To Love Again Read online

  Wulf Ironfist slid his sword from its sheath. It was a two-edged blade, thirty-three inches in length, made of finely forged steel, with an almost round point. Grasping the weapon firmly by its pommel, the Saxon thrust it straight into Quintus Drusus's heart, twisting the blade just slightly in order to sever the arteries. His blue eyes never left those of his panicked victim. His look was pitiless. The undisguised terror he saw in return was small payment for all the misery and heartache Quintus Drusus had caused those about him, especially Cailin. When life had fled the Roman's eyes, Wulf pulled his blade from the dead man's chest and wiped it clean on Quintus's toga. Corio then allowed the body to fall to the floor.

  The Saxon looked challengingly at the magistrate, but Anthony Porcius said smoothly, "He condemned himself with his own words." He put a comforting arm about his daughter. "Wait here," he told them, and then he led Antonia from the atrium.

  "A realistic man," Corio noted dryly.

  "He was always practical," Cailin told him. "My father said for all his girth, Anthony Porcius had to be lighter than thistledown, for he could blow in any direction with any wind, just like a duck feather." She looked down at the lifeless body of her cousin. "I am glad he is dead. I'm just sorry he did not suffer like my mother did."

  "Your mother is with the gods," Corio told her. "This Roman is not, I am certain." He looked to Wulf. "I think the men can wait outside now. There is no danger here."

  "Dismiss them," Wulf Ironfist said, and then he told his wife, "Come and sit down, lambkin. It has been a long morning for a woman in your condition. Are you tired? Would you like something to drink?"

  "I am all right, Wulf," she told him. "Do I look like some delicate creature who must be pampered?" But she sat nonetheless on a small marble bench by the atrium pool. It was empty of water now.

  Anthony Porcius came back into the atrium. "I have given my daughter into the keeping of her women," he said. "She is, unfortunately, with child again." He sat down next to Cailin. "My dear, what can I say that would possibly ease your suffering?" He shook his head wearily. "You never liked him, I know. I did not, either, but I thought I was a foolish old man jealous of his only child's husband. Well, he is dead now, and will not harm you or Antonia again. What is past is past. When I return to Corinium, I will see your survival is made known, and I will have your lands legally restored. Your family's slaves, and other goods of course, will be returned. Where will you live? The villa is in ruins."

  "The Dobunni warriors with us will help to raise a hall for us. We will bury my family with honor, then clear away the rubble and begin. There is nothing salvageable. We will have to start from the beginning, just like my ancestor, the first Drusus Corinium, did," Cailin said.

  "The big Saxon is your husband?" Anthony Porcius asked curiously.

  "Yes. We were wed five months ago," she told him, and then seeing the worry in his face, she continued, "It was my choice, Anthony Porcius. Celts do not force their children into marriage."

  "I know," he rejoined. "For all my Roman name, Cailin Drusus, I am every bit as much a Celt as you."

  "I am a Briton," she told him. "I am a Briton, and Britain is my land. I will not take sides against one part or the other of myself. I am proud of my ancestry, of its history. I honor the old customs when I can honor them, but I am a Briton, not a Roman, not a Celt. My husband, Wulf Ironfist, is a Saxon, but our children will be as I am. They will be Britons. I will teach them my history, and Wulf will teach them his, but they will be Britons. We must all be Britons now if we are to survive this dark destiny before us, Anthony Porcius. Everything as we knew it has changed, or is changing. It is a hard world in which we live."

  "Yes, my child, it is," he agreed. He arose and drew her up with him. "Go now, Cailin Drusus. Go with your strong, young husband, and make this new beginning. In time the horror of today will fade. My grandchildren will play with your children, and there will be peace between us then, as there has always been between our families." He kissed her brow tenderly and then put her hand into Wulf's. "May the gods be with you both," he told them.

  Together they walked from the atrium of the villa, Corio in their wake.

  "A new beginning," said Wulf Ironfist. "I like the sound of it."

  "Yes," Cailin agreed, and she smiled up at both men. "A new beginning for us all. For Britain, and for the Britons."

  Chapter 6

  True to his word, Anthony Porcius returned to Corinium and removed Cailin's name from the list of the dead, restoring her property to her legally. He then closed up his own house in the town and made his way back to his daughter's home. Instinct told him that she would need a man's presence in her household. She had no other family besides him. He knew her grief would be deep, for she had truly loved Quintus Drusus and had refused to acknowledge his faults.

  To his great surprise, Anthony Porcius did not find his daughter prostrate with grief. He instead found her embittered and angry. Worse, she had become overdoting of her little son, Quintus, the younger. Antonia had loved all of her children, but had never bothered a great deal with them, preferring to leave them to the servants; a practice her father abhorred but could do nothing about. Now, suddenly, she could barely stand to have her son out of her sight.

  "You must not allow him his way in everything, my daughter," Anthony Porcius chided her the afternoon of his return. Little Quintus had just thrown a tantrum and, having calmed her son, Antonia then rewarded him with a new toy.

  "He is alone in the world, but for us, Father," she answered angrily. "Thanks to Cailin Drusus, my little Quintus and the son I carry in my womb are fatherless. I must be both father and mother to my babies now. All because of Cailin Drusus!"

  "Antonia, my dearest," her father reasoned, "you must face the truth. You cannot live with a heart that is filled to overflowing with bitter vetch. Cailin Drusus is not responsible for your husband's death. Did you comprehend nothing that was said the day he died? Quintus Drusus had Cailin's family murdered, and then burned their villa to cover his crime in order that he might have their lands for himself. He admitted it. Why will you not understand?"

  "I will not believe it!" Antonia said stubbornly.

  "Why would Cailin make up such a story, Antonia?" her father persisted. "What purpose would she have in doing so? If it were not true, then why did she and Brenna flee to Berikos? If the fire had been an accident, why not simply say she escaped it?"

  "Perhaps because she killed her family, Father. Did you ever consider that possibility? No, of course not!" Antonia cried.

  "Antonia!" He was horrified by her words, for they were totally irrational. "What reason would Cailin have for doing such a thing?"

  The grieving widow looked bleakly at him in silence.

  "Antonia," her father continued, "how can you mourn a man who saw to the murder of your own two sons?"

  "It isn't true!" Antonia shrieked. " It cannot be true!"

  "It horrifies me as well as it does you, but there is a certain logic to it. Antonia, was Quintus Drusus such a gentle and perfect man that there was never a time when you were afraid of him?"

  "There was one time," Antonia said low, "Just after Lucius and Paulus were found dead, when our son was but a day old. I was filled with grief, but Quintus grew hard with me for he feared my bereavement might impede the flow of my milk. He became very angry with me, Father. He said his son must be nursed by his mother, not some distressed slave woman. I was afraid of him in that moment, but it passed."

  So that was why Antonia suckled her youngest son, Anthony Porcius thought. She had never nursed the elder boys.

  "He could not have killed my sons," Antonia protested further. "He loved them! Besides, the two nursemaids were found in the most lewd and compromising of positions, reeking of wine."

  "Had these women ever been found drunk, or judged guilty of lascivious behavior before, my daughter? I remember them both. They were faithful women, and loved my grandsons. You chose each of them carefully yourself after Lucius
and Paulus were born, Antonia. They nursed those boys devotedly. Yet before they might even defend themselves, they were adjudged guilty and strangled. Who did this?"

  "It was Quintus," Antonia said.

  "Quintus," her father replied softly. "Ah, yes, Quintus. I find that interesting, my dear. The household slaves are your province, Antonia. Should he not have waited for your decision in the matter? Perhaps he did not because he knew if he had, those poor women would have implicated his murderous Gauls, and they in turn, to save their own skins, would have implicated Quintus Drusus. My reasoning is sound, I believe."

  Antonia stubbornly shook her head. "It is Cailin's fault!"

  "How is it Cailin's fault, Antonia? How?" he demanded.

  "Oh, Father, do you not see? If Cailin Drusus had not come back, none of this could have happened! Quintus would be alive this very minute, and my sons would have their father. But she returned with her accusations, and then her husband killed mine!"

  "What of your two elder sons? And what of the Drusus family?" the magistrate said. "All brutally slain; the villa burned; the Drusus family's bones left to bleach in the wind and rain? Have you no pity for anyone but yourself, Antonia? The gods! I am ashamed of you! I did not raise you to be so selfish!" Anthony Porcius turned away from his daughter, angry and disappointed.

  "Am I selfish to have loved my husband, Father? If that is so, then I do not care what you think of me! Quintus Drusus was the man I loved, and Cailin took him from me. I care for nothing else. If I am wrong, then what matter? I am condemned to live the rest of my days without my love. My children are sentenced to grow up without their father, and for these and other crimes, I hold Cailin Drusus responsible. I hate her! I only hope she someday knows the pain and suffering she has inflicted upon me. I hate her! I will never forgive her! It is not fair, Father, that she now have the handsomest man in the province for a husband instead of me. She has taken Quintus Drusus from me, and she has that magnificent Saxon to comfort her. I have no one to comfort me!"

  His daughter's unbalanced thinking disturbed Anthony Porcius greatly. He could understand her anger somewhat, but this sudden irrational envy of Cailin's husband made him very uncomfortable. Perhaps, he considered, with time Antonia would learn to accept the reality of what had happened. She would come to terms with herself, and everything would be all right. Quintus Drusus was newly dead. Anthony Porcius knew his daughter. She Would grieve dramatically for a time, and then another handsome man would catch her eye, and Quintus Drusus would be forgotten. It had always been that way with Antonia when she lost a man. Another soon took his place.

  After spending several days with his daughter, the magistrate took his horse and rode across the fields to the Drusus Corinium estate. The rubble of the burned villa had been cleared away, and a timber and stone hall was being raised over the marble floor that ran from the entry through the atrium and into the dining room of the old building. The wings of the villa where the sleeping chambers, baths, and kitchen had been located were not to be restored. It would be a far simpler and more practical lifestyle that Cailin would have to accustom herself to, Anthony Porcius realized, and he sighed.

  All over Britain others were being forced to do the same thing in order to survive. The age of gracious living as embodied by the elegance and the lavish lifestyles of their Roman ancestors had drawn to a close. In order to continue on, people would have to learn to make do. Although, he realized, some would make do better than others. He smiled to himself. It was not really so bad. Cailin and Wulf had good lands, each other, and the hope of many children. In the end, when all else was stripped away, that was what was important.

  The young couple greeted him politely. They showed him the new graves of Cailin's family. A marble cutter had been sent for from Corinium, and would make a memorial to the family using marble from the villa's wings. The new hall would not be a great one to begin with, but eventually, Wulf told their guest, they would build a larger and far grander hall. Even so, there would be a room called a solar located above part of the main hall that would offer them some privacy. The fire pits would be lined in brick; the roof expertly thatched with neatly woven, tight smoke holes.

  "I have been able to salvage some items from the old kitchen," Cailin told the magistrate proudly. "The pots and the Samianware did not burn. With cleaning I believe they will be usable again."

  "But what will you do for other household items and furnishings?" he asked her. "Perhaps Antonia has some things she does not need, and would send them over to you," he said doubtfully.

  "I want nothing from your daughter," Cailin said proudly. "The Dobunni will give us what we need. Berikos owes me my dower rights, and Ceara will see he gives them to me."

  "And I am capable of carpentry, for all my military calling," Wulf joined in. "Then, too, there will be some among our slaves who are capable of like tasks. It will simply take time, and time is the one commodity with which we are most generously blessed, Anthony Porcius."

  "You will not be able to do much more with the hall until the harvest is in," the older man replied. "The coming summer months you must spend attending to your fields, which are already planted and greening. Your harvest will be your most important asset. You will need a barn or two."

  "I agree," Wulf said, "but there will be those who cannot work in the fields, and there will be rainy days when the fields cannot be worked. We will manage to finish what must be finished before winter."

  They returned to Berikos's hill fort for Beltane and the wedding of Nuala and Bodvoc. Eppilus was already chieftain of the hill Dobunni. It had not, however, been necessary to depose Berikos. He had been spared that indignity. Several days after Cailin, Wulf, and his men had departed to revenge her family, her grandfather had suffered a series of seizures that left the old man paralyzed from the waist down. His speech was also affected. Only Ceara and Maeve could really understand what he was trying to communicate.

  Consequently, the Dobunni men had not had to remove him from his high office. A physically impaired man could not rule his fellow men. As far as everyone was concerned, the gods had taken care of the matter, and Berikos had been retired, albeit forcibly, with honor. The old man, however, was still filled with venom, most of which was now directed at Brigit.

  "She has left him," Ceara told Cailin in a rather satisfied tone. "No sooner had his condition been ascertained, and the fact that he would not recover fully made known, than she was gone." Ceara smiled grimly. "She took her serving women, her jewelry, and everything else of value he had lavished upon her. We awoke one morning, and she had vanished, along with a foolish half-grown boy who shall remain nameless. The lad came back, his tail between his legs, several days later. Brigit had returned to her Catuvellauni kin, and immediately took herself a new husband. We did not tell Berikos that. There is no need to add to his pain."

  "I can almost feel sorry for him," Cailin said, "but then I remember that he disowned my mother, and that he was so unkind to my grandmother when we came to him for aid. I cannot forget that he forced me to Wulf's bed when he knew 1 was a virgin and unused to such behavior."

  "But you are happy with Wulf, are you not?" Ceara asked her.

  "Yes, but what if Wulf had not been the kind of man he is?"

  Ceara nodded. "Yes, you have a just grievance, but try to forgive him, Cailin. He is a foolish, stubborn old man. He cannot change, but you, my child, can. He did love your mother, and I suspect he loves you as well, for you are Kyna's daughter, though he is too proud to say it."

  "He sees too much of Brenna in me," Cailin said softly, "and he will never forgive me for it. He does not see my mother when he looks at me. He hears Brenna speaking out of my mouth." She smiled. "I will try, though, for your sake, Ceara. You have been good to me."

  Nuala and Bodvoc were wed during the festive celebration of Beltane. The bride's belly had already grown quite round, and while Bodvoc was congratulated, Nuala was roundly teased, but she did not mind.

  "Perhaps we
shall leave here, and settle near you and Wulf," Nuala said to her cousin.

  "Leave the Dobunni?" Cailin was surprised by Nuala's words. Celtic life was a communal life of kin and good friends. She was startled to think that Nuala and Bodvoc would give all that up.

  "Why not?" Nuala replied. "Times are changing for us all. Life is too constricted here for Bodvoc and for me. There is no opportunity to do anything except what has always been done. We love our families, but we think perhaps we should like to be a little bit away from them. You and Wulf have no one but each other. If we came and lived by you, you would have us, and we would be near enough to the Dobunni villages to have the rest of our family available when we wanted to visit, or if they needed us, or we them. There is more than enough land for us, isn't there?"

  Cailin nodded. "When Anthony Porcius returned my father's lands to me, he included the river villa that had been given to Quintus Drusus when he came from Rome. You and Bodvoc could have that land. Wulf and I will give it to you as a wedding present! You will have to build your own hall, but the lands are fertile, well-watered, and there is a fine orchard, Nuala. It would be good to have you near."

  "Our children will grow up together," Nuala said with a smile.

  Cailin found her husband and told him what she had done.

  "Good!" he said with a smile. "Bodvoc will be a good man to have as a neighbor. We'll help him to build his home so that by the time their child comes, they will have a place of their own."

  With the sunset, the Beltane fires sprang to life, and the feasting, drinking, and dancing continued. During the day, Cailin had been absorbed with her relatives and the wedding, but now a deep sadness came upon her. Just a year ago her family had been murdered. She wandered among the revelers, and then suddenly found herself by Berikos. Well, she thought, now is as good a time as any to try to make peace with this old reprobate. He was seated on a bench with a back. She sat down upon the ground by his side.