Authors: Bertrice Small
“No, they will not. They, too, are used to peace now,” the Saxon said. “They want nothing more than to pursue their daily lives. You are living in another century, Berikos. Times have changed; are changing even as we sit talking this night. Now we Saxons are coming into Britain. In another fifty years our descendants will be native-born as well. One day
there will come another people after us, and they will also overwhelm and intermingle with Britain’s inhabitants until they, too, become native-born. This is the way of the world: one tribe overcoming another, mingling with its blood, to become a different people. You must accept it, for you cannot change it, Berikos, any more than you can change the phases of the moon, or the seasons. I will train your Celts in the military arts so that you may become the strongest warlord in this area, if you will, in exchange, give me my own lands to farm. Perhaps I will even find a wife or two among your women. It is a fair offer, Berikos.”
Berikos said nothing at first in reply to the young Saxon. He sat silently pondering, not really willing to give up his dream. Until now no one but Ceara had dared to tell him that his proposed plans for the region were impossible. Once he would not have needed to send for a Saxon warrior to teach his men to fight, for the Celts had been famed for their battle prowess. But in his time he had seen the men of his tribe grown soft with good living. They were content to farm the land and keep their cattle and sheep. This was what Rome had done to them. It had taken the heart from them.
In Eire, he heard, the Celts were still real men. They lived to do battle with an enemy. Perhaps he should have sent to the Irish for a battle-hardened warrior to reeducate the Dobunni in the ways of war. He reached for his goblet again and swallowed down the honeyed mead Brigit had poured for him. It was potent, burning as it reached his belly. He was feeling tired, and confused by the younger man’s words. His Catuvellauni in-laws were nearer to the Saxon shore of southeast Britain. He had arranged for them to find him a respected military man from among the Saxons, and Wulf Ironfist had come highly recommended. Still, Berikos could not be content with what the Saxon had told him.
Brigit leaned over and whispered softly in her husband’s ear, “We can win the Saxon over to our side if we are patient, my lord,” she murmured. “Let us offer him Celtic hospitality as of old. We will send a beautiful woman to his sleeping space to warm his bed, to give him a night’s sport. Not a
real
Dobunni woman, but your granddaughter, Cailin Drusus. We must not allow one of
our
women to mingle her juices with the Saxon’s. Cailin is not really one of
us
, is she, Berikos?”
He shook his head, and murmured low to her, “But what sport can the little mongrel bitch give him, Brigit? She is an untutored virgin.”
“All the better reason to give her to the Saxon. First-night rights are considered a special privilege among all tribes. You honor the Saxon by giving him those rights with one he will consider to be of your own blood.”
Berikos looked craftily at the young girl next to him. She certainly was beautiful, he thought grudgingly. Her coloring was unique and had a certain provocativeness to it. It was past time she lost her virginity. They would have to find her a husband soon, and she would need to know how to please a man. No man wanted a bride who was frightened, or clumsy in bed. He turned back to Wulf Ironfist. “We have spoken enough on this matter tonight, my young friend. I do not know if I agree with you, but you have given me pause for thought. I am not so old that I cannot change if I must. Let us speak on this again on the morrow. It is our custom to honor a guest by giving him one of our women to warm his bed. I will give you my granddaughter, Cailin. She will share her sleeping space with you this night,
will you not, girl?”
If he had struck her, Cailin could not have been more surprised. Then she saw Brigit smiling broadly at her, and Cailin knew instantly who had put the old man up to this mischief. Her instinct was to refuse and flee the hall. What Berikos was asking of her was unthinkable. But then as reason quickly overcame her overwrought emotions, Cailin realized that to refuse would not only enrage Berikos, but embarrass him, and the Dobunni as well. She had never felt more alone in her entire life. The smirking Brigit had certainly enacted a fine revenge. She knew that the Romano-Britons kept their daughters virgins until marriage, unlike the Celts. Yet whatever husband they found for her would be a Celt. He would not consider her lost virginity a deficit. She had no other choice.
“Well, girl?”
the old man snarled threateningly.
“As you will, Berikos,” she answered him, looking directly into the old man’s eyes until he turned away. She had never been more frightened in all her life, but she would not give Brigit the satisfaction of knowing it.
“Good, good,” he muttered, then turned to his wife. “It is time for us to retire, Brigit. Bid our guest good night. I will join you shortly at your house.”
Brigit arose from the table all smiles. “Good night, Wulf Ironfist. May your pleasures be great, and many,” she tittered. “I will await your coming with eagerness, my lord,” she told Berikos, and then with another bright smile, Brigit hurried from the hall.
“Go to your bed space now, Cailin,” her grandfather ordered her. “Wulf Ironfist and I will have a final cup of mead together while you await his coming.”
Cailin stood up and moved slowly from the high board. She said no word of farewell to Berikos, and certainly none was necessary for the handsome Saxon who sat with him. Berikos would surely direct the young man to her sleeping space when the time came. She frankly wasn’t certain what kind of protocol was involved in such an arrangement. It was better she remain silent.
Reaching her sleeping space, Cailin opened her little storage chest, removed her gown, and stored it neatly away with her little jeweled fillet. Should she remove her camisa? She honestly did not know. She had never in her whole life seen her parents abed together. She knew absolutely nothing of what would transpire between herself and Wulf Ironfist. No mother in her culture would discuss such serious matters with her daughter until she was ready to marry. As Cailin had never settled upon a husband, there had been no talk about the intimacies shared by a man and a woman. Her twin brothers had been as protective of her as were their parents.
It would be best, Cailin finally decided, to err on the side of caution, lest she be considered wanton. She slowly slipped off the soft felt slippers she wore in the house, and putting them in the chest, too, she closed it. Then she climbed into
the sleeping space, which was set into the stone walls of the building.
The mattress was newly made, filled with a mixture of sweet hay, lavender, heather, and rose petals. The inner covering of the mattress was a close-woven linen, but the outer cover was a finer, soft linen fabric of a natural hue. There was a beautiful coverlet of red fox, which kept her warm in the coldest, dampest weather. In a small niche above her head a little stone oil lamp burned, illuminating the sleeping space. Cailin considered dimming it, but decided to leave it burning for the present. It cast a comforting golden light over everything, and she needed all the courage she could muster to face whatever lay ahead.
Wulf Ironfist was shown to the sleeping space by a servant. Sitting upon the small chest, he pulled his boots off and set them neatly aside. Then he stood and removed his tunic and braccos. The servant girl, who had hidden in the shadows that she might see him nude, almost swooned at the sight. Never in all her life had she seen such a man! He had broad, broad shoulders and a wide back. When he turned to stretch, the serving wench was treated to the sight of well-muscled arms and a smooth bronzed chest. His legs were like tree trunks, massive and well-shaped, covered with a golden down. Her wide eyes slid down the tantalizing torso following his treasure trail, and her mouth formed a small O of worshipful admiration. Silently the girl backed away, envying the fortunate young mistress who would certainly be well-pleasured by the Saxon’s passion this night.
Wulf Ironfist undid the thong holding his hair back, and the blond mass fell forward, touching his shoulders. The glow of the light in the bed space was welcoming. Reaching out, he pulled the fur coverlet aside and climbed in. For a brief moment he thought he was alone, for Cailin was pressed against the far wall of the enclosure, her back to him, and at first he did not see her. Although he had earlier thought her demeanor a pleasingly modest one, he had expected a warmer welcome to her bed. Was she teasing him? Or was she merely shy? Rolling onto his side to face her, he reached
out and pushed the delightful tangle of her curls aside to bare her neck. Then, leaning forward, he kissed the slender column warmly.
“Your skin is like silk,” he told her admiringly, and he stroked the back of her neck gently.
Cailin, who had shivered just slightly at the touch of his lips on her flesh, now shuddered hard at his touch.
Wulf Ironfist was not an insensitive man. He could see that the girl was holding herself stiffly. Then he realized that she was also still wearing her camisa. An uncomfortable thought crept into his head, but he pushed it away for the moment. He needed to know more. “You have not removed your camisa,” he said quietly. “Let me help you now.”
“I did not know if I should,” came the muffled reply, and she seemed to move even farther away from him, although he knew it impossible given the dimensions of the bed space.
“I have been told that Celtic girls celebrate the Mother goddess,” he replied, reaching down to slide the camisa up and off her cringing figure. Rolling over, he tossed the garment upon the chest and turned back to the girl. The line of her back was beautiful, and her skin was exquisitely fair. He touched her shoulder with gentle fingers, and she started violently. “Do you not wish to share your sleeping space with me, Cailin Drusus?” he asked quietly. “I have been told this is a common custom among your people. What is the matter?”
“For an unmarried maiden to share a sleeping space with a man is not how I was raised, Wulf Ironfist, but I am bound to obey the wishes of my grandfather. Just a few months ago I foolishly told Berikos that when my grandmother stepped through the door from this life to the next, I would leave the Dobunni; that I could take care of myself. But the truth of the matter is that I cannot fend for myself no matter how much I would wish to do so. Therefore I must obey when Berikos commands. He is not particularly fond of me as it is.” Her young voice trembled slightly at the last.
“You are not a Dobunni?” What mischief was this? Wulf wondered.
“My mother, the child of his third wife, was Berikos’s only daughter,” Cailin said. “Her name was Kyna. My grandfather loved her dearly, I am told, but he disowned her when she married my father, whose family descends from a Roman tribune. I liked what you said to my grandfather this evening about us all being Britons. Unfortunately, Berikos doesn’t see it that way.”
Cailin went on to tell Wulf Ironfist how she had come to Berikos’s village, and of her grandmother’s death just a few weeks prior. “I am not unhappy here among my mother’s people. They are kind and good to me. But my grandfather will not forgive me the slight amount of Roman blood that flows in my veins,” she finished.
“The lady Brigit does not like you,” Wulf noted astutely.
“No, she does not. It was she who suggested this arrangement, but then it is customary for the Dobunni to offer an important visitor a bedmate for the night. Bright thinks to kill two birds with one stone. She can revenge herself on me, and she hopes to influence you to aid my grandfather, which will gain her greater favor with him.”
“What do you think of his plans for Britain?” Wulf Ironfist asked Cailin. He had liked this beautiful, and obviously intelligent girl from the first moment he had seen her this afternoon with her bowl of brightly polished apples. He did not want to hurt her.
“I think you are right, sir, and that Berikos deludes himself,” Cailin said honestly. “Will you help him?”
“Turn around, Cailin Drusus, and look at me. It is difficult speaking to your back,” he replied, and there was just a hint of laughter in his deep voice as he cajoled her gently.
“I cannot,” Cailin admitted. “You are naked, are you not? I have never seen a man naked … completely naked,” she amended, remembering the wrestlers who had entertained at her brothers’ Liberalia feast.
“I will keep my half of the furs wrapped tightly about my body,” he promised her. “Only my arms, shoulders, and head will be visible to you. And you must be as tightly wrapped for your own comfort. I would not embarrass you, Cailin Drusus,
but I would like to see your lovely face when we speak. It is very dim in this sleeping space. I feel as if I am speaking to some disembodied creature,” he teased.
She thought a long moment, and then said, “Very well, but do not look too closely at me. I cannot help being shy, sir. This is all quite new to me, though not quite as frightening as I earlier thought.” Cailin rolled over carefully, clutching the furs to her chest. He smiled encouragingly down at her, and she blushed to the roots of her auburn hair. “Will you help Berikos?” she repeated, struggling not to burst into tears, for her fear had suddenly returned at the sight of him, and her heart was pounding.
For a quick moment he caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were like wet violets. Then her lashes swiftly lowered, brushing her pale cheeks like dark, dancing butterflies. “Berikos, it would seem, is not willing to meet my price,” Wulf Ironfist answered her.
“Land,” Cailin said, and suddenly she had a marvelous idea. “I will meet your price, sir,” she told him, “and in exchange I will ask but two things of you. You will find, I believe, that mine is the better bargain.”
“You will give me land for training and leading the Dobunni?” he said, quite confused by her offer.
Cailin laughed. “No. You are correct about the Dobunni’s chances of restoring the Celtic tribes to their former prominent position; there is no chance. But I would be revenged upon the man who engineered the murders of my family, and would have killed me but for happenstance. The lands of the Drusus Corinium family are mine by right as the sole, surviving member of that family. Alone I can do nothing to claim my rights. My cousin, Quintus Drusus, would find some way to kill me to hold on to what he has stolen. But you could kill Quintus Drusus for me, Wulf Ironfist. And if you wed with me beforehand, then my lands would become yours, would they not? It is a far better opportunity than my grandfather can give you,” Cailin concluded, surprised at her own daring in even suggesting such a thing. Perhaps she was learning how to survive without the Dobunni after all.