Jack Whyte - Uther

For a long space of moments those words hung in the air, unanswered, unchallenged and undisputed. Then the younger man grunted, nodding in agreement.

"She is ugly, isn't she?"

Garreth Whistler nodded, his face solemn and judicious. "Well, she's not beautiful, your Nemo . . . no more so than vomit frozen to a cold road."

They both broke into giggles, but Uther sobered quickly, waving his laughter away with a sharp pass of his hand. "We shouldn't laugh at her. She can't help the way she was born. You're the one who told me to be considerate of young unfortunates. I like her, Garreth, though I don't know why."

"Well, why not? You've known her long enough by now. No reason at all for not liking the girl simply because she's not comely." Garreth Whistler's face broke into a grin again, and Uther's own smile reappeared as his friend and mentor continued. "Just so long as you don't rut with her . . . or if you do, don't look at her in the middle of it. I saw you looking at her hairy belly there, but her face—a face like that could turn you to stone if you looked at it close up."

Uther shook his head, his smile fading. "I don't know, Garreth." He nodded his head in the direction of the three bodies at their feet. "Something attracted these three to her, despite what you may say."

"Aye, desperation probably. Aided by the fact that at least she doesn't stink like a sour sow, the way most of her neighbours do." Garreth Whistler, too, had been seduced by the Roman ways of cleanliness and hygiene, and taught thus, through his nose, he had learned to be fastidious in his womanizing, which meant that he went virtually celibate during the six months that he spent each year among Ullic's people, few of whom were even familiar with the concept of bathing. Now he glanced again casually at the three corpses, then swung himself up into the saddle.

"Come on, let's get going. We'll send a wagon out for these later."

"Why? Why bother? This is human refuse. Let it lie here and stink."

Garreth Whistler tilted his head to one side and eyed his young charge quizzically. "My word, we are ill disposed today, aren't we? Stop for a moment and think about what you are saying. If we leave these characters to rot here, we'll be doing no kindness to our own people who pass this way every day. You may have killed more than your share of men already, but it's clear you still have to sniff your first rotting corpse up close, for if you had ever smelled one, you'd never think of leaving one unburied. Three dead men will make an unholy amount of stink and breed a heaving mountain of maggots. By rights, I ought to make you dig a grave for them all by yourself. Now mount up, and let's get out of here."

He sat watching sternly as Uther walked to his own mount and pulled himself up into the saddle, but then his gaze sharpened as the boy sat stiffly, staring down at the ground to his left. Garreth looked in the direction of his gaze, but there was nothing there that he could see.

"What are you staring at?"

"Nothing." Uther kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

"And what colour of nothing might that be? Look at me, boy! Don't just sit there scowling and pouting like a spoiled little girl. If there's something in your nose, hawk it out of there, get it out in the open. Tell me what's wrong with you—and don't say it's nothing."

The boy's eyes flickered towards the three dead men. "I didn't do anything wrong killing those men. If my father had found them doing what they were doing, they would be just as dead. But you're angry at me. Why are you angry at me?"

"By the Christian Christ . . . You still don't know, do you?"

Garreth Whistler pulled his horse up on its hind legs into a rearing turn, then spurred it into movement. Behind him he heard the thumping of hooves as Uther's mount followed him, moving up gradually until the lad was less than half a length behind. Then, knowing that Uther would stay with him. Whistler kicked his mount to a canter and turned his head to shout back over his shoulder, pitching his voice to overcome the thudding of heavy hooves.

"Hear me now, boy, and this time pay heed, for I'll only say this one more time. You fought well enough . . . proved that I have taught you well how to fight with a dirk."

Uther kicked his horse harder, edging it forward until the two men were riding side by side, but Garreth Whistler did not moderate his tone.

"But you are too damn hotheaded—far too impetuous. Isn't that the word your Grandfather Varrus used? He told me it means impulsive, ungovernable, lacking in control. And I thought. Yes, that's the word for our boy Uther. . . lacking in control."

Their horses swung apart, one right and the other left, to pass on either side of a huge elm tree that had somehow been permitted to grow up right in the centre of the ancient causeway, and Garreth waited until they came together again before he continued.

"Control . . . it's very important, Uther. Crucial, in fact. It's all- important in a leader of men, whether he be a soldier, a king or the leader of a gang of cattle thieves. If he can't control himself—his emotions, his temper, his rages—then he'll never be able to control others, because he'll never be able to hold their respect. No man will willingly follow someone he doesn't trust implicitly, someone he doesn't believe he can rely upon to stay in control at all times . . . in control of himself and in control of all the conditions he might encounter. Doesn't matter that his control might send his followers to their deaths in battle. That's why he's in command, and they'll forgive him that and anything else as long as they believe he's in control. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I am saying? Shout out, lad, so I can hear."

"Yes, I hear you."

"Aye, and you've heard me before, and yet still you wallow in your boneheaded stupidity. Stop! Stop your horse and listen to me, one more time." As he said the words he hauled back on his own reins, bringing his big horse to a plunging halt, and Uther's mount stopped in the same distance, so that the two remained side by side, almost touching. Before he spoke, Garreth sat staring, wild-eyed, into the face of his student.

"You could have been killed back there, boy! Stupidly, pointlessly, needlessly. Now I know you think you're immortal, but you are not. If you think about it, you might remember that you bleed when you cut yourself, and you break bones when you fall badly. D'you remember doing that last year? Well, spilled blood and broken bones are indications that you are mortal like the rest of us. You leaped off your horse back there, and you sacrificed control. Not merely your self-control, although the gods know how important that is, but control of the situation and the circumstances governing it. Any one of those three fools could have had a weapon and used it against you while you were grappling with the others. A small knife can cut your throat as easily as a dirk. Even a small club, hard swung, can crack a skull. You might have been dead, Uther, before you ever had a chance to know about it."

"But none of them had weapons, Garreth!"

"No, none of them did, but that was sheer good fortune. You leaped in there with no thought of anything other than your anger. You looked, you saw, and you reacted without thought, overwhelmed by anger and outrage."

"There's nothing wrong with anger and outrage. I've heard you—"

"Dia! Will you stop interrupting me, telling me what you think I'm saying! Just be quiet and listen! You've heard me say so, isn't that what you were going to say? Well, your main trouble is that you hear only what you want to hear, Uther. Yes, you have heard me say that there's nothing wrong with anger and outrage, but you have also heard me say a hundred times that anger and outrage call for clear thinking and sober analysis before you make any move that might endanger you or any of your people. Isn't that so? Isn't it?"