Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

I drew rein immediately, holding my horse still, wondering if I had been seen moving through the dense shadows beneath the widely spaced trees, and sat there for long moments, every sense alert. I had no idea who was there by the stream, and reason told me that here, on my home lands, it was more likely to be a friend than otherwise, but my recent travels had shown me graphically that nothing in this land today should be taken for granted and that it behoved a cautious man to entrust himself fully to his own instincts for self-preservation.

Germanicus stood stock-still beneath me, his ears pricked forward, as alert as I. He, too, had heard what I had: either a grunt of pain or a bark of laughter from the direction of the hidden bank. Moments passed slowly, and then the sound came again. A man's voice, speaking normally this time, too far away for me to hear the words. The tone, however, told me I was unobserved; I detected no urgency, no warning note. Slowly, taking pains to move in silence, I dismounted and led my horse to the nearest tree, where I tethered him securely with the bole between his bulk and the direction from which the voice had come. I removed my war cloak and folded it across my saddle, then unharnessed my long sword from where it hung against the horse's side and slipped it through the ring at my back between my shoulders, where I could unsheathe it quickly. That done, I retrieved and strung my great bow, slipped my left arm through the sling of my quiver and nocked an arrow before moving forward cautiously towards whatever awaited me.

It took me a long time to cover the hundred and fifty paces to a spot where I could hope to see beyond the protective fringe of bushes that screened the campsite. At the outset, I moved with extreme stealth, hoping to number the group ahead of me by the sound of their voices. As I progressed, however, it became clear that one man was doing all the speaking, and I grew confident that he was alone with perhaps one other. I increased my pace slightly after that, although still moving with great care, until finally I heard a second voice, which was unmistakably feminine. This was an unknown voice, but it was young, and with its utterance came an end to any immediate threat of danger. One man and one young woman together in a secluded spot seldom offered threat to anyone. Unless, I revised, it be to a stealthy stranger creeping up to invade their privacy.

I coughed, as though clearing my throat of phlegm, and a man's head sprang into view directly ahead of me. His eyes met mine and both of us froze for a space of heartbeats. He was bareheaded, not only unarmoured but unarmed, and I saw his eyes fly wide as his mind registered the danger implicit in my helmed and crested head and the high cross-hilt of the cavalry sword slung behind my shoulder. Recognition flared in me and my own shock was as great as his as I took in the thin, aquiline set of his swarthy features and the narrow peak of hair that swept forward to split the expanse of his wide forehead, leaving his greying temples almost bald.

"Cay!" he said, almost conversationally, managing to sound surprised and unruffled at the same time. He had collected himself far more quickly than I. "Where in Hades have you come from? And afoot?"

I was on the point of answering when his companion raised her head above the bushes separating us, confounding me further. She was very young and extremely beautiful, although the height of the intervening shrubbery prevented me from seeing lower than her chin, which, by the angle at which it was stretched, told me she was standing on tiptoe to peer at me. I was aware of straight, black, glossy hair, and large, bright blue eyes that were opened wide as though before an apparition. It occurred to me later that I probably looked as startled as she did, for this bucolic solitude was a situation in which I had never expected to find my good friend Lucanus.

"What's the matter?" Lucanus's head was tilted slightly to one side as it always was when something puzzled him.

"Nothing," I assured him. "Nothing at all. I simply did not expect to find you out here, so far from your Infirmary."

The young woman had disappeared.

"Well, come and join us. We were just about to set off for home."

"To Camulod?" The idea almost made me laugh. "You're too late. You'll never get there before dark."

"Nonsense, Caius. Lots of time. Come, come in."

"Fine," I shrugged. "Let me fetch my horse. I left him beneath the trees back there, since I didn't know who you were."

In the few moments I required for my task I had time to regain my mental composure. I had never know Lucanus to consort with a woman, and I had known him for many years. Never, in all those years, had I seen him alone in the company of a woman other than by casual or accidental circumstance. So it was no more than natural, I told myself, that I should be amazed to find him here, so far from anywhere, alone in the company of an extraordinarily beautiful young woman.

As I moved around the screen of bushes and into the lovely little campsite, my surprise grew. A single blanket lay upon the mossy, grass-covered mound at its centre, and the young woman knelt, head down, wrapping the ends of another blanket around a long, compact bundle. I saw no tent, and only the smallest kind of fire, without cooking stones or utensils. I stopped short, my eyes scanning the clearing.

"By the gods, Luke, you were serious! You intended to return to Camulod today."

"Well of course! Why would you doubt it?"

"But you'll never make it. It's more than twelve miles and it'll be dark in a couple of hours."

"Aye." He looked up at the sky. "Well, we did lose track of the time slightly."

The young woman now rose to her feet, clutching her bundle to her chest. In doing so, however, she somehow managed to step on the skirts of her own clothing, pulling herself sharply off balance so that she lurched and lost her grip on her burden. It sagged and fell apart with a strange series of hollow- sounding noises, and I gaped in disbelief as a cascade of shiny bones clattered to the ground. That they were anything other than human was a possibility dispelled immediately by the shiny skull that rolled towards me and came to rest by my foot, its upper teeth seemingly sunk into the mossy ground and its hollow sockets glaring up at me. Bereft of words, I turned slowly to look at Lucanus. His eyes, too, were on the skull.

"Aye," he muttered after a prolonged moment of silence. "A pretty skull." He stooped and retrieved it, wiping a trace of dirt with reverence from its polished brow before passing it in silence to the young woman, who promptly knelt in front of him, ignoring me completely, and began from the beginning, spreading the blanket wide and piling the large collection of bones—even my unpractised eye could see arm and leg bones and ribs and a pelvis—in the centre of the square. I was gazing in fascination at a small, blue bag that lay among them.

"What's in the bag?"

"What?" Lucanus, distracted, had to glance to see where I was looking. "Oh! Phalanges, metacarpals, metatarsals, other small bones. . hands and feet."

I realized I should not have asked, as a vision of the brocaded bag that had held the dismembered hands and feet of Gulrhys Lot Hashed into my mind. Lucanus was moving.

"Come, we had best be on our way. No point in losing any more time than we have already."

"No, Luke, wait." He turned to face me, almost in mid stride. I glanced at the girl. "I meant what I said. It's too late. The night will be black as I lades and you'll only be inviting trouble if you insist on trying to win back to Camulod in utter darkness. Better to stay here and head back at dawn. Have you any sleeping mats?"

He shook his head in a mild negative.

I grinned and sighed. "Well, no matter. I have resources to provide bedding for all of us, providing the night is not too cold. And we can build a larger fire. What about food? Is there any?" Again a negative. I sighed again, this time less patiently. "Can you fish?"