Ardanos was instructing the people to depart in peace. There was almost a hint of smugness in the satisfaction that filled his smile.
He does not understand, Eilan thought then. He thinks he did it all… But if the Arch-Druid did not understand the power of the Goddess he said he served, it was not for her to enlighten him. She could only trust that the Lady knew Her own business, and would continue to watch over them.
Gaius spent the first months of his marriage fighting the awareness that it was based upon a lie. He suspected that Julia was more enamored of being married than she was of him, but she was cheerful and affectionate, and as long as he was reasonably attentive, she seemed satisfied with his companionship. He could only thank the gods for the innocence, or perhaps the lack of emotional depth, which prevented her from realizing a relationship between a man and a woman ought to be a great deal more.
Licinius, who believed that a young couple should not be separated in the first year of their marriage, had arranged for Gaius to serve as an aedile in charge of government buildings in Londinium, which would give him some of the experience in public service necessary to advance his career. At first he had protested lack of background, and wondered if his father-in-law had got him the job simply so that Julia could continue to keep house for him, but he found that although his staff of slaves and freedmen could do the work, they needed the authority of a man of status to deal with the rest of the government. Presently, he realized that a childhood spent listening to his father deal with the problems of maintaining a major fortress had prepared him for his new responsibilities quite well.
“Treasure the time you have with Julia now, my lad,” Licinius would say, patting him on the shoulder, “for you’ll be parted often enough in the future, especially if you’re assigned duty in Dacia or some other post on the frontier.” They both knew that the path of promotion led all over the Empire; a long-term provincial post such as Camp Prefect or Procurator was awarded only at the end of a career.
These were the crucial years, when the name a young man made for himself—and the contacts—determined how far he would rise. Soon Gaius would need to spend some time in Rome itself; he found himself looking forward to it. Meanwhile he applied himself to understanding the workings of government in the smaller reflection of the capital that Londinium had become.
More quickly than he could have imagined, a year went by. From time to time disturbing news came from Rome. The Emperor had got himself elected to the office of Consul for the next ten years, and Censor for life in addition to the powers he already had. The patricians muttered darkly that it was a plot to gain control over the Senate, but did little more, for at the moment the army was quite happy with their Emperor, who had raised pay by one-third. As an officer Gaius could not object to that, but it was clear which way the wind was blowing. Even more than his predecessors, Domitian seemed to regard the remaining democratic institutions of Rome as outdated, and certainly inconvenient.
A few months after their marriage, Licinius had engaged a tutor primarily for Julia, he said—so that she might learn to speak better Greek and more polished Latin, and Gaius, to his chagrin, was urged to share these lessons. “For if you go to Rome, it will be necessary for you to speak good Greek, and a more aristocratic Latin,” he pointed out.
Stung, Gaius had protested. From his earliest boyhood, Macellius had insisted that tutors should be engaged, and that he became as fluent in Latin as in the tribal Celtic language of his mother’s kin.
“Plain Latin is good enough for me,” he protested.
“No doubt it’s good enough for an army camp,” Julia argued, “but believe me, it would be better to speak to the Senate in Celtic than in that vulgar dialect of Deva.”
Gaius felt like protesting that his Latin was no worse than that of Macellius; but it was true that Macellius had never had to speak to the senators of Rome. And it would do him no harm to learn the language of educated men everywhere, which would always be Greek. But the lessons did not go on for long. By the end of the summer Julia was pregnant and so queasy much of the time that the tutor was dismissed.