The Sorcer part 1: The Fort at River's Bend cc-5

by Jack Whyte

  I stooped and picked up the Varrus sword in my right hand, briefly aware of the painful tingling in my fingers as they closed about the hilt. A great, vee-shaped gouge almost severed the blade, the wounded metal glinting, raw and fresh and new-looking, among the rust that covered the rest of it. Excalibur's keen edge had struck deep, penetrating the metal of the other blade as though it were wood or lead, twisting and wrenching it out of shape with effortless force, then lodging firmly enough for the momentum of Ambrose's swing to rip the weapon from my clutching hands and cast it aside effortlessly, ruined and useless forever thenceforth. I held the broken thing up for Ambrose's inspection. Its long blade was twisted and bent far out of true in two directions: one where it had bent sideways around the impact of Excalibur's smashing bite, and the other in a tortured twisting of the very metal surrounding the point of impact, skewing it like wrought iron twisted in a forge. I dropped the now useless weapon to the floor.

  "There is the reason underlying my playing with sticks, Brother. The need for practice swords ... or for one specific practice sword."

  "I don't follow you."

  "I know you don't, but you will. What you have just done defines and underlines my problem. There's no blade in the world that can withstand Excalibur. It cuts through other metals, without losing its own edge. It is unique, and that, I have decided, is its tragedy."

  "Tragedy!" Ambrose's shout was a scoffing laugh. "What's tragic about it? The thing is magical and utterly unbelievable. No tragedy there, Brother."

  "No, I agree, just as there was no weakness in Alexander's sarissas."

  That wiped the smile from my brother's face. "What? There's no comparison. Where can the weakness lie in Excalibur? Most ordinary men, seeing what it can do—like cutting that blade in half—would swear it to be magic and live in fear of it. The warrior who carries it will be invincible, and the envy of the world."

  "The king, you mean ... the king who carries it."

  "Aye—" he broke off, eyeing me askance. "It is to be young Arthur's, isn't it? You have not changed your mind on that?"

  "No, I have not. He is his father's son and heir to the Pendragon lands and kingdom in his own right. I have had no change of heart in any part of that. But I am concerned about training the boy to face the task he must, here in these hills, so far away from Camulod and from others who would bring out the best in him. And if he is to master this new sword of his, Excalibur, instead of merely swinging it, then he must have someone wielding a weapon fit to withstand his, against whom he can practice."

  "Well, you will train him, won't you? He'll fight you, and Dedalus and Rufio and all the others. No shortage of trainers, I think."

  "No, but you are still not hearing me. Excalibur's weakness is its strength, Ambrose! I have nothing with which to train the boy—no Excalibur against which he can swing Excalibur." I nodded towards the broken thing in the comer. "That was a superior sword, a Varrus blade. It was cut almost in half with one blow. How am I to train the boy to use the weapon adequately when there is nothing comparable to it? It won't ever be enough simply to train him with another sword, a lesser weapon, because then he'll be master only of a lesser weapon, lacking the refinement, the edge, the balance and the strength of this sword, this blade, this excellence."

  As I spoke the words, I saw comprehension breaking in my brother's eyes. Almost immediately, he started to smile, and then his smile grew into a radiant grin as he subsided into one of my chairs, grounding Excalibur's point between his feet.

  "What?" I asked him. "You can find humour in that? Why are you smiling? What is it?"

  He swung the point of the sword up from the floor, holding it now above his head so that the weight of the hilt and pommel pressed into his lap and patterns of reflected light raced along the mighty blade that reared between us. "This thing, Excalibur. Did anyone work with Publius Varrus in the making of it?"

  "Aye, of course, his friend Equus. They made the sword together, working alternately on it until it was finished."

  "And does anyone yet live who might know how they made the blade?"

  "Aye, Equus's sons, Joseph and Carol. They had no hand in the making of the sword itself, but they are both smiths, and I know their father taught them the art of folding and beating metal the way he and Varrus did in making Excalibur, tempering ordinary iron into superior swords. They do it now, to this day. And more than that, the use of moulds to shape and bind the hilts of our weapons to the tangs of our blades has become commonplace in Camulod."

  "So they could make another Excalibur."

  "Aye, they could, either one of them, if it were possible," I agreed, before I realized what he had said, and then I checked myself. "What? Another—?"

  "From the Lady, Cay! The half of her that still remains in Camulod. Isn't that what you told me, that Varrus melted the statue down to make the sword, then remade the statue, smaller and lighter, with the remaining metal? The remaining metal, Cay, the metal from the sky stone! We can make your training sword—another Excalibur, less ornate, but no less magical in its properties, a plain blade with which to test the other."

  "By the Christ!" I was thunderstruck. His solution was so crystalline, so perfect and so obvious that I could not now comprehend my own failure to see it for myself.

  "Damnation! Joseph is here with you, isn't he? No matter, we'll have Carol make another sword, in Camulod since that's where the statue is, and we'll pattern it upon this one, but as I said, not so grandly and it will be nowhere near as pretty. Is Carol capable of doing this alone?" I nodded, mute. "Good, then. It should not tax him too greatly. What we need here is not another thing of blinding beauty, but a plain, functional weapon of strength and durability that will stand up to this one here on equal terms. We have all the dimensions—all we need do now is have Carol duplicate them, without regard to decoration. What think you?"

  I sat shaking my head, overwhelmed by the beautiful simplicity of his instant solution to a problem that had been plaguing me for months. So close had I been to the source of the solution, I saw now, that my eyes had passed over it mentally a thousand times without seeing it. Ambrose was watching me, his eyes aglow.

  "You agree?"

  "Agree? Of course I agree. It is a brilliant solution, Ambrose! We'll start working on it immediately by preparing a full set of drawings from Publius Varrus's original notations and sketches—I have all of them here. When you return home, you will be able to take written instructions with you, containing the exact dimensions of Excalibur and whatever else Carol's brother Joseph might wish to add in the way of advice on the treatment and melting of the statue's metal and the forging of it into another blade. Of course, we'll have to show it to Joseph— Excalibur, I mean."

  Ambrose frowned at me. "Is that a problem? I hear doubt in your voice."

  I shrugged. "Well, not doubt, perhaps, but definite trepidation. I hate to do it. Today, only you, Shelagh, Donuil and I know Excalibur exists. That is already far too many people. Every other person who knows about it increases the odds that the secret will be discovered."

  He was silent for a while, digesting that, and then he shrugged. "Well then, why does Joseph have to see the thing? As you said, you have all the dimensions, and Joseph's a smith. He should be able to work from those alone. A sword's a sword, and this will simply be a larger, longer, heavier sword than he and Carol have made before. No need for them to see the real thing, is there?"

  I smiled at him. "How is Joseph to visualize the sword's reality and depict it accurately and minutely if he has never seen it?" I shook my head. "No, I don't like it, but I think we must show it to him. He is one of us, true to the bone, and his father helped to make the thing, and we are asking him to help us duplicate it. We'll show it to him tonight and swear him to secrecy. Once he has seen the sword, he'll also see the importance of the task. I wonder how long it will take Carol to make the new one."

  Ambrose smiled again and rose to his feet, moving to replace Excalibur in its case. 'The
only potential problem that occurred to me lay in Carol's capability as a smith, and you have put my mind to rest on that."

  "Oh, yes. There is not much to choose between the two brothers in terms of craftsmanship, and Varrus trained both of them himself. If I had to grant an edge to either one, however, it would go to Carol, although I never would say that in Joseph's hearing."

  "Good, Carol will be flattered that you should approach him, seeking his help. He'll waste no time and he'll understand the need for secrecy. I would suggest that only Carol be permitted to know the source of the metal, and that he be empowered to make whatever arrangements he requires to melt the statue down in privacy, shaping it into an ingot. Thereafter, the metal will resemble an ordinary piece of iron, save that he alone will work on it. You agree?" I nodded and he continued.

  "One truth remains unchanged, Brother. No matter how long it takes to complete the making of this second sword, you'll still have your hands full training our amazing boy. But you have time and to spare. The lad will have to grow considerably before he has the size or the strength to swing such a sword, let alone learn the knack of what you showed me earlier, when you rattled my ribs and set me on my rump. He's a big, strong lad, for his age, and his hands and feet are the largest I've ever seen on a boy. He has the family bulk about him, and he's going to be as big as you and me by the time he's grown, but that time is still far distant." He paused, returning the wooden case that housed Excalibur whence I had produced it. When the lid on the crate was securely closed, he turned back to me again, dusting his hands.

  "So, your problem is no longer a problem, but you need not grovel in your gratitude. Now I have to go and find Rufio. He's out in the forest, cutting lumber with Dedalus and Donuil and some others, and I promised him I would come by and soil my noble hands by helping on the ripsaw. Come with me, and as we go you can tell me how the idea for the long sword staves came to you."

  I knew that almost all the other men of our party were out on a tree-felling expedition, making a determined assault on a grove of prime oak trees selected and marked for felling by Mark, our master carpenter. Lucanus was an exception; he was still engrossed in his hoard of parchments. And I had opted out of the expedition in order to complete some writings in silence and solitude. Having done what I intended more quickly than I had anticipated, I now found the idea of a spell of good, hard, physical work appealing. I realized it had been too long since I had worked up a sweat. I laughed and clapped my brother on the shoulder, suddenly euphoric, and we made our way to the stables immediately.

  Germanicus's winter coat was still long and thick, only beginning to fall away in patches despite Ulf's grooming over the past few days. Mounted, I passed through the main gateway of our fort, following Ambrose and then turning directly to the right, to lead him to where I knew the work party was located that day. It took me several moments to become aware that he had not swung west with me, and when I did I turned around to find him sitting erect in his saddle, staring upwards, to the east, where the high, winding road crested the pass and disappeared beyond the mountain saddle. I turned my horse around and rode back to where he sat.

  "What are you looking at?" I asked as I reached him.

  'That, up there. Has anyone ever come across there?"

  "Not since we have been here, and according to Derek, not for years before that, either."

  "What's over there?"

  "A valley, like the one below us here, except that it's entirely enclosed. The road winds down from the crest there, along the length of it, and then up the slopes at the far end to another pass."

  "A big valley? Have you seen it?"

  I grunted, almost but not quite laughing. "Aye, I've seen it, but only from the crest up there. There's nothing to see. It may be three miles long, but no more than that. The whole valley is filled with trees, growing up to the shoulders of the highest Fells, just as they do in the one below us. I didn't go down into it, because if I had, I would only have had to climb back up again. There's nothing down there to see except the road itself and the stream along the bottom of the valley floor."

  "So where does the road go? What's the reason for its being there?"

  It really surprised me to recognize that my brother knew absolutely nothing of this region or its history, although I was fully aware that I myself had been as ignorant as he mere months earlier.

  "Have you ever heard of the Tenth Iter?"

  "No, should I have?"

  "Not really, but it was widely celebrated once, as the only Roman supply route into the heartland of north-west Britain from the coast. This is it, and it runs for twenty miles, from Ravenglass, up over the pass here and on to the garrison fort at Galava, by the side of the big mere."

  "The big mere ... That's what the people here call a lake, is it not?"

  "Aye, it is. And a mountain is a fell. We are standing among the Fells."

  "Hmm." Ambrose glanced up at the mountains dismissively, plainly unimpressed, his mind elsewhere. "So you have never been to this Galava place? Then you cannot know if it is abandoned, like this."

  "No, I've never been there, but it's not abandoned. People live there yet, just as they do in Ravenglass, in the community the local people and suppliers built up around the fort over the years. The road goes beyond there— another road it is, in fact, built at a different time by different legionaries—but it joins up somewhere beyond there, I'm told, at the old fort called Brocavum, with the main trunk road running down the length of Britain."'

  "All the way down? You mean you could travel on solid Roman roads all the way from there to Londinium?"

  "Aye, that's what they tell me, or to Glevum and Aquae Sulis and thence to Camulod, depending on which fork you take at Brocavum. One road goes almost directly south from there, through Glevum and Aquae all the way to Isca, and another branches east and goes almost directly down the centre of the country to Londinium. You must know it, it passes through Lindum."

  "I know two roads converge at Lindum, from the north—one coming directly south, the other from the north-west—but I have never been more than a hundred miles north of Lindum. I did not know the road reached so far into the north-west." Ambrose sounded fascinated, although I could not see why. The water route by which he had come here was faster, more direct and far less dangerous than the overland journey he was now evidently contemplating. Finally my own curiosity overcame me.

  "Why are you asking all these questions? Have you a wish to strike out overland from here to Lindum?"

  "No, nor to anywhere else, but it's good to know there's a solid, passable route in and out of this place if anything goes wrong at the seaward end."

  "What does that mean?" He heard the alarm in my voice and turned towards me quickly, raising a placatory hand.

  "Nothing, Caius! I swear it means nothing. I'm but being pessimistic. There is no danger and no catastrophic fate threatening you from the sea. I was merely thinking about a conversation I had with Connor, on my way up here. He told me he has heard nothing of the Sons of Condran since the slaying of Liam and the repulse of their fleet from Ravenglass, and he is intelligent and responsible enough to be concerned over that. Some sort of demonstration of Condran's displeasure should have occurred by now, he thinks, and I agree with him. The fact that nothing has occurred, and that nothing seems to be stirring on or beyond the seas, even to the north by the new lands, is disconcerting. Call me foolish, if you wish, but I have had visions of an enormous fleet of alien Erse sails darkening the horizon, come to burn Derek's halls about his ears. But now I know that if that should occur, and all attempts at succour or rescue fail, you and yours will be able to escape across this pass, and thence to the south and safety."

  "I see ... " I faced him squarely, attempting to mask my unease. "Have you really dreamed of this enormous fleet, Ambrose?"

  He grinned at me and reached to slap my shoulder. "No, not as you mean it. Not in die way you dream, Brother—no magical occurrences or spectral loomings. No, I'm sim
ply attempting to see what might, could, lie ahead ... And speaking of that, hard labour lies immediately ahead. Where are these carpenters and charcoal-burners?"

  "Behind us, about a mile from here" I pulled Germanicus up into a rearing, two-legged turn. It was a move we had practised down through the years and one we both enjoyed, I purely for the skill it demanded and displayed and for die awe it inspired in observers. I noticed Ambrose now sniffing the fresh smell of green wood- smoke borne on a stray eddy of wind. "If we follow our noses, we'll ride them down," I said, and I kicked my horse forward.

  It took us the better part of half an hour to cross the distance from the fort's gate to the steep hillside clearing where our men were labouring, and as we went we talked of many things, not least of which was the evident and . startling intellect of the boy who was our charge. I mentioned again to Ambrose my recently born fear that the very place I had chosen for his tutoring—this lonely, isolated fort with its tiny and embryonic society—would prove to be inadequate for the task I had set myself. This sanctuary we had found—safe, it appeared, from the eyes and weapons of potential assassins of all stripes—was yet no place in which to train a future king. This conviction I had come to accept only with the greatest reluctance. That had not been my first opinion, when I was flushed with the challenge of escaping danger and establishing ourselves in safety in the ancient fort. Only as the weeks stretched into months had I come to see how small our outpost was,

  here on the edge of nothingness, and how minuscule a template it provided for any parallel study of building and running a kingdom. The boy would have to come to know the larger world of men.

  Ambrose listened closely to all I had to say, and when I had finished he reined in his horse and kicked one foot free of the stirrup, hooking his knee over the front of his saddle as he turned to peer at me.

  "You think this place is too isolated for the task you've set yourself? And yet you brought him here precisely because of that, and you have effectively achieved a complete disappearance, from Camulod, from your previous life and from all danger to the boy."