Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Good day to you, Lady Ludmilla. I was looking for Lucanus."

She looked surprised. "He went to the Council gathering."

I shook my head. "No, he was not there. I would have seen him. When did he leave?"

"Hours ago."

"Hmm." I nodded my thanks and turned to go, aware of an urge to remain, and yet unknowing whence it came.

"Popilius Cirro is recovering."

Her words brought me around in the doorway. "He is? How well?" Popilius was our senior soldier, primus pilus, First Spear of Camulod. I had last seen him far to the south, in Cornwall, where he had lain apart from the field of the last great battle of Uther's army, surviving the slaughter because he had been wounded in an earlier skirmish. He had contracted pneumonia afterwards, on his way back to Camulod with a special escort, and had lain comatose since his arrival.

Ludmilla smiled, a fleeting thing that bared her white teeth for a mere instant. "Extremely well. He awoke this morning, some time before noon, as though he had been asleep merely since last night, rather than since last month. He was hungry, he said."

"Hungry." I cleared my throat. "May I speak with him?"

"I cannot think why not, although he may be asleep again. He is extremely weak." She stood up, and I watched as her long robe settled around her. "I'll take you to him."

Popilius was not asleep, and I saw his eyes light up with pleasure as I walked towards the cot in which he lay. He was an old man now, I saw. When last we met, I had been shocked by his white hair and the white stubble upon his unshaven cheeks. The Popilius Cirro I had known prior to that meeting had been a hardened, veteran centurion, a vision of solid, military ruggedness, clad at all times in crisp, spotless clothes and shining, polished armour. The man who looked up at me now from the narrow cot looked like that other's grandfather. His beard was thick and snowy white, with only a patch of brown beneath his lower lip. Equally white, thick hair lay coiled in tresses on his pillow, and his eyes were sunken deep above hollowed-out old man's cheeks that sagged around deep-graven lines from the edges of his nose to the sides of his thin, lipless mouth.

"Commander," he said, his voice a breathless wheeze. "You came away safe."

I reached out and took his hand, smiling broadly to hide my distress at his condition. "Aye, Popilius, I did. Does that surprise you?"

His eyes narrowed. "What about Uther?"

I shook my head. "I was too late to help him. He is dead. I burned his body." "Lot?"

"Dead, too, old friend. They are all dead." I felt his fingers go limp. "Now, how much longer are you going to lie here in this useless bed? We have need of you."

He closed his eyes and nodded, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. "I know you do . . . I am aware of that." His eyes opened again suddenly and he peered at me, almost squinting as he searched for something in my eyes. "Your mind, Commander. . . are you still well?"

I grinned at him. "Aye, Popilius, better than I ever was, and back on duty as I have not been for years."

He squeezed my hand, grunted a sigh, and relaxed again. "Good," he whispered. "That's good."

I waited for more, but gradually realized that he was fast asleep. I disengaged his fingers from my own and left him there. Ludmilla had gone.

I made my way to my aunt's house from there, having no wish to sit alone in my own quarters, and there in the family room I found Luke and the others of my minor council assembled and waiting for me, well launched already upon a celebration of the day's events. Everything had gone exactly as we had planned it, and Mirren was revelling in the admiration his performance had inspired. I added my own congratulations and accepted a cup of deep red Gaulish wine from my great-aunt, who merely smiled at me and squeezed my wrist to show her approval. The mood of that gathering was one of gaiety and self-congratulation, and I allowed it to wash over me unheeded, attempting to keep my own mind empty of anything resembling urgency. The week that had passed had been a long and industrious one, and I felt tired with a bone-deep, aching weariness that was rendered sufferable by the success of what we had worked for.

It was only long afterwards, after the others had all departed and left me alone with Aunt Luceiia and Lucanus, that we came to any discussion of the less pleasant aspects of what we had achieved. Aunt Luceiia had rung the small brazen gong that sat by the doorway to the servants' quarters and asked the girl who answered its summons to fetch another jug of the rich wine of which I had already drunk too much. When the maid servant had gone, my aunt looked from one to the other of us and smiled again, a gentle, patient smile. "Well," she observed, "I can see that you two still have much to talk about, and I may go to bed convinced you will not be talking of me behind my back." She looked at me. "Caius, you have done well today. Your father and my husband and my brother would all have been proud of you." Her gaze widened to include Luke. "I have ordered more wine, in case you feel the need of it. I know you have no need of my opinion thereupon. Now I have work to do elsewhere. It is not late enough, but I will wish a good night to both of you." And she was gone.

Luke drained his goblet. "God, this is good wine!"

"The best," I concurred, "and probably the last of it. Any day now, we'll be drinking watered vinum."

Luke shook his head with drunken solemnity. "No, you exaggerate, my friend. Your blessed aunt, endowed with her sagacity, would not permit the bottom of the barrel to be reached without making alternative arrangements. She has amphorae hidden elsewhere, have no doubt. I would be prepared to wager she has made arrangements with the quartermasters to renew the cellars."

"Well, if she has, she has even more of my admiration than before, and I did not think that could be possible. As for hidden amphorae of this, there can be very few of them and they must be well cached. We haven't taken a delivery in years." Lucanus had not heard me. His brow was creased in thought.

"Ironhair," he said. "What do you intend to do about him?"

I chewed on the inside of my upper lip for long moments as I thought about his question. Finally I shook my head. "I've done what I intended to do about him. I've drawn his teeth."

"Before he ever had a chance to bite. You think he'll take it lying down?"

"Lying down, standing up or leaping around, Luke, I couldn't care less. It's done."

"Aye, but is it finished?"

I sighed and rose to refill his goblet from the jug on the table. "Aye, it is finished, one way or the other." I could tell from the weight of it that the jug was almost empty. I poured slowly, half a cup for each of us, the last drops falling individually into my own cup. "Either he will accept the decree, in which case he may be disgruntled but will constitute no threat, or he will rebel . . . in which case he'll be banished and will also pose no threat."

"You like him, don't you?"

I sat down again, placing the empty jug on the floor by my foot. "I could. I think there might be much in him to like."

Lucanus sniffed. "He'll be a bad enemy, Cay."

"How? What can he do, except dislike me if he stays in Camulod? He won't confront me, and the thought of his displeasure holds no fears for me."

"Hmm. What about Lucius Varo?"

"What about him? Lucius is a politician. He'll create no waves, and he'll survive. What he cannot achieve one way, he'll attempt to gain another way. We're aware of him; we'll watch. What time of day is it?"

Lucanus blinked. "I have no idea." He got to his feet and moved to the doorway, opening it and leaning out into the passageway, where he peered towards the atrium at the far end. He spoke from the doorway. "It's getting dark." He returned to the couch opposite me. "Afternoon drinking, I have remarked in the past, steals more time than procrastination. Popilius came back to us today, by the way, just before noon. He's going to recover, it seems, in spite of all my fears. I stayed with him for several hours. That's why I missed the Council session."