To Love Again

He kissed her cheek. 'Aye, sweeting, I am your father, and I will never allow you to be harmed by anyone again.' He turned to Cailin and their two companions. 'Let us go home now.'

'You will not stay the night? I have some fine mead,' Ragnar Strongspear said jovially. 'And there is a boar roasting on the hearth.'

'Thank you, but no,' Wulf Ironfist replied. 'The last time I left my hall, some damned savage came through and burned it. I will not take any further chances, Ragnar Strongspear.'

'There is the matter of our.slaves,' Cailin prompted her husband.

'I do not know about that,' the burly Saxon answered.

'I can separate the Drusus Corinium servants from Antonia's,' the elderly Porcius said.

'Then do so, old man,' his son-in-law said, 'and see that they are sent back with as much haste as possible. I want no quarrel between Wulf Ironfist and myself. We are to be neighbors, after all.'

When Wulf and Cailin and their party had departed, Antonia Porcius said angrily to her husband, 'You were a fool not to kill him, and Cailin Drusus besides, Ragnar. Wulf is no coward, and he will not let you steal back his lands. You will be fortunate if he does not take ours!'

He slapped her hard, sending her reeling. 'Do not ever lie to me again, Antonia,' he told her. 'I will kill you next time. As for Wulf Ironfist, I will have his lands eventually, and I will have his wife as well. She sets my blood afire with her beauty.'

Antonia clutched at her aching jaw. 'I hate you,' she said fiercely. 'One day I will kill you, Ragnar!'

He laughed aloud. 'You have not the courage, Antonia,' he said, 'and if you did, what would you do then? Who would protect you, and these lands I took from you? The next man might not care if you lived or you died. You are no beauty, my dear. Your bitterness shows in your face, rendering you less than attractive these days.'

'You will regret your cruel words,' she warned him.

'Be careful,' he responded, 'that I do not throw you, your sniveling whelp, and your old father out into the cold, lady. I do not need you, Antonia. I keep you because you amuse me in bed, but eventually even that charm of yours is apt to fade if you remain shrewish.'

She glared at him and walked from the hall. Making her way through the courtyard, she moved to the gates and stopped. She could see Wulf Ironfist and his party in the distance, and she cursed them softly beneath her breath. They would pay. They would all pay.

'We are being watched,' Cailin said as they rode.

Wulf turned a moment, and then turning back, said, 'It is Antonia.'

'She hates us so terribly,' Cailin said. 'To have done what she did, and stolen our child.' She kissed the top of Aurora's head. The child was settled before her on the black mare.

'Antonia's venom is not what I fear,' he said. 'I do not believe Ragnar Strongspear will be content until he has wrested our lands back for his own. He is a fierce man, but I will contain his ambitions.'

'He will wait for us to plant the fields and harvest the grain before he attacks us,' Winefrith said. 'But that will give us the summer months to strengthen our defenses.'

'Why would he wait that long?' Cailin asked curiously.

'Because if he attacks after the harvest, he can destroy the grain and hay, thus starving us and our animals over the next winter.'

'Is he that strong?' she wondered.

'We do not know yet, lambkin,' Wulf said, 'but we will. Then, too, there is the chance Ragnar will align himself with another warlord.'

'I do not think so,' Winefrith interjected. 'I think it will be a matter of pride with him that he overcome you himself.'

'Perhaps.' Wulf smiled wickedly. 'We have an advantage our friend Ragnar knows nothing about. We have our villages over the hill. We must decide how we are going to defend it all over the next few days, and then we will implement our plans so that when Ragnar Strongspear comes calling, we will be able to foil him.'

'You will have to kill him, and Antonia, too,' Cailin said bluntly.

'You know this for certain? The voice within speaks to you?'

She nodded. 'It does, my lord.'

'Then so be it,' he said quietly, 'but we will wait for Ragnar to make the first move. The defense we make is better if it is of our own choosing and not one we are forced into making. Agreed?'

'Aye, my lord!' his captains answered enthusiastically.

Chapter 16

The villages had never before possessed names. In past times they had simply been known by the name of whoever was in charge, which more often than not led to confusion. Now Wulf decided that each village needed a firm identity, one that would not change with every change in leadership. The Britons were no longer a nomadic people.

Berikos's old hill fort was resettled and called Brand-dun, for since it sat high, it would be the logical place for beacons to be lit. Brand-dun meant Beacon Hill. Eppilus's village became Braleah, which meant Hillslope Meadow, and indeed it had a fine one, as they had discovered the morning of their return. The other two villages were called Denetun, because it now belonged to the estate in the valley; and Orrford, which was set by a stream, whose shallow waters made it a perfect cattle crossing for drovers. The hall itself was named Cadda-wic, which meant Warrior's Estate.

An agreement was forged between Wulf Ironfist and the men in the villages. In return for recognizing him as their overlord, he would lead them, and protect them from all comers. All the lands that had been claimed in the past by the Dobunni Celts were now ceded to Wulf Ironfist and his descendants. The villagers would be given the rights to the common fields, to their kitchen gardens, and to graze their animals in the common pasture.

Their homes were theirs, but the land beneath it was not. They had the right to personally own cattle, horses, pigs, barnyard fowl, cats, and dogs. They would toil three days each week for their overlord at a variety of tasks. They would tend his fields and his livestock. Those with special skills, such as the cooper, the thatch-ers, and the ironworkers, would also contribute their efforts. They would all spend some time in military training for the defense of the lands.

And if war came, Wulf Ironfist would lead them. He would be father, judge, warrior, and friend to them all. It was a different sort of order than they had ever known, but it seemed to Eppilus and the others to be the best way to live now in their changing world. They needed to be united, and they needed a strong leader whom other ambitious men would respect and fear.

The women, Cailin among them, planted the fields. They tended the growing grain and the animals while the men went about the task of building defenses for the hall as well as for the villages. The hall they had left to last, knowing that Ragnar Strongspear had set a man to spy upon them from the hill above. Antonia's husband was lulled into a false sense of security, as the hall remained undefended by any barriers. Ragnar Strongspear did not know that each of the nearby villages was being prepared to defend itself should he discover them, as he and others eventually would. In midsummer he finally withdrew his spy, deciding the man's time would be better spent elsewhere than lying lazily on the hill. Wulf Ironfist's hall would be his when he chose to take it, Ragnar boasted to his wives.

Antonia, her body bruised by a recent beating her husband had administered, shook her head wearily. She was fairly certain she was with child. That at least should stem Ragnar's irritation with her for the present, and give her time to think. Her Saxon husband was going to lose everything for them if she did not intervene in the matter. Ragnar was not really a clever man. He was more like a marauding bull. And then, too, there was her darling son, Quintus, to consider. These lands Ragnar claimed to have conquered were really Quintus's lands. She could not