The Saxon Shore cc-4

by Jack Whyte

  "How did you get the spear?"

  "I took it from Cullum—is that his name? The thickset fellow with the enormous muscles." Donuil nodded. "Aye," I continued. "Anyway, Dedalus saved my life by his charge and gave me time to get Cullum's spear, so we are equal there. I saw the spear with its huge blade thrusting up into the air and remembered what Uncle Varrus said about sarissas, the great, long spears Alexander's men used to carry. It seemed to me that even a boar spear would be a better weapon against that beast than a sword, so I seized it and charged and the rest was pure, blind chance. I killed it, but should not have. It was fortune, good fortune, thank God. My horse swerved, I managed to haul the point up into the air at last, and it hit the bear in the neck. No judgment, no skill involved, mere blind chance. A couple of finger breadths to either side and I would have missed it completely and be dead now."

  Donuil grunted. "Hmm! That's what my father meant by folly. You could have been killed and that would have been a tragedy, especially in such a useless, unpremeditated way as that."

  "Unpremeditated, perhaps, Donuil, but far from useless. It led me to Cullum's spear."

  "What d'you mean?"

  "I succeeded by accident, but I did succeed."

  "So?" He unslung a wineskin from his shoulder where it had hung unnoticed by me and swallowed a mouthful of its contents. "You were fortunate Cullum was there. On the spot, by your own admission."

  "I know, but that's not what I mean. The spear was wrong, but it felt right, too. I killed the bear by chance, but I could easily have killed it the same way on purpose."

  He glanced sideways at me, and his response was heavy with irony. "Forgive me, Commander Merlyn, but what you are saying sounds like nonsense to me. What, exactly, are you trying to say?"

  "No, it's not nonsense. Give me some of that." He passed me the wineskin and I gulped at it heartily before asking, "Where did you get this?"

  "Camulod. I brought it with me."

  "Damnation," I said, regretting that I had not thought to do the same. "Anyway, I don't think what I'm saying is nonsense. Before Uncle Varrus died, the last thing he said to me was that we still had much to learn from the weapons, the old ones, in his Armoury, and he mentioned Alexander and the sarissa specifically. Alexander's chosen bodyguard, the Companions they were called, rode into battle carrying an enormous spear over their shoulders.

  They charged and left the spear in the first man they struck. Created havoc among their enemies. But that's what made me think of seizing that spear from Cullum." I stopped, and took another mouthful of wine. I was thinking carefully about my words now, wanting to clarify my thoughts to Donuil and to make him see the potential of the half-formed idea that was exciting me.

  "I don't know the feel of a sarissa, but I know that boar spear was too heavy—too much weight in the head, and the shaft's too thick. And yet the sarissa was five, perhaps six arm's-lengths long and Cullum's spear no more than four. When I hit that bear at full gallop, it was like riding headlong into a wall. It stopped me solidly. But the ridge of the saddle against my back added to the impact. I flew off and almost broke my back, because I had both hands on the spear. I wasn't holding the reins. If the saddle hadn't stopped me, I would have been pushed from the back of the horse at the first impact. Do you follow me?"

  "No, quite honestly, I don't, but go on."

  "Donuil, I think it was that extra punch from the saddle back that drove the spearhead all the way through the bear's neck. You remember the tale of the first time I smashed the vase in Uncle Varrus's Armoury?" He nodded, his eyes betraying his interest. "Well, that's the kind of leverage I'm talking about. I think, I'm not certain, but I think that if I had been holding a lighter spear, still strong, but with a smaller head—or even a longer one like the sarissa—and if I had been holding it under my armpit, and if I had been leaning forwards when I hit the bear, instead of backwards, and if I'd had the reins tight in my left hand and my legs braced properly, controlling my horse . . ." My voice trailed away.

  "A profusion of 'ifs,' Merlyn."

  "I know, I know, but bear with me, Donuil. What I'm trying to put into words here is important. I believe that if I had done all of those things, I could have driven that spear clean through that bear, even through its chest, without being unhorsed."

  He looked me straight in the eye, all trace of levity gone. "Without being unhorsed. You really believe that?"

  I nodded. "Yes. Completely. Anyway, I want to try it. Alexander's Companions always lost their spears on their first charge, because they had no way of holding on to them, they could not brace themselves against shock. We can. Our stirrups give us the option of using spears, hitting hard with them and retaining them to use again."

  Donuil was frowning now, deep in thought. "You could be right, Caius, but not with a spear as long as the one you seem to be describing. That's far too long, it seems to me. I know I'm no cavalryman, not yet, but it seems to me that what you should be talking about is a spear that's long enough to take a man in front of you chest high, whether he be mounted or on foot, knock him down, and be short enough to pivot under you and be pulled out by the force of your momentum as your horse goes on past him."

  "Exactly, Donuil! That is exactly what I mean. So perhaps it might be half the length of a sarissa. Three arm's-lengths."

  "Aye, that's more like it. Three arm's-lengths, at the most. A light, strong spear, heavier than a javelin, stronger than a pilum, with a long, unbarbed head that will pull out clean. Should I have our smith attempt to make one? I can have him start on it tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be difficult to make, merely a variation on the spears he makes already." His enthusiasm was total, and infectious. I grinned at him.

  "Why not? I'll come with you when you talk to him. The sooner he tries, the sooner we'll see whether or not I'm right. Now pull me up, I'm beginning to feel like a tired old man, and that illicit wine of yours has made me hungry. Is it still raining?"

  Donuil returned my grin. "It's always raining, that's why the land is so green. Our gods want to ensure that we never become ungrateful for the sunlight, so they dole it out to us in tiny rations; each day of sunshine reminds us of the beauty of our land, but they're few and far enough between to make sure that we never become overused to it. Come then, let's get you up and moving, and if you feel up to it, we can eat with Connor. His wife killed a young pig three days ago and she's roasting some of it tonight."

  It was still raining heavily the following morning when we went looking for the local smith, trudging almost ankle-deep through muddy water that seemed to have nowhere to drain to, although in fact it all drained into the nearby river. The smith to Athol's people was a man called Maddan, and no one setting eyes upon him for the first time could have thought him anything but a smith, even discounting the ingrained soot and charcoal that polished his visible skin to a glossy black in places. He was short and stocky, broad of shoulder and thick of forearm, wearing only a rough tunic beneath the thick, heavy leather apron that protected him from flying sparks. I smiled on seeing him, for he was, as I had expected, clean-shaven and therefore something of an oddity among the hirsute, bearded and mustached Scots. I had never known a bearded smith except my Uncle Publius, and even he had kept his beard close-cropped and neat in the Roman fashion, not, as he had once explained to me, because he thought that highly of Roman styles, but simply because a beard was a hazard for a smith, liable to ignite at any time while he worked at his forge.

  Maddan knew his craft and understood very quickly what we were seeking. He had, of course, been present in the meadow the previous day and had seen my struggles with the bear and the boar spear. When I began to explain how my thoughts had developed after that encounter, he nodded his head immediately and thereafter listened in carefully attentive silence as I outlined my idea. As soon as I had finished speaking he grunted and disappeared into the farthest recesses of the gloomy cavern that was his smithy, emerging shortly afterward with a spearhead that was almost as large as t
he one on Cullum's weapon.

  "This might do, to start out with," he suggested, dropping it on a counter-top with a metallic clang. "It's rusted, but that's easily mended. Forge'll take care of that. I made it last month, but I was in too much haste and I made it too big and too heavy. It's too big for what you want, but not by much. I can lengthen it and narrow the head, and by the time you decide on the kind of shaft you want, it should at least give us a working model we can make adjustments from. What d'you think?"

  I thought it might be close, and told him so, looking to Donuil for his concurrence, but he was looking elsewhere, his eyes wide and filled with pleasure and something else that I defined instantly and without reason as awe. Curious, I turned my head to follow his gaze and saw a figure crossing the open space outside the forge, head down against the pouring rain, its shape tilted to one side from the weight of the burden it bore. I saw no more than that; a shapeless, indeterminate figure, obscured by the rain and by a long, heavy cloak. Intrigued, I glanced back to Donuil, seeing him still rapt, and then returned my gaze to the newcomer. As I did so, the figure lost its footing in the mud and slipped, almost falling, dropping its burden. It was no more than a momentary loss of balance, but it provoked a surge of energetic resentment from the cloaked figure, who seized a fresh, firm grip on the heavy bundle and swung it mightily, releasing it to fly through the air and land with a sodden thump mere paces from the open front of the smithy. Even before the bundle had landed, the thrower was moving towards it again, grasping it afresh with surprisingly small hands and propelling it, with a heave of shoulders and a guiding knee, into the open doorway.

  "Shelagh," Donuil said, his voice almost a whisper. The figure stopped in surprise, then straightened, peering into the darkness of the smithy and raising one arm to pull back the hood from its head. Beyond surprise for some reason, I saw that it was a young woman, whose long, dark hair hung down in rain-plastered ringlets over a featureless face.

  "Donuil? Is it you then?" She stepped forward into the shelter of the doorway, combing her wet hair off her face with the fingers of one hand, and stood there for a moment, staring hard at Donuil, her expression unreadable. None of us moved. Finally, her lips formed what might have been the beginnings of a smile and she nodded, a tiny movement of her head, and then her eyes moved to where I stood watching. She ignored Maddan completely. She regarded me from head to foot and back again, and spoke again to Donuil.

  "I heard you were back. I met Finn on the path to the mountains yesterday. I would have been here to greet you, but none of us knew if you were yet alive, let alone coming home." Her gaze returned to me, looking me straight in the eye. "You must be the Merlyn fellow. You're almost as big as Donuil. I've seen you before, but not clearly, and even so, you're better- looking than I expected from what Finn told me of you, but it was obvious even then that you and he had not made friends the moment you met. I'm Shelagh. Donuil and I were friends once, long ago, before he went off to be your prisoner." I was confused, and becoming more so by the moment. What had she meant by saying she had seen me before? She could not have, unless she had been in Britain recently, and had I met her I felt sure I would have remembered.

  I bent my head in a courteous nod, but before I could respond she had turned her attentions once more on Donuil. "Well, I can see they didn't starve you over there. Have you been to my father's house yet?"

  "No." I could tell from the slow, deliberate way Donuil shook his head in emphasis that he was far from being at his ease in this meeting.

  "Well, that's something, at least. Why not?" She answered her own question. "Och, never mind. I know why not. My father was probably waiting for me to come home, to look after him as well as you. There's little comfort in a house that has no woman in it."

  "No," Donuil finally rallied some words. "We haven't had time."

  "Time?" She threw him a look of wide-eyed astonishment. "Then what have you been doing since you came back? Never mind. Will you have time tonight?" Donuil nodded, wordless again. "Good. Then we'll expect you." Her eyes flicked back to me. "You, too." Now she turned to Maddan, indicating the sodden bundle on the threshold with a wave of her hand.

  "There are eight wolf pelts there, Maddan, a bearskin, a badger and four of them lovely tree fellers with the big, flat tails." I did not recognize the name she used, but it was plain that the animals were the dam-building creatures the Romans called castora. "They're all salted down," she continued, "but they need to be stretched and dried out. Will you be a love and make some frames for me? You can have the bearskin, if you will." Maddan merely nodded, smiling patiently and saying not a word. I could see that these two had worked together before. Shelagh smiled at him now, in a flash of white, even teeth. "And I'm carrying half the soil of Eire on my body and in my hair with this rain and the mud. Would you heat me some water for a bath?" Again, a silent nod from Maddan. "Thank you, sweet man. I'll see you two tonight." And suddenly she was gone, leaving Donuil and me staring at each other.

  He smiled at me, suddenly shy and awkward. "That was Shelagh."

  "Aye, I gathered that," I answered, making a determined effort to keep any trace of irony out of my tone. "But who is she, and who is her father?"

  "Liam, Liam Twistback's her father."

  "Liam?" I was too surprised to dissemble. "Is she . . . ?" I broke off, belatedly, not wanting to ask the question. The long cloak could have hidden any deformity.

  "Is she what? Oh, you mean is she a hunchback?" He laughed, and I heard Maddan behind me laugh with him. "No, Cay, she's no hunchback, not Shelagh. She was always the pretty one in the old days . . ." His voice faded, and then resumed with wonder. "But I'd no idea she'd grow to be so . . ." He coughed and turned his attention immediately to the long- forgotten spearhead on the bench beside us, picking it up and hefting it in his hand before stooping to peer at it closely, angling it towards the light. "There's a lot of rust on this thing, Maddan."

  I covered my smile and respected his reticence for the time being, and we returned to the topic that had brought us to the smithy, picking up our discussion almost as smoothly as if we had not been interrupted. We agreed that the existing spearhead, with minor modifications, would be as good a starting place as any, and Maddan thrust it immediately into the fire of his forge and began to work his bellows, making it clear to Donuil and me, without the insult of words, that our continued presence in his smithy was likely to be a distraction thereafter. We pulled on our heavy, waxed wool cloaks and walked out into the downpour.

  "What now?" I asked Donuil, raising my voice above the hissing roar of the rain.

  He glanced up at the leaden clouds and sniffed. "Doesn't make much difference, seems to me," he shouted back. "Whatever we do, we'll be wet."

  "Hmm. I think I'll go over to the camp and visit the others. Will you come?" Aware of the pitch of both our voices against the noise of the weather, he merely nodded now, and we made our way towards the main gate and out towards where "the horse camp," as the townspeople were already calling it, had been set up. Donuil hitched his cloak more comfortably around his shoulders and spoke again, loud-voiced against the elements, but without looking at me this time, his eyes fixed on the waterlogged ground where we walked.

  "Well, Caius Merlyn, you have been here two nights now. Different from Camulod, isn't it?"

  "Aye, it is," I called back. "Very different. But I expected that. It's a different land altogether."

  "Aye. Primitive, would you say?"

  I stopped walking immediately, forcing him in turn to stop and look at me. "What do you mean?" I asked, lowering my voice and moving close to him so that he could hear my words clearly enough. His face was flushed, as though angry, but I knew I had given him no reason for anger, so I sought another cause for his evident discomfort and could only come up with defensiveness. I knew immediately I was correct, although his reasons and the timing for such feelings escaped me.

  "This is your home, Donuil, and I have been made welcome as a guest in it. Do
you suspect me of comparing it to Camulod and finding it less agreeable?" He made no move to respond and so I prodded him. "Well, do you?"

  He shook his head, obviously ill at ease, then mumbled, "No, no, I merely pointed out that it is primitive. It is, compared with what you are used to."

  "Horse turds," I snapped. "I'm a soldier, Donuil, and you know that as well as I do. I'm more accustomed to sleeping in a leather tent in pouring rain than I will ever be to sleeping in soft beds with fine coverings. Your father's home is not primitive. It is civilized and well governed and its people are safe and happy. Its houses are soundly built and functionally strong, as strong as any in Uther's land." He was looking at me in surprise and I continued speaking, unwilling to allow him any time for interruption.

  "Don't forget that while Camulod may be unique in some ways, it is frequently as cold, wet and uncomfortable as any place on earth. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that many of its buildings were erected by Romanized people, using Roman techniques: Roman architects and Roman skills and Roman building materials. But you've already seen how useful Roman building materials are when the Romans leave. That's what those pirates were carting out of Glevum on their barges—Romanism—so I don't wish to hear any more of that sort of rubbish. I have seen no reason, anywhere, since I arrived here, for you or anyone else to feel shame over where or how you live. The ordinary folk of Britain, outside of Camulod, live in settlements and small towns very like your own here—many in far worse case—and if you have not been aware of that in your travels, then you must be either blind or stupid. You have also seen the once-great Roman towns of Britain ruined and abandoned: Isca Dumnoniorum, once the headquarters of the Second Augusta Legion, now an empty wasteland. Verulamium, Londinium, Colchester, Lindum: all of them lying empty, save for a few last citizens either too stubborn or too afraid to leave the false safety of their walls. Don't talk to me of fine houses, Donuil, as though they housed only fine people and vice versa. A fine marble villa built by a Roman nobleman's fortune is no more than a large, empty space to catch the howling wind when its owner is gone. It's far too big for one small family unconcerned by affairs of state and government. A family needs warmth and comfort. My family in Camulod has warmth and comfort, thanks only to fortune. That they are where they are is almost accidental; they are blessed and highly unusual." I paused. "Your family has warmth and comfort, too, man, and happiness, as much as any large family can have that gift. I count myself fortunate to be here. Am I clear?"