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

I had a sudden vision of myself shooting down that snowy road, clutching the spinning thing and spewing vomit, for I recalled that, as a boy of Arthur's years, I had been incapable of swinging on a rope the way the other boys my age had loved to. An old willow tree, hanging above the deep hole in which we swam, had been the anchor for a long, thick, heavy, knotted rope on which all of my friends had soared to let go and plummet to the water beneath. I had never used it after my first few attempts. On horseback, I had been supreme, because I had control, anchored by the grip of my legs; once beyond that control, however, the swooping thrill of undirected motion nauseated me immediately and violently. Just recalling it, my stomach heaved. I grimaced and shook my head.

"No, I think not. I doubt my stomach could handle it. Beside, it looks too dangerous for me." I could not resist one last, pusillanimous remonstration, however, looking at each of them briefly in turn. "But be careful. If you should hit a rock, moving so fast, you could injure yourself badly."

"No." Bedwyr was grinning now. "You can throw yourself off the shield, anytime. Besides, there are no big rocks close to the road—they've all been cleared."

I surrendered and left them to their games.

Less than a month after that, the thaw set in as spring made its arrangements to arrive early that year.

Short and mild as the winter had been, it had nonetheless deprived us of all contact with Derek and his people since the first snowfall, so that by the time the new grasses began to sprout, we were sick and tired of the sight of our own faces. My announcement that we would all ride together, eighteen of us, into Ravenglass, was therefore received with general delight.

On the eve of our departure, in the short evening just before the sun set, I called all our group together before the evening meal and reminded them yet again of the necessity of keeping up our pretenses on arriving in Ravenglass the following day: I must continue to be merely Cay, to all of them, and Hector must be accorded the deference that once had been shown to me, as Caius Merlyn. The warning was unnecessary by that time, I hoped, but well worth reiterating, since our ongoing safety depended heavily upon the conviction of others that Merlyn of Camulod had sailed away the year before, with Connor Mac Athol and the Pendragon brat.

When the meeting had broken up among a chorus of good wishes for a restful night and some excited speculation about the following day's journey, I set out alone to walk back to my quarters. I had barely gone ten paces, however, when I found myself flanked by Donuil and Shelagh, each of whom linked an arm through one of mine, so that we arrived outside my door mere moments later as a triple entity joined at the elbows—an unholy Trinity, according to my heathen Erse friends, who had picked up enough of the elements of Christianity to be embarrassing when they wished to be.

I stepped inside and busied myself at the fire-pot, blowing the smouldering embers to life and lighting a taper with which to carry flame to the lamps, for though it was yet but early evening outside, the shadows were far-stretched and it was already almost dark inside the buildings. As I bent to the lamp, holding the flaming taper to the wick, I saw that Shelagh had stopped on the threshold, just inside the door, and was looking about her with an air of exaggerated curiosity.

My living space was more than adequate for me. It had originally been the quarters of the centurion who ruled the barracks block, but it was enlarged at the time of the refurbishment of the building since, instead of eighty to a hundred legionaries, the block was now required to accommodate fewer than ten people, some of whom lived as couples. The actual living space seemed smaller than in fact it was, because much of the room was occupied by packing crates, containing some of the possessions I had brought with me from Camulod. The majority were in storage in the Horrea, the building that contained the granary and storehouses, warm and secure beneath a strong roof. Only the choicest items were in my personal possession, including, of course, the case that held Excalibur and the weapons I had chosen to bring with me from Publius Varrus's Armoury. These I could not have suffered to be out of my personal domain. Nor could I have slept secure without knowing that my greatest treasures, the books of Camulod, were safely stowed beside me, beneath my hand and eye. I also had the two heavy, iron- bound cases that had belonged to Lot's Egyptian warlocks, Caspar and Memnon, of evil memory. These I kept with me not for any love of their contents but simply because they were too dangerous to be left lying unprotected where people might be tempted, through simple curiosity if nothing else, to open them.

Shelagh was still hovering just inside the door. "Well?" I asked. "Are you not going to enter? Is my house to be feared?"

"No, not feared, but perhaps fretted over. You lack your servant very visibly, Cay."

Donuil, who had been my servant and my adjutant until I refused his services upon our arrival here in the north-west, began to flush and moved to stand up from the seat into which he had subsided on entering. I waved him back into his seat, keeping my eyes on his wife and smiling because I knew she had a point she wished to make.

"Lack my servant? You mean my adjutant, I presume? Not so, then. I have no need of servants here and am more than capable of looking after my own needs."

She threw me a look of bright-eyed scorn, and her Erse temperament flashed at me. "Oh, I don't doubt your capabilities, Caius Merlyn. It's your concentration that I worry about—that, and your sense of priorities."

I frowned at her through a grin, mocking her fierceness. "What do you mean, woman? Am I going to have to warn you again that your shrewish tongue is for your husband and that I need never hear it? What is wrong with my sense of priorities?"

She flicked her eyes around the room again, a lightning- quick glance into which she managed to compress a world of disparagement. "Exactly the same thing that is wrong with every other man's priorities: they are male priorities."

I raised my hands and brought them together, applauding slowly, knowing it would exasperate her into laughter. She glared at me with narrowed eyes for several long moments, but then she stepped forward into the room and stooped to run her finger along the top of my main table. A long, glowing line appeared where she had stroked, gleaming richly through the dust.

"There you are, look at that! Have you ever seen the like of that before, in the quarters of Commander Caius Britannicus?"

"No, Shelagh, I have not. But there are no military commanders here. These are the quarters of plain Master Cay, a landless farmer, currently inhabiting an ancient and abandoned Roman fort. Who is this Commander Caius Britannicus?"

"Someone I used to know." She stroked her fingers again through the dust that blanketed the highly polished surface of the table. "But I must say the landless farmer Cay owns some very fine furnishings." She looked about her again, sighing. "You need help, Cay, in your simple day-to-day living, as do most of us here in this little, bustling and much-demanding place we have built for ourselves. You are far from unique. But, since you refuse to accept assistance from either myself or Donuil, or from any of the others, I have a suggestion to make."

I placed the lamp down on the table top with exaggerated care and bowed to her, waving my open hand in the direction of an empty chair. "Please, Shelagh, sit down. You'll find you can speak just as clearly from a seat as you can when you are standing, and you will find that I listen with more care when I attend a seated speaker."

She looked at me sidewise, but moved without further protest to sit beside her husband, who sat silent, smiling gently at me. When she was settled, I leaned back in my chair with a smile of my own.