“Your husband’s Gauls throttled your children in their beds, and then placed their lifeless bodies in the atrium pool,” Cailin told the woman bluntly, cruelly.
“It isn’t true!” Antonia began to sob.
“It is true!” Cailin said harshly. “Does it hurt you to know what Quintus did? Perhaps then you will understand some of what I feel, Antonia.”
“Quintus! Tell me it isn’t so,” Antonia wept. “Tell me!”
“Yes, cousin,” Cailin mocked him. “Tell her the truth, if indeed you even know how to tell it. Have you ever told the truth in your whole life? Tell your wife, the mother of your only son, that you did not arrange to have her sons from her first marriage disposed of; and then tell her that you did not have those same Gauls murder my family in order that you would inherit my father’s lands. Tell her, Quintus! Tell her the truth, if you dare—but you do not, do you? You are a coward!”
Quintus Drusus’s face was contorted with terrifying fury. “And you are a bitch, Cailin Drusus!” he hissed at her. “Who among the gods hates me so that he protected you from death that night when I had arranged for everything to be ended so neatly?”
Cailin threw herself at her cousin and raked her nails down his handsome face. “I will kill you myself!” she screamed at him, teeth bared.
Quintus Drusus raised his hands to strike out at her, but suddenly his arms were grasped and pinioned hard behind him. Panic rose in his chest as he saw the huge Saxon warrior push Cailin firmly behind him. Quintus Drusus knew from the look upon the man’s face that he was going to die. “Noooooo!” he howled, struggling desperately to free himself from the iron grip holding him.
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.