by Jack Whyte
Dergyll is dead. The how and why of that will become clear as you read on.
Peter Ironhair has reappeared, after long years of silence. Early, imperfect tidings of his new endeavours came to us some months ago, shortly before the last relief column left to go to you.
You should know that I took steps to strengthen our position the moment I first heard Ironhair's name resurface. I bullied the Council into approving a further intake of recruits, the largest ever since the Colony was founded. I called for a conscription of two thousand men, half immediately and the remainder within the year. There are no concerns over our ability to train and equip them; that is the simple part. The major concern arises over housing and feeding them. This is a grave and genuine concern, as you already know, since each thousand newcomers equates to fifteen hundred or more mouths to feed, once one has acknowledged the dependents who arrive with them. Some of the new recruits will bring in wives and children, while others have close family obligations that preclude their entering our service alone. Some of them, those few who are not utterly raw recruits, we will post out to Ilchester, to the garrison there, but Ilchester, large as it is, is at capacity and we dare not spread our people there beyond the walls. The space around the walls is kept strategically clear, and any houses there would be too vulnerable to attack The new intake will all be fed and housed, one way or another, nonetheless, and should we be forced into war, our numbers will be reduced again more quickly than we might wish. The dilemma never seems to change, and the answers to the problems of today provide the challenge we must face tomorrow. But the point I sought to make was that our combined forces will now be close to ten thousand men.
In the meantime, since Benedict's arrival in the north-west, your latest letter has arrived, announcing your intention of returning here early next year, when the snows have cleared. The information, and your resolved intent, both gladdened me. We need you here. Let me speak clearly and with brevity, for there is much to tell.
It would appear your suspicions concerning Owain of the Caves were not without foundation, for the man has disappeared, and rumours have come home to us that he has found a place for himself with Ironhair in Cornwall. He knew of our suspicions, I fear. Although he said no word about it to anyone, several of the people I had set to keep a casual eye on his activities all reported to me that he had become aware of their scrutiny. He finally walked out of the gates one day more than a month ago and has not been seen since—not in our lands, at least. I have no proof that he is in Cornwall, but I believe the reports I have heard, precisely because they confirm your suspicions.
Cornwall has been in chaos for more than a year now, torn apart between competing warlords, the most disgusting of whom is Ironhair's demented creature, Carthac. It would seem now - that the war there is over and all opposition to the joint overlordship of Ironhair and Carthac has been either subdued or exterminated. Last month, Carthac led an expedition by sea from Cornwall into Cambria landing near the old Roman town of Venta Silurum, called Caerwent by the local Celts. From there they began raiding inland and westward, burning and wreaking havoc, and threatening Dergyll's fort at Cardiff. Dergyll summoned his warriors and led an army out against them, meeting them close to his own fort, and in the course of the fight came face to face with his relative Carthac, who had set out to find him and kill him. Word has come to us, along with a plea for assistance, that that is exactly what happened. Carthac, in what has been described to me as a gargantuan feat of arms, hewed his way almost alone through Dergyll's chosen guard and killed the king, beheading and dismembering him after he was dead, then cutting out and eating Dergyll's heart in front of all his men.
As you might guess, the sight was too much for the Cambrian host. They ran from the battlefield and dispersed immediately, fleeing in all directions from Carthac's pursuing furies.
Cymberic, Dergyll's eldest son, managed to rally some of them eventually, but finding themselves safe, the survivors then refused to return and outface the inhuman invader, whom they believe to be accursed by their gods and therefore answerable to no living being, god or man. Cymberic has now sent delegates to Camulod, requesting our assistance in regaining his father's kingdom, and I believe that, since it is Arthur's kingdom in truth, we have no other recourse than to offer what we can. If Ironhair and Carthac are to be brought to battle by Camulodian arms—and I can see no means of avoiding that conclusion—then I would rather have it happen otherwhere than in the lands of Camulod.
Yet that is not all. Word has come to me from the other side of the country that Hengist, too, is dead, unnaturally, in Northumbria, and the territories there are plunged in war also. No tidings have yet come to me of Vortigern, and so I fear the worst, there, too. That information, and the lack of it in sufficiency, concerns me even more than this of Cornwall and Cambria. The enemy here in the west is known to us. In the north-east, however, our potential foe is alien, with many differences in beliefs and ways that are completely unknown to our people here, the first and most important being that they fight very differently from us, as you are well aware, and I am concerned that they might come spilling inland, clear across Britain, to do us mischief.
Therefore, dear Brother, waste no time in setting out once the snows have melted. If Connor reappears before you leave, come south with him and leave your men to take the slower route by road. We need you here. I need you here. Everything is as you left it, in good condition and prospering, but who knows how long that may last, with threats from West and East?
I wait to embrace you and see your smile again.
A.
When I had read the letter for the third time, I called one of the guards and sent him to find Lucanus, Donuil, Dedalus, Benedict, Philip and Falvo and summon them to join me.
Lucanus was the first to arrive, as I had expected, since his Infirmary was in the block next to my own quarters, and Rufio, who was progressing better than anyone had expected, was his only resident at the time. But the Lucanus who appeared in my doorway was not the presence I had looked for. He looked dreadful, pallid and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, and he stopped in the doorway, swaying slightly and reaching out to steady himself against the door post.
I leaped to my feet and rushed to take his arm, shocked at his appearance, but he pushed me away, frowning and muttering something about merely having caught a cold. I held his elbow as he moved to a chair, nevertheless, then moved quickly to pour him a cup of wine from the flagon I had ready. He accepted it graciously enough and sipped deeply at it before sighing and placing it on a small table I had moved close to him.
I watched him closely, trying to hide my concern over the way he looked, for I knew he would resent any sign of solicitousness from me. I had remarked before, on the few occasions when I had seen him in less than perfect health, that Lucanus had no patience with his own humanity and simply refused to be sick like any other person. He seemed to take any sign of sickness in himself as a slight upon his own abilities as a physician, and that was the only vanity I ever saw in him. On this occasion, however, he was evidently ill and lacked the strength even to resent the plainness of the fact.
When he picked up his wine again I noticed that his hand was trembling so violently that he almost spilled his drink. I stood gnawing on the inside of my mouth, wondering what to do and how to do it without drawing down his ire. I resolved that, when this meeting reached an end, I would commit him to the care of Tress and Shelagh. He could bark and roar at them, and they would ignore him as casually as they did Donuil and me. Now he was staring down into his cup and I looked down at him, seeing the pallor of his scalp shining through the sparseness of his hair. My old friend had grown frighteningly aged, too suddenly, and was all at once too physically frail. Always a tall, lean figure, he was stooped now, and gaunt, his frame emaciated and his movements tentative and slow. Yet mere weeks earlier, when I had thought him far too frail to journey out to look for Rufio, he had surprised me first by stubbornly refusing to remain behi
nd and then by travelling as quickly as the others in his party, showing no sign of weakness or infirmity.
I told him he looked sick and should be in his bed, not here, and I started to order him away there and then, but he growled at me again, something unintelligible. Then he collected himself and apologized, admitting that he had caught a chill, some nights earlier and that it had lodged in his head and chest. He was not vomiting, he told me, nor were his bowels loose. He merely suffered from some inflammation of the joints, a heavy, rheumy cough and a congestion in his head that affected his eyes, making them tear over constantly and depriving him of the ability to read. I informed him that I was going to send Shelagh and Tress to visit him, and to feed him some medicinal broths, and he muttered and grumbled but made no great commotion.
From that point, having won my concession, I thought it better to change the topic, and so we discussed Rufe's progress as we waited for the others to assemble. As each one joined us, he listened for a spell and then asked questions, so that poor Luke had to repeat himself several times. Eventually, everyone was present and each held a cup of wine and withheld from questioning me. They all knew about the letter I had received, of course, and all were curious, but they held their peace. I said nothing until everyone was assembled, at which point I read the letter aloud and invited their reaction and comments.
They were understandably slow to respond, mulling over the tidings and weighing the portent, each from his own viewpoint. Dedalus, as usual, was the first to speak, and he asked me if I would read the letter for them again.
Even after the second reading, no one had much of anything to say. Ambrose had said it all and no amount of wishing or analysis could change the content or alter the way matters stood.
Philip spoke up. "If Connor does appear before we leave, will you do as Ambrose suggests and sail back aboard his galley?"
"Aye, I think that makes good sense. I'll take my original party with me, too, leaving you and your troops to return the way you came. If things are as bad, or become as bad as Ambrose thinks they might, then the sooner we're back in Camulod, the better it will be for everyone concerned." I stopped, seeing doubt in his eyes. "You disagree with that?"
He shrugged, shaking his head. "No, not at all. On the surface, it makes good sense, as you say. I was but thinking of what Ambrose said about Carthac invading Cambria. There could be a fleet of Cornish galleys between here and the coast off Camulod, so your safety might depend on the number of vessels Connor brings back with him. We've no idea of the number of galleys Carthac has, but if his fleet is large enough to move an army, it's large enough to cause you grief on your way south. You might be safer on the road."
I glanced at Dedalus, who nodded, and then I looked to Donuil.
"What think you, Donuil?"
"Philip's right. If Connor brings a strong contingent with him, and I think he will have no less than he's been bringing for the past few years, then we ought to be safe enough. But he'll be shipping no more cattle from the south now. This latest shipment was the last. So he might not bring a strong escort. He might not come at all, in fact. I'm sure my father will have work enough for him to do in the north." He paused then, throwing up his hands* "But who knows what will happen? My advice would be to make a decision about when you'll go, but you can't even do that until we see how fierce or mild the winter will be. If there's no snow, or little; of it, you'll be able to leave early, and if you leave early enough, you'll be half-way to Camulod before Connor drops anchor here. If your departure and his arrival coincide, on the other hand, then you can make up your mind which way to go when you see how strong his fleet is. But that's months away, so any decision we seek to arrive at now will be futile."
"Aye," I agreed. "Futile, premature and foolish. So be it, we'll have to wait and see. But one thing has changed, since we first discussed returning. We now face the certainty of war, on at least one front. Even if the threat from the north-east does not materialize, Cambria will not be put to rest until Carthac and Ironhair have been stamped out. I want this winter to be spent in training for war. I don't care if the snow reaches the roof tops, we'll find some place to train our men and keep them in fighting trim. And the same applies to the four boys. They might well see their first campaign before the summer comes, so I want their training stepped up and intensified in every area."
"Rufio should be able to help there." Lucanus had not spoken since I began reading the letter aloud, and now his words brought every head around to look at him. He nodded, sniffing gently and dabbing at his weepy eyes with a square of cloth. "He will be well enough to move around within the month, and that is when he'll need something to do, to keep him occupied. His right shoulder will take months longer to knit, and he may not be able to walk much for the immediate future, but his mind is as active as ever and he needs to be kept from boredom. The boys should serve that purpose."
The assembly, in full agreement, dispersed shortly afterward.
I did not dream of the death of Lucanus, although that night, when Tress woke me from a deep sleep, raising the alarm, I leaped up in bed with a terror that I had previously known only in connection with my horrifying, prophetic visions.
Luke's health had failed completely in the days and weeks that followed his last meeting with his friends in my quarters. The cough that racked him had grown worse and he had started spitting up blood, as though something had broken loose deep within him. The flesh fell from his bones, so that he withered almost visibly from day to day, and he had grown fevered, alternating between burning temperatures that brought the sweat pouring from his every pore and agued, shivering chills that made him shudder uncontrollably, tossing and turning wildly in delirium.
He had been strong enough to feed himself at first, for several weeks, and had chafed constantly about being kept abed by Shelagh, Tress and the other women of our small community, but as his sickness persisted he grew weaker and the trembling in his hands grew more pronounced, so that by the time the first heavy snow fell he was incapable of spooning broth unaided and his meals were fed to him, with great patience and greater love, by whomever of his friends was present when mealtimes arrived.
Soon even that arrangement became impractical, when he lost the ability to chew or even swallow voluntarily, and it was Shelagh who evolved a system, adapted from the way she had fed orphaned lambs at home in Eire, of feeding him with watered honey and warm milk through an elongated teat made, like a sausage, from the tight-sewn gut of a slain sheep, one end of which she stretched and tied over the neck of a bottle. When it became clear, eventually, that he was incapable of digesting even milk, his diet shrank to watered honey, and we knew that our brave and wonderful Lucanus was doomed.
I was distraught and refused, for the longest time, to accept the evidence that lay before me. I became so obsessive in my blind belief that he must survive that I savaged anyone who seemed, to my eyes, to be too pessimistic concerning his chances. So intractable did I become that my other friends soon chose to stay away from me, rather than risk earning the rough edge of my tongue. Only Tress and Shelagh seemed to have endless patience with my despair, and it was they who earned me to bed the night my old friend died.
I had been awake for three whole days and nights—and they had, too, save that they relieved each other—sleeping only fitfully in a narrow, wooden chair beside Luke's cot. When my body betrayed me and I fell from the chair to the floor without waking up, they carried me between them to another bed close by Luke's and covered me. A short time later, Shelagh went to rest, leaving poor Tress to keep watch, and Tress, too, fell victim to Morpheus.
When she woke me, she was wild-eyed and terrified, and the sight of her terror brought out my own. Lucanus was gone, she cried, out into the snow, barefoot. I can remember thinking, as I threw my cloak over my shoulders, that he had been abducted. He could not possibly have had the strength to walk unaided. Shelagh was awake by this time, grim-faced and filled with resolve, and I sent her to rouse the others. Then,
with Tress close behind me, I ran out into the whirling snow and followed the clear imprints of Lucanus's bare feet.
I followed them for more than seventy paces, to the open flight of steps that led up to the high wall's parapet, and there I found him, huddled where he had fallen sideways from the treacherous, snow-covered steps. Donuil and Benedict, the first to emerge after us, found me by the sound of my howls of grief. It was they who carried the still form between them, back into the futile warmth of the Infirmary, where he had spent so many hours and days tending the ills of others.
I have seen and known far, far too many deaths in my long life, and everyone I loved has gone before me, but only one other death in all the years affected me so deeply and so grievously as that, the tragic ending of my closest, oldest friend.
By the time we came to bury Lucanus, I had managed to bring my grief under control and was able to perform the funeral rites with something approaching dignity. On the day of the ceremony, I visited his bier alone to say my last farewell, and I wept as I stood over him, my hand touching the cold hands crossed upon his breast. The widow's peak of his hair was perfect in its symmetry, but the flesh of his face had already fallen in upon itself, settling tightly over the skeletal bones of his cheeks and jaws, and it came to me that this presence I was facing contained nothing of my dear friend and companion, the man whose empathy had healed a score of thousand wounds and bruises. This corpse had nothing in it of the kindly face that laughed so warmly, although rarely enough to make the sight a joy to behold. Where had that warmth and kindness gone, so suddenly?
I can recall speaking to his corpse, but I have no idea what I said to him. I know I was almost overwhelmed several times by the realization that I would never again speak to him or hear his voice. God, how I wanted to honour him in some majestic, all-embracing way! I thought about burning him, as we had my father, in honour of his enormous contributions, not just to us alone in Mediobogdum, but to the generations of Colonists and soldiers he had tended to in Camulod. In the end, however, we interred him on the threshold of his Infirmary and covered him with a simple slab of the local stone, inscribed by our stonemason with a representation of the caduceus of which he had always been so proud and the plain, simple name LUCANUS.