Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

The corner of my brother's mouth flickered upwards, but he did not quite smile. "Monastics? There are few monastics in Britain, Cay, to the best of my knowledge. " He paused. "That is a fashion of worship and a way of life that has not yet come to our shores. The men you ask about live in seclusion, communally, cut off from the world... but they are not monastics in the sense I believe you mean, the monastics from beyond the seas. "

"Brother, you are making no sense at all. "

He sipped at his mead and swilled it around in his mouth before swallowing. "I am making perfect sense, Cay, and you'll agree, once you understand what I'm talking about. The men you saw today, although they are not priests, are from the ancient Christian community at Glastonbury, not twenty miles from here. They are followers of your good friend Germanus, who, as you may recall, decreed at Verulamium that schools should be set up to teach the ways and the word of God to the youth of this country. "

That gave me pause. Glastonbury was the oldest seat of Christianity in Britain, and there had been a community of anchorites in residence there almost since the days of the Christ himself. Some said, indeed, that the Christ himself had visited the place. I had heard the tale told several times, but I gave it no credence. The thought of the carpenter of Galilee travelling to the wilds of western Britain had always struck me, as it had most people, as being ludicrous. Nevertheless, there had always been a religious community in residence there, living in a collection of stone walled hovels high on the shelving beach above the surrounding marshes, huddled at the base of the high tor that gave the place its name, and barely subsisting on the charity of local residents. I saw immediately what Ambrose had meant by calling diem monastics. The new fashion among the religious overseas was to gather in closed communities, living in filth and poverty and in contemplation of God's works, eschewing the temptations of Devil, World and Flesh. The anchorites of Glastonbury had been living that way for hundreds of years, quietly and without notice.

"I've never been there," I said. "I've heard tell of it, but never in any way that might have attracted me. How did the priests come here?"

Ambrose smiled. "I invited them. I have been there, you see."

I looked at him in amazement. "You have? Why would you go there? There's nothing there but the tor."

"And the community. We had a visitor, in the summer, four years ago, a churchman named Ludovic who had come from Gaul, from Germanus, and was on his way to Glastonbury. His ship had been blown off course and wrecked on the north Cornish coast, and he had been washed ashore, clinging to a piece of wreckage. From there he'd made his way towards us on foot. Our guards found him on our perimeter and brought him here to me. He spent a week with us, and then I escorted him to Glastonbury. That's where I met my namesake, Ambrose, who is the leader of the congregation there. Ludovic had brought Ambrose word from Germanus, bidding him send his people out to set up schools. That was coincidence, because we had just heard from our Women's Council that they wished us to establish a school of some description here in Camulod. There was a fatefulness to it that I could not ignore, and so Ambrose's people came down here the following year, once we had built our school, and began teaching. "

"Teaching what?"

"Christianity, mainly, its principles and tenets. Not all of them are literate themselves—very few are, in fact. Ambrose teaches writing and reading, and so does Thomas. Baloric, the eldest of them, knows computation and Euclid's geometry, so he teaches those subjects to a small number of our brightest. These men refer to themselves as the Fraternity of Joseph, and their lives consist of work and prayer. They spend the autumn and winter months with us, once the harvest is gathered in, but they return to their community in spring and remain there through the summer, while our children are working with their parents in the fields. "

"Hmm. And you are satisfied their presence here is a benefit to the Colony?"

"Completely satisfied. "

"Good, then I'll say no more about them. Just don't expect me to ride to Glastonbury with them, though. My Christianity does not extend that far. "

"We demonstrate our own beliefs in our own ways. " He smiled again.

"What does that mean?"

"Whatever you wish it to mean. Some of us live our beliefs in our hearts, others show them more openly. That's all. "

"Aye, well... " I looked at the fire, and it had burned low again, mere embers glowing in the bottom of the iron basket. "It's late, but we still have to talk about young Arthur. "

"Arthur's grown tall. No doubting he is one of us. And he's filling out hugely. "

"Aye, and he's fallen in love, too."

I told him briefly about Arthur's thunderboltng, and we laughed gently together before Ambrose asked, "You think it's time he learned to go to war?"

"I do, and I've promised him he can ride out with us, he and his friends, Bedwyr, Gwin and Ghilly. They're of the age for it. But we'll have to separate them. They'll learn best in isolation from each other. You will take Arthur with you into the northeast, on this first foray. When you return, we two will be his teachers. He knows he must start out as a mere slave, a servant and a messenger. He'll tend our weapons, polish our armour, bed down our animals, run errands for us and learn to stand on his own feet and trust his own judgment. Meanwhile, I'll take young Bedwyr with me into Cambria, and perhaps Ghilly, too, though he's a year younger. He might serve well with Philip, on campaign, for I know he was impressed with Philip when he commanded our garrison."

"I see no objection to that. What about the other lad, Gwin?"

"I'll leave him here in Camulod, as servant to Dedalus. He won't like that, at first. He'll be bitterly disappointed at not riding out with the others, but he couldn't have a better mentor than Ded will be. Then, when we return, the boys will all change masters, and Gwin will have his turn on the campaign trail. You think that will work?"

"I think there are only three things more certain, at this point."

"And what are those?"

"It's very late, my mead is gone, and I am going to bed. Sleep well, Brother, because tomorrow will be a long day. It may all be celebrations of one kind or another, but by the end of it you'll be whimpering for sleep. Blow out the lamps when you leave, and don't be mean enough to waken Tress when you slip into bed. "

I yawned and followed him out towards the stairway to the upper floor, blowing out the last two lamps as I went.

The day that followed was as long as Ambrose had predicted, but paradoxically it flew by, from the early morning trumpet calls that turned out the garrison to prepare the campus for the coming celebrations, to the late night gatherings around bonfires where the sounds of singing and stringed instruments spread outward from the various assemblies and mingled at times into a cacophonous welter in the ears of the people moving from group to group.

I have only two lasting impressions of that day. One was the realization, shortly after daybreak, that we did, in fact, have thousands of soldiers in Camulod. The day had been decreed a festival and the entire garrison excused from formal duty, save only for a skeletal force selected by lot to form the guard for the day. The troopers still had lesser responsibilities governing them; however, the task of setting up the venue for the afternoon's gathering was theirs, and their freedom to make merry afterwards was strictly curtailed by a ban on drinking during daylight hours.

I watched them from above, from a bend in the hill road, as they swarmed upon the broad campus below, transforming it in a few short hours from a dirt grey, barren space to a sprawling tent town dotted with massive, unlit tires in shallow depressions around which heavy, wooden tables with attached benches, all made from raw lumber, had been arranged in concentric rings. In the centre of all, they left a rectangular space, some sixty paces long by forty wide, which would accommodate the major spectacles later in the day. Some of them had dug pits for the cooking fires the night before, off to the side of the main campus, close to the fringe of trees on the south side.