Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"No one's treating you like an old man, but you're a sick man and you might have killed yourself, eating that rubbish the way you did. Bad meat! By the Christus, Merlyn, even a child knows enough not to eat tainted meat, especially fowl!"

"It didn't all taste bad, Ded. The leg Cyrus ate didn't taste bad to him. Am I to live without eating meat? What's in that bowl?"

"Meat, but good meat, and there's little of it. Mainly it's broth, with onions, garlic, mushrooms, some cheese, some green things and a generous taste of salt. And bread, floating on the top. Get it into you. Here, I'll hold the spoon, otherwise you'll spill more than you sup."

"Cheese?" I said, as he began to spoon the broth.

He paused and grinned at me. "That's what I thought, too," he said. "Until I tasted it. It's some kind of hard goat's cheese, and they grate it into powder, then mix it into foods of one kind or another. It's wondrous stuff, you'll love it."

I did, and as I ate and the flavours of salt and garlic and that Eirish cheese mingled on my palate I felt the strength flow back into my body. When the bowl was empty, I lay back, savouring the flavours that lingered in my mouth.

"You're right, Ded. That cheese is wondrous stuff. Now I need to piss."

"Well, your throne's still there. Here, I'll help you." He crossed to replace the bowl on the table and then came back and helped me to rise. It was much easier this time, and I barely had to lean on him as I took the two paces to the bucket and relieved myself, leaning on the frame and smelling the strong, ammoniac stink of my own urine. I even smell sick, I thought. Then, as I was finishing, I asked him if the bucket and its frame had been moved closer to the bed.

"Moved from where?"

"From where it was. It was much farther from the bed than it is now, that first night I was here."

He shook his head. It had not been moved, he told me, since the moment he had brought it into the room on that first occasion. Benedict had built the frame and placed it over the bucket. Besides, he pointed out, there was no room for the thing to have been placed anywhere else. I could see the truth of that for myself even as he said it, and was left shaking my head over the memories of the struggle I had had on several occasions to reach the spot from where I had lain. He helped me turn and supported me again for the two steps back to the bed. I was glad to arrive. As he tucked me in again, flat on my back, Paulus, Philip and Benedict crowded in at the doorway to see me. I waved to them and smiled and they seemed delighted at my talent. Ded chased them away. I noticed that the sunlight had vanished and that the sky beyond the window had turned a deep, dark bluish grey. Ded crossed to the door and stopped to look back at me.

"It's getting dark. I'll bring some lamps."

I was asleep when and if he did.

By the time Athol arrived to visit me again the following morning, I was up and fully dressed, wearing a quilted tunic. The sunshine of the previous day had given way to overcast skies, although there seemed to be no rain clouds threatening for the time being. I felt ten times stronger than I had the day before, and had broken my fast on another bowl of the delicious broth, brought to me this time by Donuil and Shelagh.

I had watched them as I ate, feeding myself, so much was I improved, and it was plain to see that matters between them had progressed apace. They touched each other frequently, each going to great lengths to do so, and to make the contact appear casual or accidental. They were concerned for me, I could see, and glad to see me so much improved, but a blind man could have seen that they had eyes, in truth, only for each other. Love had visited Athol's kingdom, it appeared, while I lay sick. They talked brightly to me, promising to return again, and soon left, and I watched them from my window, walking hand in hand now that they thought themselves unobserved. A short time after they had gone, the king arrived, and we sat together at the table beside the open window, where, after the pleasantries concerning my improved condition, Athol came straight to what lay on his mind.

"The army that Finn saw lies quartered in the south. I believe their intent was to join with the Wild Ones, but those animals could not wait, or would not, and hoped to wipe us out before their allies arrived."

"Then why are the newcomers waiting now?"

"I don't know, but I suspect they are waiting for others to join them."

"Others? From where? Have you had further news from your spy among the Sons of Condran?"

He shook his head. "No, but I sent men to mingle with the people already there in the south. None of them saw any sign of Brian or his forces. The warning I received was that Brian and his tribe were to ally themselves with the MacNyalls and the vermin of Garn. That has not happened, yet the other two are here and have not moved against us. That makes me suspect that Brian has been delayed for some reason, but has sent word of it. Otherwise there would be no question of their waiting."

"And what could that reason be? You suspect he has waited to engage Brander and his fleet?"

Athol's headshake was emphatic. "No," he growled. "Brian is a land warrior, not a seaman. Besides, his brother Liam does not lack for men to fill his galleys, especially now, when he has so few galleys to fill. No, that's not the reason. Even had they the will, Condran's brats no longer have the strength to tackle Brander. I fear something else, something different . . ."

"Like what? Have you any suspicions?"

Again Athol shook his head. "None that I can define, but the uncertainty has made up my mind on one thing." He paused, tugging at the beard beneath his lower lip, and I waited. At length he straightened his shoulders and spoke again, looking me straight in the eye. "You talked, the other night, of your plans for the child, to make him High King of Britain." I said nothing, waiting still. "A great part of his task—the greatest part, as I understood it, listening to you talk—will be to unite his people against the invader, the Saxons who are chewing at your shores, is this not so?" I nodded. "Aye. It could not have escaped your attention, I suppose, that what I plan for my people in the land you call Caledonia is exactly what the Saxons are attempting to achieve in Britain?"

"No, it had not passed me by."

"And how do you feel about that?"

I shrugged. "Were I a Caledonian Pict, it would move me to defy you. But I am not. I am a Briton, from the land beneath the great Wall built by Hadrian to keep the Picts locked out of Britain. The Wall is useless now, ruined and overrun, but the Picts are still a threat to us. Should you succeed in occupying Caledonia, coming to terms in whatever way you must with these same Picts, we would have a friend and ally thereafter beyond the Wall. How could I be aught but pleased? I have thought about it, Athol, this colonization and conquest you propose, and it would be to my advantage, solving a great part of our problem at no cost to me. But it has also made me consider something that could never have occurred to me before this time . . ." Now it was he who sat silent, waiting for me to gather my thoughts.

"Seeing your dilemma through your eyes has taught me that my judgments are too often based on too little knowledge, an old fault of mine I thought I had outgrown. My cousin Uther once accused me of being overly judgmental, and the accusation caused me grief, but I came to see he was right. I saw that I had been a prig, and I set out to change that. I will never know if I have been successful, though I live to be a toothless old man. But I feel I know your people now, thanks mainly to your son, and will never again think of them as Outlanders, as I did before. You and yours are now, and will remain forever, people like my own, with lives to lead, and dreams, ideals and families you love. Your planned invasion has the appeal of logic, when listened to in the terms you used to me. I think, now, that for the sake of the boy and of the king he will become, I have to find some accommodation in Britain, among the Saxons. Not all the Saxons—I am not completely mad. Like your own Eirish folk they come from many tribes and clans, some good, some bad. But some of them have been in Britain for many years, even generations. So I ask myself, have they the right to be there, to hold the land they have farmed for years? I confess, I have no answer for my own question, but I am highly aware, at last, of the question's importance."