Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

I had never paid any great attention to this spot before, although I had ridden this way several times, so I had no knowledge of what lay ahead of me beyond the entrance to the narrow ravine I entered. Just beyond the entrance, the surface levelled out and the sides began to recede, and I gave my horse his head, beginning to hope, but the floor of the defile curved to the right and beyond the turn the crevice suddenly pinched out, leaving me facing unscalable walls of rock. I pulled up and turned to ride back to face my pursuers, drawing the long sword from where it hung from the side of my saddle, knowing that the best place to meet them was the narrow entrance to the ravine. I stopped, swung my sword, took a long, deep breath, and as I did so, I heard a voice shouting above my head.

"Surrender, Caius Merlyn! You've won me my wager and you're getting too old to be allowed out riding by yourself, anyway!"

Stunned, I raised my head and saw Donuil laughing down at me from where he perched on a ledge of rock at the top of the cliff. Beside and behind him, one hand resting on Donuil's shoulder, my brother Ambrose stood grinning, his long, golden hair shining in the sunlight, and his other arm holding a large, metal helmet adorned with an enormous pair of Saxon horns.

As I sat there, overwhelmed with incredulous relief, I felt the fear and tension drain from my body like some ethereal form of sweat, while Donuil came leaping down the face of the cliff like a mountain goat to drag me bodily from my saddle and sweep me up into a great bear hug. Still too stunned to react, I was aware of the unyielding bronze of my cuirass, which saved my ribs from being crushed by his massive arms, and of the sight of my brother, who had donned his helmet and now followed Donuil's downward route more sedately, a smile of sheer pleasure lighting his handsome face. I felt my feet leave the ground, and then I felt Donuil lose his balance so that we fell with a crash and rolled on the sparsely grassed floor of the narrow gully. Reaction set in then and I began to wrestle back, straining and wriggling to achieve a headlock on the big Erse prince who was mauling me, and feeling a brief, short-lived surge of real anger at what they had done to me. Donuil, however, was bigger and heavier than I was, and so my anger was quickly dissipated by struggling with the sheer bulk of him and eventually we both relaxed, by mutual consent, to lie staring and grinning stupidly at each other like a couple of boys.

As my breathing began to return to normal, I turned my head, still sprawled backwards on my elbows, to look up to where my half-brother, Ambrose Ambrosianus Britannicus, my father's son by another woman, stood grinning down at me. My father's son by a woman other than his wife, my mother . . . The thought caused me no concern, for I knew the amazing, seemingly incredible truth behind it. Picus Britannicus, our father, had known nothing of what transpired between him and Ambrose's mother. He had been badly wounded at the time, his throat and neck mangled by an arrow that had pierced his mouth, and he had spent months under the influence of strong opiates, bound to his bed much of the time to keep him from thrashing about and further injuring his head, which was muffled in bandages. And during that time, the young wife of his aged and noble host had used the faceless, wounded man like a stallion, in the secrecy of night, attempting to impregnate herself with his seed in order to produce an heir for her feeble but beloved husband. She had succeeded, but the consequences had been tragic for her husband and for her. My father had never seen her face or even known of her existence, and had remained in ignorance of all of this, believing for a long time that the hazy, episodic fragments he could recall were no more than erotic dreams brought on by his drugged condition and his own rude, virile strength. He had told me the tale himself, decades later, but even then he had been ignorant of having sired a son. Only after my father was dead had I encountered my half-brother, a mere six months my junior and my living likeness, in the kingdom of Vortigern, king of Northumbria.

All of these thoughts rushed through my mind in the blinking of an eye and did nothing to impair the smile that spread across my lips at the sight of Ambrose grinning down at me. He nodded, silent, and then, removing his horned helmet again, he combed his fingers through his thick hair and shook it out around his head before stepping towards me, one hand outstretched to help me rise. I took it and pulled myself to my feet where I stood watching him as he stared back into my eyes. I began to raise my arms and he met me halfway, hugging me in silence.

It was a strange experience, hugging this man, almost a total stranger and yet blood of my blood, bone of my bone, and resembling me more closely than my own reflection in the few mirrors into which I had gazed. Therein, my face was always altered by the colour, texture and sheen of the reflecting metal, be it bronze or silver. The face in front of me now, when I leaned back to arm's length to look at it, holding him by the shoulders, bore no such metallic inconsistencies. The skin was darkened by the sun, as was my own, and the hair above the broad forehead grew thick and yellow, just like mine. If anything was different between us, I thought, it must be simple size. Ambrose, like Donuil, was bigger than I; not greatly bigger, perhaps not even noticeably, but he seemed to me to bulk larger than I did, his shoulders more massive, his forearms heavier, his eyes a hair's breadth higher than my own.

"Well met, Brother," I said, and he nodded at me, holding me by the wrists and merely gazing mute and evidently pleased with what he beheld. I looked to where Donuil now stood watching us, his eyes wide with wonder as they moved from my face to Ambrose's and back, the expression on his face one of complete amazement.

"Well?" I asked him. "How great is the resemblance?"

Donuil shook his head. "It would be frightening, had I not seen it before and if I did not know the truth of it. You could be twins. You are identical. The only way to tell you apart is by your clothes."

Ambrose laughed and spoke for the first time. "We may change those tomorrow and confound you." The words seemed to reverberate strangely in my ears and I looked back at him, impulsively voicing the thought that had sprung fully formed into my mind even though I shrouded it in a jest.

"No, Brother, not Donuil, he is too easily confused at the best of times. Something to do with his great height, I think. But it might be interesting to confuse others . . . outsiders." I took the sting out of the first part of my words with a smile, and Donuil grinned again, flushing with pleasure and covering any response to the remainder of my statement with his rejoinder.

"I can see you two will join forces to belittle me because of my superior Erse blood."

"Aye," I agreed. "That, and your outlandish riding skills." Donuil had never mastered the art of riding, which made him noteworthy in Camulod. He had perched precariously on his mounts, rather than seated them, ever since the time of his first arrival, before which he had never approached a horse. Now he drew himself erect and spoke to me down the length of his nose.

"You, Caius Merlyn, have not seen me ride for years."

"Correction, Erseman." I winked at Ambrose. "I, Caius Merlyn, have never seen you ride. Wobble, perhaps; sway, certainly; teeter, frequently, but ride? Never."

A sound behind me distracted me from my baiting and I saw Ambrose look over my shoulder and nod. I turned in time to see the rear view of one of the Saxons disappearing again around the bend in the gully. The sight brought my mind back to my earlier thoughts, before the apparition of my two companions, and my smile disappeared.