Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

He smiled now, and there was an element of wistfulness, perhaps of sadness in his smile. "I know what you mean. It was a bear, as you know, that ate my leg."

"Ate it?"

"Well, no, not exactly. It bit me. Severed the muscles of my calf, and they festered. I owe my life to one man in our company at the time who was not afraid to cut off my leg in the face of threats on his own life. He chopped me at the knee, cleanly, with an axe. One blow. Placed the axe in position, and then hammered it home with an iron maul. Drove me into unconsciousness, and almost into dementia afterwards. Thank all the gods of Eire, he had told his assistant what to do after that to cauterize and staunch the wound, because Lachie—the man you slew—struck him dead when I screamed out."

There was not much open to me then in the way of response, but I seized on what he had said about his saviour. "He was a physician, then?"

"Who, the man who saved me? No, he was a Druid."

That really surprised me. "Lachie killed a Druid?"

Connor nodded. "Aye. Stone dead. And lived accursed thereafter."

"Hmm . . ." I paused, collecting my thoughts. When he showed no inclination to speak further, I went on. "So, pardon me for asking, but what has all this of bears to do with your decision regarding my fate?"

"Your fate?" He laughed aloud. "Hardly your fate, Caius Merlyn, in the sense I think you mean it. I have not pondered the death of you."

"Ah! Then what have you pondered, if I might presume to ask?"

"Your life, and the manner of it."

"My life." I stared at him, unable to decipher his expression. "The manner of it." I felt foolish even as I uttered the banality, but he laughed again and reached down between his feet to retrieve the mead flask.

"You're something of a bear yourself, Merlyn. That long black cloak of yours with the big silver emblem on the back marks you as one; a bear, a warrior, a formidable foe"—he pulled the stopper with his teeth and spat it out onto the ground before continuing as he poured for himself—"or a staunch and intelligent ally." He proffered the flask and I leaned forward to take it as he went on. "So, here is what I have decided. I must go home soon to my father's Hall, perhaps without my sister." I held my horn cup on one knee and poured carefully, my eyes on my task, my ears straining for every subtlety of his voice. "If that should come to pass, my father Athol will not be happy to see me back empty-handed, but by then I'll have little option other than to face his wrath. I cannot remain on land here, with a mere hundred or so men, not knowing where to begin to seek Ygraine—not when the land is acrawl with hostile armies. You tell me Lot is dead, and I see no reason to doubt you. Men die in war, and leaders are human, too, and die as men do from time to time. Ygraine is strong. She has her own bodyguard, and they loyal to her to a man, since they are all her own, my father's people. She knows I will be here, waiting for her, and so I shall stay, keeping myself offshore, for as long as I can. A month, at most. She should be here long before that."

"And I?" I turned as I asked the question, to find his gaze fixed steadily on me, his eyes twinkling beneath raised brows.

"You, Yellow Head? You are my surety against returning completely empty-handed. You hold my brother Donuil, whether as prisoner or friend, I neither know nor care. Tearlach and the others think he is dead. I choose to believe you. Donuil was—and is—greatly beloved by my father, the king, and by me, too, let it be said. You shall bring Donuil to me, and I shall take him home with me, and when you do, you may have the child back, safe and sound and in good health now that he has a nurse."

"What? You expect me to ride off and leave the child here with you?"

"You expect me to allow you to ride off, taking the babe with you, and no assurance that you will return, other than your word?"

I had risen to my feet in anger. "My word has been taken before now, and never found lacking!"

He ignored my anger and did not answer for the space of several heartbeats, then in a musing voice he said, "Aye, but by whom? Your friends and equals? I am an Outlander to you, man. No bonds of honour tie a civilized man's word to such, not even in my country." His calm reply chastened me. I sat down again, my mind racing.

"A month, you say?"

"Aye, at most, a month."

"And what if. . . what if trouble befalls you?"

"Trouble? You mean if we are attacked? We won't be on land. We'll sail off and return when it is safe."

"Unless another galley finds you."

He shrugged. "Aye, there is that, in which case we shall fight, and we shall likely win. Mine is a large galley, and a fierce crew."

"A month might not be long enough."

He laughed, half in scorn. "For what? How far must you travel to this home of yours . . . what did you call it?"

"Camulod."

"Aye, Camulod. Is it more than two weeks' journey from here? It can't be."

"No," I agreed. "No more than six days, seven at the most, but Donuil may not be there when I arrive. I told you, he had ridden out to the northeast at my request, at the same time I left Camulod, to search for someone. He may not have returned, may not even have found the man he seeks. It could be months before he returns."

Now it was Connor who rose from his seat, his face set in displeasure. He dropped his cup on the ground by his side and twitched his cloak so that it settled about his body. "In that case, Yellow Head, seek ye the child in Eire, in my father's Hall, for that is where he will be." I moved to protest, but he cut me short with a stabbing gesture of his left hand. "Enough! No more discussion. Be satisfied I choose to trust you thus far. I know how you value the child, although I know not what he is, or means, to you. Suffice it that you are prepared to die for him. I can make use of that, since it means you'll be prepared to live for him as well, and thus return my brother to his father's hearth. A hostage for a hostage, no? You will leave tomorrow, in the light of dawn. You have your horse and your bow. Your armour and the rest of your weapons are there, all of them, inside my tent. Take them, and then find yourself a place to sleep, in the morning you will leave. No one will hinder you and we two shall meet again either here within the month, or in Eire when you arrive there. Until then, farewell."

He turned on his false leg and made his way towards the clustered forms of his lieutenants around the main fire. I watched him leave and then finished the mead in my cup, setting the flask down carefully after replacing the stopper, then I collected the bulky bundle of my weapons, helmet and armour from the darkness inside the doorway of his tent. I thought of searching out the child and his new nurse, but I knew not where to begin looking. Instead, I carried my gear to where I had left Germanicus, unsaddled him, and spent a half hour rubbing him down with coarse sand-grass before leading him away from the firelight to a place beyond the beach where he could graze and I could sleep for the remainder of the night.

Sleep would not come, however, and I lay awake thinking bleak thoughts. Finally, I sat up, lifted my tunic and unwound a long strip of cloth from around my waist where I had tied it the previous day. Secure between its folded layers was a small, leather pouch, and I tipped its contents into the palm of my hand. Two massive golden signets, one of them on a thin gold chain—the red dragon seal of Pendragon and the savage, curl-tushed boar seal of Cornwall—both held in trust for the infant who now lay sleeping somewhere close by, warm and at peace for now in the milk-sweet embrace of his new nurse. I replaced the rings in the pouch, hearing the solid, heavy clink they made in meeting, and retied them securely about my waist, and then I rolled myself in my cloak and sought sleep once more, this time successfully. My last waking thought was of Uther Pendragon, lying cold and long days dead on a riverbank, somewhere to the west of us.