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

By late afternoon the task was complete, and we had swelled our ranks in Mediobogdum beyond our expectations. Every category we had hoped to fill was filled to Shelagh's satisfaction, many of them with couples who, between them, offered complementary skills. Thirty-eight adults would join us, twenty-six of those being thirteen married couples, including a brewer and his wife, a noted beekeeper. The remaining twelve were nine women, five of them young, and three men. The married couples would bring their families, totalling fourteen children ranging in age from two-year-olds to half-grown boys and girls.

Shelagh and the others were delighted. I was well-pleased. Derek was relieved to have the task completed, and that night we had a feast to celebrate the day's events.

Shelagh approached me in the course of that evening's celebrations, when I was leaning contentedly against a corner wall, eyeing the festivities. Ambrose had left me moments earlier to talk with Ludmilla, who had beckoned him to where she sat with Derek's Jessica, and Donuil was deep in a discussion with Dedalus on the other side of the room.

"Lucanus and Derek are close-huddled over there. I wonder what they're plotting?"

I had not seen her approach and I straightened up immediately, shrugging myself away from the wall and looking to where she was pointing. I smiled.

"They're an unlikely pair, I'll grant you, but I doubt they are plotting anything. They've known each other a long time, those two."

"Aye." She was already looking elsewhere, her glance sharpening, and I followed her gaze to where the two youngest, single members of our party, Mark and Jonathan, were huddled admiringly about one young woman. Her name, as I recalled, was Tressa, and I had met her earlier in the day when she brought me a mug of icy beer, addressing me as "Mester Cahy." She was a striking young woman, far from classically beautiful but gifted nonetheless with youthful beauty and colour, high, cushioned cheekbones, sparkling eyes and strong white teeth. She smiled naturally and often. I had admired her form. She wore a plain white tunic, modelled on the simply draped, classic Roman stola, which showed off her long, slim, graceful neck and the wide, straight shoulders that bore her high, full breasts with pride and artless magnificence. As she had turned to walk away from me, having bowed her head prettily in response to my thanks for her attentions, I had seen, too, that her buttocks filled the lower part of her garment very nicely. An impressive young woman, I thought at the time, and I was pleased now to see my own impression borne out by the attention our two youthful artisans were showing her. She threw back her head and laughed at something Mark said to her, and even from a distance, over the noise of the crowd, I heard the artless sound of it.

"That's Tressa," Shelagh said.

"I know. I met her earlier." I turned and looked at her. "Are you saying—"

"She's one of ours? Of course. Do you approve?"

I looked back towards the tall young woman. "You don't need my approval. Mark and Jonathan approve, I see that plainly."

"Aye. She's a seamstress, and a very good one. Her talents are spoken of with envy by all the women here. Some of the elder ones are jealous of her gifts and have Seen making things difficult for her, so she has much incentive to come to us. We will appreciate her skills without resentment. She'll help you."

"Help me? How, and with what? I need no help."

"Oh, don't you?" She reached out and thrust the end of one index finger through a tiny rent in my sleeve. I had never seen it before, but I knew it was new. I vaguely remembered catching it on something I was passing, earlier that day. "No, it's clear you don't, not even from someone who could keep you clad and mended without your noticing."

"I can take care of such things by myself."

She smiled sweetly at me and straightened up to move away. "Of course you can, Caius. We both know your opinions on that—you need nothing. But that is your opinion. I disagree with it."

Before I could find a response, she was gone, gliding towards her husband, who was smiling at her. Disturbed, somehow, I turned to look again at the young woman Tressa, but she had gone as well, and then I realized that she was close beside me, less than a pace from me, smiling.

"Mester Cahy, c'n I fetch thee to drink?"

Flustered by her sudden proximity, I managed to thank her graciously, refusing her offer, raging at myself internally for the damnable redness I could feel flooding my face. She appeared not to notice; instead she kept her eyes fixed on mine, smiling at me as I stammered out my words. When I had done, she nodded pleasantly, and I had to fight against the urge to watch as she walked away.

A short time after that I saw her again across the hall, talking to Jonathan, and as I looked, she raised her head and her eyes looked directly into mine. Before I could avert my gaze she smiled again and dipped her head in the slightest nod before returning her eyes and her attention to Jonathan. A moment later, while I was still watching her, I heard Donuil's voice addressing me and I turned to find his wife gazing at me from beside him, a small, secret smile on her lips. I felt a strange surge of anger towards her but recognized it as being unreasonable and stifled it. Very shortly after that, I went to bed, where I fell asleep with Tressa's good-natured, disconcerting smile hovering in my mind.

The following morning, as dawn was breaking, we prepared to bid farewell to Ravenglass again and turn our steps towards our hilltop home. Those of our new neighbours who were sufficiently free of duties, obligations and other encumbrances—slightly more than half the newcomers—accompanied us. The others would follow within the next few days, as and when they were able to. Ambrose and Ludmilla rode with us too, both of them keen to see what we had made of our own private fortress among the towering Fells.

As I sat watching our assembling party that morning, my thoughts were split in two directions: the greater part of my attention was bent upon organizing our train, which had now swollen from the four wagons we had brought down empty with us—they were now all filled to capacity—to include the transportation for another thirty- some adults and children. This hotchpotch of vehicles ranged from ox-drawn carts, to wagons drawn by horses and mules, to light carts, with high, narrow wheels that were evidently intended to be pulled along by hand. These latter vehicles, and there were four of them, I eyed askance, thinking it would be a major undertaking to push or pull them up the steep, narrow gradient leading from the river vale to our rocky plateau so far above. I knew, however, that it would matter nothing to me, and these people were native to the land, so I assumed they knew the task that lay ahead of them in climbing up to Mediobogdum.

Conflicting with the need to concentrate on preparing for departure, however, was an equal, or perhaps an even greater need to dwell at length upon the brief discussion I had had, an hour or so before, with Lucanus. My mind had not yet adjusted to the news that he had delivered, and as I sat there on Germanicus, high up and securely mounted in my saddle, I felt a surge of giddiness that might have sent me crashing to the ground had I not braced myself and sucked in a mighty, belly-deep breath.

Luke had approached me as I broke my fast on a mess of boiled wheat and oatmeal with milk and honey, in Derek's kitchens. Returning my nod of greeting, he had sat down across from me and helped himself to a slab of heavy, fresh-baked bread, smearing it with some of the thick honey I had been using to sweeten my oatmeal. We both sat silent for a while, absorbed in the task of eating/Finally, however, Luke sat back, rubbing his hands and wiping a smear of honey fastidiously from the corner of his mouth with the tip of a little finger, and he stared at me wordlessly until I grew uncomfortable, sensing that he had something momentous to say.