Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

I paid no visible heed to anyone, but I was aware of people noticing me and staring at the spears hanging from my shoulder as I passed by, for the weapons were extremely unusual and most of the people crowding the open spaces and narrow walkways I traversed were soldiers and warriors, trained and conditioned to notice and examine other people’s weaponry. No one made any comment, however, and I collected my horse and saddled it in silence, then mounted and made my way out of the gates.

Below me at the foot of Camulod’s hill, as was normal at this time of the year, the enormous drilling ground was almost completely obscured by the clouds of dust stirred up by the ceaseless movement of the riders training there. I avoided the place, purely because there were too many people there, and steered my horse well clear of the swirling dust clouds, angling it to my right, toward the woods that lined the outer edge of the approach road to the fortress. Once there, in the green-hued shade among the trees, I swung right again and began to ride around the base of Camulod’s hill, following a route I recalled from my first visit. About a mile back there, I knew, behind and below the hilltop fort, there was a gently sloping meadow, bisected by a wide, deep brook that was bridged by a trio of well-matched logs supporting a deck of heavy planking, and slightly downstream from the bridge there was a hole that was full of fine trout and was also deep enough to swim in. My intention, when I first set out from my quarters, was to go directly to the meadow, spend some time there practicing my throwing, both from horseback and afoot, and then perhaps to spear a fat trout and cook and eat it alone, since I had no idea what had happened to occupy my friends. To that end, I had gone first to the cookhouse, where I procured a loaf of fresh bread and a twist of salt before heading for the stables. But I was destined to fulfill none of my plans that afternoon.

The entire countryside was swarming with men—Arthur Pendragon’s victorious armies, freshly returned from their victory over Horsa’s Danes—and there was no avoiding them. I hoped at first to simply ride out the mass of them, passing beyond their presence into something at least approaching solitude, but it was not to be. There were simply too many of them, spread out too far, to permit anything close to privacy, and I realized that there was nothing I could do to change that.

As I penetrated deeper and deeper into the woodlands and drew farther and farther away from the fortress on the hilltop, my impatience continued to grow despite my awareness of the truth of things, and against all logic I found myself becoming increasingly resentful of the persistent presence of others around me. Most of them were men, but no army in history has ever failed to attract its share of women. There were enough camp followers scattered throughout these teeming throngs to keep everyone at a high pitch of excitement, for one reason and another. On three separate occasions I made my way toward spots that appeared to be deserted, only to find them occupied by lovers and even small groups of revelers in varying stages of undress and coupling.

There were other activities going on, too. In one spot, some enterprising soul had set up a game in which men threw horseshoes at a pair of iron spikes hammered into the ground some twenty paces apart from each other. They threw their horseshoes from one end of the playing space to the other and the object of the game appeared to be to land each one as close as was possible to the spike at the far end. I was unsurprised to see that, as usual among armies of any kind, large amounts of money were changing hands among the onlookers, based upon the play. Four men, playing in teams of two, each threw two shoes and when all eight had been thrown, the distances from the spike to those shoes that had landed closest to it were measured with extreme care and the closest throw was declared the winner and awarded points. Higher points were scored by anyone whose horseshoe ended up physically touching the spike, and even more were awarded for a shoe that was propped up and leaning against the spike, while the highest points of all were given to anyone who actually dropped a shoe cleanly over the spike, encircling it. Intrigued in spite of my foul humor, I watched the play for nigh on half an hour and saw only one man achieve that feat, to the uproarious delight of those who had bet on him.

In another spot, a clearing in the woods, a number of men were throwing knives and axes at a range of targets and from varying distances, and as I rode through, several of these fellows glowered at me with open suspicion, turning completely around to follow me with hostile, watchful eyes until I disappeared from their view. There was no gambling taking place there, that I could see, and it seemed to me that everyone involved was taking the entire exercise very seriously. I stared directly at one of the participants in passing, a tall, dark-haired fellow who looked as though he would be happy to fight any casual foe that life might throw at him, but he ignored my truculence completely, merely turning slowly to follow me with an unblinking gaze as sullen as my own.

As soon as I realized he would not fight me merely for looking at him, I ignored him and kept moving, for I knew exactly who and what he represented: that brotherhood of veterans in every army who have survived everything they encountered and have learned to trust and rely upon their own close comrades only, and no one else. I had shared that same comradeship of veterans during Gunthar’s War and thus knew at first hand how powerful a bond it was. But somehow, foolishly, I had not expected to find its like in Britain.

Now that I had become aware of this phenomenon among Pendragon’s armies, however, I found myself watching for similar instances as I rode on, and I found no lack of them. But what surprised me most, as I paid closer attention to the men I passed, was that I began to fancy I could gauge a man’s war experience merely from the way he reacted to my presence. The more I saw, the more I became convinced that I was right and that the true veterans, the hardened core of this army that was all around me, were a highly distinctive group, easily identifiable despite the countless human differences between each man and his neighbors.

Completely engrossed in this new and intriguing train of thought, I eventually lost all awareness of where I truly was and what I was about. I rode by one group of veteran spearmen, all of them wearing what came nigh to being a uniform of drab green tunics with bright yellow blazons at their left shoulders, and I put my theory to the test by approaching very close to them, almost to within touching distance.

The silence that fell over them at my approach was profound. I counted a score and a half of them before one of them finally looked up and saw that I was bearing directly down on them. He frowned and cleared his throat but no words emerged from his mouth. The expression on his face, however, made words unnecessary and heads began to turn toward me more and more quickly, until thirty pairs of eyes were glaring at me in outrage, their owners shocked into silence by the suddenness and effrontery of my approach.

I had identified the group leaders some time earlier, and now I nodded gravely in acknowledgment and greeting to the one I deemed to be the senior of three. Showing no sign of curiosity and making no eye contact with anyone lest it spark a challenge, I rode steadily through their midst and they moved grudgingly but wordlessly to grant me passage.

When I had passed safely through and beyond them I made no attempt to look back, for I could feel the glare of their collective gaze in the center of my back. I did, however, permit myself to smile then, knowing that it was only my appearance that had saved me from being dragged off my horse and thrashed for my presumption. The fact that I was in this place at all, riding among them, meant that I must be an ally of some stripe, but that would have mattered not a whit had any of those men decided that I needed to be taught a lesson in good manners and decorum. Had that been the case, they would have had me off my horse in the blinking of an eye and I knew I must have come very close to having that happen.