Free The Lion and the Lark by Doreen Owens Malek

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  Now Bronwen’s sense of reluctantly performing a distasteful duty had been replaced by a feverish and conflicted anticipation she didn’t completely understand.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