Jack Whyte - Uther

Within the hour, however, it quickly became apparent from the evidence of her squad mates that Nemo had been the one to initiate the fighting, hurling a heavy pot at the head of Mark, the giant sawyer. Her Bonehead mates had all been around her at the time, and always ready for a fight, they had joined gleefully in an indiscriminate assault on the townspeople. It became painfully clear as the inquiry progressed that the Boneheads were aptly named. None of them showed the slightest sign of guilt or remorse or even regret at appearing in front of the tribunal, and all of them seemed to take great delight in incriminating themselves and each other in the activities that were being investigated.

Nemo, brought in last of all, was not even questioned about her role in the events. She was simply accused of having started the debacle, and she made no attempt to deny her guilt. She provided no reason for her attack when invited to speak in her own defence. She had nothing to say, and she said nothing. She simply stood and glowered at a spot somewhere above the heads of the tribunal, as though defying them to do their worst with her. And so they did.

All nine of the accused were summoned together to face judgment, and when they were assembled, Centurion Dedalus informed them of the tribunal's findings and sentence. They had disgraced their own unit and the name of Camulod, he told them, and their behaviour had cost the Colony not only the goodwill of the citizens of Glevum, but also a substantial measure of the dwindling reserves of the coinage the Council of Camulod kept for emergency use. Because of that, and since they themselves had nothing of any value to offer in restitution other than toil and sweat expended in the common good, they would spend four months on chain duty, all privileges suspended for the duration of that time. They would participate in no training exercises or patrols during those four months, but would spend the entire time confined to garrison cells when they were not working punishment duties. Their confinement was to begin immediately. They were placed under open arrest, disarmed and guarded until they could be incarcerated on their return to Camulod.

It was a savage sentence, and four months was an unheard-of commitment to chain duty, lacking the commission of some extraordinary military crime such as attacking an officer or killing a comrade in a fight. But all three judges had concurred in adding an additional month to the sentence they originally considered, as a response to the utter absence of any sign of fear, shame or remorse among the offenders. The nine miscreants stood side by side and accepted the judgment solemnly, and none of them offered so much as a grunt of protest. Dedalus finally waved a hand in disgusted dismissal and they were marched away, leaving the members of the tribunal to look at each other in silence. None of them felt like discussing the matter any longer, and soon they split up and went their separate ways.

On the morning following the tribunal, Uther, in a foul frame of mind, disappeared on a three-day furlough. Later that same day, however, urgent word arrived from Camulod that Uther's grandfather, Publius Varrus, lay dying, and Caius Merlyn went galloping off in search of his cousin, leading two extra horses and claiming that he knew where Uther might have gone. Cay found him under attack in a roadhouse in the company of several skittishly attractive serving maids more than willing to fulfill a soldier's needs. Together the two of them fought off Uther's attackers, thieves who had hoped to catch him off guard while he took his pleasure with the women. Afterwards, Uther, in recompense for the villainous proprietor's participation in the murderous attack on him, burned the roadhouse to the ground. Then the two cousins made their way as quickly as they could towards Camulod.

Publius Varrus was great-uncle to Caius Merlyn, but he was also Uther's maternal grandfather, and both young men loved the old smith deeply. Before he died—and his grief-stricken wife Lucciia would swear that he hung on to life for that sole purpose—Varrus spoke privately, first to his grandson and then to his great-nephew, of his hopes for them and for the union between Cambria and Camulod, and both had listened carefully and taken his dying testament to heart.

From the day of his death, two changes were noticeable in the young men: Cay, who had always been known formally as Caius Britannicus, insisted that everyone call him by his Celtic name, Merlyn, from that time on. Uther, for his part, sobered somehow upon the death of his grandfather, becoming different, more dignified and perhaps in some elusive, indeterminable way even more manly in his bearing. Uther had grown up, matured within the space of the few days that had elapsed from the first word of his grandfather's illness to the completion of the old man's funeral services and his burial in the main courtyard of Camulod beside the grave of his best friend, Caius Britannicus, Proconsul and Senator of Rome.

Not once in the entire four months of her sentence did Nemo Hard- Nose set eyes on Uther. In the close confinement of chain duty, she was utterly incapable of tending to her self-appointed duty to protect and serve Uther, and she found that intolerable.

Nemo harboured few illusions about Uther or about herself, but she and Uther saw what happened in the marketplace that day in Glevum very differently. Uther suspected that Nemo had seen him flirting with the woman, Anna, and had been jealous. He was wrong. Uther was her god, and Nemo knew that mere mortals cannot hope to rut with gods. What Nemo had seen and noted was the threatening demeanour of the giant Mark, who had stood glaring at Uther while Uther spoke to Anna. Nemo, standing among her squad mates, had defined a threat in the big man's attitude and had immediately decided to bring him down simply for his overt disapproval of Uther. She had launched her attack without warning the moment Uther walked out of sight. The woman, Anna, had been included in her ire solely because she had been the catalyst that had precipitated the threat against Uther. In the course of chastising Anna's giant lover. Nemo had sought to punish the woman almost casually, in passing, as an incidental indication of her disapproval.

As soon as she and her companions were released from custody at the end of their four-month sentence. Nemo spruced herself up and appeared in her best uniform outside Uther's quarters, where she requested and received permission to report to him for duty. Escorted into his presence, she stood at attention until he turned to look at her, his face devoid of expression.

"So," he said, "Trooper Nemo. You've been released to duty. Did you enjoy your stay with the provost martial?"

Keeping her stance perfectly rigid, she assured him that she had not enjoyed it and did not intend ever to repeat it again. He nodded then and reiterated formally what he had already intimated in his opening words to her: that she would be starting out again from the beginning, demoted to the lowly rank of trooper. That did not concern her; she had lost her ranking as troop leader more times than any other trooper in her intake, but she had always managed to win it back through sheer guts and determination. Uther then dismissed her so that she could meet with her decurion commander.

Nemo was troop leader again within the month, and she worked hard after that at keeping her nose clean and her performance as close to perfect as was achievable, so that within the year, she had won promotion to decurion, the highest rank she had ever attained. No one really expected her to keep it for long, but this time, she swore to herself, things would be different. She was determined to remain a decurion, and months eventually passed into seasons without her earning a single demerit, let alone a demotion.