Isilwen

Translations of all Latin are at the bottom of the page. If you catch any mistakes, please tell me. Thanks to ringbearer.org's ElfEars for help.

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It was dark, that night. It was the sort of darkness that made you remember why torches, and candles and lanterns, had been invented. The darkness lay heavily over a battlefield in the boggy country a day north of the Three Hills. It was cut by the sound of a man moaning faintly, and by a light coming towards that man.

The light was held by a woman of the British tribes. She had come to salvage what she could of the Ninth Legion of the Romans, although she knew that it could mean excommunication from her tribe. But her conscience would not let the Ninth's soldiers die, if their wounds could be healed. She headed towards the moaning man.

The man stirred a little. He had a great gaping wound in his chest, but it had missed both his heart and his lungs. The woman noticed that he was the Chieftain of the Red Crests. She stuck her torch upright in the blood-soaked earth and knelt beside the Chieftain of the Red Crests. In the light of the torch she appeared to be no more than eighteen.

He opened his eyes. "Antonia?" he whispered hoarsely, and with great effort. "Nonne est tu?"

The woman shook her head. She couldn't understand his Latin. "I am going to heal you," she announced.

The Chieftain of the Red Crests smiled wryly and looked as if he was about to say something. The woman held up her hand. "Do not speak. It will only make your wound worse." She bent farther over him to examine said wound.

As she did so, the Chieftain looked at his hands. They were empty. He looked frantically about him. "Habent aquilam. Dei Augusti, habent aquilam!" He sat up. "Ubi est nostrum signum?" The exertion was too much for him, and he coughed. Blood flecks appeared on the woman's sleeve as they flew out of his mouth.

The woman was alarmed. "Do not exert yourself. I will come back with my brother and we will take you to -- to a safe place. There you will heal."

The Chieftain laid himself down again, but would not be persuaded to abandon his question. "Where is our standard?" he inquired in the Celtic tongue, and coughed explosively.

The woman waited until he was done. "I do not know," she replied. She rose as if to go, but the Chieftain took hold of her wrist.

"What is your name?"

"Isilwen. And yours?"

"Flavius Lucius Aquila," the Chieftain said, and loosed her wrist. "Come soon, Isilwen, with your brother." He coughed, and as he did so, red foam formed at the corners of his mouth.

Isilwen took up her torch and fled.

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"You did what?!" Drystan shouted at his sister.

Isilwen took a deep breath and calmed herself. "I told the Chieftain of the Red Crests that I would heal him."

Drystan shook his head. "A rash promise, especially as you will not be able to fulfil it."

Isilwen smiled slowly. "To break a promise is to lose one's honour. I told him that I would come back -- with you, Drystan -- and take him to a safe place. He told me to come soon."

"You told him that I -- no. No! You must be making this up. You cannot have seriously told him that!"

"But I did."

Drystan stomped around the small hut, muttering. Finally, he turned back to Isilwen. "Do you understand what you have done?" he raged. "You have offered shelter to the chieftain of those who seek to take our lands! Very well, I will help you as you have told this man that I will, but do not expect it to go well."

"His name is Flavius Lucius Aquila. Stop calling him 'this man'."

"Fine. Lead me to Flavius Lucius Aquila that I may rescue him," Drystan said sarcastically.

Isilwen chose to ignore the sarcasm. "It's good to see that you've finally come around," she said sweetly and walked out the door of the hut.

"Isilwen!" Drystan yelled, exasperated. He was ignored, and had no choice but to follow her.

Translations: these may not be exact, but they're pretty close. . . Again, thanks to ElfEars

Nonne est tu? -- It is you, isn't it?

Habent aquilam -- they have the Eagle.

Dei Augusti -- God Augustus

Ubi est nostrum signum? -- Where is our standard?

And last but not least, what the story's about. It's a fanfiction of the book The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff about Marcus' father. Quite AU.

Mac