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

Shelagh had chosen Tressa as a mistress for me, and some inner, disapproving part of me was slightly scandalized by that. She had searched diligently, by her own admission, and had chosen carefully, selecting Tressa over all others. Then, her choice made in secrecy, she had implemented her design and I had refused the offered prize. Only then, in the face of that refusal, had she acknowledged her intent and her manipulation of events for my personal and private benefit. It was, in one evident sense, the gesture of a true and loyal friend, selfless and generous and noble-hearted. And yet ... and yet, it was flawed.

I could not marry Tressa, for a myriad reasons including my own oath never to take a wife. Shelagh, however, even though she knew nothing of that oath, had not sought to find a wife for me. Instead, she had found a potentially willing mistress who would never be a threat, either to my destiny with Arthur, or to that dear place, that shrine sacred to my long-dead Cassandra, shared now by her memory and by Shelagh herself, in my deepest heart. Most particularly, however, the woman she had taken such pains to find could never tie me to her in the future through the bonds of children.

I knew beyond a doubt that Shelagh had laboured well on my behalf, but now I knew also that she had laboured not quite selflessly or self-effacingly. That physicality which she might not provide herself she had provided otherwise; but die strangely passive secret, amorous, excitement-filled attraction to each other that we shared, on the other hand, she had safeguarded wholly, in her role as panderer ... As the full realization of what had passed here flooded through me—Shelagh's tacit, even unconscious acknowledgment of the love she held for me—I found myself smiling again, broadly this time, and filling my lungs with the aromatic air of late afternoon as I bounded out of my quarters and made my way towards Mark's carpentry shop, feeling like a boy released from his lessons.

Dedalus was still there when I arrived, as was Lucanus, the latter sitting on an upturned barrel in the yard fronting Mark's workshop. They were talking of furnishings with Mark, admiring the matching patterns of the close-grained boards in a table he was making. They were all pleased to see me, and when the greetings were all done I turned to Dedalus.

"Now I can concentrate on what you wanted to discuss. You brought some things to show me. Do you still have them?"

"Aye," he murmured, grinning, then crossed to where they were propped against a wall. He picked both pieces up, hefted them one in each hand, then passed one to me. I held it close to my eyes and dug at it with my thumbnail. It was carefully sawed, heavy, dense-grained oak, unplaned but squared on all sides to the width of four fingers. I lowered one end to the floor and the other reached up to my sternum. The second piece, which Ded still held, appeared to be identical.

"It's oak, and seasoned," I said. "Where did you get it?"

He grinned again. "Above the furnace in the bathhouse. Mark, here, was looking for a place to dry some lumber, months ago, when I first repaired the hypocaust system. He didn't need much room at the time, but he required it to be hot and dry and weather-proof, and I knew there was adequate space beneath the bathhouse floor, perfect for his needs. I told him about it, and then forgot about it afterward, but he has been using the space ever since. I went in there today, about an hour before I passed by your place, and found these and a hundred or so others just like them. Mark used them for making bed-legs, when he was building our cots." He saw the incomprehension in my eyes as I glanced towards Mark, who was standing listening, a half-smile on his lips. "Don't you see it, Cay?" I could hear the excitement now in Ded's voice. "It's prime oak, oven- dried and cured, heavier and stronger than ash. We can turn and taper them on Mark's lathe and make ourselves some real, practical staves of the kind we've been discussing— long practice swords, all of a uniform size."

Mark's lathe was his greatest pride, a wonderful machine that enabled him to transform plain, squared lumber into glowing, rounded, exquisitely turned things of beauty. In the flash of a moment, I saw the squared baulk of timber in my hand transformed into a thick dowel, a tapered practice sword.

"By God you're right, Ded!"

"I know I'm right. I'm just glad I went down into the furnace room today, for it would never have occurred to me that we had such perfect material at hand, already cured and seasoned. But what think you, will oak serve as well as ash?"

"Aye, and better, would be my guess." I looked to Mark for confirmation and he nodded mutely, his smile widening.

"I believe it might," he drawled, "but I don't know what use you intend for them, or how much abuse they'll take. If they break, we can always make more, out of ash."

I hoisted the heavy length of wood and caught it at the midpoint. "The Roman practice swords were ash. Our British ones will be of oak. How long to make them?"

Mark looked to Dedalus, who shrugged his huge shoulders. "Like making swords, I would guess. We'll make two as experimental models and then refine them as necessary until they'll do what we require of them." He could no longer contain the smile of delight that broke across his face. "You approve of them, then?"

"I do, and heartily."

"Good, then I'll bring them back to you when they're ready to be used. How long, will that be, Mark?"

The young carpenter shrugged. "I can see it's important to you, and this table top is finished, for today at least. I can start on them now, if you like. You'll have to show me exactly what you want me to do with them—the length and angle of the taper. I'll need an hour to set them up on the lathe, preparing them for turning, but after that, we can begin immediately. If all goes well, they should be ready by this time tomorrow."

Dedalus stood on tiptoe and stretched his arms above his head. "Then what are we waiting for? To work, young Marcus!"

As he stretched, I grinned and launched the heavy length of wood at his midriff. He whipped his arms down just in time to catch it and whirl it, one-handed, up beneath his armpit, as though it were a centurion's cudgel of vine wood, dried and weightless. Then he snapped a flawless Roman centurion's salute, executed a smart about-face and marched into the gloom of the workshop.

I moved to sit on a low stump beside Lucanus's much higher barrel, looking up at him where he sat smiling gently at Ded's antics.

"How are you feeling, Luke? You looked a bit pale and shaky earlier, on the way up the hill."

"Aye, I must admit there was a time back there when I felt that horse would be the death of me. There is something about the rocking motion of a horse that never fails to nauseate me. How you people can stomach it I'll never know."

I sat for a moment, bemused, blinking at him and wondering how he could remain unaware that he alone experienced any rocking motion on a horse. The side-to-side motion to which he referred was born solely of his own execrable horsemanship. Lucanus had never mastered the art of relaxing on a horse's back; he held himself rigid at all times, so that instead of melding with the motion of the animal and riding almost as a part of it, he was forever at odds with it, clinging grimly and in constant discomfort to his precarious perch on its broad back. His failure to see that and to adjust his seat was incomprehensible to me, because I had started riding when I was so young that I had never known, or I could not remember, any such rocking motion.

"So you felt better when you were on solid ground again?"

"Again, as ever. I vastly prefer riding on a wagon. There's so much more in one of those to hang on to."

I grunted a laugh and shook my head. "What are you going to do now?"