by Jack Whyte
"You haven't seen that girl, Titus. Whoever did that to her is a ravening beast!"
"But that's simply not Uther!"
I rounded on him at that. "Then who is it, Titus? Is it you? Is it me? My father? Somebody did it! Somebody right here in Camulod. I'm not making this up out of my head. It happened!" I realized that I was almost shouting and dropped my voice. "That girl is lying over in Lucanus's quarters, Titus. She is not a figment of my imagination and neither is what happened to her. Someone in this fort savaged her like a wild animal—worse than a wild animal would have—and left her there for dead. It's a marvel that she is alive at all, and she may very well be dead as we speak. I hope not. If she lives, she'll be able to identify her attacker."
"How? I thought she was deaf and dumb?"
"Come on, Titus! She can point a finger."
"Oh, of course. Stupid of me."
"She has to live, Titus, because I can't function properly with these suspicions in my mind and no proof one way or the other. She has to live to look Uther in the face, and I have to be there when it happens, so I have to make sure she stays alive if and when she starts to recover."
Titus frowned at me. "I don't understand. You're not making sense. Surely, if she starts to recover, she'll stay alive?"
I bit down on my impatience and managed not to snap at him. "Think about it, Titus. Think it through. We are not dealing with the normal here. Suppose it was you who had done this thing, and you thought the girl dead and your secret safe. And then you found out she's alive and recovering, and that she'll be able to identify you. What would you do?"
"Run." There was absolutely no hesitation in his voice.
"Right. That's a good answer, and exactly what I'd expect of you, although you'd have to run fast and far to be sure of safety from Picus's justice. But suppose that for any one of a thousand reasons, you couldn't, or didn't want to run away from Camulod? What then? What would your next move be? Remember, we're talking about a small, sick, deaf and mute girl who is the only witness who might condemn you. What might you try to do then?" I was putting words into his mouth, but I had to.
"Try to kill her. You're right, Cay. We'll have to guard her day and night."
"How, Titus?"
"What d'you mean, how?" His brow was creased in perplexity.
"Who will you set to guard her? It was someone in this fort who did it to her, don't forget."
His face clouded. "We'll set a double guard."
"To guard the guards? What if there were two or more men involved? We don't know, and we can't afford to take that risk."
He stopped walking and looked straight at me. "You frighten me, Caius. You're telling me that I can't trust my own men."
I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's even worse than that, Titus. We can trust no one in this. That's the crime that has really been committed here. The only person in this fort whose innocence I can be absolutely sure of is myself. I know I didn't do this thing. The medic, Lucanus, I can be sure of, too, since he is the one keeping her alive. And you, my friend, are simply yourself incapable of such bestiality. My father and his men are on patrol. When they return, they'll guard her. Until then, it's up to us." I paused. "She is the only one who can clear Uther of suspicion, or condemn him."
"Damnation! This stinks like the sewers of Rome!" His voice was choked with disgust. "So what are we to do? How do we handle this? Have you any ideas?"
I only half heard his last question, for we had just reentered the fort and in the distance, disappearing in the direction of the kitchens, I had seen the unmistakable figure of Daffyd, my best friend among the Druids. The sight of him brought an associated image wholly formed into my mind and I suddenly felt a great surge in my chest as though something heavy had been lifted from me, and all at once I felt much better. I spoke to Titus over my shoulder.
"I've just had an idea, Titus. Leave me alone now and let me chew on it for a while."
He shrugged and shook his head, then raised his hands, palms outward. "I hope it's a good one, Cay. Take care of it because God knows we need it. I'll be in my cubiculum."
I watched him walk away, then I retraced my steps to the secluded masons' scaffolding against the wall. There, secure in the knowledge that none of the masons would consider approaching or disturbing me, I made myself comfortable and began to consider the idea that had flashed into my mind, considering it and adapting it until I had transformed it into a feasible plan of action.
The safety of the girl Cassandra was paramount. Upon it depended the end to my doubts, slight as they were, concerning my cousin's guilt. The two must be confronted with each other, were I to continue living in sanity. Her initial reaction to Uther would, I was convinced, establish his innocence or his guilt immediately, and either outcome would relieve me of these agonizing suspicions. In the interim, however, until the return of my father's patrol, I had the pressing problem I had shared with Titus: Who would guard the guards?
I do not know when the idea of a mysterious disappearance had first occurred to me, but it had crystallized in my mind the moment I saw Daffyd in the distance, for my next thought had been that Mod, one of Daffyd's two apprentices, a slim, adolescent, almost androgynous boy, would have come with him. Somehow, I had known immediately, I would substitute Mod for the girl Cassandra, and arrange the exchange in such a way that no one would be aware of it.
That was the basis of my plan. The plan and its implementation, however, had remained disjointed and undefined beyond the fact that their formlessness lay heavy and solid in the pit of my gut like a mass of undigested food. Now, as I thought the matter through, plotting my course of action in my head, the whole mosaic came together and my enthusiasm grew stronger as the final pieces fell convincingly into place. I could achieve little alone, but I had staunch Mends whom I could trust to aid me, and Lucanus the physician, on whom I could rely concerning the welfare of his charge. I knew my plan would work.
Less than an hour after my arrival beneath the scaffolding, I began putting my stratagem into effect. I sought out my friends and assembled them in Lucanus's infirmary,, where I explained the situation, told them what I proposed to do and enlisted their support.
Ludo, one of my oldest friends in Camulod and head of the kitchens of the fort's Commissariat, would play a crucial part in our abduction. Uther had often warned me about Ludo, during our boyhood, citing the man's notorious fondness for youngsters of his own sex, but Ludo had never made any improper advances to me, nor had I ever given him cause to resent me. Now his commitment to this endeavour of mine was absolute and instant. He agreed to empty one of his secure storerooms close to the infirmary within the hour and put it at my disposal. Lucanus undertook to remove Cassandra from his quarters and conceal her safely in the storeroom as soon as it was empty. Mod would immediately take Cassandra's place, his identity disguised with the same kind of dressings in which Lucanus had swathed the girl. Some of the girl's original dressings, stained with her blood, would amplify the effect. When all these arrangements were completed, in a matter of an hour or so, I would mount a strong guard, night and day, over the infirmary, first making sure that every guard had verified Mod's presence and his battered condition—believing him to be Cassandra—for himself. At dusk, Ludo would load a wagon with "supplies" for the villa kitchens, and would transport the injured girl to the bottom of the hill, where Daffyd would be waiting to lead her to a sanctuary where she would be safe from all harm. Later, Mod would "disappear" in safety in the dead of night, crossing in the darkness from the rear door of Lucanus's quarters to the rear door of the kitchens. The guards would be seeking to prevent an intrusion to the physician's quarters; they would never think to look for an escape. The only criticism of my plan came from Lucanus, who demanded to know where we would take the girl. He was extremely unwilling to allow her to be moved at all, doubting her capability to survive such an ordeal, and he was incensed when I refused, claiming the need for secrecy even among ourselves, to divulge Daffyd's destina
tion. In the absence of alternatives, however, he had no choice but to accede, grudgingly, to the urgency facing us all.
And so it was done. Cassandra was moved safely and without mishap and Lucanus installed Mod in her place, swathing him so convincingly in blood-stained bandages and sheets that the mere sight of his slight, featureless form inspired pity. I spent the afternoon spreading the word widely, first to the Council, which I interrupted in session, that the girl had survived the outrage to which she had been subjected and that she would be protected, thenceforth, under heavy guard, until she grew well enough to identify her attacker. By dusk, everyone in the fort was aware of the girl's situation, and a steady stream of curiosity-seekers passed the infirmary to view the impassive guards at their posts.
The girl was transported safely out of Camulod at nightfall, surrounded by crates and baskets in a sheepskin-piled cart, and Titus and I together provided sufficient distraction for the guards during the second watch of the night to allow Mod to make his own escape from the infirmary.
Several horn's later, during the fourth and last watch of the night when the darkness was absolute, I presented myself once more at the main entrance to the infirmary and questioned the Guard Commander on his charge. He was one of my father's ablest and most trusted veterans, our senior centurion and therefore Camulod's equivalent of the noble and ancient rank of primus pilus. I felt a strong twinge of guilt at deluding him this way, but I had determined that something more—some final touch—was necessary at this point to solidify and seal the mysterious element of what we had done and what I hoped to achieve. I asked him to inspect the guard with me and when we had done so,. I stood talking to him for a few moments.
"A bad business, this, Popilius."
"Aye, Commander," he grunted. "Bad through and through, but the lass is safe enough now. No more harm will reach her, and if she recovers, she'll point the finger at the whoreson who did this. If he's one of mine, I'll have the balls off him before he dies."
I believed him implicitly but made no response, allowing a silence to grow between us before asking my next question. "Do you believe in dreams, Popilius?"
He was an old soldier, too old to respond without thought to such a question. "Dreams, Commander?" he mused, eventually. "I believe they exist, 'cause I have them. But that's not what you're asking, is it? I don't believe they have any significance. I don't believe in that witchcraft stuff. J have dreams, sometimes, as I said, but I can't often remember what they're about. Why do you ask?"
His response surprised me, for I, too, had dreams I could seldom remember afterwards, and it was the memory of those, their incompleteness, that had prompted me to take this present step. I turned to face him in the flickering light of the wall torches by the door to the building, forcing myself to smile a rueful self-deprecating smile.
"Because that's why I'm here. I had one tonight that woke me completely, and it was vivid in my memory."
"A nightmare?" There was a rough sympathy in his voice, as though he were familiar with nightmares.
"No, no, it wasn't a nightmare. There was no fear. I dreamed of a storm, high, howling winds and harsh, red light. Through it walked a figure in a long,- black cloak with a high, pointed hood. He—it—was carrying the girl, out through the main gates. Ridiculous, of course, but this damned mess has been on my mind all day, and when I sprang awake the way I did, that dream seemed very real. So real, in fact, that I had to get up and satisfy myself all is well."
Popilius smiled and nodded. "All's well, Commander, but I know how you felt. As I said, I sometimes dream myself. Strange things, dreams. But the girl hasn't gone anywhere, and no one's entered the building. Lucanus sleeps in the room with her.",.
"Hmm. You're right, of course. I suppose I'm being over cautious. Anyway, I'm going back to try to sleep again. If anything strange or untoward occurs, send for me immediately, understand?"
"I will, Commander. Good night to you."
"Good night, Popilius."
And so was born the first tale of Merlyn's strange and magical powers, for when the empty cot was found, Popilius was there to remember our conversation, and he lost no time in letting everyone know. To this day I have no idea what prompted me to do what I did that night, for in those days I had no thought of ever being more than what I was then, a soldier. But there it is, something inside me told me what to do and I did it.
We conducted an investigation, naturally, into the girl's disappearance, but no disciplinary action was taken against the very worried guards. I had taken care to arrange matters so that there were enough men on guard at any given moment of the night to preclude any charges of negligence, collusion or subornment. The girl had disappeared from heavily guarded premises while her physician slept within reach of her. She had not left by any of the infirmary doors and no one had passed into the infirmary since the last time she had been seen by her guards during the third watch, when Titus and I inspected her ourselves.
Lucanus swore that when he had last seen her she was incapable of locomotion. Popilius swore that she had not been abducted during his watch, even though Commander Merlyn had told him personally of his dream that she had been abducted by a cloaked, storm-racked figure. He had been vigilant at his post prior to that, he declared—and none doubted him or his men—but afterward, he had been even more attentive to his charge. The disappearance of the injured girl was, and remained, a mystery. It became part of the legend of the Colony, and none of those involved ever told the truth of it until now. It was our secret.
As a Druid, Daffyd was familiar with the place I thought of as my secret valley; it was, and had always been, sacred to him and to his kind, who saw trees, tree-crowned hills, and tree-filled hollows as the natural habitat of their ancient gods. Uther, on the other hand, had no knowledge of the valley's existence, even though there had been times when I was sorely tempted to share my secret with him. That I had never done so was the result of a promise made to Uncle Varrus, who had first shown the place to me. He had taken me to the valley one day and made me a gift of it, telling me that every man had need of a secret place where he could be himself, by himself. There would be times, he assured me, when I would be glad to escape from my public life and rest in solitude, gathering my strength and my thoughts. Here alone, he told me, I would be safe from Uther. I had not understood what he meant by "safe," so he explained then that Uther would be a king one day, and that kings and emperors are cruel taskmasters, believing their own concerns give them the right to dictate the lives of others at all times.
This place, he told me, this valley, might come to be my only sanctuary in the whole world, but only if I kept its secret close. Here I might find some peace from time to time and let Uther rant and rave until I should return. It would do him good, his grandfather said, to realize that there was at least one man in his kingdom who could maintain some independence of his king. Uther was not yet king, but his grandfather had already been proven right.
I had thought my secret to be mine alone after my uncle's death, until the day I opened my eyes from sleep and found my father looking down at me. He had come there to fish as a boy, he told me. We fished together that day, and I told him what Uncle Varrus had told me. His only comment was that Varrus had been a wise man, and from that day my father had never come near the place again. He, too, had given it to me for my own. Over the years, I had built a strong stone hut at the water's edge, with a fine, weatherproof roof of red clay tiles that I had salvaged, a few at a time, from a great pile of the things that had lain for years behind one of the outhouses of the Villa Britannicus. I loved to sleep there beside the little lake, lulled by the gentle sound of the sliding waterfall. I had also, over those same years, varied my approach to the only entrance so that no tell-tale path would betray my sanctuary to the eyes of others.
Now I stood outside the door of the hut with Mod, gazing at the yellow lamp light that shone through the translucent glass of the window I had built into the wall. It had taken me a long time
to make that window, ten pieces of thick glass joined by lead and carefully fastened into a wooden frame. It was a good window, letting in light mid keeping the weather out. I stood with my left hand on young Mod's shoulder, reluctant, for some reason I could not identify, to enter the hut.
He finally twisted his head and looked up at me. "Are we going in?"
"Aye, Mod, we are." I stepped forward and pushed the door open.
The room was small, and now it seemed crowded with three people in it. Tumac, the younger of Daffyd's two apprentices, was asleep on a pile of furs against the wall, and Daffyd sat by the side of the cot, feeding the girl Cassandra with a spoon. He turned when he heard us enter and smiled at us. The girl gave no sign of knowing we were there. She did not hear us enter and her eyes were covered by a strip of white cloth. I crossed the room and looked down at her. Her mouth was still a mess, but some of the swelling seemed to have abated.
"How is she?" I asked him.
"On the mend. She has a lot of pain ahead of her, but it is the pain of healing."
"How long will it take her to mend completely?"
"A week, two weeks, perhaps three."
"Why are her eyes covered?"
He reached forward and tucked an edge of the covering more securely into place before he answered me. "Protection. They are badly swollen. There is an unguent on the cloth."
"Why? Has her sight been damaged?"
"I don't think so, although I cannot be sure." He looked back at me. "But how are you, Merlyn? You look frayed."
"I'm well enough, Daffyd. I just need some sleep. I have not had much these past few nights."
"Has Uther returned?"
"No."
"And you have no idea where he might have gone?"
"None at all." Daffyd shook his head and continued spooning a broth of some kind into the girl's mouth. "What are you feeding her?" I asked him.
"Only the boiled juice of some herbs. She is too weak to take anything stronger. Perhaps tomorrow I will stew a rabbit and start her on broth." He paused in his feeding and turned to me. "You really believe Uther did this?"