by Jack Whyte
He was watching me closely, a half smile still lingering around his mouth.
"You think I was too hard on them?"
"No, not too hard. They deserved some chastisement, I suppose. You let them off lightly."
"But?"
I shook my head. "But nothing. It merely occurred to me to wonder what they'll do now to feed themselves, now that their livelihood is gone."
He grunted. "They'll find a way. What would you have me do, take them with us?" He picked up my helmet and mounted the stairs to the loft, where he gathered his cloak, put on his own helmet and picked up his shield before returning to where I stood watching. As he handed me my helmet he asked, "Did I tell you how glad I was to see you?" I nodded, and he crossed to pick up a lamp that burned by the ale casks. "I'm always glad to see you, Cay, but today you looked beautiful. Usually you are unimpressive. In fact, most of the time, you're almost ugly. Today, however, you were magnificent. Mad, but magnificent." As he prattled on, he was kicking the rushes into a pile at the bottom of the wooden stairs. He decided finally that he had enough of them and dropped the oil-filled lamp so that it broke on the flagstones. As we watched, the flames spread quickly.
"This is no fit place for decent people, anyway." He glanced again at each of the bodies on the floor. "May they rest in peace, as the Christians say. Let's get out of here. Why did you come here, anyway?"
I felt as though I had been doused with icy water. I had forgotten! "Varrus is dying, Uther. We are called back to Camulod."
His face went blank with shock. "No...You can't mean that, Cay. Not Grandfather!"
I could only shake my head. His disbelief mirrored my own so closely, it threatened to unman me. "We have to hurry. I brought extra horses."
We left the hostelry and its silent crew to the leaping flames. Uther's horse was safely stabled in one of the buildings at the rear and I held it steady as he threw the saddle over its back and tightened the cinches, kneeing the horse in the belly as he did so to make sure it wasn't playing tricks on him by distending its gut. In the early days of using the device, we had often found ourselves falling sideways because the harness had not been properly secured. He swung into the saddle and I leaped up behind him and directed him to where I had hidden the other animals. He took the lead rein of one of the extra horses and we headed south, keeping off the road surface to save our horses' hooves.
Neither of us had spoken since we left the hostelry, except for a few grunted directions from me, and the silence lasted until we had ridden for three or four miles at a steady canter. It was Uther who spoke first, breaking into my thoughts and showing me a different, more serious side of himself than he had shown earlier.
"That was foolery, that nonsense back there. I could have been killed...would have been if you hadn't arrived. That would have been no great loss, but I can see now that you and the others would have wasted time and effort turning the country upside-down looking for me. It was criminal and stupid. Forgive me, Cay. I'll never take off again without letting someone know where I can be found. But how in the name of all the Roman gods did you know where to find me?"
"Bodies," I said. "Willing, female bodies. You saw them there when we passed through the first time, and you didn't get to use them, and then you found yourself with three days off within ten miles of them. It wasn't difficult. I know you, Cousin. But you are right. It was stupidity, although had you been killed, I doubt that it would pass as no great loss. Not from your grandfather's viewpoint. In his eyes, you were bred and trained for a purpose, and it wasn't to get yourself killed in a den of thieves and whores."
He said no more for a while, then, "How bad is he? How much time have we lost because of this?"
"I don't know how bad he is, but he must be really ill, or they wouldn't recall us from patrol. It'll take us about three days to reach Camulod at this speed—less if we cut down on sleep. As to time lost, no more than an hour, all told. I had to come this way and I wasted no time looking for you in Glevum. The fight was brief, long as it seemed."
I stood upright in my stirrups and looked back the way we had come. We were in a stretch of open grassland, cleared of trees years earlier by a farmer whose time had long since passed and now showing signs of reverting to forest. I saw a pall of black smoke above the trees in the far distance. We fell back into silence and rode each with his own thoughts.
We changed horses regularly and the miles dropped away behind us. When darkness fell, we took our horses onto the roadbed, riding between the trees on either side, seeing our way by moonlight. We stopped and slept for a brief spell after the moon went down, and were back on our way before the first flush of dawn, stopping only to void our bladders and bowels on that second day. Each time I got down from the saddle for such a purpose, I felt that I would never be able to walk properly again, and the thought of hauling my aching body back up into the saddle daunted me. But we had no trouble on the road and by mid-after- noon of the third day we came in sight of Camulod.
We had been riding through our own home territories for some time by then and had learned from our own outposts only that Varrus had fallen, breaking both legs and several ribs in rolling down the hillside. He had become congested in his lungs and had been spitting blood for the past eight days. Grim-faced, we travelled on, to be met by Aunt Luceiia at the entrance to the villa. She looked fragile, yet somehow indomitable, as she smiled at us through her tears.
When we had kissed her, Uther spoke. "How is he, Grandmother?"
"In great pain. But he's a stubborn man and will not die before he speaks to both of you."
There it was. We both knew there was no point in uttering stupidities about his not dying.
"Can we go to him now?" I asked.
"Of course you can. He is in his day-room." We left her and walked rapidly towards the room that had been my own grandfather's day-room. Both of our fathers were there already, one on either side of the bed. Patricus, head of the Colony's Council, was there too, white-haired and solemn. I could have wept when I saw what had happened to my great-uncle since we had left, just two short weeks before. He was a different man, a stranger to my sight. Only the eyes, set in the sunken, withered, pain-racked face showed me the Publius Varrus that I loved, and even they were misted with pain.
"Uther," he said. "And Caius. Welcome home." His voice was a hoarse whisper. He held out a clawlike, shrunken hand to each of us, and as I took his hand in my own I saw how the skin of his once-mighty wrist hung in folds and wrinkles from the bones. I pressed his hand to my cheek, feeling the wetness of my tears between the two surfaces. "What are the tears for, boy? This is the way of all men. We all have to die. I have lived far longer than I ought to have, and I have lived well. Have you ridden far?" I nodded my head, unable to speak. "I thought so." The parchment whisper held a trace of the old humour. "You smell like horses, both of you. Caius, this was your grandfather's bed. He enjoyed it for years before he died. I've had it only for days. I do not intend to die in it with the smell of rancid horse sweat in my nostrils." His fingers squeezed my hand gently. "Go you and bathe, both of you. I'll still be here when you are clean. Then I shall speak with each of you alone." His hand pushed gently against mine, "Go. I will not die before I speak with you, I promise. Picus, are the baths prepared?"
"Of course they are, Varrus. Have you ever known them not to be?"
"Aye, I have. Once. The hypocausts were blocked. But you were not here then."
My father spoke to us. "Do as he says. You'll feel better. And find something to eat. Publius Varrus should have some rest." Unwillingly, we rose to do as we were bidden.
When we returned, clean smelling and refreshed, we found Aunt Luceiia sitting by the bedside, holding one of her husband's wrinkled hands between her own. His eyes were closed, but he opened them as he heard our footsteps crossing the room and he smiled at us. "Ah," he whispered. "That's better. These are the boys I know. Cay, go with your Aunt Luceiia and keep her company while I speak with Uther. Uther, com
e here and sit where I can see you."
Aunt Luceiia and I left the two of them alone and I closed the doors behind me as we left the room. She led me through the house into the family room, her own domain, and nodded for me to sit on one of the couches. "Well, Caius," she said, "Publius Varrus will not be here with us much longer, now." I swallowed the painful lump in my throat and managed to ask her what had happened. She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture remarkably like the one I had seen her husband use a thousand times. "Nobody knows, Cay. He won't tell us, and nobody saw it. He had been down here at the villa all that afternoon and was on his way home to the fort when it happened. It was after dark, we know that much, for if it had been earlier, he would have been seen." Her face crumpled and she began to weep. I crossed to where she sat and held her as she spoke through her grief. "He always was a strong and stubborn man. Too stubborn to grow old as others do. Too stubborn to admit a loss of strength or youth. I believe he put his horse to the hillside, rather than take the long route up the road. I think he lost his balance and fell from the horse. He never could abide to use a saddle, said he had ridden bareback too long to change his ways.
"Anyway, a pedlar found him at the bottom of the hill early the following morning. His horse was grazing, unhurt, not far away. He had been lying there for hours and was soaked to the skin and chilled with dew." She paused, and then shook her head violently, scattering teardrops. "I hadn't even noticed he had not come home. I had noticed, I mean, but I had not been concerned. He used to sleep here in the villa, sometimes, if he had worked late. I thought that was where he was. How could I think the old fool would try to scramble up the hill like a boy of twelve? And now he's going to die and I'll have all my life to wonder if I might have found him earlier."
I hugged her tightly and tried to reassure her that there was nothing she could have done, but she was not to be consoled so easily.
"Oh, Cay," she sobbed. "I can't believe what this has done to him. All of his flesh has melted! There's nothing left of the man I love but skin and bone and pain and the inner strength that won't let him die!"
"I know," I said into her hair through my own tears. "I know. His strength is fierce. He will not go until he wants to."
"And when he does, I'll be alone." Her own words shocked her, for I felt her stiffen in my arms, and then she spread her own arms, breaking my gentle hold on her and rising to her feet. She wiped away her tears with an edge of her stola and I watched the strength flow into her so that she seemed to grow before my eyes. When she spoke again her voice was firm and steady. "Well," she declared abruptly. "That's enough foolish weakness and tears for one day. My husband would be shamed had he heard that last remark." She turned her eyes on me and I saw the warmth in them. "Your uncle is one of the finest men who ever walked this world. All that I have, all the happiness I've ever known, has come directly from him. Now that his life is ending, it will be left to you and me, Caius, and to Uther, and to your children and grandchildren, to make sure that the life he lived and the wonders that he performed are not forgotten."
Excalibur was in my mind as she said these words, for therein, I knew, lay Varrus's immortality. The name trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I did not give it voice, for I remembered that only five pairs of eyes had seen and known it that I knew of, apart from my own. Those eyes belonged to Varrus himself, to his friends Equus and Plautus, to Father Andros—the man who designed the moulded hilt—and to my grandfather. I wondered now if Aunt Luceiia also knew of it, but I dared not ask, Incredible as it seemed to me then, Uncle Varrus might have kept all knowledge of it from her. She was a woman after all, above all else, and might have seen in it only a device for killing men, disapproving of it, for all her pride in her husband's creation. And so I could not ask her, fearing I might wound her with sudden knowledge of her husband's secrecy. I held my peace.
Seeing and misreading the anguished indecision in my eyes, she reached out and grasped my arm. "Your uncle will be finished soon with Uther. I know he has words for you. Go to him, Caius. Wait outside until Uther leaves and then send him here to me."
Uther was closing the door to my uncle's room as I turned into the passageway. He stood there and watched me sombrely as I approached. "He wants to see you now."
"How is he?"
"Bad, Cay. Very, very bad."
"Aunt Luceiia's waiting for you in the family room." He nodded and left. I stood there for a moment with my hand on the handle of the door and then I drew a deep breath and went inside. This time, as I approached the bed, I saw what it was that had made my first sight of the old man so shocking to me, so different. His beard was gone, and its absence had changed the entire appearance of his face.
"Uncle? Are you awake?" I was whispering.
"Yes, Caius, I'm awake. Come close."
I went and sat on the chair close by his head. "Uncle? You've shaved your beard off."
His smile was ghostly, like his voice. "Not I, lad. The damned medics. Couldn't keep it clean when I was fevered. Feels strange, as though I'm naked." He looked at me sidelong. "You're a fine man, Caius, or you will be, in a few, years. Now listen. I've much to say and little time. But I know what I have to say and you don't, so don't interrupt me. Agreed?" I nodded my head and he looked up at the ceiling, gathering his strength.
"Excalibur is yours. A sacred trust. No other knows it exists, now. Leave it beneath the floor where it is. It's safe there. Guard it with your life, Cay. That blade will cut iron chains. It's that strong. It's a king's sword, an Emperor's. Keep it in trust for the Emperor of Britain. Not Uther. Boy's too rash, too wild. He knows nothing about it."
"Does Aunt Luceiia?"
He lay silent, thinking, collecting himself, and then resumed in a slightly stronger voice. "No. The greatest thing I ever made, and I kept it from her. The knowledge would have been too dangerous for her. Men would fight wars to own Excalibur, Cay. Don't let them. Guard it in secrecy. One day, a time will come. You'll know the day, and you'll know the man. If he hasn't come before you die, pass the sword to someone you can trust. Your own son. You'll know. You've been well taught. And you have learned well. You found the secret of the Lady, Cay, and then the secret of the saddle. You'll find the secret of the King, someday. You'll know him as soon as you set eyes on him." I was holding my breath with the effort of listening, and each word he spoke burned its way into my brain. "Your grandfather Caius was my greatest friend. You know that. He was a dreamer, Cay, but a grand dreamer. He dared majestically in his dreams, and he had the courage and the strength to make his dreams come true..." I waited for him until he continued, "He started a process, Cay, a progression that you and your future sons will continue. He dreamed of—and he initiated—the rebirth of the greatness of Rome here in this Britain. He wanted to mix his blood, the blood of his people, with the blood of Ullic's people. Uther is the seed of his plan. So are you. Keep watch for Uther, Cay; he hasn't your long head. He lacks your sense of Tightness. Hold him in restraint. He will be King of the Pendragon when his father, Uric, dies, when..." His voice trailed away and then rallied. "Make him a good king, Cay. Advise him. He'll listen to you. He has great love for you."
Again a pause, this time a long one, before the feathery voice resumed, "Use the horses, Cay, and breed more. More and more horses. The Saxons cannot withstand a charge of horsemen. The horses, and the long-swords. Use them hard, and build an army to follow where they lead. You will need legions. Build them. You know how. And Ullic's longbows, Uther's people's weapons. Don't let them go. They stand for power, lad. They can win battles for you from far away. Use them. That's all I have to say. Now call your aunt and go with God."
I rose to leave, but his fingers tightened on mine and pulled me down to him again. "I had forgotten. The Armoury and all its treasures are for you. Uther knows this. There is much in there still to profit from." His eyes closed again and this time I was sure he slept, but he stopped me again as I rose to go and find Aunt Luceiia. I had to lean close to his mouth to he
ar, so faint was his voice. "Your grandfather Caius wants you to use the name your mother gave you..." The short hairs on the nape of my neck stirred at the tense he used, but his fingers dropped from my hand, and suddenly afraid, I hurried to the door to fetch my aunt. She and Uther were standing outside in the passageway. I beckoned, and as she hurried to his side, Uther and I looked at each other, sharing each other's grief without speaking.
We buried Publius Varrus two days later, beside his friend Caius Britannicus. That night Uther and I got drunk together, each telling the other as much as he could about what Varrus had said to him. Uther was to be King. I was to be his Councillor. From that day on, I became known to everyone except my closest family as Merlyn. Caius, the boy, had died with his uncle Publius Varrus.
BOOK TWO - Fledglings
VIII
I have spent years considering the events that shape the destinies of men and have often come close to accepting the evidence of my own experiences, for all their despair, which indicate that the zenith and the nadir of each man's life, all the grandeur and all the absurdity of life in general, are dictated by sheer chance and blind coincidence. The image that taunts me most when I think such thoughts is of a woman's mouth. It is a remembered image, not an imaginary one.
The integrity of this chronicle now demands that I write of the events that gave rise to that particular image, and to the tortuous and convoluted pathways that radiated outward, from one central set of circumstances, to confuse the footsteps of an entire people. I am not sure, however, that I can do so with detachment, even after five decades, for my emotions are as raw today as they were then. Let me therefore begin slowly and try to reconstruct those circumstances and the foolish, youthful hubris that led to the death of my youth.