In the atrium's center was a little square pool in which water lilies grew in season and small colored fishes lived year-round. The villa contained five bedchambers, a library for Gaius Drusus, a kitchen, and a round dining room with beautiful plaster walls decorated with paintings of the gods' adventures among the mortals. The two best features of the house, as far as Brenna was concerned, were the tiled baths and the hypocaust system that heated the villa in the damp, chilly weather. Beyond the entrance there was nothing grand about the house, which was constructed mostly of wood with a red tile roof, but it was a warm and cozy dwelling, and its residents were happy.

They had been a close family, and if Kyna had one regret, it was that her in-laws insisted upon remaining in Corinium. They liked the town with all its bustle, and Titus had his place on the council. For them life at the villa was dull. As the years passed, and the roads became more dangerous to travel, their visits grew less frequent.

Although neither Kyna nor her husband remembered the days when the legions had overflowed their homeland, keeping Britain's four provinces and their roads inviolate, their elders did. Julia bemoaned the legions' loss, for without them civil authority outside the towns was hard to maintain. A plea to Rome several years after the withdrawal of the armies had been answered curtly by the emperor. The Britons would have to fend for themselves. Rome had troubles of its own.

Then suddenly, three years ago, Gaius and Kyna had been sent word that Julia was ill. Gaius had taken a party of armed men and hurried to Corinium. His mother had died the day after his arrival. To his surprise and even deeper sorrow, his father, unable to cope with the loss of the wife who had been with him for most of his adult life, pined away, dying less than a week later. Gaius had seen to their burial. Then he had returned home, and the remaining family had drawn in even closer.