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.
Abruptly a vision of Senara as he had last seen her gazing up at him overlaid his memory of Eilan’s rage. She was so good, and so innocent—as Eilan had been when first he knew her. Eilan had never truly understood him, but Senara was half Roman, as he was, and torn by the same conflicts and uncertainties. If he could win her, it seemed to Gaius he would be whole once more.
He was not yet beaten. One way or another, he would have Senara, and he would have the boy, though all the Legions of Rome and warriors of the tribes stood between.
Eilan spent the days after Gaius’s visit in seclusion. The priestesses thought that she was grieving for her grandfather, but although his death had left her shocked and startled, relief rather had predominated. Her reaction to Gaius, however, was another matter entirely. She herself had been as surprised by her own fury as he was. She had not realized how much she had resented his abandonment all these years. It was true that she had agreed to it, but surely he could have tried to contact her before now! How dared he think that he could walk in without a word of love and take her child away…
When her thoughts reached this point she would have to stop herself, walk a little or spend some time in the disciplined meditation Caillean had taught her, and try to recover her serenity. It was several days before she began seriously to consider what he had said to her. Who, indeed, would now feel himself privileged to instruct her in what she was to say in the name of the Goddess? The last she had heard, the Druids were still arguing. By now it had become clear that a new Arch-Druid would not be chosen until after Lughnasad, so she need not worry about preparing for the festival. But by Samaine, the new leader would be firmly seated in his power. And if it were someone like her father, he would demand that the Goddess call the tribes to war.
When Dieda returned to the Forest House and came to see her, Eilan found her own offers of sympathy quickly shrugged off.
“Ardanos is no loss,” said her kinswoman callously. “My father was always in the hands of the Romans. I wonder who will give the orders to the Oracle now?”
Ever since Gawen’s birth, Eilan had felt constrained in Dieda’s presence. Still, it seemed impossible she should have no feeling whatever for her own father. Eilan missed Caillean, who might have been able to make some sense out of all this, more with every passing day.
Dieda was still with her when one of the girls came in to tell them that Cynric had come. So the Ravens are gathering, Eilan thought grimly, but she greeted Cynric kindly as a kinsman when Huw brought him in. He looked older than his years, she thought painfully, shaggy as a mountain pony, his fine skin marred by old scars.
“What are you doing in this part of the country? I thought you safely away to the North, after things went wrong with Brigitta and the Demetae.”
“Oh, I can come and go as I please,” he said, “even under the Commander’s nose. I am too clever for them.” He spoke with a kind of brittle gaiety she found disturbing.
“The proudest beast is soonest taken in the snare of the hunter,” murmured Dieda sardonically. She pretended to care nothing for Cynric, but Eilan thought she was not so indifferent as she seemed.
Cynric shrugged. “I might well think some god favors me more than common; it is true that I seem to bear a charmed life. I think I could go into Londinium and pull the Governor’s beard.”