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

The forest around us had supplied most of our raw building materials, but Derek and his people had been magnificent in their assistance to us, supplying a minor army of men and women to help with the work and a plenitude of material and supplies with which to build, and live. In return, they had been guaranteed the aid from Eire that was so crucial to them. They had already taken in, on their own behalf as well as ours, the cargoes of three convoys from the west, dispatched by Athol, including livestock, weapons and trade goods captured in his recent wars.

Then, early in the winter, just before the onset of the first snow, came our first grand celebration as a newborn community. Dedalus, grinning a sooty grin of sheer delight, approached me casually around noon on a frosty day and, leading me beyond the walls, pointed wordlessly to the smoke issuing from the chimney of the bathhouse furnace, on which he and his men had been labouring mightily, and utterly without commentary, for months. Their task was now complete: the waters were heating above the hypocausts, and the first wisps of vapour were already beginning to filter through the pipes and into the steam room. After an interval of silent centuries, the baths at Mediobogdum would soon echo again with the sound of voices, songs and laughter.

I went with Dedalus immediately to tour the renewed facility for the first time in months, and I made no effort to restrain the praises that swarmed upon my lips, for him and for all his people. The hole that had sagged in the corner of the floor above the furnace was gone as though it had never been, and every surface in the entire place gleamed with sparkling brightness and vibrant colours. To formalize my extreme pleasure, I declared the following day a holiday and sent word to Derek in Ravenglass to bring his folk to join our celebration.

Lucanus, more than anyone else, was delighted by the news of the bathhouse's completion, for the military- trained physician in him had been concerned for months by the necessarily lessened standard of hygiene within our small community. Cleanliness to Luke meant more than the mere absence of offensive smells; it meant health and fitness. He expanded visibly with Ded's news, when he came outside the walls to see what all the commotion was about, and set about immediately to incorporate a formal opening of the new facility into the following day's holiday activities.

I walked back to Luke's quarters with him, and I enjoyed our august surgeon's uncharacteristic excitement as he prattled non-stop all the way, enthusing over the meticulous detail of the renovations Ded had shown us. Once inside his comfortably furnished and partitioned room, however, I refused the cup of wine he offered me, and his ebullience vanished instantly, his observant eyes narrowing to their normal, analytical keenness.

"What's the matter, Cay? You seem ... upset over something."

I demurred, shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders at the same time, but he was well used to my every mood and refused to be deflected. "Pardon me," he insisted, enunciating each word clearly and carefully, as though speaking to a small boy, "but am I suddenly aged and infirm, losing my faculties? I can see your distress—it is as evident as the colour of your hair—so I shall ask you again, and I trust you'll honour me by answering truthfully. What is the matter?"

I shrugged again, and rubbed my hands as though washing them. "Nothing, Luke," I protested. "There's nothing wrong. I'm simply envious about the baths, that's all."

His eyes widened and he looked at me as though I had lost my wits and uttered something nonsensical. While he sought the words with which to respond, I became incongruously aware of our hands: mine rubbing themselves together in an extremity of nervousness; his motionless, holding two cups of wine, one of them still partially extended towards me. By the time he spoke again, he was frowning. "Envious? What kind of word is that to use in such a case? What, in the name of Aesculapius, do you have to feel envious about?"

I had been holding my breath, and now I exhaled through my pursed lips, in a controlled hiss. "About the companionship in the bathhouse. Because I'll miss it."

"Caius, what in the world are you talking about?"

"About me, Luke!" Suddenly my tight control was gone, and all my fears and my bitterness came swirling to the surface, clearly astounding my friend, if the expression on his face was anything by which to judge. "I'm talking about me! About my condition ... about this—this cursed, damnable thing on my chest. I'm talking about leprosy!

Leprosy, Luke, and the evil of it! If that's what this thing is, this mark on me, this blemish—and you've said nothing to convince me that it isn't—then I'll never step inside those baths, because to do so would be murder. There's no other word in me to say it better. It would be murderous of me to incur the risk of spreading my contagion on to others. That's what I'm talking about, Lucanus, and I'm amazed that you should take so—"

"You are spewing shit!"

His interruption, loud, vicious and whip-like, robbed me of all impetus, so that I hung there, mouth agape. In all the years I had known Lucanus, I had never heard him utter so much as a mild profanity.

"Listen to yourself, man! Listen, for one moment, to what you are saying, and ask yourself how you dare! Do you really have so little regard for my concern, for my knowledge, for my skills? And do you really think me so uncaring about your condition that I would simply leave you floundering in fear and ignorance?"

Abashed now, and suddenly conscious of how rude and hectoring and condemnatory my angry outburst had been, I shook my head, mumbling, and totally unable to look him in the eye. "I ... No. No, forgive me, Luke, I had not thought to imply any of that ... " I could hear misery and something approaching too close to self-pity in my own tone, and my voice dried up. He moved towards me and thrust the cup of wine he still held into my nerveless fingers.

"You had not thought—you have not yet thought clearly in several respects, my friend. That much I can easily perceive. Here, take this. Now drink. And sit. Sit over there." He pointed to a chair against the wall.

When I was seated, he raised his cup towards me, holding it high until I returned the gesture, and then we both sipped. I had no consciousness of the taste of the wine, but I watched him as he moved to pull another chair out from the table to my left and turn it towards me, standing behind it. He drank again, the tiniest of sips, then leaned forward to place his cup on the chair's seat, after which he stood looking at me, leaning his weight forward onto his hands which gripped the chair's high back. The light in the room settled on the arched plane of his forehead, beneath the pronounced widow's peak that crowned it, making the tight, translucent skin of his high brow gleam and throwing a shadow into the dip of his left temple and the hollow of his cheek, so that I became aware of his age again—aware that Lucanus was no longer young. The silence stretched between us until I could bear it no longer.

"Luke," I began, but he waved me to silence before I had even begun. When he did speak, his voice held all of the detachment of his professional persona. My friend Luke was silent; my other friend, Lucanus the surgeon and physician, was speaking.

"You told me once, Caius, the last time we had words, that there is no need for apologies between us when we spark differences occasionally. That applies now ... But I deserved your reaction there, for my own carelessness in failing to be aware how concerned you are, still, about this—condition of yours. I know it frightens you deeply, but you conceal your distress so well that I had lost sight of it. So, we shall address it now. Undo your tunic."