“I certainly hope you are right,” Gaius said. It would not be his fault if she did not, since he had begotten one son already.
“I put this wine away when Julia was born, to be drunk when my first grandchild was born,” Licinius said, removing the seal. “Drink with me, my son; and don’t spoil it by putting too much water with it.”
Gaius had had no supper and would much rather have had a cup of ale with a bowl of beans or a roast fowl, but with the household in such disarray he’d be lucky to get some cold bread and meat if he could corner one of the household slaves. He resigned himself to going to bed half drunk, and joined Licinius.
“To your daughter,” Licinius said. “May she be as good to you as Julia has been to me.”
Gaius drank and then the old man proposed a toast to his son.
Gaius blinked and sputtered, and his father-in-law elaborated, “Surely you will have a son next year.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
But as Gaius lifted his goblet it was of Eilan and the son he already had that he was thinking. By now the boy would be a year old. Was he walking? Had the fuzz of dark hair turned to gold?
And then of course they had to drink to Julia; if the serving woman had not come in at around that point to say he might see her, Gaius would have been very drunk indeed. Grateful for the interruption, he followed the woman to the bedchamber.
Julia struck her husband as very small, small and pale. Tucked in her arms was the tiny swaddled form of the child.
Julia looked up at him and began to cry. “I’m so sorry. I did so want to give you a son – I was so sure . . .”
Made generous by the thought of Eilan’s son, far to the west, he stooped and kissed her. “Don’t cry,” he said. “We will have a boy next time, if the gods wish it.”
“Then you accept her?”
The slave woman picked up the child and held it out and they all looked at him expectantly. After a moment Gaius realized what he was supposed to do and took the baby, rather awkwardly. He looked down into the crumpled features, waiting for the tide of tenderness that had overwhelmed him when he held his son. But his only emotion was amazement, for it seemed to him impossible that something so tiny could be real. He sighed.
“In the name of my ancestors I claim this child as my daughter,” Gaius said loudly. “Macellia Severina shall be her name.”
Just after Beltane, Bendeigid sought audience with the Lady of Vernemeton. By this time Eilan had settled into her role as High Priestess, but it still seemed strange that her own father, a powerful Druid, should seek permission to visit her. Yet she sent an equally formal reply that she would gladly receive him, and when he appeared in her outer chamber that afternoon, she made ready to give him a cordial welcome.
Truth to tell, Eilan did not feel all that cordial. She could not help but remember that it was her father’s refusal even to consider her marriage to Gaius that had placed her in a position in which, while she had comfort and honor, had also made her a stranger to her own son. She made certain that Gawen was out of sight and hearing for the afternoon. Bendeigid at least would know that Mairi had not borne another child, and Gawen was getting to look more like his father.
She set out a pitcher of fresh water, newly drawn by Senara from the Sacred Well, and indicated to Huw that he could let her visitor come in. It gave her a certain pleasure to have her bodyguard looming over them. His bulk made even her father, who was a big man, seem small. She had thought that to be the recipient of such dog-like devotion would make her uncomfortable, for Huw had gratefully transferred his loyalty to her as soon as she emerged from her ritual seclusion and began to go about again, but he never intruded. He was simply there, and she gradually came to appreciate his usefulness in getting rid of visitors, or, as now, to overawe them.