The Skystone cc-1

by Jack Whyte

  Have I?"

  He looked at me and heaved a great, gusty sigh, grinning sheepishly at his own fears. "No, comrade, you never have. Not about anything important. "

  "Right. And I don't intend to start now. The world as we know it won't end tomorrow, or even next year. It might take decades. Go and listen to Caius, what he has to say. I'll join you in a few minutes. Listen well. And count yourself into whatever he suggests. "

  I watched him walk away to rejoin the circle around the fire and wondered about the unseen but terrifying dimensions of any information that could have this kind of profound effect on a man as basic and straightforward as Plautus. I had known him ever since my first military posting. Plautus was a bull: nothing daunted him and he feared no man. When he had gone, I went to my wife to tell her I would be late. I was already late. She was soundly asleep and lusciously warm beneath the covers, and I was sorely tempted to join her there, but I kissed her gently without waking her and contented myself with lying on the bed beside her for a few moments. When I was sure she would not awaken I slipped one cautious, caressing hand beneath the covers and snuggled my face carefully into the hollow of her shoulder, revelling in the warm, perfumed scent of her. The few moments stretched into an appreciable time span, and I almost fell asleep, so that I had to force myself to get up again. I went on my way then, reluctantly, with the memory of the warmth of her breast caressing my palm.

  By the time I got back to the fire, Gallo had produced what seemed like a wagonload of fresh food and drink, and everyone was clustered around it. The meeting had already resumed by mutual consent, even before the food's arrival, and things had moved on so far that Plautus had to bring me up to date while everyone was eating.

  "You were right. Your friend Caius there has the whole thing sewn up like a mummy's gut. "

  "How? What's his plan?"

  He grunted, wrestling the thigh bone of a large fowl from its joint. It came free with a voluptuous ripping sound that started my own saliva flowing. He slapped it onto a wooden platter and picked up half a loaf of bread, wiping his greasy fingers on it before taking a bite and speaking through a full mouth.

  "Bagaudae. He ever talk to you about them?"

  I laughed and looked across at Caius, who was standing alone, pouring himself some mead. "Yes. frequently. Caius admires them. He thinks their way of life is a good one. "

  "Hmmph, " Plautus mumbled, swallowing the food in his mouth.

  "Good? He makes them sound like they own the universe. "

  "You think he plans to set up a Bagaudae community here?"

  "Sounds like it. Sounds like it might work, too, until some son of a whore decides to come along and upset the whole cart. That's the only drawback I can see, but it's a big one. I wonder if he's thought about that?

  About the impossibility of defending the place?"

  I smiled at him. "Plautus, if he hasn't thought about it, it will be the first time I have ever known him to miss anything important. Caius is a meticulous animal when it comes to details. "

  He quaffed half a cup of wine and ripped off a mouthful of succulent cold fowl, speaking around his mouthful again. "Well, we'll see. It's the first thing I'm going to ask him about. Right now. " The others were all moving back to their seats by the fire and I loaded a platter hastily, ripping off the other thigh of the fowl that had looked so good and sprinkling it liberally with salt. By the time I had poured a flagon of ale and turned back, they were into the discussion again, and Plautus was talking to Caius.

  "Don't misunderstand me, " he was saying as I sat down. "I think your concept is a good one. I like the idea of everyone pulling his weight and contributing. No parasites. That's good. But — and I think this is a big but — where will you find the right people to make it work? And how would you define your priorities in setting up this community?" Surprised at the unusual fluency shown by the normally taciturn Plautus, I glanced around the faces of the group and saw that they were all endorsing his questions.

  "All right, Caius, " I thought, "I've been wondering about that, too. " Caius was smiling. "Valid questions, Plautus, and I'll try to answer them as clearly as I can. " He looked around the group again. "But let's be clear in our understanding of the context, all of us. Bear in mind that we are doing more than merely talking about survival here. We are now planning for it! This is real. We are talking about the end of the world we know. We believe, each of us, that, like it or not, that end is going to come, and when it does happen, when the Empire falls, nothing that we know today will ever be the same again. Nothing! The legions will be gone — gone completely. That means there will be no law. Think of that! The law will be gone! That means no judicial system backed by the force of arms or government. No civic law, because the towns and cities will have no garrisons and no system of enforcement. On the bright side, there will be no taxes to pay, and no bureaucrats to demand them.

  "No more roads will be built, and those that exist now will fall quickly into disrepair. There will be no troops in the forts of the Saxon Shore to defend against seaborne raiders. " He paused again and looked at every man. "And there will be no food available to those who do not grow their own. Think about that one fact alone, my friends. No food, unless you grow your own! The cities are going to starve. You heard Terra and Firma. It is happening already. "

  His next words fell on us with the force of hammer blows, bludgeoning our disbelief.

  "The entire world is going to go down into chaos when Rome falls, and the biggest danger facing anyone today is the temptation to believe that it cannot, or that it will not happen. Believe me, my friends, the only people who will survive that fall will be those people who have prepared for it by preparing themselves. By preparing their own defences. By preparing their own food supplies. By planning for their own continued, structured existence in advance of the time of chaos. "

  He took a coin from a pocket in his robe and flipped it into the air, catching it as it fell. "You may think I am being over-dramatic, but here's another thought. " He held up the coin. "There will be no more of this made. No more. Even today, it is next to useless. The price of gold has risen beyond belief! So, what will we do without money? Those who have it will hoard it, but with no new supply, the hoarders will soon face the day when it has lost all value, for men will have stopped using it. They will have gone back to the barter system. Among ourselves, in our community, we have to stop using it immediately. " His pause held us as much as his words and his automatic assumption that we were going to go along with his suggestions. "I say 'immediately' because I want you to be aware that we, the people gathered here, with all our families, our friends, our servants and our neighbours, are going to survive. All of us. We have the will, the intellect, the necessary skills, the ability, the tenacity and the advantage of foreknowledge. We will survive. And we will prosper. And we will preserve an island of real Roman virtues, Roman values, Roman worth and Roman standards of freedom and dignity here in this island of Britain. "

  It was a stirring piece of rhetoric. When he had finished, he sat there looking from one to the other of us, and nobody moved or spoke. The silence stretched and grew, and eventually he started speaking again, taking up where he had stopped.

  "Of course, as you have heard Tonius say, the end is not going to come tomorrow or the day after. But you have also heard Terra and Firma, and you know they are correct. It may take ten years, it may take twenty, or even more, but it is going to come, my friends. "

  Another silence, then Gaius Gallus asked, "So, when do we start organizing this community you speak of? And how? You still haven't answered Plautus's questions. "

  Caius pursed his lips. "I will now, and yours, too. We have started. It has begun, tonight. You asked about priorities, Plautus. Well, let's start with defences. Tonius? Am I wrong to place this aspect first?" Plautus and Tonius both smiled, Plautus looking at me, and Tonius said, "No, Caius. I would doubt your sanity if you placed it anywhere else."

  "Well, then. How do
you see our case?"

  Tonius, now in the role of Legate Cicero, General of the armies, shrugged. "I have no idea. How big a territory do you want to hold?"

  "This valley. "

  "All of it?" There was surprise in his voice.

  "Why not? It is a Roman enclave. "

  "But it must be twelve miles square, Caius!"

  "Fourteen long by about eleven wide, I estimate. "

  "That is a lot of land to defend. "

  "Nowhere near as big as the Empire, Tonius. The entire plain is four times that large. Eventually, I hope to coverall of it. "

  "That's all very well, Caius. " This was Plautus again. He seemed to have completely forgotten his awe of officers. "But where will you find the men?"

  "We will find them, Plautus, have no fear of that. Given the time, we'll breed them! Grow them ourselves!" This brought a welcome gust of laughter. "In the meantime, every able-bodied citizen of the new Colony will bear arms, as our ancestors did in the beginning.

  Soldiering will be a part of farming. It will be a feature of our community life. As our numbers grow, our armed strength will grow. Tonius, where would you base our forces, when we have enough?" There was a pause as Cicero mulled this over. "Up on the hills. There are some old Celtic forts on the high hills of this region, without getting into the mountains. I would refurbish them. They are well placed. "

  "Aye. " Caius nodded. "They overlook all of the plains below. I had already decided the same thing myself. Hearing you back my judgment settles it. There is one less than a mile from where we sit right now. When it was in use it must have been prodigious. I have examined it, and I believe it could be adapted to our needs with very little effort. Comparatively speaking, of course. "

  Plautus smiled a wicked smile. "General Britannicus, how firm are you on the old disciplines?"

  "Completely. "

  "Then I'm with you. " He smiled that wicked smile again. "So! There's your first priority: defence. How many forts do you think we'll need?" Caius's tone was confident. "One will suffice for now. The others can come later. As we grow stronger. "

  Plautus nodded, accepting this. "Then you think we will grow stronger?"

  "I know it. "

  "Good. What next?"

  "After defences?" Caius looked around his listeners, catching each man's eye before continuing. "People. We have to start planning for our future needs. We will need builders, stonemasons, bakers, weavers, thatchers, barrelmakers and a hundred other tradesmen. " Tonius Cicero interrupted. "What about control? In the sense of law, I mean. Government. Have you thought about that?"

  "I have. I would like to see a Council established, exactly like the ancient Senate. "

  There was a murmur of approval. Our start had been well made. The rest of the night was given over to planning in more detail. The more we talked, the greater grew the problems we foresaw, and yet, in spite of that, our vision grew apace with them, and our thinking became the more ambitious.

  Plans were made to buy up surrounding villas and to link them all defensively as soon as possible. We knew we had time to measure in years, but we could not bank on even one decade.

  Lists were compiled of all the skilled people we would need to make us self-supporting, and each man there was alert from that time on to finding men of the calibre we sought. Before the discussion ended, everyone present was sworn to secrecy in the knowledge that, until the day came when the legions left, our entire scheme was treasonous. Talking carelessly of it could mean death for everyone concerned.

  By the time the wedding feast came to an end four days later, others had been recruited, and each man who knew our plans took home with him a dream of hope for the future. Each knew that the safety and well-being of his entire family lay in his own hands. And each had already begun to plan how he would transport his worldly goods to Caius's Colony when the time came. There were heartfelt smiles and handclasps at the time of parting.

  XXVI

  On the morning after the last of our guests left, I was up with the larks and away into the Mendip Hills alone, not even wishing to share this visit with Equus. I left my wife abed, smiling with smug satisfaction, while my own mind concentrated singularly on the search for my skystones. Now that all the festivities were over, I was frustrated and impatient. The stones I had found were all too small. They were far from tiny, but none of them was large enough to offer me any great hope of being able to smelt heavenly metals from them. I felt strongly that there was something in the Valley of the Dragons, as we had come to call it, that I was missing — something that lay just beyond my vision, or just beyond my comprehension. More than three months had gone by since my last visit, and I was hoping that the time lag would enable me to see the valley with new eyes.

  My hope was fulfilled that day in a way that I could not have dreamed of. The information my eyes relayed to my brain was so startling and so overwhelming that I did not trust myself to believe the evidence of my own senses. I rode back to the villa at breakneck speed, almost choking on my excitement.

  It was dark by the time I got back. I leaped from my horse before its hooves stopped clattering on the cobblestones of the courtyard and shouted a greeting to my wife, who came running to welcome me home. We bathed together and I told her of my discoveries, and then for a long time we made little noise.

  It must have been approaching the tenth hour when I entered Caius's cubiculum and found him reading by the light of two bright lamps. I was surprised to find him there, for I had presumed him abed long since. He was immersed in Ovid's Art of Love and feeling, he told me later, mildly nostalgic for the vanished pleasures of youth.

  "Caius? Am I disturbing you?"

  He looked up with pleased surprise. "No, not at all! It is a pleasure to see you back on your feet again. "

  I felt the blankness of incomprehension on my face. "What?"

  "I said it's good to see you up and around again. Marriage makes more men take to their beds than illness ever will. "

  "Ohh!" I smiled, suddenly self-conscious. "I see what you mean. "

  "Come in. Sit down and pay no attention to me. I was merely tweaking your nose. Perhaps I am growing jealous of your youth. "

  "Are you so old, then, General? So suddenly?"

  "Don't call me that. I'm old enough to know what I can do and what I'll never do again, my friend. What have you done today?"

  "Caius —"

  I started to blurt out what it was I had to tell him, but then I restrained myself. He watched me clench my lips and inhale deeply through my nostrils. Then I bit down on my breath and expelled the air explosively between my lips, the way a horse does. Caius waited, patient as always, for me to arrange my thoughts in order. Finally, I began speaking, feeling that I had the right words.

  "I wanted to come to you with this as soon as I got back, but I was —

  distracted — as you have observed. "

  He smiled. "Where is she now, that your distraction has faded?"

  "Asleep. Caius, what had you planned to do tomorrow?"

  "Nothing that cannot be changed. What do you have in mind for me to do?"

  "Could you stand the journey up into the hills with me? There's something I would like to show you. I need your advice. "

  "I can think of nothing I would enjoy more. What do you have to show me?"

  I shook my head. "I would rather not say, right now. You might think I had lost my wits. But it's important. I think I'm right. In fact, I know I'm right. But I haven't got the courage yet to back up my conviction. That's why I want you to see this for yourself, and to advise me. If I'm wrong, and I could be, I'd feel very foolish. "

  The Britannican eyebrow was up. "You intrigue me, Publius. This sounds fascinating. I can hardly wait to see what it is. Will I recognize it?"

  "I hope so, Caius. I hope so!"

  "It has to do with your skystones, obviously. "

  "Yes, it does. "

  He raised his thumb and forefinger to the sides of his mouth, pinc
hing his lower lip outward and downward, as though wiping away dried crumbs from a recent meal. "I saw some of them this morning, in the smithy.

  Equus told me what they were. I was hoping to talk to you about them. "

  "What were you doing in the smithy? You don't often go down there. " He smiled and told me what he had done that morning.

  Apparently the villa had been as quiet as a tomb that day, after all the preceding weeks of hurly-burly, and Caius had been hard put to remind himself that this was normal. He had prowled the grounds like a lost soul, angry at himself for having slept later than usual and losing some precious hours. Then he found out I had been gone since dawn, up into the hills, and that increased his bad temper, for some reason. Luceiia, he said, had tried to be nice to him over breakfast but knew her brother well enough to see that he was in one of his most foul frames of mind and left him to his own devices.

  He had spent two fruitless and frustrating hours trying to write, but found himself too volatile to concentrate for any length of time on what he was about, and eventually, some time after noon, he had found himself in the smithy, watching Equus pounding a glowing ingot.

  Equus had looked up and seen him standing there, and had greeted him, calling him "Gen'ral!" He had picked that up from me. They had exchanged pleasantries for a while, and then Equus had returned to his work, leaving Caius to his own devices. Caius had then walked to the back of the smithy and idly examined the bizarre-looking stones that lay there on the shelf along the wall.

  "Funny-looking things, aren't they?" Equus's voice had startled him.

  "What are?" he'd asked.

  "Them skystones. "

  Only then had Caius realized what he was looking at, for I had kept them secret even from him, so keen was my disappointment in their size. Now he examined them more closely. There were seven of them, ranging in size from the smallest, about the size of a new-born baby's head, to the largest, which was the size of a half-grown boy's head. They were all the same kind of stone, a heavy, dull grey-black. And all of them were smooth: not the worn smoothness of a watered pebble, but more of a glassy texture. He had picked up one of the intermediate ones and hefted it, thinking that, if I were correct, this thing had fallen from the sky! His logical Roman mind told him that was impossible. Everything must come from somewhere, so where had it. fallen from?. Caius knew, as every child knows, that in order for something to come down from high in the air, it first has to be put up into the air. But the weight of this thing, he realized as he held it, made the thought of its being hurled upwards from the earth into the sky more than ludicrous. It was impossible. He knew how high and how far the strongest catapult could throw such a stone. He had seen his own armies hurl them, and they never were lost from sight. So how could this thing have fallen from the sky, on fire, as he knew I believed, and struck the earth with such ferocity that it could bury itself and throw up a ring of earth twelve or more feet across?