[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone

by Jack Whyte (ebook by Undead)

  When he had gone, Phoebe giggled. "Poor Equus. He'll be so angry."

  "Aye, and he'll soon be back. I have to go. But listen to me, now. I am going to bring you back a bag of money. Gold. Don't say anything!" She had been about to protest. "Just listen! It's a gift, from me to you. I have no need of it. You do. You have given me back a life I thought I had lost forever. I want to do the same for you. You understand? A life for a life. Use it to get out of here and away from that husband of yours. You deserve better. Equus will be here when I get back. When he comes, don't lie to him. Tell him I came looking for him last night and found you here, and that you told me what had happened. Then say no more. He would never think that I stayed. I'll hand you the money when he isn't looking. Don't argue. Take it." I cocked my head, looking at her intently. "You will, won't you?"

  She was staring at me with round eyes filled with tears. She nodded slowly, and then emphatically. "Yes. I will. And God bless you."

  "He might, but I doubt it. You have. Let me know where you go to, will you? Perhaps we may see each other again." She nodded, tears spilling from her eyes. "Good," I said. "Now, where were we? I was enjoying that. I've never known a better cure for a thick head."

  She smiled at me then, slowly and lazily, leaning back into my palms, and her hand reached down between us as she raised herself on her toes.

  "I think," she whispered, grasping me gently, firmly, guiding, "if I remember it all correctly," a pause, intense with concentration; delightful, tactile movement, probing and positioning, "... that you were just..." minor, maddening adjustments, "... about..." a long, slow, scalding slide, "... there!"

  I returned within the hour with the money for her flight, as I had promised, and managed to transfer it to her without Equus being any the wiser. The man was distracted, having spent the main part of the night searching fruitlessly for Cuno, the delinquent husband. But Cuno, apparently, had not been too drunk to remember what Equus had sworn to do to him if he ever maltreated Phoebe again. He had vanished for good, and he never did return to Colchester. We presumed that he had fled to escape Equus, but were unable to prove anything, and no one was inclined to dedicate valuable time to searching for the fellow.

  Phoebe departed, too, within the week, leaving a letter for her brother explaining why she had gone, but making no mention of her destination other than that she would send him a message to let him know that she was well once she had settled in her new life. She spent the night before her departure with me, and wrote me thereafter several times from Verulamium, where she had settled. Equus was upset by her departure, at first, but he settled down once he had heard from her and knew that she was well. He never suspected my complicity in her flight.

  IX

  It was a blazing hot day in midsummer and I was unhappy, cooped up in the darkness of the smithy doing last-minute work on a neglected order of pike-heads for the German mercenaries of the local garrison. It was a consignment that had given place to other priorities and now required emergency attention. The inside of the smithy seemed as black as the pit, although the truth was that I was simply feeling lazy, having no stomach for work that day. I finished hammering a cooling pike-head and plunged it into the quenching trough, looking through the cloud of steam towards the doorway as I did so, and there sat Britannicus, high on a magnificent white horse, his full-dress uniform a glory of scarlet, white and gold. I dropped tongs and hammer and ran as fast as my bad leg would allow me to the doorway, where I stopped, suddenly overcome with shyness.

  He looked at me sardonically, his eyes taking in my beard, my sooty face and arms, and my leather apron.

  "By the divine Augustus! Vulcan in person! Tell me, fellow. I'm looking for a friend of mine, probably your owner. Varrus the Roman. Where will I find him?"

  "Vulcan was lame from birth," I said. "I got my limp just recently, wasting my time in trying to help out an ungrateful colleague."

  His face broke into a great grin. Then he swung his leg over his horse's back and slid to the ground, his arms open, with the apparent intent of throwing them around me. I jumped away in horror. One touch of me and my soot would ruin that dress tunic forever. I held up my hand to keep him off.

  "For the love of God, General, don't touch me! You'll never get clean!"

  He stopped just in time and stood, looking me up and down, still smiling widely. "You may be right, old friend, you may be right. You do look rather... sooty. But at least I can take your hand!"

  We shook, as Romans do. arm to arm, looking each other over in delight. It had been almost two years since we had parted company. He looked in top fighting condition, even though he must now have been forty-one years old. He was lean and bronzed and strong-looking. His scarlet cape and plume and his gold helmet and armour made the rich white wool of his military tunic look like damask.

  "What brings you to Colchester, General? And why so formally dressed? You are a sight for sore eyes. You look marvellous!"

  "Thank you, Varrus, so do you. But Colchester? I thought I was in Camulodunum."

  I grinned at him, having forgotten the archaic compunction that made him insist on calling every place in Britain by its original Roman name, rather than by the Celticized names used by the people.

  "How are you, Varrus? Is life dealing well with you? Are you happy?"

  "What's happiness, General? I have a good life and a place to live and a place to work. I'm content. What more could a man want?"

  "How's the leg?"

  "It's fine." I glanced down at it. "It'll never be straight again, and it aches in the winter, but I can walk on it, as you can see."

  "Excellent!" He glanced around the yard. "Do you have a jug of wine to offer a thirsty man?"

  "No, but I have something better." I looked back into the darkness of the smithy. "Equus! Come out here. I want you to meet someone."

  Equus came out into the sunlight, wiping his hands against his tunic. I introduced him to Britannicus as my partner and asked him to pour us some of his homebrewed ale. There was a bench in the yard; as we made ourselves comfortable on it, Equus went to get us a drink.

  "You didn't answer my question, Commander. What's the occasion for the finery?" I nodded at his uniform and he shrugged disparagingly.

  "It seems that all of Britain is fully at peace. I am on my way to Verulamium with Theodosius. Tonight we dine with Antonius Cicero and the garrison here. We arrived this morning and held a full-dress review of the troops at noon. I came directly here after the ceremonies."

  "Ah, so that's what all the commotion was about! I heard the trumpets, but I was busy and didn't pay much attention. I knew if it was important Plautus would tell me about it soon enough. Will you be staying in town tonight?"

  "Yes. And leaving tomorrow at first light. I came to invite you to dine with me tonight at the fort. Will you come? You know several of the officers."

  I blinked in surprise. It would be a formal officers' dinner. I reviewed my entire wardrobe in half a second. I had nothing suitable for a banquet.

  "Can't, Commander," I said. "Sorry, but I've got nothing even remotely suitable to wear to an affair like that. I've bought no new clothes — no stylish ones, at any rate — since I came here. I have no need of them, normally."

  He shook his head. "Not good enough. Too easily remedied and too weak as an excuse. Not acceptable at all. I'll have my man supply you with some of my clothes. They will fit, and I have far too many for my own needs. We'll bathe together in the evening and see if the army masseurs can get the soot out of your pores with steam, water, perfumed oils and muscle. You must stink like a goat!"

  I laughed aloud. "Commander, the dirt's no more than a disguise. I do bathe, from time to time."

  "Thank God for that!"

  He had removed his helmet when he sat down, and now he unhooked the fastening of his military cloak, allowing it to fall unheeded behind him as Equus arrived, carrying two enormous flagons of the cold beer he brewed in his own home. We always kept a cask of it down in
the coolness of the cellar and it slaked a thirst in a way no other beverage could. Britannicus accepted his with a smile of thanks and put it straight to his lips. Equus stood and watched him drink deeply for a few seconds and then turned and left us.

  After what seemed like minutes, Britannicus stopped drinking and wiped his lips with his forearm, breathing deeply.

  "This stuff is delicious, Varrus! Did Equus... Equus?

  Is that his real name?"

  "It's what he's called. I don't think even he knows his real name. He forgot it years ago."

  "Did he make this?"

  "Yes, Commander. He's very proud of his ale."

  "He should be." He drank again, then, "How many slaves do you have working for you, Varrus?"

  It was my turn to shake my head. "None, Commander, as you well know. Slavery is non-productive."

  He smiled gently. "Ah, yes, I remember your personal heresy. Slavery built the Empire, Varrus."

  "That's horse turds, Commander, and you know it. The free fanners and the citizens of Rome itself built the Republic, and the Republic became the Empire, and slavery finished both of them."

  Now he was grinning hugely. "That's treason, Varrus. Valentinian would have your tongue cut out for voicing such thoughts. How can you deny the benefits of slavery?"

  "Same way I did the last time you brought it up. It's plain common sense. What I find surprising is that any man with a brain in his head can defend it."

  Britannicus stood up and walked away to look at the riot of hollyhocks growing wild in the corner of the yard. He stood there for several moments, deep in thought. I spoke to his back.

  "I know you agree with what I'm saying, in principle. I've heard you say so. I'm not stupid enough to think that all slaves should be freed, or could be. But I really believe that depriving a man of his humanity is a certain way to deny anyone, including him, the benefit of his living. A slave has no incentive to improve. That's why there were never any slaves in the legions. Go back to the days of the Republic, when Rome was the strongest it has ever been. All the best ideas, the finest decisions, the greatest steps forward in knowledge, in strategy, in deployment, in whatever you want, were developed and put into place by free men. None of them came from slaves. Not one. That's all I'm saying. I don't care if other people have slaves. My point is that any man who works for me or with me will better his own life and the conditions of his life by doing so. I'll make it worth his while to do the best he's capable of."

  He had turned around and was looking at me. "What about the Greek city states?"

  "What about them, Commander? We've been through this before. They prove my point."

  "Not so, Varrus. In Athens, a slave state, the human mind was lifted to its greatest achievements ever."

  "Aye, and they still died out! They had to! Commander, how can you be a Christian and believe that God made man in his own image, and still maintain that any man has the right to own any other man?"

  "Religious philosophy? From you, Varrus?" He was smiling again.

  "That's not philosophy!" I felt the blood rising to my face. "That stuff's too deep for me. The democracy of Athens was built on a basic fault: only citizens were allowed to think, and only slaves were allowed to work. The slaves had no life at all to speak of, but they were expected to produce everything the parasitic thinkers needed to live on. It was bound to fail. It bred hatred on the one hand and laziness on the other."

  Britannicus crossed back to the bench and picked up his flagon, and I saw another illustration of my point.

  "That ale you're drinking — where do you think it came from?"

  His eyebrow went up again. "You told me. Equus brewed it."

  "He did, but out of what?" I read the amusement in his eyes. "We know a farmer, General, who supplies us with the materials from which Equus makes his beer. Equus supplies me with his beer because I supply him with the workshop to make the nails and the tools with which he pays the farmer for his crop. If the farmer stops growing his crops, or if I deprive Equus of his workplace, or if he stops making his nails and tools, that chain will break down. The farmer will go somewhere else for his goods, or Equus will seek another farmer to supply him with hops. In the meantime, I'll have no ale. Somebody loses."

  He smiled and half nodded, his eyebrow arched in what I took to be derision, but I carried on.

  "It may seem like a contrived example, but it's not. It's not. It's simple and real, like life. There has to be something produced before anyone can consume it, and I believe no man has a right to live if he does not produce something. Parasites are destructive. Yet our society, our Roman state, has never seen any need to encourage its people to produce sensibly or to govern their own production! That's all I'm going to say. Otherwise I'll get angry."

  He smiled at my vehemence. "Enough! Sorry. Show me your workshop."

  "I'll be glad to. But tell me why you got me onto that topic as soon as you arrived? That's almost exactly where we left off talking two years ago."

  He grinned. "That is correct. It was exactly where we left off. I was simply curious as to whether or not you would remember your own eloquent argument, although I never seriously doubted for a moment you would."

  I led him inside, and we spent the next half hour going over work in progress. Britannicus asked a lot of intelligent questions and I tried to provide him with intelligent answers. He seemed impressed with the way we were set up, and I felt pleased. Then, after standing for a while watching Equus, who was finishing the last of the pike-head order, he pulled the sword from the scabbard by his side and extended it to me, hilt forward.

  "What do you think of this?"

  I took it and examined it. It was not a good weapon, in spite of the jewellery and inlay work on the hilt. The blade was plain and ill balanced. I hefted it and weighed it in my hand.

  "Well?" He clearly wanted me to evaluate it and I did not want to hurt his feelings.

  "Where did you get this, Commander?"

  "Never mind, for the moment. Would you buy it?"

  I looked him straight in the eye. "No, Commander, I would not. The blade is ill weighted, the metal won't hold an edge for any length of time, and the tang is starting to work loose inside the hilt."

  "Hmmm! There was no looseness inside the hilt when I bought it last year. What would cause that?"

  "It was probably made by a slave." I couldn't resist the jibe. "No self-respecting armourer would allow such a shoddy piece of work to leave his hands. I would venture to guess that it was bought cheap by a jeweller, who made it look fancy and sold it for its decorative value rather than its usefulness."

  He shook his head ruefully at my candour and took the offending weapon back, slipping it into its ornate scabbard. "Do you have any swords for sale?"

  I shook my head. "No. Not that I would have such a ceremonial piece for sale at any time. These things are made to order. I do have one sword, but it's an experimental type that I've been working on for some months. It's not been proven yet."

  "May I see it?"

  I went and fetched the sword for him. He ran his eyes over the lines of it and hefted it for balance, transferring his gaze immediately to the hilt.

  "How have you done this? It's bronze, isn't it?" I nodded. "But it's solid! No seams. How?"

  "A new technique, or rather, an adaptation of a very old technique. I think it's going to work very well. The entire hilt is poured in one piece and bonded to the iron of the tang."

  He swung it in a series of sharp, jabbing cuts. "Will you make me one like this?"

  "Happily. I'd give you that one, but I'm still not satisfied with the weight and balance of it. I'll make you one that will be perfect. Not fancy, Commander, but as close to a perfect weight for you as I can achieve."

  He placed the sword flat on the bench. "Do so, my friend, and name your price."

  As we walked back out into the sunlight, I was half smiling at the thought of charging Gaius Britannicus for using one of my swords.

&nbs
p; His horse was cropping the grass growing between the flagstones of the yard, and he stopped With his hand on its neck. "Varrus, have you ever heard of the Bagaudae?"

  I thought for a moment. "Weren't they the rebels in Gaul who turned bandit about a hundred years ago? Stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble for the administration over there for a long time, if I remember correctly. What about them?"

  He was stroking his horse's muzzle gently. The big white animal whickered softly and pushed its muzzle against his shoulder.

  "You have a good memory, my friend. That's exactly who they are. I'd hardly call them bandits, but they are nominally rebels. They are still active, and the legions over there do nothing about them. Fascinating people, Varrus. They've held virtual rule over a major part of southern Gaul for almost a hundred years."

  I stared at him. "What do you mean, rule?" He simply shrugged his shoulders. "You mean they govern the province? And the legions let them? I find that hard to believe. Why haven't we heard more about them? Why haven't they been stamped out?"

  He shrugged slightly again. "Cowardice, Varrus. Sheer cowardice."

  "On whose part? The legions'?"

  "No. The Empire's."

  I could feel myself frowning. "Commander, you're not making sense."

  "Oh yes I am, Varrus. I'm making absolute sense."

  "Not to me, you're not."

  "That's because you were born and bred here, Varrus, sheltered by the army and by the seas around this island. The real bureaucracy of the Empire never really established its stranglehold here in Britain the way it has everywhere else. Take yourself, for example. Do you know that neither you nor your grandfather would have been allowed to live and work the way you've always done if you'd lived in any other part of the Empire? The regulations and restrictions would have killed you."