“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 I 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.
“Once,” she began, “my mother told me of how, when she was a little girl, no one could leap higher across the Beltane fires than you could, Berikos. I think it was the only time I ever heard her speak of you. I believe she missed you, especially at this time of year. I am not like her, am I? Well, I cannot be anyone but who I am.”
Surprised, she felt the old man’s hand fall heavily upon her head, and turning, she looked up at him. A single tear was sliding down his worn face. For a brief moment Cailin felt her anger rising. The old man had no right to do this to her after all his unkindness and cruelty—not just to her, but to Brenna and to Kyna. Then something inside her popped and she felt her anger draining away. She smiled wryly at him.
“We’re alike, Berikos, aren’t we? It isn’t just Brenna that makes me who I am. It is you as well. We are quick with our tongues, and have a surfeit of pride to boot.” She patted her rounded belly. “The gods only know what this great-grandchild of yours will be like.”
He half wheezed, half cackled at her remark. “Guud!” he said.
“Good?” she answered him, and he nodded vigorously, a chuckling noise coming from his throat. “You think so, do you? Well, we shall see after Lugh’s feast if you are right,” Cailin replied with a small smile.
Before Cailin and Wulf departed the next morning, Ceara came to her and said, “You have made Berikos very happy, my child. Your mother would be proud of you and of what you have done. I think it has helped him to make peace with himself, and with Kyna.”
Cailin nodded. “Why not?” she said. “Last night the doors between the worlds were open. Perhaps not as widely as at Samain, but open nonetheless. I felt my mother would want me to be generous toward Berikos. It is strange, is it not, Ceara? Just a few weeks ago Berikos was strong and vital, the lord of his world. Now he is naught but a weak and sad old man. How quickly the gods render their judgment when they decide that the time has come for it.”