Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Hello, young man," she said to him, for all the world as though only she and he existed. "Aren't you the wonder I never hoped nor thought to see? Arthur Britannicus Varrus, bearing the likeness of your ancestors as though to show the entire world who you are and whence you sprang." Now she turned her head and spoke to me, inviting me to join their tiny circle. "The eyes are pure Caius Britannicus—I never saw Cay's equal in eye colour until now—and the golden hair is a family heritage my brother used to blame on a too-loved northern slave of former days. You and your father have made it commonplace within the family nowadays, but it was once rare. But look at this fellow! Look at the strength of him, the shoulders and the depth of chest! How old is he? Six months? He has the body of Publius already, and could be the strongest smith in Britain. You could, couldn't you, were you not destined for other, greater things?" Responding to her tone, the infant smiled at her and she hugged him again, kissing his baby cheek.

I was beginning to feel stirrings of concern for her, because all of this time she had been standing, holding the child away from her easily, despite the fact that what I had said was true: the child was heavy, a solid lump of bone and sturdy muscle that could remind even my arms of what they bore. Now, however, she moved to a couch and sat down, holding the child seated on her lap, and the eyes she turned to me glowed with happiness.

"Thank you, Cay, for bringing this wonder home to me before I die. He is the future—the future of this Colony of ours and of this land. Look at him! That certitude is stamped into the essence of him. He is my entire life story, the history of all my loves made into one small boy." She fell silent again for a while, gentling the child at first when he began to squirm impatiently, and finally bending to allow him to slip down to the floor by her feet, where he lay kicking and waving his sturdy little arms, his eyes roving all around this strange, large room, registering the play of light and sparkle upon furnishing and ornament and ignoring the two people who watched him.

When she spoke again, her words had a musing, self-absorbed intimacy. "I can see all of them there, when he moves in certain ways: Publius Varrus in the very way he breathes and clenches his fists; my brother Cay in his eyes; even Ullic Pendragon and his own father Uther in his bearing, though how a child can have a 'bearing' kicking on his back is beyond me . . . it's there, nevertheless." She paused, then glanced at me. "His hair has a red tinge to it I have never seen before. Even as babes, your own hair and your father's were more yellow, more fair than this."

"His mother had red hair," I told her.

"Ah! Then that would explain it. It may change as he grows, to red or to pure gold like yours, or it may not. Only time will tell. Was he born with red hair, or did the change come afterwards?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, Auntie. It was that colour when I found him, but by then he was three months old. Is that long enough for a child's hair colouring to change?"

"Sometimes, but it is unimportant. Did you know the mother? What was her name? Ygert?"

"Ygraine. No. When I found her she was already dying. Lot's wife. And young Donuil's sister. And my wife's too."

Aunt Luceiia shook her head, smiling gently. "It's strange, stranger than anything I have ever known through all the years I've lived, the influence that this unknown, alien clan from another land has brought to bear on you, Nephew. Does it not amaze you?"

I had to nod in agreement, for the same thought had often occurred to me and been the subject of long mental deliberation in my quiet times. I disliked and distrusted coincidence, and had been taught by my own father that coincidence per se did not exist. The relationship between Donuil, Ygraine, Connor and myself was explainable, involving the politics of kingship and territorial alliances more than anything else. Having captured Donuil legitimately in a war waged by his family, and having befriended him thereafter, it did not seem strange to me in any way that I should later meet the members of his family who were involved in all the varying activities of warfare and alliances. The one coincidence that defeated me, that I could not explain, was meeting Donuil's sister, my dead wife, long months before I went to war and captured Donuil. The probabilities against two such unrelated encounters assuming the significance they had, defied credence. And yet it had occurred, and my life had been utterly changed beyond redress. My aunt was sitting still, watching me closely.

"Aye," I admitted, finally. "It does seem strange."

"Cod's will always seems strange to simple people."

"Cod's will?" I smiled as I looked at her. "Come, Auntie," I twitted her, seeking to ease my own sudden pain. "You think God's will extends to making sure that I would meet my wife and go through the joy and suffering I did before—and after—I lost her?"

I was well aware of my Aunt Luceiia's lifelong dedication of herself and all she did to the Christian Cod and His Church here in Britain. I considered myself a Christian, I believed in the existence of God, but my religious conviction was a private thing, and I seldom thought of God or of His Son, the Christ, as contemporary personalities. More Roman in such things than anything else, I felt, deep within myself, that God—as in "the gods"—had more important things to do than worry over individual people and the details of their abject little lives. Aunt Luceiia, however, refused to be teased. Ignoring the child at her feet for the time being, she composed herself, hands folded in her lap, and looked me straight in the eye.

"You are being flippant, Nephew, and I will not dignify your levity with discussion. But think of this: Had something not guided your feet to where you found her, on that patrol with Uther, none of the things that happened after would have come to pass the way they did. All of them might have happened, certainly, but they would not have been interconnected so intimately. Donuil would have remained a trusted hostage, perhaps even a friend. And you would not have pursued Uther so angrily nor so jealously—" She interrupted herself, responding to the sudden expression of shock I felt registering itself upon my face at her knowledge of what I had thought to be a secret known only to myself. "Oh, yes, I know the truth of all of that and what you thought and did. And while I am aware of the kindness with which you sought to shield me from your conviction of 'the truth,' I am neither blind nor feeble-minded . . . Most of all, however, I find myself accepting that had you not believed you had cause to suspect Uther in the death of your beloved wife, you would not have pursued him into Cornwall and my great- grandson would have perished. Instead, here he is, kicking at my feet. Your suspicion of Uther thus prevented the destruction of the great Dream you described to me but recently, the Dream of my brother and my husband Publius, personified in this child and his apparent Destiny. Without your doubts and beliefs, all of it would have gone unrealized. Will you make fun of that?"

By the time Aunt Luceiia had finished speaking I had mastered myself. I had also lost any urge to treat her observation with levity. Chastened, I realized that what she had said was the simple truth and that my own convictions regarding coincidence involved a contradiction in terms. Belief in Christianity, or any acknowledgment of a supernatural order of existence, entailed a willingness to accept that coincidence, or any series of synchronous yet apparently illogical events arranged in rational sequence, somehow related to the supernatural will. I drew a deep breath.

"No, Auntie, and you make me feel ashamed. I will never commit that error again, I promise."