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

"Our bowmen, of course! If anyone should ever attempt to use such spears against our cavalry, they will have to crowd together in a massed assembly, forming a wall and not merely holding, but bracing their spears, and that would leave them at the mercy of our bows. The concentrated fire of massed bowmen, in conjunction with our cavalry as you advocate its use, Uncle, would destroy any such formation before it could become effective. I thought you were aware of that. I was sure that's why you had been so adamant about combining both groups to back up our infantry."

"Hmm!" Ambrose smiled and shook his head, looking at me in rueful acknowledgment of my pride in my pupil. "Aye ... Well, I know it now, and be assured I'll never lose sight of it again." He placed his new-filled cup on the table, untouched. "Gentlemen, I am going to sleep ... I think. I know, at least, that I am going to try to sleep. Whether or not I am successful will depend upon the thoughts you have implanted in my mind this night, young Arthur. It's very late, and you should be abed, too." He glanced at me, his face unreadable. "Much to think about in the meantime, Brother, no?" I nodded, saying nothing. "Aye, much to think about ... boxes within boxes. We will talk more of this, come morning."

We parted company outside the room and Arthur walked by my side as we made our way to my sleeping quarters. I walked cautiously, my hand cupped protectively around the single candle flame we took with us to light our way. My room lay some distance away, and I was not yet familiar enough with Derek's great house to find my way there confidently in darkness, should we lose the candle's light. So deep in thought was I that the boy's voice startled me when it came. I had almost forgotten he was there, so softly did he walk.

"Uncle, what did Uncle Ambrose mean when he said 'boxes within boxes'?"

I coughed, giving myself time to think, unwilling to lie by saying I did not know. "He was referring to the import of what you have said ... what you have discovered, I should say. He was paying tribute to your mind's acuity, Arthur, and I concur in his judgment. That you should perceive this weakness of Alexander's at all is amazing—no one else ever has. But that you should have arrived at the knowledge unassisted, and at such a young age, based only upon your own reading and observations, is quite confounding.

It makes one wonder what other things might become clear to you, thus casually, things that have confounded older, and supposedly more clever, men for years, or even decades or centuries. Upon but little thought, there seems to be no end to the possibilities. That is what your uncle meant, in speaking of boxes within boxes. Do you understand that?"

"Hmm. I think so."

We had reached my sleeping quarters, where a cot had been installed for the boy beside my own, and moments later, both of us were abed. The boy fell into slumber quickly. I lay awake for a long, long time, planning what I would say to Ambrose when daylight came.

As it turned out, when daylight came I had the chance to say very little to Ambrose on the subject of Arthur and his brilliant deductive powers. Shelagh had not been idle, and after enlisting the assistance of Derek's wife Jessica, she had successfully laid siege to Derek's stubbornness on the matter of permitting us to approach his people with a view to finding extra residents for our hill fort. There was no unwillingness on his part to provide us with assistance on principle; he was more than willing to do that. The thing that stuck in Derek's craw, and which surprised me deeply until I perceived the reasoning behind it, was the matter of leaving the choice of who might join us in our hands.

Derek's contention was that anyone who wished to volunteer should be allowed to join us. Shelagh was adamantly against that. We had room, she maintained, for willing, skilled workers in specific crafts, and she named those skills and crafts. Married couples who shared these skills should be given preference, she asserted. In addition to those, she declared, we required a number of women, unencumbered women, to do women's work and to redress the sexual imbalance in our community. It followed naturally from that, she pointed out, that these women should have a certain calibre of Youthfulness, real or apparent, and of basic cleanliness and attractiveness, since their function would be as much social as anything else.

Witnessing—with more than a little detached amusement—the ongoing clash of wills between these two aggressive personalities, I suddenly discerned the true reason for Derek's intractability. Shelagh was declaring and asserting and maintaining and pointing out exactly what followed naturally from what; Jessica was agreeing, silently, but nodding vigorously; and Derek was reacting jealously, feeling outflanked, outmanoeuvred and outgeneraled.

I took Shelagh aside and whispered in her ear. She looked at me haughtily and made a face. Then she dipped her head and went back towards the king, apologizing for her own excessive enthusiasm and deferring belatedly, but charmingly, to his judgment and his wisdom. She played poor Derek like a fisherman playing a large fish, so that he ended up according her everything she had asked for at the outset, totally unaware of having done so. We spent the remainder of that day and night selecting two score new residents for our fort from among more than two hundred applicants who had flocked forward to volunteer their skills and services within the hour that followed Derek's public announcement of our interest.

That we were able to do so with such dispatch was due purely to the fact that everything we sought in this undertaking lay within Derek's own township. Most of the people who lived beyond the town itself were farmers, living close to their fields and crops, and we had no need of such skills on our high, rocky little plateau beneath the mountains' crest. Arable land was something we lacked completely, although plans were already afoot among us to convert some small part of the cleared forest, close to the fort, into something approaching fertile plots for growing vegetables. The people whom we sought were those whose gifts and skills could be adapted to making our seclusion tenable: barrel and pottery makers; shoemakers and boot makers, to provide protection for our feet on the stony mountainsides; cobblers to maintain those boots in good repair; leather-tanners and goat- and sheep-herders; carpenters and stonemasons and smiths; charcoal-makers to supply the fuel for our forges; fletchers to flight new arrows; grooms and farriers to tend our horses. Each time I thought to end the list, I found some other requirements I had overlooked.

Shelagh had a long list of her own that bore little resemblance to mine. She was concerned with finding bakers and cooks and butchers; flensers to skin and cure the hides from the beasts we killed; beekeepers and brewers and makers of mead to augment her own efforts; women adept at needlecraft and knitting, and at carding and teasing the rough brown wool of the native sheep; spinners of fine thread and coarser yarn; weavers of cloth, and people who knew the art of dying those cloths. All of these skills, could we find them, would make our lives much easier in Mediobogdum, for at the present time all of us were having to turn our hands to all the work, and we were poorly equipped to do so.

I chose to take no part in the selection process, content to leave the task to Shelagh and Donuil, Hector and Brunna, Lars's wife, who had long years of experience in the choosing of able workers. Seeing that I was distancing myself from the work in hand, Derek sought me out, in need of some comfort after the savaging he had received at the end of Shelagh's tongue. I commiserated with him shamelessly, agreeing that our Shelagh was a formidable woman with a tongue like a rasp, but pointing out that she was highly thought of by all who knew her well, for reasons he would doubtless soon discover for himself. Mollified by my sympathy and obviously wishing to make amends for his earlier stubbornness, he hesitated only long enough to gain my assurance that his people would remain his people, and that since we would be leaving someday in the foreseeable future, in a matter of short years, he would not only regain their presence but would also inherit the fruits of their labour in the form of a habitable fort here in the mountains. Immediately thereafter, greatly reassured, he threw himself into the task of supervising the selection process, adjudicating ruthlessly whenever there appeared to be a conflict or a choice to make in terms of quality and ability. I derived a great deal of ironic amusement from the fact that Derek immediately became our greatest asset in finding the people who would suit us most. He knew all of his people, of course, and was unblinkered in judging their strengths and weaknesses.