The Druid Chronicles: Four Book Collection

by Phillips, Christina

  Horror crawled along his spine at what she had suffered, and the crass insensitivity of his invasive questioning. Words were inadequate but he tried regardless. “Antonia. I’m sorry.”

  She licked her lips and her fingers gripped his in a punishing vise, yet she seemed unaware that they still held hands. “I lost my daughters during the fifth and seventh months of pregnancy.”

  Ice froze his veins. He’d imagined her daughters had survived. But she had lost them all. Not only lost them, but had been forced to go through the hazard of childbirth each time knowing, in her heart, they had no chance of survival.

  Gods. No wonder shadows haunted her eyes. No wonder she wrapped herself in a façade of aloof detachment.

  He stared into her lovely face and saw grief etched into every curve and shadow. How had he not seen it before?

  He tugged her rigid hand up and kissed her knuckles. She hadn’t mentioned her third daughter and he didn’t have the heart to ask. It was clear what had happened. Her former husband had kept her in Rome.

  “My last child was also a daughter.” Her voice was low but at least she no longer trembled. He tightened his grip on her hand, trying to infuse her with his strength. Trying to let her know, without the need for awkward words, that he was there for her. “I carried her to term.”

  She was the child whose likeness Antonia carried against her heart. He still wanted to see her, but knew he would never again ask. By his thoughtless questioning, he had forced Antonia to relive the worst thing a woman could imagine. Yet those tragic events, that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, had shaped her into the woman she was today. The woman he couldn’t shift from his mind.

  The gods, no matter who they were or which people worshipped them, were cruel, callous and entirely self-serving. What harm had Antonia ever done that she should be so brutally punished?

  “She lives in Rome?” His voice was hushed and while he was certain she did, there was always the chance Antonia had brought her to Britain. Perhaps, after all, her daughter did live with her.

  Antonia expelled a harsh breath and once again he felt her body tense. “When my daughter was presented to her father he turned his back on her and ordered her death.”

  Chapter 19

  Something dark and ugly twisted deep inside Gawain’s chest. There could be only one reason why Antonia’s daughter had been condemned to die. It happened in his culture too. He didn’t have to like it to acknowledge that it happened. Such decisions were never taken lightly. Who was he to judge another in such a matter?

  But for Antonia to have lost four children, only to have her fifth born with such severe deformities that death was considered a kinder option, sickened him to the bottom of his soul.

  There was nothing he could say to make her feel better. There was nothing he could do to wind back time and prevent him from asking the question in the first place.

  “The gods play vicious games with us at times.”

  “The gods had nothing to do with it.”

  Something in her tone pierced the fog of recrimination that gripped him in a wraithlike vise.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Antonia.” Was that what her bastard of a husband had told her? Blamed her for their child’s frail clasp on mortality?

  She stared at him. “My fault?” She sounded confused, as though his words made no sense. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her and seduce her into forgetting this excruciating conversation. He had started it. He would not dishonor her pain by pretending it didn’t exist.

  “That your daughter was…” The words lodged in his throat. In the past, before the invasion of Cymru, he had counseled his people in times of need. But that had been different. They had not been Antonia and their loss had not clawed through his chest the way Antonia’s loss did now. But still she stared at him and somehow he forced the word out. “Damaged.”

  The silence after his words thundered between them and for a moment, he thought he’d gone too far. That he had pushed her beyond her limits and she’d crumble before him. But even as the thought formed, it disintegrated. Because she wasn’t looking at him as if she was about to fall apart. She looked at him as though he spoke in the sacred language of the gods.

  “My daughter,” she said, and there was a fierce and terrible pride in her voice that unaccountably caused the spirits of his ancestors to drift over his arms. “Was perfect in every way. Her only flaw was that she was not a boy. My husband refused to acknowledge her existence to spite me, Gawain. To punish me for the sons I had lost.” Disbelief seared him, yet he knew she spoke the truth. She bared her teeth and for one eerie moment looked like a Celtic warrior going into battle. “As if their deaths do not haunt me every moment of every day.”

  Disbelief surged into rage. It scarcely even registered that the man was Roman. All that thundered through Gawain’s mind was her husband had murdered his own child, simply to hurt his wife.

  “It’s as well he’s in Rome. If I ever came across him I’d run him through with his own sword.”

  “That notion crossed my mind more than once.” He felt the tension seep from Antonia as her fingers relaxed their death grip around his. “Had I possessed the strength that night I would have cut his throat with a fibula if nothing else had come to hand.”

  Again the ethereal touch of his ancestors raised the hairs on his arms. Something was infinitesimally out of balance, although he couldn’t fathom what. Antonia’s heated fury of just moments ago had cooled and while he was relieved his thoughtlessness hadn’t caused her to tumble into hysteria, her current state of calm was…unnerving.

  She had just confided that her husband had killed their newborn daughter. Admittedly, he had no idea how long ago it had happened although it couldn’t be that long, given her age and the length of time she’d been married. But even so, her attitude baffled him. Was it because the only way she could get through each day was to bury the pain so deeply that she could pretend it had never happened?

  It seemed logical. But he couldn’t shift the feeling that something else had happened that night, something significant that she hadn’t told him.

  He could think of nothing to say that didn’t involve deadly force against her former husband, and so he remained silent. But it was a healing silence as the tension that had held Antonia in its merciless grip faded and she hugged his hand against her breast.

  “I vowed I would never conceive another child.” Her voice was so low he scarcely caught her words. He wondered if she even meant for him to hear. He buried his face in her silken hair and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do to ease the pain she’d suffered. How he wished there was.

  It was late. Every moment he stayed increased the chance of him being caught. But the thought of leaving her bed held no appeal.

  Just a little longer. There would be no harm in that.

  “Gawain.” Her whisper penetrated his thoughts and he brushed a kiss across her brow.

  “What is it?”

  Her sleepy gaze caught his. “I know it’s impossible for you to stay all night but would you mind—could you stay with me for just a short while? Until I go to sleep?”

  “Yes.” His response appeared to both surprise and delight her, if the look on her face was anything to go by. She bestowed a luminous smile at him, sighed and then snuggled against him, as though that was the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

  Propped up on his elbow he watched as her breathing became regular and her muscles fully relaxed. With her hair tangled over her shoulders and spread across her pillows she looked untroubled; untouched by the harsh realities of life.

  How deceptive appearances could be.

  No wonder she didn’t miss life in Rome, when so much tragedy had befallen her there. Was it really her fate to return, as the wife of the praetor?

  She would never return to Rome if he had anything to do with it.

  The thought filled his mind, and it didn’t thunder with heated fury, but chilled his blood
with iced conviction. Antonia deserved more than to become the chattel of another arrogant Roman, but what was the alternative? What could he offer her? A life on the run with a displaced Druid, a life filled with lies when he’d have to keep his true nature a secret from her?

  What was he thinking? Antonia would never—could never—share his life, even if he lost his mind and asked her to.

  No woman could share his life. There was no room for a woman in his future. If Rhys remained adamant about not inciting the other Druids to rebellion then when Carys left Camulodunon so would he.

  He’d travel north, beyond the land of the treacherous Brigantes, into the territories of the Picts. They, at least, still defied the insidious spread of the cursed Eagle.

  But instead of anticipation flooding his blood at the prospect, an odd hollowness gnawed in his gut. It was the right thing to do. The only way forward for a warrior who no longer lived in his homeland. Why then did it feel so wrong?

  * * *

  Perhaps, in spite of his best intentions, he fell asleep because from the depths of black he jerked awake, heart pounding. For a moment, he had no idea where he was, until he realized it was Antonia in his arms. Antonia whose breath came in uneven gasps, whose body trembled and whose fingernails dug into his forearm in unnamed terror.

  “Antonia.” He brushed her hair back from her sweaty face. She was in the grip of a nightmare and unintelligible words spilled from her lips. He leaned closer and brushed a kiss across her mouth. “Sweet Antonia, wake up. You’re safe. I’m with you.”

  She went rigid and her eyelids sprung open. He began to smile in reassurance until he realized that she was still asleep. An eerie shudder inched along his spine as her fathomless eyes bored into him. And then she spoke.

  “Embrace your destiny. Bring them home to me.”

  Her words were clear, commanding, directed at him. But it was none of these things, or even the way she continued to stare, unseeing, that caused his stomach to clench and chest contract.

  It was because Antonia spoke in the sacred language of the gods that only Druids understood.

  Chapter 20

  Late the following morning, as Gawain made his way over to the main villa, Antonia’s words echoed in his mind. She’d woken up soon afterward, and had been so distressed at the thought he’d witnessed her having a nightmare that he hadn’t told her she had also spoken aloud.

  What could he say in any case? She was obviously merely a conduit his gods had used in order to get his attention. He wouldn’t upset her further by telling her such a thing. Especially when he had no idea how to answer the inevitable questions she would ask him.

  Why? And how? She was a Roman, not a Celt. But she was a Roman he cared for and like it or not, the tactic had worked.

  His gods had his attention. Curse them all, it was not he who had turned his back on them in the first place. Could he be blamed for his loss of faith after the way Lugus had vanished the moment Gawain had left the Isle of Mon?

  But unless he wanted to risk Antonia suffering from more nightly visitations from gods that were not of her culture, he’d have to swallow his anger at their manipulative ways and attempt yet again to reconnect with Lugus.

  Before dawn had broken, he’d left Antonia in the care of Elpis and although he and Antonia had made arrangements to meet tomorrow it had still been a wrench leaving her. She’d looked so lost and vulnerable, sitting on her bed, that he’d battled the urge to scoop her into his arms and take her with him.

  Carys had been right to warn him from pursuing Antonia. He’d become involved without meaning to, and what had started out as merely another erotic game was now something far more deadly.

  Not only to himself. Antonia would suffer too when this dangerous liaison finally ended.

  A side door to the villa opened and Branwen, a girl Carys had brought with her from Cymru, hurried toward him. “Gawain, Carys asks you to come quickly.”

  In Cymru, Branwen would never have spoken of Carys, a princess with the blood of the gods in her veins, as though they were equals. But many things had changed since the invasion.

  He followed Branwen into the villa and she nodded her head toward the atrium before she vanished in the opposite direction. Frowning, he entered the atrium and instinctively went for his dagger at the crowd that greeted him.

  But only for a fleeting moment. Although he’d never expected to see them in Camulodunon, these people were not strangers. He strode forward, where Carys held the hand of her mother as though she would never let her go. He bowed his head in a gesture of respect. “My queen.”

  “Yes, Gawain,” Nia said, a dry note in her voice. “I am here.”

  “Cerridwen brought them safely to us.” Carys’ voice shook and tears glittered in her eyes as she once again gazed at her mother.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “What happened?”

  Nia sighed heavily. “Within days of you leaving Mon, the gods claimed Altair as he ascended into trance. It was seen by many as a sign that his adamant refusal to leave the Isle was…flawed.”

  Altair, the revered Elder who had been most vocal in his opinions and the one whose word held great sway with their people, continued his journey. And with his passing through the veil to the Otherworld he had allowed Nia and the other Druids who were of like mind to finally leave the Isle of Mon.

  It was hardly the mass exodus that Nia had wanted. But perhaps she had finally realized that many of the Druids would never leave the sacred sanctuary, no matter what signs they were given.

  Gawain had no idea what his queen planned on doing once Carys left for Rome. Would they all journey north? At least this way he would be among his own people in the land of the Picts.

  But that was a discussion for another time. Carys would no doubt want time alone with her mother and going by the shadows cast by the sun he was late for a meeting with Rhys.

  He swept his gaze around the dozen or so Druids who had accompanied their queen, and they exchanged silent greeting. Then he returned his attention to Nia.

  “By your leave. I will see you later.”

  “No.” Still holding Carys’ hand, Nia took one step toward him. “You’ll remain here, Gawain. There are things to discuss.”

  “But my queen—”

  “It was not a request.”

  He stared at her, and unease trickled along his spine. “I’m meeting someone.”

  Nia said nothing for a moment, but tension crackled in the air. Then she drew in a deep breath. “No, you’re not, Gawain. You are not to leave here until the eighth hour has passed.”

  * * *

  Antonia couldn’t throw off the sense of impending disaster that hugged her like an unwanted blanket of fog. She’d gone to the forum in the hope the change of scene would help, but if anything, the bustling crowds and numerous scents and odors from stalls and livestock only increased her disquiet.

  It was humiliating enough that Gawain had witnessed her foolish nightmare two nights ago. But she had the unshakable certainty that he’d also witnessed her speaking in the tongue of Juno.

  Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t matter. A visitation from a mighty goddess, even a goddess he didn’t personally worship, was worthy of respect. But they weren’t normal, because not only could she never remember what had transpired in her visions, nobody could understand the words she uttered while unconscious.

  If Gawain had witnessed that, he would think her weak-minded. But he’d said nothing about her muttering in her sleep and she’d been too mortified to ask.

  It was her own fault for asking him to stay with her while she fell asleep. But it had been almost a week since Juno had come to her, and the possibility she would again hadn’t even crossed Antonia’s mind.

  She wouldn’t make that mistake again. But oh, how wonderful it had been to close her eyes with Gawain’s arms around her.

  And how wonderful and strangely liberating it had been to tell him of Cassia. It was something she’d never ima
gined telling him, and yet the words had spilled from her and as they had, a great weight had lifted from her soul.

  He might not know that her precious child was still alive. But at least he knew she had been born, and that she’d been dearly loved. How close she had been to telling him the whole truth of that night. How she longed to tell him the truth. His compassion had been as genuine for her beloved daughters, as well as her sons, and for that alone, he would forever have a place in her heart. Perhaps, after Cassia arrived in Britannia, she and Gawain might still be able to see each other. He could meet Cassia. Perhaps, one day in the far future, she might even be able to tell him how she had defied Scipio’s cruel edict.

  “Domina.” Elpis clutched her and pulled her from the path of a suddenly riotous crowd. What had happened? What had she missed while she’d been daydreaming of an impossible future that included both Cassia and Gawain?

  She grabbed a young boy as he dashed by. “What is it?”

  He twisted in her grasp, caught sight of her and with great reluctance stopped trying to escape. “Crucifixion. Out on the road.”

  Her fingers slackened and he took immediate advantage to disappear in the throng. Antonia turned and stared at Elpis, her heart thudding high in her breast making it hard to breathe, hard to think clearly. The boy had spoken in his native tongue, but she understood enough to know exactly what he’d said.

  She had no idea why panic gripped her heart or why her knees had the terrible urge to buckle. It made no sense that her stomach churned and skeletal fingers scraped over her arms.

  It wasn’t Gawain who was being crucified. The praetor, for all his faults, was an honorable man and wouldn’t kill another because of something as trivial as a perceived threat to the affections of a woman he was interested in.

  She knew this. Yet the horrifying vision of Gawain, bloodied and tortured, blinded her good sense.

  “Domina, no.” Elpis’ urgent voice and hand on her arm caused her to pause and glance over her shoulder. “We should return home. It’s not safe for you on the road.”