“Know? How could I know? Who tells me anything?” Brigit complained. “Then Maeve! Find Maeve!” she demanded excitedly.
“Maeve has gone visiting as well,” Cailin replied.
“The gods! What am I to do?” Brigit cried.
Cailin swallowed hard. Brigit seemed genuinely disturbed, and although they were scarcely friends, Cailin heard herself ask, “Can I help you in some way, lady?”
Brigit’s blue eyes narrowed and she observed Cailin thoughtfully. “Can you cook?” she finally said. “Can you prepare a small feast for tonight? Berikos has an important guest arriving. We must extend him our best hospitality.” She flushed, and then admitted, “I cannot cook, at least not well enough to prepare the kind of meal that must be served.”
“I am a good cook, and with the slaves to do my bidding, I can prepare a meal worthy of an important guest, lady,” Cailin told her.
“Then do it!” Brigit commanded her ungraciously. “And it had better be good, mongrel, or this time I will see your grandfather has you beaten for your insolence. There is no one here to defend you now.” She turned and hurried from the hall, her yellow skirts thrashing.
“I should have gone with Ceara and Maeve,” Cailin muttered. “Then she would have been in the soup, and what would Berikos have thought of his beautiful young wife then, the ungrateful bitch! Well, I shall do it because Ceara would want me to, and she is good to me.”
Cailin hurried off to the cook house, which was located just behind the hall. There she instructed the servants in the preparation of a thick pottage with lentils and lamb, while upon the open spit a side of beef was to be slowly roasted. There would be cabbage, and turnip, and onions braised in the coals of the fire. Fresh loaves were baked that afternoon, which would be served with butter and cheese. Cailin polished a dozen apples to a bright shine and piled them artistically in a burnished brass bowl. Taking them into the hall to place them upon the high board she complimented the young slave girl who had just finished polishing the board with beeswax. The huge table was Ceara’s pride and joy. She reveled in the fact that in other halls the high boards were worn and pock-marked by knives and goblets. Inherhall, the high board glowed and shone like new.
The slave girl brought heavy brass candle holders. “The mistress always uses these for important guests,” she told Cailin.
Cailin thanked her and set them on the table, taking the large fat candles from the serving wench and placing them carefully on the iron spikes that held them. She stood back and smiled to herself. The high board looked as if Ceara had set it herself. Berikos would have no cause for complaint.
It was then that Cailin realized that someone was staring at her. She turned and, looking down the hall, saw a great, tall man standing there. His look, even from a distance, was bold.
“Who is that?” she asked the slave.
“It is your grandfather’s guest,” the girl whispered.“The Saxon.”
Cailin turned and stepped down from the dais. She walked with measured steps toward the man. “May I be of service to you, sir?” she asked politely, not even stopping to think he might not speak Latin.
“I would ask permission to sit by your fire, lady,” the answer came. “The day is chill, and I have had a long journey.”
“Indeed, come by the fire,” Cailin replied. “I will fetch you a goblet of wine, unless, of course, you would prefer ale.”
“Wine, thank you, lady. May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing? I would give no offense in this hall.”
“I am Cailin Drusus, a granddaughter of Berikos, the chieftain of the hill Dobunni. I apologize for your poor welcome, but the lady Ceara, who is mistress here, is away visiting her grandchildren before the winter snows come. We did not know you were expected, or she would have never gone. Has your horse been stabled properly, sir?” Cailin poured some wine into a silver goblet decorated with dark green agates, and handed it to the huge Saxon. She had never seen such a big man before. He was even larger than the Celtic men she knew. His garb was most colorful: red braccos cross-gartered in deep blue and gold, and a deep blue tunic from which his chest threatened to burst forth with every breath.
“Thank you, lady; my horse has been taken care of by your grandfather’s servants.” He drained the goblet and handed it back to her with a dazzling smile. His teeth were large, white, and amazingly even.
“More?” she inquired politely. He had shoulder-length yellow hair. She had never seen hair naturally that color before.
“Nay, it is enough for now. I thank you.” Dazzling blue eyes, the blue of a summer’s sky, looked into hers.
Cailin blushed. This man was having the oddest effect on her.
“My name is Wulf Ironfist,” he told her.
“It is a ferocious-sounding name, sir,” she answered.
He grinned boyishly. “I gained it as a mere stripling because I could crack nuts with one blow of my fist,” he told her, chuckling. “Later, however, my name took on a different meaning when I joined Caesar’s legions in the Rhineland, where I was born.”
“That is why you speak our tongue!” Cailin burst out, and then she blushed again. “I am too forward,” she said ruefully.
“Nay,” he said. “You are blunt, honest. There is no crime in that, Cailin Drusus. I like it.”
Her cheeks warmed at the sound of her name on his lips, but her curiosity was greater than her shyness. “How came you to Britain?” she asked.
“I was told there is opportunity in Britain.Land!There is little unclaimed land left in my homeland. I spent ten years with the legions, and now I would settle down to farm my own land and raise my children.”
