Isle of the Blessed

II - The Dragon's Domus-1

II

Anguis Domus

‘The Dragon’s Home’

Even the Gods are capable of worry.

Most mortals do not believe it so. Most believe them harsh and uncaring, or supremely indifferent.

But some gods do worry. Some care so deeply that even on the heavenly verges of the world, they can lay awake, restless and chasing sleep when the mortals they care for, whom they have protected, are destined for trials not of Olympus’ devising.

The Gods would seek to protect mortals from themselves, but there are some things that the rules of divine order strictly ordain.

From the high slopes of Olympus, in their gleaming halls, in the shade of their eternally fruitful trees beside the clarion trickle of their fountains, the Gods hear and see all.

They care, and feel. They love, and hate, the same as their mortal children, but for an eternity.

Oh yes… The Gods do worry…

It was the harsh clang of swords that drew the Gods’ gaze that day.

From where Far-Shooting Apollo and Venus sat beneath the bows of an ancient, broad-limbed olive tree upon the slopes of their Olympian eyrie, their starry eyes went to the green mound far to the North, where white clouds raced across a cool blue Spring sky.

Apollo leaned against the gnarled trunk, his silver bow and quiver laid upon the emerald grass at his feet, his blue cloak snapping occasionally at Zephyrus’ behest. He leaned forward to peer over the edge of the world, and Love followed his gaze from where she sat amidst long-stemmed blossoms, her stola of purest white floating just above the ground, around the feet of its heavenly wearer.

Together they stared across the lands, across time, to that one, far-distant spot.

The two opponents circled each other, their blades poised, eager.

The Gods gazed upon the sweaty brows of the fighters, the reaction of their lean muscles. They admired the way they danced around death. They could hear the rapid beat of their hearts as they thrust and parried, attacked and retreated.

“They are preparing…” Venus said to Apollo.

The Far-Shooter nodded and hung his head, his hair hiding his brilliant eyes as a cloud that passes before the sun dims the light of the world. “A storm is coming. They need to be prepared.” Apollo looked up at the sky again and felt the weight of the knowledge coursing through his fiery veins.

“We can intervene…”

He shook his head and turned to her. “Not this time.”

Love stood then and walked to the very edge of the precipice. She wanted to reach out and touch them, protect them. All of them.

“We must stand by and watch then?” Venus said.

Apollo turned to her, but said nothing, for even as his lips began to utter the words, the clang of swordsong reached them, then a cry of pain.

They turned back to watch once more, from beneath the shivering silver-green leaves of the tree.

“Are you all right?”

Adara Metella gazed up at the hand extended toward her, nodded, grasped it, and was pulled up.

“Lucius won’t thank you for cutting me, but we need to make this as realistic as possible if I’m to be any good at it.” Adara wiped the dark strands of hair from her sweaty brow, and dabbed at the blood on her arm where Briana’s sword had caught her. “Again!” she panted, crouching for another attack.

“Good!” Briana said, smiling, her face rosy with the exertion of the fight. “Let’s see if you’ve learned your lesson yet.”

She attacked, and Adara parried the s***h away with her own sword, spinning, and sending the fist of her left hand to strike out at the back of Briana’s head as she passed.

The Briton’s recovery was quick and she was instantly facing Adara again, pushing her backward on the defensive. “Attack me!” Briana yelled as she pressed her advantage. “Don’t slow down! Find a way in!”

Adara stumbled then and, sensing immediately the blow to come, rolled backward twice, quickly down the slope of the hill before landing on her feet again and parrying just in time to slip in close to Briana and elbow her in the chest so that she fell backward onto the grass with Adara’s blade at her throat.

Briana looked up, catching her breath, and smiled. “Good,” she croaked. “And if it were a real enemy, you would not stop there, I hope, but drive your blade into the neck or abdomen without hesitation.”

Adara nodded, sweat pouring from her brow as the two of them went to the table nearby where a jug of water and two cups waited for them.

There was a hooting from nearby and the two women turned to see Lucius, Einion, Phoebus and Calliope sitting near the woodpile where the two men had supposedly been chopping wood, but instead seemed to have enjoyed the entertainment just fine, with the children marvelling at the skill the two displayed.

“You’re getting old, Briana!” Einion teased his sister, laughing as he took in the mud up her backside.

“You’re next!” she joked before taking a long drink. She looked up the hill at the two men and children, and smiled. “Lucius seems quite impressed with your skill. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile so much.”

Adara turned to see her husband staring at her and returned his wave, letting him know she was fine.

“Just a scratch!” she yelled.

The truth was that in the months since Briana had begun training her everyday, she had suffered much worse injuries - bumps, bruises, cuts and gashes that would have turned her mother’s hair white.

But she never felt so alive, so strong. She enjoyed her training, as well as the sisterly bond it had nurtured between herself and Briana, something she had not dreamed of having again since the tragedy in North Africa when Alene Metella was murdered.

“He worries for me,” Adara said, looking from Lucius back to Briana who was tying her long, dark blond braids together again.

“Trust me, he would worry more if you did not know how to defend yourself.”

“I suppose,” Adara said, her gaze scanning the green landscape that surrounded them, the place that had been their home since they arrived in southern Britannia. “But I suppose here in the South, there is far less danger than in Eburacum, or north of the wall, in Caledonia.”

“Aye,” Briana said. “Maybe.” She put her cup down “Are you ready for a bit more?”

Adara nodded. “Yes. A little more. Then I have to wash the children.” She looked up at their smiling faces as they prepared to watch more practice. “Seems as though they got into the animal pens again.”

They both laughed and took positions.

“Attack!” Briana said as Adara’s blade whistled past her head.

From his position upon a large, downed trunk beside the woodpile, Lucius Metellus Anguis watched his wife push herself to her limits in her training. He had never imagined her to be so good at it, but he knew how hard she had worked for the skills she had acquired.

“What do you think of Mama’s fighting?” he asked his daughter, Calliope, who rested in his lap with the sun on her face as she watched.

“I think she’s is wonderful!” the girl said. “Like one of the warriors from the stories from Greece that you have told us. The one about the daughters of Ares.”

Einion smiled and looked over at Lucius who smiled back and squeezed his daughter.

“Yes. She is magnificent,” Lucius said as he watched the two women spar again.

“And you Phoebus?” Einion asked Lucius’ son. “What do you think of your mother now? Maybe you won’t feel so inclined to disobey when she tells you to go to bed now, eh?” the Briton laughed and ruffled Phoebus’ hair.

“I knew she could do it,” the boy said, not taking his eyes off of them, watching every move and sword thrust as if taking note for his own training which Lucius and Einion had taken turns at.

“Good lad,” Lucius said, almost to himself.

It seemed only yesterday when he had met Adara at the banquet on the Palatine Hill in Rome all those years ago.

Has it been so long?

So much had happened to their family since then…separation, births, deaths…so much…

And now he watched his proper Athenian wife train like one of the warrior British women he’d read about, or like an sss of old, a daughter of Ares as Calliope had put it.

She was good too, as if some dormant fighting instinct had been awoken in her the moment a sword had been placed in her hand. At least he hoped it was that, and not the danger he had inadvertently put her - all of them - in by bringing them to those far northern shores.

The will to defend her family no doubt drove her, he suspected, as it always drove him.

He watched her and, despite the inkling of fear it gave him to see her strengthening herself, he thought her a thing of beauty more than ever, so vital and strong, her cheeks red with exertion. There was even something regal about her, as he imagined the British warrior queen Boudicca might have been.

Adara and Briana finished then, and his reverie was broken.

The two women came walking up to them.

“You’re sweating more than I do, Sister!” Einion said.

“But I smell better than you,” she answered, making him laugh.

Adara walked up to Lucius who put Calliope down and kissed his wife.

“I’m sweaty too,” she said, trying to pull away.

“I don’t care,” he said, kissing her again.

“Mama, I want to learn to fight like you!” Calliope cheered, throwing her little arms about her mother’s legs.

“In good time,” Adara said extending her hand to her son and stroking his cheek. “In time,” she repeated, her voice soothing.

“I’m not sure how much more I can teach you, Adara,” Briana said. “These many months, you’ve learned so much.”

“We’ll have to teach you to fight from horseback next,” Einion said in earnest.

“And with a kontos,” Lucius added.

“I’ll get my sword skills down first, thank you,” Adara laughed. “But first, I think a nice bath to wash the dirt away.”

Phoebus and Calliope began to walk the other way at the mention, but Adara grabbed them both.

“Ah, ah, ah! That means you too!” She held them fast. “You want to play with the pigs, goats, and sheep, then you need to wash. Come on!” she said, ushering the children up the slope to the stone hall. Briana and Einion followed behind them, the latter with an armful of firewood.

“I’ll be along shortly,” Lucius called after them.

He watched them all go up to the long, two-storey stone hall they had built in that place until the double doors closed. He then walked slowly down the slope of the plateau to the eastern rampart to peer over the edge, down to the green fields far below.

Lucius often did so in the evening, walking the perimeter of their new home, taking it all in, that place of happiness of the last several months. He turned and surveyed the work they had done since their arrival.

A new Dragon’s Lair, he thought wistfully.

Lucius remembered seeing their new home for the first time as they had come along the Roman road from the North…

At first, he had thought it just another hill in a landscape that seemed to sing of green in myriad shades. But upon closer inspection of the map, and the description Publius Leander Antoninus, his father-in-law, had given him, it became apparent that the ancient mound was indeed his family’s new home, including the fields surrounding it.

Lucius’ soldier’s eye was drawn to the four levels of strong defensive works, the ditches deep and overgrown, yet still only an echo of their former, formidable glory. He knew there must once have been walls crowning those embankments. The place grew up out of the land, a part of it, and yet distinct all at once. It had been a mighty fortress in the age before Rome had come to Britannia’s shores, a home no doubt for the Durotriges, the tribe of Britons who inhabited the region.

If he had read the histories correctly, Vespasian had stormed this fortress and expelled the native population from its heights, the same as other hillforts across the South.