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.