Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

It was Flavius who answered me, and as usual he wasted neither time nor words. "More than eight hundred cavalry, battle-ready, and slightly less than double that number, say fifteen hundred foot-soldiers, fully prepared."

"That few?" This was bad news, indeed. I had been hoping to hear much larger numbers.

"Aye," Flavius sighed. "That few. I may be out on the side of caution, as regards our cavalry, with stragglers still drifting in, but I doubt I'm wrong by much. Lot's greed has cost us dearly."

"Hmm. Are they loyal?"

Both men straightened with shock.

"What d'you mean, loyal?" Flavius asked. "Loyal to whom?"

"To you, to us, to Camulod."

"Of course they are!" Titus sounded outraged.

"Good. We may need that loyalty."

"Caius?" My aunt's voice startled me. I had forgotten she was there.

"Yes, Auntie?"

"I have an idea, a thought. It may be nonsense but it just occurred to me."

All three of us were looking at her now, Titus and Flavius twisting their heads to look over their shoulders. She swept on, now that she had our attention.

"It's about Peter Ironhair, and what he hopes to gain."

"Go on, Auntie, we're listening."

"Well, as I said, this may be nonsense, but I think I have just had an inkling of what may be in his mind. Shall I go on?"

"Of course." I stood up. "But first come over here and sit with us so the noble Legates here will not have to strain their necks." I moved to where she sat and took her arm as she moved forward to sit on the couch beside me, facing the others. When she had settled herself, rearranging the fall of her clothes to mask the speed of her thoughts, she leaned forward.

"Peter Ironhair is married to a great-niece of Victorex, who was the first Master of Horse in Camulod. Her name is Carla." My aunt glanced at each of us in turn and then continued, obviously remembering that we were males and therefore unused to the intricacies of female thinking. "Well, many years ago, my brother Caius acquired the estates that had been bequeathed to a former officer of his, a notorious pederast whom Caius had court-martialled and expelled from the legions for his sins. After Caius's death, the ownership passed on to Publius, my husband."

"Philip Ascanus," I said, recalling the incident clearly from my great- uncle's writings.

"Exactly, Philip Ascanus. A most unpleasant man, from all accounts. Well, after Victorex became too old to work as Master of Horse, Publius endowed him with a portion of those lands that Caius had originally purchased through an agent from Ascanus; a fourth of them, I believe, as his reward for many years of service. It was a valuable bequest, in perpetuity. Those lands passed to his nephew, a man called Gareth, when Victorex died, and Gareth had three daughters, the oldest of whom was Carla." We waited, knowing she would soon make sense. She frowned, remembering.

"Five years ago or so, Peter Ironhair arrived in Camulod. He was an able smith and a hard worker and soon made his mark. He met and wooed Carla, who was not comely, but a solid, sensible young woman. Unfortunately, as these things often go, she yielded to him without talk of marriage, and they lived together for some time. Now," she squinted, thinking hard. "I cannot recall the reasons, though I know there were some, and solid, but Gareth, as an incentive to Ironhair to wed the girl, offered to dower her with a portion of his lands. Ironhair accepted the offer, desirous, as who in his position would not be, of adding to his status that of landowner. Everything was agreed, apparently, until the wedding date, when it appeared there was some impediment to the passage of title to the lands . . . I don't know what was involved, it was years ago and the affair was kept quite quiet, but we can find out if we apply ourselves. Anyway, the upshot was that Peter Ironhair lost his claim to those lands through some prior commitment that his wife's father, Gareth, had made originally to Secundus Varo. Tertius, I seem to remember—Secundus was long dead by then—was loath to press his father's claim, but Lucius, Tertius's own son, was adamant, and refused to settle for less than the family's due. Ironhair protested, and the matter went to Council, but was resolved in favour of the Varo claim."

Aunt Luceiia paused and looked at me. "There, Nephew, I believe, lies the root cause of Ironhair's hatred of Lucius Varo."

I nodded, but my eyebrows were raised in question. "Yes, Auntie, I—"

"Wait, I haven't finished." She paused again, then resumed. "Now, here is a man who detests Lucius Varo; a man who has suffered, personally, from being single and unsupported in a conflict with a well-established, strong and greedy rival. Years later, he sees that rival begin to assemble a strong corps of supporters, who will back the fellow up, it seems, in anything he attempts. But as the years have passed, few though they were, the former friendless victim has amassed some strength of his own, and now perceives an opportunity to challenge, and constrain his enemy. There is the motive behind the formation of the Artisan group."

"That's all very well, Auntie, and it explains his motivation, but what about the ends? What is he aiming for?"

My aunt was ready for me. "What did Lot of Cornwall aim for, Cay? Dominance."

"Dominance?" The surprise in my voice was echoed by the smiles that sprang to the lips of Titus and Flavius. Luceiia Britannicus withered all three of us with a glance.

"Dominance." Her tone was obdurate, her pronunciation precise and clipped. "He seeks personal dominion. No more, no less. His prize is Camulod." She observed all of us and resumed before we could come up with a rebuttal. "Think about it, all of you! Since the death of Picus Britannicus there has been no dominant leader within this Colony. You, Caius, have been bereft of your identity for years, a shadow of your former and true self, a persona that Ironhair never saw. Uther has been totally concerned for those same years with his own mountain kingdom and with the war on Lot. The Colony has been run by you two." She took in both old soldiers with a single glance. "I have no wish to disparage either of you, but your days of being perceived as a potent threat to anyone are as long gone as mine." She allowed that thrust to sink home slowly in the silence that followed it.

"Peter Ironhair is a powerful man," she resumed eventually. "Powerful physically and, of late, in influence. He now controls a solid faction within this Colony's affairs. His followers are all young, all artisans, craftsmen, each with his own apprentices, all physically strong and hence all capable of fighting, if the need for fighting should arise. Against him is ranged the group known as the Farmers, who are fanners indeed, and the remainder of the Council, all of whom are well advanced in years and fundamentally impotent in any trial of strength. No leader has existed to oppose his plans. Do you hear what I am saying, all of you?"

I nodded my head, stunned with the evident truth of her conjecture. "We do. You are saying th—"

"I am saying, Nephew, that saving only your miraculous return to possession of your faculties and memory, the stage has been arranged within this Colony for a revolt, fomented by the bitterness between Lucius Varo, the smooth and unctuous politician, and Peter Ironhair, the hard-muscled and popular champion of the ordinary workers of Camulod, with everything—total control of the Colony, its soldiers and its future—accruing to the victor in the fight that must take place . . ." Her voice died away, leaving us speechless, and then continued. "The truth is there."

None of us sought to argue otherwise.

"So what do you intend to do?" Lucanus had listened wordlessly to all I told him, his face bleak in the dappled afternoon shadows beneath the great tree above us. We had ridden down from the main gates, skirting the edge of the great training campus with its usual activity of wheeling and milling groups of training riders, and sought the comfort of a grassy glade, where we had dismounted and now sat on a fallen tree trunk, sharing a small bag of shelled hazelnuts and sun-dried grapes.