Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Well, hurry it up, damn you, you're keeping me from my tasks!" This issued from the burly throat of the man nearest me, a hulking giant who plainly had no sympathy with Ironhair or his cause.

His interruption took Ironhair completely by surprise. He stopped, and gaped down at the man. "What?" was all he could summon up in reply.

"I said get your damned wagon out of my way. Are you deaf, as well as stupid?"

Ironhair was open-mouthed, and the sight of his surprise took the edge off my anger, so that I found myself having to stifle a grin. Another voice on my left took up the plaint. "Come on, Ironhair, move the shit-filled wagon and let us through the gates. We haven't got all day to stand around here while you preach politics."

"Politics?" I could hear the injury in his tone. "I wasn't preaching politics. This man was threatening me for no reason!"

"Aye," said the big man, "and so what? He had reason enough. You're a fool and a blowhard. Now there's three of us threatening you. Move it!"

"It's a heavy wagon!" There was a note of panic now in his voice.

"Then we'll soon lighten it. Let's have those barrels off, lads!" The crowd surged forward suddenly, and Ironhair had to shout at the top of his lungs to make himself heard above the growls that rose now from all around him.

"All right! All right, stand back! We're moving!" He punched Tom the driver on the shoulder and Tom flicked the reins. The horses leaned into their collars, the wheels began to roll and the wagon lumbered forward. I nudged my horse aside again to give it room, smiling openly now. Ironhair kept his eyes averted as he passed me amid a chorus of jeers and taunts. As soon as the way was cleared the crowd poured through, mingling with others who had waited on the other side of the gates. The two crowds melded into one swirling mass and an unknown voice came clearly to my ears from somewhere in its midst.

"No thanks necessary, Merlyn!"

I shook my head, grinning, and found myself eye to eye and grin to grin with the young decurion commander of the gate guard. He wiped the smile from his face immediately and jerked to attention, snapping me a smart salute. I returned it formally, my own face straight again, then swung my horse around to follow Ironhair's wagon back into the fortress yard, kicking him to canter until I overtook the vehicle.

"Ironhair!"

The wagon creaked to a halt and he swung around to face me, scowling. I gave him no chance to speak.

"Keep your mouth shut and listen, because I will never repeat myself. This once I warn you. In future, I act. The title you threw at me back there was accurate. Bear in mind what it means. You may seek to confront me again, but be aware that no matter what the outcome, you cannot win. By impeding me, or attempting to belittle me publicly, in performance of my duties or otherwise, and by causing confrontations of the type you just attempted, you are endangering the established order and the peace, and therefore the well-being of this Colony. We have problems enough in Camulod, caused from beyond, without internal dissension. That's why I clipped your wings in Council yesterday. You chose to take it as a personal attack, obviously. Perhaps it was, but it came from strength, Ironhair, not from weakness."

I paused, watching him. He glowered but made no attempt to speak. I continued. "Let me add this. You are a big, strong, well-made man and you might think to seek me out and challenge me privately, man to man, some time when I am not on duty." I shrugged my shoulders. "With sufficient provocation you might possibly provoke me into fighting you. Should that happen, I will thrash you, but hear me now, Ironhair, and hear me clearly. If that does happen, no matter what the outcome may be, I swear to you by the blood of the crucified Christ that you will be banished from this Colony forever, immediately thereafter, upon my preordained decree. My rank, as Legate Commander of Camulod, never goes off duty. Do you understand me?"

He blinked, glowered and turned his back on me again, and the wagon lurched into motion. I watched its progress for several moments longer and then pulled my horse into a rearing turn and aimed him towards the gateway.

I began my downhill ride in anger, my pride offended by the man's audacity, but I quickly recalled the unforeseen support so freely made available to me from the very people he had sought to use against me. No thanks necessary, Merlyn! By the time I reached the bottom of the hill road and pointed my horse towards the route to the concealed valley in the hills that held the remains of my wife and child, I had regained my normal humour, aided greatly by the realization that, for the first time that day, my head was clear and my body felt well.

That feeling of well-being lasted for the duration of my trip to Avalon, the name I had given to my secret little vale, but the sight of the lonely grave by the waterside, and the empty hut nearby, with its hanging, broken door quickly banished my good humour. The grave was weed-grown, although I had swept it clean only five or six weeks before. I knelt beside it and cleaned it again, digging with my fingers to loosen the roots of the persistent weeds that had re-established themselves so quickly. My task complete, I prayed quietly for a while, remembering the beauty of the silent young woman who lay beneath the dirt, and trying to visualize the child she might have given me which now lay mouldering beside her.

When I eventually rose to my feet again, feeling the coldness of the damp earth drying on my knees, I approached the hut and went inside. It was as I remembered it from years before, except that the coverings on the bed had been removed at some time, exposing the woven hempen rope netting strung across the frame. The rest of the interior, including the few furnishings, lay covered in dirt and old, wind-blown leaves. Even the window, hand-made from pieces of precious, almost transparent glass, was coated with dirt. I looked from the window to the long-dead fireplace, feeling my throat swell with the pain of remembered happiness as I recalled the evenings I had spent sitting there with Cassandra, warm and content in the flickering light of the flames, knowing that the comfort and warmth of the bed behind us was ours alone. As I turned to leave, I noticed the broom in the corner by the window, and remembered making it for Cassandra. I stepped to it and took it in my hands, and looked again around the tiny room, which she had always kept so clean and full of fresh flowers, and I began idly to sweep up some of the dried leaves that lay at my feet. I had no thought of cleaning the place, but what began as a listless, almost aimless recollection of my wife's use of this simple instrument somehow became a determined assault on the years of neglect, so that in a short space of time the room was clean again, no single leaf remaining. I then used the ends of the broom to sweep some of the encrusted dirt from the window glass and ended up polishing each of the glazed sections with a rag from my saddlebag, after which I washed the rag in the lake and used both it and the broom—the latter awkwardly—to scrub and then wash the woodwork of the small table, the two chairs and the plain wooden chest at the bottom of the bed. Only when I had done that did I think to open the chest, and there, wrapped in the skin of a huge black bear, I found all of the sleeping furs we had used, and I plunged my face into them, giving way to my grief at last as I smelled the faint, familiar fragrance of the dried herbs she had used to keep them fresh and purge them of their natural, feral odours.

Much later, emptied at last of tears and self-pitying grief, I rose again and looked around me, then went out to where my horse stood cropping grass and unsaddled him, removing his bridle, too, after I rubbed him down, so that he could roam free. It took but a short time to find kindling and firewood, and as that day drew to an end I sat once more in the leaping firelight, knowing that the broken door must be mended soon if this place were to remain fit for me to live in again. When darkness had fallen completely, I piled the fire high with stout logs and undressed slowly, before climbing naked into the pile of furs that smelled so strongly of her presence and her spirit. I lay awake for hours, it seems, recalling scenes from our happy past, feeling her presence all around me in the flickering shadows thrown by the dancing flames. Somewhere outside, from time to time, a dove cooed, the sound gentle and comforting, soothing the almost pleasant ache within me.