The Skystone cc-1

by Jack Whyte

  I spent the next two weeks making preparations for my journey to the west, and left a small bar of silver with my name on it in Cicero's possession so that he could use it to substantiate my death if and when his men ever found a suitable corpse My last will and testament was brief and to the point, and this, too, I left in his possession. It read: Since the occasion of the night attack on Caius Britannicus, when I could have lost my life without preparation or warning, I have thought much about dying. I am aware that, in the event of my death, my friend and partner, who is known to the world as Equus, would have no way of demonstrating that the smithy we operate together is rightfully and legally his property, since I would have no further use for it and am without heirs. If and when I die, if Equus remains alive, the smithy and all it contains belong to him, to deal with as he sees fit.

  I leave this document for safekeeping in the hands of my noble friend Antonius Cicero, Military Governor of this District.

  Gaius Publius Varrus

  Three days before I was due to leave, I went into my weapons room and took down my grandfather's great African bow from the wall. It measured five and a half feet from tip to tip unstrung.

  I had made several strings of gut for it, and a sheaf of arrows from the straight stems of young spruce trees. These I had shaved and then dried in the forge, tying them first tightly together in bundles so that they would not warp in the process of drying. Equus had been surprisingly knowledgeable about the art of flighting arrows, and had spent hours working on them, lovingly splitting the ends of the shafts and gluing lengths of eagle pinions into place. The finished arrows were just about a full arm's length long and were tipped with the finest iron barbs, made in my own forge.

  The bow itself was a composite of three layers of wood, horn and sinew, with the wood in the middle and the sinew on the outer curve. At first, in spite of my smith's arms, I had been unable to pull it, but Equus had shown me the trick of how it was done, and my arms had soon adapted to the unusual muscular tensions required. Once I had mastered the knack of controlling it, I found that the weapon could throw an arrow hard enough to pierce a tree at almost two hundred paces.

  In the two weeks since the Seneca incident I had not drawn the bow, but I decided to take it with me on the road — the bow, my skystone dagger and a serviceable sword made by my own hand.

  I bought three fine horses from the garrison, two for riding and the third for packing my gear. The sale was strictly illegal, of course, but my friends in the fort, Cicero and Plautus, agreed that, as a former primus pilus and a valued supplier, I was entitled to arrange a long-term "rental." Finally, on a beautiful day in late autumn, I was ready to set out on my journey. A squadron of light cavalry would escort me for the first third of the way, from Colchester to Verulamium, where they were to relieve a detachment who had been on extended duty in that town. Equus bade me farewell at the smithy, and Plautus met me there and rode back with me to the fort to pick up my escort. As he wished me Godspeed he grinned, more to himself than to me, and I was intrigued.

  "What are you grinning about?"

  Plautus's grin grew wider. "Oh, mere passing thoughts, " he said. "Give my love to Phoebe."

  "Phoebe? What is that supposed to mean?"

  "You'll be going through Verulamium, won't you? Give her a stab for me."

  I did not know whether to laugh or be angry. "Plautus, " I said, "you're a pig. I've told you that before."

  "Aye." He laughed that dirty laugh of his. "And Phoebe is a pigeon, plump and waiting to be savoured, and your journey to the west will be a long one. A soft pillow on the road will be a pleasure, at least for one night."

  I frowned. "I'll stay with Alaric in Verulamium."

  "Of course you will, and I will respect your chastity forever. But if you should see Phoebe, remember my request."

  I smiled and embraced him and then left, riding at the head of the column with the young Commander.

  The first stage of the journey passed quickly and pleasantly, although we camped each night in fields and clearings by the side of the road. I could never get used to sleeping in a military camp that was not surrounded by a wall and a ditch. It bothered me deeply, although no one else appeared to give it a thought. Britannicus and his ideas might have made me over-critical, I was prepared to admit, but there was logic behind my misgivings, too. The walled, ditch-surrounded marching camp had been the saving strength of Roman soldiers on the move for almost 1, 200 years. Only within the past century had the practice been abandoned, especially here in Britain, where peace had existed for over three hundred years. The relaxation in regulations had its roots in the general, poisonous relaxation of discipline: it was deemed, nowadays, to be demeaning to the rights of the modern soldier that he should be expected to dig a ditch and erect fortifications around an overnight camp in time of peace! My mind swept me back to the high moor, on the first day of the Invasion. The fortifications around our camp had saved a thousand lives, right there. Thank God for Caius Britannicus and his stubborn refusal to accept anything less than the highest standards in anything he did! I looked around me, at the open country in which we were lying, and decided to keep my mouth shut and make no comment.

  Light cavalry squadrons were no more than mounted archers, so my great African bow was a sensational success among the men. Each night after the evening meal, in the hour or so that remained before darkness fell, we set up targets by the roadside and held archery contests. I am happy to be able to say in all modesty that my bow was to theirs what a ballista is to a boy's slingshot.

  Phoebe was happy to see me. She left me in no doubt of the fact when I turned up without warning at her place of employment. She was busy at the time, I was told, manicuring the hands of the wife of one of the town magistrates, but she left her charge when they told her I was there. She came running to greet me, throwing herself into my arms and kissing me in a way that threatened to draw the soul right out of me. I told her that I was in the city for one night only and that I had come to visit Bishop Alaric, and I arranged to meet her later in the day, when she was free. In fact, I knew that Alaric was not in Verulamium. I had gone to his home on arriving, only to find that he was out about his Master's business. The news had not surprised me, for Alaric spent but little time in Verulamium. What did surprise me was my reaction — a mixture of relief and release. I had left my respects with Alaric's housekeeper and gone directly in search of Phoebe.

  I did not know why I had lied to Phoebe, but I had the whole afternoon to myself to think about it. I bought some fresh bread, cheese and a small jug of wine from a merchant and rode out of town to be alone and think. I found a comfortable bank beneath a tree and turned my horse loose to graze, and as I ate I allowed myself to deliberate upon my feelings for and about Phoebe. My lust for her was as strong as ever; I saw little point in trying to deceive myself about that. When she had thrown herself into my arms earlier that day the arousal I had experienced was urgent and demanding. More than that, however, Phoebe was a friend. More than that? I had to smile even as I thought it. There is nothing more demanding than an upstanding phallus, and in the arms of a willing woman few other considerations can coexist with the need to achieve and prolong copulation. Phoebe was my friend, that was true — a tried and loyal, loving friend. Too loving. There was my dilemma. I was a fugitive and, if I were caught, I would be a dead man. Knowing that, Phoebe, being the woman she was, would wish to share my odyssey, my roadside bed and my danger. That I could not allow in conscience, because, for at least two reasons — her station in life, and her marriage to Cuno — I could not think of Phoebe as a wife and therefore I could not expose her to risk for mere gratification of my fleshly urges.

  All of this was highly philosophical, of course, and I enjoyed the debate thoroughly, but by the time I rose to leave, I had decided firmly that I would say nothing to her of the reasons for my journey, or of my destination.

  When I met her again at the appointed time and place, Phoebe was almost dancing up
and down with excitement. There was a drama at the amphitheatre that evening, she told me, and she had never seen a performance. Naturally, we attended it together.

  The amphitheatre, which had been built just a few decades before on the outskirts of the town, was enormous. I cannot recall the name of the play we saw, for I spent most of my time enjoying Phoebe's pleasure in the spectacle, but I remember being impressed by the number of people the place would hold, and by the ease with which I heard the voices from the stage, even though we were seated far up on the raked terraces. Someone told me that the place held upwards of seven thousand seated spectators.

  At the end of the performance, as we were leaving, a loud argument broke out close by me and I heard the word "Thief!" being shouted. I glanced to my right and saw the thief, a cutpurse, his bare blade still in his hand, coming towards me. He saw me notice him and dived backwards into the crowd before I could think to lay hands on him. The crowd was too dense for me to chase him, anyway, so I let him go. I turned my attention instead to Phoebe's prattling and thought no more about him. There was a profusion of public shops close to the amphitheatre, catering to the appetites of the crowds who thronged to the performances, and Phoebe and I managed to find one where the food, according to others, was very good. There, during the course of our meal and after her chatter about the performance was exhausted, I told her I was leaving on an extended journey and that we would probably never meet again. I begged her not to question me about my reasons, and then I relented and told her what had happened. I told her everything except my destination, and I told her, in answer to her entreaties, that I would not, could not, take her with me.

  She was subdued for a while after that, and I fell silent, leaving her with her thoughts; for once in my life I had the acuity to do the correct thing. I sat and sipped my wine, trying not to be obvious in watching the expression on her face. Was there pain there? Disappointment?

  Resentment? I could not tell. Her face gave away absolutely nothing of what was going on in her mind. Only her silence told me that she was thinking deeply.

  As we strolled the short distance to her home, she held my hand in hers and made no further reference to my journey. Instead, she talked again about the evening's performance and about the pleasure she had had. Had I not suspected differently, I would have sworn she was the same merry, wild-eyed sylph who had thrown herself into my arms that morning. We stopped outside the building in which she had her rooms and she looked at me calmly. Then she reached up gently and took hold of my beard, pulling my face down to where she could kiss me, gently and chastely.

  "Good night, my Publius. Go quickly and go surely and come back soon to me. And in between, think of me kindly, from time to time."

  I turned to leave, and she grinned and held me by the beard. At one point, somewhere in the middle of the night, she rolled over and mounted me, riding me slowly, raising herself so high in withdrawing, and so slowly, that I found myself waiting constantly for her to lose her grip on me. But each time, when I was held in her by nothing but the merest clinging edges of sensation, she paused successfully and took me back, infinitely slowly, into the yielding, lubricated grip of her. It was an experience never to be forgotten. So sure was she of my reactions that she could stop exactly, anticipating my release by half a heartbeat, remaining motionless until the storm had receded and she could resume again. After one such lovely interruption, she sank down on me completely, bringing her knees up beneath her shoulders so that she squatted above me, her buttocks pressing into my groin. I was so deeply lodged in her that I could feel the end of my phallus jammed against the deepest recess of her living flesh, and then she began to rotate herself so that I moved around her like a stirring stick, churning the softness and the heated depths of her so thoroughly that I was afraid I must be hurting her. I said so, and she paused, grinding herself down onto me.

  "Publius, sweet man, this is the kind of hurt I would gladly suffer all the minutes of my life. Are you enjoying it?"

  I moved my pelvis upwards. "Do you even have to ask?"

  "No. Believe this, magical man. The pleasure that you feel could not begin to match the pleasure I am taking in this. If I could cut you off and keep you here inside me like this for the rest of my life, I would die a happy woman and be buried with a smile on my face." She stopped and rose up again, letting me pull out almost completely before sinking back onto me and leaning forward to mouth a fierce, hot-breathed, tension-filled whisper into my ear. "This may be the last time I ever have you here in my body, Publius Varrus. I want to remember it, and I want you never to be able to forget it. You may have many other women after this, but you will never have one who enjoys you more, so I am being selfish. This night is mine. Your body is mine tonight. The milk of your balls is mine tonight. And this beautiful, lust-filled dagger of yours is mine to pierce myself with tonight, to die on, if I can suck it deep enough into me. So stab, Varrus! Impale me, you beautiful, rutting, rampant man!" It was too much for me. I groaned and convulsed, throwing my arms around her, clutching her close as I lost control and poured myself violently up into the depths of her.

  In the morning, before the sun came up, she bathed me and fed me, and then she spread herself for me on the table before I left, so that I took the road again with the moistness of her in my groin and the scent of her juices clinging to my face and filling my nostrils. BOOK THREE - Westering

  XV

  I was two days out of Verulamium, making my way easily along the road towards the town the British call Alchester, when I ran into trouble. I was still feeling euphoric about my marathon encounter with Phoebe, and I was day-dreaming. In fact, I was lost in my imaginings to such an extent that it was almost too late for me to react when I finally noticed the group of five men drawn up in a line across the road about seventy-five paces ahead of me. I knew immediately that I was in trouble. They had that air of menace about them that stamped them immediately as malevolent. I reined in my horse and looked around me. There was open heath on both sides and nowhere to run to that offered any hope of safety. I glanced behind me then and was unsurprised to see three more men, slightly farther away than those ahead of me. Once aware of the danger, my mind automatically clicked back into legion days. Without even pausing to think, I slung my leg over my horse and dropped to the ground, unhitching my strung bow from around my shoulders with one hand and reaching for an arrow with the other. I wasted no time cursing myself for my carelessness. I merely nocked the arrow, drew, sighted and let go in one motion. Considering the speed with which I did it, I was lucky. The arrow took the central man of the five ahead full in the forehead and hurled him backwards, heels over head.

  The speed of their companion's death threw the others into confusion. Two of them held bows, however, and I knew they would begin making life very uncomfortable for me as soon as they recovered from the first fright. Afraid that they might hit my horses, I ran limping to the side of the road, and almost ran into their first arrow in the process. It zipped past, about a foot in front of me. I remember thinking that if they shot that badly, I should just stand still and let them waste their arrows!

  I snapped a shot backwards at the three behind me, and again I was lucky; one of them fell with a howl of pain. Now, they decided to treat me with respect. One of their two bowmen knelt to steady his aim. I drew a steady pull on him, bringing the string all the way back to my ear and holding it there before loosing it. The muscles of an iron-smith, I had discovered, are frequently worth more than gold. My arrow skewered him before he had even loosed his own, and in spite of his kneeling position he, too, went flying, testifying to the power of the mighty weapon I was holding.

  I swung around again to check on the two remaining men behind me. They had split apart, one to each side of the road, and were running towards me as fast as their feet would carry them. One of them was no more than twenty flying paces from me as my bow came up again. I dropped him in his tracks and reached automatically for another arrow, but his companion scre
amed, turned and ran like a hare back the way he had come. I let him go and turned back to the others, only to discover that they, too, had taken to flight. I breathed a shivering sigh of relief and went back to lean against my horses, which still stood where I had left them. Sure enough, I saw my grandmother's sad face and I started to shake, and then I threw up.

  Four men dead in less than four minutes! I spat to clear the sick taste of bile from my mouth and went to collect my valuable arrows. Three I cleaned with a handful of grass, but I had to leave the fourth lodged firmly in the forehead of the first man I had shot. It was a highly unpleasant task, recovering those arrows, and one on which I don't want to dwell, but I could not afford to leave them there.

  The country ahead of me was heavily wooded and made up of rolling hills and valleys dense with growth. Thank God for Roman roads! I continued my journey for another two hours without seeing a living soul, although I was now looking very carefully and no longer day-dreaming. At dusk, I was looking seriously for a suitable bivouac spot when I saw a body of men coming towards me. Light gleamed on metal and I recognized them for what they were — a maniple of infantry. When they rode closer, I saw the standard of the Twentieth Legion, my own regiment, and I drew myself to attention and waited for them. The mounted centurion at their head came trotting towards me and halted several yards away. I gave him the clenched fist salute of the legions. He sat there, staring at me.

  "Centurion? Commander Varrus?"

  I nudged my horse towards him. "Aye, I'm Varrus. Who are you?"

  "Strato, Strato Pompey, Commander. I was with the Hammers in '67."