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

"So, you were saying I need help, as do some others, and you have some suggestions. I would like to hear them."

"Good. Our party needs new blood and new incentives. We are eighteen, here in our high-perched fort: four children, three wedded couples, one unmarried woman and seven single men—you, Lucanus, Hector, Dedalus, Rufio, Jonathan and Mark. Ten men to four women— those proportions are unhealthy. Even removing Rufio, who spends enough time with Turga to be considered wedded, that still leaves six men with requirements that demand attention."

I sat smiling at her. "So, what are you suggesting, Shelagh? That we six who remain should all rush out and find wives for ourselves?"

"Hmm. It would not be a bad idea, were it achievable. But no, that is not what I am suggesting. My suggestion is that when we travel into Ravenglass tomorrow, we make an effort to increase our numbers by judicious recruitment—" She held up one hand to cut me off before I could begin to reply. "I know we decided we've no need of anyone other than ourselves, and that we need to keep our heads low, Cay, but think of this: could there be any better way of hiding among these folk than hiding among these folk?"

I sat staring at her, hearing what she had said but failing to understand it. Finally I squinted at her, to show my incomprehension.

"What?"

"Think, Cay! We are alongside them, separate now, not among them, and they're not among us. I'm saying let's bring some of them up here, men and women, to live and work with us. Derek talks about his town being overcrowded, and we have just discovered, during a mild winter, that we are few and would be glad of others to spend time with us in the short days and the long, dark nights. Here is opportunity to benefit everyone. We could ask Derek to send some of his people up here to live with us, and we could have the right to pick those who would come."

"Hmm." I could see the rightness of what she was saying, and I glanced at Donuil. "It sounds reasonable, put like that. What think you, Donuil?"

Donuil grinned and stretched, yawning elaborately. "I think I'm hungry and I'm glad it's dinner time. I also think my wife is a very clever woman and her suggestion has great merit and I know I couldn't have come up with it."

"Hmm." I looked back at Shelagh, who sat watching me, and nodded to her. "I agree with Donuil. I'll talk -to Derek when we get to Ravenglass. Have you thought about how many of his people we could use?"

"I have. We need craftsmen, and skilled women. I think couples should be counted as one, provided both halves have usable skills. Then we'll need sawyers and more tanners, and we could use a cooper. We are eighteen, but that is really only fourteen, since four are children. We could be fifty, easily. We have no lack of space and accommodation, and there are no problems with feed or water or hunting."

"And you feel sure about being able to select only the kind of people we would require, according to our own criteria?"

"Oh, aye. This place has much to recommend it to folk who live in crowded towns ... especially in spring, summer and autumn. I think we'll have no shortage of volunteers, and strong young men."

"And strong young women, too, eh?"

She looked at me, a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Of course, strong young women. We've lots of work here for strong young backs. And our own young men, like Jonathan and Mark, need to be challenged."

"Challenged. Aye." I sighed, aware that I'd been bested. "Very well, Shelagh. So be it. But we'd best speak to Hector tonight about it, and not leave it till the morning. He has the right to know this information before anyone else. Now, let's go to dinner. He'll be there already."

There was a festive air about our group as it wound its way along the road to Ravenglass the following day. Some of us—myself, Dedalus, Donuil, Shelagh and Rufio—were mounted singly, the boys rode on their matched, piebald ponies, and the other nine occupied our little train of four horse-drawn wagons, empty on the way down but intended to be laden for our return. The day had dawned bright and sunny, warm with more than a mere intimation of the spring to come, so that our sense of well-being expanded remarkably as we came down from the heights, off the flanks of the hills and into the fertile vale of the Esk amid welling bird-song that seemed to hang over the valley like a fluttering fabric.

I rode to the head of the column and then drew my horse aside to watch the remainder of our group as they passed, shaking my head in discouragement to several who would have stopped to talk with me and waving them on in the understanding that I wished to be alone for a spell. The boys, on their ponies, were on the move constantly, ranging far along the road to the west ahead of the slower, more sedate adult party, but returning continually to check our progress, warned as they had been not to roam too far ahead.

As we emerged from the forest into cultivated fields, the skies grew wide above our heads and the trees fell back and away behind us, so that the spectrum of colours surrounding us changed from the deep greens and tranquil browns of the mossy, silent, light-dappled oak forest to the vibrant new green shoots of young, healthy crops against bright, black earth. The branches of the willow trees along the river's edge to the right of us were limned with the yellowish hint of bursting buds, teasing the eye with the faintest, wordlessly suggested promise of new leaves. And then, as we drew closer to the town, we began to encounter people, in ones and twos, most of them working in the fields that bordered the road. Many waved a greeting on seeing us, and occasionally one would approach us to talk, as hungry as we were ourselves for the sight of familiar but long-unseen faces and agog with curiosity about our winter up on the hills.

Derek, by that form of magical foreknowledge that always seems to accompany arrivals such as ours, came out to meet us before we had even entered the town about the fort. He was in fine fettle that day, boisterous and loud, and he made us noisily welcome, sending some of his people running ahead again to prepare quarters for all of us within the fort. Donuil and Shelagh, and Hector and I would stay with Derek, in his own house. The others would be spread among the other buildings. Arthur and the other three boys, along with Turga, their custodian and self- appointed supervisor, would stay with a family who had ten children, among whom four extra faces would be barely noticeable. Dedalus, Rufio and die others would fend for themselves. Before we broke up to go our separate ways, however, Derek insisted on escorting us personally to see to the arrangements for lodging our horses and storing our wagons with his own horse-keeper, the taciturn little man called Ulf.

Ulf's reaction to seeing our big, southern mounts again was as truculent as it had been the very first time. His own beasts were all considerably smaller than ours, and he had dragged our horses away to the back of his enclosures, where they would not be seen by anyone who did not already know them to be there. I would have sworn that first day that he was angry and disgusted with having to accept our horses, but as long as they remained in his care, all of them, including my Germanicus, the biggest of them all, shone like burnished things, their coats groomed to perfection.

I greeted Ulf affectionately, calling him by name, and smiled as he huffed and grunted in disgust, refusing even to acknowledge my presence as he took Germanicus's reins from my hand. Only with the four boys was he less than surly, allowing them to lead their own ponies by their halters as they walked behind him to the rear picket lines where he had decided our horses would be kept.

Late that evening, tired and feeling lazy after a pleasant hour spent listening to the songs of an exceptionally gifted visiting Druid—the man's talent was superb, surpassing excellence—I passed an open doorway and saw Shelagh sitting inside with Donuil and Derek around a glowing brazier. I stopped in the doorway and leaned inside to wish them all a good night's rest, and from the looks on all their faces, I knew they had been discussing me when I chanced by. I said nothing, however, and left immediately, carrying away with me memories of the speculative look in Shelagh's eyes when she turned to me, and the way the fabric of her dress clung to her breasts. I slept heavily that night and did not dream.