He had not realized that Julia was aware of his troubles until she brought up the subject herself.
“Father told me,” she said after the evening meal when they were sitting on the terrace together watching the late summer sunset gild the basilica’s dome, “that you were sent here because you had formed some sort of alliance with a native woman, the daughter of a proscribed man. Tell me something about her. How old was she?”
Gaius felt his face flame and coughed to cover his confusion. It had never occurred to him that her father would have told her; but perhaps it was just as well to get things clear between them.
“A few years older than you are, I think.” In truth, he supposed that Julia must now be just the age Eilan had been when he first met her. Though otherwise they were utterly different, Julia had the quality of innocence he had first loved in Eilan.
The Procurator had kept him busy, and so had local society. It was a heady experience for a young man of mixed blood. He had told his father once that he was not ambitious, but that was before he had realized what rewards wealth, and the right connections, could bring.
Julia smiled at him kindly. “Did you care very much about being married to her?”
“I thought I did. I was in love. Of course I had not met you then,” he said quickly, wondering what love could possibly mean to Julia.
She looked at him, long and steadily. “I think you should see her again before we are married,” she said, “just to be certain that you are not going to pine for her once you are married to me.”
“I have every intention of being a good husband —” he began, but Julia either misunderstood or chose to pretend to. Her eyes were too dark; he could not read them. Eilan’s eyes had been clear as a forest pool.
“Because,” she said straightforwardly, “I do not want a man who would rather be married to someone else. I really think you should see her again, and find out what you want your life to be. Then, when you come back, I’ll know that marriage with me is really what you want to do.”
She sounded like her father, he thought grimly, when he was negotiating a contract; she sounded as if she thought marriage was a career. But then, brought up in the capital as she had been, that was probably exactly what she expected it to be! And what other
career could there be for a Roman woman? What could she know of the fire that pulsed in the blood when the Beltane drums began, or the longing that ate at the heart like the music of the pipes the shepherds played on the hills?
In any case, his father had made it impossible for him to see Eilan; no doubt even Julia would be horrified if she heard that his beloved was the local equivalent of a Vestal Virgin. But Julia was already making plans, and once again Gaius felt as if he was in the path of a cavalry charge.
“Father is going to send you north with despatches for Agricola —”
Gaius raised one eyebrow, for he had heard nothing of this, but it did not really surprise him. Julia was the darling of every clerk in the tabularium, and when a change in orders was contemplated, they were always the first to know. And the last one to know is always the man most concerned! he thought.
“On your way you can make time to see this girl. When you come back you will be quite, quite sure that you would rather be married to me.”
Gaius suppressed a smile, for she did not know as much as she thought if she imagined he would have much time for side trips on government service. But perhaps he could manage something; already his blood beat faster in his veins at the thought of seeing Eilan again.
Thanks be to Venus that Julia could not know what he was thinking, though there were times when he credited her with the powers of a Sibyl, or maybe all women had this kind of power. But Julia was chattering about her wedding veil, which was to be made of a fabulous material to be brought in by caravan from halfway around the world.