"Well," Antonia said, "now that is settled, may I offer you wine?" She smiled brightly, as if she had heard nothing of what had transpired.

"Nothing is settled until your husband pays for his crimes," Cailin said coldly. "By the gods, Antonia, do you not realize what Quintus has done? Not just to me, but to you as well!"

"Quintus is a good husband to me, Cailin," Antonia said primly.

"Quintus is a heartless bastard!" Cailin snapped. "Before he murdered my family, he had his Gauls murder the sons you birthed by Sextus Scipio. They were innocent children!"

"My sons drowned in the atrium pond because their licentious nursemaids were negligent," Antonia replied, but her voice quavered with the secret doubts she had always harbored about the incident.

"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.

"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!"