To Love Again Read online

  To Love Again

  Bertrice Small

  BERTRICE SMALL

  Legendary for her exotic novels of faraway places teeming with adventure and intrigue, New York Times bestselling author Bertrice Small once again pens an extraordinary tale of passion and history, sweeping readers back to fifth-century Britain and Constantinople, where battles of love and war are fought with equal skill and voracity-and victory is savored with sweetest pleasure…

  TO LOVE AGAIN

  Beautiful, headstrong, and defiant, Cailin Drusus possesses the pride of her Celtic-born mother, though she has been reared amid her Roman father's wealth and privilege. When Cailin's family is destroyed and their farmland seized, she marries Wulf Ironfist, a Saxon of enormous strength and power-a gentle giant who opens the door to a world of heady sensuality. But her happiness is short-lived. For an unknown enemy drugs her as she labors in childbirth-and she awakens to find herself sold to a slave merchant and transported to Byzantium, not knowing what happened to her child…

  Bertrice Small

  To Love Again

  © 1993

  PROLOGUE

  BRITAIN

  A.D. 44-406

  The Celtic warrior, a Catuvellauni by tribe, lay facedown in the mud upon the smoking earth. His naked body, battered and broken, was painted a vibrant shade of blue. Around him a thousand more of his kind lay dead or dying while Roman legionaries moved methodically over the battlefield administering the coup de grace to those unfortunate enough to still be clinging to life. He could hear the calls of the carrion birds gathering, and a shudder ran through him.

  Nearby, a party of Roman officers stood watching. Turning his head slightly, he viewed them through slitted eyelids, recognizing to his amazement the emperor himself. The warrior moved his hand stealthily toward his javelin. Slowly, his fingers closed about its shaft, feeling the comfortable familiarity of the smooth ashwood. He was barely breathing, but it did not matter. Breathing hurt too much now.

  With superhuman effort, he pulled himself stiffly to his feet. Then howling like a demon, he hurled his weapon directly at the Roman emperor, exhausting every bit of his remaining strength. To the warrior's deep disappointment, a tall, young tribune standing in the group reacted far more swiftly than he would have thought possible and flung himself in front of the emperor, taking the full brunt of the javelin in his kneecap.

  The Catuvellauni warrior had no time to admire the young man's bravery. He was already dead; his head severed from his neck by a second tribune who had leapt forward in his own defense of the emperor. The head, its long hair bloody and matted, rolled across the ground, stopping at the feet of the emperor.

  Claudius looked down and sighed deeply. He recognized the head as belonging to one of the personal bodyguards of the Catuvellauni war chief. He had noticed the boy when the Catuvellauni had come to talk peace, even as they were treacherously massing their forces in an attempt to drive the Romans from Britain. The young man had a smallish, but very distinct birthmark upon his left cheekbone. Claudius, physically impaired himself, was quick to notice others with impairments of any kind. He shook his head sadly. He did not like war. So many young lives like this one wasted. Young men fought wars, but it was the old men like himself who planned those wars.

  He turned away from the severed head, giving his attention now to the tribune who had shielded him from certain death. "How is he?" the emperor asked the surgeon who was kneeling by the tribune's side, staunching the copious flow of blood.

  "He'll live," came the dour reply, "but there will be no more soldiering for this one, Caesar. The javelin, by the grace of the gods, missed the artery to his heart. It has chipped the knee bone, and damaged the tendons. The boy will walk with a marked limp the rest of his days."

  Claudius nodded, and then he asked the injured young man, "What is your name, tribune?"

  "Flavius Drusus, Caesar."

  "Are we related, then?" the emperor wondered aloud, for he was Claudius Drusus Nero.

  "Distantly, Caesar."

  "Who is your father?"

  "Titus Drusus, Caesar, and my brother is also Titus."

  "Yes," the emperor said thoughtfully. "Your father is in the senate. He is a just man, as I recall."

  "He is, Caesar."

  "You are the Tribunus Laticlavius of the Fourteenth," the emperor said, noting the young man's uniform. "You will have to go home now, I fear, Flavius Drusus."

  "Yes, Caesar," came the dutiful answer, but Claudius heard more than just disappointment in the young man's voice.

  "You do not want to go home?" he asked. "Is there no young sweetheart or wife eagerly awaiting your return, then? How long have you been with the Fourteenth, Flavius Drusus?"

  "Almost three years, Caesar. I had hoped to make a career in the army. I am the youngest son of Titus Drusus. There are three older than I am. My eldest brother will follow in our father's footsteps, of course; and Gaius and Lucius are both magistrates. Another magistrate from the Drusus family, and we could easily be accused of a monopoly," Flavius Drusus finished with a small smile. Then he winced, and grew pale as the javelin was drawn from his leg.

  Claudius almost groaned in sympathy with the young man's obvious pain. Although the titular second-in-command of his legion, a Tribunus Laticlavius was really an honorary post. There were six tribunes in each legion, and five of them were usually battle-hardened veterans. The Tribunus Laticlavius was always a youngster in his teens from a noble family, sent to spend two or three years with the army to shape him up, or get him out of trouble, or away from bad companions. Usually at the end of his term the Tribunus Laticlavius went home to a magistrate's position, and a rich wife.

  The emperor turned to the legionary commander. "Is he a good soldier, Aulus Majesta?"

  The legionary commander nodded. "The best, Caesar. He came to us like they all do-green, and wet behind the ears-but unlike the others I've had to put up with in my career, Flavius Drusus has been eager to learn. He was to stay on until one of my other tribunes retired in another year. Then I planned to move him up in the ranks." He looked down at the young man, pale with his injury. "What a pity, Caesar. He's a good officer, but I can't have a tribune with a gimpy leg, now can I." It wasn't a question.

  Claudius was tempted to ask Aulus Majesta what a man's gait had to do with his ability to make good military decisions, but he refrained from it. His own limp, and stammering speech, had made him a laughingstock his whole life. He had been considered unfit for anything, even by his own family. But when his dreadful nephew, Caligula, had been murdered and deposed, the army had turned to him to rule Rome. Claudius was more aware than most of the disadvantage Flavius Drusus faced. Prejudice of any kind was difficult to overcome.

  "You must be rewarded for saving my life," he said firmly.

  "I but did my duty, Caesar!" the young tribune protested.

  "And in doing so you have lost your military career," the emperor replied. "What will happen to you when you return home? You have nothing, being a younger son. In saving my life you have, in a sense, lost yours, Flavius Drusus. I would be unworthy of the noble tradition of the Caesars if I allowed such a thing. I offer you one of two choices. Think carefully before choosing. Return to Rome with honor, if you desire. I will give you both a noble wife and a pension for all of your days. Or remain here in Britain. I will give you lands that will be yours and your descendants' forever. I will also settle a sum of money upon you that you may build a home."

  Flavius Drusus thought a long moment. If he returned to Rome, noble wife or not, he would be forced to live in his father's house, which would one day be his eldest brother's house. His pension would probably not be enough for him to buy his own home. The noble wife would be some younger daughter with lit
tle of her own. How would they dower daughters, or successfully launch their sons' careers? If he remained in Britain, however, he would have his own lands. He would not be beholden to anyone. He would found a new branch of his family, and with hard work become a rich man in his own right.

  "I will stay in Britain, Caesar," he said, knowing that he had made the right decision.

  ***

  “And that,” Titus Drusus Corinium told his children in the summer of a.d. 406, "is how our family came to this land some three hundred and sixty-two years ago. The first Flavius Drusus was still alive when Queen Bodicea revolted against Rome. Though the town of Corinium, where he had settled, was not touched by the revolt, he realized then that perhaps our family would be better served by making alliances with the local Celtic tribes rather than by sending for Roman wives. So his sons married into the Dobunni tribe, and the sons and daughters who came after that have intermarried with both Celts and Roman Britons until this day."

  "And now Rome is leaving Britain," Titus's wife, Julia, said.

  "Good riddance!" her husband answered. "Rome is finished. The Romans just don't have the good sense to realize it. Once Rome was a great and noble power that ruled the world. Today it is corrupt and venal. Even the Caesars are not what they once were. The Julians died out long ago, and in their place have come a succession of soldier-emperors, each backed by a different set of legions. You children know that in your own short lifetimes the empire has been split, with Britain and Gaul being broken away, and then patched back again. There is even an eastern empire now, in a place called Byzantium. Better we Britons be rid of Rome once and for all that we might chart our own destinies. If we do not, the Saxons immigrating from northern Gaul and the Rhineland onto our southeast coast will push inland, and overwhelm us altogether."

  The young people grinned mischievously at each other. Their father was forever preaching gloom.

  "Oh, Titus," his wife chided. "The Saxons are only peasant farmers. We are far too civilized to be overcome by them."

  "Too civilized, aye," he agreed. "Perhaps that is why I am afraid for Britain." He picked up his younger son, Gaius, who had been playing quietly on the floor. "When a people becomes so civilized that it does not fear the barbarians at the gates, then the danger is the greatest. Little Gaius and his children will be the ones forced to live with our folly, I fear."

  CAILIN

  BRITAIN A.D.

  452-454

  Chapter 1

  “Oh, Gaius, how could you!” Kyna Benigna asked her husband irritably. She was a tall, handsome woman of pure Celtic descent. Her dark red hair was woven in a series of intricate braids about her head. "I cannot believe you sent to Rome seeking a husband for Cailin. She will be furious with you when she finds out." Kyna Benigna's long, soft yellow wool tunic swung gracefully as she paced the hall.

  "It is time for her to marry," Gaius Drusus Corinium defended himself, "and there is no one here who seems to suit her."

  "Cailin will be just fourteen next month, Gaius," his wife reminded him. "This is not the time of the Julians, when little girls were married off the moment their flow began! And as for finding no young man to suit her, I am not surprised by that. You adore your daughter, and she you. You have kept her so close she has not really had a chance to meet suitable young men. Even if she did, none would match her darling father, Gaius. Cailin has but to socialize like a normal young girl, and she will find the young man of her dreams."

  "That is impossible now, and you know it," Gaius Drusus Corinium told her. "It is a dangerous world in which we live, Kyna. When was the last time we dared venture the road to Corinium? There are bandits everywhere. Only by remaining within the safety of our own estate are we relatively safe. Besides, the town is not what it once was. I think if someone will buy it, I shall sell our house there. We have not lived there since the first year of our marriage, and it has been closed up since my parents died three years ago."

  "Perhaps you are right, Gaius. Yes, I think we should sell the house. Whomever Cailin marries one day, she will want to remain here in the country. She has never liked the town. Now tell me. Who is this young man who will come from Rome? Will he stay in Britain, or will he want to return to his own homeland? Have you considered that, my husband?"

  "He is a younger son of our family in Rome, my dear."

  Kyna Benigna shook her head again. "Your family has not been back to Rome in over two centuries, Gaius. I will allow that the two branches of the family have never lost touch, but your dealings have been on a business level, not a personal one. We know nothing of these people you propose to give your daughter to, Gaius. How could you even consider such a thing? Cailin will not like it, I warn you. You will not twist her about your little finger in this matter."

  "The Roman branch of our family have always treated us honorably, Kyna," Gaius said. "They are yet of good character. I have chosen to give this younger son an opportunity because, like the younger son who was my ancestor, he has more to gain by remaining in Britain than by returning to Rome. Cailin shall have Hilltop Villa and its lands for her dowry that she may remain near us. It will all work out quite well. I have done the right thing, Kyna, I assure you," he concluded.

  "What is this young man's name, Gaius?" she asked him, not at all certain that he was right.

  "Quintus Drusus," he told her. "He is the youngest son of my cousin, Manius Drusus, who is the head of the Drusus family in Rome. Manius had four sons and two daughters by his first wife. This boy is one of two sons and a daughter produced by Manius's second wife. The mother dotes on him, Manius writes, but she is willing to let him go because here in Britain he will be a respected man with lands of his own."

  "And what if Cailin does not like him, Gaius?" Kyna Benigna demanded. "You have not considered that, have you? Will not your cousins in Rome be offended if you send their son back home to them after they have sent him here to us with such high hopes?"

  "Certainly Cailin will like him," Gaius insisted, with perhaps a bit more assurance than he was feeling.

  "I will not allow you to force her to the marriage bed if she is not content to make this match," Kyna Benigna said fiercely; and Gaius Drusus Corinium was reminded suddenly of why he had fallen in love with this daughter of a hill country Dobunni chieftain, instead of another girl from a Romano-British family. Kyna was every bit as strong as she was beautiful, and their daughter was like her.

  "If she truly cannot be happy with him, Kyna," he promised, "I will not force Cailin. You know I adore her. If Quintus displeases her, I will give the boy some land, and I will find him a proper wife. He will still be far better off than if he had remained in Rome with his family. Are you satisfied now?" He smiled at her.

  "I am," she murmured, the sound more like a cat's purr.

  He has the most winning smile, she thought, remembering the first time she had seen him. She had been fourteen, Cailin's age. He had come to her father's village with his father to barter for the fine brooches her people made. She had fallen in love then and there. She quickly learned he was a childless widower, and seemingly in no hurry to remarry. His father, however, was quite desperate that he do so.

  Gaius Drusus Corinium was the last of a long line of a family of Roman Britons. His elder brother, Flavius, had died in Gaul with the legions when he was eighteen. His sister, Drusilla, had perished in childbirth at sixteen. His first wife had died after half a dozen miscarriages.

  Kyna, the daughter of Berikos, knew she had found the only man with whom she could be happy. Shamelessly she set about to entrap him.

  To her surprise, it took little effort. Gaius Drusus Corinium was as hot-blooded as the Celtic girl herself. His proper first wife had bored him. So had all the eligible women and girls who had attempted to entice him after Albinia's tragic death. Once Kyna had gotten him to notice her, he could scarce take his eyes from her. She was as slender as a sapling, but her high, full young breasts spoke of delights he dared not even contemplate. She mocked him silentl
y with her sapphire-blue eyes and a toss of her long red hair, flirting mischievously with him until he could bear no more. He wanted her as he had never wanted anything in his life, and so he told his father.

  Kyna was beautiful, strong, healthy, and intelligent. Her blood mixed with theirs could but strengthen their family. Titus Drusus Corinium was as relieved as he was delighted.

  Berikos, chieftain of the hill Dobunni, was not. "We have never mixed our blood with that of the Romans, as so many other tribes have," he said grimly. "I will barter with you, Titus Drusus Corinium, but I will not give your son my daughter for a wife." His blue eyes were as cold as stone.

  "I am every bit as much a Briton as you are," Titus told him indignantly. "My family have lived in this land for three centuries. Our blood has been mixed with that of the Catuvellauni, the Iceni, even as your family has mixed its blood with those and other tribes."

  “But never with the Romans,” came the stubborn reply.

  "The legions are long gone, Berikos. We live as one people now. Let my son, Gaius, have your daughter Kyna to wife. She wants him every bit as much as he wants her."

  "Is this so?" Berikos demanded of his daughter, his long mustache quivering furiously. This was the child of his heart. Her betrayal of their proud heritage was painful.

  "It is," she answered defiantly. "I will have Gaius Drusus Corinium for my husband, and no other."

  "Very well," Berikos replied angrily, "but know that if you take this man for your mate, you do so without my blessing. I will never look upon your face again. You will be as one dead to me," he told her harshly, hoping his words would frighten her into changing her mind.