by Jack Whyte
"No, not like that. She was nervous and afraid of you, I suspect. Have you spoken with her, Cay? Have you conversed with her?"
"On what topic?"
She sighed explosively and threw up her hands in a gesture of resignation. "On anything, man! Caius, you could talk with that girl about anything you have in your mind at any time. Don't be gulled by what you think of—being a man—as her simpleness or her untutored, Cumbrian speech. That young woman is the most gifted seamstress I have ever known, and she has a mind as good as mine or Ludmilla's or any other woman you could think of—and that means it's as good as any man's in a hundred." She slumped back then in her chair, looking at me wide-eyed and shaking her head very gently from side to side as though in wonderment at my ignorance.
"What is it, Shelagh?" I asked. "You have something to tell me, I think."
. "I do. Do you remember this?" She dropped her hands into her lap and spread the fingers of each over one of her leather-covered thighs, on either side of Where the front of her tunic hung down between them. I gazed at them in confusion, my heart suddenly pounding in my breast.
"Remember what?" The tension in my voice was unmistakable—dense and sexual.
"The body beneath these clothes, the one we decided together long since, and for the very best of reasons, that you may never have. In all the years since then, we have never done a thing of which we need ever be ashamed in the eyes of anyone."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Aye, I know all that, so what are you saying to me, Shelagh?"
"That I know how much the wanting can hurt, Cay, despite the fact of a husband whom I love and who loves me and who can satisfy my wanting. It grieves me, and has done so now for years, to know that you have no surcease for yours, other than random dreams."
Her voice faded away and a long silence ensued. Eventually I nodded.
"I see. And so you chose Tressa as my plaything?"
"I chose Tressa, you foolish man, but not as a plaything. I chose her for you. And I chose her with great care:"
I smiled. "How so? You dreamed her, you said."
'True, I dreamed of her first. But dreams are dreams and life is real—you of all people know that as well as I do—and so I examined the woman very carefully before I made a move. Every part of her—her youth, her health, her background and her character—I sieved for imperfections, and, save one, found none. She is perfect for you, Cay."
"But I have no wish to marry, Shelagh. If I can't have you, I'll have no one." I said nothing of the fact that I had sworn an oath to myself after Cassandra's death that I would never take another woman as my wife. I saw no need to mention that, and I had had no thought of Tressa as a wife. *
"There speaks a fool, so those words can't be yours. I said nothing of marriage. Finding you a wife was far from my mind."
"That may be true, Shelagh, but it disregards my own notions of responsibility. To return to the gift we share, I, too, have seen things. No dream, but a vision, of a kind. That's why I fled from her today."
"What? What did you see?"
"A thing that frightened me. Today, as I stood over her—she was gathering up her balls of yam that I had knocked to the floor—I saw an image of her, big with child, gravid and threatening. My child. That was the end of it, then and there."
"Pah! That was nothing. A last-moment flash of conscience and self-chastisement."
I gazed at her in surprise. "You say so? Then it was as effective as it could have been. I'll have no more of it, because she will end up with child, if I lay hand on her, and that is a complication of which I have no slightest need. I would not father bastards, so her pregnancy would mean my taking her to wife, and that, with no adverse reflection on Tressa, simply cannot be. My role in life is clear, clean and decided long since—Arthur Pendragon, first, last and always. So trust my judgment and let be, Shelagh."
"She is barren."
"What?" Her words almost drove die breath from me, and I felt my mouth gape with shock. Shelagh was smiling again, though still gently.
'Tressa is barren. That was the single imperfection that I found in her. Her husband put her out a year and more ago and took another wife, who had already borne him two fat sons while he was wed to Tressa, thus proving that the fault lay in Tressa and not in him. Since then, Tressa has lived solely on her ability to wield a needle better than any other in Ravenglass. So you see, her need for comforting and succour is as great as yours."
"By the Christ, Shelagh, you confound me." I sagged back in my chair, completely at a loss. "You have been conspiring to alter my very life!"
"Aye, my dear, but only with myself. Not even Tressa knows what I have been thinking." She was completely uncontrite, smiling at me. 'Think of it, Cay—think about what a nod of the head could mean to you: companionship, a ready wit to keep you agile and alert, a clever woman's mind around you with a pleasant smile and a willing, cheerful bedmate on cold, dark nights ... even on warm, dark nights. All those you need, Caius Merlyn Britannicus, and all of them are there in young Tressa. And no fear of siring children." She paused, blinking, and her smile faded to soberness. "Even the boy would benefit from such a case, for Tressa's need to mother is fierce and strong."
Then, in a quieter voice, she added, "Think you I would advise you lightly in this, Cay? Or wrongly? Or that I would bestow those blessings I covet on someone unworthy?"
I stood up slowly, my mind spinning as I saw the implications here. But before I could find the words with which to respond to such an amazing series of statements, questions and revelations, the door swung open and Dedalus strode in. He almost skidded to a halt when he saw my expression and then Shelagh, sitting opposite me.
"Now, by the Christ! Forgive me, Merlyn—Cay, I mean—for charging in like this without a knock or bidding. I had no thought you might be occupied. Shelagh, your pardon, I'll—"
"Please, Dedalus, enough!" Shelagh rose to her feet, cutting him off with a smile and an upraised palm. "Our talk is done and I was about to leave." She smiled at me. "Think on what I have said, Cay, and consider it at length. There is no need for haste, in any direction. When you are ready to talk further, come and see me." She nodded again to Dedalus and left us with a smile.
Dedalus stepped to the window to watch her walk by, then turned to me. "Again, your pardon, Cay. I entered without thinking."
I barely heard what he said—my mind still reeling with the portent of Shelagh's last pronouncements—but I realized I was being uncivil, so I shook myself mentally and forced my attention to rest on my new visitor.
"What was that? No, no, no. Think no more of it, Ded. You know my door is always open to you. As Shelagh said, our talk was over. We were but making conversation when you arrived. What's that you have there?"
He carried two long pieces of wood clutched beneath one arm. He moved to a chair and seated himself, laying one end of them on die floor and leaning them against his leg as he launched into a long description of what they were and how he had found them. But he might as well have been speaking Attic Greek, for all that I absorbed of what he said, because my mind remained fixed upon what had just passed between Shelagh and me—the deafening knowledge that Tressa was barren! My face must have portrayed a certain interest, nonetheless, because Dedalus kept talking. But as he droned on, his tone changed from a mere accompaniment to my confusion into an annoyance, and eventually I jerked my hand upward in a peremptory gesture of restraint. He stopped speaking immediately.
"Ded, my friend, I must ask you to forgive me, but I have barely heard a word of what you have been saying. My head is filled with other matters."
He sat frowning at me, clearly concerned for me.
"Are you all right, Cay? Is something wrong?"
I shook my head, finding the ability to smile, albeit ruefully. "No, Ded, there's nothing wrong ... nothing that can be changed, at any rate. It's simply ... I have too much on my mind—too many things, all small enough but all demanding redress. Shelagh's contribution, though
among the least of them, was simply one more complication than I had thought to face at this particular time. Your input then, my friend, has come as surfeit. Can you excuse my lack of courtesy?"
"Tchah! What lack of courtesy?" He rose to his feet, smiling. "I was the one who thrust myself in here without thought. I was but passing by, on my way to meet with Mark, when I thought to show you these things that I have found." He hefted them into the air, catching them beneath his aim again. "But they are solid, as you see, so they won't dry up and disappear. Deal with the problems on your mind, and when you're ready, I won't be hard to find. Can I help you with anything?" I shook my head, wordlessly, and he shrugged and made his way to the door. "I'll leave you to it, then, until later."
When he had gone I stood staring at the door, my mind in some kind of stasis, empty of all intelligible thought. But then the image of Tressa came back to me, to be replaced immediately by Shelagh's smiling face and the sound of her voice. I moved to sit in my most comfortable chair, allowing my calamitous thoughts to swirl and surge around in my mind. They were, however, too disturbing and too turbulent to be dealt with sitting still, and soon I was pacing my floor from one end to the other, tracing and retracing the same path as I grappled with the welter of my feelings and emotions. Finally, I stopped before the window where Shelagh had stood and leaned out into the still- bright afternoon. All at once I was aware of what it was that had been troubling me about Shelagh's declaration: it contained an inconsistency, so frail as to be almost nebulous, yet tantalizingly present, demanding recognition.
Shelagh had chosen Tressa as a mistress for me, and some inner, disapproving part of me was slightly scandalized by that. She had searched diligently, by her own admission, and had chosen carefully, selecting Tressa over all others. Then, her choice made in secrecy, she had implemented her design and I had refused the offered prize. Only then, in the face of that refusal, had she acknowledged her intent and her manipulation of events for my personal and private benefit. It was, in one evident sense, the gesture of a true and loyal friend, selfless and generous and noble-hearted. And yet ... and yet, it was flawed.
I could not marry Tressa, for a myriad reasons including my own oath never to take a wife. Shelagh, however, even though she knew nothing of that oath, had not sought to find a wife for me. Instead, she had found a potentially willing mistress who would never be a threat, either to my destiny with Arthur, or to that dear place, that shrine sacred to my long-dead Cassandra, shared now by her memory and by Shelagh herself, in my deepest heart. Most particularly, however, the woman she had taken such pains to find could never tie me to her in the future through the bonds of children.
I knew beyond a doubt that Shelagh had laboured well on my behalf, but now I knew also that she had laboured not quite selflessly or self-effacingly. That physicality which she might not provide herself she had provided otherwise; but die strangely passive secret, amorous, excitement-filled attraction to each other that we shared, on the other hand, she had safeguarded wholly, in her role as panderer ... As the full realization of what had passed here flooded through me—Shelagh's tacit, even unconscious acknowledgment of the love she held for me—I found myself smiling again, broadly this time, and filling my lungs with the aromatic air of late afternoon as I bounded out of my quarters and made my way towards Mark's carpentry shop, feeling like a boy released from his lessons.
Dedalus was still there when I arrived, as was Lucanus, the latter sitting on an upturned barrel in the yard fronting Mark's workshop. They were talking of furnishings with Mark, admiring the matching patterns of the close-grained boards in a table he was making. They were all pleased to see me, and when the greetings were all done I turned to Dedalus.
"Now I can concentrate on what you wanted to discuss. You brought some things to show me. Do you still have them?"
"Aye," he murmured, grinning, then crossed to where they were propped against a wall. He picked both pieces up, hefted them one in each hand, then passed one to me. I held it close to my eyes and dug at it with my thumbnail. It was carefully sawed, heavy, dense-grained oak, unplaned but squared on all sides to the width of four fingers. I lowered one end to the floor and the other reached up to my sternum. The second piece, which Ded still held, appeared to be identical.
"It's oak, and seasoned," I said. "Where did you get it?"
He grinned again. "Above the furnace in the bathhouse. Mark, here, was looking for a place to dry some lumber, months ago, when I first repaired the hypocaust system. He didn't need much room at the time, but he required it to be hot and dry and weather-proof, and I knew there was adequate space beneath the bathhouse floor, perfect for his needs. I told him about it, and then forgot about it afterward, but he has been using the space ever since. I went in there today, about an hour before I passed by your place, and found these and a hundred or so others just like them. Mark used them for making bed-legs, when he was building our cots." He saw the incomprehension in my eyes as I glanced towards Mark, who was standing listening, a half-smile on his lips. "Don't you see it, Cay?" I could hear the excitement now in Ded's voice. "It's prime oak, oven- dried and cured, heavier and stronger than ash. We can turn and taper them on Mark's lathe and make ourselves some real, practical staves of the kind we've been discussing— long practice swords, all of a uniform size."
Mark's lathe was his greatest pride, a wonderful machine that enabled him to transform plain, squared lumber into glowing, rounded, exquisitely turned things of beauty. In the flash of a moment, I saw the squared baulk of timber in my hand transformed into a thick dowel, a tapered practice sword.
"By God you're right, Ded!"
"I know I'm right. I'm just glad I went down into the furnace room today, for it would never have occurred to me that we had such perfect material at hand, already cured and seasoned. But what think you, will oak serve as well as ash?"
"Aye, and better, would be my guess." I looked to Mark for confirmation and he nodded mutely, his smile widening.
"I believe it might," he drawled, "but I don't know what use you intend for them, or how much abuse they'll take. If they break, we can always make more, out of ash."
I hoisted the heavy length of wood and caught it at the midpoint. "The Roman practice swords were ash. Our British ones will be of oak. How long to make them?"
Mark looked to Dedalus, who shrugged his huge shoulders. "Like making swords, I would guess. We'll make two as experimental models and then refine them as necessary until they'll do what we require of them." He could no longer contain the smile of delight that broke across his face. "You approve of them, then?"
"I do, and heartily."
"Good, then I'll bring them back to you when they're ready to be used. How long, will that be, Mark?"
The young carpenter shrugged. "I can see it's important to you, and this table top is finished, for today at least. I can start on them now, if you like. You'll have to show me exactly what you want me to do with them—the length and angle of the taper. I'll need an hour to set them up on the lathe, preparing them for turning, but after that, we can begin immediately. If all goes well, they should be ready by this time tomorrow."
Dedalus stood on tiptoe and stretched his arms above his head. "Then what are we waiting for? To work, young Marcus!"
As he stretched, I grinned and launched the heavy length of wood at his midriff. He whipped his arms down just in time to catch it and whirl it, one-handed, up beneath his armpit, as though it were a centurion's cudgel of vine wood, dried and weightless. Then he snapped a flawless Roman centurion's salute, executed a smart about-face and marched into the gloom of the workshop.
I moved to sit on a low stump beside Lucanus's much higher barrel, looking up at him where he sat smiling gently at Ded's antics.
"How are you feeling, Luke? You looked a bit pale and shaky earlier, on the way up the hill."
"Aye, I must admit there was a time back there when I felt that horse would be the death of me. There is something about the rocking
motion of a horse that never fails to nauseate me. How you people can stomach it I'll never know."
I sat for a moment, bemused, blinking at him and wondering how he could remain unaware that he alone experienced any rocking motion on a horse. The side-to-side motion to which he referred was born solely of his own execrable horsemanship. Lucanus had never mastered the art of relaxing on a horse's back; he held himself rigid at all times, so that instead of melding with the motion of the animal and riding almost as a part of it, he was forever at odds with it, clinging grimly and in constant discomfort to his precarious perch on its broad back. His failure to see that and to adjust his seat was incomprehensible to me, because I had started riding when I was so young that I had never known, or I could not remember, any such rocking motion.
"So you felt better when you were on solid ground again?"
"Again, as ever. I vastly prefer riding on a wagon. There's so much more in one of those to hang on to."
I grunted a laugh and shook my head. "What are you going to do now?"
"Now, at this moment? I had thought to move inside and watch young Mark at work, but if you have something other than that in mind, I'll gladly go with you."
"Would you enjoy a stroll around the walls?"
He eyed me shrewdly. "With you? Of course I would. Help me down, would you? I hoisted myself up, but it looks to be a long way down there for bones like mine."
I grasped one hand and helped him down from his barrel and we made our way directly to the nearest wall, the northern one that fronted the chasm behind the fort. When we reached it we turned to our right and began to walk briskly around the intervallum, the circuit road that followed the interior of the walls. I plunged directly into what I wanted to say to him, the excitement in me brimming over uncontrollably.
"Luke, I have something to ask you."
"Ask away," he replied, but then he stopped again and turned to face me, alerted perhaps by something in my tone, and his face underwent a sudden change to dismay. "Oh, Aesculapius," he said, almost groaning. "There's that look that reeks of celibacy. Not today, Merlyn, I beg you. I would rather run and try to jump over these walls than talk of celibacy on such a wondrous afternoon."