The Lion and the Lark by Doreen Owens Malek

caress.
         “What does it mean in your language?” he asked, as a servant brought in a tray of smoked wood pigeons. 
         Bronwen waited until the girl had left and then said, “What does what mean?”
         “Your name.”
         “A small white bird.”
         “Like a lark?” he asked.
         She shrugged.  “I suppose so.”
         “ Alauda ,” he said, translating it into Latin.  “Very pretty.  Caesar’s select legion of naturalized Roman citizens was called the larks.  They came from all over the world, many from conquered peoples, and they were the best fighting unit in his whole army.”
         “That must have surprised him,” Bronwen said dryly.
         Claudius looked at her.  “No.  He had the greatest respect for his enemies.”
         “As long as he defeated them,” Bronwen countered.
         “He did not defeat them because they lacked courage.  Manpower, supplies, strategic advantages, yes, but not courage.  Vercingetorix, a Celt like you, was the subject of much discussion in Caesar’s commentaries on the Gallic wars...”
         Bronwen snorted.  “I know about Vercingetorix, the stories reached us all the way from Gaul.  The traders who came here talked of nothing but him for years.  He was my brother’s childhood hero.”  She took another sip of wine before saying, “He was strangled as a spectacle for the mob during Caesar’s triumph at Rome, after being dragged around in chains all over your territories as a living reminder of what resistance to Rome would bring.  And you have the nerve to call us barbarians?”
         “He was a defeated enemy.  Until recently your people severed the heads of defeated enemies and preserved them in cedar oil, keeping them in chests to display to visitors.  Or they placed the skulls in niches on their houses to warn anyone approaching of how many lives they had already taken.”
         “What’s your point?” Bronwen asked him, looking at him over the rim of her cup.  “That we are the same?”
         “That we are not as different as you seem to imagine,” Claudius replied quietly.
         “That idea must be a great comfort to you Romans as you carve a path of destruction everywhere you go.”
         Claudius shrugged.  “It’s the way of the world.”
         Bronwen stared at him.  “Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night?”
         “I tell myself that if our situations were reversed your father and his men would not hesitate to enslave me.”
         “That is not true!  My people were content to remain on our island, it was you who came across the sea with your weapons and your will to conquer everything that lies before you!”
         “Not my will.  I am a soldier.  I go where I am told and do as I am ordered.”
         “So you take no satisfaction in your role as conqueror?” Bronwen demanded.
         “I am proud that I am a citizen of Rome,” he said simply.  “I would be no other.  As for the rest I know that if we show weakness the empire will slip through our fingers as surely as sand slips through an hourglass.  Might wins out, always.”
         Bronwen was still considering his answer when the page Claudius had brought with him from the barracks appeared in the doorway.
          “Two centurions to see you, Tribune Leonatus.”
         “Now?” Claudius said irritably.  “I’m at dinner.  Can’t it wait until later?”
         “They said it was urgent,” the boy murmured nervously.
         Claudius sighed and stood up, wiping his mouth on a napkin.  “Very well.
    Show them in.”
         The boy left and shortly afterward two soldiers came striding into the dining room, their cloaks damp from the weather, their helmets under their arms.  They gave Claudius the imperial salute, striking their breasts with closed fists.
         “What is it?” Claudius asked