“Oh, Gaius, how could you!” Kyna Benigna asked her husband irritably. She was a tall, handsome woman of pure Celtic descent. Her dark red hair was woven in a series of intricate braids about her head. "I cannot believe you sent to Rome seeking a husband for Cailin. She will be furious with you when she finds out." Kyna Benigna's long, soft yellow wool tunic swung gracefully as she paced the hall.

"It is time for her to marry," Gaius Drusus Corinium defended himself, "and there is no one here who seems to suit her."

"Cailin will be just fourteen next month, Gaius," his wife reminded him. "This is not the time of the Julians, when little girls were married off the moment their flow began! And as for finding no young man to suit her, I am not surprised by that. You adore your daughter, and she you. You have kept her so close she has not really had a chance to meet suitable young men. Even if she did, none would match her darling father, Gaius. Cailin has but to socialize like a normal young girl, and she will find the young man of her dreams."

"That is impossible now, and you know it," Gaius Drusus Corinium told her. "It is a dangerous world in which we live, Kyna. When was the last time we dared venture the road to Corinium? There are bandits everywhere. Only by remaining within the safety of our own estate are we relatively safe. Besides, the town is not what it once was. I think if someone will buy it, I shall sell our house there. We have not lived there since the first year of our marriage, and it has been closed up since my parents died three years ago."

"Perhaps you are right, Gaius. Yes, I think we should sell the house. Whomever Cailin marries one day, she will want to remain here in the country. She has never liked the town. Now tell me. Who is this young man who will come from Rome? Will he stay in Britain, or will he want to return to his own homeland? Have you considered that, my husband?"