To Love Again - Bertrice Small [58]
“How dare you enter my home unannounced and uninvited, you savages,” he blustered at them, but Quintus Drusus knew as he spoke the words he could not have stopped these men. “What do you want? State your business with me, if indeed you have any business with me, and then get out!”
Wulf Ironfist took the measure of the man before him and could see that he was soft. This was no warrior; just a carrion creature who allowed others to do the killing for him, and then moved in to take the largest portion of the spoils. The Saxon moved just slightly to one side, allowing Cailin to step forward.
“Hail, Quintus Drusus,” she said, enjoying immensely his look of amazement which was quickly followed by one of fury.
“You are dead,” he said.
“Nay, I am very much alive, cousin. I have returned to claim what is rightfully mine, and to see that justice is done,” she told him. “I will show you no more mercy than you showed my family!”
“What is this? What is this?” Anthony Porcius entered the atrium, followed by his daughter.
It was Antonia who saw Cailin first, and she gasped with surprise. “Cailin Drusus! How can this be? You surely died in that tragic fire almost a year ago! But I can see you did not. Where have you been? And why are you wearing those dreadful clothes?”
Cailin nodded to Antonia, but her words were for Anthony Porcius. “Chief magistrate of Corinium, I claim justice from you.”
“You will have it, Cailin Drusus,” the magistrate answered solemnly, “but tell me, child, how is it you survived that terrible fire, and why is it you have not revealed yourself until now?”
“For reasons I will never understand,” Cailin told him, “the gods spared me death in the conflagration that destroyed my home. I had stayed late at the Beltane celebrations. When I arrived back at the villa, it was in flames, and my grandmother Brenna was collapsed outside. She insisted we flee, saying the danger to our lives was great. We walked the rest of the night, until at dawn we reached the hill fort of my grandfather, Berikos, chieftain of the hill Dobunni. It was there that she told us what had happened.”
“What had happened?” Quintus Drusus demanded edgily.
“You piece of Roman filth!” Cailin cried angrily. “You are an embarrassment to the name of Drusus. You murdered my family, and you dare to play the innocent? I pray the gods strike you down before me, Quintus Drusus!”
Cailin looked again to the magistrate. “My cousin arranged for two Gauls he owned to gain their freedom by doing his heinous bidding. They gained entry to the villa, killed my parents and my brothers, and felled Brenna with a single blow. Unbeknownst to them, it did not kill her. She lay waiting until she could make her escape. She overheard these Gauls bragging about how well they had carried out their master’s bidding—first by murdering his two little stepsons and making it appear as if the nursemaids had been negligent. The murder of my family was to complete their service to Quintus Drusus. They even knew where my father kept his gold, and they looted it before fleeing.
“I, too, was to be killed, but it grew late. The Gauls feared exposure and execution if they did not soon flee, so they fired my home and departed. My grandmother escaped, crawling through the flames and smoke. We fled to my grandfather, fearing that if my cousin learned of our survival, he would seek to finish the task he had started. Brenna never recovered; she died at Samain. Now I have returned, Anthony Porcius. I claim what is rightfully mine as the sole surviving member of the Drusus Corinium family. I am a married woman now, and my child will be born after the harvest. I want my lands back. I want this murderer punished,” Cailin concluded.
It was a great deal to absorb. Anthony Porcius had never liked Quintus Drusus, but he had swallowed his own feelings for he had not liked Sextus Scipio, either. He had assumed that as a doting father it was his nature to dislike Antonia’s husbands. He realized now that perhaps