by Whyte, Jack
It began the following day, just before noon, when a squadron of cavalry arrived from Camulod. I had been expecting no word from home and I strode out to meet them, my insides knotted with apprehension, since here, I suspected, could be no good tidings. My apprehension flared into fear when I recognized the officer in charge as one of the junior tribunes I had last seen leaving Camulod with Ambrose, headed north.
"You should be with my brother, " I snapped at the man, as he stood rigidly to attention in front of me. "Why are you here, and where is he?"
"The Legate Commander Ambrose is safe and well in Northumbria with King Vortigern, Commander Merlyn. He dispatched me immediately upon our arrival there to put your mind at rest as to his welfare, since he now believes he might be detained in Northumbria for slightly longer than he originally thought. I came with all speed, stopping but briefly in Camulod to gain fresh horses. I bear dispatches, sir, for your attention. This from the Legate Commander, and the smaller is from the Legate Dedalus, in Camulod. "
I took the two carrying cases young Sulla held Out to me and thanked him kindly for his trouble, feeling somewhat guilty now for the coldness of my initial greeting. I sent him off with Donuil, accompanied by his men, then dismissed everyone else and withdrew to my tent.
Once confident that I would remain undisturbed, I found myself postponing the moment when I would open up the thick leather wallet that contained Ambrose's dispatches. I poured myself a cup of ale and made myself comfortable in my folding chair, tilting it back onto its hind legs as I sat with my feet up on the old, scarred campaign desk that had been my father's and his father's before that, rubbing the thick leather of the wallet with my thumb. At length, however, I had to admit to myself that I was merely putting off the inevitable, and I untied the thongs that bound the wallet tight There were two scrolls in the receptacle, one of them much heavier than the other, and I saw at first glance that they were not both from Ambrose. His letter bore his seal, a floral emblem petalled like a daisy, with his personal crest of an eagle's head embossed in the centre. The other bore a common seal of wax, pressed flat with the point of a knife. I smiled as I broke it and unrolled the single sheet of papyrus covered with small, tightly compressed letters. It was from Arthur, the first letter I had ever received from him, and it showed evidence of torturous effort in its composition, with many words written and then struck out afterwards.
The Legate Commander Caius Merlyn Britannicus
Greetings, Cousin:
I write this on the instructions of the Legate Commander Ambrose, who has decided that I must learn the power of words on papyrus. As part of my assigned duties each day, I now must keep a daily log, presenting it to him for his inspection and approval each morning. I find the writing difficult. The writing of the log is not, in itself, difficult, but the selection of the proper words, to describe events without being too precisely, without wasting time or space, consumes much time.
We have come safely to Lindum, where Vortigern the King now keeps his strength, after moving south from his former stronghold in Eboracum three years ago. We are quartered in the ancient Roman fort of Lindum itself, which is being fortified anew, with stone walls being erected atop the old, earthen walls. We had no trouble on the wad, except for one incident which I unfortunately missed, when a small party of our advance scouts was waylaid by a band of wandering brigands who outnumbered them by five to one. The brigands had never fought armed horsemen before, and they fared ill. I wish I had been there.
Our troopers have struck wonder into all the people here in Lindum. Nothing like them has ever been seen in these lands. King Vortigern would be well pleased were we to stay here, but Ambrose has told him that we must return. Ambrose, I felt, was as unhappy to say so as the King was to hear it. He has much loyalty to Vortigern, from former times, I think. We are to make one great, rapid sweep around the King's main holdings here, in company with Vortigern, before we leave. Ambrose plans to penetrate the great forests to the south and east, to show our strength to the Danes and Saxons living there. I am really looking Sadly, Ambrose says we will not fight, but that we will appear prepared to fight. King Vortigern has never ridden in a saddle with stirrups, and he says that he is now too old to learn, so he will ride bareback as he always has.
Ambrose says that when we have completed that long sweep, we will leave for home immediately, but I hope that he will bring us directly to Cambria and that the war will still be in progress.
I look forward to seeing you again. Greet Bedwyr for me. I wonder if he has blooded his sword yet.
Arthur.
I read the epistle three times, smiling more broadly each time as I imagined the effort the boy had put into its composition. I sympathized utterly with him, recalling clearly my own laborious attempts at writing down my thoughts when I was even older than he now was. The stricken out words and the few blots that marred the sheet delighted me particularly, since they showed that Arthur had not yet progressed sufficiently along the path to have realized that a letter could be drafted first, painfully and messily, then rewritten completely. Well, I thought, he would soon learn all of that, just as surely as he would learn not to yearn for the death and violence of war. That thought, with all its implications, robbed me of any further desire to smile, and I turned to Ambrose's letter.
Lindum.
Ambrose Britannicus to Caius Merlyn Britannicus;
Hail, Brother!
I wonder which of these two missives you will open first? My intuition tells me that, despite your need to learn the status quo here in the northeast from me, your natural decision will be to read what Arthur has to say first. I must remember to ask you, when next we meet.
Vortigern is well and, to my delight, living in Lindum, which has permitted me to spend some time with my adoptive parents, Jacob and Gwilla. You have never met Gwilla, my mother's sister, but she has asked me to convey her best wishes to you, and so has Jacob, who remembers you well.
The King is as healthy and as ambitious as he ever was, and the knowledge came as a pleasant surprise. I truly had expected that he would be dead, and that his territories would be torn by civil war, but that is not the case. He has great problems, nevertheless, all of them emanating from Hengist's brat Horsa, but it has not come to open war between them, to this point. I have little faith it will remain that way, however. Horsa, from all I hear, has been preparing for war in earnest now for several years and has amassed a mighty army—five to ten thousand warriors, depending upon the source one listens to—which, to this time, he has kept firmly based far south and east of here, among the great marshes of the coastal fens. From there, they have historically raided south, against the Saxon newcomers established there, and that honours the bargain made initially with Vortigern—to help him keep his kingdom free of Saxon invaders—and has led to the precarious, hostile peace that has prevailed up here for years now.
As I say, I expect that to change very soon. My own analysis leads me to suspect that, in terms of his rumoured strength, the ten thousand estimate might be more accurate, and even short of the mark. I base that upon my own evaluation of his immediate fighting requirements, taking into account the vastness of the territory he has to contain: the area we call the Saxon Shore, directly southward of his base. Recent, reliable reports gathered by Vortigern indicate that the Saxons in the south grow stronger and more numerous every year. The fleets arriving annually are growing larger, bringing hordes of land hungry Outlanders to swell the numbers already here, and new fleets are coming, too, from new directions, as the word of land for the taking spreads among the tribes of the Germanic territories that the Romans held underfoot for so long. There is nothing to hold them now, with the Roman restraint abolished, and they are sweeping into Britain in multiplying thousands each year, claiming and clearing land and spreading outwards all the time from the boundaries they held the previous year.
Much of that outward spread nowadays is focused northward, in order to keep the sea within their reach, for t
hese are all seafaring tribes; that means Horsa has his hands full, at present, in beating back these incursions, and he has neither the time nor the resources to cast his eyes backward at Vortigern's kingdom. But the enemy is being constantly renewed and resupplied, and I believe that Horsa must soon fall back into Vortigern's domain, in order to establish a new line that he can hold against the incursions from the south At that point, the northward surge may flag and stop, but the expansion will then seek other outlets, and in the meantime, Horsa's army will be cheek by jowl with Vortigern's.
I greatly fear we may have grown complacent in our western Colony, assuming a safety that is spurious, simply because we are removed from sight and sound of these upheavals. Numbers of such vastness as those reportedly pouring into the eastern lands will not be long contained, because, extensive as the Saxon Shore may seem to us in Camulod, it cannot long sustain the kind of crowding that is occurring now, and the time must soon come when the exploding growth must spill out into other regions of Britain. It follows logically that any such spillage must be to the west, towards us.
How goes the Cambrian campaign, I wonder. It is much in my thoughts, because I now fear that the war against Ironhair and Carthac is by far the lesser of the problems facing us; a local squabble when compared to the threat stirring here on the other side of Britain. Because of the seriousness of my concern over matters here, I have decided to look into things myself, and that will mean extending my stay here by not less than a month, in order to undertake a wide ranging and fast moving sweep of the southern territories. I do not intend to linger anywhere during that manoeuvre, nor will I seek conflict. I simply intend to demonstrate our presence and potential force, as allies of Vortigern, and to gain a clearer understanding at first hand of the forces that may be ranged against us in the future. In the meantime, lam sending this dispatch in the hands of Paul Sulla, to forewarn you.
Vortigern, as we surmised he might, wants me to remain here in the north for an extended time, but I have already convinced him that I must return to Camulod as soon as possible. I have, however, promised to return next year, in even greater strength. I am convinced that this is the proper and appropriate course to adopt, and I am equally convinced you will agree, once you come to understand the gravity of what I have discovered.
Two alternative courses lie open to us next year, as I see it: if the Cambrian war is concluded, you and I will ride up here together; if it still drags on, however, then I will conduct it while you come north to form your own opinion of matters here. I consider that need—for you to come here personally—to be imperative. I see enormous danger here, the potential for great and dire conflict, and that has forced me to reconsider most of the beliefs I once questioned in you, when I thought you guilty of unwarranted xenophobia. Ironhair and Carthac and their like may be contentious and intractable, but I now see that they are Celts like us, our own people in the final analysis. The threats we face from the seething hordes now investing this northeastern land, on the other hand, might well culminate in the annihilation of our people and our very way of life in Britain, should we not take timely steps to counteract them.
I shall return to Camulod as soon as I am able. If you are then still in Cambria, I shall join you there. In either eventuality, I will have far more information by that time than I possess now.
Farewell, and may the gods of war smile upon your army.
Ambrose
I sat motionless after the first reading of that long, astonishing missive, allowing its tone and tidings to settle themselves within my mind at their own speed and making no attempt to analyse what Ambrose had actually said therein. I knew that anything else, any reaction I permitted myself at that time, would be ill considered. I wished to reread the letter several times and then think the entire situation through in detail before I spoke of it to anyone else. And then, knowing how my own mind works, I turned to Dedalus's dispatch, trusting myself to work on Ambrose's information while I digested Ded's.
I opened the cylinder and broke the plain seal on the document. As I might have expected, Ded wasted no time on salutations or frippery but came straight to the point.
Cay:
Young Paul Sulla arrived today, on his way to find you and deliver dispatches from Ambrose, so I am sending this with him. He is preparing to leave now, so I have little time. I have no idea what Ambrose might have said to you in his dispatches, but from the few hints I have squeezed out of young Sulla, I gather he will not be back as soon as he had thought, and also that there is more going on up in Northumbria than we might have suspected. At least Vortigern is still alive, and Sulla said nothing of war.
This now in relation to your arrangements for the build up of new, allied forces outside Camulod: the expedition we had planned, one hundred strong, went out to Nero Niger Appius and Corinium within the first week after you left, and it has met with great success. Corinium is now alive again, with people living behind its walls and the beginnings of a garrison undergoing training with our men. Early reports seem confident, although I continue to have doubts about making soldiers out of farmers and peasants. Those doubts are my own, however, and I am prepared to be convinced of my error.
Two similar expeditions have gone out since then, one of them to the next town north of Corinium. It had no name, or if it ever did it has been long forgotten. Our people are now calling it Secunda. The third expedition went to Tertia—as you might expect—another nameless old marching camp fortification to the south of us, some twenty miles west of Lindinis. That was unexpected, but a delegation arrived here one day, prompted by the success of the Corinium plan. Someone from the Tertia region had been up there and spoken with Nero Niger, and had returned home filled with enthusiasm. Apparently Tertia is good farm country and well populated. I took the matter to Council, and they approved, so Tertia was launched, and I am told that in the space of less than two months they have progressed as far as the Corinium people have in four.
Now there are two more expeditions being prepared, both of them bound for similar places with no name, but with the remnants of old Roman walls in place and fertile fields nearby.
Your plan for this region is working, my friend, no matter what frustrations you are facing where you ate. I thought you might be glad to know that.
Everything here is as it should be, though I do not enjoy working with the Council—too much discussion, too little decision. The garrison matters proceed smoothly, nonetheless, and that I do enjoy. I see your Lady Tressa frequently, usually with your brother's wife Ludmilla. It is clear they have become good friends, so disabuse yourself of any thought that she is languishing without you. In truth, she seems so much at home here now in Camulod, no one would ever think she is but a new arrival. I know that, too, will please you. I would have asked her if she had words for me to send to you with this, had that been possible, but Sulla is anxious to be on his way and is fretting as he waits even for this from me.
Get rid of Ironhair and Carthac quickly, but do it thoroughly.
Decapitation is thorough.
Dedalus
Decapitation! I grinned to myself, shaking my head as I released Ded's letter and allowed it to roll up on itself.
The news was good concerning the outlying settlements, and I was grateful, and a little surprised, that he had thought to send it. His reservations on the quality of the garrisons we were building in those new settlements were no surprise to me, though. Ded was a professional soldier, and he simply could not believe that any other kind of man could be successful in soldiery. The best tidings, however, were those concerning Tress and Ludmilla. The mere mention of Tressa's name had filled me with warmth and homesickness, and now I allowed myself to think of her for long moments, recalling the smell and the taste of her, the laughter in her eyes and the sound of her voice, admitting to myself that I missed her sorely. Then, aware that I was being self indulgent, I replaced Ded's letter in its cylinder and took up Ambrose's lengthy dispatch again.
I had barely f
inished reading it for the second time when I heard Donuil's voice speaking my name. He pulled back the flap of my tent and entered, followed closely by Derek. Donuil had a strange look on his face, and I was suddenly aware of a hubbub of raised voices outside. "What's wrong?"
Donuil shook his head in a tiny gesture of perplexity. "I'm not sure. Connor sailed east—d'you expect him to come back that way?"
"Aye, or directly from the south. What are you talking about?"
"Well, either he's coming back from the west, or there's another big bireme coming to visit us."
"Coming from the west? Show me."
I forced myself to move slowly and deliberately, rolling my brother's letter up carefully and slipping it back into its wallet. That done, I moved to the entrance, holding the flap open for Donuil to pass in front of me. There was no need to go any further; the great, dark, solitary shape approaching rapidly in the offshore waters was unmistakable.
"Well, that's not Connor," I said softly, after my first glance. "So whoever it might be, he's from Ironhair, and he's not passing by. I doubt he'd be foolhardy enough to attempt an attack of any kind from there, and he has no other vessels with him, so we must presume we have a visitor wishing to speak with us."
Donuil stood close by, watching me as I spoke, and I was conscious that his were not the only eyes on me.
"Let's show them some discipline, Donuil. Assemble our people on the beach in full battle order. I'd estimate we may have half an hour before they reach us—that is, if they don't sheer off and resume their journey. Pass word to the senior commanders to change to full parade armour immediately, if you please, and send my orderly here at once, to help me with my own preparations. We have no time to waste."
EIGHT
Donuil returned to my tent just as I was removing my heavy war cape, having decided that it was too hot and that I had put it on too soon. He, too, had changed into parade gear and carried his ornately crested helmet in the crook of his left arm, and I looked him up and down approvingly.