Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

She smiled and relented, waving her hand to dismiss the topic. "No need to feel shame, Nephew. You must merely keep an open mind in future. Remember your uncle Varrus. All of his learning told him no stone could fall from an open sky without first being hurled up into it from earth. Had he chosen to accept that, he would never have found the Skystone that he sought, and that wondrous sword Excalibur would never have existed." She paused, allowing her words to sink home in me. "Keep your mind ever open, Cay. Accept no other's dictum as the final word on anything you think to question. Now, get you off and bathe and steam and shave, and leave me with my grandson here. Who is his nurse, by the way?"

I told her about Turga, and then spent a full half hour telling her of the baby's other family in Eire, and of his other grandfather, Athol, King of Scots. Finally I told her of Liam Twistback and his daughter Shelagh and the absence of Donuil. She listened to most of this in silence, asking only a few questions, and then suggested that both Shelagh and Turga should move into her own household as guests, the one to await the return of her husband- to-be, the other to guarantee her hostess constant access to the child. I smiled again and again as I listened, and then kissed her fondly before leaving to find Ambrose, with whom I had much to discuss.

XX

I discovered that Ambrose was out on the hilltop lands behind the fortress walls, conducting target practice with some of our younger foot-soldiers whom he had decided to train as bowmen. Intrigued, I started to make my way directly to the spot, but then I recalled my aunt's instructions and paused, considering them. I had washed and changed out of my travel clothes before going to her, ridding myself of the uppermost layer of human and horse sweat, but I was still far from being either clean or refreshed. I knew that a visit to the bath house would revivify me. A quick glance at the sky showed me some hours of daylight yet remained, and so I beckoned to a passing soldier and sent him to Ambrose with a message that I was bathing and would join him, bringing my own bow, within the hour. That done, I headed for the sanctuary of the baths as quickly as I could, and regaled myself in the luxury of the hot pools leading to the sudarium, or steam room, where I surrendered myself willingly to the ministrations of the two masseurs then on duty.

Later, refreshed and feeling new born, and clutching Uncle Varrus's great bow and a quiver of arrows, I made my way to where Ambrose had set up his new target range at the rear of the fort, beyond the postern gate that had given access to my father's assassins years earlier. In those days, the rock- strewn, grassy hilltop had lain empty, but I knew that the space was now put to full use, with buildings, horse pens and roofed stables filling most of the area. Ambrose, apparently, had commandeered the last clear, level stretch of terrain for his current use, and I heard the laughing shouts and jeers of the participants as I approached. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived, but what I found amazed me.

There must have been close to thirty men there, all of them clustered at the end of the range opposite a row of four clearly marked, black-and-white ringed targets, each one spread over what I later discovered to be bound bales of densely packed straw. Ambrose stood to one side, watching the proceedings with his back to me as I approached, and most of the milling throng over which he presided I identified immediately as young recruits and trainee soldiers. Several other faces among these, however, distinguished by the un- trimmed beards and hair that framed them, leapt out at me; older faces these, well known but unexpected in this place and at this time. As I walked towards them, still unnoticed, two more young men stepped forward to the rough line gouged in the earth that marked the aiming point, their heads bent and all their attention concentrated upon the long, tapered Pendragon bows each of them held with the awkwardness of learners. The sight of the bows shocked me even more than had my recognition of the several faces I had last seen in Uther's company, and checked my advance. This sudden stop attracted the attention of one thick-set, bearded Celt, who turned his head towards me and then earned my gratitude by breaking into a smiling roar of recognition, so that suddenly I became the centre of attraction, surrounded by the enthusiasm of old, back-slapping companions whose existence I had all but forgotten.

There was Huw Strongarm, direct descendant of Publius Varrus's old friend Cymric, the Pendragon bowyer who had made the first long yew bow stave, and with him was his son, another Cymric, whom I had last seen as a stripling lad. Behind Huw loomed the enormous bulk of Powys, the largest and strongest man I had ever met, who could lift a struggling heifer in his arms unaided. Other names flashed back to me, unthought of in years, as their owners greeted me: Owain of the Caves; the trio Menester, Gwern and Guidog who, I had learned long since, had been born within four days of each other and had done everything together since childhood. Cador the Fisherman was there, as was Medrod, who had been one of Uther's most trusted retainers, and Elfred Egghead, who had lost all his hair, including lashes and brows, almost before attaining manhood. These nine I knew immediately. Five others stood with them whose names I did not know, although I recognized them all by sight. By the time their boisterous greetings had died down and I was able to look beyond the circle of them, I saw Ambrose standing watching me, a slight smile on his lips, and grouped beside him were his trainees, almost a score of them, some clutching Celtic bows, and all of them staring at me with expressions varying from slack-jawed awe to something approaching reverent admiration. Several heads swung back and forth from me to my brother, remarking and cataloguing our amazing resemblance to each other. None of these young men was known to me, and that realization made me more aware than anything else until that time of how far I had drifted, all unawares and for a multiplicity of reasons, from the daily life, activities and people of the Colony that was supposed to be my home.

I raised my clenched fist to my breast, saluting Ambrose, and he returned the greeting gravely, though his eyes were dancing, but when I would have moved to meet him I found myself confronted by Huw Strongarm with a challenge to test my Varrus bow—that was what he called it—against his homegrown pride. Though his tone was one of friendly raillery, I knew at once that this was not a challenge I could easily refuse, for the growl of approbation that sprang from the throats of his fellows was unanimous, and so I shrugged and accepted. Two men ran immediately to spread new targets over the existing ones, which were already pierced and tattered, although I noticed, even from this distance, that the central rings of all four targets were almost unmarred. They were plain enough targets, made from raw cloth stretched over square frames of woven reeds like the circular Saxon shields carried by Ambrose's men on their arrival. Black rings, concentric circles, had been drawn on the plain cloth, each circle growing smaller by a handspan until the smallest, itself a handspan wide. They were set up a hundred measured paces from the firing line, which Huw and I approached together.

Each of us glanced sidelong at the other, eyeing the other's weapon. Because of its double curve and triple compound layers of construction, my bow looked bigger and somehow more formidable than Huw's, and my arrows were perhaps a palm's width longer, but I took no satisfaction in that appearance of superiority. Huw's bow, bent and strung, looked graceful and slender, and much shorter than mine, although I knew that was illusion.