The Centurion and the Queen

by Minnette Meador

  When they reach the outskirts, Delia could feel Kuna increase his speed. Perhaps to avoid the stares they received from early risers. It must have been odd to see the pair; the fiery-haired Breton wrapped in blood-red soldier’s wool, and the odd, twisted Asian man, dressed in dark, Breton rags. They stood out like a fire torch in the darkness.

  Half way into town, they passed large structures and Delia could do nothing but gape in wonder. She had never seen a building larger than her own great house at Hillfort, so the sight of giant plaster, cement pillars and walls, towering for stories, was numbing. The buildings were painted in bright yellows, reds, blues, greens, and crawling with hundreds of Roman citizens.

  Heads turned when she passed. Finally, Kuna turned down a narrow street, and the curious eyes went away.

  Several houses down, he stopped the horse and dismounted, helping Delia from the saddle. She was stiff and sore all over and had difficulty keeping upright, but she managed, with his help, to make it to a plain cement bench that joined the outside wall of the house.

  Kuna tried the latch, but found it locked from the inside, so he knocked on the door instead.

  From the house came a rustle of movement, and then a pair of beautiful brown eyes appeared in the slot at the top of the door. They widened in surprise. The door was unlatched and quickly thrown open.

  “Kuna!” the woman cried propelling herself into the little man’s arms and kissed him all over his gnarled face. He lifted her off her feet and spun her around several times, laughing as he did so.

  Delia gasped when she saw her. She was so like Marius, the resemblance was stunning.

  “Wife!” he said, setting her down and kissing her soundly. He then squinted at Delia’s shocked face and released a long chortle. “Marius’s sister,” he said.

  The woman, who closed her eyes and held Kuna tightly, was the most beautiful Delia had ever seen. Her hair was long and rich black with white streaks like her brother’s, and flowing to the small of her back in billowing waves. She had huge black eyes and perfect, delicate features along with a dainty figure wrapped in a bright blue tunic. Her fingers, gently touching Kuna’s face as she kissed him, were long and fine. She stood a good two heads above the little man and was almost as tall as her brother was. The woman was a goddess, and Kuna—a twisted fable. The contrast was striking, but Delia could not help but smile at their obvious love, their devotion, and their bond.

  Kuna broke away and motioned her to follow him into the house. The neighbors were taking an unwanted interest in their activities.

  The house was small, neatly decorated with precious ornaments from Rome or Egypt , but very comfortable—very Roman. Delia was almost too tired to look, grateful when the woman motioned to a long bench to sit on.

  “What are you doing here, my love?” she said to her husband, taking his hand.

  “Marius ask me to come. Bring Breton queen.”

  The woman regarded Delia curiously. “Breton queen? I do not understand.”

  Kuna kissed her hand. “Delia, this my wife, Antonia, Marius sister.”

  Antonia bowed her head and then faced her husband. “What’s happened?”

  Kuna smiled and kissed her hand again. “Marius ask to watch her. She… hmm… special to him. Take care Delia.”

  Antonia examined Delia and tilted her head. “I see. Finally!”

  Kuna laughed and took her back into his arms. “My wife smart!” he crowed and spun her around again. She giggled in protest.

  When he put her down, Antonia crossed to the Delia. “You are more than welcome here. You must be special to catch my brother’s eyes. I will make certain you are safe.”

  “Thank you,” was all Delia could manage, blushing furiously and stifling a yawn.

  “She is exhausted!” Antonia said to her husband. “Have you kept her up all night?”

  “No,” he lied, avoiding her eyes.

  “You have! You monster! Well, we will take care of that right now. I have a soft bed where you can sleep. Would you like food first?”

  “I… I do not wish to burden you.”

  “Nonsense! It is my pleasure. Let me get you something.”

  “Antonia,” Kuna said softly.

  She turned her large brown eyes to her husband and sadly curled her lip. “You have to leave.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have heard rumors… something about a revolt.”

  Kuna picked up her hands and held them tightly. “Rumors. You safe here. Many soldiers from the IX here.”

  “I know, but what…”

  “You safe, wife. I go.”

  “All right. Please take care of yourself.” She reached down and kissed him again. “Come back to me.”

  “Soon.” Kuna kissed his wife again, squeezed her in his arms, and then whisked out the door without another word.

  Delia saw a single tear fall down Antonia’s face as she watched her husband, and then quietly closed the door.

  C hapter Twenty-Two

  Delia was finding it impossible to adjust to her new life in Londinium. She spent more and more time in the tiny house and less in the city itself. The confinement was choking her. She desperately missed her forests, her family, and Marius.

  Antonia was very kind and they spent hours talking, something that Delia missed from her days with her cousins and aunts. She found out that Kuna and Antonia had been close friends for many years in Rome , but that their friendship had blossomed over time. Antonia told her that Kuna was a brilliant man, could read, write, and speak Latin extremely well, as well as several other languages. He simply chose not to. It seemed to give him an advantage in the Legion. Everyone, with the exception of Marius, underestimated him, and that often gave him an edge.

  She had moved to Londinium when originally built, ten years earlier, to be close to him. They tried to have children, without success. Antonia did not regret a single moment of her life. They were very much in love.

  Delia found it compelling to talk to this gracious, intelligent woman, who would listen quietly to everything she had to say, without comment. Delia told her about her life, her brother, her people, and her feelings for a man she never expected to love. She talked of her fears, her hopes, and things she never told another soul, things for which she was not proud. The serene noble woman would simply nod and take Delia in her arms when she needed to cry. Delia had never felt such comfort in another human being. It was like a cleansing. She loved Antonia instantly.

  Antonia told her much about Marius, and she found herself loving him more when she did. However, she would not speak about the Praetorian Guard, telling her simply that she would need to ask the centurion one day.

  Otherwise, Delia found herself miserable in town when she ran errands for Antonia or wandered into the market to explore. The Roman women were, for the most part, mean spirited, often whispering when she passed, thinking she did not understand their language. They called her slave and whore, laughing at her red hair and her green eyes. The men would leer and covertly accost her on the street, offering her several of the Roman “as” copper coins for sexual acts in bad broken Gaelic. The soldiers would not even ask but simply grab her. When she would swear at them in Latin and fight, they would let her go, surprised at her response. After the second day, she did not go out without Antonia.

  Three days later, the rumors turned more urgent, until finally, soldiers went from house to house, telling people there may be a problem, but not to panic. It was the surest way to start the citizens buzzing.

  That night, the two women held onto one another afraid to leave the small house. Fights broke out everywhere and unsavory men broke into homes and businesses. The few soldiers stationed in town had difficulty controlling it all. When the sun came up the next day, the rumors became fact; Boudiga and fifty thousand Bretons would attack the town within hours.

  A neighbor told them that Governor Suetonius was ordering the town evacuated, including any soldiers left at the small garrison.

&nbs
p; “You need to leave now, at once,” the older woman cried, bustling two small children in front of her with small bundles over their backs. “They are coming!” She disappeared down the street with crying children in tow.

  “Get your cloak, Delia.” Antonia ran into the back room.

  Delia’s gaze followed her, not knowing what she was after. She threw her cloak around her shoulders and opened the front door. People crowded the street, running and shouting.

  “Hurry, Antonia!”

  The woman came out of her bedroom wrapped in a heavy cloak, a small dagger at her side. She threw another sheath to Delia. “Put that on. We might need it.”

  Without another word, she grabbed Delia by the arm and ran out into the passing crowd.

  The streets were pandemonium. It took them several minutes just to get to the main road that was choked with people, wagons, horses, and carts. Antonia found a bench and climbed it to see how far the masses went.

  “They are all the way out of the city. The soldiers are in front of them.”

  A surge of bodies came swiftly down the street and caught Delia in a rolling mass of humanity. They swept her so swiftly away from Antonia she instantly lost sight of her. There was nothing left for Delia to do but try to remain on her feet and let the thrust of people carry her forward.

  From one of the stables two blocks away, the sound of a neighing horse could be heard. Delia tried to see what was happening, but the glut of people was too much and all she could hear were cries and confusion. The man standing next to her went down suddenly, pulled by a terrified crowd. He clawed at her arm and scratched her. A woman in front of her also fell. At first, it was a strange illusion, as if people were being sucked from around her and just disappeared.

  A thundering roar of confusion echoed across thousands of upturned faces. Delia turned to see two horses pulling a large cart and plowing through the crowd; mowing down men, women, and children as if they were nothing. Many went under horse hooves, the cart’s wheels, or became buried under the slamming hardness of flying sacks of grain propelling from the back of the careening wagon.

  It loomed so quickly in front of her she had no time to respond. The horses saw her—she saw them, so close she could see the fearful whites of their eyes. As if in slow motion, the horses went back on their hind legs. The hooves hung in the air above her head, then landed away from her, veering, as if by magic, and sailing past in a blur. When she turned to watch them, the side of the cart struck her hard on the back of the head and sent her flying into the crowd, toppling several people when she hit. Delia glanced up once from the hard packed dirt, seeing nothing but a blackened haze of silhouettes around her, and then everything went dark.

  “Delia! Delia!”

  Someone was calling her name. It seemed so far away, she could not make out the voice.

  “Delia! Wake up! Please!”

  It was urgent, grating against her nerves. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, comfortable in her oblivion, but this voice was constant, begging, and demanding. She wished it would go away.

  Her first conscious awareness was someone shaking her shoulders and her head bursting in pain. The hands pinching her arms were insistent, and she groaned against them, bringing her fingers up to her eyes. When they reluctantly opened, the face came slowly into focus. Antonia’s urgent, dark eyes swam above Delia, and she had difficulty seeing them.

  “Thank the gods.” Antonia kept her voice low, touching the large knot on Delia’s head and examining it carefully. “You need to get up, Delia. Now!”

  Before she became fully conscious, hands pulled hard on her arms and she raised groggily, her head exploding.

  Antonia was persistent. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and forced Delia to run. Thankfully, they did not have to go far, stepping into a darkened shop.

  “Delia,” Antonia’s voice was urgent, “let me see your eyes.”

  Delia opened her eyes and squinted into the face of the Roman woman.

  “I need you to focus. Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Delia whispered; the sound of her own voice too loud for her sensitive ears.

  “The Bretons are here, in town. They are killing everyone. They are burning the houses and the buildings. Do you understand me?”

  Delia’s eyes widened when the information sunk in. “You should have left me,” she said in horror, unable to be responsible for this wonderful woman’s fate. “You should have gone with them. Why did you stay?”

  Antonia gave her a sad smile and brushed the hair from her eyes. “As if I could leave you. Marius would never forgive me.”

  Delia closed her eyes against the admission. “What is happening?”

  “They are everywhere; smashing, killing, stealing everything they can get their hands on—they are insane, Delia… violent. There are so many…” Her voice trailed off into a shaky whisper. “We have to hide.”

  Delia’s vision cleared, and she noticed they were in a small tailor’s shop, bolts of Roman and Egyptian fabric lining the walls with delicate, expensive threads sitting neatly on a counter. The deserted place; engulfed in shadows with strange twisted tunics of many colors pinned to the walls, against wooden dummies, or on long tables. It gave the place a feeling of spirits, and Delia shivered. “Doe caomhach goret!” she cried.

  At the back of the shop, Antonia spotted a small door in the floor and pulled Delia toward it. They could hear an angry mob shouting Gaelic curses, threats, and then the cries of unheeded pleas in Latin. Antonia grabbed the latch and heaved the door up.

  Inside was a small space full of tubers and sacks of grain, a root cellar with only enough space for them to crawl inside and close the door.

  For an eternity, they sat in the blackened space, unable to see each other’s faces, their hands clasped, and their lips silent. Their breath was the only sound, amplified by fear and seeming to echo through the planks above their heads.

  The din outside the building became louder until it was nothing more than a drone of thousands of voices running past. No one came into the shop, but before long, another sound terrified the women more than the shouts of the advancing invaders.

  An ominous crackle began above their heads and then a quiet hiss that seemed to permeate everything around them. The popping became unmistakable, and Delia tightly squeezed Antonia’s hands.

  “Fire,” she said and went to lift the door. Antonia clawed at her arm frantically.

  “No, they will catch us,” she whispered, the sting of her nails sinking into Delia’s flesh.

  “We will burn if we stay here. Antonia, come on!”

  Delia hauled the small door up quickly and they scrambled out. The shop was a torrent of flames and smoke around them. The fabric on the walls twisted and curled from the heat, sheets of flame greedily licked at the ceiling, and the door had disappeared behind a curtain of smoke. The room was eerily quiet other than a soft hiss from the fire eating away at the wall, the lack of air keeping it feeble. However, Delia knew the monster well and panicked watching it dance in the darkness.

  The women stayed on the floor, crawling slowly in the direction of the door, and holding their tunics over their faces. They could feel the pressure around their ears, the air sucked from the room, the intense heat bouncing off the backs of their heavy woolen cloaks, and the rough wood leaving splinters in their hands and knees.

  Her lungs were pleading for air by the time Delia’s hands finally felt the reassuring wood of the door. She reached up, pulled on the wooden latch, and the door sprung open. In a quick, hot rush, the air exploded over their heads. Delia grabbed Antonia around the waist and jumped out of the opening, landing awkwardly on the street. The little building behind them blew apart in a firestorm and spewed embers, flames, and hissing cinders of fabric all around them. Delia rolled four times to the right, carrying Antonia with her. They landed sprawled before the building, singed in many places, but alive and whole.

  When they finally uncovered their heads from the
blast, they saw, standing around them, twenty fully armed warriors. Many of them had nothing on but blue spirals painted on their naked bodies. Others wore differing tartan in every color and all were heavily coated in blood—none their own. Swords reflected the roaring fire behind them as the warriors surrounded them on all sides.

  C hapter Twenty-Three

  “Stand up!” Their leader was a large man with heavy blue eyes and hair like red and white wire. The women slowly rose, staring at the warriors.

  “A pretty pair,” he said, shooting them a grin that made the large mustache stick out from his face. The other men leered at them, making horrible shrieking noises that hurt Delia ears. “A Roman bitch and her slave, no doubt,” he said in Gaelic, putting away his sword and approaching them leisurely.

  Both women reached under their cloaks and stood back-to-back with long daggers pulled. The men roared with laughter.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Leave a little blood on the street,” said Delia, twirling the dagger skillfully in her hands to show him she was not an easy mark.

  The men stopped and their leader narrowed his eyes at her. “You are no slave. You are a warrior. You any good?”

  “Come closer and I will show you.”

  The leader snorted, and then drew his long blade. “I wish I had time, but the Roman bitch has to die.”

  “You will not reach her without going through me. Have you the courage?”

  The man looked at her long and hard, obviously trying to cipher who this strange Breton woman could be, standing in a Roman town, dressed in Roman clothes. “It would be a pity to kill you, but I will if I have to. Give me the woman and you can join us.”

  Delia shook her head and raised her dagger. In Latin, she said, “Antonia, aim for the face or neck. Hit as many warriors as you can.”

  “I intend to,” she said, crouching at Delia’s side.

  The warriors raised their swords and taunted the women by circling around them. Shouting obscenities and promising horrible tortures, they were making their cruelty last, attempting to draw out the terror in the women. However, Delia and Antonia were unaffected by the taunts and merely waited for them to attack.