Jack Whyte - Uther

Uric listened to his son's harangue and then sent for those of his Councillors most suited for the hearing of such things, telling Uther at the same time to call in his own senior officers. When the entire group had assembled. Uric instructed them, without any preamble, to listen carefully, and then he turned back to his son and told him to repeat what he had said before.

When Uther had done so, the King looked around the circle of listeners until he met the eye of Uther's most senior Camulodian officer, a youngish man called Phillip, who was of an age with Garreth Whistler, a good twelve years older than Uther.

"What think you? Do you agree with my son?"

Phillip shrugged, then smiled. "I do, in this instance. King Uric."

"Why? Because he is your Commander?"

"No, sir, because his assessment seems to me to be accurate and correct."

"Hmm." Uric turned and looked at his own senior Councillors, who stood beside Daris, the High Priest. "Gethel, what say you?"

The old warrior called Gethel had stood listening with his right elbow resting on his left forearm, curling one of his long, white moustaches between his thumb and forefinger. Now he sucked in his lips and sniffed and nodded his head tersely. "Aye," he said. "It makes sense. The gods all know his people are doing no good here now, the way things stand. Better, then, that they should learn more of what it is they are supposed to do so well. And if we ever are invaded, then we will have a force that should be valuable. I say let them go."

"Daris? Have you anything to say?"

The Druid shook his head, his face sober. "Nothing more. King Uric. I agree with Gethel."

"Very well, does anyone else have anything to add? Anything negative? No? So be it." Uric turned back to his son. "We will miss having you here next summer, but perhaps your mother may travel down to Camulod to visit her own family then as well. Make arrangements, please, with Publius Varrus, to house you and your . . . Dragons . . . for the whole year. There should be no difficulty involved, but inform them for the sake of courtesy, will you?"

Everyone there, with the single exception of Daris, would have been surprised to know that Uric had decided to allow his son's request while he was listening to it for the first time and that this gathering he had called had been purely for the sake of policy and appearances. In fact, the King's decision had been made for what some might have seen as the wrong reasons, but at that level, deep inside himself. Uric did not care about what others might have thought. He had decided to accept his son's contentions and his recommendation based purely upon his own reaction to the dedication and responsibility he had seen shining in Uther's eyes, for there he had recognized the absolute vindication of his decision to send the boy to Camulod to form and train his novice cavalry using Camulodian discipline and Cambrian volunteers. Already, both he and his troops had changed beyond recognition. The wide-eyed volunteers who had departed but a few months previously as an undisciplined rabble were now proudly calling themselves the Dragons, and Uther had become their true Commander, strong and confident in the role, committed and dedicated to the prosperity and the responsibilities of his men. Uric was happy with the transformation and with the boy. The boy truly was his, and the father was more than pleased.

By the time they were both seventeen, Uther Pendragon and Caius Merlyn Britannicus had learned many lessons, seen many changes and crossed many bridges, not the least of which was the bridge between boyhood and manhood. That one they had crossed twice: once together in the Manhood Rites that symbolized a youth's transition front boyhood to warrior status; and then once more, this time separately, in the nameless rites that signified the transition from boyhood daydreams to the physical knowledge of women.

That second bridge crossing had been far more profoundly significant than the first for both young men, in that they had spent years training in the disciplines that were required for the Manhood Rites, and thus knew what was required of them at the testing time, whereas they had spent just as long talking and dreaming about the other manhood rites—and failing utterly to learn anything at all about the skills and disciplines they would need to learn in dealing with women. Each of them entered that arena alone, as all men must, and thereafter each progressed according to the dictates of his nature. And while both felt inclined from time to time to trumpet some particular success or triumph, each carried his personal failures and doubts in that most personal of all arenas securely concealed inside himself—or so he hoped. And to compensate for the sometimes overwhelming feelings of doubt and insecurity that would inevitably arise, each allowed himself to be perhaps a little more flamboyant than he might otherwise have been in those areas in which he felt most confident: outward appearances, military efficiency and disciplined precision in every endeavour.

The dispersal of the Dragons on their return to Camulod signalled the beginning of the next stage in Uther's training, as the Legate Picus had promised. Summoning Uther and Merlyn before him, Picus introduced them to their future: further advanced training in the art of command under the tutelage of one of his own imperial cavalry veterans, a senior centurion called Dedalus. Garreth Whistler would have no involvement in this part of Uther's training and would be lodged, like the rest of the Dragons, with a veteran company until such time as Uther's training should be completed for this year. In the meantime, Uther and Cay were to present themselves to Dedalus immediately following the noon meal, and Dedalus would give them his own instructions from that point.

Neither Uther nor Cay knew Dedalus personally, for the centurion was a field officer and therefore not as much in evidence around the fort as were the Legates Titus and Flavius, the members of Picus's retinue best known to the two boys. Dedalus was one of those who had returned home to Britain with Picus after the Emperor's assassination of Flavius Stilicho, when Picus and a small band of his most faithful officers and associates, warned in advance by sources close to Honorius, had escaped mere hours ahead of the heavily armed, five-hundred-man cohort of imperial Household Guards sent out to arrest and imprison Picus.

Uther's first thought on coming face to face with Dedalus that afternoon was that the man should have looked older if he had indeed been a veteran with Picus Britannicus in Stilicho's cavalry. It had been nine years since Picus Britannicus had come home to Camulod, when Uther and Cay were eight, and the former imperial legate and his group of friends had been travelling for almost a year by that time, crossing the continent in stealth, fleeing the wrath of a vindictive Emperor. According to Uther's mental arithmetic, Dedalus, a surviving centurion of Stilicho's campaign in Thrace against the Ostrogoths under their War Chief, Alaric, should have been no younger than thirty-five, and yet he looked no more than twenty-five, and that, Uther thought, could not be possible. Dedalus looked in every respect to be the epitome of a burnished, gleaming and polished Roman centurion, up to and including the large transverse crest on his helmet and the nine thick, decorative rings that were fastened to his breastplate in three rows. Each one of those decorative rings, Uther knew, had been awarded to its bearer for valorous and distinguished behaviour on an imperial campaign or in a specific battle or engagement.

Dedalus eyed his two new charges with disdain and something else that Uther thought, for no particular reason, might be regret. For a moment or two, the boy felt an indistinct but intuitive stirring of sympathy for the man, beginning to discern, if only vaguely, the difficulties that he must be facing in this situation. No one enjoys having unwanted responsibilities thrust upon him, and no man worth his salt can easily enjoy being exposed to nepotism from the exploited end of the arrangement. He had had two unknowns thrown into his care and could have no idea what to expect of them. The only thing of which he could be sure was that his superior required him to pass these two idiots along, irrespective of how good or bad they might be.