Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

We completed our tour with a visit to the facilities surrounding the interior courtyard, although the bustle of activity of the staff in the kitchens and bakery discouraged us from interrupting. Marco, the chief cook of Camulod's kitchens, whom I had known since he first apprenticed to my old friend Ludo thirty years before, greeted me warmly and was happy to make Tressa's acquaintance. Marco, as his mentor Ludo had been before him, was openly and unabashedly homosexual. He was gifted in the preparation of food of any kind, although his greatest talents were reserved for the preparation of pies and pastries. He paid Tress the signal honour of allowing her to taste and test one of his sauces, and rolled his eyes in delight when she moaned with the pleasure of it. Then, graciously, he eased us out of his kitchen again, recommending the beauty of the inner courtyard and the afternoon.

The courtyard contained a garden—more of an orchard, really, with apple, pear, cherry and plum trees as well as vegetables and herbs. The earth in some of the beds was freshly turned, and the debris of winter had been swept up into neat piles in the comers of the two sections where the soil lay undisturbed.

When we had seen all there was to see there, I led the entire group, largely silent now and much subdued, back into the family living room. Ambrose's earlier suggestion of a cup of mead and a comfortable sprawl around a brazier now seemed like an excellent idea, and we passed the interval before dinner in pleasant, general conversation, most of it dedicated to admiration of the villa and the reclamation work done under the supervision of my brother and his wife.

I was happy to see that Tressa seemed at ease with Ambrose and Ludmilla. She sat listening closely, and on one occasion Ludmilla asked her something about the fabrics on the walls and chairs. Tressa brightened and launched immediately into a response that interested me not a whit and quickly lost me in a sea of feminine intricacies. Watching the two of them talking easily, however, I was relieved to know I had been right. These two would become close friends.

As the dinner hour approached, the others who would join us began to arrive from the fort, some of them in wagons and others, notably the officers of the former Mediobogdum garrison, on horseback. We had decided that, on this first evening of homecoming celebration, the boys and other children should be accommodated elsewhere, to allow their parents the unaccustomed luxury of being themselves for once, without fear of being overheard or interrupted at their meal. All the children, therefore, including the four boys who would have been mortified at that description, were being cared for by the household staff up on the hill. As each group arrived, Ambrose and Ludmilla welcomed them and Plato plied them all with wine, ale or mead, and they were soon absorbed into the ongoing conversations.

At one point, Shelagh approached and took me by the arm, smiling at Benedict, with whom I had been discussing something trivial, and leading me away to stand against a corner wall where she could talk with me alone. I was curious to know what had prompted this move, but for some time she spoke only of the afternoon's activities and the changes Ambrose and Ludmilla had effected in the old house. Finally, prompted by her evident unwillingness to say what was really on her mind, I asked her outright why she had taken me aside. She stilled, and then she smiled.

"Why should you even have to ask? Don't you think it possible I might have wished for a few moments alone with you, to thank you personally for this afternoon? You taught me more than I have ever known about this place."

I grinned right back at her. "Aye, of course, darling Shelagh, that's it. After all the years we've known each other with our gentle lusts and unfulfilled attraction, you've chosen today to declare your love, in full view of Tress, your husband, and our assembled friends. What's wrong, really? Something's troubling you."

"No, it's not troubling. Merely that... I had a dream last night, one of those strange ones, the first I've had in years."

I felt my heartbeat surge immediately and my breath grew tight in my chest. "What? What was it?"

She shook her head. "I saw you and Ambrose, side by side, in a strange place filled with swirling smoke. He stood above you, bare headed, the light from... from something... reflected in his hair. You sat huddled at his feet, your hair dull brown as now, your shoulders hunched. But then you sprang erect and into him, and the two of you became one, brilliant with light mid surrounded by swirling smoke..."

"What? I sprang into him, you said. I knocked him down?"

"No, you sprang into him... inside him. You lost yourself in him, and he in you. You became one. "

"Oh... What happened then?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I woke up. That is all there was. "

I turned to look to where my brother stood laughing with Tress and Mark, our carpenter, and then I looked back at Shelagh, who stood watching me with no expression that I could define.

"Shelagh, that makes no sense to me at all. Does it to you?'

She shrugged. "No, but when did these dreams ever make sense? I know only that when they occur, I recognize them for what they are, and they always have meaning of some kind. But the thing I noticed most in there was the colour of your hair. Will you change it back to yellow, now that we've come homer'

"I expect so. I'll simply stop using the berry juice that stains it brown. You think that has import, my hair colour?"

"How would I know? It changes the look of you, but I've grown accustomed to it for years now. Anyway, you would look good even if you were bald. "

"Oh, would he, indeed? Should I be feeling jealousy here, you two' Donuil had approached silently while we were talking, holding a drink he had brought for Shelagh.

I turned to him, laughing, and told him we had been discussing the colour of my hair and what I should do to it now that I was home. He eyed my head and nodded sagely, then advised me to take his wife's advice and shave it all off.

We moved to join the others after that, and I forgot about Shelagh's dream for the time being, caught up in the general conversations that were swirling everywhere. On several occasions, some of the other men, most notably among our military contingent, attempted to bring up the subject of political affairs beyond our lands, but Ambrose would have none of that and made it abundantly clear that all information would be shared equally among everyone after he and I, as joint Commanders, had had the opportunity to meet and discuss it. None sought to argue against that, and the talk returned each time to more innocuous subjects.

By the time Plato summoned us to dinner in the triclinium, there were thirty of us present: all of the original party who had left Camulod six years before, save one and twelve new immigrants from Ravenglass, plus Ambrose and Ludmilla. And when we were assembled around the open sided square of tables Plato had arranged for us, before the first course was served, we drank together to the memory of our sole absentee, our dear friend Lucanus.

SIX

"So, here we are, alone at last." Ambrose lowered himself into an armchair, smiling, and pressed his hands into his face, squeezing his eyes and then drawing his fingers down to his chin, leaving white pressure marks that faded quickly. He opened his eyes wide and yawned. "Do you feel up to this? I don't, really. Dinner was too good, and I may have had too much wine. I'm stuffed like one of Marco's roasted fowl." He stretched mightily. "I had hoped to reach this point an hour and more ago. We have much to discuss."

"Aye, so you said this afternoon, when we arrived." I settled myself comfortably into my own chair, close by the brazier. "I don't know whether I'm any more fit than you are to talk long into the night. It seems like days since I last slept, and it's been weeks since I last slept in a bed. That's seductive. But I think we'd better make the most of this time, tonight. We may not have a better chance than this to say all that needs to be said."