by Jack Whyte
My uncle heaved a deep sigh. "Too late, Emrys. You forget that the lady impugned, Uther's mother, was my daughter. Besides, I am the senior here, not the master. We have no need of such distinctions. Picus has said what I myself should say, were I not your host. Now that it has been said, I find that I cannot, in conscience, disagree with it. You may leave any time you wish. Please do not come back." He stood up and left the table and my father walked with him.
He beckoned to me in passing and we left Emrys alone in the Armoury.
Lot's wound healed quickly. It was not deep and had touched nothing vital. He and his father were gone within four days. Uther limped for a month. And the enmity created on that day lived on for years and blighted a thousand lives.
VII
I was enjoying a meal of cold sausage, cheese, bread and home-brewed beer when I heard my name being shouted in the street outside. The woman of the house looked at me curiously as a fist hammered on the door. I nodded to her and she opened it to admit one of my squad leaders who stepped into the room and snapped to attention as he saw me sitting at the table.
"Commander Caius, sir, I thought you'd be asleep."
"I was, but now I'm eating, as you see. What is it?"
The man's eyes were wide with the portent of his message as he snapped out, "Courier, sir, from Camulod. You are to return at once. The Lord Varrus lies dying."
I was on my feet before he finished, my chair clattering over backwards. "Where's Commander Uther?"
He shrugged, his eyes admitting that he had already tried to find that out. "Nobody seems to know, sir."
"Damn the man! He's never—" I cut myself short, regretting the words as I allowed them to slip out. "Send out some men to search the wine shops. He's off duty. Find him, and quickly!"
"Yes, Commander." He saluted and withdrew and I righted my chair and sat down again, all thought of food forgotten.
Publius Varrus was a constant in my life. The thought of his being ill was alien to me and yet, if he were ill enough to cause our recall, he must really be close to death. I tried to think of how old he was, but I had no real idea. Uncle Varrus was ageless. Other men grew old, but not he. The only time I had seen him ailing was when Ullic and Equus and Bishop Alaric had all died close together. But the joy of showing me Excalibur had brought him back to health, back to himself, back to living again. And now he was sick.
Suddenly, for no real reason at all, I knew where Uther would be. We had stopped at a house on the way into town," a place that had once been a mansio, an official hostelry for travellers and soldiers before the legions left. It still survived, catering to those travellers yet brave enough or desperate enough to dare the roads between Glevum and Aquae Sulis. The fellow who kept it now had been well supplied with sluttish serving maids and a couple of them had caught Uther's roving eye. I knew that was where he would be. We had just ended the northern sweep of our patrol in Glevum and were to remain here three days to rest our horses and allow our quartermaster to buy up the list of items he would not be able to find in Aquae Sulis. The second leg of our patrol would take us back to Camulod through that town, and this was our first full day of relaxation. And to Uther, relaxation required women.
Uther had always been ahead of me in matters concerning women and sex. We were born within the same hour of the same day, but it was he who led the way to physical, sexual maturity at every step. His was the first erection, the first pubic hair, the first ejaculation and, of course, the first penetration of a female body. I lagged behind always, learning from him, letting him show me how. In almost every other field save war, it was I who led the way while Uther followed, but to a growing boy there is no area of life more crucial than the sexual one and I felt constantly betrayed* condemned by my own body to be forever second best. Even well into manhood, I would have a dream in which I was with Uther in a grand debauch. This dream was different from those I thought of as my terror dreams: it never varied and was always clear. We would be surrounded by voluptuous, wanton beauties, Uther lying back, laughing in sensual pleasure, displaying his jutting; arrogant maleness to their admiring looks and caresses, and always one woman, her fingers hooked into a rake, would comb the hairs on his bared belly and clasp his phallus. The blood by this time would be hammering behind my eyes and I would feel hands tugging at my clothes as my own seed threatened to spill, and then would come the laughter, and the shame of looking down to see my own hairless body and the smallness of a little boy's pizzle. Our minds can do strange things to us. I was never less than a month or so behind Uther in development at any stage and I was no less well equipped than he, nor did I have any problem in performance or in gratifying any woman's desire and yet, somewhere in my mind, that deep-seated fear persisted.
I thanked the woman who had fed me and left some silver coins on the table. My horse was tethered right outside the door and as I swung into the saddle I scanned the empty street, looking vainly for one of my men. Two streets further south, I met a party of them on foot, all reasonably sober.
"Quintus," I called to the biggest of them. "I am recalled to Camulod with Commander Uther. Extreme emergency. Illness in the family. Find Dedalus, give him my apologies for not taking the time to contact him personally, and tell him he is now in command. Commander Uther and I will ride alone. Dedalus is to finish the patrol as planned. Tell him Commander Varrus is dying and we must ride on ahead. There are search parties out looking for Commander Uther, but I think I know where he is, and they won't find him. If I am wrong, and he is still here in Glevum, I will be waiting for him at the hostelry ten miles south of the town. I will have extra horses with me, so tell him he need not waste time with that. Do you understand?" I waited while he repeated it back to me verbatim, then I returned his salute and kicked my horse into a gallop to our depot where I picked up two extra horses and some food before heading out of town.
I remember riding those first ten miles trying to think of anything that would take my mind away from Uncle Varrus and what his death would mean. I was eighteen years old and although this was my fourth patrol, it was the first that Uther and I had commanded jointly without overt supervision. It crossed my mind that our first responsibility should be to the patrol before all else, but I dismissed the thought very quickly. Dedalus was a senior centurion and my father had charged him with the authority to override our orders if he believed Uther and I were acting foolishly or rashly at any time.
It had hurt my pride at the time to think that we were only nominal commanders, but my intellect had reassured me that this last patrol with Dedalus was to have been our final test. Now it turned out that we could not complete it.
It was late afternoon by the time I drew near to the hostelry, and as I did so I began to get a bad feeling in my gut, a feeling that my boyhood Druid teachers had taught me to respect, since they believed that what we call intuition is a natural gift that man has allowed to grow rusty. I have always been glad of the emphasis they placed on that teaching. It almost certainly saved my life that day.
I drew rein about a hundred paces from the place and sat there looking at it, remembering that I had not liked the looks of some of the characters who had been there when we arrived two days previously. If Uther had gone in there alone, and I reasoned that he would have, because of who and what he was, he could have bought himself trouble along with a jug of beer. If, on the other hand, he was not there at all and I rode in alone, mounted on one horse and leading two more, I would be buying myself trouble of the same kind. My uniform would not save me, nor would any air of authority I might command. I was a man alone who could be dealt with quickly and disposed of cleanly. Any search for me later would produce nothing. I looked around for signs of Uther's horse, but there was nothing to see. It would have been stabled in one of the outhouses at the back or at the side of the main building.
I almost talked myself into believing that I was being foolish. Thank God I didn't believe myself. I left the road and made my way through the trees and around t
he place without being seen, and tethered the horses safely off the road on the south side, and then I walked back. I left my war cloak, my shield and my long-sword with the horses and carried only my short-sword and dagger. My helmet felt heavy on my head and my nailed boots rang loudly on the cobbled surface as I walked. I stepped right to the centre of the main courtyard entrance and stopped there, looking around the interior of the yard with care. It was empty. There were no signs of life at all. I crossed the yard quickly, making my way to the main door, and as I did so I heard shouting and commotion from inside. I knew what I would find even before I entered, and I wished I had not left my shield back there with the horses. I paused on the threshold, took a deep breath, then swung the door open and stepped inside, moving immediately to bring my back against the inside wall.
The place was more like a barn than anything else, one huge, communal room with dried rushes on the floor and trestle tables scattered here and there for the clientele's eating needs, if not their drinking. A long table standing against the wall to my right held amphorae and casks of ale. A massive, open fireplace in the opposite wall held spits for roasting meat. Directly across from where I stood, a wide, open flight of wooden steps led to a second level, like a loft, which served as sleeping quarters and business premises for the women.
Uther had thrown a table of some kind lengthwise across the top of this stairway and was hard set defending it, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, against a mob of eight or nine desperate-looking rogues. I didn't know how long he had been there, but I had the distinct feeling that the fun had only just begun, there was not enough evidence of violent action lying around for the fracas to have been older, and he could not have hoped to hold out for long against so many. They were crowded together at the top of the stairs, hampering themselves, but all they would have to do was take their time and they would overwhelm him sooner or later. As I took all of this in, one of the girls up in the loft with him leaped onto Uther's back, wrapping her legs around his waist and attempting to pin his arms to his sides and render him defenceless. There was a concerted roar from his assailants and from him as he broke the grip of her arms, wrenched her free and threw her over his shoulders and down towards his attackers. She screamed as she landed among the men, sweeping one of them with her off the open edge of the stairs to crash to the stone floor beneath. The scattered rushes did nothing to break their fall, and they both lay still. I glanced around me, looking for something I could use as a better weapon than my short-sword and dagger and there, on the floor beside me, lay a spear that I recognized as Uther's. I picked it up, hefting it for balance, and then I was across the floor and up the stairs, feeling the blade of it bite deep between the shoulders of the first man I could reach. I jerked the spearpoint free and pierced the kidney of another man before the first fell back and past me down the stairs. This time I jerked to my left, pushing and guiding my victim off the edge of the stairs, almost losing my balance as the weight of his body fell free of the spear's blade. They still did not know I was there behind them.
"Caius! What kept you?" Uther's welcoming roar told everyone I had arrived and they swung round as one to face me. As they did so Uther's long blade decapitated the rearmost of them and he kicked the headless, spouting corpse to fall among the legs of the others. The man who owned the hostelry, a one-eyed misanthrope who clutched a Roman sword, was right in front of me. I jammed the spear into his belly, just below the ribs and saw death come into his eyes as he dropped the sword and grasped at the shaft of the spear, stopping me from pulling it out. I gave it a vicious twist to lock the barbs and jerked him down towards me, stepping to my left to avoid his fall and almost plunging myself over the edge of the stairs. I hung there, my arms waving in the air, while they all had time to get over their surprise. I saw Uther plant his sword in another's back, but there were still three of them facing me with Uther's sword embedded and me defenceless.
One of them came at me with a roar just as I found my balance. I saw an axe whistling towards me and I jumped, out and backwards, flexing my knees and hoping to land without breaking a leg. In midair, I saw the axe bite deep into the step where I had been standing, and I saw Uther pick up the table that had sheltered him and rush the others on the stairs, sweeping all three of them off balance into a fall. By sheer good luck, I landed like a cat, easily, on all fours, and I was on the whoreson who had swung the axe before he landed at the bottom of the stairs. I had no thought of mercy in my head. The point of my sword grated on the stone floor beneath him and I had to plant my foot on his chest to pull my blade free. I heard a grunt, a chop and a death rattle as Uther clove another of them, and then came scuffling footsteps and the slam of a door. It was over. I collapsed onto the stairs, my head hanging between my knees as I fought for breath, and I heard the sound of the door again.
When I looked up, Uther was standing in the middle of the floor, grinning at me, his chest heaving as he gulped in great breaths. "One of them got away," he wheezed.
"Good riddance. Let him go." I was too exhausted to care.
He crossed the floor and sat on the steps beside me, hooking his right elbow around my neck and squeezing tightly, to my very great discomfort. I was too tired even to struggle and so I just sat there, pulled across him, seeing the curling hair on his thighs that were within inches of my face, smelling the well-known smell of him and thanking God I had arrived when I did.
Eventually he released me and lay back against the stairs and our breathing slowed down and began to return to normal. After the pressure and the tensions of the fight—the first real, life and death struggle in which I had ever been personally involved—I felt as weak as a baby, and I began to tremble all over. I sat erect and clasped my hands together tightly in an effort to control the shaking, and as I did so I became aware of the blood for the first time. It was everywhere. Wherever I looked I saw blood. It lay in puddles and gouts and rope-like streaks on the rushes of the floor. The man who had tried to kill me with the axe lay less than three feet from me, across the legs of the owner of the place whose upper body reared freakishly erect, impaled on Uther's broken spear. He had obviously landed on it as he fell, breaking the shaft and forcing the point clean through himself. Everything misted over and I vomited where I sat, choking and retching on the bitter gall of victory. When my vision, cleared again, I was kneeling on the floor and Uther was removing my helmet, letting the cool, fresh air reach my heated forehead and my sweat-matted hair.
"Feeling better?" I nodded, wiping my lips and chin and spitting to clear the sourness from my mouth. "Good," he went on. I've just decided I do not ever want you to be angry with me. You are a wild man, Cousin, when you are angry. You killed four of these people."
I looked around me at the slaughterhouse. "So did you."
He grinned. "Ah, but I killed them all from behind, while they were watching you."
"I was behind them too, remember. Lucky I found your spear on the floor over there." My voice was shaking. "And lucky you had them all involved at the top of the staircase. If things had been different, we would be dead now, you and I."
"Foolish talk. They weren't and we aren't."
I spat again. "My mouth tastes foul. I need a drink." I rose and crossed to the table with the casks and poured myself a cup of ale. It was flat and stale, bitter and sickening. Unable to swallow it, I rinsed my mouth and gargled and spat the stuff on the floor, feeling better with every second that passed. I looked around me then and nodded at the carnage. "What do we do about this?" As I spoke, I heard a sound above me and my head snapped up to see two women looking down at us from the loft, large-eyed and very frightened. I nodded towards them. "Some more friends of yours?"
Uther looked up and saw them. "Come down here, quickly!" When they had reached us, cowering with terror, their eyes flickering wildly from one to the other of us, he drew his sword again. "Take off those clothes!" They did as he said, and when they stood naked he shook his head slowly from side to side, looking at them in
rueful amusement. "Caius, can you believe I almost got killed for this? We almost got killed for this, and I know you wouldn't stick mine into either of these, let alone your own!" The women stood close together, staring at him in fear, not knowing whether they were to live or die, but knowing completely that they were looking at Death himself in my cousin. "You!" he said, pointing his sword at the larger of them. "Turn around. Look at my friend." She turned to face me, her large breasts hanging heavy against her ribs, her belly sagging sadly over her pubic hair. "You almost got him killed, you slut, and he's a prince! He almost died because you teased my lust" with your great, squeezy teats!" He slapped her hard across the buttocks with the flat of his sword and she leaped in fright and pain, tears springing from her eyes. "Get out of my sight, both of you," he roared. "Out! Out, out, out, out!" The smaller one started to reach for her clothes, but he swung his sword again, catching her on the flank with the flat of it. "No!" he roared. "Take your thieving, murderous lives and let that be enough! No clothes. Be born again, as the Christians say. Go naked into a new life as you entered this one and think twice before you dare to tempt another witless reveller to his death! Out!" They ran, scampering in terror across the body-littered floor and out into the gathering dusk.
He watched them go, with that half-crazed grin of his that I loved, and then he slid his sword into the ring in the belt across his shoulders so that the blade hung down his back. "Should I have let them go, Cousin? They did try to kill me."
"No they didn't, Uther. They merely enticed you. All three of them together could hardly have raped you, but only one of them attacked you, and she suffered for it."