Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

I spent the very first hour after my return, along with several of my travelling companions, exulting in the delights of Camulod's bathhouse and masseurs. Then, dressed in rich clothing for the first time in years and feeling like a new man, I was able to enjoy a light meal before being introduced to each of the new officers individually, with great solemnity, in a ceremony organized in advance by my brother and staged in the Officers' Tribunal. The Tribunal itself was an innovation, a new building erected against the postern wall of the fort for the dual purpose of serving regulatory tribunal requirements whenever necessary and housing the garrison officers in their off duty hours.

Accepting a suggestion from Ambrose, I contrived, throughout the course of that ceremony, to maintain an air of august gravity. As my brother had so wisely observed, although the men I was to meet were all unknown to me, I was known, by repute, to all of them. I soon discovered that my reputation had evidently grown to be far greater than I had thought it could be, and I had great difficulty, at first, in adjusting to that, once I had learned to recognize—and finally to accept—the look of awe they had, one and all, on meeting me.

I say I learned to accept it, because my first reaction to this uniform, awe stricken expression was to assume immediately that it sprang from the legendary exaggerations soldiers thrive upon, particularly when they want to impress recruits and newcomers with stories of their own veteran status. So my first urge was to challenge the look and dispel it, forcefully. Such unearned deference—for so I saw it—embarrassed me.

They came into my presence in unsmiling, sharply regimented groups, marching in perfect step under the watchful, disapproving eye of Tertius Lucca, our primus pilus, or Senior Soldier, and segregated into their groups by their cohortal designations: First Cavalry, First Scouting, First Infantry and so on, all the way through to Third Infantry. I realized only belatedly, after being introduced individually to the first group of nine of these earnest and deeply dutiful young men, that Ambrose had been prescient. I had been away from Camulod for a long time, and in my desire to be accepted again, I might easily have been overeager to ingratiate myself with these new, young and impressionable men. As it was, I maintained my dignity and my distance as a commander, speaking briefly but pleasantly with each new face and inquiring solicitously about the rank and station each one held, so that as the last group of them strode away after delivering a crisp salute in unison, Ambrose smiled at me.

"Now that was a tribunal reception worthy of an Imperial Legate. Well done, Brother. That leaves you to face only the new Councillors, for we have a few of those whom you have never met, and a few of the more prominently successful new Colonists—very few of those. It's difficult to be new, prominent and successful in our egalitarian Colony. That won't be until tomorrow, at the feast. Tonight, we dine in private, more or less informally, with our close friends and family. Ludmilla and I decided some time ago, presupposing your agreement, that we should hold that particular gathering down in the Villa Britannicus. The facilities there are much more suited to our needs for tonight, the kitchens are larger and more spacious. Besides, the old place doesn't get enough use nowadays. I mean, it's often used, but only as ancillary premises, if you see what I mean. It's finally complete again, you know, totally refurbished after the damage done to it in Lot's attack eleven years ago. It's exactly as it was before the family moved up here to live in the fort. Ludmilla would move back down again in an instant, but I believe my place is up here, in the centre of things" He paused, looking sideways at me. "You know, it has just occurred to me that you and Tress might enjoy living there, for a while, at least. What think you?"

Ambrose's suggestion intrigued me. Although I had been born in the Villa Britannicus, and had always loved the grand old house, I had never lived there. My grandfather had died there, brutally murdered, as had my mother, but that knowledge had never deterred me in my love for the place that had been our family home for generations. It was less than a mile from the fort, no great distance, and now, remembering Tressa's remarks from earlier that day, it occurred to me that it might be a perfect place for her to begin learning how to run a large household, free of the fear of countering Ludmilla's will.

"You know, that might be a splendid idea, Ambrose, and it would never have occurred to me. But it would have to be Tressa's decision. The sheer size of it might frighten her. She has never seen such a house, let alone lived in one. Derek's house is the finest in Ravenglass, and it's a hovel compared to the Villa. Anyway, let me mention it to her, after she's seen the place tonight and had a look at the way it is run. When are we to go down?"

"We have several hours to pass until dinner, but that will give us time to walk around the place and admire it. Our carpenters have done magnificent work on the interior, and so have some of our masons, on the inside as well as the outside walls. They've even restored some of the old mosaics that were damaged. You'll be impressed, I promise you. Let's go and find Derek and Donuil and the women, and we can all ride down together in one of the big wagons."

On the few occasions I was alone with Ambrose that day I tried to question him about conditions in Cambria and Northumbria, but he would have none of it. I made one more attempt to question him then as we set out, but he stopped me with a raised palm before I could really begin and pointed out to me that we did not have the time, right then, to discuss fully the matters that would have to be resolved. People were coming and going all around us, and we would be interrupted constantly, unless we made ourselves grossly discourteous to our Colony's new guests while we indulged ourselves in matters that could very easily wait until that night. He was right, of course, so I buried my impatience and resigned myself to making the best of the postponement.

Ambrose dispatched a soldier to the stables to arrange for one of the big, seat filled wagons to be prepared and placed at our disposal, and then we made our way directly to the former Varrus household, where We found our friends returning from a walk in the late afternoon sunlight. Seeing them approach from the far side of the central courtyard, I stopped by the three large slabs of slate stone sunk in the centre of the yard and waited for them to reach us. To Tress and Derek, I pointed out the graves of Caius Britannicus, Publius and Luceiia Varrus, and my own father, Picus Britannicus. These, I explained, had been the founders of Camulod, the progenitors of everything that flourished in the Colony today. I could think of no more to say, but I trusted that they would understand the import of these people in my life, and to what I saw as our shared future. Derek merely nodded and remained silent for a few moments, gazing down at the three stones, and then he straightened up and nodded again. I turned and led the group towards the stables and the waiting wagon.

Only nine of us rode down the hillside road to the Villa Britannicus on that first journey—the sightseers. I sat on the bench beside the driver while the others, Tressa and Derek, Donuil and Shelagh, Rufio and Turga, and Ambrose and Ludmilla as our host and hostess, ranged themselves on the seats at our backs.

Ambrose explained that they had begun the refurbishing four years earlier, initially as a summer project aimed at instilling discipline in those young people of the Colony not yet old enough to take part in adult activities. That first summer had been dedicated to cleaning up the grounds and removing the rubble that remained from the damage caused in the raid years earlier, when Lot's soldiers had almost overrun the Villa in the first treacherous attack, the night my father was murdered in his bed. Many of the outbuildings, which had borne the brunt of the damage, had been refurbished after the war, but since the war itself had shifted most of the Colony's activities to the fort on the hilltop, the priorities governing the reclamation had been less urgent, and the task had not been carried out as thoroughly as it might have been. Walls and sometimes entire buildings had been reconstructed, for example, but the debris of the old walls had been left heaped in great piles of broken masonry scattered haphazardly about the perimeter. Organized groups of children, working under adult supervision, made short work of carting away the rubble and burying it beyond the grounds.