To Love Again (21 page)

The evening meal was a particular trial. Antonia had always loved good food and good wine, which certainly accounted for her plumpness. She pressed dish after dish upon her guest, piling her own plate high with fish in a creamy sauce, game, eggs, cheese, and bread. She fussed at Cailin for not eating enough. “You will offend my cook,” she said.

“I am not particularly hungry,” Cailin replied, nibbling at some fruit and a bit of bread and cheese. Her stomach was in knots.

“Are you all right?” Antonia inquired solicitously.

“Just a bit of a queasy belly,” Cailin admitted reluctantly.

The little fool was in labor! She was in labor, and she did not know it, Antonia thought triumphantly. Of course she wouldn’t know it. She had never borne a child before. But Antonia was certain of it. “Wine is good for an upset in your condition,” she counseled, and she poured Cailin a large gobletful. “This is my favorite Cyprian vintage, and you will feel much better after you have drunk it. Take a bit of bread to cleanse your palate,” she instructed, and while Cailin was thus diverted, Antonia flipped the catch on a large cat’s-eye beryl ring she wore and slipped a pinch of power from the secret compartment into the wine, where it dissolved instantly. She held out the goblet to the girl. “Drink it up now, Cailin, and you will soon feel better.”

Cailin sipped slowly at the wine while she watched the half-full dishes of food being returned to the kitchens. No one, she thought, could eat all that food. Such a waste when so many are going hungry. Then she gasped as a hard pain tore through her.

“You are in labor,” Antonia said calmly. Of course she was in labor. If her earlier pains had been but false labor, the drugged wine had ensured the onset of the child’s birth.

“Send for my husband,” Cailin said, trying to keep the fear from her voice. “I want Wulf here for his child’s birth!” Oh,
the gods! Why had she promised to remain here for even a day?

“Of course you want Wulf here by your side,” Antonia cooed. “I remember when I bore my darling son how very much it meant to me to have my Quintus with me. I will send a slave for Wulf. Do not fear, dear Cailin. I will take good care of you.” She helped Cailin into her bedchamber.

Leaving her maidens with Cailin, Antonia sent for a young male slave she had intended to make her lover. It was unfortunate, she thought, but she would have to kill him for his part in this matter, and she would not even get to enjoy him for a night. “Go to Simon, the slave merchant in Corinium. He sends consignments to Londinium monthly and will be dispatching a caravan shortly. Say I have a female slave I wish to rid myself of and he must send someone tomorrow to fetch her. She is a troublesome creature, and a liar. She must be kept drugged until she reaches Gaul. I want her sent as far from Britain as possible. Do you understand, my handsome Atticus?” Antonia smiled up into the young man’s face while caressing his buttocks suggestively.

“Yes, mistress,” he answered her, returning the smile. He was new in the household, but he had heard she was a lusty woman. She would certainly have no complaints over his performance when she was healed from her childbirth and ready to take a lover.

“Tell Piso to give you the fastest horse in the stable,” Antonia instructed him. “I want you back by dawn. If you are not, I shall whip you.” Her hand moved about to fondle his hardening manhood. “You are well-made,” she noted. “Did I buy you, Atticus? I do not remember.”

“Your father bought me, mistress,” he replied with more aplomb than he was feeling. He was as hard as iron within her hot hand.

“We shall have to find a suitable position for you shortly,” Antonia remarked, thinking that perhaps she would not kill him immediately. After all, he would not understand what she
had done. “Now, go!” She turned away from the slave and hurried back to her patient.

All through the night, Cailin struggled to birth her baby. Her body was wet with perspiration. She strained under Antonia’s direction to bring forth the child.
“Where is Wulf?”
Cailin repeated over and over again to the older woman. “Why does he not come?”

“It is dark,” Antonia told her. “There is no moon. My messenger must go slowly over the fields to reach your hall. It is not as if he could simply gallop easily down the Fosse Way from my home to yours, Cailin. He must pick his way carefully. He will get there, but then he and your husband must come back just as slowly. Here.” She put her arm about Cailin’s shoulders. “Drink some of my Cyprian wine. You will feel better for it. I always do.”

“I don’t want it,” Cailin cried, pushing Antonia’s hand away.

“Do not be such a silly goose,” Antonia told her. “I have put some herbs in it that will ease your pain. I take them myself when I am in the throes of having a child. I see no reason to suffer.”

Cailin reached out, and taking the goblet from Antonia, drank it slowly down. She immediately felt better, but her head was also spinning. Another pain tore through her, and she cried out. Antonia knelt and examined her progress. She began to smile and hum to herself.

“Can you see the baby’s head?” Cailin asked her. “Ohh, I wish Ceara and Maeve were here with me. I need them!”

“They could do nothing for you that I cannot,” Antonia replied sharply, then her tone softened a bit. “I can see the baby’s head. Be brave, Cailin Drusus, just a few more minutes and your child will be born.”

“The gods!” Cailin groaned. “Where is Wulf? Antonia, I am very dizzy. What exactly did you put in that wine?” Another pain came.

Antonia ignored Cailin’s questions.
“Push!”
she commanded the straining girl. “Push hard.
Harder.”

The infant’s head and shoulders appeared between its mother’s legs. Antonia smiled, well-pleased. Cailin did not realize it, but she was having an easy labor. The baby would be born in just another moment.

Cailin was having difficulty keeping her eyes open. Her head was whirling violently and she felt as if she were beginning to fall. Another terrible pain washed over her. She heard, if somewhat distantly, Antonia’s voice demanding she push again. Cailin struggled to obey. She couldn’t allow herself to become unconscious. Making a supreme effort, she pushed with all her might. She was rewarded by the sudden cry of a newborn baby, and her heart accelerated with excitement and joy. Then, as suddenly, the darkness rushed up to claim her. She fought valiantly against it, but it was no use. The last thing she remembered was Antonia saying, “She is so sweet. I have always wanted a little girl,” and then Cailin remembered no more.

When Wulf Ironfist arrived to reclaim his wife two days later, Antonia came slowly into the atrium to greet him. She was crying, the tears sliding down her fair skin. “What is it?” he asked, a sinking feeling overcoming him even as he put forth the question.

Antonia sobbed and threw herself into his startled embrace.
“Cailin!”
she wept piteously. “Cailin is dead, and the child—your son—with her! I could not save them. I tried!
I swear I tried!”

“How?” he said, stunned. “How could this happen, Antonia? She was healthy and well when I saw her last.”

Antonia stepped from the shelter of his arms and, looking up at him with her wide blue eyes, said, “Your son was large. He was not properly positioned. A child is born head first, but this boy came feet first. He tore poor Cailin almost in two. Her suffering was a terrible thing to behold. She bled to death. The child, so long in birthing, did not survive her by more than an hour. I never imagined such a thing could happen. I am sorry, Wulf Ironfist.”

“Where is her body?” he demanded. His voice was hard
and cold.
Cailin!
His beloved lambkin dead? It could not be! It could not be! He would not believe it! “I want to see my wife’s body,” he repeated. The pain in his chest was fierce. Could a heart break in two, he wondered, for he believed that it was happening to him now.

“She was so torn apart,” Antonia explained, “that we could not prepare her properly for burial. I had her cremated, the way our Celtic ancestors used to cremate their dead. I put the baby in her arms so that they would reach the gods together.”

He nodded, numb with grief. “I want her ashes,” he said stonily. “Surely you have her ashes. I will take her home and bury her on her land with the rest of her family. Cailin would want that.”

“Of course,” Antonia agreed softly, and turning about, she picked up a prettily decorated polished bronze urn from the atrium bench. “Cailin’s ashes, and those of your son, are within this vessel, Wulf Ironfist.” She handed it to him with a sympathetic smile. “I understand your grief, having just recently lost both a mate and a child myself,” she said.

He took the urn from her, almost reluctantly, as if he could still not believe what she had told him. Then he turned wordlessly away from her and started for the door.

Antonia silently exulted in his pain. Then a wicked thought came to her, and she acted impulsively upon it.

“Wulf.”
Her voice was suddenly seductive.

He turned back to her, and was shocked to see that she had removed her robe and was stark naked. She was all pink and white, and plump. There was not a mark upon her to spoil the perfection of her smooth skin. He found her appallingly repulsive. For a moment he was rooted to the spot where he stood, staring at her repugnant nudity.

“I am lonely, Wulf Ironfist,” Antonia said softly.
“So lonely.”

“Lady, put your robe back on,” he said.

“You killed my husband, Wulf Ironfist. Now I am lonely. Do you not think you should compensate me for the loss of Quintus Drusus?” Antonia purred to her horrified audience. She slipped her hands beneath her large breasts, with their
deep rose nipples, and lifted them as if she were offering them to him. “Are you not tempted to sample these fine fruits, Wulf Ironfist? Is that weapon beneath your braccos not already hard with your longing for me?”

“Clothe yourself, lady,” he said coldly. “You disgust me.”

She launched herself at him, her naked body pressing against him. He was overpowered by the scent of musk. “You are the handsomest man in the province, Wulf Ironfist,” she said, panting with desire. “I always have the handsomest man in the province for my mate.” Her arms slipped tightly about his neck. “Kiss me, you Saxon brute, and then you must take me.
Here!
Where we stand on the floor of the atrium. Stuff me with your manhood and make me scream with pleasure. I am so hot for you!”

Wulf took her arms from him and thrust her away. He felt near to vomiting. “Lady, your grief has made you mad. First your husband and child, and then my wife and son. I am sorry for you, but I must master my own grief. It is already tearing me apart.
I loved my wife
. I do not know how I will go on without her. What is left for me? Nothing!
Nothing!”
He turned and stumbled from the atrium.

“Go!”
Antonia shrieked after him. “Go, Wulf Ironfist! If you are in pain, I am glad! Now you will know how I felt when you butchered my Quintus! May the sorrow eat your heart out! I will be glad of it!” Bending down, she picked up her robe and slipped it back on. “I wish I could have told you the truth, Wulf Ironfist,” she said softly to herself, “but I could not. Then my father would find out, and I cannot have that.” She laughed. “Still, I have had my revenge upon you, and Cailin Drusus. If no one knows but me, what difference will it make?”

When Anthony Porcius returned from Corinium several weeks later, his daughter was prepared and waiting. They sat together in the mid-autumn air of her garden while Antonia nursed the infant at her breast.

“I was shocked, Father,” she said. “He didn’t want her. He was ready to expose her on the hillside, had I not begged him for the child. All that mattered to him was that Cailin had not
given him the son he wanted. These Saxons are cruel people, Father. Fortunately, little Quintus was ready to be weaned, and my milk is rich, so I decided to take the baby and raise her with my son. It almost makes up for having lost my own baby. Poor Cailin!”

“Where is Wulf Ironfist now?” the magistrate asked.

“He has disappeared.” Antonia replied. “No one knows where he has gone. He made no provision for his slaves. He simply left. The land, of course, now belongs to my little Aurora. I call her that because she was born with the dawn, even as her mother died. I sent my majordomo to drive off those Dobunni who had begun to build a hall at the river villa. They said that Cailin had given them the land for a wedding gift, but I told them it was mine by right of inheritance, and that Cailin was dead in childbirth and not here to enforce their supposed rights. They did not give me much difficulty, and are now gone.”

Anthony Porcius nodded. It was all so much to take in, he thought, but one good thing had come of it. Antonia seemed to be her old self again. Taking in the orphaned daughter of Cailin Drusus had obviously been good for her.

“You will stay here with us, Father, won’t you?” Antonia said. “I do need you so very much. I shall not marry again, but will devote my life to my two children. It is, I feel, what the gods desire of me.”

“Perhaps you are right,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “We will be a happy family, Antonia. I know it in my heart!”

B
YZANTIUM
A.D.
454–456