Senara turned and, although she had expected him, gave a small startled cry. “Is it you?”
“No other,” he said, almost gaily, “in spite of the evil weather. I dare say we shall have rain, and that speedily.” He looked at the sky. “What, think you, would Father Petros say to lending the shelter of his roof to a couple of wayfarers?”
“For converts I think he would be delighted. I do not think he would do so to pagans,” she said reprovingly.
They moved inside together. The hermit’s furnishings consisted of some dilapidated benches and, against the wall, a clumsy box bed. But where, this evening, was Father Petros? Outside the storm broke with a rattle of wind and a slam of rain. Gaius winced, listening to the thunder.
“You see, we made it here just in time,” he said. “Bellissima!”
“You must not call me so,” she said timidly.
“No?” he queried, watching her carefully. “But I thought truth was one of your Christian virtues. The Stoics say so, and even among the Druids, I have heard, truth-telling is valued. Would you have me lie to you, then?”
“You know how to best me with words,” she said crossly. “We came here to speak of the state of your soul.”
“Ah, yes, a thing that I am not yet convinced I possess.”
She said, “I am no philosopher. But do not even the Stoics whom you have mentioned, speak of that part of a man which deals with the evidence of that which you can neither see nor feel?”
“They do; it is that which convinces me that of all women you are the most desirable.”
He knew that he was pushing the girl, but the storm, rather than relieving the tension, seemed to have filled him with its own intensity. He had spent the days since his meeting with Eilan in turmoil, alternately raging and in despair. He would have taken her away and done his duty by her, but she had denied him. Julia too had forfeited her claim to him. Surely he was free now to seek comfort elsewhere! And when he told Senara she was beautiful, he had not lied.
She blushed and said timidly, “It is not well done of you to speak so to me.”
“On the contrary, I think it is very well done, and you would have me speak the truth. And for what else were you created as a woman?”
Now she was on familiar ground, having listened to many catechumens. “Scripture tells us,” she replied, “that we were created for the purpose of giving worship to the Creator.”
“How dull for him,” Gaius answered. “If I were a god, I would ask more of men than that they should spend their leisure in worshipping me.”
“But it is not for the Created to question the ways of the Creator.”
“Why not?” Gaius pursued.
“Is there anything better to do than worship God?” she demanded, raising her eyes to his. Flushed, like this, she looked still more beautiful.
Certainly there is, Gaius thought, and I would rather be doing it with you. If there was a god, he had created women’s beauty, and Gaius could not believe he would condemn any man for appreciating it. But it was not yet time to say so.
“Tell me, then, about this Creator.”
“Almost every faith—except perhaps that of Rome who worship only their Emperor who is all evil—speaks of a Creator. It was He who made all things that were made, and He placed us here to worship Him.”
“Properly speaking, it is the genius of the Emperor that we honor, the divine spark that guides him, and through him, the Empire, not the man. That is why those who will not burn incense are prosecuted as traitors.”
“There may have been good Emperors, though some of the priests would not believe it,” Senara conceded. “But even you will own that Nero, who burned so many Christians in his arena, was an evil one.”