The Eagles' Brood

VII

I was enjoying a meal of cold sausage, cheese, bread and home-brewed beer when I heard my name being shouted in the street outside. The woman of the house looked at me curiously as a fist hammered on the door. I nodded to her and she opened it to admit one of my squad leaders who stepped into the room and snapped to attention as he saw me sitting at the table.

"Commander Caius, sir, I thought you'd be asleep."

"I was, but now I'm eating, as you see. What is it?"

The man's eyes were wide with the portent of his message as he snapped out, "Courier, sir, from Camulod. You are to return at once. The Lord Varrus lies dying."

I was on my feet before he finished, my chair clattering over backwards. "Where's Commander Uther?"

He shrugged, his eyes admitting that he had already tried to find that out. "Nobody seems to know, sir."

"Damn the man! He's never—" I cut myself short, regretting the words as I allowed them to slip out. "Send out some men to search the wine shops. He's off duty. Find him, and quickly!"

"Yes, Commander." He saluted and withdrew and I righted my chair and sat down again, all thought of food forgotten.

Publius Varrus was a constant in my life. The thought of his being ill was alien to me and yet, if he were ill enough to cause our recall, he must really be close to death. I tried to think of how old he was, but I had no real idea. Uncle Varrus was ageless. Other men grew old, but not he. The only time I had seen him ailing was when Ullic and Equus and Bishop Alaric had all died close together. But the joy of showing me Excalibur had brought him back to health, back to himself, back to living again. And now he was sick.

Suddenly, for no real reason at all, I knew where Uther would be. We had stopped at a house on the way into town," a place that had once been a mansio, an official hostelry for travellers and soldiers before the legions left. It still survived, catering to those travellers yet brave enough or desperate enough to dare the roads between Glevum and Aquae Sulis. The fellow who kept it now had been well supplied with sluttish serving maids and a couple of them had caught Uther's roving eye. I knew that was where he would be. We had just ended the northern sweep of our patrol in Glevum and were to remain here three days to rest our horses and allow our quartermaster to buy up the list of items he would not be able to find in Aquae Sulis. The second leg of our patrol would take us back to Camulod through that town, and this was our first full day of relaxation. And to Uther, relaxation required women.

Uther had always been ahead of me in matters concerning women and sex. We were born within the same hour of the same day, but it was he who led the way to physical, sexual maturity at every step. His was the first erection, the first pubic hair, the first ejaculation and, of course, the first penetration of a female body. I lagged behind always, learning from him, letting him show me how. In almost every other field save war, it was I who led the way while Uther followed, but to a growing boy there is no area of life more crucial than the sexual one and I felt constantly betrayed* condemned by my own body to be forever second best. Even well into manhood, I would have a dream in which I was with Uther in a grand debauch. This dream was different from those I thought of as my terror dreams: it never varied and was always clear. We would be surrounded by voluptuous, wanton beauties, Uther lying back, laughing in sensual pleasure, displaying his jutting; arrogant maleness to their admiring looks and caresses, and always one woman, her fingers hooked into a rake, would comb the hairs on his bared belly and clasp his phallus. The blood by this time would be hammering behind my eyes and I would feel hands tugging at my clothes as my own seed threatened to spill, and then would come the laughter, and the shame of looking down to see my own hairless body and the smallness of a little boy's pizzle. Our minds can do strange things to us. I was never less than a month or so behind Uther in development at any stage and I was no less well equipped than he, nor did I have any problem in performance or in gratifying any woman's desire and yet, somewhere in my mind, that deep-seated fear persisted.

I thanked the woman who had fed me and left some silver coins on the table. My horse was tethered right outside the door and as I swung into the saddle I scanned the empty street, looking vainly for one of my men. Two streets further south, I met a party of them on foot, all reasonably sober.

"Quintus," I called to the biggest of them. "I am recalled to Camulod with Commander Uther. Extreme emergency. Illness in the family. Find Dedalus, give him my apologies for not taking the time to contact him personally, and tell him he is now in command. Commander Uther and I will ride alone. Dedalus is to finish the patrol as planned. Tell him Commander Varrus is dying and we must ride on ahead. There are search parties out looking for Commander Uther, but I think I know where he is, and they won't find him. If I am wrong, and he is still here in Glevum, I will be waiting for him at the hostelry ten miles south of the town. I will have extra horses with me, so tell him he need not waste time with that. Do you understand?" I waited while he repeated it back to me verbatim, then I returned his salute and kicked my horse into a gallop to our depot where I picked up two extra horses and some food before heading out of town.

I remember riding those first ten miles trying to think of anything that would take my mind away from Uncle Varrus and what his death would mean. I was eighteen years old and although this was my fourth patrol, it was the first that Uther and I had commanded jointly without overt supervision. It crossed my mind that our first responsibility should be to the patrol before all else, but I dismissed the thought very quickly. Dedalus was a senior centurion and my father had charged him with the authority to override our orders if he believed Uther and I were acting foolishly or rashly at any time.

It had hurt my pride at the time to think that we were only nominal commanders, but my intellect had reassured me that this last patrol with Dedalus was to have been our final test. Now it turned out that we could not complete it.

It was late afternoon by the time I drew near to the hostelry, and as I did so I began to get a bad feeling in my gut, a feeling that my boyhood Druid teachers had taught me to respect, since they believed that what we call intuition is a natural gift that man has allowed to grow rusty. I have always been glad of the emphasis they placed on that teaching. It almost certainly saved my life that day.

I drew rein about a hundred paces from the place and sat there looking at it, remembering that I had not liked the looks of some of the characters who had been there when we arrived two days previously. If Uther had gone in there alone, and I reasoned that he would have, because of who and what he was, he could have bought himself trouble along with a jug of beer. If, on the other hand, he was not there at all and I rode in alone, mounted on one horse and leading two more, I would be buying myself trouble of the same kind. My uniform would not save me, nor would any air of authority I might command. I was a man alone who could be dealt with quickly and disposed of cleanly. Any search for me later would produce nothing. I looked around for signs of Uther's horse, but there was nothing to see. It would have been stabled in one of the outhouses at the back or at the side of the main building.

I almost talked myself into believing that I was being foolish. Thank God I didn't believe myself. I left the road and made my way through the trees and around the place without being seen, and tethered the horses safely off the road on the south side, and then I walked back. I left my war cloak, my shield and my long-sword with the horses and carried only my short-sword and dagger. My helmet felt heavy on my head and my nailed boots rang loudly on the cobbled surface as I walked. I stepped right to the centre of the main courtyard entrance and stopped there, looking around the interior of the yard with care. It was empty. There were no signs of life at all. I crossed the yard quickly, making my way to the main door, and as I did so I heard shouting and commotion from inside. I knew what I would find even before I entered, and I wished I had not left my shield back there with the horses. I paused on the threshold, took a deep breath, then swung the door open and stepped inside, moving immediately to bring my back against the inside wall.

The place was more like a barn than anything else, one huge, communal room with dried rushes on the floor and trestle tables scattered here and there for the clientele's eating needs, if not their drinking. A long table standing against the wall to my right held amphorae and casks of ale. A massive, open fireplace in the opposite wall held spits for roasting meat. Directly across from where I stood, a wide, open flight of wooden steps led to a second level, like a loft, which served as sleeping quarters and business premises for the women.

Uther had thrown a table of some kind lengthwise across the top of this stairway and was hard set defending it, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, against a mob of eight or nine desperate-looking rogues. I didn't know how long he had been there, but I had the distinct feeling that the fun had only just begun, there was not enough evidence of violent action lying around for the fracas to have been older, and he could not have hoped to hold out for long against so many. They were crowded together at the top of the stairs, hampering themselves, but all they would have to do was take their time and they would overwhelm him sooner or later. As I took all of this in, one of the girls up in the loft with him leaped onto Uther's back, wrapping her legs around his waist and attempting to pin his arms to his sides and render him defenceless. There was a concerted roar from his assailants and from him as he broke the grip of her arms, wrenched her free and threw her over his shoulders and down towards his attackers. She screamed as she landed among the men, sweeping one of them with her off the open edge of the stairs to crash to the stone floor beneath. The scattered rushes did nothing to break their fall, and they both lay still. I glanced around me, looking for something I could use as a better weapon than my short-sword and dagger and there, on the floor beside me, lay a spear that I recognized as Uther's. I picked it up, hefting it for balance, and then I was across the floor and up the stairs, feeling the blade of it bite deep between the shoulders of the first man I could reach. I jerked the spearpoint free and pierced the kidney of another man before the first fell back and past me down the stairs. This time I jerked to my left, pushing and guiding my victim off the edge of the stairs, almost losing my balance as the weight of his body fell free of the spear's blade. They still did not know I was there behind them.

"Caius! What kept you?" Uther's welcoming roar told everyone I had arrived and they swung round as one to face me. As they did so Uther's long blade decapitated the rearmost of them and he kicked the headless, spouting corpse to fall among the legs of the others. The man who owned the hostelry, a one-eyed misanthrope who clutched a Roman sword, was right in front of me. I jammed the spear into his belly, just below the ribs and saw death come into his eyes as he dropped the sword and grasped at the shaft of the spear, stopping me from pulling it out. I gave it a vicious twist to lock the barbs and jerked him down towards me, stepping to my left to avoid his fall and almost plunging myself over the edge of the stairs. I hung there, my arms waving in the air, while they all had time to get over their surprise. I saw Uther plant his sword in another's back, but there were still three of them facing me with Uther's sword embedded and me defenceless.

One of them came at me with a roar just as I found my balance. I saw an axe whistling towards me and I jumped, out and backwards, flexing my knees and hoping to land without breaking a leg. In midair, I saw the axe bite deep into the step where I had been standing, and I saw Uther pick up the table that had sheltered him and rush the others on the stairs, sweeping all three of them off balance into a fall. By sheer good luck, I landed like a cat, easily, on all fours, and I was on the whoreson who had swung the axe before he landed at the bottom of the stairs. I had no thought of mercy in my head. The point of my sword grated on the stone floor beneath him and I had to plant my foot on his chest to pull my blade free. I heard a grunt, a chop and a death rattle as Uther clove another of them, and then came scuffling footsteps and the slam of a door. It was over. I collapsed onto the stairs, my head hanging between my knees as I fought for breath, and I heard the sound of the door again.

When I looked up, Uther was standing in the middle of the floor, grinning at me, his chest heaving as he gulped in great breaths. "One of them got away," he wheezed.

"Good riddance. Let him go." I was too exhausted to care.

He crossed the floor and sat on the steps beside me, hooking his right elbow around my neck and squeezing tightly, to my very great discomfort. I was too tired even to struggle and so I just sat there, pulled across him, seeing the curling hair on his thighs that were within inches of my face, smelling the well-known smell of him and thanking God I had arrived when I did.

Eventually he released me and lay back against the stairs and our breathing slowed down and began to return to normal. After the pressure and the tensions of the fight—the first real, life and death struggle in which I had ever been personally involved—I felt as weak as a baby, and I began to tremble all over. I sat erect and clasped my hands together tightly in an effort to control the shaking, and as I did so I became aware of the blood for the first time. It was everywhere. Wherever I looked I saw blood. It lay in puddles and gouts and rope-like streaks on the rushes of the floor. The man who had tried to kill me with the axe lay less than three feet from me, across the legs of the owner of the place whose upper body reared freakishly erect, impaled on Uther's broken spear. He had obviously landed on it as he fell, breaking the shaft and forcing the point clean through himself. Everything misted over and I vomited where I sat, choking and retching on the bitter gall of victory. When my vision, cleared again, I was kneeling on the floor and Uther was removing my helmet, letting the cool, fresh air reach my heated forehead and my sweat-matted hair.

"Feeling better?" I nodded, wiping my lips and chin and spitting to clear the sourness from my mouth. "Good," he went on. I've just decided I do not ever want you to be angry with me. You are a wild man, Cousin, when you are angry. You killed four of these people."

I looked around me at the slaughterhouse. "So did you."

He grinned. "Ah, but I killed them all from behind, while they were watching you."

"I was behind them too, remember. Lucky I found your spear on the floor over there." My voice was shaking. "And lucky you had them all involved at the top of the staircase. If things had been different, we would be dead now, you and I."

"Foolish talk. They weren't and we aren't."

I spat again. "My mouth tastes foul. I need a drink." I rose and crossed to the table with the casks and poured myself a cup of ale. It was flat and stale, bitter and sickening. Unable to swallow it, I rinsed my mouth and gargled and spat the stuff on the floor, feeling better with every second that passed. I looked around me then and nodded at the carnage. "What do we do about this?" As I spoke, I heard a sound above me and my head snapped up to see two women looking down at us from the loft, large-eyed and very frightened. I nodded towards them. "Some more friends of yours?"

Uther looked up and saw them. "Come down here, quickly!" When they had reached us, cowering with terror, their eyes flickering wildly from one to the other of us, he drew his sword again. "Take off those clothes!" They did as he said, and when they stood naked he shook his head slowly from side to side, looking at them in rueful amusement. "Caius, can you believe I almost got killed for this? We almost got killed for this, and I know you wouldn't stick mine into either of these, let alone your own!" The women stood close together, staring at him in fear, not knowing whether they were to live or die, but knowing completely that they were looking at Death himself in my cousin. "You!" he said, pointing his sword at the larger of them. "Turn around. Look at my friend." She turned to face me, her large breasts hanging heavy against her ribs, her belly sagging sadly over her pubic hair. "You almost got him killed, you slut, and he's a prince! He almost died because you teased my lust" with your great, squeezy teats!" He slapped her hard across the buttocks with the flat of his sword and she leaped in fright and pain, tears springing from her eyes. "Get out of my sight, both of you," he roared. "Out! Out, out, out, out!" The smaller one started to reach for her clothes, but he swung his sword again, catching her on the flank with the flat of it. "No!" he roared. "Take your thieving, murderous lives and let that be enough! No clothes. Be born again, as the Christians say. Go naked into a new life as you entered this one and think twice before you dare to tempt another witless reveller to his death! Out!" They ran, scampering in terror across the body-littered floor and out into the gathering dusk.

He watched them go, with that half-crazed grin of his that I loved, and then he slid his sword into the ring in the belt across his shoulders so that the blade hung down his back. "Should I have let them go, Cousin? They did try to kill me."

"No they didn't, Uther. They merely enticed you. All three of them together could hardly have raped you, but only one of them attacked you, and she suffered for it."

He was watching me closely, a half smile still lingering around his mouth.

"You think I was too hard on them?"

"No, not too hard. They deserved some chastisement, I suppose. You let them off lightly."

"But?"

I shook my head. "But nothing. It merely occurred to me to wonder what they'll do now to feed themselves, now that their livelihood is gone."

He grunted. "They'll find a way. What would you have me do, take them with us?" He picked up my helmet and mounted the stairs to the loft, where he gathered his cloak, put on his own helmet and picked up his shield before returning to where I stood watching. As he handed me my helmet he asked, "Did I tell you how glad I was to see you?" I nodded, and he crossed to pick up a lamp that burned by the ale casks. "I'm always glad to see you, Cay, but today you looked beautiful. Usually you are unimpressive. In fact, most of the time, you're almost ugly. Today, however, you were magnificent. Mad, but magnificent." As he prattled on, he was kicking the rushes into a pile at the bottom of the wooden stairs. He decided finally that he had enough of them and dropped the oil-filled lamp so that it broke on the flagstones. As we watched, the flames spread quickly.

"This is no fit place for decent people, anyway." He glanced again at each of the bodies on the floor. "May they rest in peace, as the Christians say. Let's get out of here. Why did you come here, anyway?"

I felt as though I had been doused with icy water. I had forgotten! "Varrus is dying, Uther. We are called back to Camulod."

His face went blank with shock. "No...You can't mean that, Cay. Not Grandfather!"

I could only shake my head. His disbelief mirrored my own so closely, it threatened to unman me. "We have to hurry. I brought extra horses."

We left the hostelry and its silent crew to the leaping flames. Uther's horse was safely stabled in one of the buildings at the rear and I held it steady as he threw the saddle over its back and tightened the cinches, kneeing the horse in the belly as he did so to make sure it wasn't playing tricks on him by distending its gut. In the early days of using the device, we had often found ourselves falling sideways because the harness had not been properly secured. He swung into the saddle and I leaped up behind him and directed him to where I had hidden the other animals. He took the lead rein of one of the extra horses and we headed south, keeping off the road surface to save our horses' hooves.

Neither of us had spoken since we left the hostelry, except for a few grunted directions from me, and the silence lasted until we had ridden for three or four miles at a steady canter. It was Uther who spoke first, breaking into my thoughts and showing me a different, more serious side of himself than he had shown earlier.

"That was foolery, that nonsense back there. I could have been killed...would have been if you hadn't arrived. That would have been no great loss, but I can see now that you and the others would have wasted time and effort turning the country upside-down looking for me. It was criminal and stupid. Forgive me, Cay. I'll never take off again without letting someone know where I can be found. But how in the name of all the Roman gods did you know where to find me?"

"Bodies," I said. "Willing, female bodies. You saw them there when we passed through the first time, and you didn't get to use them, and then you found yourself with three days off within ten miles of them. It wasn't difficult. I know you, Cousin. But you are right. It was stupidity, although had you been killed, I doubt that it would pass as no great loss. Not from your grandfather's viewpoint. In his eyes, you were bred and trained for a purpose, and it wasn't to get yourself killed in a den of thieves and whores."

He said no more for a while, then, "How bad is he? How much time have we lost because of this?"

"I don't know how bad he is, but he must be really ill, or they wouldn't recall us from patrol. It'll take us about three days to reach Camulod at this speed—less if we cut down on sleep. As to time lost, no more than an hour, all told. I had to come this way and I wasted no time looking for you in Glevum. The fight was brief, long as it seemed."

I stood upright in my stirrups and looked back the way we had come. We were in a stretch of open grassland, cleared of trees years earlier by a farmer whose time had long since passed and now showing signs of reverting to forest. I saw a pall of black smoke above the trees in the far distance. We fell back into silence and rode each with his own thoughts.

We changed horses regularly and the miles dropped away behind us. When darkness fell, we took our horses onto the roadbed, riding between the trees on either side, seeing our way by moonlight. We stopped and slept for a brief spell after the moon went down, and were back on our way before the first flush of dawn, stopping only to void our bladders and bowels on that second day. Each time I got down from the saddle for such a purpose, I felt that I would never be able to walk properly again, and the thought of hauling my aching body back up into the saddle daunted me. But we had no trouble on the road and by mid-after- noon of the third day we came in sight of Camulod.

We had been riding through our own home territories for some time by then and had learned from our own outposts only that Varrus had fallen, breaking both legs and several ribs in rolling down the hillside. He had become congested in his lungs and had been spitting blood for the past eight days. Grim-faced, we travelled on, to be met by Aunt Luceiia at the entrance to the villa. She looked fragile, yet somehow indomitable, as she smiled at us through her tears.

When we had kissed her, Uther spoke. "How is he, Grandmother?"

"In great pain. But he's a stubborn man and will not die before he speaks to both of you."

There it was. We both knew there was no point in uttering stupidities about his not dying.

"Can we go to him now?" I asked.

"Of course you can. He is in his day-room." We left her and walked rapidly towards the room that had been my own grandfather's day-room. Both of our fathers were there already, one on either side of the bed. Patricus, head of the Colony's Council, was there too, white-haired and solemn. I could have wept when I saw what had happened to my great-uncle since we had left, just two short weeks before. He was a different man, a stranger to my sight. Only the eyes, set in the sunken, withered, pain-racked face showed me the Publius Varrus that I loved, and even they were misted with pain.

"Uther," he said. "And Caius. Welcome home." His voice was a hoarse whisper. He held out a clawlike, shrunken hand to each of us, and as I took his hand in my own I saw how the skin of his once-mighty wrist hung in folds and wrinkles from the bones. I pressed his hand to my cheek, feeling the wetness of my tears between the two surfaces. "What are the tears for, boy? This is the way of all men. We all have to die. I have lived far longer than I ought to have, and I have lived well. Have you ridden far?" I nodded my head, unable to speak. "I thought so." The parchment whisper held a trace of the old humour. "You smell like horses, both of you. Caius, this was your grandfather's bed. He enjoyed it for years before he died. I've had it only for days. I do not intend to die in it with the smell of rancid horse sweat in my nostrils." His fingers squeezed my hand gently. "Go you and bathe, both of you. I'll still be here when you are clean. Then I shall speak with each of you alone." His hand pushed gently against mine, "Go. I will not die before I speak with you, I promise. Picus, are the baths prepared?"

"Of course they are, Varrus. Have you ever known them not to be?"

"Aye, I have. Once. The hypocausts were blocked. But you were not here then."

My father spoke to us. "Do as he says. You'll feel better. And find something to eat. Publius Varrus should have some rest." Unwillingly, we rose to do as we were bidden.

When we returned, clean smelling and refreshed, we found Aunt Luceiia sitting by the bedside, holding one of her husband's wrinkled hands between her own. His eyes were closed, but he opened them as he heard our footsteps crossing the room and he smiled at us. "Ah," he whispered. "That's better. These are the boys I know. Cay, go with your Aunt Luceiia and keep her company while I speak with Uther. Uther, come here and sit where I can see you."

Aunt Luceiia and I left the two of them alone and I closed the doors behind me as we left the room. She led me through the house into the family room, her own domain, and nodded for me to sit on one of the couches. "Well, Caius," she said, "Publius Varrus will not be here with us much longer, now." I swallowed the painful lump in my throat and managed to ask her what had happened. She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture remarkably like the one I had seen her husband use a thousand times. "Nobody knows, Cay. He won't tell us, and nobody saw it. He had been down here at the villa all that afternoon and was on his way home to the fort when it happened. It was after dark, we know that much, for if it had been earlier, he would have been seen." Her face crumpled and she began to weep. I crossed to where she sat and held her as she spoke through her grief. "He always was a strong and stubborn man. Too stubborn to grow old as others do. Too stubborn to admit a loss of strength or youth. I believe he put his horse to the hillside, rather than take the long route up the road. I think he lost his balance and fell from the horse. He never could abide to use a saddle, said he had ridden bareback too long to change his ways.

"Anyway, a pedlar found him at the bottom of the hill early the following morning. His horse was grazing, unhurt, not far away. He had been lying there for hours and was soaked to the skin and chilled with dew." She paused, and then shook her head violently, scattering teardrops. "I hadn't even noticed he had not come home. I had noticed, I mean, but I had not been concerned. He used to sleep here in the villa, sometimes, if he had worked late. I thought that was where he was. How could I think the old fool would try to scramble up the hill like a boy of twelve? And now he's going to die and I'll have all my life to wonder if I might have found him earlier."

I hugged her tightly and tried to reassure her that there was nothing she could have done, but she was not to be consoled so easily.

"Oh, Cay," she sobbed. "I can't believe what this has done to him. All of his flesh has melted! There's nothing left of the man I love but skin and bone and pain and the inner strength that won't let him die!"

"I know," I said into her hair through my own tears. "I know. His strength is fierce. He will not go until he wants to."

"And when he does, I'll be alone." Her own words shocked her, for I felt her stiffen in my arms, and then she spread her own arms, breaking my gentle hold on her and rising to her feet. She wiped away her tears with an edge of her stola and I watched the strength flow into her so that she seemed to grow before my eyes. When she spoke again her voice was firm and steady. "Well," she declared abruptly. "That's enough foolish weakness and tears for one day. My husband would be shamed had he heard that last remark." She turned her eyes on me and I saw the warmth in them. "Your uncle is one of the finest men who ever walked this world. All that I have, all the happiness I've ever known, has come directly from him. Now that his life is ending, it will be left to you and me, Caius, and to Uther, and to your children and grandchildren, to make sure that the life he lived and the wonders that he performed are not forgotten."

Excalibur was in my mind as she said these words, for therein, I knew, lay Varrus's immortality. The name trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I did not give it voice, for I remembered that only five pairs of eyes had seen and known it that I knew of, apart from my own. Those eyes belonged to Varrus himself, to his friends Equus and Plautus, to Father Andros—the man who designed the moulded hilt—and to my grandfather. I wondered now if Aunt Luceiia also knew of it, but I dared not ask, Incredible as it seemed to me then, Uncle Varrus might have kept all knowledge of it from her. She was a woman after all, above all else, and might have seen in it only a device for killing men, disapproving of it, for all her pride in her husband's creation. And so I could not ask her, fearing I might wound her with sudden knowledge of her husband's secrecy. I held my peace.

Seeing and misreading the anguished indecision in my eyes, she reached out and grasped my arm. "Your uncle will be finished soon with Uther. I know he has words for you. Go to him, Caius. Wait outside until Uther leaves and then send him here to me."

Uther was closing the door to my uncle's room as I turned into the passageway. He stood there and watched me sombrely as I approached. "He wants to see you now."

"How is he?"

"Bad, Cay. Very, very bad."

"Aunt Luceiia's waiting for you in the family room." He nodded and left. I stood there for a moment with my hand on the handle of the door and then I drew a deep breath and went inside. This time, as I approached the bed, I saw what it was that had made my first sight of the old man so shocking to me, so different. His beard was gone, and its absence had changed the entire appearance of his face.

"Uncle? Are you awake?" I was whispering.

"Yes, Caius, I'm awake. Come close."

I went and sat on the chair close by his head. "Uncle? You've shaved your beard off."

His smile was ghostly, like his voice. "Not I, lad. The damned medics. Couldn't keep it clean when I was fevered. Feels strange, as though I'm naked." He looked at me sidelong. "You're a fine man, Caius, or you will be, in a few, years. Now listen. I've much to say and little time. But I know what I have to say and you don't, so don't interrupt me. Agreed?" I nodded my head and he looked up at the ceiling, gathering his strength.

"Excalibur is yours. A sacred trust. No other knows it exists, now. Leave it beneath the floor where it is. It's safe there. Guard it with your life, Cay. That blade will cut iron chains. It's that strong. It's a king's sword, an Emperor's. Keep it in trust for the Emperor of Britain. Not Uther. Boy's too rash, too wild. He knows nothing about it."

"Does Aunt Luceiia?"

He lay silent, thinking, collecting himself, and then resumed in a slightly stronger voice. "No. The greatest thing I ever made, and I kept it from her. The knowledge would have been too dangerous for her. Men would fight wars to own Excalibur, Cay. Don't let them. Guard it in secrecy. One day, a time will come. You'll know the day, and you'll know the man. If he hasn't come before you die, pass the sword to someone you can trust. Your own son. You'll know. You've been well taught. And you have learned well. You found the secret of the Lady, Cay, and then the secret of the saddle. You'll find the secret of the King, someday. You'll know him as soon as you set eyes on him." I was holding my breath with the effort of listening, and each word he spoke burned its way into my brain. "Your grandfather Caius was my greatest friend. You know that. He was a dreamer, Cay, but a grand dreamer. He dared majestically in his dreams, and he had the courage and the strength to make his dreams come true..." I waited for him until he continued, "He started a process, Cay, a progression that you and your future sons will continue. He dreamed of—and he initiated—the rebirth of the greatness of Rome here in this Britain. He wanted to mix his blood, the blood of his people, with the blood of Ullic's people. Uther is the seed of his plan. So are you. Keep watch for Uther, Cay; he hasn't your long head. He lacks your sense of Tightness. Hold him in restraint. He will be King of the Pendragon when his father, Uric, dies, when..." His voice trailed away and then rallied. "Make him a good king, Cay. Advise him. He'll listen to you. He has great love for you."

Again a pause, this time a long one, before the feathery voice resumed, "Use the horses, Cay, and breed more. More and more horses. The Saxons cannot withstand a charge of horsemen. The horses, and the long-swords. Use them hard, and build an army to follow where they lead. You will need legions. Build them. You know how. And Ullic's longbows, Uther's people's weapons. Don't let them go. They stand for power, lad. They can win battles for you from far away. Use them. That's all I have to say. Now call your aunt and go with God."

I rose to leave, but his fingers tightened on mine and pulled me down to him again. "I had forgotten. The Armoury and all its treasures are for you. Uther knows this. There is much in there still to profit from." His eyes closed again and this time I was sure he slept, but he stopped me again as I rose to go and find Aunt Luceiia. I had to lean close to his mouth to hear, so faint was his voice. "Your grandfather Caius wants you to use the name your mother gave you..." The short hairs on the nape of my neck stirred at the tense he used, but his fingers dropped from my hand, and suddenly afraid, I hurried to the door to fetch my aunt. She and Uther were standing outside in the passageway. I beckoned, and as she hurried to his side, Uther and I looked at each other, sharing each other's grief without speaking.

We buried Publius Varrus two days later, beside his friend Caius Britannicus. That night Uther and I got drunk together, each telling the other as much as he could about what Varrus had said to him. Uther was to be King. I was to be his Councillor. From that day on, I became known to everyone except my closest family as Merlyn. Caius, the boy, had died with his uncle Publius Varrus.