The Singing Sword cc-2

by Jack Whyte

  I hadn't told him about the cross-hilt idea in my mind. "Oh, I've got a few ideas. First I have to temper it. I wonder if it will have a shine?"

  "It has already, look! You can see it, can't you?" He angled the blade into the light.

  I nodded. "There's something there, all right, but I'd hardly call it a shine, Equus."

  "Then don't! But I'm telling you, that's what your dagger looked like at this stage, and I've never seen another piece of metal look like this, have you?"

  I shook my head. "No, I have to admit I haven't."

  He dropped it with a clang. "Well then, get on with edging it. It won't temper itself."

  He walked away and I picked the blade up again and started to scale it with a file, whistling under my breath and feeling good about life in general. We had been untroubled by raiders of any kind throughout the autumn. The walls of our fort were completely finished in some places, and the new Council Hall was nearly completed, too, lacking only the thatching of a portion of the roof. The new year coming would be the eleven hundred and fifty-fourth year of Rome, but it would be the four hundredth year of the Christian era, and the usage of the latter method of marking time was increasing rapidly. This new year, then, would mark either the close of a century or the beginning of a new one. I had heard arguments over which was which: was 400 the last of the old or the first of the new? Personally, I did not care; the year ahead looked good for the Colony.

  I suddenly remembered something — I've no idea what prompted the memory — and reached into my scrip for the shell I had picked up from the dining table the night before. My fingers found it and I placed it delicately on the work-bench in front of me, squeezing it gently shut. It was a mature cockle-shell, one of a basketful brought to us by the young priest who accompanied Bishop Alaric everywhere nowadays. They had arrived the day before and would remain with us for several more days before moving on.

  I smiled to myself as I realized that even Alaric had brought us no bad news for months. Last night at dinner he had pointed out to us God's great concern with detail in fashioning the perfection of even the humble cockleshell. I had picked this one up and examined it minutely, and a voice had said clearly in my head, out of nowhere, "pommel." The thing was exquisitely crafted and perfect in its symmetry, the tracery of its ribs immaculately fine as each one swept out from the full thickness of the shell's base to the indented point of one of the tiny scallops around the serrated edge.

  I had seen in my mind's eye a duplicate of this shell I held, crafted in solid gold, adding its weight to the counterbalance of my new sword. Now I looked at it again in daylight and knew that my intuition had been correct. A gold pommel. Solid gold. I smiled at the idea. But a gold hilt? A gold cross-hilt? No, I decided, that would be too vulgar and probably too heavy. Besides, gold was too soft for a cross-hilt such as the one I envisioned. I looked again at the shell, bringing it close to my eyes. It was a large one, as wide as the full length of my thumb across its base, and half as thick in section, front to back. It would make a fine, solid pommel. But how would I mount it? That, I had discovered, was a major problem, for the extreme length of the new blade set up vibrations that had never existed in the shorter gladium, and these vibrations threatened to destroy any joint in the metal that was not perfectly solid. I was plagued with the problem of how to attach a cross-guard firmly to a straight blade and then fix a hilt with a comfortable handle between that cross-guard and a pommel. These vibrations alone could destroy every idea I might come up with.

  I dropped the cockle-shell back in my scrip and left the blade lying on the work-bench as I strolled back to the villa in search of Grandfather Varrus's old scroll on the ancient art of pouring moulds.

  Luceiia sat in the family room talking earnestly with Veronica and her younger sisters, Lucilla and Dora, both of whom were awed and overcome by their older sister's imminent transition from girlhood to womanhood. In their eyes, Veronica had already passed into adulthood, leaving them far behind her. Not that they were in any way jealous of her — slightly envious, perhaps, but only in that wide-eyed, wonder-filled, breathy manner that seems unique to very young adolescent girls.

  The four women of my family enjoyed an easy, close and warmly intimate companionship. They were discussing the wedding, of course, which would take place in the spring, and I am sure they completely failed to notice me as I apologized for disturbing them and passed on through, taking away with me the image of my daughter Veronica's bright eyes and high, proud breasts. She was a beauty, my Magpie. I was still whistling under my breath as I searched for the scroll, wondering idly, for the hundredth time at least, about the magical process that could so abruptly transform a beautiful, trusting little daughter into a ravishingly self-possessed young woman. I found the scroll right where I had left it and took it back to the smithy to study it, and it did not take me long to arrive at the conclusion that I was going to need help from Father Andros.

  XXVI

  By the time the hawthorn blossomed in March that year, there was a steady stream of two-way traffic on the new road every day from dawn until dusk. Everyone in the Colony was completely absorbed in the task of preparing our new quarters, with the exception of my own womenfolk, who had a wedding to worry over, too. There was an air of buzzing activity everywhere, and even the absence of the soldiers withdrawn from the fort for active patrol duty — about two-thirds of our forces — seemed to make no great difference to the tempo of the work.

  The extra horses Picus had promised us, including two magnificent and unlooked-for stallions, provided purely for breeding purposes, arrived early in March and were put into service immediately, making a major difference to our capabilities.

  One of our colonists, a white-bearded veteran of many wars, had approached Caius in January with the idea of starting our young men's training early. He was prepared, he said, to take on that responsibility and Caius was happy to allow him to do so. Now he commanded a body of forty-five young men between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who spent their days marching and countermarching, learning the use of weapons and studying the new cavalry tactics.

  It was a warm spring, full of promise. We were moving into a new, safe home, facing a new century, according to the Christian calendar, and we felt sure of our destiny. All around us, where we had been prepared for threats and danger, there was only tranquillity. We were ready, however, for anything that might occur. Our farmers ploughed their fields under the gaze of watchful soldiers and the wagon train we sent to Glevum that spring went under heavy escort. We were determined that no raider would find any sign of weakness among us.

  The wedding was to be in April, the feast time sacred to both Celtic Druid and Christian alike, and by the end of March, Ullic's people began to arrive. They set up their camps in the open fields around the villa, mainly along the new road to the fort, and Ullic and his main party arrived in pomp and savage Celtic splendour on the first day of Eastertide. His arrival coincided with the far less ostentatious arrival of Bishop Alaric, who had come, as promised, to conduct the wedding services and to celebrate the completion of our Council Hall with a special Mass.

  Ullic brought gifts and barbaric excitement; Alaric brought our new, hand-dressed altar-stone. Ullic brought love, laughter and song; Alaric brought love, laughter and piety. Ullic brought Druids in his train; Alaric brought one priest, a gentle giant of a man called Phonos who was barely out of his teens. The scene was set for war or peace the first time the Druids and the Christian priests came face to face on that first day. That, at least, was the way I saw it, but as it turned out, I had no cause for concern; there was no sign of any hostility between the two groups then or later.

  At dinner that night, a festive gathering, the talk was all about the prospects of the bride and groom and of the great hunt I had arranged for the following day. Caius was at his mercurial best that night, and the conversation around the table sparkled with wit and humour.

  I am not normally a superstitious man, but I rem
ember feeling that night that everything had been going too smoothly. It suddenly seemed to me, looking around the table and feeling the warmth and love there, that our lives, for the past eight months, had been too easy. I felt as though somewhere, out there in the night, forces were gathering to annul our gaiety, so that all during dinner I half expected to hear the slap of leather soles on the floor outside as someone came running with news of catastrophe. But no one did, and the evening passed with no alarums, as did the week that followed. The wedding was set for the day of Easter, the festival of spring and resurrection, the emergence of new life. It seemed appropriate and correct and approved by Heaven. Our hunting was successful every day and we enjoyed a plethora of fresh meats of every kind and fresh fish, both salt-water and fresh-water.

  There was one young woman there, with Ullic's group, who turned the head of every man who saw her, including me. Her name was Enid and she was Ullic's youngest sister. Her skin was golden and her teeth were fine, snow-white against the amazing redness of her lips. Even my gentle Luceiia showed her claws the first time she saw Enid, warning me almost, but not quite, playfully to keep my attentions to that one casual. This surprised me, for it was the first time that my wife had ever made such a comment. I mentioned it jokingly to Caius later that first evening and he was wise enough to observe immediately that Luceiia probably felt she was no longer young enough to compete with such an animal as Enid.

  And an animal she was, although I say so with not the slightest hint of malice. She was wild in the way a deer is wild: sleek and clean-lined, apparently timid and easily startled, giving one the impression that a too-sudden movement would cause her to disappear from sight immediately. And yet she was savage-looking, with all the allure and grace of the great cats of Africa. Her eyes were green-blue and her hair was startling in its tawniness among the black-haired, blue-eyed Celts. She was high-breasted, and her breasts were large and firm, and even though I was innocent of any lustful feelings towards her, I was tempted more than once, finding her close beside me, to attempt to span her tiny-looking waist in my big hands. Of course, her waist could not have been that small, but placed as it was between the lushness of her breasts and the sweeping swell of her hips, it looked that small. And I looked, as did every other man there who was not related to her directly. My own admiration of the young woman, conducted from a distance and modified by a need to give no offence to my wife, was avuncular — a combination of "I wonder...," "What if...?" and "There was a time ...". There were others in our gathering, however, who were unhampered by the twin constraints of age and marriage, and among them they managed to keep Enid from becoming bored. She was the undisputed centre of attraction for every single young male in the Colony, and for a fair number of others who were neither young nor single. My youngest apprentice, Joseph, at not quite sixteen years, was sore smitten with first love and followed her around like a pup, sitting as close to her as he could get, and sometimes forgetting even to eat.

  Luceiia had made a point of getting to know the beautiful newcomer, and had now decided that she liked her. It was she who told me Enid's history. The woman was beautiful, headstrong, stubborn, thoroughly likeable and quite prepared to go to her grave unwed. Her one, true love had died saving her life from a giant bear and she had found no man to compare with him in the years that followed. She was almost thirty now, in reality a half-sister to Ullic, sired by his aged father upon a second wife, and Ullic had despaired of matching her years ago. Enid, Luceiia told me, was quite happy with that state of affairs and wanted nothing to change it.

  The day before the wedding was a day I tried hard to avoid. The entire household was a madhouse. I attempted to slip away to the smithy to spend some time with Equus, but it was not to be. Luceiia called my name as I was setting out and sent me on an errand to the fort, and from that moment on I was caught up in the general insanity. Not until we were preparing for bed did I have another moment to myself that day.

  Bishop Alaric was to consecrate the altar-stone here in the villa the next morning and bear it in procession to the hilltop. It would be a long walk for the old man, but he was adamant in his determination to do it. The journey, he said, would be symbolic in several ways: symbolic of the Christ's walk to Calvary, and of our own struggle upwards as a Colony towards a better, more Christian life. I was not sure what he meant by that, but I had no wish to argue with him.

  The bride, my own Magpie, Veronica... I had to shake myself hard to realize what that really meant... would be carried uphill on a litter specially built for her by one of our carpenters. An honour-guard of sixty infantry would provide ample muscle for the long haul up the hill. Luceiia and her friends would ride in chairs upon the shoulders of more infantry. I myself, as father of the bride, would lead the way, mounted, with Caius and ten other friends constituting a formal vanguard to the entire procession. The weather had been perfect so far. If it rained tomorrow, the result would be a fiasco. I preferred not to think about that. It was going to be a long day.

  Luceiia's voice broke into my tired thoughts. "Picus didn't come."

  "No. He said he would try to get here, but he is at the mercy of the Saxons, love. When they invade, he moves. I would have been very surprised to see him here at this time of the year." I fell onto the bed, pulling the fur robes back, and crawled beneath them like an animal crawling into its den. Luceiia blew out the lamp and there was silence between us for so long that I was almost asleep when she spoke.

  "Do you realize, Publius, that this time tomorrow our little daughter Veronica will be a woman? She will belong to her husband, not to us."

  "Aye," I answered, turning to face her. "I'm aware of that. She will be wife and woman, and if she's half as good at being either as her mother has been, she'll do well by herself and by her man." I reached out and slipped my arm about her waist, which was still slim enough to belie her years.

  "You don't sound upset at all!"

  I was surprised. "Why should I feel upset?"

  "Less than three years ago you almost went to war with Ullic when he mentioned this marriage."

  "Ahh!" I said, thinking rapidly about the impossibility of attempting to explain any of that. "I see what's bothering you..." I allowed my voice to fade away and then said, "Shh, woman! That was almost three years ago. Veronica was a child then. Now it is time for her to be a woman and to enjoy the pleasures you enjoyed as one."

  "Do I hear a past tense? I still enjoy them, husband."

  "Aye, but not so often."

  "No, not quite as often. That is true... and sad."

  "Why sad?"

  "Because I do not want my man to grow old, leaving me with my lusts unsated."

  I raised myself on one elbow, looking down at her in the darkness, knowing she would hear the smile in my voice. "Unsated? Woman, I hold myself back only because of your advancing age. Yours are the bones growing fragile. I would hate to break any of them in the name of love."

  Her hand came behind my neck. "Come here, you old goat, and break me. I defy you."

  The following morning dawned golden and perfect. I heard the noises of preparation begin while I was still steaming in the bath house, and I took an unusual degree of care with my ablutions and dressing, to the point where Luceiia herself was ready before I was.

  I wore my official uniform for this occasion, something I seldom did. I had spent so much of my life in military harness that the finery of my commander's regalia gave me little pleasure; I was far more comfortable and felt far better dressed in the leathers that Luceiia had made specially for me. Today, however, for my daughter's wedding, I was cordially prepared to suffer. I wore helmet, breastplate, backplate and leg-greaves of solid bronze. The helmet and breastplate were magnificently worked, if I do say so myself, in some of the finest Celtic ornamentation that Father Andros had unearthed in his far-ranging travels. The outsized crest on my helmet was of tufted horsehair, dyed the same scarlet as my cloak, the shoulders of which were so crusted with finely worked bronze and s
ilver wire that the garment itself resembled a piece of armour. My dress tunic was of white linen, edged with scarlet, and the straps of my armoured kilt were of bronze plates wired loosely, end to end. I wore my finest sword, with its bronze hilt and scabbard, and when I had everything finally strapped and buckled on I paced the room a few times, distributing the weight of all of this regalia comfortably about my body and wishing I could have worn my good old boots instead of the stiff new sandals and leggings that went with the outfit. Finally I could put the moment off no longer; I went out to join my wife and my daughter.

  The sight of them took me aback. I had never seen my daughter looking so beautiful. On this, her bridal morning, she was radiant, dressed all in white so that she shimmered from head to foot. Ten years earlier, Luceiia had bought the material for that gown, knowing exactly what she was buying and the use it would one day be put to. The fabric, whatever it was, had come from Africa, and its fineness and purity were astounding. When I had first seen the gown made from this fabric, it had seemed to be the simple stola that the young women of republican Rome wore every day. That, however, was only at first glance. A second look had shown me that this was far from being a simple stola or a simple anything. The material, and I know Luceiia had a name for it although it eludes me now, had been piled layer upon layer, finely stitched together and worked with thousands of tiny, opalescent sea-shells. Whenever Veronica moved, these tiny shells clicked and rattled together, but their noise was muffled in the layers of the cloth. It was a marvellous creation.

  My daughter smiled at me and came forward to take my arm, and as I felt her fingers touch the skin of my forearm I sucked in my breath and swelled with pride and fierce paternity, finding myself swearing a silent oath that I would flay this new husband of hers if he did not lay the moon and the stars at her feet. I had a large lump in my throat as we moved together to the doorway of the house, her mother and her sisters close behind us. As we stepped into the sunlit morning a spontaneous cheer broke from the crowd of more than three hundred who waited for us, already formed in line for the procession to the hilltop. I handed my daughter into her litter, and her mother and her sisters into their chairs, then marched my finest, limping march to the head of the column, where my horse was waiting. Equus himself helped me up onto Germanicus's back and, once seated, I turned my horse and inspected the honour-guard minutely. Finally satisfied that they could have looked no better, I gave the signal to proceed and nudged Germanicus forward.