Jack Whyte - Uther

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

Within an hour of Nemo's departure from Camulod in pursuit of Cassandra, Uther himself rode into the Colony from the west, accompanied by a small group of hand-picked companions. It was obvious from their appearance that he and his party had been riding hard and taking little or no time to rest, because their horses were lathered and caked with dust and sweat and their riders looked little better. Uther rode through the main gates at a fast trot, barely nodding an acknowledgment to the guards on duty, and made his way directly to the administrative building, where he strode to the Duty Officer's station and demanded to see Merlyn Britannicus immediately. The Duty Officer that day was Jacobus, a junior decurion, an officer trainee, which was not unusual, since there was seldom any need for seniority in making the kinds of decisions that were called for in the middle of a normal working day in the administrative building.

From the way Uther phrased his demand to see Merlyn, Jacobus knew that his response was not going to be well received. Snapping to attention and saluting Uther, he spun and clicked his fingers to attract the attention of one of the runners on duty, knowing as he did so that the gesture was unnecessary. The runner was already standing by his side, gawking from him to Uther and back, waiting for an explosion. Jacobus sent the fellow running to bring the Legate Titus, the Commander of Camulod in Merlyn's absence, then cleared his throat and informed Uther that Merlyn had left Camulod several days earlier to ride eastward into the Saxon-occupied area of Britain known as the Saxon Shores in order to attend a debate among Christian churchmen in the old Roman town of Verulamium, approximately thirty miles northwest of Londinium, the former administrative centre of Roman Britain. Jacobus awaited the explosion, but it did not come. Uther drew in his breath sharply, making a tiny, sucking sound of annoyance between his teeth, and then nodded abruptly.

"I'll wait for Titus. Where should I wait?"

Jacobus indicated the cubiculum against the outer wall of the building that contained the commanding officer's table and chair and was illuminated by a long, low, shuttered window. Uther nodded his thanks and asked the young man for his name before he made his way inside to wait.

Moments later. Titus himself swept in from the courtyard outside and joined him, closing the door behind himself and leaning back against it, slightly out of breath.

"Titus." Uther nodded, smiling at his old friend. "You look well, but you sound a little puffed."

"Age, Uther, age. I don't have the resilience I once had."

Titus straightened and crossed to embrace Uther with both arms. Then he stepped back and held the younger man by the shoulders to peer up at him. "It will hit you, too, one of these days, no matter how immortal you believe yourself to be. Before you know it, the masseurs will be plucking grey hairs out of your head, and your joints will be starting to feel stiff on cold mornings."

"They already do, my friend. How long do you expect Merlyn to be gone?"

"At least a month. Why, what's wrong?"

Uther's face had darkened, his anger, always sudden, ignited by this unexpected complication.

"Everything. Everything's wrong, damnation! Can we send after him, bring him back?"

"Not easily. We don't know with certainty what route he'll follow. He is on his way to Verulamium for a debate with a party of two hundred . . . more of an ambassadorial journey than anything else, really. His mission is to demonstrate Camulod's strength to whoever might turn up for this debate among the bishops."

"What debate? And what in the name of all the gods at once is Merlyn doing among bishops?"

"I'll tell you in a moment, but first tell me what's going on and why you're here. I understood you had no plans to leave Tir Manha this year. What changed your mind?"

Uther moved around behind the table, punching one hand into the open palm of the other. "Gulrhys Lot, what else? Nemo had barely left with my last dispatches for Merlyn when I received word that Cornwall is seething with armed men again. Where is Nemo, by the way? Is she still here in Camulod?"

Titus shrugged. "I have no idea, but I doubt it. She delivered the dispatches a week ago."

"Word came in to Tir Manha that Lot might be making a nuisance of himself again, that Cornwall is an armed camp. My first reaction was to ignore it. It didn't seem to me that Lot could have raised another army in so short a time after the thrashing we gave him less than a year ago. But then I remembered the nature of the beast, and so I sent out scouts. Didn't waste any time. I sent them on the run, the same day the report came in, with orders to examine anything unusual that they could find down there and then bring the information back to me as quickly as they could. I sent two scouting expeditions, one by sea and the other overland. The overland group was a squad of my own Dragons, some of my very best.

"The seagoing party, two galleys, came back first, within a week. They had barely crossed the river estuary before they saw action, and they didn't even begin to approach the open sea. They were fortunate to escape capture as it was. According to the two captains, the entire northern coast of the peninsula down there is alive with shipping, so it's a safe wager the south coast will be, too. They told me there are vessels arriving from every direction every day, filling up every little bay along the shoreline and unloading men, then setting off again, presumably to transport more.

"That was all I needed to hear. I know Lot inherited his father's love of assembling mercenaries from beyond the seas, so I decided to ride over here myself and get our joint preparations underway without any waste of time. But even before we could leave to come here, the other scouting party came back, too . . . or what was left of it. They had set out to ride directly southwest into Cornwall, travelling cautiously and hoping to attract no unwelcome attention, holding to the west of Isca where the land is bleak and barren. But they were less than sixty miles into Lot's territories when they were found and challenged and forced to turn back. By that time, fortunately, they had seen all they needed to see, but they had to fight every mile of the way home, and they lost more than half their number.

"Lot has a large army gathering down there, Titus, and there's only one way for him to bring it out, as you and I both know. I don't think we have any time at all to waste sitting around talking. But I haven't even mentioned the most important information we uncovered with our overland expedition. The army my people found down there—the southern army, I've been calling it—is only half the story. According to the prisoners taken and questioned by my men, the call has gone out for an enormous assembly of men, all under Lot's banner, to take place to the northeast of here close by Aquae Sulis. When they are all together, they will start a systematic devastation of the towns in this region, beginning with Aquae itself and Glevum."

"What? But that's insane! There's nothing left in Aquae Sulis to plunder, nor in Glevum. Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, there might have been some point to that, but the towns are empty shells nowadays. Lot must know that."

Uther nodded, his face expressionless. "He probably does, but it won't make any difference to him. He is selling the idea of plunder for the taking. The picture of fat towns waiting to be sacked and looted is what he's using to raise his army, and you can be sure the rabble he's attracting have no idea his promises are empty. When they find out the truth, they'll be murderous, but Lot will be back in Cornwall by then, and we'll be the ones left to deal with it, on top of everything else."