Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

In the earliest days of the final thaw, the aged Legate Titus, a dear-held fixture in my life since my seventh year, fell on a patch of ice and broke his pelvis. Lucanus did all in his power to assuage his pain, but the old man died within days of the accident. Within the month, his lifelong friend and companion, the Legate Flavius, who had sat steadfast by his friend's bedside throughout his final, painful days, had joined him in death, for no apparent reason other than that he had lost all will to live longer without his familiar. With him passed my last intimate contact with those who had known my own father, Picus Britannicus. I mourned both of them deeply.

If anything worthwhile emerged from that winter, it was the fulfillment of Ambrose's wish for unity among our men. Confined within the fort and equally within the outposts at the borders of our lands, the men of Camulod forgot the schism that had split them into jealous factions. Cavalry could not function amid snow that reached higher than the bellies of their horses, and so all the men of Camulod once more became mere soldiers, bunking together in cramped quarters, sharing the soldier's hardships and boredom, the sameness and the tedium. Yet there was a difference among their ranks: the foot-soldiers worked with the horses now, tending and feeding them; they learned the ways of horses, and they drilled with cavalry weapons, learning to sit on saddles and to ride with stirrups, to control a mount, even though they were confined to those small areas that had been cleared of surface snow.

Ambrose and I watched closely as the healing magic of propinquity and shared hardship welded our men together, and soon, one evening long before the final thaw arrived, we were discussing tactics and the order of our march to Cambria and Glevum. The winter must end soon, and we would be prepared. Our strikes on Glevum and on Cambria must come as quickly as the snows permitted us to move. Ambrose believed the harshness of the winter would aid us with Cambria, since the higher altitudes would remain snowbound long after we were free of snow. Glevum was a different matter, he believed, built as it was beside the river estuary, where fresh winds from the sea would have cut down the snow. What if the bireme had returned before our arrival, he wondered. Then we might face a force of five hundred or more men, fortified by the ruined town. What should we do then? Only the knowledge that the Berbers came from warmer climes made me feel sanguine. I felt sure that they would rather sit elsewhere and await the spring than voluntarily expose themselves to Britain's winter weather.

Lucanus had sat listening to us talk for some time, but had said nothing, and this unwonted silence finally made me aware that he was in the grip of some despondency. I interrupted Ambrose in mid-speech and asked Lucanus what was wrong, but he demurred, shaking his head and mumbling something that I did not hear. Ambrose, aware now, too, that something was ailing Luke, sat silent. Finally Luke admitted that he had been preoccupied with thoughts of Mordechai Emancipatus and his colony. If, as he suspected, the winter had been as savage there as we had known it, he feared greatly for their safety and welfare. As soon as he had named them, I myself became concerned, and feeling guilty that I had not thought of them before, I promised to visit Mordechai in passing, taking another wagonload of supplies to help them mend the ravages of the winter months. My promise allowed Lucanus to feel better, but I could see he would not be at ease until I had fulfilled it and brought back word that all was well with the lepers.

I had difficulty that winter, deep within myself, in dealing with the deaths of three companions, my great-aunt and the two Legates, yet somehow, for reasons I could not explain, I could weep for none of them. Winter had ended by the time old Flavius died, but there was still winter in my soul. Each night, in Auntie's family room, which now was mine alone since Ambrose would not hear of sharing it, I met for hours with Ambrose, Ludmilla, Shelagh and her father Liam. Lucanus was more times present than absent at these sessions, which followed no pattern but evolved steadily into what became my new family life. Less frequently we might be joined by others, among them Dedalus, Philip, Benedict and Rufio, and Hector and his wife Julia, who had formed close friendships with Ludmilla and Shelagh. To my great surprise one evening, I discovered that these two had decided, for some reason unquestioned by anyone, against calling their child Lucanus and had named him Bedwyr. On hearing that I turned to Luke, surprised, but he had frowned, shaking his head for me to hold my tongue, and I made my mind up to ask him another time what had led to this reversal.

I got my chance one day when we spent the afternoon together in one of the smithies, incidentally the warmest places in the fortress, where I had taken a whim to work on my own at fashioning a spearhead of the kind Donuil and I had talked about in Eire. We had been speaking of celibacy, with no great ease on either side, continuing a conversation begun and abandoned days before, when we had been interrupted. Laying aside my hammer, and thrusting the rough spearhead among the coals to heat again, I unburdened myself and told Lucanus of my lust for Shelagh, and of its resolution. Now that Shelagh and I had discussed it openly, I told him, exposing it for what it was, mere natural attraction and no cause for shame, the sullen burn of it had left me, but the knowledge of my knowledge, if he could follow the direction of my thoughts, was there, a constant, never wavering distraction. It made my earlier talk of celibacy, I told him, mere talk. Shelagh had now become a constant in my life, beneath my eyes, within my reach each day, and although I no longer felt the driving guilt and lustful yearnings I had had before, the fact remained that I admired her greatly and would take her to wife tomorrow if, God forbid, Donuil were to come to harm in Eire. How could I become truly celibate, living in such a condition, with mind and body in constant turmoil?

When I had finished speaking, Luke sighed and swung away from me, clasping his hands behind his back, and I felt my gut spasm in misgiving, thinking I had offended him. He remained that way for long moments, holding himself stiffly erect, then slumped and turned to face me. My eyes sought his as he turned, but there was no anger in his expression. Instead, there was something I could not identify. He unclasped his hands from behind his back and examined the palms minutely, peering at them closely, and when he spoke his words held no significance for me, seeming to have no bearing upon anything that I had said.

"Caius, why do you think Hector named his son Bedwyr?"

I blinked at him, bereft of a response to such a non sequitur. He smiled, a wan, sad smile, lowering his hands. "I have a reason for asking."

I shook my head. "I have no idea. I know Julia wished to name the child for you. Hector, evidently, had other notions and preferred Bedwyr. But what has that to do with Shelagh?"

"Nothing, yet perhaps everything. The child is Bedwyr because that is the name chosen for him by his mother. I suggested it to her."

"Very well, I accept that. Ludmilla told me at the time that you had seemed unwilling to have the child named in your honour. But was Julia not offended? Was she not hurt by your rejection? It appears rather cruel to me, hearing of it thus."

"Aye." Luke nodded. "At first she was, but I explained my reasons, and she accepted them with great courtesy. And then she asked me to propose another name. Bedwyr was in my mind, I know not why. I said it, she accepted it, and so the child was named."

I felt my own confusion upon my face. "But what has that to do with me and Shelagh?"