Authors: Bertrice Small
“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 come here. She would not even allow me to inform the authorities, or wait for the slaves to return from their holiday.”
“
Berikos!
Brenna’s voice rasped harshly.
“I must speak with Berikos!”
She struggled to rise from the bench where she lay.
“You must lie quietly, Brenna,” Ceara told her. “I will send for Berikos, but if you persist in this behavior, you will not live to tell him whatever it is you must tell him. Rest now.”
“Ceara! What is this I hear? Brenna has returned?” Another woman, not quite as tall as Ceara, but taller than Cailin, joined them. She had the prettiest, sweetest face that Cailin could ever remember having seen. There was something familiar about it, and yet Cailin could not place it. That face was now puckered with distress as she bent over the half-conscious woman. Her blue eyes filled with tears.
“Brenna!
It really is you! Ohh, I never thought to see you again!”
“Maeve,”
Brenna said softly, but Cailin heard the affection in her grandmother’s tone. “You are still a fool, I see.”
Maeve bent down and kissed the injured woman’s brow. “And you are still stubborn and filled with pride, my sister.”
“Sister?”
Cailin looked at Ceara.
“Maeve is your grandmother’s younger sister. Did you not know that, child? No, I see you did not.”
“Why does Grandmother call her a fool?” Cailin wondered, realizing that Maeve’s familiar face was a slightly younger version of Brenna’s.
“Your grandmother and Berikos were not a good match,” Ceara said honestly. “They married in haste born of their overwhelming lust for each other. By the time they realized it, your grandmother was with child. Several years later your grandfather found himself truly in love with Maeve, and she with him. Brenna was appalled. She feared history would repeat itself, and she adored her sister, who is five years younger. She pleaded with Maeve not to wed Berikos, but Maeve refused to listen. Brenna called her a fool, and has referred to her as such ever since, despite the fact the marriage between Maeve and Berikos was a successful one.” Ceara turned to the other woman. “Go and fetch Berikos, Maeve. He is at
her
house.”
Corio returned with his grandmother’s medicine basket, and Ceara began the task of examining Brenna’s wound. She cut away some of Brenna’s thick white hair, shaking her head at the size of the wound. This was far more serious than anything she had ever seen. Brenna’s hair was severely matted with all the blood she had lost. The skull bone itself was open and had a large chip missing from it. Ceara wasn’t even certain she could close the wound. Nature would have to do the job. As gently as she could, she cleaned the wound with wine, wincing when Brenna groaned. She sprinkled one of her healing powders generously over it, and then bandaged it with clean, dried moss. She had never felt so helpless in her entire life.
The girl had stood by her side, handing her what she needed, and never flinching once. Her presence seemed to soothe Brenna. Frankly, Ceara thought that only rest, time, and the will of the gods could make a difference now.
Corio had gone from the hall for a time and now returned, a small bowl in his hand. He gave it to his grandmother. “I
thought that perhaps you would want this for Brenna,” he said.
She smiled up at him approvingly. “Aye, ’tis just the thing. Here, Brenna, drink this. It will give you strength. Help her to sit up a bit, Cailin,” Ceara ordered.
Cailin sat on the bench behind her grandmother and gently propped the older woman up. “What is she drinking?” she asked, noting that Brenna sipped the reddish liquid almost eagerly.
“It is cattle’s blood,” Ceara answered. “It is nourishing, and will help Brenna to rebuild her own blood.” Ceara held back a smile at Cailin’s look of distaste. At least the girl hadn’t fainted.
“Ceara!”
A deep voice thundered. “What is going on? Is what Maeve tells me true?”
Cailin looked up. A tall man with snow-white hair and matching twin mustaches had entered the hall. He was garbed in a dark green wool tunic embroidered with gold threads at the neck and sleeves. Around his neck was the most magnificent gold torque, worked with green enamel, that Cailin had ever seen. He strode directly up to the bench where Brenna lay and looked down.
“Hail, Berikos,” Brenna said mockingly.
“So, you are back,” Berikos said grimly. “To what do we owe this
honor
, Brenna? I thought never to see you again.”
“Nor I you. You have grown old, Berikos,” Brenna said. “I should not be here at all were it not for Cailin. I would have died in the forest safe in Nodens’ care rather than come to you, were it not for our grandchild. I am here for her, Berikos, not for myself.”
“We have no grandchild in common,” he answered.
“Berikos!”
Ceara’s voice was sharp. “Do not persist in your stubborn folly over this matter. Kyna is dead.”
A sharp look of sorrow swept over the old man’s face and then was gone. “How?” he demanded, his voice impersonal, the pain forced back to where none could see it.
“Last night,” Brenna began, “I went with Cailin to the Beltane fire, but I grew tired and returned home early. In the
atrium of the villa I stumbled over the dead body of our son-in-law, Gaius Drusus. I ran to Kyna’s bedchamber. She was dead upon her bed, ravaged and beaten to death. I never even felt the blow that felled me. When I regained my senses, I saw the bodies of Gaius and our two grandsons, Titus and Flavius, near me. The murderers were waiting for Cailin.”
“Quintus Drusus!”
Cailin cried, her face as white as milk.
“Aye, child, your voice within did not fail you.” Brenna looked to Berikos and continued her horrific tale.
“What of your vaunted Roman magistrate at Corinium?” Berikos asked her scathingly when she had finished. “Is there no longer any Roman justice?”
“The chief magistrate in Corinium is Quintus Drusus’s father-in-law,” Brenna said. “What chance would Cailin have against him?”
“What is it you want of me, then, Brenna?”
“I want your protection, Berikos, though it galls me to ask it. I want your protection for Cailin, and for me. The slaves were still away from the villa when all of this happened. No one knows that we two alone have survived, nor must they ever know. Cailin is your granddaughter, and you cannot refuse me this request. I do not know if I will survive this attack. I am wounded, and my lungs yet ache with the smoke I inhaled. It took all my strength to bring Cailin here to you.”
Berikos was grimly silent.
“You will both have the protection of the tribe,” Ceara said finally. When her husband glared at her, she said, “Brenna is still your wife, Berikos; the mother of your only daughter. Cailin is your granddaughter.
Blood!
You cannot refuse them shelter or protection under our laws, or have you forgotten those laws in your ancient lust for Brigit?”
“I will accept your hospitality only as long as my grandmother lives,” Cailin said angrily. “When she has passed through the door of Death into the next life, I will make my own way in the world. I do not know you, Berikos of the Dobunni,
and I do not need you.”
A small winterly smile touched the corners of the old man’s lips. With cold blue eyes he observed Cailin seriously
for the first time since he had entered the hall. “Brave words, little mongrel bitch,” he said, “but I wonder how well your soft Roman ways have prepared you for survival in this hard world.”
“I am not afraid,” Cailin told him defiantly, “and I am able to learn. I would also remind you that I am a Briton, Berikos. I was born here, as were my parents and my grandparents on both sides for generations before me. I have been raised to respect my elders, but do not try my patience, or you will find you cannot hide behind the wall of your many years.”
Berikos raised his hand to her, but lowered it quickly, surprised by the venom he saw in her gaze. She was not as tall as a Dobunni, but neither was she tiny. She reminded him of Kyna in many ways, but her spirit was certainly that of her grandmother. That spirit was what had attracted him to Brenna in the first place. Unfortunately, he had not been able to live with it, and Brenna would not be tamed. He suspected this girl was very much the same.
Cailin. His granddaughter:
She would be a thorn in his side, he believed, but he had no choice but to grant her his protection and the shelter of his hall.
“You may stay,” he said, and turning abruptly, walked away from them.
Brenna sagged against Cailin. “I am weary,” she said.
“Corio,” Ceara commanded, “take Brenna to the empty sleeping space by the south fire pit. It will be nice and warm there. Go with her, child. When you have settled her, come back. I will feed you. You must be hungry after your journey and the shock of all that has happened.”
The young man gently lifted Brenna and moved her swiftly across the hall. Carefully, he lay her in the sleeping space. Cailin covered her grandmother with a lambskin, tucking it about her shoulders. She sighed deeply, a worried look on her face, but Brenna did not see. She was already asleep.
Cailin started at a touch on her arm. Turning, she looked into Corio’s face for the first time. He was a pleasant-looking man with mild blue eyes.
“Come, and my grandmother will feed us. New bread is always best eaten warm. We are cousins, are we not? My father is Eppilus, Ceara’s youngest son. I am only the first of your relations that you will meet. Your mother had ten brothers, all of whom are alive, and most have children, and in some cases grandchildren, of their own. You will not be lonely here.”
Cailin looked to Brenna. She was pale, but her breathing was steady and even. The girl turned away and followed the young man back to where Ceara was busy preparing the morning meal. The big woman ladled cooked barley cereal into two fresh trenchers of bread, and handed them to the couple.
“There are spoons on the table, if you are dainty,” Corio told her. “Come and sit down.” He wolfed down a bite of his bread and cereal.
They sat, and Ceara plunked two goblets down before them. “Watered wine,” she said, and then, there being no one else in the hall, she joined them. “You remind me of your mother, and yet you do not look quite as she looked at your age. Was she happy with your father?”
“Oh, yes!” Cailin said. “We were a happy family!” Abruptly, the enormity of the tragedy engulfed her. Only yesterday Kyna, her father, and her brothers were alive. There had been no warning at all of their demise—not that it would have been any easier to bear if there had been, but to have survived the murderous slaughter of her family only by chance was more than she could bear. Why should she live when they were all gone?
It was the very first Beltane festival that she had been allowed to stay at unchaperoned. Brenna had given Cailin her head that night, and once on her own, Cailin had begun to see things in a new light. All the young men had wanted to dance with her, and she danced about the leaping fires until almost dawn. She had not been ready to slip away into the darkness with any man yet, but drank her first cupful of honeyed mead and felt wonderful afterward. Cailin thought to return home with her brothers, but they had gone off much earlier, into the
darkness with two maidens. She had not seen them again. Only when the false dawn began to lighten the skies, and the music finally stopped, did she wend her way back to the villa, to discover that death had been there before her.
Now, Cailin grew pale and shoved the trencher away from her. The very thought of food was nauseating.
Ceara divined the trouble immediately. “It is the will of the gods,” she said quietly. “Sometimes they are kind, and sometimes they are cruel, and sometimes in being kind, unkind. You and Brenna are alive this day because your journey in this world is not yet done. Would you dare to question the wisdom of the gods, Cailin Drusus?”
“
Yes!
” Cailin cried. “Why should I live when my family does not? What could my brothers have possibly accomplished in this life that rendered their existence no longer necessary in this world? They were just seventeen!”
“I cannot answer you, child,” Ceara said honestly. “All I can tell you is that everything happens when it is supposed to happen. What is death? It is but the doorway between this life and the next. We need not fear it. When your time comes, Cailin, those you love who have gone before you will be waiting on the Isles of the Blest for you. Until then it is your duty to the gods who created you to live out your destiny as they have planned you to live it out. You can, of course, whine, and despair about the unfairness of it all, but why would you so futilely waste the precious time allotted to you?”
“Am I not allowed to mourn then?” Cailin asked bitterly.
“Mourn the manner in which they met their ends,” Ceara said, “but do not mourn them. They have gone on to a far better place. Now eat your breakfast, Cailin Drusus. You need your strength if you are to care for Brenna.”
“Do not treat me as if I were a mindless child, lady,” Cailin said.
“Then do not behave like a child,” Ceara replied with a small smile, rising from her place at the board. “From the look of you, you are a girl full grown, and we are not idle people. You will be expected to earn your keep, which will
leave you little time for feeling sorry for yourself.” She turned from Cailin and began to serve breakfast to the others who were now entering the hall.
“Do not let my grandmother’s bark fool you,” Corio said with a grin as Cailin glared fiercely at Ceara’s back. “She is noted for her soft heart. She only seeks to prevent you from hurting yourself.”
“She has an odd way of showing it,” Cailin muttered darkly.
“Would you like me to tell you about the family?” Corio asked in an attempt to distract her. When she nodded, he began, “Although our grandfather has sired ten sons, only three live in this village: my father Eppilus, and my uncles Lugotorix and Segovax, they are Bryna’s sons. The others, and their families, are scattered about the other hill-fort villages belonging to the hill Dobunni. Our grandfather has five wives.”