old stuff beginning of chapter one?

Alexenah smashed through the thick wooden door with more than enough force to shatter it. It broke off at the hinges. Splinters showered into the room. She crashed hard on the swept dirt floor. The large center hearth-fire crackled, flamed, and sent shadows writhing across the dark mud and straw walls. In the back of the roundhouse, two newborn babies woke and cried.
She moaned. Coughed. Forced herself to her knees. Grabbed her side. Then, half crawling, half pulling, Alexenah quickly moved to the straw cot where her children lay.
Terrified, she glanced behind her to the doorway. Her husband Caradoc was somewhere outside. She pushed herself to a kneeling position, and then pulled her torn light-blue peplos dress up over her shoulder. The dress covered the lengthy lionclaw-like cuts that transversed her back, from her shoulder, to just under her left ribs. Blood flowed, pooled and stained at the small of her back where the dress was belted.
She grasped her two sons tightly to her breast and prayed to her God. “All-seeing One, protect my sons. I have placed them into your hands. Keep them, oh Lord, from the plans of the wicked; preserve them from violence. You are my God,” she screamed to the rafters above her, “hear the voice of my prayer!”
Alexenah embraced her two boys and enclosed them in her shaking arms. Sinking her head down, she placed her cheek on one of their little heads. One of the babes rooted to find suckle on her breast. Unconsciously, she stroked one of the boy’s hair. “So pure,” she said, “So pure.”
At that moment, a hulking figure raged through the open doorway and kicked the broken door aside. Caradoc cursed, and then yelled, “Rome will not have my whelps!” Then he staggered across the room to where Alexenah knelt. Her husband reached down and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her head back and to the side.
She said nothing. Looked away.
Then, bending low he angrily whispered in her ear, “And, neither will you! You’re just a slave-wife.” He struck her with the back of his other hand. Letting her go, he reached down and snatched a blanket from where the boys had been sleeping. Then, one at a time, he ripped them from her breast.
Walking over to a table, he slammed the babies upon it. He lifted a wine jar and took a long draught of the thick red liquid. Then, laughing, he poured some of the drink down each bawling child’s throat. Putting the jar down, he bound the two together tightly in the blanket and shoved them both under his arm like a sack of potatoes.
The woman pleaded, “No!” She grabbed his leg with one hand, and frantically reached toward her children with the other. “Don’t take them. Please, please don’t take them!”
The man turned, lifted his leg, put his boot on her chest, and shoved her hard onto the floor. Again, he took a drink, banged the jar on the table breaking it. Caradoc adjusted his bundle and stormed into the night.
“C’mon boys, your mother is sick.”