Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Most satisfying of all, however, was the thought of the smile that would appear on Shelagh's face when I told her the news that Dergyll, soon to be King of the Pendragon, had ratified Huw's gift of residence and safekeeping to her father and herself within Pendragon lands.

XXVII

The quiet, undemonstrative joy that marked my reunion with Donuil and Shelagh and the peaceful establishment of Liam Twist- back's farm close by the western sea to the south of Glevum, after our safe return to Camulod, accompanied by the Pendragon bowmen, was crowned by the tidings of the renewed alliance with our friends in Cambria. So began a blessed, five-year period of peace within and without our Colony, a time of prosperity and renewal and rebuilding, of gathering and accumulating strength, aided by gentle winters followed by glorious summers and swelling, bountiful harvests.

It was a time of many events that enriched all our lives and only a few that impoverished any of us. My brother Ambrose wed his love Ludmilla on the Celtic feast of Beltane, amid the rites of Spring that first year, and Donuil and Shelagh joined with them to make a double celebration and to bind themselves more closely and more publicly to their new lives in Camulod. Within the ensuing ninety days, both wives grew quick with child, and their husbands walked with greater pride and more awareness in their gait. That awareness, in the case of Ambrose, brought him to a decision regarding his perceived duty to Vortigern in his northeastern kingdom, and his desire to return in person was supplanted by a more sedate determination to inform the king of his new life and marriage. Accordingly, he penned a lengthy letter, and dispatched it to Northumbria with several of his men who had expressed a desire to return to their families in Lindum. Thereafter, he made no more mention of riding eastward. Towards the year's end, however, in November, Ludmilla fell sick of a short-lived but virulent illness that was rife among our people for a spell. Thanks to the skills and ministrations of Lucanus, she survived the sickness, but her unborn child did not and Ludmilla miscarried. The entire Colony grieved with the young couple, for thanks to her healing skills and Lucanus's teaching, Ludmilla had become almost as beloved by the ordinary folk of Camulod as Ambrose was by his soldiers.

They bore their grief stoically, consoling each other privately and throwing themselves into their work thereafter, Ludmilla in the Infirmary with Luke and Ambrose in his self-appointed task of training a new army, cavalry, infantry and bowmen, to fight together as a whole in defence of our Colony. And their grief passed, so that by the time Shelagh birthed her first-born in late spring the following year, Ludmilla was with child again, three months into her term and blooming like a flower. Shelagh's baby was a lusty, strapping boy whom she named Gwin, first of her promised pair of sons.

Early that second summer, too, Connor of Eire came to Camulod to visit his brother and his nephew Arthur, now in his third year of rude and robust infancy, a bustling badger of a child incapable of walking, it appeared, since he must needs run everywhere, his densely muscled, solid little bulk rendering him an uncontrollable terror to his nurse Turga, who continued to regard him and to treat him as her own child. He was beautiful, as few male children can be beautiful. His hair had darkened since his birth, its yellow highlights muted to mere hints among the rich, brown chestnut of his curling locks. His eyes were lambent, startling in their tawny, yellowish golden irises, and when he laughed, which was most of the time, his laughter was a crowing gurgle of delight with overtones of the depth and sonority that were to come from his strong, broad chest in years ahead. Arthur, the child of Uther Pendragon, was a complete delight to all around him.

On the day before Connor's unexpected arrival, I had found Arthur in the stables, one of his favourite haunts, despite the fact that almost everyone did everything possible to keep him out of there. On this occasion, as I began to move towards him to pick him up and take him home to Turga, something in his attitude attracted my attention. He was standing in front of Germanicus's stall when I entered, and in the sudden dimness of the stable, blindingly dark after the bright sunshine outside, I had the distinct impression he was holding something up to my horse. Germanicus's head was high up in the air, as though straining away from the lad, and his great eye was rolling in his head. Frowning, I stepped towards them, aware of the tininess of the boy against the enormous size of my large horse, although the lad was outside the stall and therefore in no danger.

"Arthur, what are you doing?"

He turned to look at me, and his face broke into one of his great grins. "Mellin," he crowed, and came running towards me, his right hand outstretched. I crouched down and held out my own hand for whatever it was, and he deposited a large frog, bright green with yellow markings, into my open palm. I had seen what it was only moments before I found myself holding it, but it was already too late to withdraw my hand. I swallowed hard and reminded myself that I had held hundreds of the things before, in my own boyhood, and that none of them had ever bitten me or harmed me. Nevertheless, the sensation of the creature sitting there on my palm made my skin crawl.

"Big, Mellin," the boy said, smiling still, his eyes on the frog.

"Aye, it is, Arthur. Where did you catch it?" He blinked at me, plainly not understanding. I tried again.

"Where did it come from, Arthur?" He scratched himself with one fingertip, worrying at a spot below his ribs, his brows knit in fierce concentration, and I knew he was not going to answer me. "Arthur?" He continued to peer at the frog. So did I, and the frog peered back at me, it's great, liquid eyes bright and shiny. Arthur reached out a pointing finger.

"Beast," he said.

I grinned. "No . . . well, yes, I suppose it is a beast. But it's a frog, Arthur. A frog."

He frowned. "Fwog." His two-and-a-half-year-old tongue could still not fit around the letter R.

"Yes, a frog. Were you showing him to Germanicus?" He nodded solemnly, his eyes still on the frog. "Where did you find him?"

"I caught it, Commander Merlyn, and gave it to the lad." I had not heard the stableman enter, and his voice, directly behind my shoulder, startled me so that I jerked, and the frog took a mighty leap from my hand, landing at least two paces from where I crouched. It paused there for a heartbeat or two, collecting itself, and then leaped again and again, bounding this time into an empty stall. With a startled hiss of surprise and excitement, the boy threw himself after his escaping prisoner, dropping to his hands and knees to scuttle beneath the stall door in hot pursuit. I stood up, glancing ruefully at the stableman.

"His aunt Shelagh's going to be really grateful to you if he finds that thing again and takes it home with him." The stableman—his name had completely escaped me—shrugged philosophically.

"Boys catch frogs, Commander. It's part of being a boy."

"Aye, but not at two-and-a-half. He shouldn't be in here, you know. It's too dangerous. He could be kicked, or trampled."

The big man grinned, shaking his head and contradicted me without malice, chewing his words and slurring them until they were barely discernible as Latin. "Not that 'un, Commander. Every 'orse in the place knows 'im, and they all seem to know just 'ow little 'e is. They step very carefully around 'im, almost as if they're taking extra care not to damage 'im."

I looked sharply at him, thinking he was gulling me, but his face held no hint of raillery. "That is ridiculous." He shrugged again.

"I know that's 'ow it seems, but it's the truth, Commander. They all knows 'im, an' 'e knows all of them—by name, although 'e can't pronounce your mount's full name. Jemans, 'e calls 'im. An' Jemans comes to 'im and eats out of 'is 'and. Lad climbs right up the rails, alongside the 'orse's 'ead, there. I never seen the like, an' 'im so little."