To Love Again

then, heart pounding, she ran to her daughter's bedchamber. Kyna lay naked, sprawled amid a tangle of bloody bedclothes. Brenna crumpled to the floor, not even realizing that she had been hit.

'The old woman was certainly easy,' Cato remarked nonchalantly.

'But the younger one was more fun,' his companion said. 'What a good fight she gave us. The girl will be best of all, however. Let's dice for who takes her maidenhead and who gets the leavings before we kill her.'

Titus and Flavius Drusus Corinium, coming home very drunk with honeyed mead, never saw their assassins. They were easily ambushed, quickly throttled, and then dragged along with their father's body into their parents' bedchamber, where Cailin would not stumble over them.

The two Gauls waited. The minutes slipped into an hour, and then another.

'Where the hell is that girl?' the shorter slave grumbled.

'We dare not wait any longer,' Cato said. He pointed a finger through the window. 'The sky is already lightening with the false dawn. We must fire the house so that it seems like just another Beltane fire, and be gone from here before the servants return. The girl isn't worth our getting caught. Do you think Quintus Drusus will save us if we do? A man who would murder his own stepsons so they could not inherit from him, and who would murder his cousin's family to gain lands, is not a man who would help us in our hour of need. Indeed I suspect he would kill us too if he could. The gold he promised us is in a hiding place beneath the statue of Juno in the alcove. Get it, and let us be gone. I do not trust that Roman scum to give us several days' lead. He'll be after us by tomorrow. We'll fool him, though. We'll not take passage for Gaul, but Ireland. They'll not suspect we've gone in that direction.'

Brenna lay quietly, absorbing his words. She prayed they would not realize she was still alive. When they had gone, she would somehow escape to warn Cailin of the carnage. She stifled a groan, almost biting through her lip with the effort. Her head hurt fearfully. She suspected she had lost a great deal of blood, but if the gods would just grant her the power to remain alive long enough to avenge Kyna and the rest of her family, she would never again ask them for anything.

Brenna smelled the smoke of the burning bed and the gauze window hangings. Heard footsteps moving away from her. Saw the two pairs of boots as the murderers went out the door, leaving it ajar in their haste. She did not move. She needed to be certain that the two men had gone.

Soon the bedchamber began to fill with thick smoke. Gasping, her lungs burning with the acrid smell, Brenna realized that she could no longer lie where she was. Slowly, painfully, her head spinning dizzily, she crawled toward the open door and out into the atrium. There was no furniture to burn here as in the other rooms. Although the atrium was filling quickly with thick, black smoke, she knew her way to the door. Nausea almost overwhelmed her, and using a pillar for balance, she retched, racked by dry spasms, but she pulled herself to her feet. With an iron will Brenna stumbled across the atrium to the main entrance of the house. Pulling on the door handle, she staggered out into the cool, damp night air and collapsed several feet from the villa.

There was no one in sight. The assailants had gone. Brenna gulped in the clean air, noisily cleansing her lungs of the foul-smelling smoke. Above her a full moon beamed down placidly on the scene of the slaughter. She had to find Cailin!

Instead, Cailin found her. She came running down the lane, her long hair flying, but seeing her grandmother on the ground, the girl stopped and knelt down.

'Grandmother! The house is on fire! What has happened? Where are Mother and Father? My brothers?' She grasped the older woman by her arms, pulling her up. Brenna groaned. 'Ohh! You are hurt, Grandmother! Why is there nobody to help? Why are the slaves not back from their celebrations?'

'Come away, my child! We must get away from the villa! We are in mortal danger! Help me! Hurry!' Brenna told her.

'The family?' Cailin repeated, already knowing in her heart the answer her grandmother would give.

'Dead. All of them. Come now, and help me. We are not safe here, Cailin. You must believe me, my precious one,' Brenna said, sobbing.

'Why can't we wait for the slaves to return? We must inform the authorities,' Cailin said desperately.

Brenna looked into her granddaughter's face. 'I have no time to explain this to you now. You must trust me if you wish to live a long life. Come now, and help me. I am weak from loss of blood, and we have a ways to go before we are safe.'

Cailin felt frightened. 'Where are we going, Grandmother?'

'There is only one place we can go, my child. To the Dobunni. To your grandfather, Berikos. Only he can keep us safe from this evil.' Grasping her granddaughter's arm, Brenna began to walk. ' 'Tis but a few miles, although you did not know that, did you? Your whole life you have lived but a few miles from Berikos, and you did not know it.' Then Brenna fell silent, realizing that she needed her strength if she was to get them to their destination alive. Berikos must know what had happened. Then, if the gods willed it, she would die. But Berikos must know.

'I do not know the way,' Cailin whimpered. 'Can you show me the way, Grandmother?'

The old woman nodded, but said nothing more.

They left the beaten path, and Brenna led her granddaughter up one hill and then down another. They made their way through a small, dense wood with only the light of the bright moon to show them the way. The night was silent, for the creatures belonging to it had long ceased their songs. Here and there a bird would trill nervously, certain that the bright white light signaled the dawn. Occasionally they would rest, but Brenna dared not stop for long. She did not fear pursuit, but rather she feared her own mortality. They crossed a large grassy meadow where deer were grazing in the early light, and then entered a second wood. Above them the sky was visibly lightening. They had been traveling for some time now, and Cailin had the feeling that they were moving up.

'How much farther is it, Grandmother?' Cailin asked after they had been walking for several hours, mostly uphill. She was weary from the unaccustomed exercise. She could only imagine how the older woman must feel. It had been a long time since Brenna had walked such a distance, and certainly never in such a precarious state of health.

'Not far, my child. Your grandfather's village is on the other side of this wood.'

The forest began to thin out, and the sky was bright with color as they exited from the trees. Before them rose a small hill, and atop it was the Dobunni village. Suddenly a young man appeared before them. He had obviously been on watch, and was surprised to see someone out so early. Then his face lit with slow recognition.

'Brenna! Is it really you?'

'It is I,' Corio,' Brenna answered him, and her knees buckled beneath her.

'Help me, sir!' Cailin cried, attempting to keep her grandmother in an upright position, but it was futile.

Corio, after his initial amazement at seeing Brenna, jumped forward and caught the fainting woman up in his arms. 'Follow me,' he told Cailin, and without so much as a backward glance at her, he ran up the hill.

Cailin hurried behind him, her face creased with concern. Her curiosity was strong, however, and she noted that the hill was ringed with three stone walls. Behind the third wall, they entered into the village. Corio made directly for the largest house, and Cailin followed him through its entrance into a big hall. A woman, fully six feet tall and dressed in a deep blue tunic, came forward. She glanced briefly at Cailin, gave a start of recognition, then looked at the burden Corio carried.

'It is Brenna, Grandmother, and she is injured,' Corio said.

'Put her there, boy, on the bench by the fire pit,' the older woman commanded. 'Then go and fetch my medicines.' She looked at Cailin. 'Are you squeamish, or can you help?'

'Tell me what you would have me do,' Cailin answered.

'I am Ceara, Berikos's first wife,' the tall woman said. 'You are Kyna's daughter, are you not? You look like her, yet there is something a bit different about you.'

'Yes, I am Kyna's daughter. My name is Cailin.' The girl's eyes filled with tears. 'Will Grandmother die?' she asked.

'I do not know yet,' Ceara answered honestly. 'What happened?'

Cailin shook her head. 'I do not know. I came home from the Beltane festival. The house was ablaze, and Grandmother had collapsed outside. She says my family is dead, but I know nothing more. She was insistent we