To Love Again (9 page)

“I thought he had only four,” Cailin interrupted.

“Four living, but he had a total of five. Bryna went to the Isles of the Blest some years back. Then Berikos married a woman named Brigit two years ago. She is not a Dobunni. She is a Catuvellauni. Our grandfather makes a fool of himself over her. She is not much older than you are, Cailin, but she is wicked beyond belief. My grandmother is chief of Berikos’s women, but if Brigit decides to oppose Ceara’s decisions, Berikos supports Brigit. It is very wrong of him, but it amuses him to encourage her in fãvor of his other women. Fortunately, Brigit is content to allow my grandmother and Maeve their responsibilities regarding the household. Such is not her forte. She prefers to spend her days in her own house, perfuming and preparing herself for my grandfather’s pleasure. When she ventures out, she is accompanied by two serving girls who almost anticipate her every desire. They say she holds our grandfather by means of enchantment and secret potions.”

Three tall men, one with dark hair, the other two with hair like Cailin’s, came to sit down next to them.

“Mother says you are Kyna’s daughter,” the dark-haired
man said. “Are you our sister’s child, my pretty girl? I am Eppilus, the father of this handsome young scamp, and youngest son of Ceara and Berikos.”

“Yes, I am the daughter of Kyna and Gaius Drusus. My name is Cailin,” she replied quietly.

“I am Lugotorix,” said one of the auburn-haired men, “and this is my twin brother, Segovax. We are the sons of Bryna and Berikos.”

“My brothers, Titus and Flavius, were also twins,” Cailin said, and then to her great mortification, tears began to slide down her face. Desperately she attempted to scrub them away.

The three older men looked away, giving the girl time to compose herself as Corio put a shy arm about his cousin’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. It was almost the undoing of Cailin, but she somehow managed to find humor in her situation. Poor, good Corio was making an attempt to soothe her, while in reality his kindness was close to sending her into a fit of hysterics. She needed to weep and to grieve for her family, but not now.
Not here
. It would have to be later, when she could find a private place where no one else would see her tears. Cailin drew a deep, calming breath.

“I am all right now,” she said, removing Corio’s protective arm.

Her three uncles met her steady gaze with admiration, and Eppilus said, “You still wear your bulla, I see.”

“I am not married,” Cailin told them.

“Inside your bulla there is a small bit of stag’s horn, and a flat droplet of amber within which is a perfectly preserved tiny flower,” Eppilus told her. “Am I not right, Cailin?”

“How did you know what my amulet contains?” she asked, surprised. “I thought that my mother and I were the only ones to know. Not even my grandmother knows what is within my bulla. It is blessed.”

“Aye, but not by any of your phony Roman deities,” he replied. “The stag’s horn is consecrated to Cernunnos, our god of the Hunt. The amber is a bit of Danu, the Earth Mother, touched by Lugh, the Sun; the flower caught within
it signifies fertility, or Macha, who is our goddess of both Life and Death.” He smiled at her. “Your mother’s brothers sent you this protection before you were even born. I believe it has kept you safe so that you might one day come to us.”

“I never knew,” Cailin said softly. “My mother said little about her life before she wed my father. I think the only way she could not hurt missing the ones she loved was to put them from her entirely.”

Eppilus smiled. “How well you knew her, Cailin. Such wisdom in one so young is to be admired. I bid you welcome to your mother’s family. I imagine that my father did not. He has never been able to forgive Kyna for marrying Gaius Drusus, and that prideful attitude has cost him so much. He loved your mother greatly, you know. She was his joy.”

“Why does he hate Romans, or anything touched by their culture? Few real Romans have been in this land for years now. My father’s family has intermarried with Britons for so long that there is little if anything Roman left in us. Only my original ancestor was a pure Roman. His sons married Dobunni girls just as my father did.”

“Our father,” said Lugotorix, “is a man very much enmeshed in the past. Britain’s past. The past glories of the Dobunni. A past that began to fade and change with the arrival centuries ago of the Romans. Our history is not a written one, Cailin Drusus. It is a spoken history, and Berikos can recite that history like a bard. Ceara, who is closest to him in age, remembers Berikos as a young boy. He was always consumed by our people and their past. He knew that he would one day rule us, and he secretly longed to restore the Dobunni to their former glory. When the legions left, Ceara said he wept with joy, but in the years since, little has happened to change Britain.

“Still, he saw the disintegration of the towns built by the Romans, and of the form of government that they left in place here. Vortigern, who calls himself King of the Britons, has never really consolidated the tribes. He is old now, and has no real power over the Dobunni, or any of the other Celts. To Berikos, your mother’s marriage to your father was a great
betrayal. He had planned to match her with a warrior named Carvilius. Our father hoped that Carvilius would help him regain all the Dobunni territory lost to the Romans over the years, but it was not to be. Kyna loved Gaius Drusus, and our father’s dream was shattered.”

“I know nothing at all about my mother’s people. I will need to learn more if I am to understand,” Cailin said slowly. “My grandmother says we cannot go back to my home. She says my cousin, Quintus Drusus, will kill me simply for my father’s lands. I must become a Dobunni, Uncles. Is such a thing possible, I wonder?”

“You are Kyna’s daughter,” Eppilus answered her. “You are already a Dobunni.”

Chapter 3

T
he village in which Cailin now found herself was the main village of the hill Dobunni Celts. It was a hill fort, typical of Celtic villages in Britain. There were fifteen houses within the walls, her grandfather’s being the largest. All the dwellings but Berikos’s were built of wood, with walls of mud and wattle, and had thatched roofs. The chieftain’s house was stone with a thatched roof. There were ten other villages belonging to the hill Dobunni, but each had only eight houses apiece.

While the houses were comfortable, they were a far cry from the villa in which Cailin had been raised. The villa’s floors had been made of marble or mosaic. The floor in her grandfather’s hall was stone, while in the other Dobunni houses they were hard-packed dirt. The walls in the villa had been plaster, painted and decorated. Cailin had to admit to herself that the mud and wattle walls, while certainly not beautiful, kept out the rain and the cold. That was, after all, the true purpose of a wall. In her father’s villa she had her own small bedchamber. In her grandfather’s house she shared a comfortable sleeping space with Brenna. It was built into the wall and, Cailin thought, quite cozy.

“You are not at all spoilt,” Ceara noted as Cailin shelled peas for her one afternoon. “I would have thought that being raised as you were, with slaves around you, you would know little and complain much.”

“I was taught,” Cailin told her, “that in the early days of Rome, women—even of the highest social order—were industrious and knowledgeable in the domestic arts. They personally
oversaw their households. Although my father’s family has lived in Britain for hundreds of years, those values were retained. My mother taught me how to cook, weave, and sew, among other things. I will be a good wife one day, Ceara.”

Ceara smiled. “Yes, I think you will. But who will be your husband, Cailin Drusus? I am surprised you are not already married.”

“There is no one who pleased me, Ceara,” Cailin said. “My father tried once to match me, but I would not have it. I will choose my own husband when the right time comes. For now, I need to be free to nurse my grandmother and earn my keep. There is much I do not know.”

Ceara was silent. At the Lugh festival, after the harvest had been brought in, there would be a great gathering of all the hill Dobunni. Perhaps there would be a young man there who would please Cailin. She was fifteen, close to being past marriageable age. Ceara, however, knew all the young men in the various villages. She could not think of one who might be right.

Cailin would need a husband before the year was out. Brenna would not live much longer than that. Although she had not seemed injured by the fire at the villa, her lungs had probably been seared by the heat and the smoke of the blaze. She had never regained her strength. The least effort was far too strenuous for her. She spent most of her time sitting or sleeping. Walking, even a short distance, taxed her, so that Corio would now carry Brenna from one place to another so she might remain a participant in their family life. If Cailin did not see her grandmother fading away, Ceara and Maeve did.

Daily life in Berikos’s village revolved around cultivation of the fields and care of the livestock. The land belonged to the tribe in common, but ownership of stock separated the social classes. Berikos had a large herd of short-horned cattle that were used for milk, meat, and sometimes were sold. He owned sheep that grew wool of an excellent quality. Each man in his family had at least two horses, but Berikos
had a herd. He possessed hens, geese, and ducks, and he kept pigs. Celtic salt pork was famed throughout the western world, and the Dobunni exported it on a regular basis. Berikos also raised hunting dogs of which he was inordinately proud.

Cailin learned to work in Ceara’s vegetable garden. This was a type of labor her family had left to their slaves, but although she was distressed by the condition of her hands after several days’ labor, Cailin learned from her cousin Nuala, Corio’s little sister, that a cream of rendered sheep fat and Mary’s gold would cure rough hands, or any part of her skin needing attention.

Nuala, who was almost fourteen, took Cailin with her when she watched over the sheep. Cailin enjoyed those hours out upon the green hillsides. Nuala told her all she needed to know about her Dobunni family, and Cailin in turn shared her life before her family’s murders with Nuala. She was the first real friend Cailin had ever had. She was far kinder than the Romano-Briton girls Cailin had grown up with, and a great deal more fun-loving. Taller than Cailin, she had wonderful long dark hair, and bright blue eyes.

Cailin rarely saw her grandfather, and counted it a blessing. He spent his nights with his young wife Brigit, in her house. Brigit, however, did not cook to suit the old man, so he took his meals in his own hall. Cailin avoided Berikos for Brenna’s sake, but he had not forgotten her.

“Is she useless as all Roman women?” he asked Ceara one day.

“Kyna taught her to cook, weave, and sew,” Ceara answered him. “She does them well. That joint you are gnawing on with such satisfaction was cooked by Cailin.”

“Hmmmmm,” the old man replied.

“And she tends my vegetable garden for me, Berikos. My bones are almost as old as yours are. I do not like getting up and down, weeding, hoeing, transplanting. Cailin does it all for me now. She learns quickly. Nuala has been taking her out to help tend the sheep. Cailin nurses Brenna, too. Kyna raised her well. She is a good girl, but we must find a husband for
her. Brenna will not live much longer, and after her death, Cailin will feel that she has no one.”

“She has us,” Berikos said harshly.

“It will not be enough,” Ceara told him.

“Well,” the Dobunni chieftain said, “at least she is earning her keep, if you are to be believed, Ceara.”

“I am not the wife who is prone to lying to you, Berikos,” Ceara said sharply. “You must look to your Catuvellauni for lies.”

“Why can you not get on with Brigit?” he grumbled at her.

“Because she has no respect for me, or for Maeve. She takes advantage of you, Berikos, and you let her. She calls to your dark side, and encourages it so that you do things you would have never done before you married her. She is wicked, and far too ambitious for a hill Dobunni chieftain’s wife. But why do I waste words on you? You do not want to hear them. I have never lied to you, Berikos. Cailin is a good girl,” Ceara finished quietly.

In mid-June the spelt, a species of early wheat, was harvested. In late July the einkorn, a single-grained variety of wheat, was harvested along with barley, rye, and millet. The grain to be kept for seed or barter was put in stone subterranean silos, closed with clay seals. The grain for everyday use was stored in the barns. The hay was cut and set out to dry upon wooden racks.

Nuala and Cailin collected leaves of woad, carefully filling their rush baskets with the greenery; when processed, it made a marvelous blue dye for which the Celts were famous. They also dug madder root, which yielded an excellent red dye. When the two were mixed together, a royal-purple resulted, which was very much in demand. The colors would eventually be used on garments made from the flax and hemp that were also being harvested.

August first was the feast of the great Celtic sun god Lugh. It was marked all over Britain by a general military truce between the tribes. The main harvest done, there would be a great gathering of all the hill Dobunni, with games,
races, music, and poetry recitals. Cailin was familiar with the festival. In Corinium there had been a fair at Lugh’s feast.