The Skystone

by Jack Whyte

  “Try it anyway,” he grunted.

  I sighted carefully and loosed. My shot was close, but we had no way of judging how close.

  He turned to me with another of his grunts. “Delicacy, boyo, that’s what you lack. That great thing of yours takes too much pull. You can’t be accurate with a great thing like that. Delicacy’s what you want, there’s all! Who are you, anyway?”

  I smiled and leaned on my bow. “Varrus is my name. Publius Varrus. I am a guest of Caius Britannicus.”

  He drew in his breath with a hiss. “Guest, is it? Roman you are.” He pronounced the word as another would pronounce “toad” or “serpent.”

  I laughed. “Aye, I’m Roman. What did you think I was? And who are you?”

  “Cymric. I took you for one of us, there’s blind of me!”

  His way of talking was unlike any I had ever heard. I decided that he must be one of the local Celts. “Are you from around here, then?”

  “No.” His eyes were on my face, weighing me against some kind of private measure in his head. Finally he resumed speaking. “No. I live here. Around here. But I am from the hills. The mountain land. Over yonder.” He indicated the far horizon to the north-west, where I could see no mountains, and then he narrowed his eyes and I looked to see a man approaching us from the house.

  “Master Varrus,” he said as he drew close, “the Lady Luceiia is preparing to leave.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Please tell the lady I shall be there presently.” As he walked away I spoke again to Cymric. “Wait here.”

  I paced out the distance from where he stood to the shattered shaft of the shovel stuck in the ground in front of the root-pad of the great fallen tree. I had gauged it correctly. It was a hundred and twenty-six paces to the shovel, which I pulled from the ground, noting that the blade was still quite bright where it had been dug in, and another twelve paces to the surface of the root-pad. It towered above me as I stood at its base and wedged the shovel, its blade upturned, securely against the sandy clay of its surface. That done, I returned to where Cymric stood watching.

  “Now, friend Cymric,” I said with a smile, “I have added twelve more steps to the distance, but the mark is wider, and far shorter. Let’s see you hit it now. Six arrows.”

  He looked at me with a pitying scowl and began to shoot. Four of his arrows sent back loud noises to announce their arrival on the shovel blade, but I had wedged it well and it stayed in place. I stood behind him as he shot, lining up six of my best arrows with their points in the ground. As his last arrow, his fourth hit, clanged its arrival on the mark, he turned back to me and saw what I had done. I could not read the expression on his face as I waved him aside. He moved without speaking, fastening his eyes on the gleam of the distant shovel blade.

  “Well done, Cymric,” I said. “Four out of six is fine shooting. Delicate shooting, as you say. Now, watch this, and note the lack of delicacy.”

  I went into my smooth, practiced manoeuvre, pulling all the way back to my ear and loosing all six arrows so fast that there was always one in flight as I released the next. We heard five sounds, one a clang similar to the sound his arrows had made and the other four quite different.

  “Five,” I grunted. “Come.”

  I heard him walking behind me as I led the way to the mark, knowing what I would find and positioning myself so as to hide the mark from his eyes with my back. I stopped about two paces short of the mark.

  “Well, Cymric?”

  I had my revenge for his scoffing and scorn when he walked past me and then stopped, silent, his eyes on the mark. His six arrows and two of mine were sunk well into the sandy base of the root-pad, around the head of the shovel. The shovel’s surface showed four scratches where his points had hit and been deflected, and one deep gouge where one of mine had done the same. Four of my arrows, however, had pierced clean through the metal of the shovel and pinned it against the clay.

  I spoke to his stiff back. “Not delicate, Cymric, but effective.”

  He turned to me, and his eyes were wide as he looked from me to the bow I held. He nodded once, and I accepted that as his recognition of a superior weapon. I stepped forward and began to collect my arrows, working them backwards through the holes they had made in the iron.

  “I will be at the Villa Britannicus. If you care to visit me there, I’ll be glad to see you.” I packed the arrows into my quiver. “Until then, farewell.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still without saying a word. I was conscious of his eyes on my back all the way back to the villa.

  As I entered the courtyard, I saw Luceiia, Veronica and Quintus standing outside the main door of the house beside a brightly decorated, four-wheeled cart harnessed to a matched team of grey horses. There were no servants that I could see, not even a wagon driver, and I found this surprising, although I wasted no time thinking about it. They all smiled as I walked towards them.

  “You must pardon me if I have kept you waiting,” I called out as I approached them, “but I was involved in a matching of wits and arrows with one of your people, Quintus.”

  “You have not kept us,” Luceiia answered. “There is no rush. Who was your opponent?”

  I reached them and shook Quintus’ proffered hand. “Cymric,” I said. “What does he do?”

  Quintus laughed. “Cymric does nothing he does not want to do. Cymric simply is Cymric. He comes from Cambria, from the mountains, and does whatever needs to be done around here until he grows tired of it, and then he moves on.”

  “I see.” I looked at Luceiia, trying not to appear too besotted with her. “I asked him to visit me at your villa. I hope that was not foolish of me?”

  She laughed. “Not at all. He may even come, if he likes you. He likes few Romans.”

  “I got that impression. At least he respects me, that I know.”

  “La! And so he should.” She was mocking me, I thought.

  I looked around me. “You are ready to leave. My horses and my gear are in the stables. I’ll go and get them.”

  “No, they are already gone. I sent Jacobus on ahead with them, hoping you would prefer to ride with me.”

  I felt my face flush with pleasure and sought to hide my confusion by thanking Veronica and Quintus for their kindness and their hospitality.

  Eventually, amid smiles and waves, we left the Villa Varo and set out for the Villa Britannicus, which, I had been told, lay six short miles to the south and west. Our route lay along a well-used, rutted path that skirted the outer quadrangle of the Varo farm and swung past the great uprooted tree that had seen my triumph over Cymric. Sure enough, he was still there, watching us as we passed. I shouted and waved to him and he responded with what seemed a grudging wave in return.

  Luceiia had the reins and she drove well. The cart was built for passenger comfort and obviously not for work. It had seats for six people in the bed of the wagon and a canopy of soft leather that could be unrolled in rainy weather to close in the sides. The driver’s bench was cushioned and as comfortable as a wagon bench could be, and for the time being I was more content than I could ever remember being. We drove without talking for about a mile, Luceiia concentrating on the rutted path, and I on her, willing myself not to stare too hungrily at the perfection of her profile. The day was beautiful and birds sang everywhere and I was as happy and as full of bliss as any man could ever be.

  Soon, however, sensing my scrutiny of her, she turned her face to me with a tiny smile. “You are very quiet this morning, Master Varrus. Is everything well?”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “Perfectly well, thank you, Domina,” I replied. “As a matter of fact, I was just congratulating myself on being alive on a day like this.”

  Her smile widened and she asked, “You feel no urge to talk?”

  “None at all.”

  “Good, then we will share the silence and the day.”

  We travelled on in silence, and she allowed me the perfect pleasure of simply looking at her. We both knew that I wa
s staring ill-manneredly, but she was gracious enough to take no ill of it, and confident enough to be unflustered by it.

  Her hands were long and delicate, yet brown and strong, and there was a fine, fine down of the most delicate goldness on her forearms, which were not quite covered by the sleeves of the long, white gown she wore. Her mode of dress was the classic dress of Rome: long, clean, straight lines of soft, draped cloth, tied at the waist, the upper garment scooped across her bosom and gathered at the shoulder by a jewelled pin. She was gloriously lovely, and I felt a growing urge in me to say so, but I lacked the courage. I fell into a day-dream, however, imagining that I did say so. and that she smiled and laid her hand in mine that I could kiss it. And kiss it I did, in my dream, rubbing the golden skin gently against my lips and tasting the sweetness of it with the tip of my tongue. Her voice brought me back to my senses.

  “This is the border of the two estates. Beyond the stream is your new home.” She turned to me with that raised-eyebrow look of her brother’s. “That is, if you care to stay?”

  I smiled and said nothing, but my heart was saying. “I care to stay, I care to stay!”

  The stream was a shallow one, no more than a brook, and our path ran straight across it and then branched into three, one going straight ahead and one along the bank of the stream in either direction. I expected her to continue along the main path, but she swung the team to the right and we followed the stream until we came to a widening pool surrounded by willow trees. She brought the horses to a halt just beneath them.

  “Now, sir, if you will take the basket from behind us and help me down, we will eat here before going on to the house, and I will talk to you of dragons.”

  Delighted, I sprang down from the seat, forgetting all about my bad leg but fortunately landing well. Then I helped her down from the bench, feeling the wondrous softness of her waist beneath my hands for the first time.

  The basket contained a variety of food and a flagon of wine, and cups and knives and even a cloth to spread on the grass, and we ate together in perfect contentment by the side of the gurgling stream.

  There came a time when I could eat no more, and I made myself more comfortable, leaning against the bole of the tree.

  She smiled at me. “Now, are you comfortable? Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Only one more thing,” I said, with a smile that was sheer euphoria. “Tell me about your dragons, and why I will adopt them.”

  Her face grew serious. She plucked a blade of grass, frowning at it in concentration as she split it carefully lengthwise with the nail of her right thumb. “What do you know of the Druids, Publius?”

  I thought for a moment before answering. “Not a lot. Mainly what Bishop Alaric has told me about them. You know Alaric?” She nodded. “He says they’re the priests of the Celts. They are of the old religion that held power here before we came. They used to conduct human sacrifices, and were supposed to have magical powers. They worship trees, particularly the oak tree, and the parasite, mistletoe, is held by them to be a sacred plant. Their views today are moderate and not at all at odds with the basic tenets of Christianity, in that all things were created by a benign God for a specific purpose. That’s about all. Why do you ask?”

  She was staring at me, an unintelligible expression on her beautiful face, her right eyebrow quirked slightly higher than the left. In answering my question she dipped her head slightly as though in acknowledgement of something.

  “I was simply curious to find out how much you know about them. Do you believe that they have magic powers?”

  “No. I told you, I don’t even believe that charcoal has magic powers.”

  Her eyebrow went up higher, in that sardonic way her brother had. “Well, Publius,” she drawled, “you are wrong. Magic they possess. Real magic, but purely natural. The magic of trained memory.”

  I dismissed that with a grunt. “There’s nothing magical about trained memory, Luceiia. It’s the first function taught in the legions. When a man’s illiterate, you’d better make sure that you train his memory if you ever want him to remember anything, from drill to a crucial message.”

  She accepted my response without demur. “True, but the Druids have this on a different scale. They have carried it beyond the realms of what Romans would consider possible. They carry their entire history around in their heads and in their hearts, Publius. They are a truly wonderful people. I have several friends among them whom I value above many ‘worthy’ Romans.”

  I dismissed these sentiments too, classifying them mentally as womanly, and my next words betrayed that.

  “I presume it was these people who introduced you to the dragons?”

  “Don’t be nasty, Publius Varrus, it doesn’t suit you. As it happens, however, you are correct. They did.”

  “I see. Well, what have these dragons to do with me?”

  “Nothing yet, and yet perhaps everything. As I told you, you will adopt them as your own.”

  I sighed. I had eaten well and was more than content with her company, but I was not in the mood for circumlocution. Nevertheless, I was at pains to keep any trace of impatience out of my voice, and there was a part of me, a very large part of me, that would have been content to dally in that place all day with Luceiia, even had she been babbling gibberish.

  “Could you be talked into explaining that?” I asked her.

  “Happily. The Celts who live here in the west call themselves the people of the dragon. The Pendragon, to be exact. I respect and admire them very much. And, as I’ve said, I have made friends of some of their Druids. The Christians have, as you remarked, been making some inroads into the old religion in the last few years, but the Druids are a long way from losing their place of honour in the land. One of them told me the story of the Pendragon and how they were named. It was all very mystical and I listened mainly out of politeness, understanding little of it. But then you yourself alerted me with something you said to Caius, in talking of your grandfather. He repeated it to me and I have been thinking about it ever since.”

  I waited. She was obviously struggling with unruly thoughts.

  “You asked me if I had seen rust-stained hillsides, and of course I have, without knowing what they signified. I have seen many of them in the hills to the north-east of here, the Mendips. The Pendragon, you see, used to be best known for their crafting of metal. They worked with tin, silver, lead and iron. Their greatest tribal secrets were the secrets of metal.”

  She had my full attention. “Go on.”

  “Well, understandably enough, they wanted to preserve their secret lore from unfriendly eyes. So they used to do their smelting, as you call it, in great secrecy, in caves in the hills, mainly at night. The glow of their furnaces, the noises and the smoke gave rise to a legend, actively fostered by the people themselves, that the hills were the homes of fire-breathing dragons — monsters whose roaring and clanging could be heard in the night by anyone foolish enough to approach their lairs. And their subterfuge worked. It was the perfect deterrent to spies and raiders, and their secrets were safe for centuries.”

  “Until the Romans came.”

  “Exactly, Publius. Until the Romans came. The Romans, with their ravenous appetite for raw materials and their hard-headed refusal to believe in dragons or in anything else that couldn’t be countered by sword, shield and spear. Then the furnaces were abandoned in the caves, and they have remained that way for more than four hundred years.”

  “So,” I said, “all your dragons are dead?” She nodded. “Then how could I adopt them? And why would I want to?”

  She smiled, sweetly and knowingly. “There is a legend among the Pendragon people that the dragons will return to the hills some day, when the Romans leave.”

  “So?”

  The smile left her face to be replaced by a tiny tic of annoyance. “What do you mean, ‘So?’ Think about what I said.”

  I moved my back against the tree, seeking a more comfortable angle. “Luceiia,
I have no wish to offend you, or to seem cynical, as you put it, but since I joined the legions I must have heard a thousand similar stories and legends. What’s so different about this one?”

  “Evidence. This one is quite specific, Publius. The dragons will return to the hills of the Pendragon when the Romans leave Britain. Caius thinks that might not be far in the future.”

  “You mean his theory about the Romans having to go home to defend the Motherland?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “Very well, I’m thinking. That is why your brother wants me to live here in Aquae Sulis, isn’t it? To be prepared?”

  She nodded, and her next words were unequivocal. “Yes, and to help us build ourselves a new life while we wait for the dragons to come back.”

  I grinned. “Well, why not?”

  “Why not, indeed? They’ve already started to, it seems.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  Now she was grinning widely, enjoying the effect of her next words in advance of their delivery. “They’ve started to come back. To the hills. The dragons. They have been seen. Witnessed.”

  “When? By whom? Your Druids?”

  Instead of answering directly, she took another tack. “Last night you told me that your grandfather found and smelted his skystone thirty-some years ago?” I nodded, and she went on. “Well, according to my Druid friends, there was a visitation of dragons to the local hills one night about thirty-six years ago. It terrified the local people, genuinely. There is absolutely no doubt of that. The dragons came at night, in fire and thunder and smoke, flying through the darkness at great speed and landing with a huge commotion and concussion among the hills to the east. The Mendip Hills. The Dragon Hills.”

  She paused to let that sink in for a few moments before continuing.

  “I had no knowledge of the event. It happened eleven years before I was born, and my family were still living in Rome or in Constantinople. In any case, your grandfather’s story makes me think there might be some connection between the two events. Perhaps the ‘dragons’ were a rain of your skystones? The times seem to fit, if your recollection of the date is accurate. Wouldn’t you agree? Or does that sound insane? The speculations of a foolish woman?”