The Singing Sword

X

Astounded by this latest news from Picus, we girded ourselves and prepared for mighty things to happen. But nothing did. Life in our isolated Colony went on with its own placid rhythm, and I continued to work patiently and painstakingly with my own fledgling army. Then, in the following summer of 394, Picus's words came home to us with a new urgency.

Word came from Ullic's kingdom that pirates were landing in force along the south side of the estuary to the north of us, and we received three separate delegations from towns and villages to the south and west, beseeching our help in defending their lands from the Saxon and Frankish raiders who were descending on the coasts like swarms of flies. We also had it on good authority, from Bishop Alaric and his priests, that Saxon raiding parties had been wintering for the past two years on coastal lands to the south-east, not even bothering to sail home, and thereby catching advantage of the spring months to raid and plunder, thanks to the scarcity of military garrisons in that region. Things were going rapidly to Hades, and we were emerging as the only pocket of organized resistance in the whole south-west of Britain.

Ironically, our biggest difficulty now was maintaining our defensive role. The temptation to go marching off to war was very strong. I know; my own hot head was attuned to it. Only the level thinking of Caius Britannicus kept us in check. His was the voice that kept reminding us of the prime purposes of the Colony: self-sufficiency and survival.

Even so, we sent forces out to help our neighbours when we could, and it was this neighbourly attitude that finally brought us to the official notice of the military authorities.

We had known right from the outset that by maintaining a private military force — even if we did call it quasi-military — we were placing ourselves outside the law. In legal terms, all men within the Empire fit to bear arms were automatically soldiers and owed their loyalty to the Emperor himself. The fact that there might be three or even four Emperors at any one time was academic; it had no bearing on the law. It followed, therefore, that any private citizen equipping or maintaining an armed band of soldiers — even if they were private retainers — was, ipso facto, usurping the loyalty these men owed to the Emperor. He was depriving the Empire of troops.

The rich had, of course, been maintaining private "security forces" of their own for centuries. This was a known and accepted fact. In the space of a few years, however, in our quiet little Colony we had accumulated and trained, outfitted and equipped a genuine army of close to a thousand men. Three things had enabled us to do this in safety. The first, of course, was that our original plans had been devised with the full cognizance and support of several of the most senior officers in the armies of Britain. The second was tied directly to the first and was well understood by all concerned: our "army" was being prepared in accordance with a plan; it would not be mobilized, or become effective, until after the regular legions had been withdrawn from Britain, if such a catastrophe ever occurred. The third thing that had protected us was our isolation. We were far off the beaten track, and in the early years, at least, we had taken great pains to maintain secrecy and security.

As the years passed, however, circumstances changed. We worked our trainees hard, and their training demanded that they be uniformed, to give them that sense of belonging so necessary to military units. Then, as a diplomatic gesture to please our valuable ally in the north-west, King Ullic Pendragon, Britannicus changed the uniforms from plain homespun to a military red, giving our men a visibility beyond anything they had had before. That visibility became even more pronounced after the regular military authorities started pulling garrisons out of the forts in the west to concentrate them in the south-east on the Saxon Shore, in the area south of the Wall in the north and around Londinium, which had for a long time been the administrative centre of the region called South Britain. The removal of these garrisons led to increases in raiding, and that led us more and more into open defensiveness, increasing the risk of our being "noticed" officially. It had to happen sooner or later. It happened in 396.

One bright-eyed young staff officer in Londinium had heard about our exploits and saw in them an opportunity to impress his superiors with his efficiency. He prepared a report on "a rebellious group of bandits and deserters in the west, operating to the south of Glevum." We had his report almost before his superiors did, thanks to Plautus, who had been on duty at the time and saw the document. A small expedition was detached from one of the Cambrian garrisons to investigate the report, and it found no trace of any organized bandits south of Glevum.

It was sheer bad luck that the young officer in command of that expedition happened to dine with a magistrate in Glevum. In the course of that dinner he picked up some genuine information about us and our activities and he included that information in his report to his superiors in Londinium. This time we had the information before he even sent off his missive. One of Alaric's priests sent the word to us, directly from the clerk who wrote out the officer's report. In it, the young tribune stated that he had "every reason to believe that the rumours of organized bandits operating south of Glevum are, in fact, references to a commune of civilians living to the south of Aquae Sulis, who have organized themselves along quasi-military lines in order to defend themselves and their farms against Hibernian raiders." He went on to say that he had been given no indication that these people were involved in any lawless activities, other than the intrinsically lawless taking up of arms in a semi-organized fashion. He said that he had been able to obtain no clear indication of the numerical strength of these people, having heard estimates ranging from a hundred men to several thousand. His personal opinion was that the figure of as many as a hundred might be grossly exaggerated. He did recommend, however, that in the interests of the Senate and the People of Rome an investigation should be conducted into the condition of the citizenry in that part of the country, which was outside of his own immediate jurisdiction.

On the whole, it was an excellent report, submitted by a man who was unusual in that time in that he was both an officer of the army and, at the same time, thorough, fair-minded and conscientious in the performance of his duty. The news of his report hit the Colony the way my skystone must have hit the ground. Britannicus summoned an immediate emergency meeting of the Council, and it was a stormy session.

Caius had a very strong and surprisingly uncharacteristic belief that he always adhered to in the Council's sessions, and it amazed me that it never failed. He believed absolutely in letting the Council solve its problems in its own way. He would sit back and remain generally apart from the debate, interfering only when it was necessary for the sake of order. He maintained that, no matter what the problem under discussion might be, the Council had the ability to solve it among its members. The final decision on Council matters never originated with him, but it was he who chose the Council members, and he took an almost indecent pleasure in co-ordinating their separate abilities to work together for the good of the Colony. The only rule that governed these sessions was one stating that no one could leave the meeting until the problem facing the Council had been solved to the satisfaction of two-thirds plus one of the members present.

The session dealing with the tribune's report was the longest I ever sat in: it lasted ten hours.

On this occasion, the words of sense and settlement came from Vegetius Sulla, the eldest son of Tarpo Sulla, who had died several years earlier. Vegetius, himself a man of forty-eight, had served a full twenty-five years with the legions in Gaul, in Africa and on the German frontier. He was a man of few words and wide experience who seldom spoke up in Council, but was always listened to when he did. The arguments had been going on for hours and some there had almost come to blows. Feelings were running very high, and there was total confusion in the Council room. No progress had been made in more than six hours.

I noticed Vegetius stand up from his seat and move away to a clear space in one corner of the room, fumbling in the leather pouch that hung by his side, and I watched, intrigued, as he drew out a stone of some kind, attached to a length of cord. He shook the kinks out of the cord and then, holding the end of the cord in his right hand, he began to swing the stone in circles around his head. As the stone picked up momentum, it suddenly began to emit a warbling, whistling noise that grew and grew to become a shrill, ear-bursting, wailing shriek.

All other noises in the room died away as people turned in open-mouthed stupefaction to stare at him. He moved his right arm out from the vertical and caught the whirling stone with a loud smack in the palm of his left hand. I could feel myself grinning from ear to ear, though I had no idea what he was up to. The silence in the room was astounding.

Vegetius looked around him at the staring faces and opened his left hand, letting the stone fall to dangle at the end of its cord.

"I got this when I was serving in Germany," he said. "The barbarians beyond the borders there make them. Their children use them as toys. You hear six or seven of them going at night out there, it can scare you. But it's harmless." He began to swing it again, harder and harder, until some clapped their hands over their ears. Then he let it go. It flew across the room and blasted to shards a vase on a table against the wall. In the stunned silence, tiny pieces of the vase pattered like raindrops. He spoke into the stillness.

"At least, it looks harmless. Fact is, it kills. When did any of you last see one of our warships?" No one answered him, and he continued. "They're blue, you know. So are the crews' uniforms. In some kinds of light, you can't even see them. But they are there, believe me, in full view and extremely dangerous."

"Vegetius," said Britannicus, gently, "I think you have a point you wish to make. If we all sit down, will you explain it to us?"

Vegetius smiled. "Happily," he said. Everyone sat down. Still smiling, Vegetius walked to the front of the room, retrieving his missile on the way. He paused and looked all around the room before he spoke.

"We have a problem. Several of them, in fact. We have an army that we should not have raised or trained; uniforms that we are not supposed to be wearing; fortifications that are not supposed to exist; cavalry that we're not supposed to possess; and a military expedition on its way here from the east to find out who we are and what we have." There was utter stillness now.

"My suggestion is this. Things are not always what they appear to be. We should take advantage of the time we have left to us before our visitors arrive, then show them what we have and let them see for themselves that we have nothing."

That speech created quite a stir. Some people thought he had lost his senses, for there seemed to be no logic in his statement. Then someone asked him how he proposed doing what he suggested.

"Simple," responded Vegetius. "We start with the most obvious. Disband our army. Send them away."

"A thousand men?" The question from the floor made the idea sound ridiculous, but Vegetius leaped on it.

"Why not? If we send them away now, the signs of their having been here will be gone by the time our visitors arrive."

"But where could we send a thousand men?" someone else wanted to know.

"Anywhere, man! But not in one great block. We split them up, send them out on exercises. Ullic could use some of them in his hills against the Hibernians for a month. Two or three hundred, I imagine. Another two hundred could lose themselves in the moors down to the south-west. Another hundred on the plains around Stonehenge."

"That's only five, six hundred. What about the others?" Everyone was throwing questions now.

Vegetius shook his head in disgust. "How many of them really live here? On the farms and in the cottages? A hundred? Two hundred? That's less than two men to a square mile of the Colony. So we'll be well staffed! As long as we're careful to conceal ourselves, to be as close to invisible as we can possibly be, we can lose another four hundred in plain sight."

Caius spoke up. "That still leaves a hundred men and a very visible fortification on the hill behind us."

Vegetius grinned. "Yes, Caius, it does — for now. But don't lose sight of the war galley."

"Forgive me, Vegetius, but I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that if we do it properly, we can hide it."

"Hide it?" Britannicus sounded astonished. "Hide the fort?"

"Why not? If the navy can hide a fleet of galleys in plain sight, why can't the army hide a fort?"

"God in Heaven!" said Britannicus. "How would we do it?"

Vegetius looked at Britannicus, almost seeming not to see him, his brows puckered in thought, his eyes far away from this room. "I have an idea, Caius, that will work — I know it will, if I can only find the proper key. It's not difficult. All it will take is imagination, conviction and luck." His voice dwindled almost to nothing and he scratched the point of his chin with the tip of one finger. Every man in the room watched the gesture, waiting for him to continue. "We once hid an entire legion in Gaul, in broad daylight, and an army marched past within a quarter mile of us and didn't see us." His voice trailed off again for a few seconds before he shook his head abruptly.

"No. That won't do it. We used nets with twigs and branches woven into the mesh. These walls are too high, and they're on top of a hill... Caius, can you see the walls and the fortifications from the rear of the hill?"

Caius shook his head. "I've no idea. I don't think I've ever been behind that particular hill. Why? Is it important?"

"It could be. Does anyone know?"

"Aye, I do!" This was Terra. "Firma and I were hunting out that way about a month ago and he remarked that, from the valley floor there, you can't see any indication at all that there's anything built up on the hill. We talked about how difficult it would be to get up or down the hillside from that direction. Didn't we, Fiona?" His brother nodded.

"Good." Vegetius was pleased. He opened his pouch and dropped his whistling stone inside, and then he crossed the room again to the table that had held the shattered vase. There was an open codex there, its pages covered by pottery shards. He wiped them off with his hand and stood there, looking down at the book, his back to the room. Everything about his posture made it clear that he was deep in thought. Finally he turned to face the assembled Council and leaned back, resting his buttocks on the edge of the table.

"Is Father Andros in the villa today?"

"He was, earlier," I answered. "I spoke with him just before I came in here. But that was several hours ago." I wondered what he had in mind. Andros could do things with parchment and a stick of charcoal that verged on the magical.

"Well, at least he's not far away. Caius Britannicus, I have a suggestion to make to you and the Council. If you accept it, you will break precedent. I do not suggest it lightly. We are faced here with a major crisis. The fact that this Council has been in session for — how long? seven hours? — without resolving anything, only serves to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

"I have an idea that I believe will work. But I'm going to need some time to myself and the help of Father Andros to straighten out some of the lines of it. So I suggest that we adjourn this Council for, say, two hours. I promise you that at the end of that time we may reconvene with a reasonable chance of ratifying my plans."

There was an uncomfortable shifting as the other twenty men in the room took stock of this proposal, and eventually all eyes turned to Britannicus. I had never heard the Council chamber so quiet.

Caius cleared his throat and spoke to everyone. "What Vegetius says is true. To accept his suggestion would be to create a precedent that might become dangerous. We have to ask ourselves if we dare to violate our own rule, the only rule that governs our participation in this Council. Since our beginnings we have ordained that none may leave a Council meeting before all business facing the Council has been dealt with and resolved. This has allowed us to deal successfully with the dangers of procrastination. Successfully and, to this point, effectively. Do we dare to do otherwise now?

"On the other hand..." He paused, marshalling his thoughts. "On the other hand, what Vegetius is proposing is not a complete negation of the principle governing that rule. He is asking for time and the privacy to nurture and develop an idea that, whatever its substance, is absolutely germane to the problem facing us today.

"He is not asking for an overnight adjournment, merely for thinking space. All of us here have been unable, in the space of seven hours, to come up with any ideas at all. We are not simply lacking a solution; until Vegetius phrased it so succinctly, we had not even arrived at a definition of our problem. Vegetius Sulla has been ahead of all of us in defining, appreciating and, I hope, dealing with the problem. What he is saying to us is that all of our arguing is interfering with his capacity to think constructively. He is telling us that in the space of two hours we may eat, renew ourselves and return to this Council meeting refreshed and able to evaluate the worth of the plan he will then propose to us. So. How do you vote?"

The meeting was adjourned for two hours by unanimous consent.