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

"Aye, gladly, and for much longer." I turned to look again at Connor. "But only two weeks, you say? That is not much time, for a double crossing."

He shrugged, frowning. "Why not? It's more than enough ... Particularly since we'll be returning empty."

"Empty? From Eire?"

"Eire? No, we're not going to Eire. I told you, we wintered there, then returned to our holdings near Camulod.

Now I am bound for Alba, for our new holdings in the islands of the north-west, with twelve galleys full of Liam Twistback's cattle." He saw my look and laughed, waving towards the sea. "They're out there, safe out of sight where I left them, behind the island! No point in bringing them inshore to cause confusion, was there? Derek would have had an apoplexy to see them coming around the bank, thinking the Condranson fleet about his ears again. Logan and Feargus are riding with them, playing the sheep- herders to both flock and fleet. I must have speech with Derek—the work of an hour or so—and then I'm away again, before the tide turns. Everything I have to off-load here will be on the wharf within the half hour."

He glanced up towards his vessel again, checking the level of activity, and then reached out to shake with Ambrose.

"Farewell, Ambrose, and may the gods smile pityingly on you, stuck here as you'll be with these savages until I can return." He bowed over Ludmilla's hand. "My lady Ludmilla, I hope you will pass on my best wishes to my good-sister Shelagh, and I'll see you again soon."

He turned and clapped me a mighty blow on the upper arm with his open hand and then swept me into his embrace before stepping back to look at me with a grin.

"Look after these fine folk, Cay Brownhair, and take care they meet no ill, lest you bring the wrath of Camulod about your colourless head."

Then he was gone, leaving us alone on the wharf, listening to the receding thump of his wooden leg.

Knowing that Connor's men would bring their belongings after us, I led my guests towards the gate in the wall and beyond, into the fort and towards our temporary quarters. There, a squeal of delight from Shelagh told us we had finally been seen. From that moment on, everything degenerated into a chaos that endured through Connor's departure on the evening tide and then on into dinner. I had to resign myself to waiting until all the excitement had died down before I heard a single word of news from the south. Even then, I found I had to delve deeply for it, winkling each separate piece of information individually from my brother, who believed, and rightly so as I felt in the end, that there was nothing of real significance in any of it.

By the time we did manage to achieve sufficient privacy to speak with any kind of leisure about events in Camulod, it had grown late, and most of the household had retired. Lucanus had disappeared even before the evening meal, clutching the precious scrolls that Ambrose had brought for him, among them the one particular text that might shed light upon my condition. I was consciously willing myself not to dwell on that. Shelagh and the other women had gone off somewhere with Derek's chief wife, Jessica, after dinner, and had not returned. We men who remained—some score of us—had been left alone in one of Derek's private rooms, well-lit with lamps, tapers and tallow wicks and brightened and warmed in addition by fires in great, open braziers in chimneyed firepits against the walls.

Now the night had advanced, the general talk had been exhausted, most of the others had gone off to bed—some on their own feet, others assisted by friends—and Ambrose and I were the only two left awake, lounging on Roman couches before the one fire that still burned brightly. We were speaking in Latin, the tongue in which we both were most at ease. The talk earlier had all been in the coastal tongue, a language I thought of as being the Britannic vulgate, a seething broth of varying Celtic dialects and tribal intonations that came close, from time to time, to being indecipherable. The local variants, in particular, had left my brother gaping in bewilderment on several occasions. Derek's people had a way of chewing vowel sounds that was unique in my experience. One of the local men had pronounced, on his departure, that he was "g'yaun 'ame." The expression on my brother's face on hearing that phrase had made me laugh aloud, to my own embarrassment when the speaker turned to gaze at me in curiosity, wishing to share the jest.

Behind me, I knew, young Arthur had slipped in a short time earlier to sit quietly against the far wall, evidently hoping to remain unnoticed. He was sleeping in my chamber this night, permitted, as a special privilege, to remain here in Derek's house with the adults on the first evening of his aunt and uncle's visit. I knew he had been abed for more than four hours already; his excitement had evidently prevented him from sleeping with his usual soundness. He had clung like a shadow to his Uncle Ambrose since the moment that morning when his eyes had first blazed with delight at the unexpected apparition of his hero. Remembering my own boyhood, the excitement of returning expeditions and the stories that were told, I decided not to send him away again, but now motioned him forward instead, waving him into a chair close by the fire. As the boy passed in front of him, smiling shyly, Ambrose reached out and grasped him gently by the upper arm, pulling him close and holding him in the crook of one elbow while pretending to pummel his ribs with his other hand before releasing him to pass on, reluctantly, to the seat I had indicated. Then, once the boy was settled, Ambrose began to answer my questions about Camulod.

Life in the Colony continued to progress smoothly, he told us, existence unfolding from day to day in growing peace and prosperity. As a final benison upon what had been a fruitful year in every sense, including the birth of large numbers of babies to our Colonists, the harvest had been huge the previous year, greater even than the three preceding years, each of which had, in turn, surpassed the years preceding it, so that the Colony's granaries, including six large new ones built to hold the year's surplus, were now filled to overflowing. No raids had occurred, even in the Colony's outlying areas, since our departure. I was glad to hear that, since that extended the period of lasting peace from interference to six years. It was always tempting at such times to believe that peace would be everlasting, but that was a foolish presumption. It was miraculous, I knew, that we had managed to avoid molestation in Camulod for as long as we had. True, the presence of our armed strength—and the awareness of it in the eyes of potential enemies—gave us an advantage, since only a heavily armed force would be able to dismiss the prohibitive cost of meddling with our Colony. But there were such forces out there, and their numbers were increasing as strong men—ambitious, successful warlords—grasped at power and gathered loyal men around them.

As for matters originating beyond Camulod, Ambrose said, inactivity and lack of urgency were the prevailing trends in all endeavours. There had been nothing of moment out of the south-west, he told me, with obvious satisfaction, and all of Cornwall lay silent and apparently at peace, despite Peter Ironhair's reputed presence there. From that quarter, he told me, silence was the greatest gift that could be hoped and prayed for. In Cambria, on the other hand, all seemed to be progressing well. Dergyll ap Gryffyd had been made king there, his rule ratified and consolidated now, and he was busily restoring order and prosperity to his Pendragon people. Pendragon longbows were being made again, in greater numbers than ever before, and the territories to the north and west of Camulod were full of groups of young Pendragon, learning the art of bowmanship.