Lucilla--NaNoWriMo2014

Chapter Three

Lucilla's outrage was more than enough to bring up her blood pressure.  Doctors were able to complete their surgery with ease.  They gave her something to calm her nerves and gave orders to strap her down while they called in experts to evaluate just what kind of patient she was.

While they were more concerned about treating wounded soldiers and sailors in wartime and returning them to battle or sending them home, the doctors (they all understood Latin in 1942) were so intrigued by Lucilla.

Here was a woman dressed as if she had just been wounded in Circus Maximus in ancient times.  Their immediate hospital commander ordered her to be placed in strict isolation.  Medical personnel who spoke the dead language Latin would see to her needs.  But in order to determine if Lucilla was pretending to be from ancient times, they would switch to Italian or English during conversation.

At no time did Lucilla respond to their change in language.  As far as her use of Latin, Lucilla gave no hint of being a fake.

When they brought Lucilla food, she often threw it back at her servers.  She could no hack bacon, eggs, and sliced bread with butter.  Coffee was brutal to her tastebuds.

Eventually Lucilla settled for sliced cheese and wine mixed with water.  Further, Lucilla demanded that they allow her to recline as she ate in the fashion of the ancient Romans.

Gradually her servers loosened her constricting bands and allowed her to sit up.  She continued to harange her hosts.  "Let me out of here!  You just wait until the Roman Legions reach me.  You will see.  Who are you anyway!"

In desperation she overturned her food tray and wrapped herself in a blanket.  She then pushed aside her hosts and ran out of the tent she had been confined in.

When she stepped out into the open, there she was bewildered by what she saw before her.  There were columns of uniformed men who looked like soldiers.  Like in her own time, the men wore helmets and their long weapons, which she would later understand to be rifles, had long knives on their ends.

But what she was not prepared to see where the long lines of horseless vehicles belching smoke and making more noise than all the elephants in Hannibal's army.  They paid no attention to her as they barked a strange language not too far removed from what she had heard in Roman Britain in her youth.

Lucilla then knew that everything that Nerva had said to her was true.  She was in another time, a time of huge war machines on wheels and flying like Pegasus overhead.

"My, Zeus!"  Lucilla said.  "Nerva was right!  What am I to do?"  Lucilla turned toward the tent she had just left.  But she was confused.  They all looked alike.  In desperation she entered one and then another.  Each time she caused total confusion.  One by one she searched the tents.

If she understood one thing, it was a tent.  Many times she had camped out during war with the legions.  There was a war going on.  Judging by the size of the machines and the numbers of soldiers, she knew in her heart that this was a war far more vast than she ever had witnessed.

She then shrank down and cried.  At length her attendants found her and took care to escort her to her tent and her bed.

After they returned her to her bed, she asked to sit in a chair.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked her hosts.

"We will call in someone to talk to you.  We only want to know who you really are and to help you."

The next day, Dr. Hans Fritz, an expert on Ancient Rome and Greek-Roman languages and civilization sat down with Lucilla.

"Okay, I will call you Lucilla until you give me reason to believe otherwise.  Can you explain things from your time that I am kind of vague on?"  He leaned forward.  "This will help me to clarify things that are incomplete in our knowledge