The Lion and the Lark Read Free

rarely that the property was left in the hands of his chief servants, Pollux and several old retainers who looked upon the Leonatus household as their own.  In truth the northern farms and vineyards ran themselves, he had little to do but go over the books twice a year.  His father had organized the estate very well and his methods were still followed.  But Claudius missed Rome; he missed the soft Italian nights and the bustle of the forum and this marble palace on the Palatine his grandfather had built during the glory days of the Republic.  However, with his parents gone and his wife and baby dead, the house had its sad memories too, and there was a time not so long ago when he had been very glad to leave it.
         He had visited Vespasia’s mausoleum that morning after leaving the Senate, staring a long time at the inscription, “ mater et filius , ” mother and son.  His boy had outlived his mother by only a few days, and now they were buried together, joined for eternity as they had once been joined in life.  After that tragedy Claudius had thrown himself into his military career, happy to be sent to the far corners of the empire, but five years had finally made him weary of travel.  He was sick of foreign faces and customs and the babble of languages which sounded harshly on his ears after the pleasing fluidity of Latin.  After this campaign he hoped to go into the next phase of the preordained patrician career, politics.  He was well prepared to help govern the empire, since he had seen so much of it, and he had many ideas about how to improve Rome’s colonial rule.
         But first there was Britain.
         “Your wine, master,” Pollux said as he entered, handing Claudius a silver goblet brimming with amber liquid.  “Will you be dining this evening in the  triclinium ?”
         “No, I have no guests tonight.  Tell Almeria that I will be served in here.”
         Pollux left, and Claudius rose to stand by the long window which afforded a view of his lush gardens.  Beyond the marble portico he could see the descending slope of the Palatine hill.  He had over an acre of property, a vast amount in crowded Rome’s best district, and he was always receiving offers to sell the house.  No one could understand why he hung onto it.  A man without a family didn’t need so many rooms, especially a man who didn’t entertain, since he was always out of the country on military campaigns.  But Claudius did not plan to be a tribune in Octavian’s army forever, and once he returned to Rome permanently he knew that his first task would be to find a wife. 
          Claudius sipped and sighed.  He could not seem to take action on that notion, which remained firmly lodged on some distant but vaguely beckoning horizon. 
         The memory of sweet Vespasia still lingered, driving him into the arms of camp followers and the quadrantariae  who hung about the forum after dark; he took advantage of any prospect which promised relief without entanglement.  But the faceless bodies of foreign women, and the painted whores who murmured delightedly over his muscular soldier’s body, left him feeling empty and alone.  Like all boys of privilege in late Republican Rome, he had had a Greek tutor when he was young, and the words of his old teacher often came back to haunt him: “that soul is barren which does not invest itself in love.”
         That was his problem; he didn’t love anybody.
         Claudius took a healthy slug of his wine and watched one of the house servants light the torches on the portico.  Beyond the porch was a large, flowering garden, hedged in and bisected with gravel paths, filled with alabaster statues, sparkling fountains, and ornamental trees.  In a small grove stood a likeness of the mother he had lost when he was four, her Etruscan features cast in flawless marble, one delicate hand upraised to touch the diploidion   draped over her shoulder.  He