To Love Again

'Do you really think so?' Cailin said. 'Oh, dear!'

Brenna joined her granddaughter as the other girls drifted away. 'You scheme like a Druid, Cailin Drusus,' she murmured.

'The sooner he is married off,' Cailin said, 'the safer I will be. Thanks be to the gods that he did not like me on sight. There is something about him, Grandmother. I cannot put my finger on it, but I feel Quintus Drusus is a danger to me, to us all. I hope he weds Antonia Porcius for her wealth, and her connections. I will not be content until he is gone from our home.' She looked into Brenna's kindly face. 'You do not think me foolish to feel so strongly?'

'No,' Brenna said. 'I have always said you were more Celt than your brothers. The voice within calls to you, warns you about Quintus Drusus. Listen to it, my child. That voice will never play you false. It is when we do not listen to that voice that we make errors in judgment. Always trust your instincts, Cailin,' her grandmother counseled.

Chapter 2

With so many lovely girls in the province to choose from, why on earth did Quintus marry Antonia Porcius?' Kyna wondered aloud to her husband and family.

Their cousin's very lavish wedding had been celebrated the morning prior in Corinium. They were now traveling back to their own villa, which was some eighteen miles from the town; a good day's travel. Gaius and his sons were astride their horses. The three women rode in an open cart. They journeyed with a large party of families from nearby villas. The neighbors had banded together to employ a strong troop of men-at-arms for their protection along the road.

'Antonia is a very attractive woman,' Gaius answered his wife.

'That is not what I mean,' Kyna said sharply, 'and you well know it, Gaius! Quintus might have chosen a virgin of good family. Instead he decided upon a divorced woman with two children, and a father who cannot let his daughter be. Anthony Porcius will not be an easy father-in-law, as poor Sextus Scipio found to his dismay.'

'Come now, my dear,' Gaius Drusus told her, 'you know as well as I do that Quintus fixed his sights on Antonia for several reasons. She is rich. Her lands match the lands I gave him. There is little mystery to it, Kyna. Quintus was promised land and a wife if he came to Britain. Of course, I had intended that wife to be Cailin; but since Cailin would not have him-and indeed, if I must be honest, she and Quintus would have been a bad match- Quintus chose wisely in Antonia. He is strong enough to control her. It will be a good marriage.'

'I thought they made a most handsome couple,' Cailin ventured.

Her mother laughed. 'You would have thought Quintus and Hecate made a good couple if it would save you from marrying him, my daughter. Now what will you do for a mate?'

'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 overproud. 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