He wondered who had written the Druid’s Latin response for him. Gaius had burned the wax tablets on which they were written, but the words remained engraved on his memory. They were simple enough. The Druid did not feel he could give his daughter in marriage, because of her youth and Gaius’s Roman heritage.
Gaius had resolved to put the whole thing completely out of mind. After all, he was a Roman, trained to discipline both mind and body. But it was proving harder than he had expected. He could control his thoughts during the daytime, but last night he had dreamed once more that he and Eilan were sailing westward together on a white ship. Yet even if there were any land to the west where they might flee, he did not have the faintest idea how one would go about abducting even a willing girl, nor whether Eilan would be willing to run away. He had no intention of facing down all his kinsmen, to say nothing of hers. Nothing could come of that except misery for them both.
Perhaps Eilan was betrothed to somebody else by now, despite what her father had said about her youth. Certainly most Roman girls were married by that age. His father could go ahead, if he wished, and pledge him to whomever he willed. Licinius’s daughter was young too, so perhaps he need not face it for a while. Better, Gaius thought, to stop thinking about women entirely. The gods knew he had tried. But now and again, seeing—perhaps in some Gaulish slave—a flash of fair hair and grey eyes, her image would return to him so vividly he wanted to cry.
He would have liked to learn from Cynric how the family fared. But by the time he had got up his courage again the young giant had vanished. And all things considered, it was probably just as well.
Eilan woke suddenly, blinking as she tried to remember where she was. Had the baby cried? Had she dreamed? But Mairi and the babe lay quiet in the bed box on the other side of the fire. As she moved, her nephew, Vran, turned in his sleep and nestled closer against her. The priestess, Caillean, lay still against the wall. Eilan, at the edge of the bed nearest the fire, had slept badly, restless. If she had been dreaming, she could not remember it; she knew only that she was awake and staring at the red coals where the fire had burned to embers.
In the dark Caillean said softly, "I heard it too. There is someone outside the house.”
"At this hour?” She listened, but there was only the dripping of water from the eaves and the hiss of the fire.
But Caillean said with peremptory haste, "Be still.” She slipped from the bed and silently tested the bar across the door. It was secure in its slot, but after a moment Eilan heard again the sound that had wakened her and saw the bar bow slightly as the door was pressed inward.
Eilan shivered. She had been weaned on tales of raiders, but had always lived in the great house of Bendeigid, protected by her father’s armed men. The two serving men who helped with the farm work slept in the other roundhouse, and the homes of the other men oathed to Rhodri were scattered through the hills.
"Get up—quietly—and dress as swiftly as you can,” whispered Caillean. The door shook again, and Eilan obeyed, trembling.
"My father always said to hide in the woods if raiders came—”
"That is no good to us now, with this rain, and Mairi still weak from childbirth,” Caillean murmured. "Wait.”
The door groaned as someone thrust more strongly, and Mairi woke, muttering. But Caillean, fully dressed now, had her hand over her lips. "Be silent, as you value your life and your child’s,” she whispered. Mairi subsided with a gasp, and the baby, luckily, slept on.
"Shall we hide in the storage pit?” Eilan whispered as the door shook again. Whoever was outside was determined to force his way in.
Caillean said softly, "Stay here, and whatever happens do not scream,” and went to the door. Mairi cried out as Caillean began to lift the bar. The priestess said fiercely, "Do you want to put this door back together after they break it down? I do not.”
As she drew back the bar, the door banged open. A dozen men burst through it as if blown by the wind and stopped short as Caillean cried out a single word that sounded like a command. They were big men with wild and untrimmed hair streaming over their shoulders; swathed in skins and hairy cloaks of heavy wool over tunics even more brightly checked than those the Britons wore. Caillean seemed slender as a willow wand before them. Her dark hair flowed to her waist over her ungirt blue robe, lifting a little as the wind blew through the door. It was the only thing about her that moved.