by Jack Whyte
"Good God, Luke! And you told her this?"
"Not entirely, but she understood."
"And now what? How does she behave towards you?"
He shrugged. "Entirely as she always has, with kindness and consideration. Only with a more marked avoidance of approaching me too closely."
"She avoids you?"
"Not at all. She is merely gracious enough not to tempt me more than she must by her presence."
"You did tell her!"
We were interrupted at that point by the arrival of Dedalus who sought to drag me off to speak with Achmed Cato on a disciplinary matter. I held up my hand to stay Ded and indicate that I would come directly, but I kept my eyes on Lucanus. He smiled again and shrugged his shoulders. "Some of it. As in your case, I benefited thereby. Confession is good for the soul."
I heaved a great sigh of relief, feeling enormously better. "Thank you for this, Luke," I said, turning to where Ded stood frowning at both of us, curious as he always was. "I know how difficult it must have been, but I appreciate your candour."
Later that evening, in the family room, I watched Julia closely, marvelling over what Luke had told me. She was a comely, wholesome, healthy young woman, generously fleshed, aged somewhere short of thirty I suspected, with a pleasant, happy nature and an ever-ready smile. She doted visibly upon her husband and upon the son she now held easily within the cradle of one arm. But I could see no reason for Luke's lust. She was no Siren, bearing more resemblance to Juno, with her double chin and ample, milk-swelled breasts, than to Venus. Lucanus ignored both her and me that night, until the bishop Enos wandered in and settled by the fire and the talk changed to churchly things for once. Enos was saying that the Church maintained its methods of communicating from one land to another, so that the word could go from bishops in Britain to others far afield, like my old friend Bishop Germanus in Gaul. That captured all my attention, and when I asked him if he was saying a letter could be sent from one land and delivered safely in another he seemed surprised that I might doubt it for a moment. From that moment on, Germanus remained foremost in my thoughts, and that night I sat down to write to him.
Germanus Pontifex
From Caius Merlyn Britannicus
Greetings:
I write to you as bishop, though recalling you clearly as Legate, soldier and friend, in complete uncertainty that you will ever read my words.
My father's aunt, Luceiia Britannicus Varrus, of whom we spoke when first we met on the way to Verulamium, has recently died, as have some other, aged friends, and my grief is still fresh and new. She was old when I met you, as you may recall; too old to make the hundred- mile journey to hear your judgment on the teachings of my father's friend Pelagius. Seven years have passed since then, and she has finally expired.
Much has occurred in my life during those years, Master Germanus, and I had met no other bishop since that time until my aunt lay dying. She was devout, and faithful to the teachings of her gentle Christus, and she took pleasure all her life in the sustenance of His labourers, the bishops and the wandering men of God who keep this land of ours enlightened.
One of these men, calling himself Enos, was present at her bedside when she died, and consecrated bread and wine to her salvation. He has no home today, no Seat to oversee, now that the towns in this fair land of ours are fallen into ruin. You were correct in that, prophetic. Now Enos wanders, as he says, "wherever Heaven bids him," and he tells me that the Church is stronger here in Britain nowadays than it has ever been. When there were towns, the Christians held the towns, but the majority of rural folk were pagan pantheists. Now that has changed, he tells me, and the Word of God is everywhere throughout the land.
I asked about your schools. In Verulamium you had decreed that schools be founded to instruct the teachers in the ways of God. Where are they? He answered that they are within the hearts and minds and bodies of such as he; that their classrooms are the open glades and riverbanks and village pastures; that their students are the people, all the folk, including Saxons.
That disturbed me. It still does. Saxons are not "the folk." The folk of Britain are the native Celts and the descendants of four hundred years of Roman life and Roman occupation. Enos told me I am unchristian to deny God's wealth to any. I responded that God spread His wealth with even-handedness and that I grudge no man God's wealth, providing he enjoys it in his own homeland. So he it, I fear I may be damned.
I transmit this with Enos, who has hopes that it may reach you, somehow, in your home in Gaul. I hope it may, but were it lost forever, the writing of it has eased a troubled mind. Farewell
Merlyn Britannicus
Post Scriptum:
I rejoice to tell you that I have heard nothing in years from that new breed of Roman priests whom you called the monastics. You, for your part, may take pleasure in the knowledge that the name Pelagius has faded from our tongues . . . and hence from the minds of all save errant fools like me.
The advent of spring revived imperatives that could no longer be neglected or denied. Before the last of the snow had melted from the ground, our horsemen were manoeuvring again, the veteran cavalry once more forming the tight formations we had evolved through the years and sharpening the skills we had been unable to practice through the long months that had passed. New cavalry troops had been created, too, during the winter, and now rode in groups and squadrons, though without the tightly disciplined sharpness of the others. These men had learned to ride in theory only, walking or trotting their horses on the frozen drilling plain, learning the basic features of control. None of them, however, had ridden at the canter, and none had known the elemental freedom and power born of being astride a running horse at full gallop. Now they began to learn, and many a flying rump learned painfully that the frost had not yet loosed its hold on the earth.
This training all took place in an atmosphere of good-natured raillery, but there was serious intent beneath the laughter. The thousand men dispatched this spring from Camulod would all be horsed. Five hundred would be seasoned cavalry, the other five experienced infantry, mounted for speed. When the time came to fight, as come it would, the two would act in unison, the infantry dismounted, in their own element, and the cavalry free to range widely, driving the enemy onto the spears awaiting in the infantry's serried ranks.
I sat my horse beside Ambrose and Dedalus one afternoon close to the drilling ground, on the road, some way above the wide-stretched plain, where I could watch the parties wheel and regroup. Beside me, Dedalus cleared his throat and growled, "Now there's a likely rider."
I turned and glanced to see who had attracted his attention and failed to recognize the rider who was galloping towards us, crouched low over the neck of a big black like my own that was running strongly. Only when the rider sat back, reining the horse into a sliding halt and pulling off the helmet did I recognize Shelagh, and such was my shock that I could not react beyond staring open-mouthed. She shook out her long hair, appearing extremely pleased with herself, and kneed her horse towards us, up the hill, and as she did so I heard my companions explode into howls of hilarity. Shelagh was dressed as a man, armoured from head to toe in my own black and silver colours. Heavy, ring-mail leggings covered her legs and a tunic of the same material hung beneath her cuirass. She came straight up to where I sat, and bowed from the saddle as deeply as her armour would allow.
"Are you surprised then, Merlyn Britannicus?" Her great, hawk eyes were flashing with pleasure and her teeth were alabaster white behind her crimson, wind-stung lips. I knew I must respond soon, and well. I could feel the eyes of my companions.
"Surprised?" I managed to say, forcing myself to drawl. "I am thunderstruck! I've watched your husband clutch one hand to his horse's mane and the other to his saddle for years, and had believed no Eirishman could ever ride a horse."
"Mayhap you're right, Commander, for I am a woman, though that might be hard to tell at this moment."
That brought another bark of laughter from my frien
ds who, as they were quick to tell me now, had all conspired to keep me uninformed on this. Dedalus himself had been her teacher—a reluctant one at first, bound by the promise he had made her on the boat to Britain, to aid her in anything with which she might require assistance. Once begun, however, it had quickly become apparent to Ded that his tyro student had a natural seat upon a horse and was, in fact, a born equestrian. Excited by the discovery, but bound by a promise to say nothing to me, he had brought Rufio into the plot, and soon all eight companions of the Eirish expedition were taking turns to groom and train the prodigy. Ambrose, as joint Commander, had been admitted to the secret, too, since Shelagh's serious training could not go forward without the approval of either him or me. And so it was done. Of all the new recruits trained in the winter's exercise, Shelagh had been the most outstanding; the one spectacular success, adopted by the troopers to a man, so that they had combined to keep her presence hidden from my eyes.
At that point, I had turned to Shelagh. "Are these men telling me that you have ridden right before my eyes without my knowing?"
She grinned, completely unashamed. "Aye, and with your veterans, too! You've looked right through me, many times, though once you mentioned me to Ded for having performed well in a wheel sweep."
"Damnation," I said. "I need a drink of mead." I turned to the others. "I am not used to drinking with conspirators of any stripe, but all things change, it seems. Will you join me?" We rode uphill to the fort and retired to the family room, which Ludmilla and the other women of the household kept as pristine as it had been while its castellan yet lived there.
A week thereafter, to the day, our expedition left for Glevum and Shelagh rode with us, having earned her place. Even with the merit she had earned, however, I would have been loath to include her, had it not been for the fact that her father would ride with us, too, driving the wagon filled with goods for Mordechai, which he would unload before following us into Glevum, there to await the arrival of Donuil and Feargus's galleys bearing his livestock.
Her father's wagon would slow us down too much, I knew, even upon the great, straight Roman road that we would ride to Glevum, and so I seconded an escort of fifty men, under the command of Rufio, to ride with it and follow on our heels as quickly as they could. Shelagh stayed with her father, and I promised to rejoin them at the hostelry of the Red Dragon as soon as we had cleared the Berbers out of Glevum.
Huw Strongarm and his men went with us, too, but they remained on foot, serving as scouts. They left a day ahead of us and remained out of sight, save for a single man who came each evening, after we had camped, to tell us all was well and nothing moved ahead of us or around us.
We made excellent time, considering there were still large snowbanks on the great roadway among the deeper woods, and we came within sight of Glevum in the early afternoon of our fourth day out from Camulod. Huw sat on a milestone waiting for me two miles from the town. The Berbers were there, he reported, and had apparently wintered in one of the warehouses by the harbourside. They had grown careless and overconfident, doubtless through having remained undisturbed for months, and Strongarm's men had been able to penetrate the town itself in daylight without being discovered. He reported thirty-four Berbers present, all armed with bows and long, curving swords. No contact had been made with anyone, he said, so we might well surprise them if we proceeded cautiously.
His report caused me concern. I had thought to find more men than thirty-four, and said so. Huw shrugged and said nothing, since there was nothing he could say, and Dedalus proposed that the Berbers' numbers might have been severely depleted during the winter months. These people were not accustomed to cold, he pointed out. Their natural habitat was desert land, beneath the sun of Africa. I was unconvinced, but had no option but to concur. Huw now volunteered a plan.
His suggestion was based, he said, on the fact that all the Berbers were bowmen and afoot. My troopers, horsed or unhorsed, would be at a serious disadvantage among the streets and buildings. I nodded, telling him I knew exactly what he meant, for we had had precisely that problem on our previous visit. Now he suggested we permit him and his men to vanguard the attack. They were sixteen, all told, against odds of two to one, but if they were in difficulty they would fall back, their lesser numbers tempting the Berbers to pursue them beyond the town and into our grasp. I could not deny the logic involved, but the odds against Huw and his men depressed me. The compromise that immediately came to me, however, offered them a better edge. If our infantry were to penetrate the town under cover of darkness, accompanied by his bowmen, then we could arrange to split our forces into groups, arranged in open spaces, that would await the Berbers in pursuit of Huw's bowmen, who would lead them directly into our traps. The only obstacle anyone could find in that was that we had no way of knowing where these traps should be set up. None of us knew the town. Huw sat grinning, then offered to take me with him into Glevum, to see for myself and select my own spots.
The idea appealed to me immediately, and the inherent danger heightened its appeal. And so Dedalus and I, accompanied by Huw himself, the giant Powys, and Owain of the Caves, slipped into Glevum on foot in the light of day and made our dispositions in situ. We returned without having seen a sign of Berbers, though we could smell the smoke from their cooking fires.
That night, in the darkest hours before dawn, we made our way back again at the head of two hundred of our men, moving in stealth and silence, our arms and armour muffled against the slightest betraying clink of sound, and settled down to wait. We saw the dawn grow to day and the sun rise in the east in a clear blue sky before the first howls of outrage assailed our ears. We closed ranks immediately, four groups of fifty men, each assigned a specific location to which Huw's bowmen would lead their pursuers. It was over within the hour and our casualties were slight: two men killed and five wounded, none of those seriously. Of the two men killed, one was from Camulod, a veteran called Marc Mercus killed in the street fighting, and one a Celt, the hairless Elfred Egghead, killed in the opening moments of the attack by an arrow in the back, shot by a guard who must have been asleep, since Elfred had passed him by without seeing him. The Berbers fought hard, to the last man, evidently preferring death to the prospect of captivity. I myself had not bloodied my sword throughout the entire affair, and I led the withdrawal from the town assailed by a sense of foreboding. What should have been a satisfying victory had been a stale, unwholesome business.
We assembled our entire force on the flats beyond the town, within sight of the estuary, established a camp and allowed the men to break their fast. I left Dedalus in charge there and rode alone to meet with Liam's party, after which I would ride to visit Mordechai as promised, and then rejoin the army. We would leave for Cambria as soon as I returned the following morning.
Not all bad days are born of ill beginnings. The bright blue sky that had come with the dawn yielded to heavy, sullen clouds by mid-morning, and I found myself testing the chilliness of the wind as I rode, in fear of yet more snow. It was too warm for snow, however, and the truth of that was shown when a heavy spattering of fat raindrops swept from the west and rattled audibly against my helmet. I wrapped my cloak more tightly about my shoulders and rode on, but the rain held off.
I arrived at the site of the Red Dragon hostelry well before noon, after a two-hour ride, to find Liam, Shelagh and their escort already awaiting me. Of the hostelry, however, all that remained was a black pile of charred and broken beams covered by icy, brittle-crusted snow. The fire that had destroyed it had obviously occurred before the onset of winter, and I assumed the Berbers had been responsible. Angry at being thus bereft of the few moments' rest and warmth I had anticipated, I controlled my ill-humour and issued my new orders. Since Rufio reported that his party's progress had been uneventful, I sent the escort on to Glevum, where they could camp with their companions and enjoy a break, no matter how short, from the tedium of the journey. I kept back only Rufio himself to ride with me in company with Shelagh and
Liam's wagon. The ride to Mordechai's colony was short from here, less than ten miles, and I saw no reason to expose our men either to contagion or the fear of it. We four would arrive well before nightfall, I estimated, unload the wagon, eat and sleep, and be ready to return again at first light.
The rain began to fall as we sat by the ruined hostelry and watched our men march off to be concealed by the forest that encroached here to the edges of the road. I glanced down at the cobbles between my horse's feet, seeing the raindrops overpowering the shrinking gaps of dryness on the stones, and saw a tiny sapling growing there. I immediately remembered Benedict's prediction and agreed with it, knowing conclusively that this road on which we sat would be destroyed and vanish completely within a hundred years. Behind me, I heard Liam click his gums, stirring the wagon horse to movement, and then the iron tyres began their clamour over the cobbles.
We soon discovered that Lucanus's worst fears had been justified and exceeded. Mordechai's colony lay empty and abandoned, all signs of life extinguished. I knew from the first moment, looking down into the tiny dell from the hillside above through a driving downpour, that we were far, far too late. There is an aspect of emptiness that speaks eloquently of abandonment rather than temporary relocation, and it consists largely of an impression of neglect; it is a visual impression, difficult to define yet unmistakable. This place had lain untended for long weeks, perhaps even months.
I had told Shelagh and Liam the tale of Mordechai Emancipatus on the journey from the ruined hostelry, and now we sat at the top of the rise for a long time, ignoring the rain since we were long since drenched, each of us wordlessly inspecting the scene below. Finally, faced with the choice of simply riding off without a closer look, or making some attempt to discover the when and how of things, I kneed my horse forward, bidding Liam remain where he was with the wagon. Shelagh and Rufio accompanied me, but I alone dismounted when I reached the threshold of the longhouse, with its sagging, open door. Full of the fears that had all but overwhelmed me on my first visit to this place, I held my breath and leaned forward to look inside the long, low building. There was no one there. I called aloud, still making no attempt to enter, and my voice echoed back to me.