toward the bedroom, noting the silence from the servants’ quarters and the low burning torches set in niches along the wall. He had stayed in the study for a long time, trying to concentrate on the dispatches that needed his attention but instead thinking about the woman he had married only hours earlier.

  Would she stay the course, or had she slipped past the study while he pretended to work? Had their short but pointed interchange driven her out the door? Was she back with her father already, crying her eyes out and upsetting the delicate balance of the treaty?

  It was impossible to know.

  He opened the door and to his relief saw her ensconced in the bed, looking very small. The fire had burned down and the room was getting cold, so he added two logs to the hearth before going to the side of the bed and gazing down at her.

  Her gorgeous hair fanned out under her head, and the sheet was drawn down to her waist, leaving her delicately rounded arms bare. A sprinkling of pale brown freckles dusted her exposed throat, and the creamy skin there reminded him
of how she had looked earlier when she stripped and confronted him.

  He turned away, pulling his pallet from under the bed and dropping it before the fire. He took off his weapons belt and laid it at his side on the tiled floor, then stretched out full length and sighed deeply, staring moodily into the flames.

  He felt enervated, but his mind was racing madly and prevented the solace of sleep.

  He had to keep her calm and willing to continue with the arrangement, and that obviously meant keeping his hands off her. He knew that her stripping for him had not been the seductive act of a strumpet, but the courageous act of a terrified girl who wanted to face down the thing she feared and have done with it. The Iceni princess might be a Roman hater as well as a reluctant bride, but she was certainly no coward.

  All of which made him feel like the biggest bully on the training ground. He had no taste for subjugation; he was at his best when able to meet a competent but faceless enemy on a level playing field. He had always left when the battle was won and let others come in and set up the colonial system and work with the conquered. This was the first time he’d been part of the military government of a defeated people, and now he had been ordered to live with one of them, to co-exist on a daily basis with someone who hated him fiercely.

  He had a strong feeling that hand to hand combat with the Phrygian horde would be an easier prospect. He was no diplomat and he was no actor; he was a soldier. To him, directness was a virtue and pretense an embarrassment. He couldn’t purport to feel other than he did, so the only way to deal peacefully with the Celtic girl was to avoid her.

  He planned to do that as much as possible.

  The girl rolled over and sighed, curling into a ball and shivering in her sleep. Claudius got up and took his cloak from the chair, bringing it to the bed and dropping it over the sleeping girl. As he tucked it under her chin he realized, with a dawning sense of amazement, that he still didn‘t know her name.

  Then he went back to his pallet and tried to go to sleep.