Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

His eyebrows went high on his forehead. "Aye, several. If there is one thing Camulod does not lack it is ambitious, bright young leaders, in both arms of our force."

"Name some."

"Young Brian Melitas, and his two companions, Cornelius Nimmo and Jacob Cato; Jacob's own father, Achmed Cato, although he is not young; your own companions on your journey to Eire, every one of them; Silas Agorine, one of the most brilliant young infantry commanders I've ever seen; Johan Sitrabo, another of the same calibre. There is no lack of deputies in Camulod, Cay."

I sat staring at him for long moments, aware of Luke's eyes on me. Then I cleared my throat. "Apart from Achmed Cato, his son Jacob and my own companions, I know none of those men. That is unconscionable." Neither of my friends said anything to that, and I continued, speaking now almost to myself. "Only today, watching your young bowmen at practice, I realized that I have been away too long, both physically and mentally. I no longer know my own people. Even worse, I don't know our best and brightest young commanders. You have been here mere months, and you know them all far better than I do. I have a task ahead of me."

Ambrose laughed gently and leaned forward to the fire, reaching for the great iron poker that lay in the hearth to stir the logs. "Don't berate yourself, Brother. Your neglect could hardly be described as willful." He busied himself with his task. "Besides, by the time you and I have immersed ourselves in our new program for a few days, you will know all of them. Such things come quickly, you and I know."

Thereafter we sat silent, staring into the fire, each thinking his own thoughts, and the time went by until the logs began to settle, more than half consumed. The entire household was still, we three its only waking occupants. Lucanus was the first to move, standing up and yawning, ready for sleep. His action stirred a like response in us, and the last thing that was said that night was mine. I told them that I would consider riding to the east with Ambrose in the spring, to see for myself how matters were progressing elsewhere, but that my self-appointed task throughout the coming winter would be to come to know the Camulodian Colonists again—all of them, farmers, artisans and troopers—which prompted me to wonder what had become of Peter Ironhair since his departure. No one had seen him. No word had come of his whereabouts since the day he fled.

We doused the candles and the lamps and left the family room in darkness that glowed with the embers of the dying fire, and I made my way directly to my quarters. I lay awake for a long time, thinking about all that had happened in the past few months, and was happy to be aware that Shelagh demanded little of those thoughts. Most of them, in truth, concerned the boy, Arthur, and the growing influence I suspected he was going to have upon my life from that time forth, and they had been precipitated by the short discussion of Peter Ironhair and his whereabouts and doings. No one had heard of him, but I had no reason to believe him dead, or indifferent to our affairs. He had simply faded from our immediate awareness, and that, I suspected without any real reason, might bode ill for us along some future way. Ironhair was alive and well, somewhere, I was convinced. But now, for some reason, I could not put the man out of mind. I tried to tell myself that he had consigned all of us to perdition and decided to live out his life elsewhere, far removed from sight and sound and memory of Camulod, but there was something within me that prevented me from being so sanguine. I tried eventually to banish him by thinking on the baby Arthur, and discovered to my mild astonishment that the mere contemplation of the child's existence was a source of delight to me, something I would not have believed possible mere months earlier, and I fell asleep some time after that, filled with the warmth of the memory of his tiny, sleeping face with its long, thick, almost feminine eyelashes.

XXI

Five days after that evening in the family room, seething with frustration and a debilitating fear, I decided—or to be more accurate and truthful, my friends decided after long and sometimes impassioned debate—that for the sake of my own sanity and the welfare of the men under my command, particularly the younger officers, it would be best to remove myself from all human contact for a while, and so I sought the stillness of the forest, armed with my bow and a quiver filled to capacity with arrows. There, for an entire week, and never less than five miles from the fortress, I hunted singlemindedly, cleaning my frequent kills and leaving them for collection at predetermined points by soldiers sent by Ambrose, with whom I had made the appropriate arrangements. None of the collectors ever saw me, although on each occasion I watched from concealment to ensure that they arrived and the meat was not spoiled. Each time, once assured that my orders had been carried out, I moved on to my next selected location and began my hunt anew, and all the time I struggled with my thoughts, my plans, my desires and my various dilemmas, one of which was what I should do about Shelagh, who had become, through my own carelessness, the second woman ever to set eyes upon Excalibur.

The incident had occurred the day after my arrival home, before I became involved in the matter of Ambrose's schism. I had been up and about early that morning, full of good cheer and enthusiasm for the days ahead despite the fact that the rain was falling steadily outside, and I was on my way to Uncle Varrus's Armoury to search out a reference to Alexander's cavalry I had remembered from one of his books. On my way I had met Shelagh, quite accidentally, rounding the corner of a passage. She was carrying the infant Arthur, straddled across her right hip and supported in the bend of her arm, and had been pleased to see me, laughing and talking to the child about me. He, for his part, had seemed singularly unimpressed by his "Uncle Merlyn," as Shelagh had called me. His large golden eyes had observed me without expression and then moved on to gaze at other, more interesting vistas down the passageway.

On discovering that I was merely headed for the Armoury to read something, and in no particular hurry, Shelagh had asked me to mind the child for a few moments while she attended to something that she had forgotten to do. I took the child from her and watched her walk away, enjoying the sight of her firm buttocks moving tautly beneath her robe. When she had gone, and the child and I were alone, an impulsive idea occurred to me and I took the babe into the Armoury, mere steps away. I laid him on the floor while I pulled up the floorboard and retrieved the case from its concealment. Quickly, kneeling beside the infant, I wiped the dust from the polished wooden case with a cloth and then brought out the wondrous sword itself, waving it slowly now above the supine infant's form, and his eyes fastened immediately upon the shifting patterns of light along its shining blade.

"There, Sir King," I breathed. "What think you of that? Pretty, is it not? This is your own sword, Excalibur. Would you like to hold it?" As quickly as the thought came to me, I held the weapon, pommel down, towards him. "See," I whispered. "It is yours. Take hold of it." He did, immediately, with both hands, and I felt the hairs stir along my nape. It was probably the polished gold of the pommel that attracted his eyes, carved as it was in perfect replication of a large cockle shell, but his tiny fists clamped just above it, at the junction of pommel and hilt, below my own hand; first the right hand, then the left, and both with authority.

Long moments we remained immobile, and then I smiled and moved to break his hold, pulling the weapon gently back towards me. The child, however, would not let go. His golden eyes stared straight upward, fixed on the length of the great blade that reared above him, and his chubby fists hung on. Intrigued, and still smiling slightly, I increased my pull gently, seeking to break his tiny grip, but he clung staunchly, refusing to quit even when my greater strength began to lift his shoulders clear of the floor. Astonished now, I continued pulling and watched him continue to rise without effort, so that he was almost sitting up completely. A sudden vision of his grip breaking and his tiny skull striking the wooden floor made me stoop immediately to cup my free hand behind his head, but still he maintained his grasp on Excalibur. Finally, shaking my head in wondering admiration, I relented and lowered him gently and carefully back to the boards, removing my guarding hand only when he was supine again and using it to pry his tiny fingers loose from the hold he seemed determined to maintain. When I had done so, his eyes gazed now at me and I grinned at him and shook my head.