Tales of Ancient Rome: Lions in the Valley Chapter 2

Chapter 1: Continued

(Chapter 1: http://www.abctales.com/story/wishitstruetg/tales-ancient-rome-lions-valley)

When he walked outside, he saw Lydia sitting at the bottom of a open door by the wall. Andeocene hung with his arms hooked over the back of the door. The Aquitani had hoisted him up on the door, and stabbed him hundreds of times. Lydia sat at the bottom of the door, with Andeocene's foot held to her face, crying, blood smeared on her face and hands. Her first day with these men, it was Andeocene who had sharpened her knife for her.  He always sharpened her knife for her.  He was the one who always got her all the things she needed.  She always felt he took care of her, from her first day with them when he got her a warm wool stuffed pallet to replace to her straw stuffed one.  When they would all gather at night to talk, besides Talig, she would most often sit down on the ground beside him and lay her head against his leg as she listened to the men talk and he stroked her hair.  Lydia felt he was like an uncle to her, and she loved him with all her heart.  Caius was her second favorite.  Fast Caius, he was so patient with her, spending hour after hour practicing with her.  Instead of complaining, he would offer jokes and things to make her laugh.  He was so good to her.  

    Talig walked over to them, and reached up to put his hand on Andeocene's face.  "So brave.  So brave and unselfish.  Good, sweet Andeocene, so good to us all."

    "Oh, Talig, they hurt him so much."

    "I want my Ande back," she sobbed.

    "Oh, Talig, it's all my fault."

    He leaned over and held her shoulder a while as she cried.

    "No one blames you, girl. You didn't know all this would happen when you killed that man.  You killed a man for selling a child into slavery.  How badly do you think I can judge you?"

    He cupped her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes, "You're going to live through this, and you'll cry for this.  Tomorrow you'll have a different heart than the one you had when you killed that man.  Tomorrow you will be less young, and wiser."  He kissed her on the forehead.

    Talig was wise enough to understand the inexperience of youth, and he forgave her for the mistakes an impulsive youth would make.  In Talig's eyes, Lydia had acted like other youths would have acted; she acted on the emotions of the moment.  Experience would give her more wisdom, and understanding of the consequences of her actions.  There was no use in being angry with her for being young.  He knew only experience, and learning from her own mistakes, would make her wiser.

    "Go inside; they need you there.  Caius, Aurelius and Gadius are dead and they need your help.  Lacerna (Andeocene's wife) is dead, and Kaylin (Andeocene's daughter) is all alone.  Her two brothers are gone."  When she heard Caius's name, Lydia wailed and fell to the ground sobbing, overwhelmed by the death of another of the men she loved.  He leaned over and touched her shoulder.  "Help me with good Andeocene.  Go in the back and cut his arms free, and I'll hold him here.  I'll bring him into the villa.  Then go to the stable.  There are people wounded, there are the dead who need our attention.  Go help them."

..........................................................................................................

    Salidia and Talig sat in the villa later that night.  They both knew there were debts to be paid.  The wounded were owed care.  The dead, honor, appreciation, respect and love.  The survivors, love and compassion.  And the men who did this owed a debt too that should be paid.

    Lydia came in, still blood stained, and looked at Talig.  "Selenius killed all their men today, and he said he will take all their land and possessions to give to Salidia tomorrow as punishment.  Their leader and his clan chiefs will have nothing left.  They're coming back, aren't they, Talig?"

    He nodded his head, "Yes, for revenge."

 

 

Chapter 2

Council of War.

or
Shootin Da Breeze Over a
Late Night Cup of Coffee

 

    Lydia sat in the atrium alone, grief over Andeocene and Caius tearing her heart apart the most.  She had gone to the atrium after the funerals, and she sat there alone all afternoon, emotionally torn apart by all that had happened.  Unbidden, images from the funerals forced themselves into her mind.  Pacina and Draena, Gadius's and Aurelius's widows, crying for their husbands.  Atus and Marcus crying for their wives.  Salidia holding a crying, young Kaylin, Andeocene's daughter, the girl's whole family wiped out and Kaylin the only one left.  Now an orphan with every person she loved stripped away from her, alone.  Kaylin was inconsolable.

    Atus stood next to his wife's body the whole time, his hand constantly touching her, as if he wanted to hold on to her forever and never let her go, until Janae, one of his daughters, finally got him to leave.  Atus was in agony because he was on the <I>Via Agrippa</I> with Salidia and Lydia when his wife died, and he felt he should have been with her.  Thought after thought tortured him...he could have protected her if he was there...he could have held her and comforted her at her moment of greatest need...he never got to say goodbye....  One idea after another tortured him and sent him into agony over what he could have done if he had been with her.  "I love you," "I love you," he repeated time after time, as if saying it in the present moment could compensate for not saying it when it mattered the most.

    No one was unscathed.  Everyone had lost someone they loved.  Even Talig stood tears running silently down his face for his old friend, Caius.

    Most painful was the line of pitifully small bodies of all the boys who had died standing before their families, trying to protect brothers and sisters and their mothers from arrows.  Every small body had a cluster of sisters and mothers and fathers crying their eyes out for the young boys who's hearts were as brave as grown men.

    The young boys stood no chance, for a dozen reasons.  They had no training...they lacked the mastery of hand/eye coordination that maturation brings.... they lacked the physical strength to quickly snap heavy shields from one spot to another...the emotional stress on childish minds overwhelmed ideas of coordinating with each other.  They picked up shields and stood before their families to be slaughtered.  During the fight they realized what the Aquitani were doing, forcing them to choose between defending themselves or their families.    Big hearts inside little bodies made their choices.

    All the images in Lydia's mind cut at her heart as if the thoughts weren't thoughts, but knifes.  Each image ripped her heart with a sharp, searing pain.  She sat in the atrium for hours, crying for what she had seen.  She had tried to stop the thoughts, think of something else, but she couldn't.  The images forced themselves into her mind in spite of everything she did to stop them.  Guilt racked her.  She blamed herself for all the deaths.  She looked at every dead face and thought, "I did this to them."

    Slowly, other people began to filter into the atrium as evening approached.  Vircingi was still out there, a threat to all the survivors, and a meeting had been called that night to discuss the threat.

    "So you think he's coming back," Lucius began when he saw everyone was present.

    Talig: "Yeah, he's got to prove to the other Aquitani settlements over to the west that he's still a big, powerful warrior who should be a leader of his people.  Any allies he had will drop him now that he has nothing.  They'll treat him like a poor relative come to visit.  He's got to get his reputation as a powerful warlord back.  His only chance of getting something back is here.  Even if Selenius chases him off a second time, at least he can go back to the other Aquitani settlements with our heads in a basket and prove he's still a powerful man who people should follow.   He's got to get us to prove he's still a big, strong warrior.  His only other choice is to go west and stake out a plot of trees to begin all over again, disgraced and with nothing to his name.  Plus, the guy's probably ticked off as all Hades because his ass has been reamed and he's got nothing left.  And his brother is dead.  Sure, he's coming back.  What else is he going to do?  Forget all this happened, and take up raising sheep for a living?  No, our heads in a basket is the proof he needs so Aquitani warriors will still follow him as a strong leader.  The man has two choices, get us or have nothing left in the world."

    Titus: "Yes.  He lost face before the other Aquitani chieftains.  Getting us will regain some of the honor and respect he lost, and it will avenge the deaths of his kinsmen.  If he gets us, he can return to the other Aquitani settlements with a victory, instead of just a defeat."

    Rufus: "I'll tell you what the man's going to do.  He's going to wait in the woods until he can catch us one by one when we're alone and don't expect it.  He doesn't have enough men left to do anything else.  He can't afford an outright assault anymore, with the few men he has left.  The man is going to go hunting and fishing for a few weeks, and just stay out of sight, and pretend he's not here. And after a while when we start to get bored and lax about all this, he's going slip in here and try to get one of us alone.  He's only got enough men left to pick us off one at a time."

    "And we've got to post guards sunrise to sunset and all night long, seven days a week because we don't know when he's coming back.  The advantage is always with the hunter in these games, not the prey.  Because he can just relax while we guard, and then he picks his time and place to attack us when our weaknesses show up.  Time works for him and against us in this game."

    Lydia got up from the back of the atrium, and went to the front.  "I'm going to hunt him down.  I'm going to find the son of a bitch and kill him."

    They all looked at her with their mouths open in surprise.

    Lydia: "That bastard had no right to hurt any of you for what I did.  His fight was with me, not you."

    "It's my fault any of you got hurt.  I started it, and pulled you all into it through no fault of your's.  I killed Caius and Andeocene and Aurelius and Gadius, and all the boys.  They wouldn't be dead if it wasn't for me."  Lydia had to stop at this point, to hold back tears that threatened to break out.  Then she resumed, "Atus, Marcus, if you never forgive me and hate me forever, I can't blame you.  I'm so sorry that I got you involved in this."  She didn't have the strength to come right out and plainly say, "Atus, Marcus, I killed your wives."  Lydia stood looking at Atus and Marcus, trembling, with her eyes threatening to burst out in tears, unable to talk anymore.  Inside, she was in agony because of the pain she saw in their faces as the men had stood beside the bodies of their wives.  Their pain ripped her heart in two.  

    Finally she collected herself and went on, "I'm going to stop this bastard without putting any more of you in danger.  I couldn't bear it if another one of you were hurt.  It would tear my heart apart more than I could bear.  I started it and I'm going to end it without anyone else paying a price for what I did.  And I'm going to make him pay for hurting the people we loved.  I owe it to the people who died, and I owe it to every one of you.  I owe you all more than I can ever repay for what I put you through.  This is all my fault, and I put you all into pain not one of you deserved."

    "Now he's going to kill everyone else I love.  Pick 'em off when they're alone or sleeping.  I'm not going to let him kill the people I love anymore," she said to them.
 
    Turning to Talig, she said, "If you go after him and he sees you, he'll fade away into the forest.  If I go and he sees me, he'll come to me.  I killed his brother.  I was the cause of his ruin.  He wants me, and he'll come to me."

    Titus: "You're right about that.  He wants you and he'll search for you.  And what you want to do is the honorable thing."

    Talig: "She can't go after this guy and his men alone.  There are too many of them for her to fight as a Dimachaeri.  And she can't set herself up as bait.  This guy's a woodsman.  He grew up in the woods hunting and setting up traps and snares to catch animals.  If she goes into the woods to find him, he'll track her down as easily as he tracks down a deer.  That man knows what he's doing in the wood.  She goes into the woods to trap him, and she'll be the one who gets trapped."

    Addressing Lydia, he asked,  "What do you know of the woods?  You were seven years old when they took you as a slave, and then they stuck you in a kitchen until you were with us.  He knows the woods; you know pots."

    Lydia: "That's not what's important!  You're just telling me it's going to be hard to do.  I know it's going to be hard.  That's not what's important.  What's important is that he's out there, and he's going to come for us.  And I'm going to stop him before he kills any more of us.  I started this and I'm ending it.  I'm not letting him hurt anyone else!"

    Talig appealed to Salidia, "She can't go after him alone!.  There are too many of them.  I don't care who the Dimachaeri is, no one is that fast.  One of them will get her in the back while she's fighting the other ones, if she goes after that many men."

    "I have to go," Lydia defended her intention to Salidia, "I can't live with myself if I can't make up for what I've done.  I couldn't stand it if someone else was hurt.

    "I'm angry with this son of a bitch for trying to kill everybody, women and children...Every damn one of us...for what one person did.  What they did with the boys was wrong.  They were still children.

    "Those boys!  Shooting arrows at their mothers.  How horrible for them.  Of course they tried to protect their mothers.  What a terrible choice to force children to make!  To see an arrow flying at his mother.  How horrible for the boys.  No wonder they put their shields in front of their mothers.

    "And our men!  I want to get this bastard for what he did to our men.  What did Ande and the other men do to deserve to die?  He had no right to kill those men!  Those were four good, decent men, not slobs, but the best kind of men anyone can find.  Ande was the sweetest man you could find.  He helped anyone who needed help.  Who could be fairer than Caius?  He was always trying to end fights and arguments between people.  At the worst of times Gadius could always raise our spirits with a joke.  Who could be funnier than Gadius and make us feel better when times were tough.  And no man in the world could be braver than Aurelius, or a better, truer, loyal friend to all of us.  If anything bad was happening, you knew Aurelius would be there, standing next to you.  Those were all good, decent men.  The best kind of men anyone could find.  None of them deserved to die.     "He's got to pay for Caius and Andeocene and Gadius and Aurelius and the others that we loved", Salidia joined the conversation.

    "Lydia, I don't want you throwing your life away in a futile gesture for revenge by going alone against five or six men, like Talig saids.  We've lost enough of our people already.  You're going to get him, Lydia, but I want you to do it in a way that keeps you alive............."

(Continued)