by Jack Ludlow
‘Of course,’ said Lucius, with a wide smile. ‘Though I must say she is less vivacious since you both returned from Spain. I fear campaigning did not suit her.’
Aulus knew he should not react; Lucius was chiding him too, but he could not keep the terse tone out of his voice. ‘I think you have forgotten, my friend, how exhausting fighting in the field can be.’
‘It has one great advantage over fighting in the Senate, Aulus. In the field you know precisely who are your enemies and who are your friends.’ As Aulus swelled up to react, Lucius added quickly, with an air designed to disarm, ‘but I so look forward to an evening spent in the company of you both, and I assure you, politics will not intrude.’
When Aulus invited Lucius to dine, both men knew that it would not be an intimate affair. Quite apart from his own family, the in-laws of Quintus were present, as were Claudia’s parents and several of Aulus’s old field commanders, each provided with a dining couch. As was the custom they ate without drinking and then drank without eating, watered but still potent wine, which was the point at which matters took a turn for the worse.
Even with all those people to distract him, the evening was not a success. Lucius and Claudia, close together as he was the guest of honour, sniped at each other continually, though each did so with smiles that left the other guests to wonder whether their barbed comments were examples of wit or malice. Aulus knew better, knew that his wife was defending him, because Lucius, despite his promise, could not leave politics alone, something which left him too confused to intervene. Why would a woman who showed him no affection in private be so stoutly defensive of his reputation in public? That she had little time for Lucius, he knew, and that went back to the time of their wedding.
What he did not comprehend was that Claudia had her own opinion of Lucius, formed in the four years he had been away in Illyricum. She was a member of a set of well-born women who met regularly without the presence of their husbands, and as women do, they talked, mostly relaying to each other the frustrations, aspirations, doubts and certainties of each absent spouse. It was a commonplace jest that if you wanted to know what was really going on in Rome, it would be best to ask the wife of a senator. The actions of Lucius Falerius came up often, how could they not given his political prominence, and they were rarely flattering.
‘Probity, my dear Lady Claudia, is all very well in its place, but Rome cannot maintain its conquests on only that.’
If no one understood what Lucius was saying, Claudia did; it was nothing less than a subtle denigration of her husband and his natural decency. She had praised that quality when Lucius sought to imply that any man who stood aloof from affairs of state, though they might see themselves as virtuous, was in fact living in a world of dreams; Rome was run by actions, not contemplations.
‘But is that not what separates us from barbarians, Lucius Falerius, the notion that we will do the right thing even if it works against our interests? You of all people stand as an example of self-sacrifice in the pursuit of a well-run state.’
The gimlet look that accompanied those words took away from them any sincerity; Lucius knew that he was being accused of exactly the opposite. ‘I work for an ideal, I admit.’
‘Which must bring you great satisfaction.’
‘All I know is that it gives me much to do.’
‘How tiresome it must be, having all day, every day, to remind others of the need for integrity in all things.’
‘I think it is time for the musicians, father,’ said Quintus, who alone of all the guests knew exactly what was going on. Aulus agreed, indicated that they should be summoned, and tried to change the subject.
‘Is Marcellus musical in any way?’
‘No, thank the gods,’ Lucius replied. ‘My son’s activities are confined to subjects which will serve him in the field, and make him a good administrator.’
‘You should encourage him, Lucius,’ said Claudia, in a mischievous tone. ‘Music does much to soften the natural coarseness in young boys. It is possible to be both a soldier and a poet. I suggest he learns the lyre.’
‘Claudia, enough,’ said Aulus, for that play on words was going too far.
She nodded to indicate that she would henceforth be silent, but Lucius was not about to let it go. ‘I had no idea, Lady Claudia, that you were so knowledgeable about young men.’
‘Perhaps it is greater than yours, given that I am closer to it in memory.’
‘I know many women who admire that coarseness you refer to when boys become men.’
‘And yet you have not remarried after the death of the Lady Ameliana. That I find surprising, given that many women must admire you.’
That was an insult, to make Aulus sit up, but Lucius was too well-versed in the art of that not to return the compliment in full measure. ‘A pity, I know, especially when you and Aulus have set me such a fine example.’
The musicians were assembled, and Aulus, fearing a slanging match, waved at them furiously to begin playing. The opening notes were loud enough to drown out what Lucius said next, so that only Claudia heard him express his sorrow that she and Aulus had not managed to have children. Looking intently at her he knew he had struck home by the look of pain that crossed her face.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Aulus rolled onto his back with that same angry feeling which had been with him since the first night he came home. The trouble was he could not bring himself to blame his young wife for her lack of interest, he being so much older than she. And that difference in age grew more marked with each passing year, a fact that had been made so much worse by the long separation of his proconsular service in Illyricum. He knew her skin was dry, so the sweat on his body seemed to mock him. She would not perspire, all the effort was from him, and had been for years.
‘I’m sorry, Aulus.’
‘Why do you sound so sad?’
‘Because I am. Because I cannot give you what you need.’
Aulus rolled back onto one elbow, his body above hers. He ran his hand over her firm breast, just brushing the nipple. Claudia, her eyes shut tight, gave an involuntary shiver. ‘It’s not as though you cannot feel. I thought time would be enough to heal you. I prayed that our life would be as it once was.’
She laughed softly, but it indicated misery, not happiness. ‘The perfect Roman couple, both of the finest stock despite the difference in age and a touch of Sabine blood in my past. A mature and garlanded warrior entwined, in the strictest marriage form, with his young bride. I think your old friend Lucius Falerius should be jealous.’
Aulus was perplexed. It was rare for Claudia to offer anything other than the persistent apology. ‘Is that not enough?’
‘It ought to be.’
His voice betrayed the anger he fought so hard to conceal beneath his habitual calm exterior. ‘That’s not what I asked!’
She opened her eyes and looked into his, then reached up and touched his face. ‘No woman has the right to demand more than a husband like you. You’re a gift from the gods.’
‘Yet you reject that gift at every turn,’ he snapped. ‘We hardly speak to each other during the day, you wander the house as though your mind is elsewhere, without guests we dine in near silence and here in bed you’re like a statue. Yet tonight, when Lucius sought to reproach my views, you leapt to my defence.’
‘I don’t know why you bother, Aulus.’
He spoke almost without feeling, determined to hide both the depth of his passion plus the guilt he felt for what had happened to her in Spain. ‘I bother because I love you.’
‘Any other man would have put me aside, perhaps for another wife.’
His hand wandered up from her breast to her throat. ‘I have the right to kill you, Claudia, if I so wish.’
‘I won’t struggle, Aulus, and I’ll gladly release you from the need to return my dowry.’
She had not meant her words to sound churlish, but the right tone for what she was trying to say eluded her.
‘Why!
’ he shouted, stung at last to outright anger, his hand involuntarily closing round her windpipe. ‘Why?’
Her shoulders started to heave. Aulus saw she was crying and he released his grip, his head fell on her shoulder and he spoke softly, his words muffled by her skin. ‘Why?’
She strained to keep her voice level. ‘How glad I am that you are angry, husband. I often wish that you would show anger more often.’
When he replied the thickness in his own throat was obvious. ‘I need some kind of explanation, Claudia.’
‘Something died in me, Aulus. Something vital! For all your efforts you cannot revive it and I tell you now that is the last word I will say. I shall not speak of it again and if you wish to respond, do so by showing your anger. I hate your pity more than I hate anything in the world.’
With that Claudia turned her back on him, eyes tight shut as she recalled that day of the battle. She thought it odd that she could never remember the faces of those murderous tribesmen intent on raping her, even if she could quite easily recapture the feelings of loathing and disgust she had felt at the time. It was as if the change in her life was so total that she had blocked them out, as if the flashing falcata blade had sliced through the two separate parts of her existence, forever separating them. That decapitation had halted everyone, so the only sound she could hear was the sobbing and muffled screams of those women less fortunate than she. As her saviour helped her to her feet, wrapping her nakedness in a cloak of rough wool, his height became even more obvious. She barely came up to his chest and even through the dust in the air and the odour of death which surrounded her she had smelt him, a musky fragrance of fresh perspiration that had never left her memory. Then he had spoken, in perfect Latin, in a deep and harmonious voice to ask her if she was suffering from any pain.
‘No,’ Claudia had replied, aware, as the aches of her violation began to make themselves felt, that she was lying. Her arms hurt from the way she had been dragged around, her chest and back from the pummelling of the pushing and shoving. She could feel where her hair had been tugged till it nearly parted from her scalp and the throbbing by her eye she suspected had come from a blow to the side of the head.
‘Look at me.’
Claudia fought her own inclination to respond, as a way of stating defiance, a way of showing this barbarian she was not there to obey commands, but another force seemed to exert a more telling pressure that brought up her head. What struck her first were the eyes, large, piercing and bright blue, set in a face that was bronzed, not blackened by the sun, his hair golden and long. His hand came up slowly to touch her cheek right at the point where it now throbbed and those blue eyes closed while the face took on a look of deep concentration. Almost immediately Claudia felt the pain ease, and within seconds it had gone completely. He spoke swiftly as the eyes opened again, in a tribal argot she could not understand.
Claudia was subjected to a series of mixed emotions. She knew she had this man to thank for saving her honour – very likely her life – and she could not help but be impressed by his presence, the effortless ease with which he commanded respect, yet he was clearly an enemy, so she felt she should despise him. It was an emotion she tried very hard to conjure up, only to find that when she spoke her voice sounded meek.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Brennos, the leader of the Celt-Iberians. I have told them to take you to our camp. You will be treated with all respect. Anyone who harms a hair on your head knows he will have to face me.’
‘The other women?’ Claudia asked, sure that every man was already dead.
‘Are of no interest to me. They do not have a Roman general for a husband.’
Isolation, in an unlit tent made of animal skins, allowed Claudia’s thoughts to run riot. She sat in the only chair, every possible scenario played out in her imagination: Aulus riding into the Celtic camp to rescue her; the same rescuer dragged in chains and defeated, to be burnt in a wicker cage before her eyes. In her head armies clashed and both sides won and lost, with her own possible fate mixed with the heat and blood of battle. What would Brennos do with her? Had he saved her from his fellow barbarians only to despoil her at his own leisure? Would she be sacrificed to one of their heathen gods? And through all of this two images fought for supremacy: first the face of Aulus, swarthy skin, black eyes, grave with his pepper and salt hair, concerned for her well-being, and second that of Brennos. It was not so much his face but his presence, a power of personality so great that she could still smell him, still hear his voice and the touch of his healing hand. The sounds from outside grew as night fell, plunging the interior of the tent into a pitch darkness that only served to enhance her disquiet, wandering from being brave to near panic and back again. Sleep proved impossible, every time she closed her eyes the image of those who had died that day leapt up like accusers. Opening them was little better; she felt as if their ghosts were in the tent, crowding in on her, demanding to know why she was alive while they had perished.
The growing clamour outside went some way to alleviating this, her confused and solitary state making it easy to translate the shouted sounds of a language she did not understand into her own native Latin. Individual voices predominated, interspersed with the sudden roars of acclamation. Then there was only one voice, angry, starting out even and rising steadily to a shout, soon to be joined by others in what seemed to be disagreement. More voices were added to the dispute until no one person could be heard, then the tent flap was hauled back, and Brennos, carrying a flaring torch, entered.
He was still coated in the dust of the day’s action, the great decapitating sword at his side, dressed in a loose smock and leggings held in place by the thongs of his sandals. As he stuck the torch in a metal sconce Claudia observed again his salient features, mentally recognising that he was extremely handsome, with his height, his broad shoulders and the lean, tanned face. That was before she sharply reminded herself he was the enemy of both her city and her husband. He looked around the tent, at the unused bed covered with a sheepskin, the wicker stand that held a basin and a jug of water, none of which she had used, then back to Claudia, still in her woollen cloak, her sitting pose rigid.
‘You are comfortable?’
‘I am a prisoner.’
The haughty pose she struck then clearly amused him. ‘I have been a prisoner in my time, lady, and it was not like this. When you fear to sleep lest the rats eat your toes you will know what being a prisoner means.’
‘My husband?’
‘Is alive and still in command of his army.’ Brennos sighed then, before adding, with a toss of the head, ‘Those fools behave as if we won a great victory. They are telling each other how brave they are.’ His face held a strange expression, which Claudia thought, at first, was despair, but closer examination showed it to be frustration. ‘Your husband is a good soldier.’
‘The very best that Rome has,’ Claudia replied, pompously.
Brennos smiled then, for the first time. ‘Then I can be sure that once I’ve beaten him, I have nothing to fear.’
‘You won’t beat Aulus, and even if you did, another army would arrive next year.’
‘And another the year after,’ he replied, in a voice that showed no trace of fear at the prospect. ‘That is always assuming I stay here and wait to be attacked. Instead of putting them to all the trouble of marching to Spain I’ll meet them outside the gates of Rome.’
Claudia had to stop herself laughing then. His words, calmly delivered as they were, still sounded like madness to her. ‘You think yourself greater than Hannibal.’
‘Not me, lady,’ Brennos said, taking the gold eagle charm between his fingers, an act which drew it once more to Claudia’s attention. It flashed in the torchlight as he moved it, seeming to have come alive, as if the bird was actually flying. ‘But the race to which I belong. Your husband was lucky today, so we will meet again. He has to be lucky once more, indeed every time he fights the Celtic tribes. They only need to be lucky once.’
As he spoke he strode towards a jug and basin, undoing his sword belt and peeling off his smock. With a start Claudia realised that this tent was his own, obvious really since she was his personal prisoner. She tried to avert her gaze as he picked up the water jug and emptied half the contents over his head, but the image of the muscles moving in that broad, tanned back stayed with her. The flap opened again to admit two girls, one of whom had fresh clothes for Brennos, while the other carried a tray of food, which she laid on the sheepskin bedcover. Neither said a word, yet Claudia observed interest in the way they gazed at him, looks that made her wonder at his own domestic arrangements. Was there a wife or a series of concubines ready to satisfy his needs? Why was she curious?
‘Eat,’ he commanded.
She was hungry, ravenous in fact, but she also had her pride. ‘I have no desire to take anything from you.’
That look of frustration crossed his face again. ‘Please don’t be foolish. I have sent a message to your husband, saying if he wants you back he and his legions must quit Spain.’
‘He will never agree to that.’
‘No, he won’t. I doubt your being my prisoner will affect a single act of his as a soldier.’
‘Then you might as well kill me now.’
Claudia knew she had struck a pose as she said that, her head turned away, eyes raised in an attempt to imbue her words with a degree of nobility. She stayed like that as he approached her, very aware of his proximity as he stood by her chair. His hand reached out to touch her chin and pull her head round, the contact sending a shiver through her whole body.
‘You would face death, I think, with that same look.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Roman pride.’
‘Roman spirit.’
His hand dropped to the edge of her cloak, opening it slightly to reveal her naked flesh. A single finger was brushed across her skin, and all the time those blue eyes held hers, in a locked gaze she could not break. She felt her body react to his touch, a tingling that went down her arms to her fingertips, a feeling halfway between an ache and pleasure that forced her to clench the muscles of her stomach. Two things Claudia knew: that she should not feel like this, it was wrong and wicked; it was also a sensation she had never before experienced, and one that she did not want to stop.