His hand went to his heart, and he said, "The sight of you, my lady Antonia, gives me comprehension at long last of why Britain's women are so famed for their beauty. I prostrate myself at your feet."
Antonia's mouth made a small round O of delight, while the other girls pressing in on Quintus Drusus gaped with surprise. Then the handsome young Roman took Antonia Porcius by the arm and requested that she show him the gardens. The couple walked slowly from the group, seemingly enraptured by each other's company, while those left behind stared in amazement.
"Is there madness in your family, Cailin Drusus?" Nona Claudius asked, her tone one of a young lady most put out.
"Whatever possessed you to introduce Antonia Porcius to such an eligible man?" demanded Barbara Julius.
"And whatever does he see in her?" Elysia Octavius wondered aloud. "We are younger and prettier by far."
"I did not mean to distress you," Cailin said innocently. "I simply felt sorry for poor Antonia. I just learned that she is divorced. Sextus, her husband, ran off with a slave girl. I but sought to cheer her up by introducing her to my cousin. I certainly never thought he would be attracted to her. She is older than all of us, and you are correct, Elysia, when you observed that we are all prettier." Cailin shrugged. "There is no accounting for men's taste in women. Perhaps Quintus will quickly become bored with her and come back to you all."
"If your villa were not the most remote of all of our homes from Corinium, Cailin, you would have known about Antonia's divorce," Barbara told her irritably. "Frankly, none of us blames poor Sextus Scipio. Antonia is selfish beyond bearing. Whatever she sees and desires, she must have. Sextus claimed he was being driven to poverty by her. If he denied her anything, her father would upbraid him. She is not a good mother, and she is cruel to her slaves, my father says. Ohh, she is sweet and charming when she gets her own way, but when she doesn't, beware! She wanted Sextus Scipio because he was the most handsome and the richest man about. Once she had lured him into her trap, however, she became once more what she really is, a spoilt little bitch. You should really warn your cousin."
"I hear," Nona Claudius said, lowering her voice so the other girls were forced to lean forward, "that although Antonia got her husband's estate, his goods, and chattel, that Sextus Scipio and his little mistress escaped with much gold and other coin. My father was his banker, you know. He says that Sextus Scipio had been transferring funds abroad for months now. Antonia's not telling anyone that. She's put it right from her mind. The thought of her husband getting away to live happily ever after in comfort is frankly more than she can bear."
"She is obviously casting her nets for a new husband," Barbara said in annoyed tones, "and once again it is the most handsome man in the province. I suppose he is rich, too. I don't know why Antonia has all the luck!"
"He's not rich at all," Cailin told them, hoping to frighten them off and further Antonia's cause. "He is the youngest son of my father's cousin in Rome. It is a very big family. There was nothing left for poor Quintus. Father felt sorry for him, and asked his cousin Manius to send Quintus to us. Then he gave him the river villa along with all its lands. Of course, he will loan him slaves to work the lands and keep the orchard, but my cousin Quintus has very little but his handsome face to recommend him."
"Antonia's lands match those of the river villa," Nona said. "When your gorgeous cousin learns that, he will be even more intrigued by her. Antonia's a rich woman. Frankly, Quintus Drusus would be a fool not to have her. There is no hope for us, I fear."
"Do you really think so?" Cailin said. "Oh, dear!"
Brenna joined her granddaughter as the other girls drifted away. "You scheme like a Druid, Cailin Drusus," she murmured.
"The sooner he is married off," Cailin said, "the safer I will be. Thanks be to the gods that he did not like me on sight. There is something about him, Grandmother. I cannot put my finger on it, but I feel Quintus Drusus is a danger to me, to us all. I hope he weds Antonia Porcius for her wealth, and her connections. I will not be content until he is gone from our home." She looked into Brenna's kindly face. "You do not think me foolish to feel so strongly?"
"No," Brenna said. "I have always said you were more Celt than your brothers. The voice within calls to you, warns you about Quintus Drusus. Listen to it, my child. That voice will never play you false. It is when we do not listen to that voice that we make errors in judgment. Always trust your instincts, Cailin," her grandmother counseled.
Chapter 2
With so many lovely girls in the province to choose from, why on earth did Quintus marry Antonia Porcius?" Kyna wondered aloud to her husband and family.
Their cousin's very lavish wedding had been celebrated the morning prior in Corinium. They were now traveling back to their own villa, which was some eighteen miles from the town; a good day's travel. Gaius and his sons were astride their horses. The three women rode in an open cart. They journeyed with a large party of families from nearby villas. The neighbors had banded together to employ a strong troop of men-at-arms for their protection along the road.
"Antonia is a very attractive woman," Gaius answered his wife.
"That is not what I mean," Kyna said sharply, "and you well know it, Gaius! Quintus might have chosen a virgin of good family. Instead he decided upon a divorced woman with two children, and a father who cannot let his daughter be. Anthony Porcius will not be an easy father-in-law, as poor Sextus Scipio found to his dismay."
"Come now, my dear," Gaius Drusus told her, "you know as well as I do that Quintus fixed his sights on Antonia for several reasons. She is rich. Her lands match the lands I gave him. There is little mystery to it, Kyna. Quintus was promised land and a wife if he came to Britain. Of course, I had intended that wife to be Cailin; but since Cailin would not have him-and indeed, if I must be honest, she and Quintus would have been a bad match- Quintus chose wisely in Antonia. He is strong enough to control her. It will be a good marriage."
"I thought they made a most handsome couple," Cailin ventured.
Her mother laughed. "You would have thought Quintus and Hecate made a good couple if it would save you from marrying him, my daughter. Now what will you do for a mate?"
"When the right man comes along, Mother, I shall know it," Cailin replied confidently.
"Why is it," Flavius asked, "that Antonia and Quintus chose you to be one of their witnesses, little sister?"
Cailin smiled with false sweetness. "Why, Flavius, did you not know? I introduced our cousin Quintus to my dear friend Antonia. I suppose they believe that having played Cupid, I am responsible, in part, for the great happiness they have found in each other."
"Cailin!" her mother exclaimed. "You introduced Quintus and Antonia to each other? You never told me this before. I wondered how they met that day."
"Did I not mention it, Mother? I suppose it slipped my mind because I thought it of no import," Cailin answered. "Yes, I did introduce them. It was at the Liberalia, when my brothers became men."
"You plot like a Druid!" her mother said.
"Grandmother said the same thing," Cailin admitted mischievously.
"I certainly did," Brenna agreed. "Of your three whelps, she is most like a Dobunni Celt. Berikos would approve of her."
"Mother," Cailin asked, "why did Berikos disapprove of your marriage to Father?" She never thought of her mother's paternal parent as Grandfather. He was rarely mentioned in her household, and she had never even once laid eyes on him. He was as big a mystery to Cailin as she would have been to him.
"My father is a proud man," Kyna said. "Perhaps overproud. The Dobunni were once members of the powerful Catuvellauni Celts. A son of their great ruler Commius, one Tincommius by name, brought a group of followers to this region many years ago. They became the Dobunni. Your grandfather descends from Tincommius. He is proud of his line, and prouder yet of the fact that none of his family until me ever married into the Roman race. He has always hated the Romans, although for no real reason that he ever shared
with any of us.
"When I saw your father, and fell in love with him, Berikos was quite displeased with me. He had already chosen a husband for me, a man named Carvilius. But I would not have Carvilius. I would only have your father, and so Berikos disowned me. I had shamed him. I had shamed the Dobunni."
"He is a fool, and ever was," Brenna muttered. "When word was brought to him of the twins' births, a smile split his face for the briefest moment, and then he grew somber, saying, 'I have no daughter.' His other wives, Ceara, Bryna, and that little fool Maeve, were all preening and bragging over their grandchildren, but with my one child exiled, I was forbidden to say a word. Indeed, what could I have said? I hadn't ever even seen the boys."
"But," Cailin questioned Brenna, "if Berikos had three other wives, and other children, why was he so angry at Mother for having followed her heart? Didn't he want her to be happy?"
"Berikos has sired ten sons on his other wives, but my child was his only daughter. Kyna was her father's favorite, which is why he let her go, and why he could never forgive her for turning her back on her heritage," Brenna sadly explained.
"When you were born, however, I told Berikos that if he could not forgive your mother for marrying a Romano-Briton, I must leave the tribe to be with my daughter. He had other grandchildren, but I had only your mother's children. It was not fair that he rob me of a place by my daughter's fire, or the right to dandle my grandchildren upon my knee. That was fourteen years ago. I have never regretted my decision. I am far happier with my daughter and her family than I ever was with Berikos, and his killing pride."
Kyna took her mother's hand in hers and squeezed it hard as the two women smiled at each other. Then Brenna reached out with her other hand and patted Cailin's cheek lovingly.
***
Quintus's marriage had been celebrated on the Kalends of June. To everyone's surprise, including his own, he was a most proficient manager of his estates, including his wife's vast portion. The river villa he deemed in too poor repair, and had it demolished. The fields belonging to the estate now bloomed with ripening grain. The orchards thrived. Quintus, comfortable in his wife's lavish villa, put on weight. His devotion to Antonia was astounding. Though it was his right to take any slave who caught his fancy to his bed, he did not do so. His stepsons feared and respected him, as should the children of any respectable man. His slaves found nothing to gossip about their master. And as for Antonia, by early autumn she was pregnant.
"It is astounding," Gaius said to his wife. "Poor Honoria Porcius in all her years of marriage could get but one child; but her daughter ripens like a melon each time a husband comes through the door. Well, I must admit that Cailin's matchmaking was a good thing. My cousin Manius should be most grateful to me for his son's luck."
Quintus Drusus, however, was not quite the man he seemed. His good fortune had but given him an appetite for more. The civil government was crumbling with the towns themselves. He could see that soon there would be no central government left. When that happened, it would be the rich and the powerful who controlled Britain. Quintus Drusus had decided that he would be the richest and most powerful man in Corinium and the surrounding countryside when that time came. He looked covetously at the estates of his cousin, Gaius Drusus Corinium.
Antonia had been recently chattering to him about possible matches to be made for his cousins, Titus and Flavius. They were already disporting themselves among the slave girls in their father's house. The rumor was that one of them-and no one was certain which, for they were identical in features-had gotten a young slave girl with child. Their marriages could quickly mean children; another generation of heirs to the estate of Gaius Drusus Corinium.
And then there was Cailin. Her parents would soon be seeking a husband for her. She would also celebrate a birthday in the spring. At fifteen she was certainly more than old enough to marry. A powerful husband allied with his cousin Gaius-the thought did not please Quintus Drusus. He wanted the lands belonging to his benefactor, and the quicker he got them, the fewer complications he would have to deal with. The only question remaining in his mind was how to attain his goal without being caught.
Gaius and his family would have to be disposed of, but how was he to do it? He must not be suspected himself. No. He would be the greatest mourner at the funerals of Gaius Drusus Corinium and his family- and the only one left to inherit his cousin’s estates. Quintus smiled to himself. In the end he would have far more wealth than any of his brothers in Rome. He thought of how he had resisted the idea of coming to Britain, yet had he not come, he would have lost the greatest opportunity of his life.
"You look so happy, my love," Antonia said, smiling at him as they lay abed.
"How could I not be happy, my dear," Quintus Drusus answered his wife. "I have you, and so much else." He reached out and touched her swelling belly. "He is the first of a great house, Antonia."
"Oh, yes!" she agreed, catching his hand and kissing it.
Antonia's sons, he thought, as he tenderly caressed his adoring wife. They were young, and so fragile. The merest whisper of disease could take them. It really seemed a shame that the sons of Sextus Scipio should one day have anything of his. But of course, Antonia would not allow them to be disinherited. Though she was not the best of mothers, she did dote on her children. Still, anything might happen, Quintus Drusus considered. Anything.
***
Quintus Drusus's son was born on the Kalends of March, exactly nine months to the day his mother had married his father. The infant was a large, healthy child. Antonia's joy at the birth of her child was short-lived, however, for the next morning, the two little boys born of her marriage to Sextus Scipio were discovered drowned in the atrium fish pond. The two slave women assigned to watch over the children were found together in most compromising circumstances; naked, entwined in a lascivious embrace, and drunk. There was no defense for their crime. Both were strangled and buried before the fateful day was over. Antonia was hysterical with grief.
"I shall call him Posthumous in honor of his brothers," Antonia declared dramatically, large tears running down her cheeks as she gazed upon her day-old son. "How tragic that he shall never know them.”
"He shall be called Quintus Drusus, the younger," her husband told her, slipping two heavy gold bracelets on her arm as he gave her a quick kiss. "You must not distress yourself further, my dear. Your milk will not come in if you do. I will not have my son suckling on the teats of some slave woman. They are not as healthy as a child's own mater. My own mother, Livia, always believed that. She nursed my brother, my sister, and myself most faithfully until we were past four." He reached out, and slipping a hand beneath one of her breasts, said with soft menace, "Do not cheat my son, Antonia, of what is his right. The sons of Sextus Scipio were innocents, and as such are now with the gods. You can do nothing for them, my dear. Let it go, and tend to the living child the gods have so graciously given us." Leaning over, he kissed her lips again.
The nursemaid took the infant from Antonia. She lay the child at her master's feet. Quintus Drusus took up the swaddled bundle in his arms, thereby acknowledging the boy as his own true offspring. This formal symbolic recognition meant the newborn was admitted to his Roman family with all its rights and privileges. Nine days after his birth, Quintus Drusus, the younger, would be officially named amid much familial celebration.
"You will remember what I have said, my dear, won't you?" Quintus Drusus asked his wife as he handed his son to the waiting nursemaid and arose from her bedside. "Our child must be your first consideration."
Antonia nodded, her blue eyes wide with surprise. This was a side of her husband she had never seen, and she was suddenly afraid. Quintus had always been so indulgent of her. Now, it would seem, he was putting their son ahead of her.
He smiled down at her. "I am pleased with you, Antonia. It has been a terrible time for you, but you have been brave. You are a fit mother for my children."
He left her bedchamber and made his way
to his library. The house was quiet now, without his stepsons running about. In a way, it was sad, but in a few years' time the villa would ring again with the laughter and shouts of children. His children. A single lamp burned upon the table as he entered his private sanctuary, shutting the door firmly behind him. Only the gravest emergency would cause anyone to disturb him once that door was closed. He had quickly trained the servants after his marriage to Antonia that this room was his sanctum sanctorum. No one came in but at his invitation.
"You did very well," he told the two men who now stepped from the shadows within the room.
"It was easy, master," the taller of the two answered him. "Those two nursemaids was easy pickin's. A little drugged wine, a little fucking, a little more wine, a little more-"
"Yes, yes!" Quintus Drusus said impatiently. "The picture you paint is quite clear. Tell me of the boys. They gave you no trouble? They did not cry out? I want no witnesses coming forward later on."
"We throttled them in their beds as they slept, master. Then we placed their bodies in the atrium pond. No one saw us, I guarantee you. It was the middle of the night, and all slept. We made that pretty tableau for everyone to find before we done the children. Quite a wicked pair, those girls looked," the tall man continued. He sniggered lewdly.
"You promised us our freedom," the other man said to Quintus Drusus. "When will you give us our freedom? We have done as you bid us."
"I told you that there were two tasks you must perform for me," Quintus Drusus answered him. "This was but the first."
"What is the second? We want our freedom!" the tall man declared.
"You are impatient, Cato," Quintus Drusus said, noting his look of distaste. It amused Quintus Drusus to give his slaves dignified, elegant-sounding identities. "In nine days' time," he continued, "my son will be formally named, and a ceremony of purification will be performed. It is a family event to be celebrated within the home. My father-in-law will come from Corinium; my cousin Gaius and his family from their nearby villa. It is my cousin and his family that I want you to study well.
To Love Again Page 4