by Jack Whyte
He stood there in the doorway, clearly angry and struggling for words, but then he lowered his head, biting at his lip. Finally he nodded, his head still downcast, and went out without looking at me again, closing the door gently behind him. I had the distinct impression that he wanted to slam it shut, however, and I opened it slightly again to watch him walk stiffly away into the gathering dusk with his fists clenched and his entire bearing radiating anger and frustration. Then I heard Tressa's voice calling his name from the street on my right and I pulled the door to as he turned around to look for her.
Moments later, she opened the door and came in, unwinding the long stola she had wrapped around her shoulders.
"Cay, what on earth did you say to Arthur? I've never seen him so upset. He could barely stand to talk to me and I swear he was on the point of tears. Did you two quarrel?"
"No, my love," I said with a sigh, "we did not." I went to her and threw my arms about her, holding her close and kissing her deeply before moving away again to the high backed chair at my table, where I seated myself and told her everything that had passed between the boy and me, making no attempt to disguise my bafflement at his strange behaviour.
When I had finished, throwing up my arms and declaring my exasperation, she simply smiled and shook her head. "Rebellious, was that the word you stopped yourself from saying a moment ago?" She did not wait for me to respond; she had heard me correctly. "Arthur is not rebellious, Cay, you know that. He's the best natured boy in the world, and what you've said here confirms that. But the first words that come to you when now he shows a spark of his own feelings are 'surly' and 'selfish.' You really have no idea what's wrong with him, do you?"
I placed both hands flat on the table top and looked at her, raising my eyebrows, aware I was about to learn. "Haven't I made myself clear on that, woman? If I understood any of it, I would not be so frustrated, would I?"
'The boy's in love, you great, clumsy, dimwitted male!" Her perplexed but understanding smile robbed her words of any sting, and in the tone of them I heard her ask, wordlessly, What am I going to do with you, when you are so thick-skulled? "Have you no sense at all, no eyes, no empathy in you? He's changed, Cay, forever. Gone, vanished. What was that great long word you told to Derek, about butterflies? Meta..."
"Metamorphosis."
"Aye, that's it. Well, that's what's happened to the boy. He's metamorphosized."
I had to smile, she looked so earnest and concerned. "Metamorphosed, we say."
"Pah! You say it—it's too big for me, twisting in my mouth like something alive. But changed completely, that's what it means, howe'er you say it. The Arthur that you've always known is lost, Cay. Lost in love, for the first time in his life, and all he knows is that it's about to end and he is powerless to stop it. For you've just told him that you're ending it, tomorrow, come sunrise, tearing him and his love apart, sending her home and carrying him away to Camulod."
"Love?" I sat staring at her, attempting to grapple with what she had told me. "Arthur's in love? That's nonsense. With whom?" But even as I spoke the words, I saw it, my mind showing me images that I had seen in open view these past two weeks and chosen to ignore: Arthur, cow eyed and spellbound as he sat at dinner, gazing wordlessly at the beautiful young woman who sat demurely with her aunt and uncle, turning her head from time to time to smile in his direction; Bedwyr, grinning and slyly nudging Gwin as they watched Arthur watching her; the two young girls from Ravenglass, Stella and Rena, their faces the very picture of dislike and open hostility as they glared at the sight of Arthur in the street, standing alone with Morag between the buttresses of the central granaries, in a flood of bright sunlight that painted the entire west wall; and last, but most telling, the memory of that first moment when I had seen the two of them staring raptly at each other on the day she first arrived, each of them utterly, compellingly, immediately absorbed in the blinding totality of the other.
Thunder bolted. The term sprang into my mind, jarring me with bittersweet recollections forgotten thirty years before; the word we had used, as boys, to indicate the crippling swiftness with which love could strike. I had been thunder bolted once, and lost my love, a bright faced girl of twelve whose father had been banished for some crime against the Colony, and now the sharp, aching strangeness of the feelings that had filled my breast returned—the incredulous joy and wonder of sharing the world with her— and unreal though it was, the merest, fleeting shadow of a memory, the painful sweetness of it yet reminded me of what it had been like to live with such a love possessing me: terror and awe, offset by wild, thrilling joy and disbelief that I could be so blessed; capering, carefree madness spurred by an excitement beyond bearing; soaring elation blended with an incendiary purity of thought and purpose and the grand resolve to lay the whole world at my true love's feet. Her name had been Lueth, and now I wondered, for a flickering moment during which her face burned in my mind, how life had dealt with her. I thought, too, of Publius Varrus and how he, in his day, had been thunder bolted by a girl in blue, a girl whose real name might or might not have been the one she had given him on the sole summer afternoon they spent together. He had lost her in finding her, that single afternoon, and had spent years searching for her face throughout the Empire.
Tress moved now to sit on the floor by my feet, and she leaned against my knee, her bent arm on my thigh, supporting her face in her hand as she gazed up at me.
"What is it, Cay? What are you thinking?"
I reached down to stroke her hair, then looked at her, feeling suddenly very old. "About first love, and what it does to us. It shatters us, that first time when we see that there's another species in our world of men, a species concerning whose existence we had been in utter ignorance—the
goddess species. First love, the thunderbolt, is the loss of
innocence." I stopped, feeling a swelling in my throat the like of which I had not felt in years. And then, because Tressa was so wide eyed and intent, staring up at me, I rubbed my thumb against the smoothness of her cheek and spoke what lay within my mind.
"I simply never thought of that before, and even so, had I ever thought of such a thing, I would never have imagined that I might... that I might be the one to cause such direct pain to any boy, far less a boy who means as much to me as Arthur does. And yet there's nothing I can do to change it, to change anything. We have to leave this place now, and so does young Morag. It's time for us to go, and the world of men and women cannot wait upon the love of almost children."
The melancholy that I felt at that moment was almost insupportable, but Tress saved me from the depths of it. "You can do much to help him," she said, in a tone that pronounced my anguish to be baseless. Ignoring my philosophical maunderings, she had fastened on the crux of the matter. "You can support him through this pain. You can give him hope."
"How?" I was looking at her keenly now, "Forgive me, Tress, I don't know what you mean. Hope of what? Meeting another such goddess? He never will. Never again another first love."
"No, not another! Hope of seeing Morag again, you silly man. Her father is a king, is he not? Well, so was Arthur's. King's sons wed the daughters of other kings, is that not so? Her uncle, married to her beloved Aunt Salina, is Arthur's uncle, too, and he's another king, in his own right, the king of the Scots. Have you no plans to welcome him to Camulod some day? Well, when he comes, if you invite the lass and play the game with anything approaching wisdom, might not King Brander and his wife bring the fair Morag to visit with them, serving her aunt, as the queen's own attendant? You talk of politics, among your friends— is that not politics, to talk of binding kingdoms and close friendships? Talk about that, then, to Arthur, and see how he responds. But do it now, before he has to leave in the morning with his whole world tumbling about his ears."
I found Arthur in the dining hall, where the tables had already been prepared for supper. He was moping alone in a corner with a mug that I suspected, from the way he straightened up on seeing me and pushe
d it furtively aside, might be full of ale, or of forbidden, full strength wine. I did not approach him but merely beckoned, crooking my finger at him, and then turned to walk out without waiting to see what he would do. Now that I understood his pain, I also understood his anger and I had no wish to provoke a possible confrontation in such a public place.
I walked slowly and quietly on the cobbled roadway, placing my iron studded boots with care to reduce the noise they made, while I listened for the sounds of him following me. He was there, behind me, and I slowed even more, waiting for him to catch up to me. And then I heard Connor calling my name and I cursed quietly, even as I turned to wave and greet him. He and Brander and some others would be gathering after the evening meal, he told me, to say their mutual farewells over a jug of ale or a beaker of mead, and he hoped that I would join them. As Arthur came up beside me I reached out and gripped him gently by the back of the neck, and I told Connor that I would be glad to join them and that Arthur, too, might come along with me.
We were going to talk now, I said, about an errand he must do for me the following day, but we would meet everyone at dinner and proceed from there.
Tressa was absent when we reached my quarters, but she had lit a fire in the brazier before leaving and it was evident that she had left only moments earlier. I waved Arthur to a seat and crossed directly to the carved chest that contained my mead.
"Will you drink some mead with me?"
He stared at me as if he thought I had lost my wits. He might have tasted mead before this night, but never in my company. The rule we had was simple and absolute: mead was for adults, as was wine. Boys might drink ale—one cup, no more—with dinner. Otherwise they drank water, infrequently mixed with a modicum of wine, for flavour, and occasionally they drank milk and the juice of crushed fruit when it was in season. Now I was offering him mead, in my own quarters, and I was sure the significance of that would not escape him for long.
Finally he nodded, very slowly and judiciously, evidently fearing to appear to be too eager. I poured him the same measure that I poured for myself and carried it to where he sat. He took it and watched me warily as I sat down across from him and raised my cup, saluting Bacchus in the ancient way. He pursed his lips and savoured the liquor cautiously, as though afraid of what it might do to him. Perhaps I had been wrong, I thought. Perhaps this too, like Morag, was a first.
"Well, what do you think? Your Aunt Shelagh made it. " He had not said a single word since I found him, and I would have been prepared to wager that he had not, in fact, spoken since he left Tressa, in the street, an hour and more before. Now he nodded again, sucking at his cheeks.
"It's very sweet," he said, his voice pitched low. "But fiery. It catches at the throat. Makes you want to cough."
"Aye, but if you sip it, you'll find you can handle it and the urge to cough will pass." I looked into my cup. "Drink it too fast, or drink too much of it, you'll feel the urge to vomit, and that one is irresistible. Then, after that, depending on how much you've had, you'll think you're going to die, and if you've had too much, you'll sometimes wish you could die." I spoke slowly, overemphasizing certain words, hoping the humour of it might encourage him to smile, but he was too far gone in his self absorbed tragedy. I decided to be direct.
'Tell me about Morag."
He flinched as though I had hit him. "What? Who?"
I sighed elaborately, gesturing with my cup. "Arthur, that is mead. It is the drink of men. I gave it to you freely, as a man. Now, I believe, we need to talk as men, about the girl Morag and the parting I have thrust on you today. I know that you and she are in love—"
"How can you know that?" His challenge was sharp edged and defensive.
I raised my eyebrows. "Tress told me."
"And how could she know such a thing?"
"Because, my bold young cousin, she's a woman. Women do know such things. No man can hope to fool them, not for long, at least."
I stopped short. His eyes were frantic, filled with panic and with shame, fixed on some point beyond my shoulder, and his entire body was straining as though he meant to leap to his feet and run out into the night again. My heart went out to him in his needless agony.
"Arthur," I said, keeping my voice pitched low. "Look at me. Look me in the eye, Arthur." My words sank home to him and he looked at me directly, his face pale, the knuckles of his hand bone white with the pressure he was exerting on the cup he clutched. I nodded towards that. "That cup is hard fired clay, but you're about to break it. " His face flickered with doubt, and he looked down at his hand, and then, after the space of three heartbeats, the hand relaxed and he began to stoop, to place the beaker on the floor.
"No, don't do that, " I said. 'Take another sip. "
He did, and I watched his eyes, locked on my own, above the rim of the cup. He lowered the cup and swallowed, convulsively, fighting the urge to cough, but the panic was gone now from his eyes.
"Good. Now what is so dreadful about Tressa knowing how you feel for Morag?"
He shuddered, perhaps from the mead. "I... I didn't think it was so obvious. Didn't know everyone knew. "
"Everyone didn't know. I certainly did not, for if I had I would have made allowances and warned you what must happen, given you the chance to prepare yourself for this parting in advance, you and the. girl. I hope you can see that? I had no idea you felt so strongly about Morag until Tress belaboured me for my blindness. Yet I watch you all the time. So if I didn't know, then no one else knew either, among the men. If they had, they surely would have let me know, probably in jest. The women knew, but women never jest about such things as sweet young girls and brave young men in love... unless they're jealous, and then that's merely spite. So be at peace... " I allowed that to sink into his mind before I continued. "Besides, why should you feel shame? A man's love is the dearest thing in his heart, whether it be given to a woman, or to a shining cause, or to a strongly held ideal—and the love of a good woman is all three of those. Where is the shame in that, in knowing such a love, in being thus fulfilled? Love that's shared and returned is a cause for pride, Arthur. It makes towering giants out of ordinary men and gentle gods out of towering giants. Have you heard one word of what I've said?"
He sat nodding now, his face transformed, and this time when he looked at me he smiled, although fleetingly, and then his mouth drooped down again, as though afraid to lose the bitter taste of sorrow.
"What's wrong now? Come on, take another drink and spit out what you think. There are only we two here."
He gulped at the mead this time and I braced myself, prepared to leap up and pound him on the back, but the fiery drink went down without producing anything more than a brief shudder. Then he sniffed and looked me in the eye. "I'm sick in my soul, Cay, terrified to lose her. I'll never see her again once she goes home and we ride south to Camulod. She lives in Gallava... in Caledonia!"
"A different land, aye. But you're wrong, lad. You'll see her again, and soon, and I'm going to tell you how and why. But first I have some things to clarify, for myself, and for you. They are important to me—to both of us in truth—so let me deal with those, ere we move on to talk of Morag. Will you listen?"
He nodded, sipping at his drink again, more temperately this time, and I wondered how long it would take for the potent brew to work its will on him. I had, in truth, poured but a small amount for both of us, but he was unused to its effects.
"Good. Here's the crux of it, so listen closely." I stood up and moved away from him, speaking directly towards him as I moved about the room. "The main thing I want you to know is that, had I been aware of how you feel about Morag, I would not have thrust the matter upon you so suddenly and so thoughtlessly today. I would, however, have given you the same instructions, and the same restrictions would have governed your obedience to them. You must go to Derek tomorrow morning, and you must return without fail tomorrow evening. None of the imperatives governing our behaviour have changed since first I spoke to you. You have du
ties to perform here and, in justice you must be seen to perform them. If you are to lead men of your own in the time ahead, you must be seen to be above claiming privileges unavailable to those you lead. A really great leader is the one who shares the burdens of his men in the small trials. They cannot take his place when great events occur, but he will share their tribulations, and then he will assume his own burden, unaided, when the crisis is at hand. At that point they will follow him and fight for his cause, and die for his objectives and his will, for love of him and what he represents: their best interests. That is true leadership, Arthur, and it is almost impossible to achieve, though thousands attempt it. And one of the most chronic difficulties in achieving it lies in the kind of thing you faced today— the temptation to advance your own desires, your own well being, at the cost of those who depend on you and trust you to be true to them. Give in to that temptation once, and you'll do it again, and as surely as running water erodes rock, you'll destroy your own leadership."
I stopped pacing and faced him across the back of my chair, leaning my hands on the topmost rung. "That's really all I wanted to tell you. Does it make sense?"
"Aye," he said, his voice a husky growl. "It makes perfect sense."
"Good, I'm happy you see it. Now, what I said, among all that, was that you'll leave tomorrow and return tomorrow, doubtless passing Morag and the returning party on the way. But several matters have come up since first we talked of this, and I have something now to offer you." I stepped around my chair and took hold of his hand, tipping his cup towards me. There was still some mead in the bottom of it. "Do you want to finish that?'