XXVII – The Owl in Residence

Nothing signifies the cruelty of fauna more than a Roman rooster.

Taller than a newborn child, the motley-plume monster slips through a crack in the larder door, head bobbing with every step. It loiters about the pre-dawn darkness before idling near the hearth where the ashes remain warm.

It is day three—this cocker’s last day on the planet.

With cautious deliberation, it saunters to the lectern, yet before it can raise its feathery head for a sunrise squawk, long fingers snatch its slender neck. A weak chirp comes with a release of feathers as his attacker gathers him to the chest.

One tug of the hackle ends his life.

A boyhood veteran of many cockfights, Aedan the Ancalite is adept at relieving losers of pain. He tosses the limp bird over his shoulder and burrows back into the warmth of the mattress. Overnight agitations have pulled the soft linens from its corners, but his bulky pillow, clad in a similar smooth weave, sits upon his face to combat the light.

His jaw throbs from last night’s fuck, and grinning over the details worsens the ache. He cherishes this pain with the same satisfaction his sore hole brings as sleep returns, this time without dreams.

***

A jerk of his chain wakes him.

Brightness from the larder’s fully open door floods his prison. Another gentle pull draws him upright, where the lady of the house stands near the stairs. She removes the red palla from her head to reveal tightly woven hair behind her ears.

“Hello, we were never properly introduced,” she smiles with the same lips as Fuckface. Bent knees move beneath her tunica, a light blue frock that drapes her sandaled feet. “My name is Vita Servia,”

She doesn’t wither under his stare, and he cannot ascertain if she’s genuinely fearless or just dangerously trusting. He parses her Latin and remembers the name given to his mother on that ampule of her blood.

“I am Adawn Britannicus,”

Tension flees her shoulders. “You’re coming upstairs for a proper bath.” She puts a hand to her chest and adds, “I would’ve come first thing this morning, but we all slept late.” Troubled eyes glance at the door. “Our house cock seems to have vanished.”

Aedan leans right, concealing the dead bird on the floor beside his bed. She holds a toothy metal key in her well-manicured fingers, their hand bearing an ink stain from pinkie to wrist.

“My brother’s gone down to the village with Welle,” she speaks slowly, ensuring he understands her Latin. “Gallic horsemen under his command patrol the grounds, so if you run, they’ll catch you,”

Aedan tests her. “When do you think I should run?”

“You’ll have a tiny window before the first snow,” she sputters. “The extra soldiers will be gone by then.” Her light eyes roll. “Unlike our annual apples and pears, the walnuts come every few years, so we procure slaves to work alongside our salaried farm hands. When there are slaves,” she unlocks the metal collar around his neck and tosses it aside with disgust, “there are soldiers to ensure no one runs away,”

Aedan ruminates on this unfamiliar territory.

“Let’s get upstairs,” she says, bringing the palla to her nose. “This place stinks,”

“It’s not so bad when the fat one cooks,”

Her brow tightens. “His name is Niko,”

“It’s not so bad when Niko cooks.”

Her smile fades as she hands over a black cord with an attached leather collar. “I won’t drag you along like an animal,” she says. “But when others are about, those we cannot trust…”

Aedan pulls the loop over his head. “I understand,”

She leads him up to the kitchen, where Niko stands on the stony wall of a floor pool, handling a net. With skillful grace, he dips it into the water and raises a floundering fish.

Through the colorful vestibule is a yard enclosed by columns that support nothing. A towering spring rumbles from its central sunken pond, its pillar tall like the lone tree growing from the milky sand.

Aedan follows her over the stone surround, where a wall niche hosts a small stone owl. Rough to the touch, its round yet narrow body wears dips that represent feathers. It lacks feet and ears, and circles surround its eyes like little plates hosting tiny bowls.

Mother’s laughter finds his ears as he studies its chipped beak.

“This is Minerva.” Vita comes alongside him. “She watches over our house,”

Aedan breaks from his trance to find she spares no words but to lead him onward. They traverse a long rug down a painted hall, passing the first of two wooden doors.

“Your room is the one on the end,” she says with a guiding hand.

He bumps his backside repeatedly into the first door. “Who sleeps in this one?”

“That room belongs to Welletrix,” she tells him.

Aedan moves from it quickly before whisking around her. He pushes through the second door into a spacious yet bare room with a high wooden loft. Under the half-deck, a cushioned bench sits before a built-in fireplace, and its hearth boasts freshly cut applewood.

Auburn floor tiles cool his bare feet, their veneer dustless thanks to the breeze wafting through an open window. Bars line that high-set opening, with enough space between them for him to squeeze through.

Beneath it, stone stairs grow from the wall, all ten steps adorned with worn leather. He climbs them to the loft, where a bed big enough for two lays on the floor, its lone pillow thinner than the one in the larder.

Over the timber railing, Vita stands below, her eyes drifting anxiously to the floor, where an iron ring stands from a concrete pad.

“This room once housed a lion cub,” she regretfully explains. “Father served in the Far East when young. He sent the cub back to my grandfather, who kept it here until it took its first real shit on the floor,”

“Will I be removed if I shit on the floor?” Aedan hears Fuckface in her hearty laughter. “Where is the lion now?”

“Long dead,” she assures.

He climbs onto the loft’s railing and balances on his bare feet before cartwheeling its slender length. “Your brother wears its fleece?”

“That thing tried to eat him after he was born,” she nods as he dismounts onto the top stair. “Uncle Julius and Father had to kill it after it mauled my grandfather,”

“Caesar is your uncle?”

She shakes her head. “He’s a longtime family friend,”

“Friend of your mother?”

She stares up at him. “That’s an odd question,”

“You,” he hesitates. “You have his nose,”

Vita stands silent as the portly cook enters, carrying a familiar rabbit skin blanket over his arm. “My brother had this in his room,” she says, taking it. “Not sure why. He sleeps hot,”

Memories of Fuckface’s fiery skin threaten to stir his flesh as he rushes down the stairs to retrieve his childhood blanket. He pulls it around his shoulders and relishes its softness.

A short girl with a big ass enters and follows Vita up the steps. Annoyance marks her face as she drops the linens onto the mattress.

“These are sheets,” says Vita. “Make up the bed for him, Julia,”

The girl huffs before shaking out the folds.

Niko offers him a bowl.

“That’s a toilet,” Vita says.

Aedan’s silent stare unnerves her.

“I’m going to the baths,” she rushes to the door. “I hope you’ll join me,”

The fat ass girl barely fluffs the pillow before rushing down the steps and exiting behind her mistress.

“We have piss buckets in Brittania,” Aedan says in Greek.

Niko smiles brightly, revealing the bowl carries cut cheese and nuts. Aedan grabs it and sits cross-legged on the floor. Back home, the goat cheese came runny—he much prefers this hard Alpine variety.

These new days bring many new foods, his favorites thus far being salted lettuce and cut celery with skinless carrots. Fruit is plentiful, and the apples are larger and sweeter than the wild ones back home.

Today’s nuts are almonds, salty like the ones at the odeon in Mediolanum. This cook, Niko, roasts them with dill, a tiny herb Aedan savors more than any other. When the man sets a little tin mug on the floor beside him, Aedan stops licking his plate clean to examine the piss-colored fluid inside.

“I don’t like wine,” he tells him.

Niko’s head shakes in amusement. Aedan snatches up the cup and takes a swig. It’s sweet and tart—juice from the apples! He gulps it down, belches, then holds the cup out for more.

***

Places this serene should not coexist with things made by man, yet this poolroom, with its milky green tile surround and floral walls, stretches long beside the cavern with its giant lake.

So much water reminds Aedan of his journey here, passing rivers that flow atop massive arching tiers.

These fucking Romans. They take from the farthest lake if their river yields no clean water. If a mountain grants no rock, they mix their own for bricks and pave stones.

Niko brings him to a room where the humidity devours the chill.

Sunlight cuts through a square patch of glass high above them, its blades heavy with enough steam to mask his portly guide. The mists clear at a sizable round pool with a circular edge overlooking the lake cavern.

Vita’s head and shoulders crest the steamy water, where she finishes her ‘hair wash’ by going under and shaking the suds free of her locks with her hands. The lemony foam rises to the surface, a bubbling glob that floats lazily toward a slit under the tub’s stone surround.

With some modesty, she rises from the water, her tits not as large without her tunica. Still, she’s a shapely sort with an ample backside that strains her thin linen towel. After some pleasantries, she points out the glass tray of soaps, scrubbers, and oils.

Aedan pulls off his tunica. Most women lose their words the first time they see his manhood, and this Vita is no exception, having never matured with her brother. He falls into the hot water and stays under, relishing the heat on his skin.

He resurfaces to find himself alone. He floats on what remains of her soapy foam and mulls his fortunate circumstances. Even the worst room, his prison in the larder, is far superior to the root house he shared with his parents by the sea.

Aedan peers at the glass tray and plans to scrub up well—Fuckface is more inclined to gnaw on the globes of his ass when they’re clean.

A short man lumbers through the steam, his eyes reedy like that bastard named Actus. The man’s stout body looks like a tree trunk torn in half by the wind. He ambles poolside and then vanishes after dropping a large towel on the rim.

***

Aedan emerges from the dark stairwell, his skin tasting like lemon oil and his hair stinking of apples.

The foyer is empty except for the overgrown plants. Their enormous leaves stretch for the angular pool, where roiling water makes the lily pads shiver. Cool air drifts down from the opening over it and whistles faintly while pushing through the roof tiles around its edges.

Two marble statues curtain the front door; one is their owl goddess, appearing here as a woman with a shield on her arm and a scroll in her hand. The other is a fully armored Roman with a sword slung on his back and a spear in his fist.

Both represent two very different approaches to war, and Aedan knows they’re stolen from the Greeks. This house contains effigies and statuettes in almost every room, a Greek custom stay for those depicting the family’s dead ancestors.

He finds two desks and a cabinet filled with scrolls in the next room. He swiftly rifles through them, hungry for anything to read. He plunks down on one of the couches, cursing his luck as none are in Greek.

Birdsong draws him to the sandy yard with its rumbling fountain and tall tree. The sapling’s bronchial limbs fan out, their evergreen caps poking into portions of the upper walk’s metal railing. Fallen pinecones litter its sands, and Aedan snatches up a prickly husk and strips away its tasty nuts.

Wood chips burn in the tall brazier, and by their scent, they’re dusted with cinnamon. A fat cat lays within the prongs of its wrought iron feet. She raises her head for a furtive glance and, finding him of no interest, lazily reassumes her position.

Past one of the columns, the door to his new room beckons, but his curiosity finds him wandering in the opposite direction. On this side of the house, a porch slopes into a lake of the darkest water. Another walkway runs long around the yard, and unlike its crimson mirror on the other side, this gold-banded stretch hosts only one door.

If the lady of the house sleeps above, then behind this door sleeps Fuckface.

Aedan quells his temptation and returns to his room. Here, he finds a large rug now covering the floor. Two crates stand against the far wall, one he knows from the carriage ride, but the other is unfamiliar.

This new box lacks nails, and getting his fingers under the top, he wedges it out and pulls it free to find everything Fintan took with him to the continent. Tears pool in Aedan’s eyes, and he dabs them away with one of his father’s wool socks.

He takes out a necklace of seasnail shells, its many colors separated by a large shark tooth for his wife and an owl’s beak for his son. A tiny burlap pouch appears, holding two curly strands of Aedan’s hair and a lock of his mother’s.

The man’s trousers smell faintly of birch bark soap, and his folded wool tartan—pale blue, dark brown, and black—bleed the colors of their Ancalite tribe. Underneath lay Fintan’s seal-skin smock and the owl skull brooch he wore on the left shoulder to secure it.

Aedan finds his father’s lay-about shirt, worn on days when the man never broke a sweat. He pulls off his Roman tunic and pulls it over his head. The neck hole is so big that it reveals most of his chest, and its long tail hovers at the knees, its mossy hue too much like Fuckface’s eyes.

He gathers what remains in his arms, folding them carefully before setting them inside one of the drawers in the standing chest. Turning to the familiar box, he pulls out his feathery shoulder guards before retrieving the owl mask that returned with his father’s head.

Eager eyes search for a place to put it and decide on the wooden mantle over the hearth. He makes a mental note to refurbish its wicker crown and feathers in the coming days.

A second mask awaits, this one smelling of fire and death. He thinks of the day he wove the monstrous thing while watching his sleeping Roman tied to a nearby tree.

Bloody dots cover its reedy surface. “I’m in your house now old man,” Aedan whispers and then mocks, “rather astute for a boy that’s never left his island.”

The crate yields his trusty tooth-scrubbing stick, his nail clippers, and Mother’s blue sinew cord, which she used to bind him to the Roman.

Fuckface’s sketchbook is all that remains. Opening it, he flips past scribbles of himself and ignores the gory depictions of slain druids until he comes upon etchings of Britannia’s trees. He carefully removes his favorites, all depicting leaves as seen by someone lying beneath them.

Aedan takes down the clay horsehead plate on the wall and finds a sticky wad of sap on its back. He pinches a tiny bit off and uses it to tack up one page and then another until a treetop takes shape along the loft’s bottom edge.

The leatherbound tome isn’t set down long before Fuckface’s voice booms from somewhere outside his door.

“Where’s my prisoner!”