The Singing Sword cc-2

by Jack Whyte

  Caius cleared his throat and spoke to everyone. "What Vegetius says is true. To accept his suggestion would be to create a precedent that might become dangerous. We have to ask ourselves if we dare to violate our own rule, the only rule that governs our participation in this Council. Since our beginnings we have ordained that none may leave a Council meeting before all business facing the Council has been dealt with and resolved. This has allowed us to deal successfully with the dangers of procrastination. Successfully and, to this point, effectively. Do we dare to do otherwise now?

  "On the other hand..." He paused, marshalling his thoughts. "On the other hand, what Vegetius is proposing is not a complete negation of the principle governing that rule. He is asking for time and the privacy to nurture and develop an idea that, whatever its substance, is absolutely germane to the problem facing us today.

  "He is not asking for an overnight adjournment, merely for thinking space. All of us here have been unable, in the space of seven hours, to come up with any ideas at all. We are not simply lacking a solution; until Vegetius phrased it so succinctly, we had not even arrived at a definition of our problem. Vegetius Sulla has been ahead of all of us in defining, appreciating and, I hope, dealing with the problem. What he is saying to us is that all of our arguing is interfering with his capacity to think constructively. He is telling us that in the space of two hours we may eat, renew ourselves and return to this Council meeting refreshed and able to evaluate the worth of the plan he will then propose to us. So. How do you vote?"

  The meeting was adjourned for two hours by unanimous consent.

  XI

  Vegetius was late in re-entering the Council room, and it was a measure of the high regard he had won for himself among our colonists that his twenty-one peers remained calm, talking quietly among themselves as they awaited his arrival. Eventually, some quarter of an hour late, he came bursting into the room and strode to the front, followed closely by Father Andros, our resident artist whose skill in drawing had amazed all of us for years. Andros clutched an armful of rolled parchments, and Vegetius began to speak even before he had reached the front of the room.

  "My apologies for my tardiness, my friends, but you will see that we have not been idle since leaving you. Father Andros and I are going to show you some pictures. But first I want to remind you of the things I talked about earlier: the whistling stone — a children's toy and a deadly weapon for those skilled in its use; the naval galley that, painted blue, can disappear from sight in the full light of day; the Roman legion in full battle array that rested completely undetected by an enemy less than a quarter of a mile away, again in broad daylight."

  He paused, and everyone in the assembly hung on his words, waiting for him to continue.

  "None of these phenomena appears to be what it really is, given the proper — and by that I mean the carefully contrived and arranged — conditions. Their deadliness becomes invisible. Not just because they are made to look less deadly, but because they have been rearranged... disguised in such a way that men can look right at them and simply not see them." He stopped, waiting for a reaction, and got none.

  "Do you understand what I am saying?"

  Torquilius Linus, formerly a very successful lawyer, and one of the most distinguished-looking men in the room, coughed uncomfortably and spoke softly in his rich, baritone voice.

  "I believe I do, Vegetius. I think you are telling us that you can conceal an entire hill — a mountain, almost — from human view. I must also say I do not believe that to be possible."

  Vegetius clapped his hands together loudly. "You are absolutely correct, Torquilius. It is not possible. But that is not what I'm saying at all! I am saying that with effort, determination and careful planning, we will be able to alter the appearance of the hill to deceive men's eyes, by breaking up and concealing from view the outlines of the fortress — at least from here, a mile away." He turned to Father Andros. "May I have the first drawing? The view today."

  Andros handed him a fat scroll, and Vegetius unrolled it and held it up where we could all see it. There was an audible, concerted intake of breath at the reality of the landscape depicted on the parchment. We were looking at a perfect rendering of the view of the fort hill from the courtyard of the villa. Andros had a gift that verged on the magical; with a few slashes of charcoal, he had captured the scene perfectly, so that the walls of the new fortifications stood out, clearly defined against the contours of the hill. He allowed us to admire it for no more than a few seconds before he released the bottom of the parchment, permitting it to roll itself up into a tube again.

  Wordlessly, Andros handed him a second scroll, which Vegetius displayed in the same way. It was almost an exact replica of the first drawing, except that it was scored with hundreds of vertical stripes, and I realized what had been wrong with the first one.

  "Can anyone identify the difference?" Vegetius's voice was hard-edged.

  "Yes," I said. "The scaffolding was missing from the first drawing." A recent development, the newly erected scaffolding around our rapidly growing walls had altered the appearance of the fort quite radically over the previous months. I hesitated, unsure of myself. "It's not quite right in this one, either. There's something missing. I think."

  "You're right, Varrus. But what is it?"

  "The horizontals!" Firma's voice came from right behind my head. "The platforms of the scaffolding are missing."

  "Good man, Fermax!" Vegetius released the bottom and let the scroll roll up on itself, already reaching behind him for a third, which Andros had ready for him. "Now, what about this one?"

  The parchment he held now had vertical slashes scattered down the hillside in random fashion, far below where they had appeared before. Nobody said a word. The puzzlement in the room was almost palpable.

  Wordlessly, Vegetius released this scroll and took a fourth from Andros's hand. This time, as he unrolled it, holding it high, there was a shocked mutter of reaction. The entire scene had changed. The hill was still there, but from a point about two-thirds up its flanks it was cloaked in a curtain of greenery. Bushes and trees completely hid the walls from view.

  "You see, my friends? Magic! But all good Romans know there's no such thing as magic." He rolled up the scroll and reached for another. "Now," he said, deepening his voice dramatically. "Look carefully!"

  There were six — what? cylinders? — arranged randomly on the parchment. That was all. Six vertical cylinders. He closed the parchment. The next scroll showed one cylinder, close up, with branches of trees and bushes, their cut ends showing, tied around it like the staves of a fasces tied around the axe handle.

  "There's your magic, my friends." There was no doubting the conviction and the satisfaction in Vegetius's tone. His voice rang clearly throughout the room, convincing its hearers by its very resonance. "Take enough men and enough rope, cut enough branches, tie them around enough uprights, stand far enough away, and you will see a forest created where there was none before. As the uprights descend the slope, the branches tied around them mask the bareness of the ones above. Pile bushes at the bottom, back off for a mile or so and, until the branches all die, you have what appears to be a living forest."

  He fell silent, letting what he had said sink in. Britannicus finally broke the long silence that ensued.

  "Vegetius, that would work! How long would the branches stay green?"

  Vegetius shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know, Caius Britannicus. Two days? Three at the most, I would think. After that they will probably start to look very dry. But even then, it might not be noticeable from a distance. They'll be dead, but they might still appear green from down here. I wouldn't care to leave them for more than a week, though."

  Caius was tugging at his chin, his brows furrowed in thought. "What about the top of the wall? What if you can't get your 'trees' as high as you'd like?"

  "I would alter the shape of the top of the wall itself with dirt." He looked around him for information. "How wide is it
on top? Six feet?"

  "Closer to nine," said Tullus, one of the stonemasons.

  Vegetius nodded approvingly. "There you are, then, three good paces. Ample room to build hillocks to break up the straight line. Given time, we could cut sod and cover the raw dirt, too."

  Everyone in the room sat in astonished silence. Then, hesitantly, one of the newer Council members raised his hand for permission to speak.

  Britannicus nodded to him. "Speak out, Horatio."

  Horatio cleared his throat, and when he addressed Vegetius his voice was strong. "I believe that this idea might work. But it seems to me that it will take a lot of organizing, and much depends on the timing of the thing. Do you agree?"

  "Aye, I agree completely," Vegetius said. "The Whole thing depends on timing, as I see it. What's your point, Horatio?"

  "The greenery, and the time needed to gather it. It takes a lot of trees to make a forest. Even a false forest. And you said that, once cut, you would not want to have to trust the greenness for more than a week." He looked around at the faces of the Council members. "We talk of sending our men away. But we will need them to gather the greenery in enough quantity to mask the top of the hill. Especially if it all has to be collected and put together in a matter of days."

  A buzz of agreement and speculation broke out among his listeners, and he raised his voice above the noise, silencing everyone. "I am not trying to find fault! I do believe this can succeed. All I'm saying is that we will have to plan carefully. It can be done! But we must make sure that it is we who control the timing of the whole thing."

  "Horatio, think of what you're saying! That's impossible!" This was a shout from Varo. "We have no control over the timing. Are you suggesting we ask the people in Londinium to tell us when they'll be sending their investigators?"

  Horatio's answer was immediate. "No, not at all! I'm not! But I am suggesting that not one person here, Vegetius included, has thought to mention that we have almost a hundred heavy horses to hide, as well as a thousand men. I say let's hide the soldiers in the fort itself and use the horses in our planning. We can hide them, and use them!" Horatio turned to me. "Varrus! Would it make sense to send our cavalry along the roads leading to the Colony, to build fires and watch for the approach of whoever it is that is coming?"

  I nodded, non-committally. "Sounds interesting. Go on."

  "Well," he was growing enthusiastic now, "there are only three ways we can be approached by road, am I correct? From the north, by way of Glevum and Aquae Sulis, from the east through Sorviodunum and from the south by the coast road? If we were to send out our cavalry, with orders to split up along the various routes and build signal-fires close enough to be visible to the next man along the line, then we could go to meet these 'investigators.' The news of their approach would reach us then as quickly as it takes a man to see a distant fire and light his own."

  "Aye," I nodded, "that makes sense. But why send horsemen?"

  "Because they can stay here longer, working, and then get to where they are going more quickly. They can get away more quickly, too — fade into the countryside and make their way back here slowly and safely after our visitors have left. That way, we do not have to hide the horses."

  "By Hephaestus, Horatio, you're right!" I was up on my feet, limping to the front of the room. "Signal-fires should give us three, maybe four clear days' notice of their approach, if we can pick them up far enough in advance. And while we are waiting for the signal, we could have every man in the Colony working on the job! We might as well keep the soldiers here, for if we can't hide the fort, we can't hide them, either. We should be able to finish the whole thing in two days' hard work, let our men scatter and then look as innocent as babies under our tree-topped hill when our company arrives! Vegetius, Horatio, I commend you!"

  My own excitement transmitted itself to everyone there, and a chorus of cheering ensued. Vegetius was the one who restored order by pulling out his whistling stone again, forcing everyone to be quiet to make him stop the fiendish noise.

  "All right," he finally said, when all was quiet again. "It occurs to me that we have more work ahead of us in the next few weeks — if we have that long — than ever before in the history of this Colony. We have a lot of preparations to make. So let's get to it. Britannicus, the floor is yours."

  Britannicus stood up, a smile on his face. "I thank you again, Vegetius Sulla, on behalf of all of us." He looked around the room. "Are we all agreed that the plan Vegetius proposes is the one we should adopt?"

  "Aye!" It was unanimous.

  "And are we all equally in agreement that Quintus Horatio's amendment to it is sensible?"

  "Aye!" Again unanimous.

  "So be it. Now we must plan the details."

  Towards midnight, the plan was finished. Caius assembled a general meeting of the entire Colony at the main villa the next day to explain exactly what was happening. Directly after the assembly, work began on several fronts. Men were set to work building ramps to give access to the top of the walls, and others were set to digging dirt and piling it on top of the walls of the fort to break up their regularity. Others were cutting sod to mask the newly piled dirt, and still others were planting uprights, tree-trunk tall, on the side of the hill. All others not involved in this back-breaking work — women and children and old men — scoured the countryside finding copses and suitable woods that could be plundered, when the time came, in such a way that the depredations would not be noticeable to a stranger.

  Britannicus reckoned that we had at least ten days available to us for preparation before the authorities in Londinium had time to receive the report, digest it, consult on it, arrive at a decision and finally dispatch an investigative force of some kind. Which meant that the cavalry could be put to work for a week, too, before being sent out to stand guard.

  As it turned out, it took the authorities three weeks to make up their minds and act. We filled in the extra two weeks by adding more and more uprights to the hillside. Some of the work parties were put to work digging up real saplings and transplanting them, so that the hillside really did begin to look like a forest coming back to life years after a great forest fire. Bushes, ripped from the earth and dragged to the hillside by horses, began to transform the place. At even less than a mile, it became very difficult to make out the lines of the tops of the walls.

  In those three weeks, our colonists performed a feat that was almost magical, and they were helped by the Celts, who came in hundreds, once the word of this insanity had spread, to see for themselves what was going on. Underneath it all was an almost hysterical anticipation that it might all be for nothing. If the authorities decided not to investigate the young officer's report, we would all have broken our backs ruining a perfectly good hill!

  I was at dinner with the family one night, at the beginning of the fourth week of our preparations, when Britannicus's steward interrupted us with the news that our closest signal-fire was ablaze, and that messengers had already been sent to alert the other villas of the Colony. Our people assembled at the main villa throughout that night, and by dawn the last stage of the operation was launched as everyone who was able set about the final task of cutting green branches and lashing them to our makeshift tree trunks.

  Britannicus was finally up on his feet again, after having been confined to his bed for over a week with a badly sprained back, from trying to lift a tree trunk that was too heavy for him. As soon as I had seen everyone off in an orderly fashion I headed back to report to him, but as I was entering the main gates of the courtyard I heard the sound of a galloping horse, and I turned to see one of my own men, on a badly blown mount, thundering up behind me. He reined in when he saw me and jumped from the back of his almost lifeless horse. His knees gave way as he landed, so that he stumbled and I had to catch him. He was breathing almost as hard as his horse, and I had to steady him until he regained his breath.

  "What is it, man? What's wrong?"

  "Cavalry, Commander! Heavy cavalry."
He shuddered. "Coming from Londinium. Overland. They're not on the road, and they're coming fast!"

  "How fast, man? How long do we have?"

  "A day, Commander. Maybe two. No more. They will be here by the morning of the day after tomorrow. We lit the fires as soon as we saw them, but then we had to pass the word from man to man by mouth. Almost killed the horses."

  "How far apart were you spaced?"

  "Three, four miles. Depended on the terrain. We had to be able to see the next man's fire."

  My mind was racing. "How many men in your chain?"

  "Thirty-nine. I'm the last of them."

  "How long did it take to get the word to you?"

  He shook his head. "Don't know, Commander. Some of the lads took off as soon as they had lit their fires, as they were supposed to. One fellow had to ride three posts before he found a man with a fresh horse. All of us rode flat out!"

  "Damn! You did well. What's your name?"

  "Septimius Severus, Commander."

  "We all owe you a debt, Septimius Severus. Now get some rest. You've earned it. Where are the others?"

  "All split up, Commander, as ordered."

  "What about the men on the other routes? Do you know anything of them?"

  "No, Commander. But the word was that as soon as the signal-fires were seen coming back towards the Colony, the other men were to send their fires out to the ends of their routes. So everyone must know by now that the game is on."

  I nodded. "Good. Go and find a bed, and get some sleep. I have to get word to our workers that they only have today to finish the job. Thank God we had two extra weeks."

  I hurried inside to tell Britannicus what was happening, and to get word out to our people in the fields that our visitors were fast approaching. I spent a long, wearying day worrying about the speed they were coming at, and wondering if we had enough manpower to finish the job in time. I need not have worried. Our people outdid themselves, and long before dusk they were adding the finishing touches to an amazing piece of human wizardry.