Julia came forward and touched his arm. “Yes—you are alive,” she said, more steadily. “And you have seen your British girl?” She gazed up at him.
“I have seen her—” he began, searching for a way to tell her what had happened. Julia had a right to know what kind of a husband she would be getting if she married him.
But before he could get the words out, he heard Licinius’s halting step on the mosaic floor and the moment was lost.
“So you’re back, my dear fellow.” Licinius seemed genuinely glad to see him. “I suppose this means we shall soon be having a wedding here.”
“I hope so, sir,” Gaius said, and hoped they thought his hesitation had been modesty. Perhaps it was just as well, for if Julia had refused to marry him, what hope had he of fulfilling his promises to protect Eilan and their child?
Julia smiled radiantly. Perhaps being married to her would have its compensations. She caught his glance and blushed.
“Come and see my wedding veil,” she said invitingly. “I have been working on the embroidery for months. It’s all right to show it to Gaius now, isn’t it, Father?” she asked.
“Yes, my dear, of course, but I still think you should have been content with a linen veil. That was good enough for a Roman woman in the days of the Republic, and it should have been good enough for you,” Licinius grumbled.
“And look at what became of your Republic,” Julia said impertinently. “I wanted the most fashionable veil that could be had—and I think you did too!”
The veil was indeed beautiful, of sheer, flame-colored silk, which Julia was embroidering in gold thread with fruit and flowers.
When she had left them, Licinius took Gaius quietly aside.
“I have set the date for the formal betrothal at the end of this month, before the unlucky days at the beginning of March. Your father cannot be present, but the Legate should be able to do without him for a time by April, when my augurs have found a favorable day for the wedding. It is short notice, but I think we can be ready. Otherwise it would be the second half of June before the season was auspicious, and while you have been off winning honors among the Caledonians my daughter has had to wait an extra year to be married.” He smiled benignly. “If that’s quite all right with you, my dear boy?”
“Oh yes, quite—” Gaius said faintly. And what would they all do, he wondered, if he said it was not? He wondered why Licinius bothered to consult him at all.
Then Julia came back into the room, and as she reached out to him, he realized that he could not betray the trust in those dark eyes. He and Eilan had never really had a chance; at least he might be able to give some happiness to this Roman girl.
A watery sunlight streamed through the door of the hut in the forest, for it had been raining earlier. Eilan moved slowly about inside. Putting on her clothes, part of her awareness turned to the small sounds the baby made in his sleep. Her strength had returned more quickly after Gaius’s visit, but it still hurt to move. She had been much torn by the birth, and she was easily tired.
The baby slumbered in his basket, wrapped in an old shawl. Eilan stopped for a moment to admire him. To her, Gawen was all the more beautiful because she fancied she could see a blurred reflection of his father in the nub of his nose and the dark feathering of his brows.
She sat for a moment contemplating her child’s face. Gawen…she thought, my little king! What would Macellius—supposing he should ever hear of his grandson—think of that? She wanted to pick him up but she had so much else to do, and he was sleeping peacefully. So peacefully, in fact, that she bent close to catch the small sound of his breathing. Reassured, she straightened again.
One garment at a time, with long rests between them, she managed to dress and to comb and braid her long hair. Ordinarily Annis would have helped her, but she had been sent to the village to replenish their supplies. Having preserved her secret so long, it would not do to have the old woman present when Ardanos arrived.
Eilan wrapped the braid around her head in a matronly style that was new to her. Perhaps she could face him with more confidence if he saw her as a grown woman instead of a frightened child.
What did the old man want? Reason told her that he had come to order her back to the Forest House, but again and again she had to repress a chill of fear. Did he mean to send her away after all?
She thought wildly of following Gaius, if he was not yet married. Or Mairi might shelter her, unless their father forbade it. Caillean had told her that Bendeigid was back from the North, gaunt as a winter wolf and much embittered by the ruin of their cause. But so long as he lived quietly at his elder daughter’s steading, the Romans were unlikely to bother him.
Once Eilan got her strength back she could care for herself and her child by hiring out to some farm. A healthy boy could always earn his keep. It might be wiser, though, not to say who his father was. She herself was skilled in all manner of household work, spinning and weaving, milking and churning; if she had to support herself and her son, she certainly could. She sighed and sat back on the bed, knowing that these were only fantasies.
She had heard that the Roman Vestals could leave the temple when they reached the age of thirty, but here the only release for a High Priestess was the funeral fire. She remembered that Ardanos’s first reaction to her pregnancy had been to sentence her and her unborn child to death, and there was Bendeigid’s threat to strangle her with his own hands. But surely, if they meant to kill her, they could already have easily done it.
By the time the Arch-Druid’s shadow fell across the doorway she had worked herself into a state of numb apprehension.
“I am glad to see you are better,” he said neutrally, looking down at her.
“Oh yes, I am feeling quite well, Grandsire.”
He scowled. “Indeed I am your grandsire, and you will do well to remember it!”
He strode to the basket, looked down at the child for a moment, then lifted it in his arms. “But you have made your bed, and now we must all lie in it. This masquerade has gone on long enough. Three days should be enough for your milk to dry off, and then you will return to the Forest House to prepare for the spring rituals. As for your son, he will be fostered elsewhere.” He turned and started towards the door.
“Stop!” Eilan cried out. “Where are you taking him?” She felt anguish swelling in her throat and remembered how their hound bitch had howled when Bendeigid took her puppies out to be drowned because she had mismated with a neighbor’s terrier.
He regarded her unblinkingly. “Believe me, it is better that you do not know. I pledge you that he will be perfectly well and safe. Perhaps, if you do everything you are told, we may let you see him from time to time.”
Eilan wondered why she had never noticed before how cruel Ardanos looked when he smiled, and how very long and sharp his teeth were. “You cannot,” she cried. “I will care for him. You must not take him from me. Oh, please, I beg you—”
Ardanos’s bushy brows met. “Why such surprise?” he asked with edged control. “Did you suppose you could nurse your child before all the priestesses in the House of Maidens? Be reasonable.”
“Give him to me,” she cried. “You cannot have him.” She snatched at the wrapped bundle in her grandfather’s arms, and the baby, waking, began to scream.
“You little fool, let him go.”
Eilan’s legs would no longer uphold her, but she clung to his knees. “I beg you, I beg you, Grandfather! You cannot,” she was babbling, “you cannot take my son from me…”
“I must, and I will,” Ardanos said fiercely, thrust outward with his knee and wrenched his robe free. As she collapsed he carried the wailing infant out through the open door.
And then there was only the dappling of sunlight, as innocently mocking as a baby’s smile.
“Is this your revenge, you monster?” Caillean banged the door shut behind her and stormed into the room, too angry to appreciate the fact that in his quarters in the Roman town, the Arch-Druid had a
door to slam. By Roman standards the house would have seemed plain and small; its straight, plastered walls and sharp corners seemed unfriendly to British eyes.
Ardanos looked up from his meal, agape, and she marshaled the words stored up during her ride from Vernemeton.
“You wicked, cruel old man! I promised Lhiannon before she died to help you. But that does not make me your slave or your torturer!”
He opened his mouth to speak but she raged on. “How could you treat Eilan—your own daughter’s child—that way? I tell you I will be no part of this; let her keep her child or”—she drew breath—“or I will appeal directly to the people and let the Goddess judge between us.”
“You would not—” Ardanos began.
“Try me!” Caillean retorted implacably. “I assume that you have some use for her or you would not have let her survive,” she continued more moderately. “Well, I tell you, unless Eilan is allowed to have her child with her she will die.”
“I suppose it is not surprising that the girl should be such a fool, but I did not expect it of you,” he said when she let him get a word in at last. “Stop exaggerating. Women do not die so easily.”
“Do they not? Eilan was bleeding again when I found her. You almost lost her, old man, and then where would all your plans be? Do you truly believe Dieda would be as pliant to your will?”
“In the Goddess’s name, what do you want of me, woman?”
“Don’t dare to speak of the Goddess; you have shown me over and over that you know less than nothing of Her,” Caillean said angrily. “For the sake of Lhiannon who—the gods know why—loved you and believed in your plans, I have helped you so far.
“But you cannot intimidate me as you did Lhiannon, nor frighten me; I have too little to lose. I would be willing to go to the priests and let them judge between us. Treating with the Romans and interfering with Oracles is a nasty business, or at least they would think it so, not understanding”—she stopped to sneer—“your high purpose.”
“Why are you doing this? Eilan is no kin of yours.” Ardanos was gazing at her as if he really did not understand.
Caillean sighed. She had loved Lhiannon as a mother, but she was coming to realize that Eilan was like a sister, or like the daughter she had never had—and never would, now that her moonblood had ceased to flow. Barren as she was, and in a way that would have been impossible when she was younger, she understood Eilan’s passionate need to keep her child.
“It should be enough to know that you really cannot stop me. I suggest that you believe that, Ardanos, for you have more to lose than I. Do you think the other priests of your Order would not inquire why this child should live at all? You have a hold over Eilan while she knows you can take her child; you have—thanks be to all the gods at once—none over me.”
The Arch-Druid looked thoughtful, but even as she began to hope that she was convincing him, Caillean realized that what she had said was not strictly true. Ardanos threatened her by threatening Eilan.
“Bring the baby back, Ardanos.” Caillean, who in her years with Lhiannon had learned all about compromise, softened her voice. “Even if Eilan has the child with her, they are still in your power. Do you think it is a small thing to have the Priestess of the Oracles in the hollow of your hand?”
“Perhaps I did act a little hastily—” he said finally. “But what I told the girl was true. If she flaunts her son at the Forest House we might as well proclaim her shame to the world. How do you suggest we maintain the deception if I let her keep him there?”
Caillean’s shoulders slumped as she realized that she had won. “I have thought of a way—”
The day appointed for Gaius’s wedding dawned clear and bright. Gaius woke when the spring sun shone in through his window, and blinked as it glowed blindingly on the whiteness of the toga draped across the chair. In the past year he had been required to wear the garment at the social and diplomatic occasions at which he had accompanied his prospective father-in-law and had become a little more used to handling its draperies, but he still found it awkward. Agricola boasted that he had taught the sons of British chieftains to wear the toga, but Gaius wondered. He had been brought up as a Roman, but he was still more comfortable in uniform or in the tunic and trews of the tribes.
He sat up, surveying the garment in dismay. His father, who had come in from Deva the day before and was sleeping in the same room, turned over and lifted one eyebrow.
“I do think they could invent a better ceremonial garment,” Gaius grumbled, “or at least something more convenient.”
“A toga is more than a garment,” said Macellius. “It is a symbol.” He sat up and to the amazement of his son, who was never at his best the first thing in the morning, began to discourse on the toga’s honorable history.
But presently Gaius started to understand. Even, or perhaps especially, here at the far end of the Empire, the right to wear the white toga of a citizen was a way of distinguishing between the masters of the world and those they had conquered, and the narrow purple stripe of the eques that marked his tunic an honor dearly won. And that was very important to men like his father. Compared to that, the comfort of the garment was irrelevant.
Much as he would have liked to toss the offending piece of cloth out of the window, it was just one of the things he had to accept when he threw in his lot with Rome. At least the toga was woolen, and so was the tunic he would wear beneath it. Though the April wind blew chill and rainy he would not freeze.
Sighing, he allowed himself to be bathed and shaved by his freedman, slipped into his tunic and sandals, and then set to work trying to figure out how to drape the thing. After a few moments his father, his face gone so wooden that Gaius felt sure he was suppressing a grin, took the toga away from him. Deftly he arranged the pleats of white wool to hang down in front of the left shoulder, adjusted the drape across the back and under his son’s right arm, and then drew the remainder carefully across his chest and over the left shoulder in the other direction so that the folds were draped gracefully over his arm.
“There now.” He stepped back and surveyed his son indulgently. “Stand up a little straighter and you could pose for a statue.”
“I feel like one,” Gaius mumbled, afraid to move lest the whole arrangement come undone. This time his father did laugh.
“Never mind; it’s natural for a bridegroom to be nervous. You’ll feel better when it’s all done.”
“Did you?” Gaius asked abruptly. “When you married my mother, were you afraid?”
Macellius stilled, and for a moment his eyes clouded with remembered pain. “I felt joy when she came to me and every day of our lives together until she was gone…” he whispered.
As I did when Eilan lay in my arms…Gaius thought bitterly. But I have consented to this mummery, and have no choice but to go through with it now.
The sight of the haruspex who had been called in to take the auspices for the marriage did nothing to improve his mood. In the noon sunlight the man’s bald red head and long skinny legs made him look like one of his own chickens and Gaius was cynically certain that whatever spots he found on the entrails of the unfortunate fowl would indicate it was an auspicious day. With most of the dignitaries of Londinium standing about it would be exceedingly inconvenient to cancel the festivities. In any case, the augurs had already been consulted weeks ago to select the proper day.
The atrium, its pillars twined with greenery, was crowded with what seemed to be an appalling number of people; he recognized a couple of wrinkled prune-faced elderly dowagers whom he had met in Licinius’s house several times over the last few months. He noticed that they really smiled, if not actually at him, at least somewhere in his direction. Maybe they were happy for Julia; if they only knew how mixed a bargain she was getting they would frown!
In due course the sacrificer declared it a very good day for a wedding and offered congratulations. No day on which Julia had decided to be married would dare to be unfavorable.
; There was a little murmur as the sacrifice was cleared away and the bride entered on her father’s arm. Gaius could see little but the hem of her white tunic beneath the crimson flamma, the famous veil. One of Licinius’s secretaries unrolled the marriage contract and began to read in a nasal drone. Most of it had been completed at the ceremony of betrothal: the amount of the coemptio which Gaius was offering, and the sum which Julia would bring to the marriage, the fact that she was to remain “in the hand” of her father as a legal part of his family, and would retain her own property. It had been explained to him that these days that arrangement was more usual, and no one would think the less of him. There was a provision that he could not divorce Julia except for “grievous misconduct,” which must be attested by at least two noble matrons. Gaius would have laughed if anything now could have made him laugh; anyone less likely to misbehave than the dignified Julia, he simply could not imagine, and she had made it too clear that she wanted this marriage to jeopardize it. Even her sober demeanor today could not hide the triumph in her eyes.
“Gaius Macellius Severus Siluricus, do you agree to the terms of this contract, and are you willing to take this woman as your wife according to the law?” his father asked then. Gaius realized that they were all looking at him, but still it seemed an endless time before he could say the words.
“I am willing—”
“Julia Licinia?” Her father turned to the girl and repeated the question. Her agreement came a good deal more swiftly. The secretary presented the document to each of them for signing and then carried it away to be registered in the archives.
Gaius felt as if his freedom were going with it, but the Roman gravity that went with the toga did not require him to smile. A sweet-faced lady, identified as the daughter of Agricola, came forward, took Julia’s hand and led her to Gaius. He felt a pang of guilt as her small fingers tightened on his.
There were prayers then, a great many it seemed, invoking Juno and Jupiter, Vesta and every other deity who might be assumed to be concerned with the preservation of hearth and home. He and Julia were given a bowl of grain and a flagon of oil to offer to the fire on the altar. As it crackled in the flames the scent of cooked food came suddenly from the dining hall off the atrium, mingling in a rather sickening fashion with the incense that had been burned. The feast was almost ready. Julia put back her veil. He took the cake of rough spelt wheat—he hoped they would have something better to eat at the feast to follow—broke it and thrust a morsel between Julia’s lips. She repeated the gesture, saying the appointed words that made them legally one. The ritual had acquired its own momentum, and from now on he had only to go through the motions.