“It might work,” Macellius said, considering. He turned to the Legate. “I agree with my son’s suggestion. You’ve already got a detachment ready to strengthen the garrison at Moridunum; they can carry the news.”
“She’ll be a hostage then,” Domitius Brutus said. This he could understand.
As he left the office, it occurred to Gaius that the daughters, however young, could still be a danger. The woman stirred a faint pity; she looked so forlorn.
“Where are your little girls?” he asked in the British tongue.
“Where you will never find them, Roman, and I thank the gods,” she said. “Don’t you think I know how your legionaries treat young girls?”
“Not little children!” Gaius exclaimed. “Come now; I am a father myself, with three little daughters about the age of yours. At most we would find them suitable guardians.”
“I will spare you that trouble,” she said fiercely. “They are well taken care of!”
A legionary came up and touched her on the arm. When she flinched, he ordered, “Do come along quietly, lady. We don’t wish to bind you.”
She looked wildly around her, and her gaze settled on Gaius. “Where are you taking me?”
“Only to Londinium,” he said soothingly. He saw her face crumple, with relief or disappointment he did not know, but she went quietly enough.
The legionary on guard watched her go and said to Gaius, “You’d never think she would associate with known agitators, not to look at her now; but when we picked her up, it was reported she’d been seen about with a notorious rebel: Conmor, Cynric, or some such name as that. He’s said to be still in the area.”
“I know him,” Gaius said.
The legionary stared. “You, sir?”
Gaius nodded, recalling the high-hearted boy who had pulled him out of the boar pit. Was Cynric still in contact with Eilan? If they caught him, Gaius could ask how he could arrange a private meeting.
“Gods,” said Macellius, closing the door of the Legate’s office behind him and following Gaius down the corridor. “All this makes me feel old!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gaius answered him.
“The Legate wants me to do something to calm things down among the people. Use my old contacts, he says.”
Perhaps Brutus was not as stupid as he looked, Gaius thought. Macellius’s ability to get co-operation from the tribes had been legendary in his day.
“But I’m tired of picking other people’s chestnuts out of the fire. Maybe I’ll move to Rome. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the city. Maybe I should go to Egypt where I would be warm for once.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Gaius chided. “What would my little girls do without their grandsire?”
“Oh, come, they hardly know I’m alive,” said Macellius. But he seemed pleased. “Of course if you had a son it would be different.”
“I—well, I may have a son one of these days,” Gaius broke out in a sweat. Macellius himself had told Gaius about Eilan’s pregnancy, but when he had seen her and the baby in the hut in the forest, it was clear that the birth had been kept secret. If Macellius did not know that Eilan had borne him a son, Gaius did not think he should tell his father now.
Eilan dreamed that she walked beside a lake in a half-light that could have been either dusk or dawn. A light mist hung above the waters, obscuring the further shore; the mists were silver, and a silver sheen was on the waters; wavelets lapped softly against the shore. It seemed that across the water drifted singing, and out of the mists came swimming nine white swans, as fair as the maidens of the Forest House when they saluted the moon.