Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"No, I don't think so, Huw," I answered him, hearing my own voice grating on the words. "Not yet, and not without a fight." I pulled another arrow from the quiver at my shoulder and stepped back to the line, putting my thoughts in order. That was, I found immediately, more easily attempted than achieved. I found myself in the grip of an unreasoning anger, and I knew it would obscure my judgment if I allowed it to persist. Aware of the deep silence that had fallen all around me again, I forced myself to stand motionless and concentrate upon the task at hand. As calmness began to assert itself and my anger faded, I turned away from the mark, glancing at Huw, searching his face for any sign of mockery or scorn. I saw none. He stood motionless, his bow grounded, watching me calmly and without any expression other than the respect due from one opponent to another in a contest of skills.

I nodded to him and turned again towards the mark, exhaling completely and then breathing deeply in the pattern I had taught myself over the years. And the world around me vanished, to be replaced by a long tunnel that stretched away ahead of me to where a silver circle shone, large and clean- lined, against a field of dun, untreated cloth. As I loosed my shot I knew it was my best ever. I had turned away to Huw before it even hit the mark, aware that the watching crowd yet held its breath, waiting for Powys's verdict. But I knew, and Huw knew, judging by his grin, that my shaft had lodged with his, inside the ring. As we shook hands, the air around us shattered under the noise of the watchers' cheers.

"So it was meant to be. The Varrus bow has lost nothing with the years, including its master's skills." Huw's admiration was genuine and ungrudging.

"Had you not said what you did, your victory would have gone uncontested, my friend."

"I knew that, Merlyn, but I knew, too, that you had not seen it, did I not?"

"Aye, you're right. It needed to be said. My thanks to you. But why are you here, Huw? Why in Camulod, and since when?"

He made a wry face. "Since life in our own place became unbearable," he answered, as the throng bore down on us, led by Powys, who brandished Huw's brooch above his head. "We'll talk about it later."

Once again I found myself surrounded by well-wishers, and it occurred to me that here was a day for interrupted conversations.

After the sun went down, destroying any hope of further shooting, the recruits were dismissed and dispersed, and Huw and his fellow Celts accompanied Ambrose and me to the refectory, where I prevailed upon one of the presiding cooks to pack up a quantity of foods, both hot and cold, to feed sixteen of us. Ludo, my effeminate old friend from boyhood days, had died some time before, but he had disciplined his staff over the years to accede to any demand that I might make at any time. Then, armed with good food and ale, we sought a firepit by the road outside the walls by the main gate. We found one, manned by some of the recruits who had been with us earlier, and sent them searching elsewhere for a fire, while we sat down to eat and talk. There was a chill nip to the evening air, but most of the men wore cloaks and the day had been pleasant, with more pale, wintry sunshine than showers.

Conversation was desultory while the food lasted, but Huw was quick to show me his brooch, returned to him by Powys, which had now become a trophy. It bore two small, parallel identical scars where the inside upper rim had been nicked by our arrows, and Huw was immensely proud of it.

"Look you, Merlyn," he pointed out to me, kneeling beside me and balancing the meat he had crammed inside a wedge of bread precariously on one bent knee while he held the brooch out for my inspection. "If you were to draw crossed lines, splitting the circle in four parts, each arrow's point would pierce above the level cross line, you see?—but exactly the same distance on either side from the vertical, so that the upper edges of the arrowheads have nicked the rim! It looks as though the marks were made a-purpose, doesn't it?" I agreed that it did, gaining great pleasure from his simple excitement, and he went off to share his explanation with the others.

"He'll get drunk on that brooch for years," Ambrose murmured from where he sat beside me.

"Well, why not?" I responded, watching Huw's progress. "He's entitled to. That was probably one of the best shots he ever made in his life; I know it was mine. That the two should occur together like that almost goes beyond belief, but fortunately for Huw, he has witnesses aplenty. Now, to business." I turned and faced my brother as squarely as I could when we were seated side by side on the same log. "Where did he and the others come from, and when and why?"

Ambrose threw his remaining, well-gnawed bone into the fire and wiped his grease-covered fingers on the hem of his tunic before answering, finishing his toilet by scrubbing at his lips with the back of one hand. "Arrived on the day you left," he said. "All fourteen of them together. Frightened the marrow out of the sentinel. He neither saw nor heard them until they spoke to him, right in his ear. They had crawled up on him from behind . . ." He paused, reflecting. "I almost had the fellow charged with dereliction, until I thought the matter through. Obviously such a thing could not have happened had Huw's men not been so thoroughly familiar with our ways and territory, and of course that does nothing to relieve the guard of any fault, but it served to point out one of the many weaknesses in our current system. Had Huw's people been hostile for any reason, possessing the same knowledge, they would have been among us before we knew they were near. So instead of punishing the guard, I embarrassed him by making him explain the whole affair to his companions: how and why he was at fault; what might have happened had these not been friends; where he had been careless; how, exactly how, he would take steps to be more vigilant in times to come. I was merciless on him, but I think the lesson worked. All our guards are more alert now, everywhere. Anyway—" He broke off what he was saying to pick up his ale mug. "Huw says there is much trouble in our dead cousin's Cambrian hills, Brother. Minor, perhaps major wars are being waged over the vacant kingship. Uther had no natural successor, being the last of his direct line, but I gather there is no dearth of secondary claimants; uncles on his mother's side, cousins and a whole host of far-flung relatives."

"Hmm. I thought that might be the case, although I must admit I am surprised to hear you speak of warfare. That kind of war pits brother against brother."

"Aye, and mother against son, in some instances."

"So why did Huw's people leave?"

"Ask him. He thought I was you, when he first saw me, and came right to me. He was much nonplussed to find I did not recognize him." His face broke into a smile. "But he was really stunned when he found I was not you. I made him at ease, for all that, and there were many others around to welcome him and his men. Titus and Flavius both made much of them, and they helped me tremendously in gaining their acceptance. Later, when Huw had come to know me slightly better, he spoke of his reasons for leaving the hills and coming here. Fundamentally, he and his men had been away too long to enable them to form sudden, clear-cut loyalties to any of the contenders in the struggle that they found when they reached home. Uther had been their lord, and they his men. So after spending an entire war against Lot, surviving as a unit, they maintained their unity at home, without committing to one faction or another. And that failure to commit, as I am sure you will already have surmised, bred hatred from all sides. Originally twenty- four, their party was depleted one by one, by stealth and treachery over the course of less than four months, to the point where only fifteen remained alive. Huw decided to come here to save the others, their loyalty transferred from Uther to you as Uther's natural successor."