Gaius reached out blindly and took her hand. “It is true. I dreamed I was in your arms. No other woman will ever live in my heart as you do, Eilan. No other woman can give me my first-born son! But—” His voice cracked. “I cannot acknowledge him. I cannot marry you!”
His face working, he looked down at the child. “When I could not find out what had happened to you, I kept telling myself that we should have fled together when we had the chance. I could have endured a life on the run if we were together—but what kind of a life would that have been for you, and what kind of life for him?” He reached out and touched the baby’s cheek.
“He is so little, so soft,” he said wonderingly. “If anything tried to harm him, right now I think I could kill it with my bare hands!” Gaius’s gaze flicked from the child to Eilan and he grew red, as if embarrassed by his own emotion.
“You said to make the world safe for him,” he went on in a low voice. “As things are now, I can think of only one way to do that. But you will need as much courage as some ancient Roman matron of the Republic.” At the moment neither thought it odd that despite their great Emperors, Romans always invoked the days of the Republic whenever they wished to call great virtue to mind.
“You are trying to tell me that you are going to marry your Roman girl,” Eilan said harshly. She was crying once more.
“I have to!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you see? Mons Graupius was the last stand of the tribes. The only hope of mercy for your people now is in rulers who are both Roman and British, like me, but my only hope of gaining power in the Roman world is through alliance to an important family. Don’t cry,” he begged raggedly. “I have never been able to endure your tears, my little one. Think of him.” He gestured toward the sleeping baby. “For his sake, surely we can bear whatever we must.”
You will not have to bear what I do, she struggled against her tears, what I have already borne!
“You won’t be alone for ever, I promise you that,” he said. “I’ll claim you as soon as I can. And,” he added disingenuously, “surely you know that among our people a marriage is not indissoluble.”
“Yes, I have heard that,” Eilan said acidly, sure that if he was marrying into a noble family, that the union would be as tight as the girl’s kinfolk could make it. “But what is she like, this Roman girl? Is she beautiful?”
He looked at her ruefully. “She has not half your beauty, my precious. She is a little thing,” he added, “but very determined. There are times when it seems that I have been thrown unarmed into the arena to face a war-elephant, or a savage wild animal unarmed, as I have heard is done with criminals in Rome.”
Then she will never let go of him, thought Eilan, but she managed a smile. “Then you do not…really care about her?”
“Darling,” he said, kneeling at her side, and the relief in his voice made her want to laugh, “if it were not that her father is the Procurator, I give you my word, I would never have looked twice at her. With his help I can become a senator, even a Governor of Britain one day. Think of all I could do for you and the baby then!”
Gaius bent over the child and once more that fierce protectiveness flickered in his eyes. Then, sensing that Eilan was watching him, he looked up again.
Eilan continued to stare until she saw him becoming uneasy again. Caillean was right, she thought with bitter resignation. He has fallen in love with a delusion and persuaded himself it is reality—like every other man! Well, that should make it easier to tell him what she had to say.
“Gaius, you know that I love you,” she began, “but you must believe that even if you were free to offer me marriage I could not accept you.” She sighed, seeing confusion flicker in his eyes.
“I am High Priestess of Vernemeton, the Voice of the Goddess, did not they tell you? What you hope to be among the Romans, Gaius, among my people I already am! I risked my life to prove myself worthy, and the ordeal was every bit as dangerous as your battle. I can no more give up that victory than you can throw away the honor you have won!”