The Saxon Shore cc-4

by Jack Whyte

  "The child, Arthur. Did you dream of him?"

  I thought about that for a moment. "Of him? No. But I dreamed something with him, when we lay asleep in the birney, off the Cornish coast. At least, I think I did. Not a dream, perhaps, but a fragment."

  "What was it?"

  "A sword, standing in a stone. That's all I can remember."

  "A sword? Standing in a stone, not on one?"

  "No. In it. Point down. I don't remember it well, but I do recall that."

  "Was it Excalibur?"

  "It may have been, but I don't really know. I think I would have recognised Excalibur. Why do you ask that?"

  "Because Excalibur came from a stone. The Skystone."

  "Hmm. That had not occurred to me. Now that you mention it, of course, it becomes obvious. That's probably the explanation for what I dreamed. As I said, it was strange, and only a fragmentary thing, but it was not frightening, like all the others."

  He sat gazing at me with narrowed eyes, his mind obviously elsewhere, but before I could ask him what he was thinking I heard the jingle of harness back along the path and the first of our companions came into view, riding now ahead of Luke and his wagon. Ambrose flicked a glance back towards them and leaned closer to me.

  "We must talk more about these dreams, Brother, but I doubt if you should fear them. I believe they occur, and I believe they are prophetic, but I cannot think of them as being omens of evil, not in you. They come to you for a purpose, and there is power in them. You must learn to use that power."

  Our companions were upon us by that time and I could do no more than nod my agreement before they joined us, loud and brash and gay now with their new-won freedom. Ambrose left us there, by the side of the great road, after wishing us well on our journey and we watched him until he had disappeared, waving back over his head as he put his spurs to his big horse.

  "Well, my friends, we won't get to Eire by sitting here." We swung north and left Camulod behind us.

  Donuil's remark about attracting unwelcome attention became reality far sooner than any of us expected. It occurred some time in the course of our second day of travel, although we remained unaware of the fact until after we had made camp and eaten a hot meal. We had built our encampment in the southwest corner of a long-abandoned Roman route camp, in the shelter of two corner walls that looked as strong as the day they were built, centuries earlier, and we had posted two sentries. Mine was to have been the third watch, and I was on my way to sleep when Rufio, Donuil's centurion mentor, approached me casually and threw an arm around my shoulders. I knew immediately that something was wrong, because none of my men, particularly Rufio, who held me in some awe, would have dared actually to touch me in the normal way of things. There was no rule against their touching me; it was simply the way things were. Forewarned by his direct approach, I betrayed no surprise and as we walked together towards my tent he told me that we were being watched. He had seen movement in the bushes around the walls, but had no idea of how many men were out there.

  Careful now to do nothing that would signal our awareness of being observed, I turned back and moved to where Donuil had already stood up from the fire. He, too, had noticed the way Rufio approached me. I briefed him quickly and then quietly, moving unconcernedly, we alerted the others and unobtrusively doubled the guard before retiring as we would have normally. Few of us had any sleep that night, lying awake and waiting for the alarm, but nothing happened.

  When daylight came, we broke camp routinely and moved out, having seen no sign of anything unusual. Rufio, however, found the fresh tracks of six men in the area where he had seen the shadowed movements the previous night. We rode on, wary and alert, our weapons close to hand. All day we rode steadily, though not in haste, stopping only to relieve ourselves, and as evening approached we made camp again, this time some distance from the road, on a grassy knoll protected on three sides by a fair-sized, swift-flowing river. We ate a cold supper from our saddlebags that night, since hunting was out of the question. It would have been folly for any man to ride off alone to hunt for meat. Again, we were watched but unmolested and again Rufio found the same signs of six men come morning. This time he called me over to look at how two particular pairs of footprints identified the group, whoever they were. The first belonged either to a giant or to a man whose feet would appear grotesquely large; the second to either a child or a dwarf. Lucanus had been watching me and he called to me as I went to mount my horse after examining the tracks in the soft earth no more than twenty paces from where we had lain.

  "Cay, come, ride with me for a spell."

  When I had tethered my horse to the back of his wagon, I pulled my bow stave and quiver from their wrappings and clambered up onto the bench beside him. He clucked at his horses and slapped the reins, and we moved forward with a lurch.

  "Same people as before?" I grunted an affirmative, my mind still upon the disparity in size between the two pairs of unusual footprints. "Well," he urged me. "What do you think? Will they attack us?"

  I grunted a negative this time and busied myself with stringing my bow before answering him properly, bracing the end of the stave against the wagon's wood frame and bending the bow with my foot. Strung, the weapon was formidable. I pulled it, feeling my shoulder muscles flex and harden against the tension of the compound arc. "I doubt it," I answered him then. "We are fourteen, eleven of us armoured soldiers, and they are six. So long as we stay together we'll be safe enough. They're probably hoping we'll split up, so they can take us piecemeal." I propped the bow beside me, leaning it against the bench, within easy reach.

  Lucanus was looking at me quizzically. "You don't think they know we know they're there?" His voice held mild disbelief.

  "No, I don't." I selected an arrow from the quiver on the seat beside me and held it up to my eye, squinting along it. It was straight and true. "Think about it, Luke. If they suspected we were aware of them, then they would know we'd stay together, safe in our numbers. Knowing that, they wouldn't be here now. They'd have gone looking for easier prey."

  "Hmm. So what d'you intend to do about them?"

  "Nothing, except hope they'll give up and go away. I certainly don't intend to fight them if I don't have to. But I'm worried about you. How far are we from your friend's settlement?"

  "I don't really know, but we'll know when we come to the inn called the Red Dragon. I expect we should be there by tomorrow afternoon."

  "Good, but after that you have ten miles or so to ride west alone, while we keep going north. Let's hope our friends out there become impatient before then and disappear. Otherwise we'll have to escort you all the way to where you're going. Can't let you ride off alone with a wagon full of goods and six thieves waiting for you to do exactly that, can I?"

  Instead of answering, he surprised me by changing the subject. "How d'you feel about Ludmilla nowadays, Caius?"

  I absorbed the non sequitur and merely grinned, knowing what was coming. "Better than I have in a long time," I answered him. "Now that she is completely besotted with Ambrose, and he with her, I seldom think about her, other than as a future sister."

  He blinked, hiding his surprise almost completely, and then he smiled. "I didn't think you knew."

  "Come on, Luke! I'd have to be blind and a fool not to be aware of what happened the first time they saw each other. I was there, if you recall."

  "Oh I recall, very well. I simply was not sure that you had seen it. . . or recognised it might be more accurate. I must say you seem to have taken it in stride." He was still smiling, a gentle, wistful little smile.

  "I took it in gratitude, my friend, with profound, almost abject relief. The moment I saw what my eyes beheld between the two of them, I recognised the nature of my own discomfort over the young woman. My attraction was lust, pure and simple, alloyed with a modicum of fear and doomed by feelings of guilt."

  "Hmm." He busied himself with his reins, giving himself time to think, and I used the interval to glance around us, noting
our line of march and scanning the terrain on both sides of the road for signs of our unwanted escort. The countryside through which we were passing offered open, natural stretches of rolling meadow with scattered copses of tall trees. High up on our left I saw a solitary stag, his magnificent antlers sweeping along his back as he stood motionless, gazing down at us, and I stifled the immediate urge to go after him, taking comfort instead from the implicit assurance that no other humans ranged the woods between him and us. I turned to look at the other side of the road, but nothing moved there, either, that I could see. In front of me, Donuil and Rufio rode with two others, all four of them alert and watchful, their heads moving constantly. I checked over my shoulder and saw the two boys riding placidly behind us with the extra horses, and behind them our other five outriders.

  "I understand the lust and, to a lesser extent, the guilt, which I believe is nonsense, but the reason for fear eludes me."

  I had almost forgotten that Luke had been absorbing my last comment. Now I looked at him, grinning ruefully. "Age, Luke," I said. "I'm growing old."

  "Horse turds! You're what? Thirty-two?"

  "Almost. I was barely twenty-nine when we rode off to meet Germanus at Verulamium. That was three years and more ago, and I lost more than two of those years."

  "Good God! It doesn't seem that long ago. Anyway, your fear of growing old is ludicrous."

  "Was ludicrous," I corrected him. "It no longer applies."

  "How so?"

  "I mean that my fear, if fear it was, came from the threat I perceived at the time of being unable to attract a woman, because of my age. It was irrational, I can see that clearly now, but not before the scales fell from my eyes. And with that realisation came the thought that I must speak with you more carefully, and at much greater length, about the celibacy you espouse.

  Since then, there hasn't been enough time to mention it to you. Now there is."

  "I see. And why is it so urgent, suddenly, that you and I should speak of celibacy?"

  "Because I'm curious. I want to learn more about it."

  "In what sense? There's nothing obscure or arcane about it . . . all you have to do is remain sexually continent. Sexual continence constitutes celibacy. It's quite straightforward."

  I felt myself bridling at his tone, reacting to the faint hostility I sensed, and I had to make an effort to keep my own voice dispassionate. "I know that, Luke," I responded, willing my face to form a rueful little smile. "But when we talked of it last time, you spoke about it as a tool to self-mastery."

  "I had been drinking far too much on that occasion, as had you."

  "I know that, too, but I also know the old saw about truth emerging from wine. You meant what you were saying that night and it fascinated me."

  "After you had decided you could not have Ludmilla . . ."

  "No! . . . well, yes, I suppose that's true . . . but there was more to it than that, Luke. You planted a seed in my mind that night, and I've been aware of it ever since. The episode with Ludmilla, a one-sided thing, I know, was . . ." I searched my mind for the correct word and settled upon a compromise. "It was a sign, I suppose, of something that has been bothering me, a feeling of . . . I think dissatisfaction's the closest I could come to describing it." I could hear my own frustration.

  " 'Symptom' is the word you were looking for. Your feelings for Ludmilla were a symptom of an ailment." His face flickered in a grin and his voice became softer. "What kind of ailment is this, Merlyn? A fear of becoming impotent? That happens to all men, I'm told, with time."

  "No, it's not that, Luke, that doesn't bother me at all, one way or the other, although I'm potent enough . . . My body's fit enough, and the urge is still there often enough to keep me aware of it. No, it's not that at all. It's my mind, my feelings, my sense of who I am that's troubling me."

  "Hmm." He looked away from me, back to his plodding horses. "That sounds troublesome enough. Don't you know who you are, Caius Merlyn Britannicus?"

  I had to laugh. "Yes, my friend, I know who I am, as well as you do, and I can see that I am not explaining myself very well, so let me try again. Bear with me for a moment."

  I gathered my thoughts and tried to focus them. Finally I began again. "I still might not get this right," I said, "but it's important to me. Ludmilla, as you acknowledge, was a symptom of something. My difficulty is defining what that 'something' entails, but I know it has to do with my memories of Cassandra and the feelings I still have for her in spite of the fact that she has been dead for years. I lost the main part of those years, so to me, the loss of her is still something new and painful. Does that make sense?"

  He nodded, not looking at me. "Completely."

  "Good, I'm glad to hear you say that. But don't you see wherein lie my feelings of guilt?"

  His concurrence emerged more slowly this time. "I do, from your perspective."

  "Thank you, but since there is no one else who can influence what and how I feel inside, there can be no other relevant perspective, can there?" He did not even attempt to respond to that, so I continued. "So Cassandra—I can never really think of her as Deirdre—and my memories of her, fresh as they are, are a dominant force in how I think and behave . . . Tell me when you think I start to make no sense . . . My body has been without her for years, longer than might normally be required to forget her, I suspect, but my mind is struggling as though with a recent bereavement. And the conclusion I have reached is that I wish to remain faithful to the memory I hold of her. In my lusting for Ludmilla, I was aware of a betrayal of Cassandra." I hurried on, before he could be tempted to interrupt me. "I know, at least, a part of me knows, that is nonsensical, Luke, but it's true, nevertheless. And the fact remains that, as I am today, and with the way I feel inside, I have no desire, not the slightest, to come to know another woman. My body does, from time to time, but that is ephemeral and purely physical, and therein lies the reason for my interest, not in mere celibacy, but in the manner— the confident and assured manner—in which you spoke of celibacy as a powerful means to a particular end. You said it was an aid to concentration, to knowledge, to self-mastery and self-awareness, and to power over one's baser instincts. You were describing a power, Luke; a permanent and enduring power over one's self, leading inevitably to betterment and fulfillment. That intrigued me at the time, and since then, after long hours of thought, it has become more and more alluring. This is a knowledge I want to possess." I paused, then finished almost in a whisper. "But I suspect it's not to be achieved by simple abstinence."

  He cleared his throat explosively and spat, something I had rarely seen him do, following the result over the wheel of the wagon with his eyes. Then he sighed deeply. I waited, feeling no impatience, knowing he was concentrating.

  "So," he resumed after a spell. "You're right. Abstinence alone is not enough. There is also a requirement for discipline and training, as there is in all things worthwhile. But the training requires a lifetime of commitment and concentration from a very early age." He left that hanging in the air between us.

  "How old were you when you began this training?"

  "Eighteen, nineteen, when I first became aware of the phenomenon, twenty-something when I began to apply myself to learning it. Twenty-four, I believe."

  "So I've lost eight years. That's all that means."

  He glanced sideways at me. "That is almost a decade, Merlyn. Most healthy men have only five or six of those, and by your own admission yours are more than halfway gone." He stopped and then hitched himself sideways, to look directly at me. "Without evasion of any kind, without reservations, give me a quick and honest answer to this question: Why should this . . . this condition . . . suddenly become important to you?"

  The question was a test, I knew, and I also knew that I had no time to think about my answer. "Philosophy," I said. I watched his right eyebrow arch.

  "Philosophy?" His lips stretched slowly into a smile containing more than a little incredulity. "You will pardon me, I hope, my friend, for
smiling at the thought, but I have never seen you as a philosopher."

  "Nor could you have. I have never been one, and perhaps even now that is the wrong word. Philosophically speaking, I have come to believe that I am here on earth for one sole purpose, and thus it behoved me to exert all my energies towards the achievement of that purpose with devotion and single-mindedness. Sexual abstinence might help me to achieve my purpose, but would entail distractions. . . Celibacy, on the other hand, as I have understood you, is something that may be learned and practised to a higher end than mere self-denial."

  He was still looking at me, one knee hitched up now between us on the wagon bench. "You have my complete attention, Caius. What is this single purpose you have defined?"

  "The child, Arthur."

  He blinked at me, saying nothing, and then, when he saw that I had said all I was going to say, he coughed, clearing his throat gently. "Forgive me, my friend, for seeming so obtuse. The child Arthur. . . ? What about him?"

  "He is my purpose for being here, alive." I could see that Luke was completely mystified. "He is my responsibility," I went on. "He holds the essence of the Dream dreamed by my grandfather and Publius Varrus. Surely you see that?"

  "No . . . But I can see that you see it. You forget I am not as familiar as you are with this dream of which you speak. I've heard you speak of it before, but never at any great length, and never in detail. Enlighten me, please."

  "I will. I've been thinking about little else these past eight days." I began immediately, and he listened in absorbed silence as I told him about the vision of my ancestors, how they dreamed of resurrecting the greatness that had once been Rome, the great Republic, here upon this island of Britain, and how they had established Camulod as the first bastion of survival in the face of the chaos that would follow hard on the heels of Rome's desertion of Britain. When I had finished, he looked at me astutely.