Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Dedalus returned that year, as well, with his entire contingent, having lost not one man in more than two whole years and having been finally released from duty by Dergyll, whose wars, it seemed, were over and who now bore the title King of the Pendragon. Carthac and Ironhair had eluded Dergyll's vengeance at the last, but their force was spent, eroded and worn out by the incessant hammering of Dergyll's ever-growing army. Abandoned by their followers, the two, putative king and would-be king-maker, had disappeared from the Pendragon world months earlier, and Dedalus brought warning from Dergyll that we should watch for them within our boundaries. We discussed that warning, Ambrose, Donuil, Dedalus and I, and while we were prepared to discount such an incursion as most improbable, we yet took steps to warn our outposts and patrols to be on the watch for Ironhair. Then, in the summertime again, a second letter came from Germanus.

Auxerre, Gaul 437 Anno Domini Caius Merlyn Britannicus

Greetings, my dear Friend:

It has but lately come to my attention that a condition of civil war exists among the race of Pendragon whence your mother came. The tidings disturbed me, for there is no worse disease than civil strife, and I thought immediately of you in the hope you might be uninvolved. The fact that you have not written since I last sent word to you, however, invites me to suppose that your own sense of duty might dictate that you defend yourself and those whom God has placed within your charge. I pray that need has not arisen, and so shall write as though it had not.

I thought of you some months ago, upon a day of pleasant duty, and recalled a tale you told me once about your uncle's saintly friend the bishop Alaric. The tale involved, for I recall it clearly, the sacred altar- stone he had prepared to grace your gathering place in Camulod. I know you are familiar with the stone, since stone can never perish and therefore must be there still, in Christian use. I wonder, however, if you recall the occasion when you told me of the stone? It was on the first day we met, in my camp there beneath the escarpment from which you loosed the arrows that delivered us from certain death. We spoke of many things that afternoon, you and I, but I recall with fondness how you spoke of Alaric, whose soul you feared for at my judgment, and your description, almost defiant, of his gift to Camulod.

"Concealed within its case," you said, "its sanctity intact, it lies inured against the profane speech of ordinary men. Revealed, however, and exposed to view, it sanctifies the premises it graces and makes an altar of the meanest table on which it may be laid." You had a point to make there, my friend, and I heard it clearly, enunciated in words other than your own, by Jesus Himself: "Render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's, and unto God those things which are God's."

Let me now enlighten you as to why I should be writing thus, for I have no doubt in my mind you must be wondering if age has overtaken me. Not so. Not sufficiently, at least, to debilitate my thinking.

The pleasant duty to which I referred earlier herein was the dedication of an ecclesia, a building erected solely to serve the Will of God and to enhance the spreading of His Word. A house of God, in fact; not a mere basilica or any similar place of commerce capable of housing a religious gathering and service, but a permanent house of worship that will never be profaned by worldly functions. Think of that, my friend. A Christian temple, unlike any built before our time, since it will house, permanently and for all time henceforth, the Holy Spirit and the Living Essence of our eternal

Saviour . . .

Of course, this was not the first such edifice to be built and consecrated to God's Truth. There are many such nowadays, throughout the world, and their use is spreading rapidly, for which we all give thanks. It was, however, the first such sacred place to be erected within my patrimony, and thus it prompted me to think of you.

How so? say you. Be patient yet awhile, for I have an answer, and it lies in this: The altar in our new ecclesia is built of hand-wrought stone, and in the upper slab, recessed and portable in case of sudden cataclysm, lies a holy, consecrated stone much like the one your Bishop Alaric bestowed on Camulod in gift. Now do you see my meaning?

When last I wrote to you, you were in mourning for your Aunt Luceiia who had been, throughout her life, a constant source of succour and a haven to those men of God who laboured in your land to spread His Word.

How fitting it would be, it seems to me, that you erect a small ecclesia within your lands in memory of her, and that it should contain, in permanent and public reverence, the very altar-stone bequeathed to you so long ago by one of God's great spirits on this earth. Picus Britannicus, your father, I know, would have had no objection to such a gesture of respect for loved ones and their God. What think you?

I shall await your response with patience and forbearance. But bear in mind, my friend, the man you know, who is less patient than the Bishop. Farewell, Merlyn. My thoughts and prayers are often filled with you and yours.

Your brother in God and friendship,

Germanus

A small ecclesia, built of stone. Two large horns on one dilemma, contained within a single phrase. With our current populace approaching the six thousand mark, four thousand and more of them Christian, smallness was not a fitting criterion for any place of worship we might use. Our communal religious ceremonies, few as they might be, were always held beneath the open skies and strongly attended. The very portability of Alaric's altar-stone was what made that possible. As for a stone edifice, the mere idea was ludicrous. Our fortress walls were made not of stone but of stones, painfully amassed, with great difficulty and single-minded obstinacy, over long years, by the combined and sustained efforts of an entire people inspired by visionary leaders. Stone walls, walls made of stone, suggested dressed and fitted blocks of quarried masonry in an edifice designed and constructed to withstand the ravages of time on the scale of centuries. Our walls were nowhere near so grand, for we had no quarries, no convenient source of stone.

Germanus's idea appealed to me, nevertheless, in its aspect of forming a useful and decorative memorial to the Founders of our Colony, and I brought the matter up in Council some time later. The result, however, was as I expected. After lengthy discussion of the matter, pro and contra, the decision of the Council, reluctant and regretful, was that here was an idea ahead of its time. Such an ecclesia might well be built some day and should be planned for, in the longer term, but the very grandeur of the notion dictated that the site should be elsewhere, close to a source of stone, where the labours of construction might be minimised. I wrote back to Germanus and explained, at length and with compassion, how and why we could not accede to his suggestion. Alaric's altar-stone, I assured him, would continue to be put to frequent and respectful use, and would suffer no erosion, safe within its carrying case. His response, received months later, was complacent, his enthusiasm undimmed by the prospect of "some day."

So time passed, and children grew, and Camulod prospered in peace, and the world outside paid us no attention. And then, one day, reviewing our parading troops on a special holiday created and deemed to mark the seventy- fifth anniversary of the founding of our Colony, I looked at the seven-year- old boy who rode between Ambrose and me, his head high and his wide-eyed young face flushed with pride and excitement at being part of such a grand occasion, and I realized that I had reached my fortieth year of life.

That night, in the celebration that followed the day's ceremonies, I mentioned the matter to our gathering at what had become our favourite spot, around the first firepit outside the fortress walls. For some reason, that night the women were not present, and I sat at ease among Lucanus, Ambrose, Donuil, Hector, Dedalus, Rufio, Quintus and Benedict. Huw Strongarm had been with us earlier, but had left to rejoin his own people whose voices we could hear, raised high in song, some distance from us on the dark hillside. Amid much raillery, I bewailed the fact that life had passed me by and soon I would be forty. Ded, closer to fifty, and Luke, now beyond sixty, gave short shrift to my complaint, and indeed it seemed, when we examined it, that I was among the youngest of our group. Only Donuil, Benedict and Ambrose were junior to me, and Ambrose by a matter of mere months. During a pause in the conversation shortly after we had abandoned the topic of my age, Lucanus changed the subject, addressing Ambrose.