“When the right man comes along, Mother, I shall know it,” Cailin replied confidently.
“Why is it,” Flavius asked, “that Antonia and Quintus chose you to be one of their witnesses, little sister?”
Cailin smiled with false sweetness. “Why, Flavius, did you not know? I introduced our cousin Quintus to my dear friend Antonia. I suppose they believe that having played Cupid, I am responsible, in part, for the great happiness they have found in each other.”
“Cailin!” her mother exclaimed. “You introduced Quintus and Antonia to each other? You never told me this before. I wondered how they met that day.”
“Did I not mention it, Mother? I suppose it slipped my mind because I thought it of no import,” Cailin answered. “Yes, I did introduce them. It was at the Liberalia, when my brothers became men.”
“You plot like a Druid!” her mother said.
“Grandmother said the same thing,” Cailin admitted mischievously.
“I certainly did,” Brenna agreed. “Of your three whelps, she is most like a Dobunni Celt. Berikos would approve of her.”
“Mother,” Cailin asked, “why did Berikos disapprove of your marriage to Father?” She never thought of her mother’s paternal parent as Grandfather. He was rarely mentioned in her household, and she had never even once laid eyes on him. He was as big a mystery to Cailin as she would have been to him.
“My father is a proud man,” Kyna said. “Perhaps over-proud. The Dobunni were once members of the powerful Catuvellauni Celts. A son of their great ruler Commius, one Tincommius by name, brought a group of followers to this region many years ago. They became the Dobunni. Your grandfather descends from Tincommius. He is proud of his line, and prouder yet of the fact that none of his family until me ever married into the Roman race. He has always hated the Romans, although for no real reason that he ever shared with any of us.
“When I saw your father, and fell in love with him, Berikos was quite displeased with me. He had already chosen a husband for me, a man named Carvilius. But I would not have Carvilius. I would only have your father, and so Berikos disowned me. I had shamed him. I had shamed the Dobunni.”
“He is a fool, and ever was,” Brenna muttered. “When word was brought to him of the twins’ births, a smile split his face for the briefest moment, and then he grew somber, saying, ‘I have no daughter.’ His other wives, Ceara, Bryna, and that little fool Maeve, were all preening and bragging over their grandchildren, but with my one child exiled, I was forbidden to say a word. Indeed, what could I have said? I hadn’t ever even seen the boys.”
“But,” Cailin questioned Brenna, “if Berikos had three other wives, and other children, why was he so angry at Mother for having followed her heart? Didn’t he want her to be happy?”
“Berikos has sired ten sons on his other wives, but my child was his only daughter. Kyna was her father’s favorite, which is why he let her go, and why he could never forgive her for turning her back on her heritage,” Brenna sadly explained.
“When you were born, however, I told Berikos that if he could not forgive your mother for marrying a Romano-Briton, I must leave the tribe to be with my daughter. He had other grandchildren, but I had only your mother’s children. It was not fair that he rob me of a place by my daughter’s fire, or the right to dandle my grandchildren upon my knee. That was fourteen years ago. I have never regretted my decision. I am far happier with my daughter and her family than I ever was with Berikos, and his killing pride.”
Kyna took her mother’s hand in hers and squeezed it hard as the two women smiled at each other. Then Brenna reached out with her other hand and patted Cailin’s cheek lovingly.
Quintus’s marriage had been celebrated on the Kalends of June. To everyone’s surprise, including his own, he was a most proficient manager of his estates, including his wife’s vast portion. The river villa he deemed in too poor repair, and had it demolished. The fields belonging to the estate now bloomed with ripening grain. The orchards thrived. Quintus, comfortable in his wife’s lavish villa, put on weight. His devotion to Antonia was astounding. Though it was his right to take any slave who caught his fancy to his bed, he did not do so. His stepsons feared and respected him, as should the children of any respectable man. His slaves found nothing to gossip about their master. And as for Antonia, by early autumn she was pregnant.
“It is astounding,” Gaius said to his wife. “Poor Honoria Porcius in all her years of marriage could get but one child; but her daughter ripens like a melon each time a husband comes through the door. Well, I must admit that Cailin’s matchmaking was a good thing. My cousin Manius should be most grateful to me for his son’s luck.”
Quintus Drusus, however, was not quite the man he seemed. His good fortune had but given him an appetite for more. The civil government was crumbling with the towns themselves. He could see that soon there would be no central government left. When that happened, it would be the rich and the powerful who controlled Britain. Quintus Drusus had decided that he would be the richest and most powerful man in Corinium and the surrounding countryside when that time came. He looked covetously at the estates of his cousin, Gaius Drusus Corinium.
Antonia had been recently chattering to him about possible matches to be made for his cousins, Titus and Flavius. They were already disporting themselves among the slave girls in their father’s house. The rumor was that one of them—and no one was certain which, for they were identical in features—had gotten a young slave girl with child. Their marriages could quickly mean children; another generation of heirs to the estate of Gaius Drusus Corinium.
And then there was Cailin. Her parents would soon be seeking a husband for her. She would also celebrate a birthday in the spring. At fifteen she was certainly more than old enough to marry. A powerful husband allied with his cousin Gaius—the thought did not please Quintus Drusus. He wanted the lands belonging to his benefactor, and the quicker he got them, the fewer complications he would have to deal with. The only question remaining in his mind was how to attain his goal without being caught.
Gaius and his family would have to be disposed of, but how was he to do it? He must not be suspected himself. No. He would be the greatest mourner at the funerals of Gaius Drusus Corinium and his family—and the only one left to inherit his cousin’s estates. Quintus smiled to himself. In the end he would have far more wealth than any of his brothers in Rome. He thought of how he had resisted the idea of coming to Britain, yet had he not come, he would have lost the greatest opportunity of his life.
“You look so happy, my love,” Antonia said, smiling at him as they lay abed.
“How could I not be happy, my dear,” Quintus Drusus answered his wife. “I have you, and so much else.” He reached out and touched her swelling belly. “He is the first of a great house, Antonia.”
“Oh, yes!” she agreed, catching his hand and kissing it.
Antonia’s sons, he thought, as he tenderly caressed his adoring wife. They were young, and so fragile. The merest whisper of disease could take them. It really seemed a shame that the sons of Sextus Scipio should one day have anything of his. But of course, Antonia would not allow them to be disinherited. Though she was not the best of mothers, she did dote on her children. Still, anything might happen, Quintus Drusus considered. Anything.