To Love Again - Bertrice Small [30]
She wondered if she would ever see the town again. Shortly after her family’s deaths, her uncles Eppilus and Lugotorax had made a trip to Corinium to learn what was being said about the deaths of Gaius Drusus and his family. Stopping at the main tavern, they mentioned to the tavern keeper the burned-out villa they had seen some miles from town.
“It appears to have been a recent fire,” Eppilus said casually.
“Was anyone hurt?” Lugotorax asked.
The tavern keeper, a gossipy soul with little business this sunny day, took a deep breath and replied. “ ’Twas a great tragedy. The villa belonged to Gaius Drusus Corinium. It had been in his family since the time of the Emperor Claudius, hundreds of years ago. Nice people. A very respectable family indeed. There were three children, I’m told. Two boys and a girl. And the wife’s mother, too. All dead now. The villa caught fire Beltane last, and the whole family perished.”
“Is the land for sale, then?” Eppilus inquired politely.
“No,” said the tavern keeper. “What was bad luck for Gaius Drusus Corinium was good luck for his cousin, Quintus Drusus. That young man came from Rome just a couple of years ago. Married the daughter of the chief magistrate here in Corinium, a rich woman in her own right. Now he’s inherited the lands belonging to Gaius Drusus Corinium. Well, you know what they say, my friends. The rich get richer, eh?”
As they journeyed back to their village, Eppilus said, “I’d like to lie in wait one dark night for this Quintus Drusus, and slit his greedy throat for him. Murdering the family was bad enough, but you know what Brenna told us they did to our sister Kyna before she died.”
“Killing Quintus Drusus won’t bring our sister and her family back among the living,” Lugotorax answered his brother. “We have to think of Cailin now. Ceara says Brenna will not live much longer. We must find a good husband for our niece.”
“Perhaps at Lugh,” Eppilus replied thoughtfully, “when all the hill Dobunni are gathered. Are there any among our brothers’ sons whom you think would suit the girl? Whoever he is, he must be a man of property. Whatever Father may feel, Cailin is our blood.”
A troupe of strange, dark people in colorful garb, traveling in three closed wagons, arrived at Berikos’s village the evening before Lugh. Because of the season, they were warmly welcomed and invited to remain for the festivities.
“Gypsies,” Nuala said wisely. “They are very good with horses, and some even have a gift for prophecy, ‘tis said.”
Indeed, the next morning as the celebrations began, one wrinkled old woman among the Gypsies set herself up beneath a striped awning and offered to tell fortunes for barter.
“Ohh!” Nuala said excitedly, “let us have our fortunes told, Cailin! I want to know if I shall have a handsome young husband with an unquenchable thirst for my flesh.” At Cailin’s shocked look, Nuala giggled mischievously. “Celts speak frankly,” she told her cousin.
“I have nothing to offer the old woman,” Cailin said. “If it were not for your grandmother, I should have nothing but the tunic I came in when I arrived here. Why, the only jewelry I possess are the garnets in my ears and the gold and enamel brooch I was wearing on Beltane. You go, Nuala, and get your fortune told. I will listen.”
“Give her a pot of that salve I taught you to make,” Nuala said. “It will be more than enough, I promise. We’ll go in together, but I’ll go first, and give her this bronze and enamel pin. It’s really generous, but I don’t like it any longer.”
The two cousins approached the awning. The old woman beneath it was certainly an ancient-looking creature. Her black eyes surveyed them as they came. She resembled a turtle sunning itself upon a rock in the early spring, Cailin thought.
“Come! Come, my pretties,” she greeted them, cackling. “Do you want old Granny to tell you the future?” She smiled a toothless grin at them.
Nuala held out the pin, and the old woman took it, looking it over carefully, nodding with pleasure.
“No one does finer enamel work than you Celts,” she said