The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  “Then who might have done the drawing, do you think? The man who owned it originally?”

  “Nah. He would have known who he was. It was probably drawn by someone who found it later and knew what it was, but the gods alone know why anyone would have gone to that much trouble for what must have been a useless article by then. Nonetheless, though, you are holding a piece of solid history in your hands there.”

  Varrus stared solemnly at the artifact for long moments, then replaced it on the shelf.

  “My sons think I’m mad to keep the thing, but I think it’s the craftsman in me that tells me to do it,” Mcuil said. “I believe that creators like us—smiths and artisans—have special gifts. Some men are passionate about their craft, whatever it might be, and when they are, when they care that much about what they do, they produce fine work.” He tucked his hands into his armpits, almost shyly, Varrus thought. “You probably think me daft, too, but I admire things like this. The man who made that is long dead and forgotten, but that piece he made so carefully and well is still here, after hundreds of years, and it could still be used for its intended purpose. That, to me, is a kind of immortality.”

  He stopped short, having seen the quick look of surprise on his young listener’s face. “Oh, I don’t mean that kind of immortality. I’m not talking about living gods. Men can’t be immortal, but their exploits can. Their achievements can bring them a measure of immortality.” He stopped again. “What?” he asked. “What did I say?” And then he laughed. “No need to blush, Master Varrus,” he said, waving an open hand. “You’re wondering how a know-nothing Eirish smith can talk about degrees of immortality. I’d wonder the same thing myself if I were you and heard me. But it’s all due to Christian priests—or to one Christian priest, Domnuil. Us Eirish are great Christians when we’re not being pagans, you know. But the godly uncle who was my teacher taught me how to think of things beyond the immediate.”

  “Beyond the immediate.” Varrus smiled. “That sounds momentous. What does it mean?”

  “It means what it says. Most men concern themselves only with what is going on about them, here and now. Which really means they scarcely think at all. Domnuil taught me to recognize things of import and take note of them beyond their present needs. Things like what we’re going to do now with you, for example. Between the men you killed and the men you challenged, you’ve put yourself in danger for as long as you stay in Londuin.”

  “And I came here thinking I was avoiding people who want to kill me,” Varrus said. “I suppose I really haven’t handled this well.”

  “I think we need to make you disappear. To Camulodunum.”

  Varrus frowned. “And why would I go there?”

  “Well, it’s a hundred miles from here, for a start. And my brother Liam lives there now. And I’ve had a problem, see. Liam had an accident in the forge a few months ago, and now he can’t work as well as he did. He has no sons, and so I’ve been thinking about sending Shamus and Callum to help him out.” He picked up the tongs Varrus had used earlier, examining them as he continued. “Trouble is, I can’t afford to lose Callum right now—we’ve too much work in hand. And Shamus needs watching. He’s wrong-headed, sometimes, as you have discovered.” He paused. “For the past year and more he and I have been coming closer and closer to open warfare. He says he doesn’t want to be tied to a forge all his life, and I have to admit he’s not the dedicated smith his brothers are.” He moved forward to replace the tongs in their place on the rack by the workbench, then turned and leaned back against the bench itself, looking Varrus straight in the eye.

  “My daughter tells me you might be looking for work as a smith. Are you? Because if you are, we might be able to help each other out, you and me. I could arrange for you to vanish into a smithy in Camulodunum for a year or so until whoever might be looking for you forgets that you were here.” He smiled at the expression on Varrus’s face. “Think about that before you say no. It would be a perfect hiding place. No sane person would expect to find either an aristocrat or a wandering priest in a blacksmith’s shop in a small provincial town.”

  “Or a member of the Varrus family, for that matter. I agree, Master Mcuil, and my first question should be why you would do such a thing for me, but I think you’ve given me the answer to that already.”

  “I have. You would be doing me a great service in three areas, in addition to the one for which I already owe you—saving my daughter’s life. You would be helping my brother, helping me to meet my obligations by keeping Callum here where I need him, and relieving me of the need to fret constantly over my youngest son.”

  Varrus stood frowning slightly, nibbling at the skin inside the corner of his mouth. “It seems like an easy choice,” he said, “but it contains far more substance than I had thought about until now.” He looked into the smith’s eyes. “Do you need me to agree now?”

  “Not at all. Take all the time you need. In the meantime, though, we have other things to attend to.”

  He crossed to the door of the smithy, where he leaned out and shouted for his daughter, and when she came in a short time later, rubbing absently at a smudge of dust or flour on her nose and smiling cheerfully at him, Varrus felt his insides thrill at how lovely she was. Then his stomach swooped in panic as it occurred to him that he had given her father no indication of what he thought of his daughter, or what he hoped to do about it. That omission, he knew, could cause him much grief if he did not address it soon.

  “Lydia,” her father said, “Master Varrus will be staying with us for a while, but he can’t go outside these doors again until we find him some new clothes that are neither black nor white. You can go back to the market and see to that. And this time you will oblige me by taking Callum with you—and no arguments, Missy. You should have no difficulty finding clothing for a working smith, and he’s about the same size as Shamus.”

  Lydia was eyeing Varrus up and down, grinning saucily. “He is,” she said. “But bigger through the shoulders. I’ll find something suitable.”

  Varrus smiled back at her. “Dylan will have everything you need. No need to look farther.”

  “Ah, but you’re wrong there, Master Varrus. Dylan the cloth merchant will have nothing among all his goods that a working smith might wear. He is a rich man’s supplier.”

  Varrus wrinkled his nose, aware that she was laughing at him. “You’re right, of course. That was silly of me. But go to his stall and talk to him anyway, if you will. Explain what has happened and he’ll use his connections to provide you with everything. I left a few things with him, so please ask him for them, and warn him, if you will, to say nothing about knowing me if anyone asks about me. Be sure to tell him we need to deflect attention, not attract it. And tell him, too, that I’ll come by and settle with him later.”

  She had listened with pursed mouth. “And do you really think I hadn’t thought of all that?”

  He quickly held up his hands in surrender. “Of course not,” he said. “Pardon me. I spoke without thinking. Do as you think best.”

  “She’ll do that anyway,” Dominic Mcuil said, reclaiming his daughter’s attention and then addressing her directly. “But do it quickly and come back here quickly. I doubt anyone will be looking for either of you yet, but there’s no point in taking foolish risks. And while you’re away, I’ll see our guest to his sleeping quarters.”

  * * *

  —

  Within moments, she was gone and Varrus, deeply thrilled and flustered by the knowledge that he was now to live under the same roof as Lydia Mcuil, and bemused by the breathtaking unexpectedness of the change in his life, followed her father into the darkness of the rearmost part of the house towards the sleeping accommodations. He noted that they appeared to be typical of their kind while resembling in no slightest way the kind he had used in his former life. At home in his parents’ villa in Dalmatia, his bedchamber had been spacious, built on an upper floor and open to the light and the night sky. That, though, had been luxury,
a rich man’s indulgence. Here in Britain, as in most other Roman-occupied territories, sleeping quarters were precisely that: small, dark chambers containing little more than a cot bed and intended primarily for rest. They might, like the one to which Mcuil now led him, have a degree of brightness provided by a small, narrow window mounted high in one wall that allowed daylight to filter in, but for the most part they were permanently dark and completely unused during daylight hours.

  Dominic pulled back the curtain separating the cubicle from the narrow passageway that fronted it, serving five other identical niches. There was still enough light filtering through the reed curtain covering the window to enable them to see the furnishings. With a glance Varrus took in a narrow cot with a thin mattress and blanket, a small, square-topped table, and a long shelf mounted on the wall above the bed. There was a bronze oil lamp on the table, and Dominic moved in to light it from the one he carried with him.

  “You’ll sleep here now,” he said. “Shamus is next to you on the right and Marco, my steward, is on your left. The door at the far end of the passage leads out into a small courtyard, where you’ll find another door that lets you into the bath house. It’s nothing great as baths go, but it works and the water is hot, so if you want to use it, scrub away. Now, can you find your own way back to the smithy?” Varrus nodded. “Good. Come and find me when you’re ready.”

  Varrus began to empty his knapsack and to stack its few contents neatly on the narrow ledge above the cot while he wrestled with his conscience as to what he must do next. He had comported himself well since coming here, Varrus thought, except for the single critical omission of not telling Dominic Mcuil that he wanted to marry his daughter. That, he knew, could cause him much grief if he did not address it soon.

  * * *

  —

  Less than half an hour later, he and Dominic Mcuil were seated once again across from each other at the dining table with drinks in front of them. Varrus had decided that the time had come to declare his intentions regarding the big Eirishman’s daughter, but he was only beginning to appreciate, with no small degree of fear, just how much grief that decision might cause him.

  Then suddenly and without warning, as though he had divined what was in Varrus’s mind, the big smith thrust himself up from the table and stood glowering down at him, flexing the fingers of both hands and looking as though he might erupt into bone-crushing anger. He started to turn away, seemingly overcome by fury, but then he hesitated and swung back to face

  “You’re not the first young stallion to come in here looking to wed my daughter, you know. Not by long odds.” The Eirish lilt in his voice was clearer now than it had been earlier, conveying no hint of anger despite his lingering scowl. “Did you say anything about this to her? This tomfoolery talk of marriage?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you, by God? And what did she have to say?”

  “She said you would run me off.”

  “I would run you off? And what about her?”

  Varrus frowned. “If you’re asking me if she also threatened to run me off, then no, she didn’t. She gave me no reason to think she was displeased.”

  “No reason to think she was displeased…” The smith’s voice was soft as he repeated the words, but then it hardened instantly. “And the two of you never set eyes on one another, never even spoke, until today? You still say that?”

  “It is the truth.”

  Mcuil made a popping, sucking sound with his lips and sat again at the table. He gazed at Varrus through slitted eyelids. “My daughter, Master Varrus, has a mind of her own. It’s a well-known source of scandal around these parts. Not that she ever did anything scandalous,” he added quickly. “I didn’t mean it quite that way. The scandal I meant lies in the pleasure the old biddies around here all get from whispering about how she’s unbiddable. She will not be told what to do or how to behave in certain things…like taking a husband, or even tolerating visits from those who might think to wed her. God knows I’ve tried to find her a suitable man, several times, but she would have none of them, and so I stopped trying. She had convinced me to believe that when she takes a man it will be one of her own choosing and I’ll have nothing to do with it, other than being present for the rites and welcoming the fellow into my home thereafter. And now you come along, from beyond the seas, and in mere hours you tell me she has given you no reason to think she was displeased.”

  Varrus did not know how to respond to that and so he said nothing. Mcuil shifted in his seat and sank lower, squaring his shoulders against the back of his chair and staring back at him mutely.

  “So,” Varrus said eventually, unable to sit quiet any longer. “What are you saying?”

  Mcuil pushed himself upright, then looked down at his hands, meshing his fingers and pressing his thumbs point to point. “What I am saying—and earlier today I would not have believed it possible that I might ever say such a thing—is that if Lydia decides to take you you’ll hear no complaints from me. You saved her life today, and probably the lives of her brothers, too. I have no doubt of that, and you should have no doubt of my gratitude.” He spread his hands wide and smiled. “She is my daughter and she is the light of my life, the image of her mother, may God rest her soul. She herself will decide who is to be the man in her life and none of us can influence that choice. You might be the one. We’ll see. But as her father, I have the duty of ensuring that she goes through this life without being hurt in any way that I can prevent. And that, as I’m sure you will understand, dictates that I need to do everything I can to satisfy myself that the man she chooses will be worthy of her.”

  He paused, looking Varrus squarely in the eye. “I like you, Master Varrus. Considering how little I know of you, I like you surprisingly well. So let us talk, you and I, about realities, and then about possibilities.”

  Quintus Varrus smiled, suddenly feeling much better. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “Good. First, then, as Lydia’s father, I am not happy about the speed with which this…this situation has sprung up.” He held up both hands, palms outwards. “Come now, let’s be honest. A proposal of marriage within hours of a first meeting, with no time for a knowledge or understanding of each other? And then the additional complication that the man involved, the man to whom my beloved daughter is attracted, might have little time to live? Lydia’s future happiness is all I currently live for, so I find the possibility of early widowhood for her to be unsettling, to say the least, and I hope you can see why I might think so.” His Celtic lilt became even more pronounced so that his voice was almost liquid in its gentle sibilance. “It is, I am sure you will agree, unusual, to express it mildly. Time can and will, of course, change everything you believe today. You may grow to love and admire each other deeply. Or you might grow to loathe each other. Either outcome, though, will take time, and if it takes you five times as long as you have known each other to this point for each of you to discover that the other is not quite perfect, then less than a single week will have passed. Do you see what I am saying?”

  “I do, and I agree. But I will not change my mind yet.”

  “Nor should you, so be it you bind yourself to respect my place as head of this house while you are living here.”

  “Agreed again,” Varrus said. “But what, then?”

  “Solutions. I will give you my blessing to approach Lydia openly. After that, depending upon how she receives what you say to her, we can decide how to proceed. For your own safety we’re getting you away from here. Once you’re installed in Camulodunum, you will be close to our family, involved in our affairs and, given Lydia’s willingness, open to planning a life together with her later, when it is safe for you to emerge from hiding. We visit Liam frequently, so you two should not lack for opportunities to come to know each other. Does that seem reasonable?”

  “Extremely reasonable. And I am extremely grateful.”

  “Then why are you looking so sombre?”

  The young man’s fac
e broke into a nervous grin. “Because I think you’ve frightened me out of approaching your daughter,” he said.

  The big man’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Why would you say that? Didn’t you hear what I said a moment ago? I said you will have no opposition from me, so be it you treat my daughter with respect while you are under my roof.”

  “With respect,” Varrus said, still wearing that same grin, “I heard you clearly. It’s not you I’m afraid of now.”

  “Aha!” Mcuil outmatched the younger man’s grin and slapped the tabletop. “Well, that’s another matter altogether, that one, and I’m glad I will have nothing to do with it. When Lydia comes home, I’ll make sure you have an hour together. You can tell me later what plans, if any, you will be considering.”

  * * *

  —

  Quintus Varrus had fallen asleep in the sun on the courtyard steps of the Mcuil house, and the late-afternoon shadows had chopped across the enclosed space by the time he heard the muted squeal of hinges that announced the opening of the outer gates. He sat up hastily, rubbing his eyes as the excited sound of children’s happy voices made him aware of what was happening: the Mcuil clan had come home, riding in a large, four-wheeled wagon pulled by a mismatched pair of heavy work horses, one black, the other dun.

  His own childhood, most of it spent at one or another of his grandfather Titanius’s villas, had been privileged but lonely, so Varrus had seldom heard the kind of cacophony that can be produced by an excited brood of closely related, similarly aged cousins, and this was a lively, active, noisy brood. A round dozen boys and girls spilled out of the great wagon down onto the ground, shepherded by the three women who had mothered them, and he found himself smiling at the sights and sounds of their eagerness and their berry-stained enthusiasm. They appeared to range in age from about ten down to the youngest, a green-eyed, fiery-haired two- or three-year-old imp called Devlin—his name seemed to be loud on everyone’s lips at once—who was already more than capable, as his grandfather would assure Varrus later, of causing a disturbance in an empty house. From that moment, Varrus’s experience of the Mcuil household changed completely, and the quiet solitude that had seduced him into sleeping in the afternoon sunlight was banished, seldom to be experienced again. There were children everywhere after that, and with them, hand in hand, went noise and boisterous upheaval.