The Singing Sword

XVII

A man can know no finer sensation than arriving home after an arduous and extended absence. We made excellent time on the road back from Londinium, jubilant as we were with the news of Stilicho's commission and confident of the triumphal welcome that lay ahead of us at the end of our journey. On the last stage, we had a choice of pressing on and arriving at the villa in the middle of the night or stopping to sleep under the forest trees and arriving home with the new day. We chose the latter, rising with the skylarks while the sky itself was still dark and moving on as soon as the light began to penetrate the forest, so that we came in sight of the Colony home farm just as the sun rose fully over it, and for the first time in my adult life I experienced the pleasure of a real homecoming.

High on the hill to the south-west, overlooking the villa and all the lands around, sat the still unfinished walls of our new fort, picked out clearly and burnished in the light of the new day. Gone was all sign of the forest that had burgeoned there for such a short time, and we felt good to know that never again would we feel a need to hide our achievements. Plautus, who had heard about the disguising of the hill and its fort, laid eyes on the site and promptly decided that we had gulled him. Now that he could see it for himself, he said, he refused to believe that we had ever been able to conceal it, and looking at the size of the hill and its crowning fort from this distance I could appreciate his scepticism. Caius and I merely smiled at each other and left him to believe what he would.

Caius nodded to the north, where cloud banks were rolling in. "It looks as though we barely beat the weather on the road. It will be pleasant to rest by a glowing fire tonight while the rain falls outside on other people." I agreed with him and we galloped the rest of the way, suddenly wild with impatience to be home.

Our welcome was chaotic and overwhelming. Luceiia wept openly with relief and love as she ran to meet me, uncaring who was watching. The feel of her body as she threw her arms around my neck and leaned into my embrace reminded me quite violently of the pleasures we had known after even brief separations in the young days of our marriage, and so total and insistently demanding was my own relief to see her again that, in spite of all the hubbub around us, I managed to spirit her away to our own room. There we tumbled each other hurriedly like a couple of spring colts, and yet thoroughly, too, like the well-accustomed partners we were. We rejoined the others later, hand in hand, flushed with our renewed knowledge of each other.

Everyone in the Colony had assembled in the grounds of the villa, and rumours of our journey and our adventures were on everybody's tongue. Variations on the story abounded so riotously that eventually Caius was forced to call everyone to attention and make an impromptu speech, telling the news of our official recognition as a colony and of the designation of our military resources as "irregular troops." There would be a full meeting of the Council the following day, he said, to discuss thoroughly the differences our new commission would make to all aspects of our future.

There was little work done on the Colony that day. It was a spontaneous holiday, and the midday meal developed into a major celebration that lasted well into the late afternoon, in spite of the rain that fell intermittently throughout the day. When darkness fell, the last, determined celebrants removed themselves indoors and lighted, it seemed, every lamp and candle in the Colony to accommodate their dancing, games and music. By the time Luceiia and I regained our bed, legitimately this time, we were both almost exhausted enough to fall asleep immediately, wrapped in each other's arms. Almost, but fortunately not quite exhausted enough.

The Council meeting scheduled for the following day did not begin until the tenth hour of the morning and it lasted for five hours. It was not an arduous meeting, for the items to be discussed were all positive and beneficent and the spirit of the Council members was light-hearted, but Caius was looking tired by the time we adjourned. I walked with him to his day-room, where he stopped and ran his hands fondly over one of the codexes that lay on his work-table, where he had left it before we set off to Londinium with Seneca.

"It is good to be home again, Publius," he said. "I think I will write for a while, before the light goes. My eyes are getting bad, you know. It hurts them now whenever I have to write by lamplight, and there was a time not long ago when I could write all night with only one lamp lit and never notice any strain at all."

"That can't be good for anybody's eyes, Caius," I told him. "I think it is a good idea to do it by daylight, if you have the time and the opportunity. Although why anybody would want to write as much as you do mystifies me." He looked at me and smiled, but said nothing. "What do you write, anyway?" I asked. "I mean, you have spent hours and hours writing every day now for years and yet you never show anyone what you've written ... At least, I don't think you do. Do you?"

His smile became wider. "No, Publius, as a matter of fact, no one has ever seen what I have written. No one has ever expressed any curiosity about it, except Luceiia. She knows what it is, although she has never read it. And she knows that when I die it will pass into her keeping."

"Well, do you mind my asking what it is?"

He smiled at me. "No, not at all, since it was you who inspired it."

I stared at him in amazement. "Me? What did I do?"

Caius laughed. "What, Publius? You do not even remember? You were irate with me for writing my military memoirs! Surely you recall that? You told me I should think of my own descendants and write for their guidance in future years." I vaguely remembered the occasion. "Anyway, that is what I have been writing ever since that day. It is a personal history of the growth of this Colony, set down for the entertainment, and perhaps the guidance, of those descendants of ours who might one day govern this place."

"A history? How do you do that?"

Caius shrugged his shoulders and grinned, in spite of his obvious tiredness. "Very simply," he said softly. "I have disciplined myself to set down, each day, the day's events."

"So it is a chronicle? Like Luscar's log of the Invasion campaign?"

"Mmm." The sound that came from his throat was high-pitched and suggested a negative. "Not quite, Publius, not quite ... More of a journal; less of a legal document. I add my own personal thoughts and observations. There are many of my opinions and thoughts mixed in with the events. As I said, it is a personal history, and sometimes almost embarrassingly egotistical."

"And is that why you have never shown it to anyone? Because it is so personal?"

"Partly." Again he smiled, a faint flicker of amusement, I felt, at his own assumption of importance in this writing endeavour. "Also, the fact remains that no one has ever asked me to show it to him."

I nodded my head slowly. "If I asked, would you let me read it?"

"Certainly. Of course I would. I would be delighted." He was smiling still.

"Then I would like to read it."

He nodded. "Good, Publius. I am glad. That pleases me. You may have the manuscript whenever you want it."

"Then I'll read it tonight."

This time he laughed and shook his head. "You may start it tonight, Publius, but you won't read it tonight. I have found that I can be quite prolix. I tend to enjoy the sound of my own words, if I may say that of an exercise that involves no sound. I've been writing for almost ten years; there is a lot to read."

"Well, then!" I stood up, filled with resolution and enthusiasm. "I will start it tonight, at least. I'm looking forward to reading it. But in the meantime I had better get down to the forge. I haven't been there in weeks. Equus will have forgotten what I look like with my face smudged. Come on, I'll get your fire lit and see that you've got enough wood and ink."

"You will not." He sounded mildly outraged that I should suggest such a thing. "Gallo looks after all of that — you know he does. Go to your forge, Publius."

I ignored him and did what I wanted to do, and only when I had the fire going did I speak again. "Sometimes Gallo, like the rest of us, forgets. Just like us, he's not getting any younger, you know."

I moved his writing table into the afternoon sunlight and settled him comfortably. The iron statue I had named Coventina, the Lady of the Lake, stood close by, on a table by herself. I caressed her, as I always did, running my hand lovingly over her buxom curves.

Caius was watching me. "She is a patient lady, Publius, watching and waiting for you like a virgin bride, wondering what you mean to do with her."

I rested my hand on her head, feeling the bumps of her metal skull against my palm. "I know, Caius," I answered him, my voice almost a whisper. "And she is not alone in that. I'm wondering, too."

I left him to write and walked down to the forge, the sound of ringing hammers in my ears as I approached. I stopped inside the doors to let my eyes adjust to the gloom, and filled my chest with the smoky, iron smells, enjoying the slightly sexual stir I always felt on returning after an absence from this place. Equus was working at the central forge and I joined him, slipping my leather apron over my head.

"What are you working on?" "

He gave an exaggerated leap, as though shying away from something that had startled him. "Boudicca's buttocks! Am I seeing ghosts? What are you doing here in a dirty smithy? They told me you were dead, killed copulating with a mare, trying to improve her bloodlines!"

I grinned at him. "No, that was Victorex. I prefer sheep."

"Ah!" He nodded wisely. "Sheep. Well, ram this into the coals, there." He passed me a slender length of iron that looked like a sword blade but was twice the length and more than half again the width.

"What's this?"

"It's what I'm working on."

I hefted it at arm's length, feeling the slight bounce of it against the tongs I held it clasped in. "Looks like a sword blade, but it's much too long and too heavy."

"That's what it is, a too-long and too-heavy sword blade."

I shook my head in mock dismay and thrust the metal into the coals, the feel of the iron tongs welcome and right in my hand.

"I'm serious, Publius," he said, looking straight at me, his eyes crinkling against the smoke from the fire. "That's what it is. I had an idea and I wanted to test it."

I pushed the metal, burying it deeper in the coals. "Well? Tell me about it. Where did it come from?"

"What, the idea? From my head, of course. Where else would it come from?"

"No, Equus, I meant... oh, never mind. What is this idea of yours?"

"Just come over here and look. I made some drawings."

"Drawings?" I laughed. "You've been spending too much time with Andros, Equus. One of these days, I'm going to come in here and find you praying on your knees!"

"Hah!" He let out a scornful, roaring guffaw. "Don't you believe it, Publius Varrus! Not unless there's a woman spread on the floor in front of me. Look at this."

Moving to a broad-topped workbench, he seized a large pile of parchments, all of varying sizes, and spread them out in front of him. When he found the one he was looking for, he tapped it with his knuckles and I stepped forward to look. It was a large piece of parchment with drawings of spearheads, javelins, axes and swords. I examined all of them, wondering what was expected of me. I saw nothing that struck me as strange or new.

"Well?" I said, "I'm looking. What do you want me to see?"

"Nothing, yet. There's nothing there to see. But let me talk." He paused for a few seconds. "You wanted a weapon that a man could use from horseback. Well, I've been working on it, but I swear by the balls of Bacchus that I'm starting to doubt if it can be done." I waited, saying nothing, and he continued, nodding towards the drawings. "Every weapon there is for men on foot. Of them all, the sword's the best. Good for both attack and defence. You can stop another man's swing with it and still kill him easily." Another pause, then, "A spear's limited. Lunge with it, or throw it, and it's used up. You'd better have a sword for back-up. An axe is even worse. Swing one of those properly and you leave yourself wide open to a sword or a spear. And once you swing, you'd better hit the man you're aiming at, because if he's worth his salt, one swing is all you'll get."

It occurred to me as he was talking that I had never heard Equus say so much at one time on any subject, and he was far from finished. Now, as he talked, his eyes became even more animated than before and his hands moved continuously from one drawing to another, emphasizing his words and directing my thoughts. I listened, fascinated, as he went on.

"Now, when we put our man up on a horse and pack the horses close together the way you want to, we're really mired in shit. An axe is as useless as tits on a boar in a situation like that, because all you're going to do with it if you swing it is hit the man beside you or kill your own horse. A sword's useless, too — it's too damn short. Even if you've got room to swing it, you still couldn't reach a man on the ground if he was kneeling or lying down. So that leaves us with a spear. But spears are only pointed. They're for stabbing. They can't cut. And the pilum is made so that the shaft will bend. It's great for throwing into an enemy's shield, to hamper him, but it's useless to us.

"So." He slapped his hand down onto the drawings, covering them with his great paw. "I've been thinking of a new kind of spear. A short, heavy shaft, about three feet long, for weight, and a long, flat blade like a sword, but twice as long — double-edged and sharper than a whore's tongue." He drew it swiftly with a few strokes as he spoke, and I watched it take shape under his charcoal. "A weapon like that might give a mounted man an advantage," he continued. "It could reach down between the horses, with the shaft gripped under the armpit, and it would be manoeuvrable enough to allow some cutting, as well as thrust."

I was impressed. "Hmmm!" I said, as I thought it through. "Equus, you could be right. But it would be usable on the one side only."

"What do you mean?" He was frowning now, not understanding me, but then he caught my meaning and his next words made me realize it was I who had misunderstood. "No, no! Not at all, Publius. Damnation, it's made to use on both sides! The short shaft would let a man swing it over his horse's head and stab with it either way."

"I think you may be on to something. It's certainly worth a try. Make me one and we'll test it."

"Make me one and we'll test it! Christ's Cross, man! Isn't that what I'm doing?"

I looked at the long iron shaft sticking out from the coals. "When will it be ready?"

"If you'll stop interfering and distracting me from my work, I'll have it ready for you in the morning."

"Finished? Complete?" '

"Finished, complete and sharpened. Now, would you please allow me to get on with it?"

I spent the next two hours pottering around, checking on our apprentices and taking inventory of what we were producing, from nails to barrel-hoops, checking back every now and then to see how he was doing, finally goading him to the point where he literally chased me, laughing, from the forge.

I was in a frivolous frame of mind that afternoon. I was in no mood to achieve anything useful, and I was thinking quite seriously about trying to take my wife to bed for a daylight romp. I had not felt so full of youthful energy in years, but, as it turned out, a sexual dalliance was not to be, for I heard Victorex calling my name and saw him waving to me from the stables. I strolled over, and he immediately began to get on to me about the need to shoe all of our horses far more often and more regularly while I nodded my head politely. I closed my ears and let him ramble on until eventually he gave up on me and disappeared into the darkness of the stables, muttering to himself and probably calling me nasty names.

Suddenly there was a lethal sound close by my ear, and I dodged down just as I heard the resounding thwack! of an arrow pounding into the door beside me. Heedless of dignity, I spun around on all fours, looking for my assailant, but there was no one in sight. I scuttled to the stable door and took shelter behind it, and as I did so another arrow smashed into the wood of the door, piercing its two-inch planks of solid oak.

"Varrus! Come out, Roman!" My stomach lurched as I recognized the deep, rolling voice. "If I were a poorer shot, you would be dead by now!"

"Ullic," I yelled, "you demented Celtic imbecile! Put that thing down before you hurt someone!" Another arrow smashed through the wood, and then another and another. I saw Victorex running towards me through the gloom of the stable and I signalled to him to stop and stay where he was.

"Ullic! Have done! Someone will get hurt!" A sixth arrow slammed home, and then there was silence.

"I have finished, Roman. Come outside and look at the grouping."

I stepped outside. There was still no sign of him, so I did as he had bidden me and looked at the grouping of his arrows in the door. They were perfectly spaced in a circle of six. And they were big. As big as my own arrows. Each of them had completely penetrated the hard wood.

I called out over my shoulder without turning, "Ullic, where would a thick-headed Celt find a bow big enough and strong enough to shoot arrows of this size that hard?"

"He could make one, Roman."

"Not unless he found a way to combine all of the brains of his tribe into one craftsman smart enough to ask a Roman for help."

"Stand aside." I did, and a seventh arrow smacked into the perfect centre of the six.

"Now, you arrogant Latin boor, look on my wondrous weapon and marvel!"

I heard his footsteps approaching me and I turned to face him. His great teeth gleamed his wicked grin, and when he was close enough, he threw me his bow. I caught it in my right hand. It was huge: six feet or more in length and strung with sinew, but made of one piece of wood, not layered, like my own, of wood, horn and sinew. It was circular in section, filling the palm of my hand as I held it by the middle and tapering gently towards the ends. I hefted it and it felt good. I transferred it to my left hand and tested its pull. It was strong — as strong as my own.

Ullic stopped to watch me and didn't move again until I had pulled it and released it gently. Then he reached into the quiver slung over his back and tossed me an arrow. I nocked it, sighted at a fence post and let fly. It was a beautiful weapon.

"Well?" There was a slight smile on his face.

"Not bad." I kept my head down as I examined the great bow, trying not to show too much pleasure. "Where did you steal it from?"

"Pshaw! A Celtic king has no need to steal. His people fight to bring him gifts."

"Who fought whom to bring you this one?" I straightened up and threw him his bow, smiling now in welcome. "Have you eaten yet?"

"How could I have eaten? I've been on the road for three days. I came to impress you with my new toy. But I could eat now, if hospitality were offered. Even Roman hospitality."

"Roman-British, it is. You're looking good, Ullic, your women must be working you hard."

His laugh was enormous and he wrapped his arms around me in a mighty hug. As we began to walk back towards the house, Victorex watched us from the safety of the stables. He never could bring himself to trust Ullic or his people.

"So, my friend," I said as we walked, my arm about his waist, his across my shoulders, "tell me about this bow. Where did it come from?"

"From my own lands. From one of my own trees." His voice was more reverent than I had ever heard it.

"What kind of wood is this?" I asked, peering closely at it.

"We call it yew. It is an evergreen — low and spreading, slow-growing, but strong, springy and perfect for making bows."

"Who made it?"

"Cymric, of course." Ullic held the thing out at arm's length, admiring its lines as we walked. "He has been determined to make something like this for years. He tried to duplicate your great African monster, but the horn defeated him. Since he gave up on that, he has tried wood of every kind, and finally he came up with this one. It took him two years to make it."

"One bow?"

"Aye, Varrus, one bow, but he swears it is the first of thousands. Cymric is very proud of this bow."

"He should be. Why did he give it to you?"

Ullic looked at me in surprise. "He had to. I'm the King."

"Horse turds! Be serious, Ullic! Among your people that doesn't mean a thing. Not when it comes to possessions."

He laughed again. "Poor Cymric! He had to give it to me, for after he had made it, he discovered it was too strong for him. I'm the only one who can pull it."

I grinned and took it from him and pulled it to my ear again. "Not the only one, Ullic."

"Ach!" He waved a hand regally, dismissing my claim to equality with himself. "You don't count. You are a foreigner. A damned Roman."

"True." I grinned at him. "And as such, an exception to your rule..." He frowned at me as I continued. "I am glad that at least you can admit we are a superior people."

He came for me and would have wrestled me to the ground if Luceiia had not chosen that moment to notice us and call out a greeting. Ullic was like a big sheep in front of Luceiia, who charmed him completely. In a moment, I was forgotten as he basked in the friendly sunlight of my wife, who was well aware of the effect she had on him. As we approached the house, my daughter Veronica, who was also besotted with the man, came galloping to greet us.

Ullic had heard about our expected visitors and had started out from home with a strong force, prepared to help us fight for our existence, if the need arose. Then, less than half-way here, he had heard that we had left for Londinium, so he turned back, leaving look-outs posted to warn him of our eventual return. These he had left camped now in the hills behind us, and Britannicus sent up a wagon with a keg of ale for them. We heard their shout of appreciation all the way down the hill when it arrived, and soon there were bonfires blazing up there, lighting up the night, and we could hear the sound of Celtic voices raised in song.

Our evening was far more sedate, and it ended early for everyone but me. Instead of going to bed when everyone else did, I borrowed the first two tomes of Caius's journal of the history of the Colony and settled down to read.

That one evening's reading marked a turning point in my life, for what I read excited me so much that I began to think of writing down my own thoughts. The apparent ease with which Britannicus had spilled himself onto the pages of these books made an impression on me, and I made up my mind that I could do the same. I was to learn over the coming months, however, that writing in this fashion was hardly as simple as it looked. There were a thousand times when I would have given up in disgust had it not been for the encouragement I got from Caius himself. He simply would not allow me to stop trying. He made me see that the effort of concentration was worthwhile. He told me of his own troubles in getting started properly and showed me his early efforts, which were not much better than mine. He convinced me that if I tried hard enough, and kept on trying harder, I would one day be able to say what I felt to myself on parchment. And he has been proven right. But those first months of working at it were among the hardest I have ever spent in learning to do anything. It seemed at first that I could do nothing properly, until the day came when I wrote a piece and discovered, to my absolute surprise, that I had said almost what I wanted to say. That was my real starting point. Everything that had gone before was basic training.

It was late, that first night of reading and discovery, when I finally got to bed, my mind seething with excitement. Later still, I had to rise and void my bladder, and I was glad to climb back into bed beside the silky warmth of my wife.