Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

Needless to say, the mood of our army lightened as we' grew ever closer to Camulod and the comforts of home. My men were looking forward to removing their armour and taking their ease for a spell; the thought of making love to a wife or sweetheart was present in the mind of every man who rode with us, and I was no exception.

Our homecoming was both triumphant and chaotic. Never before had an army returned victorious to the Colony with so few casualties—less than a hundred men had died in the summer long campaign, and no more than three hundred had been wounded. The chaos, meanwhile, was precipitated mainly by the arrival of thousands of hungry mouths. Notwithstanding the fact that our advent had been expected and awaited, the abrupt appearance of our swarming numbers caused immediate dismay and consternation among the Colony's quartermasters, for as Publius Tetra, my own senior campaign quartermaster, had pointed out to me days earlier, it is one thing to contemplate the existence of six thousand legionaries, knowing that they once belonged and lived in one place. It is quite another matter to overlook the fact that those six thousand have another thousand in attendance upon them, and then to see full seven thousand living men descend upon your camp, eyeing your stores and granaries.

Thanks to the foresight of Tetra and his fellow quartermasters, however, we had been at pains to annul the impact of our arrival from that viewpoint, at least; I had sent organized hunting parties out to scour the land for game in the last five days of our approach, and we brought wagons laden with fresh meat and even grain, gleaned from the granaries of those new garrisons we had passed by. Heartened by the new strength offered them in those outlying areas, and encouraged by the prospect of a new, safe and bountiful harvest within the month, the farmers in three communities had been grateful and happy to supply us with their surplus at summer's end.

Another, unforeseeable aspect of the chaos arose from the number of guests in the Colony who had been, with differing degrees of patience, awaiting our arrival. I learned immediately that Connor Mac Athol was in residence, having arrived mere days earlier to find his brother Brander already there, also awaiting me. Ambrose and Arthur had returned the previous month from Northumbria, too, expecting to find me already returned from Cambria, and Ambrose had brought several of Vortigern's senior advisers back with him. They had come, ostensibly, to meet and confer with me about the expedition I would lead northeast the following year, but in reality Ambrose's intent was to demonstrate to these powerful men—and through them to their king—that Camulod, which no one among them had ever seen, was indeed what we had said it was: a prosperous and self sufficient colony and a source of allies far richer than the five hundred Scouts Ambrose had led forth. Finding me still from home, Ambrose had been playing host to the Northumbrian leaders ever since, and those duties had expanded to include Brander, from the moment of the Scots king's unexpected appearance with a full retinue that included his wife, Salina, her niece, Morag, and a round score of the Scots chieftains who were his counsellors. And as though that were not enough, an entire delegation of eleven bishops had then arrived under the leadership of the elderly Bishop Enos, who had ministered to my Great aunt Luceiia. They, too, had come seeking me.

I discovered all of this from Dedalus, whom we found awaiting us at the head of a magnificent honour guard when we reached the boundary of Camulod at the great north south road. The protocols of welcome and entry to the Colony quickly taken care of, Ded and I rode knee to knee while he warned me of how many people would try to claim my attention. When he had done, I laughed at the irony of my thoughts of Tressa and the wishes I had had so recently. I shared my thoughts with him and he laughed with me, his laughter softer than mine and rich with sympathy.

Moments later, we rounded the last bend and saw the walls of Camulod ahead of us, crowning the hill, and we were immediately caught up in a whirlwind of welcome and felicitations that swept all of us away.

A succession of images and partial memories is all that remains to me. I know I met and greeted Brander and his wife, Salina, and Bishop Enos, but I can barely recall the separate groups that escorted each of them. Those faces, all strange to me, blended into a welter of inconsequential greetings. I do remember thinking that since the Eirish Scots were recognizable by their bright colours, and the clerics by their homespun, ankle length robes, then the others who were strange to me must be the Northumbrians who had arrived with Ambrose.

Ambrose was the first to reach me, and as I embraced him, hugging him close, I looked about me for Arthur, and I remember the keen disappointment I felt when I saw that he was not among the crowd who surged to greet me as I stepped down from my horse. Then Tressa moved forward shyly, and my heart soared with delight as I released my brother and turned to her with open arms, drinking in her beauty. She was dressed all in green, her gown a drape of some fine, soft material that moulded to her every curve and closed my throat up tight with love and longing. The noise of the surrounding crowd fell away in my ears and I lost consciousness of all who surrounded us, my entire attention focused on the glorious young woman who had come to take me to my home and to her bed. She approached me quickly, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling, but then she stopped short, her hands grasping my elbows as she leaned slightly backwards, gazing up at me with eyes suddenly awash with unshed tears. I stooped to place one arm about her waist, and all at once my arms were full of her and I lifted her high, as though she were weightless, to bring her mouth to mine, and all about me I could hear the strangely distant sounds of laughter and applause. Thereafter, from the moment when I set her back upon her feet, I held her tightly by the hand, keeping her by my side as I passed among the throng of well wishers who crowded the courtyard.

The hours that followed seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, punctuated only by entreaties from each of the people waiting for me that his need to speak with me was more urgent than anyone else's. In each instance I smiled and promised to meet with him at my first opportunity, while behind my smile I wondered how and when I could find, or make, time for any of them when my overpowering concern was focused upon my own burning need to be alone with Tressa.

At last there came a moment when the three of us were almost alone for the first time since my arrival. I took my brother aside, holding him by one elbow and keeping Tressa close to me with my other hand as I requested the few others in the room to pardon us. Then, as soon as we were alone, I released Ambrose's arm and stepped away to lean against a wall, draping my arm across Tressa's shoulders. Ambrose watched me as I did so, his eyes crinkled in a smile.

"I am at your service," he said, bowing slightly, his eyes amused. 'Tell me what you want."

"I want to spend some time alone with Tress. That's what I want, first and above all else, and I'll be disappointed if you're not already aware of that. Then I want to know where Arthur is and why he is not here. And then I want your insight into the reasons why so many people want to talk to me, because I have to find some order in which to meet with them. I can't sit down with all of them at once, and each of them seems to think his need is paramount Connor has news I want to hear, I have no doubt of that, and I'll speak to him first. But until I know what all the others want, I can make no decisions. So, what do you know?"

His smile did not waver. "In order of importance? Very well. Your first urgency should be your own. Take Tress and disappear until this evening. I will make apologies for your... tiredness. Your second urgency is Arthur. The boy's in love, and that is the only thing that could ever seduce him into being away when you arrived. In his defence, we had no idea you would arrive so soon. The word we had was that you would arrive tomorrow, at the soonest. Then your messenger reached us yesterday with the news that you were ahead of expectations, but by then Arthur had already gone, with Shelagh and young Morag. They have gone hunting, and will be home this afternoon. Arthur will be sick with disappointment to have missed your coming. He's been talking about it for weeks now. You'll see great changes in him, don't you agree, Tress?"