Jack Whyte - Uther

Later, reclining in the hot water, beginning to feel clean again, Mairidh had wept silently, tears of thanksgiving for her rescuer and for the fact that his life, too, had been spared. By the time she had climbed out of the pool, he had built up a roaring fire in a sheltered angle between two large, flat stones that someone had set on end in the past. She had dried herself in front of it using a large, soft woollen cloak from the Pig's sack as a towel. Then, with a solicitude that had seemed more suitable to a father or an older brother than a young lover, he had helped her tend to the worst of her cuts and bruises, gently wiping those she could not reach herself. Afterwards he had lowered her gently down onto a thick bed of newly gathered moss, wrapped her in her saffron robe and covered her with his leather overshirt, and over that with the woollen cloak. She had fallen asleep almost immediately, overcome with feelings of peace and well-being and the release from danger.

Now, judging by the westering sun, she knew it must be late in the afternoon. Knowing that he thought her still asleep, Mairidh allowed herself the luxury of simply looking at the boy and wondering.

He was tall and strongly built—as big as any full-grown man, in fact—and yet she judged him to be no more than fifteen years old, perhaps sixteen. More than that, however, he was beautiful, in a time and a place where male beauty, in the classic Roman sense of the word, was something seldom seen. It was his . . . what was it? She sought the word . . . his wholesomeness, the cleanly proportioned, hairless Roman look of him. Of course, she knew he was no Roman. There had been no Romans left in Britain for more than a decade and a half since the legions left. Moreover, this boy was clearly a local Celt, with his black hair, fair skin and bright blue eyes. But he was tall for his people and strong, with wide shoulders, long arms and a narrow waist. He was also clean in the fastidious way of the Romans, with a glowing, healthy, well-scrubbed look to him. The combination of that cleanliness with the clearly muscled shape of his lithe young body had caught her eye and her fancy in a way that seldom happened to her nowadays.

She had first seen him swimming in the river with several friends of his own age, and he had glittered among them like a jewel among broken glass. So she had watched him from afar, perched high on a cliff and concealed from their view by a screen of low-growing shrubbery. She remembered her surprise when he had finally emerged from the water and dried himself with a thick towel produced from a leather satchel, then dressed in what she could see was rich and well-made clothing. The knowledge that he was thus obviously the son of a wealthy and powerful man had intrigued her and enabled her to pretend she had another reason altogether for returning the following day to watch the boy again, this time without the young woman who, acting as her companion, had first led her that way.

She could not have given a coherent reason, even to herself, to explain why she might be content to crouch alone for the better part of a day, spying on a boy who must have been at least ten years her junior, but she had felt no desire to justify anything she did, least of all to herself. The watching gave her intense pleasure, and she had long since learned never to spurn such gifts.

Her husband, Balin, was no longer a young man, and his interest in sex for its own sake had begun to wane. A few years earlier, when he and Mairidh first wed, he had been more than able to acquit himself handsomely and had taken lustful and glorious pleasure in the voluptuous blandishments of his lovely young wife. He no longer had the potency with which to express his feelings, but his wife had, and he would never have denied her the right to express and enjoy her sexuality. Balin's beliefs were his own, gathered and assimilated throughout a lifetime of travel, observation and discussion of various religions, including Druidism and Christianity. Sex, he believed, was an elemental part of religion and religious fervour. Men and women were born of sex, he maintained, and therefore owed the gods their gratitude, which they could express through sex, irrespective of age or gender. He believed implicitly that Mairidh's love for him would be unaffected by her enjoyment of casual, normal sex with others. Love was ineffable, Balin believed, and sex was nothing more than private prayer.

Bolstered by that knowledge and having come to share her husband's beliefs over the years, Mairidh now felt no fears at all about the way Balin perceived her. She knew that his love for her was secure.

Even when she returned the third day and the boy had not appeared, Mairidh had smiled wryly to herself before admitting that she was more disappointed than she might have thought possible mere days before. But she had had nothing better to do, and the boy was beautiful enough to justify her efforts, so she had resolved to return on the fourth day.

The boy came swimming once again, accompanied this time by only a few companions. Once again she watched from the concealment of her high ledge, this time hoping against all logic that his friends would go away and leave him alone, since it was inconceivable that she might make any approach to him while they were present. They were mere boys, younger-looking and far less mature than he appeared to be, loud, boisterous and irreverent, with the bruising noisiness that all boys of their age possessed. Mairidh had no difficulty imagining their prurient reactions should they discover her spying on them, and she smiled grimly to herself and remained in hiding.

And then, quite suddenly, between one moment and the next, they vanished without warning, their presence and their noise dwindling until finally engulfed by the surrounding forest. For whatever reason, the boy had remained behind, alone, floating tranquilly on his back in their waist-deep swimming hole. She waited for a long time, her heart pounding, before she was able to accept that the others had really gone away and were not sneaking about through the undergrowth, playing some boyish game of raiders. Once she did accept it, however, she moved quickly, wasting no more time.

She descended quickly to the riverbank, careful to move quietly lest she betray her presence, and then she paused to collect herself, drawing several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her suddenly racing heart. When she was sure that no sign of any kind could betray her appearance of unsuspecting innocence, she began humming to herself very quietly and stepped forward, allowing her long-skirted clothing to brush audibly against the bushes lining the narrow riverside path.

The boy was taken completely by surprise, a picture of wide- eyed confusion as he realized that he was floating on his back, utterly naked and exposed to the eyes of a beautiful woman smiling at him from the waterside. He almost drowned himself with the sudden violence of his reaction, spinning in the water and attempting to dive out of sight, yet trying to cover his nakedness with both hands as he did so. Of course, he failed to disappear and instead merely exposed his white, vulnerable buttocks while inhaling vast quantities of water.

Watching him sputtering and flailing around with his eyes closed against the indignity of what was happening to him, Mairidh stood with her hand across her mouth, her eyes alight with laughter that she knew she must put down completely. By the time he regained his composure, she had mastered herself, and her eyes showed only concern for his welfare. He stood facing her eventually, his eyes wide and his whole body trembling slightly with tension and perhaps embarrassment, both hands held low in front of him under the water, covering his maleness.

Mairidh stepped closer to the bank, looking directly down at him.