by Whyte, Jack
He had heard nothing, either, from Vortigern's country to the far north-east, and so he expected that nothing there had changed. Vortigern, despite his ever-increasing problems with the Outlanders he had brought in years before to help him protect his people, must still be in control there, Ambrose believed, or we would have heard something to the contrary, and that, in turn, meant that Hengist the Dane was yet hale enough to dominate his fractious son Horsa.
Young Arthur sat quietly, listening to what was being said, his narrowed, tightly focused eyes indicating that his interest in what he was hearing was absolute. I noticed his head come up at the mention of Vortigern's name, and I saw plainly, from the look in his eyes, that he wished to speak, although I knew he would never have dreamed of interrupting us.
"What is it, Arthur? You look as though you have something you wish to say."
The boy stiffened and flushed with embarrassment at being noticed, and he began to shake his head, almost squirming in his sudden discomfort and plainly wishing the floor would open and swallow him. Watching him, I divined the source of his discomfiture immediately, and I found myself biting my lip distractedly, somewhat guiltily aware that the lessons I had been teaching him all winter had sunk home too well.
Ever since he and his companions had boisterously broken in on me on one occasion several months before, interrupting me without warning and distracting me greatly while I was in conference with Derek and his advisers on the terms and conditions that would apply to our tenancy of Derek's lands at Mediobogdum, I had taken considerable pains to convince the lad of the need for decorum in his behaviour around grown-ups. I was furious at the outset, and Arthur was made well aware that he had behaved badly that day, and that I had been much inconvenienced and put out of countenance by his thoughtlessness and irresponsibility.
It occurred to me now, however, upon seeing his reaction to my casual comment, that what I had viewed with so much displeasure had been no more than boyish high spirits finding their own outlet as they always have and always will. I had been too hard on the lad, to such an extent, indeed, that he squirmed now upon merely being addressed.
Ambrose looked, in some astonishment, from Arthur's face to mine, raising his eyebrow as if to ask me what in God's name was going on. Stricken by momentary cowardice, I merely shrugged. Ambrose looked back at the boy, whose head was hanging.
"Arthur? What's wrong with you? Do you have to pee?"
The boy looked up, his face flushed, and met Ambrose's gaze. "No, Uncle Ambrose."
'Then what's wrong with you? Didn't you hear what your Uncle Cay asked you?"
"Yes ... He asked if I had something I wished to say."
"And? Do you?" Arthur shook his head, very slightly, and not at all convincingly. "What's that? You have nothing to say?"
"No, Uncle."
"Well, there's a novelty! You have been sitting there listening to us for what, an hour? And you have nothing to say, no questions to ask, no comments to make? Are you Arthur Pendragon? Don't sit there staring at me, lad! I asked you a question. I thought you were my nephew, but now there seems to be some doubt. Are you Arthur Pendragon?"
The suggestion of a smile came and went from the boy's mouth. "Yes, Uncle Ambrose, I am."
"You are, by God! I thought you were. Then what's wrong with you? Why have you no questions in your head, for the first time ever since you learned to say a word? Have you been stricken mute? Have ants devoured your brain? Speak to me, boy! Tell me you are still alive, unchanged, unchallenged and unchained!"
Now young Arthur was smiling widely, his eyes dancing at his uncle's wit and ebullience, but he ducked his head again and deferred to me. "Uncle Cay has told me that young boys' opinions have no place in men's discussions."
"No, Arthur, that is not true—" I broke off, seeing the shocked surprise and disbelief in his startled eyes. I rose and moved to where he sat, laying my hand firmly on his shoulder as I sat down beside him. "Your Uncle Ambrose has no idea what we are talking about here, but you and I do, only too well." I then told Ambrose the story of Arthur and his friends interrupting my session with Derek and his counsellors and the lesson I had tried to teach.
I straightened up and sighed, looking only at Arthur, who gazed back, steadfastly now, into my eyes.
"I set out to teach you a lesson: that boys' voices have no place in men's affairs when and if their contributions are mere boyish noises and ill manners. I can see that you have learned that. But I also see now that you may have learned it too well, and incompletely. Can you see why speaking out tonight would be a different matter, and not an offence to your uncle and me? Think, please, as well as I know you are capable of thinking, about what I have just said." Even as I was saying the words I saw his brow clear and he nodded, slowly. "Aha. You see it now, the difference?"
Again he nodded. "Yes, I think so."
"Good. What is it?"
"Boys' voices have no place in men's affairs when and if their contributions are mere loud noises and ill manners ... " He arched his eyebrows the way he did in class, before he would articulate some thought that had occurred to him. "If that is true, it follows logically, therefore, that boys' voices may have some place in those affairs if they are serious and well informed." His eyes flicked from me to my brother and back to me. "Is that not so?"
"Aye, it is." I could smile again now, and I laid my hand on his head. "Serious is the key word, meaning sober and attentive and respectful. But a serious boy need not necessarily be well informed. Well intentioned might be a better way of putting it, for well-intentioned questions, well presented at the proper time, can lead to his becoming well informed ... Now, if you can remember what you wanted to contribute to this discussion, ask away."
The boy went very still, his gaze sharpening and his brows creasing very slightly as he marshalled his thoughts. Then he rocked from side to side, placing his hands palms down on his seat and anchoring them with his thighs, after which he sat hunched forward, gazing into the middle distance. I looked across his head to where Ambrose sat watching. Our eyes met, and Ambrose raised his eyebrows in a gesture of tolerant amusement, but our boy had now finished his deliberations.
"Not so much a question as a wondering," Arthur said. "I was wondering why it is that every great leader seems to carry the seeds of his own defeat with him, and why some of them manage to avoid having those seeds germinate, while others fail and perish because of them."
It was my turn now to be astonished. From time to time this boy, who lived and functioned as a normal, wild and thoughtless boy from day to day, was capable of coming up with the most astoundingly complex thoughts, observations and conclusions.
"Were we discussing that?"
"No, but you were talking of Vortigern."
"Yes, and where is the relevance to our discussion in your question?"
My tolerant question of the boy drew a disparaging glance and a withering response from the seldom-seen but very impressive man who dwelt inside him. "Isn't that obvious? Vortigern sowed the seeds of his own downfall When he imported Hengist's Danes to stand with him against the other invaders. My great-grandfather, Publius Varrus, wrote about it in his books, and so did Uncle Picus, and so have you, in your writings. In his hope of keeping the foxes away from his ducks, he brought a wolf into his house to live with him. He has committed the same basic error that the Romans did, when they took subject races and trained them in their own way of fighting, teaching them to overthrow the Empire. Alexander the Great, on the other hand, was far more fortunate. His weakness went unperceived."
"Alexander of Macedon?" Ambrose was grinning from ear to ear. "What was his weakness? He conquered the world, so it could not have been an overwhelming one."
"On the contrary, Uncle Ambrose, it could have been— should have been—a fatal one."
My brother frowned as though insulted, then looked at me. I kept my face blank, feeling no need to admit that my ignorance was as great as his. Arthur, in the meantime, was looking from on
e to the other of us, and I would have sworn he was unaware that neither of us knew what he was talking about. Finally, Ambrose bowed to the inevitable.
"Well, then, I admit you have me. What weakness have you identified in Alexander of Macedon—apart from his cavalry?" He was being facetious, of course, but the boy shook his head.
"No. That was it."
"What are you saying?" Ambrose's expression was ludicrous. "That it was a weakness? His cavalry?"
"No, his Companions."
"His—?" Ambrose threw up his arms in exasperation and looked to me for support. For my part, feeling as bewildered as he was, I schooled my features into calmness and cleared my throat before saying anything else. Arthur looked at me, waiting to hear what I would say.
"Arthur ... The Companions ... there are some who would say ... " I was beginning to feel ridiculous, and I cleared my throat ferociously and began again. "Look, boy, I have no wish to argue with you, but the Companions are generally accepted, by those who know anything about them, as the greatest fighting force of the Ancient World. They were hand-chosen by their king, Philip of Macedon, and they trained with him and rode to battle with him at their own expense, providing all their own horses, armour, weaponry and equipment. Each was an individual champion, a warrior of renown and unimaginable value, and when King Philip died, a victim of assassination, they transferred their entire allegiance to his son, the young Alexander, and conquered the world under his leadership, long before Rome had begun to gain any power of her own. How could they be defined, by you or anyone, as a weakness?"
Arthur grimaced. "Only in error. You are correct, Uncle. I've made the same mistake I made before: inexactitude. But, if I may say it without being impertinent, so have you and Uncle Ambrose. What I said at first was that every great leader seems to carry the seeds of his own defeat with him. It is the idea of the seeds that is important. It was Alexander's Companions who carried the seeds."
"What seeds, Arthur?"
"Their primary weapon of attack, the sarissa."
"The sarissa?" I could feel Ambrose's blank amazement and utter incomprehension mirrored on my own countenance. "Forgive me, lad, but I have no idea what you mean. We have been trying to improve upon Alexander's sarissa, in Camulod, ever since we first began to train our soldiers to ride horses."
"I know you have, and Uncle Ambrose is still working with it. But the design has changed. The weapons that the Camulodian troopers use are not sarissas, and therefore they are not so dangerous. Besides, Uncle Ambrose has also developed the means of counterbalancing their threat, even if it were there."
I looked at Ambrose. "My felicitations on that. What did you do?"
Ambrose shook his head and gestured with his hand to Arthur, attracting his attention. When he had it, he stood up and moved close to the fire, speaking down to the boy. "Tell me, Arthur, where have you learned all this about the sarissa?"
"From the books written by Publius Varrus and Caius Britannicus. The books from the Armoury in Camulod. We brought them with us when we came here."
"I know you did, but I thought I had read all of them, and yet I have no recollection of anything being said, in any of the volumes I have read, about the sarissa being a thing of weakness, or even a seed of weakness, which means I have not read all of them."
"Well, no ... "
"What does that mean?"
The boy shrugged. "That was never said, exactly, in any of the books. It was something that occurred to me while I was reading, and I merely wondered at it, when first I noticed it. I didn't think of it as weakness until much later, about a year ago, when I was thinking about how the Empire collapsed, and the weakness within the system that led to that."
I moved to interrupt him, but Ambrose waved me to silence. "No, Caius, let him finish. This is important, I think. I can see that weakness, Arthur, the Imperial flaw, I mean, but not the Alexandrian one. How—exactly how— did you come to construe the sarissa as a fatal weakness? No one else ever has, to my knowledge. Have you, Cay?"
I merely shook my head. Arthur looked from one to the other of us again, his eyes wide, and then his face split in a wide grin, his lambent, gold-coloured eyes laughing in disbelief.
"You are making fun of me. You know the answer better than I do. That's how you found the solution."
"No, Arthur, I'm not laughing at you, and neither is Caius Merlyn. I cannot see the problem—how then could I have found the solution to it? Tell us, as simply as you can, what you noticed, what made you think of this. We do not know, so you must enlighten us."
"But—"
"No buts! Tell us, simply. Where are these seeds of defeat?"
"In the length of the weapon, and the techniques the Companions used in fighting with it." He stopped again, but neither of us spoke or sought to interrupt him further. "It was a great, long thing, six paces long, heavy and unwieldy. They carried it in their opening charge, the butt end over their shoulders, the metal point angled downwards against the infantry before them. They skewered the front ranks and left the sarissas in the bodies of the men they had killed ... " His voice faltered. "Is that not so?"
"Aye, it is," Ambrose said, quietly. "And a terrifying sight they must have been, charging down upon a line of men on foot. A solid wall of men on heavy horses, fronted by that line of downward angled spears. Little wonder they were invincible."
"But think of it, Uncle! Great, heavy spears, each one six paces long. What would have happened had one man, one clever, brave, far-seeing enemy, ever thought to pick up those abandoned spears, or to make similar spears, and arm his foot soldiers with them, arranging the men on foot into a wall as well? Think of that! A wall of warriors, shoulder to shoulder, using those sarissas reversed, so that their butts rested firm on the ground and their points reared upward and out, towards the charging horsemen?"
The silence that followed that amazing insight stretched for a long, long time as Ambrose and I sat stunned, visualizing what the boy had described—a realization that had escaped the eyes of all the world for seven centuries. Alexander's cavalry had won him the world, but young Arthur Pendragon, had he lived at that time, could have devised the great Macedonian conqueror's downfall.
Faced with disciplined troops, using their own weapon against them, Alexander's cavalry would have been impotent and ruined. Here was an insight that had evaded every celebrated commentator down the ages, and it had been deduced, without assistance, by one small boy, who sat silent now, waiting timidly for his two towering uncles to ridicule his proposition.
I sat staring into the fire for so long that my eyes teared, but eventually Ambrose made his way to the table that held the ewers of beer and mead. There, deep in thought, he filled a cup for himself before turning back to look at the boy, cradling the cup, his drink untasted.
"We use Alexander's techniques in Camulod."
"Aye, Uncle, we do, but not the sarissa. Our spears are shorter—suited to a man on horseback, but not long enough to be used against him in the fashion I described by a man on foot."
"Aye, but you have put the idea into words now, lad, and once that's done, no matter how quietly it may be done, words have a way of spreading. You said I found the solution. If I have, I've done it blindly. What is it?"
"Our bowmen, of course! If anyone should ever attempt to use such spears against our cavalry, they will have to crowd together in a massed assembly, forming a wall and not merely holding, but bracing their spears, and that would leave them at the mercy of our bows. The concentrated fire of massed bowmen, in conjunction with our cavalry as you advocate its use, Uncle, would destroy any such formation before it could become effective. I thought you were aware of that. I was sure that's why you had been so adamant about combining both groups to back up our infantry."
"Hmm!" Ambrose smiled and shook his head, looking at me in rueful acknowledgment of my pride in my pupil. "Aye ... Well, I know it now, and be assured I'll never lose sight of it again." He placed his new-filled cup on the table, untouched
. "Gentlemen, I am going to sleep ... I think. I know, at least, that I am going to try to sleep. Whether or not I am successful will depend upon the thoughts you have implanted in my mind this night, young Arthur. It's very late, and you should be abed, too." He glanced at me, his face unreadable. "Much to think about in the meantime, Brother, no?" I nodded, saying nothing. "Aye, much to think about ... boxes within boxes. We will talk more of this, come morning."
We parted company outside the room and Arthur walked by my side as we made our way to my sleeping quarters. I walked cautiously, my hand cupped protectively around the single candle flame we took with us to light our way. My room lay some distance away, and I was not yet familiar enough with Derek's great house to find my way there confidently in darkness, should we lose the candle's light. So deep in thought was I that the boy's voice startled me when it came. I had almost forgotten he was there, so softly did he walk.
"Uncle, what did Uncle Ambrose mean when he said 'boxes within boxes'?"
I coughed, giving myself time to think, unwilling to lie by saying I did not know. "He was referring to the import of what you have said ... what you have discovered, I should say. He was paying tribute to your mind's acuity, Arthur, and I concur in his judgment. That you should perceive this weakness of Alexander's at all is amazing—no one else ever has. But that you should have arrived at the knowledge unassisted, and at such a young age, based only upon your own reading and observations, is quite confounding.
It makes one wonder what other things might become clear to you, thus casually, things that have confounded older, and supposedly more clever, men for years, or even decades or centuries. Upon but little thought, there seems to be no end to the possibilities. That is what your uncle meant, in speaking of boxes within boxes. Do you understand that?"