so. Therefore I must obey when Berikos commands. He is not particularly fond of me as it is.” Her young voice trembled slightly at the last.
“You are not a Dobunni?” What mischief was this? Wulf wondered.
“My mother, the child of his third wife, was Berikos’s only daughter,” Cailin said. “Her name was Kyna. My grandfather loved her dearly, I am told, but he disowned her when she married my father, whose family descends from a Roman tribune. I liked what you said to my grandfather this evening about us all being Britons. Unfortunately, Berikos doesn’t see it that way.”
Cailin went on to tell Wulf Ironfist how she had come to Berikos’s village, and of her grandmother’s death just a few weeks prior. “I am not unhappy here among my mother’s people. They are kind and good to me. But my grandfather will not forgive me the slight amount of Roman blood that flows in my veins,” she finished.
“The lady Brigit does not like you,” Wulf noted astutely.
“No, she does not. It was she who suggested this arrangement, but then it is customary for the Dobunni to offer an important visitor a bedmate for the night. Bright thinks to kill two birds with one stone. She can revenge herself on me, and she hopes to influence you to aid my grandfather, which will gain her greater favor with him.”
“What do you think of his plans for Britain?” Wulf Ironfist asked Cailin. He had liked this beautiful, and obviously intelligent girl from the first moment he had seen her this afternoon with her bowl of brightly polished apples. He did not want to hurt her.
“I think you are right, sir, and that Berikos deludes himself,” Cailin said honestly. “Will you help him?”
“Turn around, Cailin Drusus, and look at me. It is difficult speaking to your back,” he replied, and there was just a hint of laughter in his deep voice as he cajoled her gently.
“I cannot,” Cailin admitted. “You are naked, are you not? I have never seen a man naked … completely naked,” she amended, remembering the wrestlers who had entertained at her brothers’ Liberalia feast.
“I will keep my half of the furs wrapped tightly about my body,” he promised her. “Only my arms, shoulders, and head will be visible to you. And you must be as tightly wrapped for your own comfort. I would not embarrass you, Cailin Drusus, but I would like to see your lovely face when we speak. It is very dim in this sleeping space. I feel as if I am speaking to some disembodied creature,” he teased.
She thought a long moment, and then said, “Very well, but do not look too closely at me. I cannot help being shy, sir. This is all quite new to me, though not quite as frightening as I earlier thought.” Cailin rolled over carefully, clutching the furs to her chest. He smiled encouragingly down at her, and she blushed to the roots of her auburn hair. “Will you help Berikos?” she repeated, struggling not to burst into tears, for her fear had suddenly returned at the sight of him, and her heart was pounding.
For a quick moment he caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were like wet violets. Then her lashes swiftly lowered, brushing her pale cheeks like dark, dancing butterflies. “Berikos, it would seem, is not willing to meet my price,” Wulf Ironfist answered her.
“Land,” Cailin said, and suddenly she had a marvelous idea. “I will meet your price, sir,” she told him, “and in exchange I will ask but two things of you. You will find, I believe, that mine is the better bargain.”
“You will give me land for training and leading the Dobunni?” he said, quite confused by her offer.
Cailin laughed. “No. You are correct about the Dobunni’s chances of restoring the Celtic tribes to their former prominent position; there is no chance. But I would be revenged upon the man who engineered the murders of my family, and would have killed me but for happenstance. The lands of the Drusus Corinium family are mine by right as the sole, surviving member of that family. Alone I can do nothing to claim my rights. My cousin, Quintus Drusus, would find some way to kill me to hold on to what he has stolen. But you could kill Quintus Drusus for me, Wulf Ironfist. And if you wed with me beforehand, then my lands would become yours, would they not? It is a far better opportunity