Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Donuil was staring at his wife in awe. I gazed at her in total admiration, envisioning the scene she had described and remembering the awe-inspiring speed with which she had planted her blades so close together in the block of wood that day in the Armoury.

"So," I said, eventually. "You finally took vengeance for your friend Rhona."

"Aye, I did, but it gave me little satisfaction." She sipped again now at her drink, draining the cup. "Ludmilla had been watching from the trees, and she came running, calling to the children. I went with her to check them, and as soon as I had seen that Arthur and the other boys were alive and all were well enough, I bade her look to Julia and then ran to summon help, in case there should be more of these people about. I thought I could make better time alone, rather than taking everyone with me, all of us virtually unarmed. I retrieved my knives, then caught my horse and left immediately. The rest you know."

I rose from the couch and crossed to fill her cup again with mead. Donuil moved, too, to sit on the arm of her chair, his hand touching her hair. He had barely spoken a word since my arrival, but I knew that he was fiercely proud of the tale his wife had told.

"Donuil," I said, raising my own cup in a salute to Shelagh, "I think your wife has earned a debt of gratitude today that all of Camulod will be forever helpless to repay." He nodded, still wordless, and I addressed myself to Shelagh.

"Shelagh," I said, "you are a warrior like no other I have known. Men flatter themselves, calling themselves warriors and boasting of their prowess under arms, and some have performed great feats. Few men, for all of that, have sought, or fought, such odds, five against one, naked and unafraid. And so I pay tribute, one soldier to another. Honour and fortitude and skills like those you showed today are truly rare, and I feel privileged to call you friend. There is none like you anywhere, I swear."

She gazed at me, half smiling, as I drank my mead, and when I had finished she spoke again.

"Fortitude, Merlyn? Naked and unafraid? I think not. Panic, certainly. I knew no other way to tempt those animals away from Julia. Had I known she was already dead, I never could have done it. Naked I was, of desperate necessity, but I was far from unafraid. I have never been more terrified in all my life."

I nodded and put down my cup. "I believe you. But fear is healthy and keeps warriors alive. The facing of it, however, and the conquest of it, is what men call courage. Now, if you will pardon me, I shall leave you two in peace. Good night."

XXXI

My definition of courage, intended as it was for Shelagh, became a goad for me, for I could not put it from my mind thereafter, and my mental anguish grew like a mushroom over the course of the days that followed, heightened by the terror writhing in my soul. I had no sound sleep during all that time, although I spent too much time lying in my bed, avoiding daylight and people. Cowardice was alien to me, and yet I knew myself to be a coward, not merely unwilling to face my fears and conquer them, but totally incapable of even contemplating the attempt.

On the morning of the fourth day following my meeting with Shelagh and Donuil, Lucanus entered my sleeping chamber uninvited and was pulling down the heavy curtains from the narrow window high up on the wall before I had time to absorb the fact that he was there. By the time I had risen to one elbow, squinting against the glare of the harsh morning light, he was standing above my cot, glowering down at me, ignoring my pathetic noises of complaint.

"Growing a beard, are you?" His voice was deep and angry. "And evidently making some attempt to discover just how badly one man can come to smell, to boot. . ."

I cringed beneath his merciless stare, only too well aware how poorly I must look. He spun away on one heel and walked out, leaving me alone to sit up and rub at my eyes. Moments later, I heard him return with someone else.

"Leave it there." I heard scuffling sounds beyond the curtain of my sleeping alcove, and then someone withdrew. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, feeling the floor tiles cold against my feet as the curtain was thrown open, admitting yet more light. Lucanus stepped inside the room and stopped.

"There's hot water here, and towels. I presume you have fresh clothes. You have an hour before the meeting I have urged Ambrose to call in your default. It will be a small gathering. Ambrose, myself and Dedalus, Rufio, Donuil and you. We need you there, so please be there. You might not suffer from a visit to the bath house between now and then. One hour."

The wind of his exit ruffled the curtain in the doorway and I quaked with shame, but then I bestirred myself and did as he suggested.

An hour later I walked into the Praesidium fully dressed, clean-shaven and armoured for the first time in almost a week. The guard on duty evidently expected me and told me that I was awaited in my own day room. As I entered, everyone stopped talking and looked at me, and I scanned their faces quickly, looking for scorn, or disdain, or anything from which I might infer a hint of disapproval. I saw nothing of the kind. Ambrose leapt to his feet and came to meet me with a smile of welcome, throwing an arm about my shoulders and asking after my health. Lucanus had informed them I was sick of something, and they were all glad to see me up and about again.

I glanced towards Lucanus and his eyes met mine without the slightest sign of anything but pleasure. Unsure of what to say, I said nothing and merely greeted each of them in turn, after which I sat down in the place reserved for me, with my back to the door. Ambrose faced me at the other end of the rectangular table and he proceeded to the matters in hand immediately, addressing himself to me and bringing me up to date on all that had transpired since the day of the attack. I listened closely, the seriousness of this affair enabling me to forget my own problem for the first time in many days.

"I'm glad you're back, Merlyn," Ambrose began. "There's much to talk about. All the reports are in now, our troops are all back in garrison, and I think we have been able to reconstruct the why and all the wherefores of what happened. What I do not know is how much you recall of what had been discovered before you fell sick."

Faced with his openness, I spoke the truth. "I don't know anything, and if I did, I have forgotten. Start at the beginning."

"Right." Ambrose glanced around the table, his gaze settling on Dedalus. "Ded. Tell us about the hunt."

Dedalus cleared his throat. "The hunt, aye." He spoke to me directly. "We found the man you shot, still alive but out of his mind with pain. Sent him back here right away, for Lucanus to see what he could do with him before we began to question him."

"You were able to question him?" I had not expected the man to live.

"Oh, aye, we were able to question him, and he was able to answer, too, with a little persuasion." I merely nodded, unwilling to pursue that any further, and he went on. "What he had to tell us will come later. It was Rufio he spoke to. For now, there's this: we recovered Julia's body and those of the slain men, five in the river meadow and another on the hillside by the wounded fellow. You said one of them had used a Pendragon bow. They were all Pendragon. We found five more longbows, with arrows, where they had been left before the attack, on the other side of the river, and then we found another by the dead man on the hill—that was the one you saw—and after that we found another on the hilltop, where it had been dropped by your wounded man when he went running down the hill. Seven men, seven bows, seven Pendragon corpses, but none of our Pendragon people knew any of them."