[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone

by Jack Whyte (ebook by Undead)

  "He was that meticulous a note-keeper, was he?"

  "He was. He wrote notes on everything available, from waxed tablets to papyrus and scraps of parchment."

  She smiled again, a quiet, mystical smile. "He was a wise man, your grandfather. Could you find out exactly when all of this happened? Would that be possible?"

  "I suppose so. Why? Is it important? For what reason?"

  She shrugged my questions off. "Oh, I don't know. But there has been something niggling at me, something I heard about quite recently. I don't want to say anything until I have checked it out, but it might be very interesting. It was something I heard, or I think I heard, last time I was in Aquae Sulis. You know the people there believe in dragons?"

  I gave her my version of the Britannican eyebrow. "Dragons, Luceiia?"

  She nodded.

  I grinned at her. "I see. I have travelled across Britain to find people who believe in dragons."

  Her grin matched my own. "Scoff not, friend. Accept them as they are. I think they are your dragons."

  I could tell from the expression on her face that she had something she was not telling me, but I had no idea what it could be. I did not want to feed her a line to tease me with. My mind raced as I tried to guess just what she was referring to, and why these dragons should be mine, but it was hopeless.

  "Very well, you have me beaten," I said, holding up my hands in surrender. "I don't know what you are talking about. How and why are these my dragons?"

  "Because you will adopt them as soon as you hear about them, and you will hear all about them tomorrow. The fire is almost out, and I find I am tired, quite suddenly."

  The fire was indeed almost dead; I had not noticed it dwindle. I rose to my feet reluctantly, unwilling to let her go, even to sleep for a few hours.

  "Pardon me," I said. "I had no knowledge of the time passing."

  "I know. No more did I, and I enjoyed every minute of it."

  She rose as she spoke, and again I noticed how tall she was. She was standing close enough for me to be aware of the warmth and the scent of her. I could have hooked my arm about her waist without even leaning forward. But of course I did not. She looked me straight in the eye for a long moment and my mind screamed to me how soft and delicious those lips would feel against my own. Then she smiled again, softly and somehow knowingly, and adjusted her stola more warmly around her shoulders. She started to turn away from me and then caught herself, as though with an afterthought.

  "What is it?" I asked her. "Is there something I can do for you?"

  Again the same smile. She reached out her right hand and touched me, very gently, with the backs of two of her fingers on my right cheekbone. I barely felt the pressure, but it burned. "Good night, Publius," she whispered. "Thank you." And then she turned to go.

  I stopped her with a touch of my hand on her elbow. She turned back, her chin cocked as she looked half over her shoulder, and I was abruptly tongue-tied again.

  "Yes, Publius?"

  I had to say something. "Tomorrow." I stammered. "I will see you? Before you leave?"

  "Before I leave?" There was a question in her laugh. "Aye. and after. You are coming with me. Don't you remember? We discussed it at dinner. The Villa Britannicus is your home from now on." I had no recollection of the dinner-table conversation at all. She laughed again, obviously at the expression on my face. "Don't worry, Varrus." There was delicious mockery in her voice. "It's big enough for both of us."

  It was almost completely dark now in the enclosed courtyard, but I watched the glorious sway of her hips as she moved until the blackness swallowed her up. She could not have heard my whispered, "Good night, my love."

  I stared into the dying fire for a while, my thoughts in a turmoil, and then I went to my own bed in a daze.

  XVII

  I slept little that night, tortured by fantasies and lust and guilt. This woman was the sister of my best friend, my mentor and my commander. My family ranked as Equestrians, but hers was Patrician of ancient blood, having won their nobility before the time of the Caesars, descended directly from the founding families of Rome itself. She was wealthy in her own right, and she was wealthier still through her family's riches. I owned one small smithy. She was a noblewoman of high mind and values, while I was an artisan, a smith with dirt beneath my nails and the smell of smoke and soot in my clothes, my grandfather's hoard of gold coins notwithstanding. It was true that she deigned to speak sincerely with me and to show an interest in my welfare, but I knew in my heart of hearts that she did so out of gratitude to the man who had saved the life of her beloved brother. It was true, too, that she had showed keen interest in my iron lore, but only because Caius had been fascinated by it. and his retelling of it had sparked her unusual mind and its thirst for knowledge.

  But I knew that I was damned to love her forever, and I was afoot before the larks began to sing, waiting impatiently for my first glimpse of her that day.

  I had long to wait. Luceiia slept late, and then, after only a smile and a greeting to me, she disappeared into the depths of the house with Veronica and some of the children. I broke fast with Quintus before dawn and talked with him about what he had to do that day, and then he, too, disappeared about his business, leaving me to my own affairs.

  I explored the buildings of the farm as daylight grew and the place began to come to life. There I found the smith who looked after the farm equipment, and I introduced myself. He was a taciturn man, friendly enough but too busy to be distracted from his tasks. I hung around the forge long enough to satisfy myself that he knew what he was doing, and then I checked my belongings and my horses, making sure I would be ready to leave when Luceiia decided to do so.

  After that, still at loose ends, I took my African bow and some arrows and walked away from the buildings, looking for a place to practice my marksmanship. To my great surprise, I found not only a place but a well-used target. In a trampled area behind one of the stone-walled sheds that formed the outer wall of the courtyard, I found a man-sized, roughly human-shaped figure of straw bound with twine and wrapped in an old tunic that was pierced with circular holes. After looking around and seeing no one, I accepted the gift of the unknown archer and strung my bow.

  My first shot showed me that there was a log hidden beneath the straw that formed the trunk of the target. My arrow lodged in it solidly and I had a hard time removing it. From then on, I used only practice arrows without metal points.

  After a while, I grew used to the substance of the target and found that I had no need to draw my bow with anything like the strength I was accustomed to using. I was concentrating so hard, eventually, on piercing the target accurately with a minimal draw that I did not notice the approach of the man whose voice startled me.

  "There's a big bow for a little target! Looks to me like a lot of wasted time and effort!"

  I turned in surprise to find myself looking at a small man with enormously broad shoulders and a humped back, The hump pushed his head forward and to one side, so that his whole body looked twisted, though only one side, the left, was actually deformed. He looked hugely strong, in spite of his deformity, and there was no mistaking the scornful disdain on his dark-browed face as he looked at my great bow. I smiled at him, noting the smaller bow he held, already strung, in his right hand.

  "A waste?" I asked. "How can there be waste if the arrow finds the mark every time?"

  "Pshhaw!" The sound was loaded with scorn. "Hit the mark, is it? If a mark is big enough, a boyo could hit it with a rock, he could. That mark you are shooting at is my boy's plaything. Come here, then. I'll show you a mark."

  Without waiting for any sign from me, he turned on his heel and strode away with a curious, bobbing gait that I recognized ruefully as being not too different from my own. I followed him for about a hundred paces until he stopped and gestured forward with a wave of his free hand.

  "There's a mark."

  I looked. About a hundred and twenty-five paces from where we stoo
d, a large conifer had been blown down by a high wind, and the flat base of its root-pad formed a huge, brown, circular patch against the trees behind it. Just in front of it, I could discern a white, upright staff.

  "The white stake? What is it?"

  As I spoke, he hoisted his bow and loosed an arrow. The shot grazed the white upright and angled off to the right; I saw the bright scarlet of its feathers lodge in the earth of the root-pad that served as a backstop.

  "It's a shovel. Lodged in the earth. Let's see you hit it, then, with that great thing you have there."

  My first arrow missed, although not by much, and so did my second. The little man said nothing, contenting himself with the silence he knew must irritate me. I stifled my anger at myself and thought about what I was doing wrong. And the answer came immediately: I was still shortening my pull, concentrating on delicacy rather than strength. Bearing that in mind, I made some mental adjustments and drew again. My arrow nicked the edge of the white upright and, deflected, landed close to his first shot. I said nothing.

  "There's better," he said, hoisting his bow again and letting loose without seeming to aim. This time his shot hit square on target and we both saw the white stake split. He grunted. I was amazed. It was either an incredible shot or an equally incredible piece of luck.

  I forced myself to sound non-committal. "Not bad," I said. "Could you do it again?"

  He did, immediately, and I was left without a word to say as his previous arrow, which had been held in the cleft of the split shaft of the shovel, spun through the air and fell to the ground. The target was destroyed. To have attempted to hit it would have been foolish, and I said so.

  "Try it anyway," he grunted.

  I sighted carefully and loosed. My shot was close, but we had no way of judging how close.

  He turned to me with another of his grunts. "Delicacy, boyo, that's what you lack. That great thing of yours takes too much pull. You can't be accurate with a great thing like that. Delicacy's what you want, there's all! Who are you, anyway?"

  I smiled and leaned on my bow. "Varrus is my name. Publius Varrus. I am a guest of Caius Britannicus."

  He drew in his breath with a hiss. "Guest, is it? Roman you are." He pronounced the word as another would pronounce "toad" or "serpent."

  I laughed. "Aye, I'm Roman. What did you think I was? And who are you?"

  "Cymric. I took you for one of us, there's blind of me!"

  His way of talking was unlike any I had ever heard. I decided that he must be one of the local Celts. "Are you from around here, then?"

  "No." His eyes were on my face, weighing me against some kind of private measure in his head. Finally he resumed speaking. "No. I live here. Around here. But I am from the hills. The mountain land. Over yonder." He indicated the far horizon to the north-west, where I could see no mountains, and then he narrowed his eyes and I looked to see a man approaching us from the house.

  "Master Varrus," he said as he drew close, "the Lady Luceiia is preparing to leave."

  "Thank you," I said. "Please tell the lady I shall be there presently." As he walked away I spoke again to Cymric. "Wait here."

  I paced out the distance from where he stood to the shattered shaft of the shovel stuck in the ground in front of the root-pad of the great fallen tree. I had gauged it correctly. It was a hundred and twenty-six paces to the shovel, which I pulled from the ground, noting that the blade was still quite bright where it had been dug in, and another twelve paces to the surface of the root-pad. It towered above me as I stood at its base and wedged the shovel, its blade upturned, securely against the sandy clay of its surface. That done, I returned to where Cymric stood watching.

  "Now, friend Cymric," I said with a smile, "I have added twelve more steps to the distance, but the mark is wider, and far shorter. Let's see you hit it now. Six arrows."

  He looked at me with a pitying scowl and began to shoot. Four of his arrows sent back loud noises to announce their arrival on the shovel blade, but I had wedged it well and it stayed in place. I stood behind him as he shot, lining up six of my best arrows with their points in the ground. As his last arrow, his fourth hit, clanged its arrival on the mark, he turned back to me and saw what I had done. I could not read the expression on his face as I waved him aside. He moved without speaking, fastening his eyes on the gleam of the distant shovel blade.

  "Well done, Cymric," I said. "Four out of six is fine shooting. Delicate shooting, as you say. Now, watch this, and note the lack of delicacy."

  I went into my smooth, practiced manoeuvre, pulling all the way back to my ear and loosing all six arrows so fast that there was always one in flight as I released the next. We heard five sounds, one a clang similar to the sound his arrows had made and the other four quite different.

  "Five," I grunted. "Come."

  I heard him walking behind me as I led the way to the mark, knowing what I would find and positioning myself so as to hide the mark from his eyes with my back. I stopped about two paces short of the mark.

  "Well, Cymric?"

  I had my revenge for his scoffing and scorn when he walked past me and then stopped, silent, his eyes on the mark. His six arrows and two of mine were sunk well into the sandy base of the root-pad, around the head of the shovel. The shovel's surface showed four scratches where his points had hit and been deflected, and one deep gouge where one of mine had done the same. Four of my arrows, however, had pierced clean through the metal of the shovel and pinned it against the clay.

  I spoke to his stiff back. "Not delicate, Cymric, but effective."

  He turned to me, and his eyes were wide as he looked from me to the bow I held. He nodded once, and I accepted that as his recognition of a superior weapon. I stepped forward and began to collect my arrows, working them backwards through the holes they had made in the iron.

  "I will be at the Villa Britannicus. If you care to visit me there, I'll be glad to see you." I packed the arrows into my quiver. "Until then, farewell." I offered him my hand and he shook it, still without saying a word. I was conscious of his eyes on my back all the way back to the villa.

  As I entered the courtyard, I saw Luceiia, Veronica and Quintus standing outside the main door of the house beside a brightly decorated, four-wheeled cart harnessed to a matched team of grey horses. There were no servants that I could see, not even a wagon driver, and I found this surprising, although I wasted no time thinking about it. They all smiled as I walked towards them.

  "You must pardon me if I have kept you waiting," I called out as I approached them, "but I was involved in a matching of wits and arrows with one of your people, Quintus."

  "You have not kept us," Luceiia answered. "There is no rush. Who was your opponent?"

  I reached them and shook Quintus's proffered hand. "Cymric," I said. "What does he do?"

  Quintus laughed. "Cymric does nothing he does not want to do. Cymric simply is Cymric. He comes from Cambria, from the mountains, and does whatever needs to be done around here until he grows tired of it, and then he moves on."

  "I see." I looked at Luceiia, trying not to appear too besotted with her. "I asked him to visit me at your villa. I hope that was not foolish of me?"

  She laughed. "Not at all. He may even come, if he likes you. He likes few Romans."

  "I got that impression. At least he respects me, that I know."

  "La! And so he should." She was mocking me, I thought.

  I looked around me. "You are ready to leave. My horses and my gear are in the stables. I'll go and get them."

  "No, they are already gone. I sent Jacobus on ahead with them, hoping you would prefer to ride with me."

  I felt my face flush with pleasure and sought to hide my confusion by thanking Veronica and Quintus for their kindness and their hospitality.

  Eventually, amid smiles and waves, we left the Villa Varo and set out for the Villa Britannicus, which, I had been told, lay six short miles to the south and west. Our route lay along a well-used, rutted path that skirted the o
uter quadrangle of the Varo farm and swung past the great uprooted tree that had seen my triumph over Cymric. Sure enough, he was still there, watching us as we passed. I shouted and waved to him and he responded with what seemed a grudging wave in return.

  Luceiia had the reins and she drove well. The cart was built for passenger comfort and obviously not for work. It had seats for six people in the bed of the wagon and a canopy of soft leather that could be unrolled in rainy weather to close in the sides. The driver's bench was cushioned and as comfortable as a wagon bench could be, and for the time being I was more content than I could ever remember being. We drove without talking for about a mile, Luceiia concentrating on the rutted path, and I on her, willing myself not to stare too hungrily at the perfection of her profile. The day was beautiful and birds sang everywhere and I was as happy and as full of bliss as any man could ever be.

  Soon, however, sensing my scrutiny of her, she turned her face to me with a tiny smile. "You are very quiet this morning, Master Varrus. Is everything well?"

  I sucked in a deep breath. "Perfectly well, thank you, Domina," I replied. "As a matter of fact, I was just congratulating myself on being alive on a day like this."

  Her smile widened and she asked, "You feel no urge to talk?"

  "None at all."

  "Good, then we will share the silence and the day."

  We travelled on in silence, and she allowed me the perfect pleasure of simply looking at her. We both knew that I was staring ill-manneredly, but she was gracious enough to take no ill of it, and confident enough to be unflustered by it.

  Her hands were long and delicate, yet brown and strong, and there was a fine, fine down of the most delicate goldness on her forearms, which were not quite covered by the sleeves of the long, white gown she wore. Her mode of dress was the classic dress of Rome: long, clean, straight lines of soft, draped cloth, tied at the waist, the upper garment scooped across her bosom and gathered at the shoulder by a jewelled pin. She was gloriously lovely, and I felt a growing urge in me to say so, but I lacked the courage. I fell into a day-dream, however, imagining that I did say so. and that she smiled and laid her hand in mine that I could kiss it. And kiss it I did, in my dream, rubbing the golden skin gently against my lips and tasting the sweetness of it with the tip of my tongue. Her voice brought me back to my senses.