Eilan looked at him, and her changeable eyes went flat and hard. “Let me be sure I understand you. Now, when the Imperium is about to tear itself apart, you want to offer me Roman protection. After all these years! Isn’t it rather more likely that if there should be trouble during the coming weeks I will be safer here” — she indicated the walls and the hulking figure of Huw with a graceful wave of her hand – “than you and yours are likely to be?”
Gaius flushed. “Are you so sure your own people will never turn on you? Your oracles have been a force for peace with Rome – and now that your grandfather is not here, whom do you think people like Cynric will blame if things go wrong? Can’t you see that you must come with me?”
“I must . . . ?” her eyes flashed. “And what does your Roman wife say to- this fine plan? Has she tired of you after twelve years?”
“Julia has become a Christian and sworn an oath of chastity. That is grounds enough for divorce in Roman law. I could marry you, Eilan, and we could be together. If you will not, I can formally adopt our son!”
“So kind of you!” Eilan’s face was now as red as it had been pale. She rose to her feet suddenly and started down the path, her skirts sweeping the gravel behind her. Gaius and Huw jumped up, both of them, it seemed to him, equally taken aback, and followed.
At the end of the garden was a hedge, just low enough for Gaius to see over it to a flat space between the buildings and the outer walls where several children were playing with a sewn leather ball. After a few moments it became clear to Gaius that one boy was the leader, a lad as leggy as a young colt who was just beginning to grow into his bones. His curls were tawny on top from a summer in the sun, but underneath they were dark, and as he turned to shout to one of his team-mates, there was something so like Macellius in his expression that it stopped Gaius’s breath.
Eilan had begun to speak again, but Gaius’s gaze was on the boy. His heart was hammering so hard he thought they must hear it in Deva, but the child, intent on his game, never looked around.
“When I bore him in that hut in the forest where were you?” Her voice, low and furious, was pitched for his ears. “And when I fought to keep him with me, and all these years when I watched over him in secret, never daring to admit he was my own? He does not know I am his mother, but I have kept him safely. Now, when he is almost come to manhood, you would step in and take him away? I think not, Gaius Macellius Severus Siluricus!” she hissed. “Gawen knows nothing of Rome!”
“Eilan!” he whispered. Gaius had thought what he felt for this child the one time he had held him had been some fancy; but he could feel it again, a longing that shook his bones. “Please!”
She turned her back and began to move back down the path. “My thanks to you, Roman, for your sympathy,” she said loudly and clearly. “It was kind of you to come. As you say, the death of Ardanos has been a great loss. Do take our respectful greetings back to the Legate and to your father.”
Gaius saw Huw looming towards him and, still looking over his shoulder, started to follow her. For a moment Gawen turned towards him, head tipped back, watching the ball. Then he dashed away. Gaius let the big man shepherd him back down the path, feeling as if all the light had gone out of the world.
Eilan had pulled her veil back down. His last sight of her was a shadow disappearing into a dark doorway. As Gaius let his horse choose its own way back down to the road he wondered how it could all have gone so wrong. He had been so relieved to find Eilan was unchanged, and he had meant to tell her he still loved her; but he realized now that she was something worse than a Fury: a woman like the old Empresses, or Boudicca, a woman warped by pride and power.