Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

"Well, then, you know how important I believe it to be for everyone to form his own opinions on this, since it is a grave matter affecting everyone. We will pool those opinions in the form of a discussion, leading to consensus and only then to a decision. That's the democratic way of doing things."

The boy gazed at me, his eyes narrowing, and then his face creased into a smile. "I know it is, but I heard you say to Dedalus and Connor on the galley, days ago when you were talking of the wars in Cornwall, that democracy works best under an enlightened and determined leader."

He had me flatfooted. I had to glance away quickly, covering my mouth with one hand to conceal my rueful smile, before I could look at him again. 'True, I did say that, but I didn't know you were listening. In this instance, however, and notwithstanding what I said to Dedalus and Connor, because there are so few of us involved here and all of them my friends, I am determined to allow the will of all the others to prevail."

"Until you decide they're being timid, of going wrong, or they aren't able to make up their minds properly to agree with your opinion." His face was straight now, although his eyes were dancing, and I found myself disbelieving once again that he was only eight, approaching nine years old. If his intellect continued to expand at its present rate, this child, already one to reckon with, would be a most formidable adult.

I nodded, equally straight-faced. "That is extremely impertinent, young man, and none of our group could ever be described as timid. But ... " I allowed myself a tiny smile. "You're right, of course. Could you think otherwise?"

He giggled, something he rarely did, and ran ahead of me, towards the north gate. As I followed him, I looked about me idly to my left, towards the body of the fort. In the distance, I saw Dedalus emerge and then disappear again behind an intervening wall, and Lucanus came into view from the end of the Via Principalis, the east-west axis of the fort, his hands clasped behind him as he walked, looking up at the walls and roofs of the granaries that towered above him. I caught his eye and waved to him, and he began to make has way towards me.

"Well," he began, offering a sardonic little grin as he approached. "I presume it's safe to speak again?"

"It always was, for you. Unless you've found some compelling reason why we can't live here, from a medical viewpoint. Have you?"

"No, not one. What does the boy think of it?"

"What would you expect? He's a boy. He loves the place. His own personal fortress."

"So you're pleased with his reaction? Good. What were you two talking about for so long before the gates?"

I was scanning the fort again. Dedalus had disappeared and no one else seemed to be moving. "About the construction of the place. The gate-towers and the stone. The child is amazing, Luke. Has everyone else finished already?"

"I doubt it. I heard voices in the granary as I passed, though, so someone's already broken your rule." He was smiling again.

"Were they arguing?"

"No, it sounded as though they were discussing something engrossing."

"Merlyn, come and see what I've found!" Arthur was waving to me from close by the north gate.

I glanced at Luke, who was also watching the boy. "I knew if there was anything at all to find in here, he'd find it. His eyes have been fixed on the ground since we came back in through the eastern gate. Let's go see what he has."

Whatever it was, it was very small. Arthur held it between his fingers and examined it closely, glancing towards the ground between him and the wall from time to time as he waited for us to reach him. As soon as we were close enough to be able to see what it was, he thrust his hand towards me.

"Look, it's gold. I found treasure. I saw it shining in the grass there, beneath the wall. There are black ones, too."

He had found a small cache of coins, one of them gold. I moved to where he pointed and, kneeling down, I peered among some loose stones, where I found several small, black and dark-brown metal tokens. The black ones were silver, long tarnished, and the brown ones copper. I had no doubt the purse some legionary once lost had lain here and rotted completely away. They would never have been found, had not the boy's bright eye been caught by the dull sheen of the only golden piece among them. I gathered them up, eleven of them, and tried to see the likenesses they bore, but they were tarnished beyond recognition. Not so the boy's, however. As I straightened up he thrust it at me, and I took it and held it up to the light.

"Who's the man on the front, Merlyn? Is he an emperor?"

The gold coin was small, and well worn, and I had to squint to decipher the crude lettering around its rim. When I did, I felt a shiver stir the hairs along my neck. "No, Arthur," I murmured, aware of my own wonder, "this is no emperor ... although he might have been, for he dreamed great dreams." Reverently, I handed the coin to Lucanus, who peered frowning at it, his eyes weaker than mine. "That is Marcus Antonius, Arthur," I continued. "The friend, some say the son, of Julius Caesar himself. Mark Antony, whose concubine was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. He must have minted his own coins to pay his legions, in Egypt, and one of them made its way here, to lie in wait for you."

The boy was gazing at the coin Lucanus still held up in front of him. "Mark Antony!" His voice was as hushed as mine had been; he knew of Mark Antony from his lessons. "Did he come to Britain?"

It was Luke who answered him, handing the coin back to the lad. "No, Arthur, Mark Antony died in Egypt, fighting against his former friend, Julius Caesar's nephew Octavius, who then crowned himself emperor and took the name Caesar Augustus."

"Caesar Augustus? The one above the main gates?"

Luke made a face and looked to me fen: guidance. "I don't know. I didn't look. Most unobservant of me. Merlyn?"

I grinned at him, but spoke to the boy. "The answer is yes and no. Octavius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor. He was also the first divine emperor. All the others that followed named themselves after him. The one above the gates was Hadrian Caesar Augustus, remember?" He nodded, and I continued. "But think of your find this way, Arthur. In every fight there is a winner and a loser, and the Fates, often at whim, it appears, decree which shall be which. Had they decided otherwise the day Mark Antony fought Octavius Caesar, you might now have been holding a likeness of the first emperor of Rome in your hand."

"Hmm." He closed his fist tightly around the coin. "May I keep this?"

"Of course. You found it."

"I know you said he wasn't a god, Merlyn, but how could they even try to make him one?"

I smiled. 'They couldn't. Gods are immortal. That was sheer flattery. They called him a god, but he was only a man, and he proved it by dying like all other men. Have you noticed you were right about the gate, too? There's only one portal." I ignored Lucanus's raised eyebrow.

"I know, I saw it. Let's go and look outside." The boy stepped between us and took hold of our hands, wrapping his fingers around two of mine, and led us out, tugging impatiently, beyond the gates. Just a few paces brought us to the cliff's edge, where we all three stopped in awe, smitten by the spectacle before us.

Beneath our feet, the cliff face fell vertically, bare of vegetation for most of its vertiginous plunge to a shattered ruin of scree and fallen boulders seemingly miles beneath our perch. Its far-flung edges were lost among the forest of trees that stretched from there as far as we could see in every direction. We had been riding through that forest all morning, but seen from above, it was like a thick, green mat covering everything except that tumbled, lethal wasteland directly at our feet. Even the road and the river Esk, which I knew were down there, almost directly beneath us, were concealed by the denseness of the overhanging tree- tops. Arthur, who had let go of Lucanus to lean closer to the edge, but whose hand still clutched my Own, drew back instinctively from the gulf, drawing close to my side even though there was no danger of his falling. When he turned to look up at me, his eyes were enormous.