Jack Whyte - Uther

"And what's that?" the King asked. "What did you think?"

"I thought—no, I knew—that a stone struck properly like that is split forever. It can never be put back together again."

"I see. That was your vision?"

"No, in my vision I saw a sword splitting a stone. And then the stone became an army, divided by a sword stroke. And then, instead of a sword, I saw a force of Camulod's cavalry, a wedge squadron formation, striking an army and splitting it apart."

"So it could never be rejoined . . ." The King's voice was quiet, and he had a far-away expression in his eyes. "Hmm!" Ullic sat up straight and wiped his hands on the bottom of his tunic. "So you brought your idea to me. Good. But you should have brought it sooner."

"Why?" Uther now sounded depressed. "My idea didn't work, and I broke the sword. And besides, we don't have any cavalry like Camulod's, so it won't do us any good."

"Aha, so that's what you're thinking, is it? Well, lad, you're wrong. What's important here, it seems to me—although, mind you, I'm naught but an old man—what's important here is that I broke the coal. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, I know you did, Tata."

"Aye, but did you hear what I said? I said that was the important thing."

"I know, Tata, I heard you."

"Good, then you can tell me why it was important."

"I . . ." Uther sat silent, blinking, and his grandfather took pity on him.

"It was important, Uther, because what you had done, or tried to do, set me thinking about it. . . And so I was able to do it, after I had thought about it for a bit. But I would never have thought about it at all if it hadn't been for what you did. It would never have occurred to me to try such a thing, even if I lived to be twice the age I am now, if you had not provided the original idea. Do you hear what I am saying to you, Uther?"

Ullic waited, peering into his grandson's face, but then, seeing that the boy had not understood, he kept talking. "The idea, Uther, the idea was yours, and that is more important than the success or failure of what you tried to do with it. Once the idea has been put forward, someone will always come along to make it real, to make it happen, but it need not be the person who first had the idea. There are very few people in this world who can do what you did in this—who can conceive ideas, lad—who can come up with the original thought required for progress, and the knowledge that you, my own grandson, could be one of those few people makes me very proud." Again Ullic waited, and again the boy did not respond the way the King wanted.

"But I failed, Grandfather. I didn't do it."

"Dia! Very well, let me think about this for a moment. . . Here, try this. You admire your Grandfather Varrus, no?" Uther nodded. "Of course you do, and so you should. And the reason you had that thought of cavalry splitting an army is because you admire the cavalry at Camulod almost as much as you admire Publius Varrus, am I right?" Again the boy nodded. "Good then. So you must be really proud of your grandfather's prowess as a cavalry leader, and of the way he looks on horseback, all decked out in his fine armour on his huge cavalry horse, right?"

Uther was shaking his head, frowning. "No, Tata, Grandfather Varrus does not ride. I've never seen him in armour on horseback. He is not a cavalryman."

"What? But he commands all Camulod's cavalry, does he not?"

"No, he does not. He used to be the Commander, but he gave that up to Uncle Picus when Uncle Picus came home to Britain."

"But why?"

"You know why! Uncle Picus used to be an Imperial Legate, the supreme cavalry commander in Britain, before I was born."

"I see. So you are saying your Grandfather Varrus is a failure." The boy's eyes went wide with shock and outrage, but before he could respond in any way, Ullic held up his hand to forestall him. "No? That's not what you are saying? Then what am I to believe? Why would Varrus relinquish his own power to another man—any man?"

"He did not, Tata! Uncle Picus is not just any other man! He is Tana Luceiia's nephew, and he is a great commander of cavalry, better than Tata Varrus could ever be. Tata Varrus would have been stupid not to allow Uncle Picus to take over the command, because Uncle Picus does that best, and Tata Varrus had other things to do."

"Aha! Other things, you mean, that he could do better and more profitably, making better use of his time."

"Yes. That's what I mean."

"Excellent, then let us move on. No, stay where you are," Uther had moved to stand up. "I meant let us move on in our discussion. We can do that here.

"I want you to think upon these things. You swung your blade; I used the point of mine. You picked a point to hit among the lines on the coal, then took your blade away, allowing it to waver as you moved it. I inserted my point firmly and kept it there. You risked everything on a wild swing with an inferior blade. I concentrated all my force and weight behind a single, firmly held point. You assumed, wrongly, that you were dealing with the same kind of coal you had used in Camulod and that it was soft and would break apart easily, whereas I, knowing nothing about coal, only looked for what I could find within the coal that lay in front of me.

"So you failed on every count, and I succeeded. But look at the reasons for your failure, Uther. You used a different kind of coal, because you didn't take the trouble to make sure it was what you thought it was. That is an error you probably will never make again. You learned through bitter experience that you can never afford to assume anything, and from now on, I would dare to say you'll always check to make sure that things that might be important to you are, in fact, what they appear to be. Am I correct?" The boy nodded. "Good. Next, you took careful aim, and then you swung your blade up over your head, and that cost you everything you had gained in taking careful aim. Lesson: you may do that when you are swinging at something large, impossible to miss and undefended, but when your target is as tiny and difficult to hit as a thin line drawn on a stone, why, then you must use your head and find a different way to hit it. Then, too, the poorness of your blade was self-defeating. Nothing ever will be more important to you in a struggle than the quality of your weapons. In almost every instance of hand-to-hand fighting, your life will depend, almost absolutely, upon your having the best blade. Never keep or use an inferior weapon. You might as well chop off your own hands.

"So, those were the points that governed your failure in Council today, would you not agree? I thought so. Well, were you faced with doing exactly the same thing tomorrow, and if you look to those same points, remembering what happened today, you would surely succeed. And you could do it time and time again thereafter and succeed every time, because you have learned your lessons. Do you understand me?"

Uther nodded his head wordlessly and Ullic repeated the gesture. "Good. Now let's look at my successes in the same light. I succeeded in splitting your stone, but I didn't know what I was doing, and I did not know what was going to happen. I did all of the right things, but I did them all because I came to them with curiosity and time to study them. I had no pre-formed notions of what I was about or of what I thought to achieve. I was merely inquisitive and curious. But I would never have done anything at all, boy, had you not brought that piece of coal, together with a blade, to my attention. So, hear me on this, Uther, and hear me clearly.

"Your Grandfather Varrus is a very clever and admirable man, and he has no fear of assigning work to other people who are suited for it. That is a Roman idea, called delegation—I'm sure you must have heard the word in Camulod. It means work allocated to someone by the direct order of his legate, his commander, along with the authority and responsibility to complete it properly. Delegation, through what the Romans refer to as the chain of command—from legate to tribune, to junior tribune, to centurion, all the way down to the common soldier—enabled men like your Uncle Picus and his father, Caius Britannicus, both of whom were Roman legates, to build an empire. You spend almost half of your time in Camulod, and you're a clever and observant lad, so you already know much of what I am telling you, but from now on, keep that word in your mind . . . delegation. It's something we here in Cambria are not good at. In fact, it does not exist here. We Cambrians have too much foolish pride to let ourselves be seen to delegate tasks, because it might appear that we are shirking doing them ourselves; and we have too much pride, as well, to submit ourselves to being selected to perform them, lest we appear to be inferior and too easily led. We suffer greatly by such stupidities, and you'll see that as you grow older.