by Jack Whyte
He nodded, chastened, yet visibly relieved. I began walking again and he fell immediately into step beside me.
"Good," I said, and then remained silent for another twenty paces or so. "Now tell me about this young woman Shelagh. She means much to you, I could see that."
Now he coughed and cleared his throat and made a useless but determined effort to wipe the streaming rain from his face. I said nothing, simply walking, my head hunched down against the teeming rain, and waiting. We had progressed a further ten or twelve muddy paces before he attempted to respond. As he began to do so, however, drawing a deep breath and turning slightly towards me, we were hailed by a figure that loomed out of the murk just ahead of us. It was Rufio. Donuil shook his head, sharp and hard, as though to warn me from saying more. "We'll talk about it later" was all he had time to say before Rufio joined us.
"God's balls, Donuil," he spat. "Is it always like this in this godforsaken place? Don't you ever have a single day without rain?"
Donuil was grinning again, his earlier discomfort vanished. "Aye," he said. "Sometimes, but not often at this time of the year. Why do you ask?"
Rufio rounded on him, then realized that Donuil was laughing at him. I cut both of them short before he could form a retort. "Were you looking for us, Rufio?"
"Aye, I was," he answered, ignoring Donuil thereafter. "Dedalus and Quintus and I were talking about how long we're going to be staying here, and we realized that none of us knows, and that led us to the awareness that we haven't seen you since yesterday, when we left you to go back to camp. We expected you to come over this morning, but when you didn't come and we had heard nothing, we began to wonder if you were as well as you ought to be, and so Ded asked me to find you and check on your health."
"I am at full strength. How is Quintus? Is his leg mending?"
"It must be, he has done nothing but complain for the past three days, and he wouldn't give out as much as a grunt if he were really in pain, so I suppose that means he's mending. Anyway, he's sitting up in his cot, being waited on hand and foot by everyone else around, including an entire covey of young Eirish girls. I've been giving some thought myself to slipping and falling heavily."
I grinned and slapped him on his armoured shoulder. "Is Ded warm and dry?"
"Aye, and as lazy as ever, and just as cunning. Why d'you think it's me out here looking for you in the pouring rain, and not him? He's safe by the fire, keeping it fed for your advent."
I looked at him in surprised disbelief. "Dedalus ordered you to come and find me?"
He had the grace to shrug and deny it. "Well, no. Not exactly. We tossed for it."
"You tossed for it. Against Dedalus. Rufio, there are times when I wonder about your wit. When did you last know anyone to win the toss against Dedalus?" Dedalus had a reputation of long-standing for never having lost on a spin of the coin. His luck was legendary in Camulod.
He shrugged. "Never. I know that, but the coin was mine, out of my own scrip, and I spun it. There must be a first time."
"You really believe that, Centurion?"
"Yes." He was completely serious. "I really believe that, Commander."
"Well, when it happens, I want you to let me know, and if you are the one to beat him, I will personally pay you twenty times the value of the spin, or of the coin you spin, whichever is greater. Do you believe me?"
"Aye."
"Good. And do you believe I believe I'll ever have to pay?"
"No."
"Even better. Now, do you believe it's possible to drown, simply standing out in the rain?"
"No."
"No more do I, but I have no desire to find out whether or not I'm right. Let's get inside." We lumbered into a run, clanking and splashing, all three of us, to the warmth and smoky comfort of the wooden hut Rufio shared with Dedalus and Quintus. Once there, and drying quickly in the heat of the roaring fire in the open hearth, we were soon at our ease and the talk turned to soldiers' matters, so that the remainder of the day passed quickly and the rain lost all importance.
XV
I did not know what to expect in the home of Liam Twistback that night, so I dressed with some care. I decided to wear neither armour nor weapons, acting upon the assumption that our hostess this night might be seeking an opportunity to redress any false impressions Donuil and I might have drawn from her soaked and bedraggled condition earlier in the day, when she had just returned from a long journey. I guessed that this night, in consequence, would be a time for easy conversation and social intercourse, an occasion where the emphasis would be more likely placed upon the feminine arts than on the masculine. That assumption, let me admit, was bolstered greatly by my having heard the young woman arrange for Maddan to prepare a hot bath for her that afternoon, and by my anticipation, based upon my own observation and intuition, that her interest in Donuil might be at least as keen as his evident interest in her. It was an assumption almost completely undermined, however, by the uncomfortable awareness that I had no real idea of how the women of this society were accustomed to behave in social situations within their own homes. I was entirely unaware of the local customs or of standards of protocol in such circumstances. The only guide to whom I might have turned for enlightenment in such matters was, of course, Donuil himself, and, for one reason or another I had had no opportunity to question him on any of these things.
Donuil had steadfastly refused to speak of Shelagh at all throughout the day, and I had eventually decided not to pursue the matter, aware that his discomfort stemmed more from doubts over his own feelings about the young woman than from any natural reluctance to discuss her with me in front of strangers, even though those strangers had become his friends. Given the opportunity, I guessed, allied with a modicum of genuine encouragement from me, he would have talked me to death on the subject.
The rain had abated but still fell steadily as I made my way through the darkness to the house of Liam Twistback, which was, next to that of the king himself, the largest building in Athol's stronghold. I had learned, at least, that Liam was the wealthiest of all Athol's people, a situation, strangely, that had resulted from Liam's physical condition. Born unfit by his deformity to be a warrior among a people who prized physical abilities above all else, Liam had used the brilliance of his mind and the power of his personality to become the most successful landholder among his peers. He had expended years of singleminded effort in the husbanding of arable land and the gathering and breeding of cattle, goats and oxen, and had established himself as the prime commercial source—indeed, the only reliable, consistent source— of provender to his people. All this, Donuil had told me, Liam had managed to achieve without provoking either jealousy or envy among his fellow Scots who, over the long years during which Liam had amassed his wealth, had simply come to accept that in the little hunchback's industrious but eccentric nature, they had been gifted with a unique asset that was worthy of protection and pride. Liam was wealthier than his king, and wealthier by far than any of his tribe, but he bore his riches casually and self-effacingly, giving offense to none. The only things upon which he lavished his wealth were his house, and his daughter Shelagh.
As a young man, he had wed a cousin of the king, an unmarriageable young woman born, like himself, with a physical deformity. In her case—her name, Donuil had told me, was also Shelagh—the disfigurement had been twofold, consisting of a withered right leg, malformed at birth, and an unsightly, dark red blemish that stained her neck and lower jaw on one side. That both she and Liam had been permitted to survive their birthing had been akin to miraculous, apparently, but each had been born to prominent, elderly and otherwise childless couples. Liam, the elder of the pair by a decade and more, had watched the little girl grow up, an outcast like himself, and had befriended her. By the time Shelagh began to approach marriageable age, Liam had long been successful in impressing his people with the powers of his mind and intellect, and his industry and single-minded application to whatever tasks he set himself had attracted the
friendship and admiration of the young king, Athol, to whom Liam had become, at the youngest age in living memory, a personal adviser. Athol it was who, at the risk of scandalizing his entire people, had given his regal and personal blessing to the union of the two most unsightly people in his lands.
That two such people, each set far outside conventional comeliness, had combined to generate a child of such exquisite, glowing beauty as their daughter Shelagh had been a wonder still unforgotten among Athol's Scots. Liam's wife, however, had died in presenting him with their child, and for years Liam had been inconsolable. As the child grew lovelier and stronger, however, the hunchback had transferred all of the love he had harboured for her mother to her. He would never have a son: but he had more: his daughter Shelagh was living proof that his flawed exterior was capable of generating more beauty than any of his sound-bodied contemporaries. He had built her a house to live in, rather than a hut, and had filled it with everything he could devise to make her happy.
As I approached that house for the first time, curious to see inside it, it seemed I was the only person astir in the entire settlement, and yet I could smell the smoke of many cooking fires in the moist air, a blend of wood- smoke and some other, unrecognizable but distinctive-smelling fuel. As I raised my hand to knock on the door, the top half of it swung inward and Donuil himself looked out at me and then sprang backward in fright, as surprised as I at the unexpected confrontation. He had been about to come looking for me, he told me moments later, but had not expected to find my face within a handsbreadth of his when he opened the door. And so I entered Liam's home amid lighthearted laughter that was to be sustained throughout the major part of an extremely pleasant evening.
Liam's house was justly famed among the Scots. Large and spacious, thick-walled and rectangular like the Great Hall, it was high-roofed and quite untypical of the other dwellings in the settlement, which were, in the main, squat, circular, solidly built huts of a material Donuil called wattle—clay strengthened and bound with a strong, interwoven framework of willow sticks.
The interior of the house into which I stepped directly from the door-yard was partitioned into at least two large, separate areas by high screens of plaited reeds, painted and varnished in bright colours. The entrance door, the only one of which I had been aware, was situated far on the left of the longer wall of the rectangular structure, which stretched laterally from there to my right, to where my view was blocked by the painted screens that stretched inward from front and rear walls, overlapping approximately in the centre of the room to create a passageway to the other half of the building. The large main area in which I now stood was brightly lit, and my admiration for our young hostess grew as I recognized the source of the brightness as a large number of the fine candles I had presented to King Athol. I accepted her enterprise in this immediately, for it did not cross my mind for a moment that Liam himself might ask for such bounty from his king. The candles were clustered in four main concentrations of candelabra: one cluster, by far the largest, on the massive, black wooden table that stretched the length of the shorter wall of the house to the left of the door, another on a smaller, circular table in the centre of the room, and one more on either side of the great stone fireplace that filled up much of the long wall opposite to where I stood. My eyes were filled with impressions of bright colours, flickering light and hospitable warmth. Donuil stood beside me, one hand on my arm, and another man sat opposite me, by the side of the great fire that roared in the hearth, holding a small harp in the crook of his arm. As I saw this man, recognizing him as one of the minstrels who had performed the previous evening and whom I had met twice now although his name escaped me, Liam Twistback himself came into the room through the gap in the overlapping screens to my right.
"Caius Merlyn! Welcome to our home." He moved quickly towards me, his hands outstretched to enfold my own, and I had time to admire the way the long, rich-looking robe he wore was cut and draped to minimize his deformity. When he took my hands, his large, intelligent brown eyes looked smilingly into my own, and he hitched his left shoulder, the humped one, and glanced down at it quickly, smiling a wry smile. "If you'll recall, they call me Twistback for good reason, but the twist is no more than physical. My mind has no unwelcome kinks, at least none I'm aware of, and I am looking forward to listening to your words this night. Be welcome, and sit down over here, close by the fire. It has been a foul day, but my daughter assures me that the evening will be very different. Have you met Cardoc, our minstrel?"
Cardoc. That was the name I had forgotten. I nodded towards him, smiling, and he returned my gesture, smiling easily. Liam, meanwhile, was ushering me towards a solid, wooden chair with a deep, curved back, one of a grouping of five that had been placed in an arc in front of the open fire. As I sat down, Donuil dropping into the chair on my left, another figure emerged from behind the screen, this one a woman, carrying a heavy tray on which stood a jug and a number of cups. She placed it on the circular table and withdrew without speaking. As I watched her leave, Liam sat down on my right, then rose again immediately and went to the newly stocked table where he busied himself pouring what I took to be some kind of mead into four cups.
"Donuil, come help me. Take one for yourself and one for Cardoc there." He brought the other two back to where I sat, handing one of them to me, then sat down again and sipped deeply. I tasted mine. It was delicious, and I said so.
"Aye," he said. "It is, is it not? Shelagh makes it, and holds the secret of its preparation to herself as if it were her child, which, in a way, I suppose it is. Anyway, she'll tell no one what it is she adds to give it that peculiar tang of heat it carries. Others have tried to copy it, but none has come close so far."
I drank again, this time more deeply, and nodded appreciatively. The drink, whatever it was, was excellent, fiery and potent, yet sweet and smooth on the palate.
"It's some kind of mead, but I could not begin to guess at that flavour." I looked around me. "Will your daughter join us?"
"Join us?" He laughed. "Aye, she will that, and will not quit us until she has decided it is time for you three to go home. But for now she is seeing to the cooking of our meal. She insists none but she can oversee these things in the proper manner." He nodded, staring into his cup. "She's quite right, too. None can."
Donuil was saying nothing and looking at no one. He sat staring into the flames of the fire. Cardoc was tuning his instrument, his head cocked sideways in total concentration upon the pitch of each string. 'Tour house is very fine," I said, glancing up into the darkness beneath the roof tree. "Donuil was telling me it is the largest and finest in all King Athol's land."
"It may be so." He nodded modestly "Except for the King's Hall. It is unusual, I know that, but we like it thus, Shelagh and I."
"Do you have a large household?"
He blinked at me. "What do you mean, household?"
I blinked back at him, surprised in turn. "You know, servitors."
"Servitors? I don't know this word."
"Forgive me, servants. You know, a housekeeper, a majordomo . . ." Even as I spoke I was recalling where I was. He was watching me closely and now his face crinkled in amusement.
"Servants, is it? You will forgive my bluntness, I hope, Caius Merlyn, but you are a long way from your home in Britain, when you are here in our little kingdom. There are no servants here, not even in the king's house. There's little of the formal in the way we live our lives, but no man of ours, or woman for that matter, would ever consider accepting the indignity of actually working for another, in that other's house, as a servant, for recompense." He paused, his eyes fixed on mine, and his next words were aimed at putting me at my ease. "I am not offended by your suggestion, Master Merlyn, understand that clearly, please. I know such things are common in your land, where wealthy people have servants and entire retinues of followers and retainers. We have retainers here in Eire, too, but only in the role of warriors, sworn to defend and to assist their king in waging war whene
ver and wherever war may occur. But we have no servants."
I glanced at Donuil, who was perched sideways in his chair, watching me with a tiny smile hovering about his lips. I nodded, taking no offense where no rebuke had been tendered, but then I asked the question that had been in my mind since Liam started speaking of this.
"Then who, if you will forgive my asking, was the woman who brought in the mead?"
Liam's face split into an enormous grin. "My neighbour, the wife of Maddan the smith. And I must now concede your point. We do have people who work, from time to time, assisting others in the preparation of major events and festivals, but their contribution is always voluntary and they expect the right to share in those events as equals, once the work is done." He hesitated, still smiling. "And, I will admit to you here, as my guest, they do, from time to time, receive other. . . considerations in return for the willing provision of their help."
I nodded, schooling my features to permit no trace of irony to show. "I see," I murmured, nodding.
"Aye. I can see you do." Liam made no attempt to disguise his irony. He turned then to Cardoc, who had finished tuning his instrument. "Cardoc, a song, if you please. Something short and tuneful, until herself joins us." Cardoc inclined his head and began to sing, stroking the strings occasionally to enhance the mood his song evoked, and for a spell all three of us sat entranced, enjoying the smooth, mellow tones of his deep voice and liquid words.