Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Saxons, Ambrose? Donuil? How could you bring Saxons to Camulod?"

Ambrose answered me. "They are no more Saxon than you or I, Brother. They are Lindum men, one and all, my blood guards, merely wearing the Saxon garb."

"Why?" I was not reassured.

He shrugged. "Because we travelled through the Saxon Settlements to come here. Donuil told me your needs were urgent, and that was the shortest route."

His words perplexed me. "What? I don't understand. Are you saying you came along the Saxon Shore?"

"No, at least not all the way. Donuil found me in the far north, up by the Wall. We travelled southward in one of Hengist's longboats, landed on the Saxon Shore north of Colchester, and came straight inland, directly across the country."

"Passing through the Saxon-settled lands."

"Some of them, yes."

"Hmm." I accepted that without further comment, aware of the many layers of significance the words held. "Well!" I looked from one to the other of them. "So what do you intend to do now?"

They glanced at each other, smiling uncertainly, clearly wondering what I was raving about. Again it was Donuil who answered. "What should we do? We intended to find you as quickly as possible, probably in Camulod, but you came blundering along the pathway back there in a daydream and I recognized you miles away. Now we've found you. What do you suggest we do?"

"Hmm." My mind was racing, cataloguing the possibilities and weighing the alternatives as I sought to clear my mind and see my way. "Well, we should return directly to Camulod, of course, and yet . . ." Immediate return to Camulod would create chaos, with all the introductions and explanations that would have to be gone through. I watched them watch me, waiting for me to complete my thought. "And yet," I continued, "it's in my mind, clear as mid-morning light, that taking you directly home, right at this moment, might not be the best idea that has ever occurred to me. We have much to discuss, the three of us, and it could take days, after we enter Camulod and stun everyone with the sight and existence of you, Ambrose, to find the time we need together, free of interruption, without being most discourteous to all our friends there."

"Aye," Ambrose said. "That makes sense. It's more important that we talk together than that we talk to others. What do you suggest?"

I was already looking around me, evaluating the spot in which we stood and rejecting it as a campsite. "Your camp of last night. It's less than two miles from here, and it's secluded; out of the way. Why don't we use it tonight again and ride into Camulod tomorrow morning? That should give us all the time we need."

"Good idea. Let's go."

For the remainder of that day I had the novel experience of observing a score of skin-clad, heavily armoured "Saxon" warriors as they bustled around me, setting up a camp, building cooking fires and attempting to provide privacy and comfort for their Lord and his two companions. There were deer in abundance all around us. Already two small roe had been brought in, dressed and butchered, and several men were busily involved in cooking them. From an oven of stones, prepared by some magic process unknown to and unnoticed by me, came the delicious smell of baking bread. It was still early evening, the sun yet two hours short of setting.

"What are you grinning about, Caius?" Donuil asked me at one point.

I turned to him, still smiling, shaking my head. "All of this. You travel in grand style, with everything considered and allowed for in advance, it seems. But I was thinking it's amazing how much these fellows look like Saxons . . . I'm finding it very difficult to relax with them all around me."

Donuil sniffed. "You'd be even more amazed if you could see how much some of the Saxons look like us—or like your people, at least."

"What d'you mean?"

"Just what I say. The Saxons in the Settlements are little different from your own people. Oh, they talk differently, and they dress differently, I suppose, and all the gods know they fight differently, but they farm the same way and their women don't seem even slightly alien and their children are like children everywhere."

"Farm the same way?" It was the one thing I had heard that struck me as ludicrous. "Come on, Donuil, these people are not farmers—they're marauders, seagoing savages. The only ploughing they do is with the keels of their ships on the belly of the sea. There's nothing of the farmer in their nature."

Ambrose had been standing close by, leaning against a tree as he listened to us, saying nothing. Now Donuil glanced at him, a tiny tic of annoyance between his brows, before his eyes returned to me.

"I see. And how many of these people do you know, Cay? How many have you met, or spoken with? How many have you fought, for that matter?" His voice was almost truculent and I realized, with some surprise, that in all the time I had known him, I had never seen or heard Donuil take serious issue with anything I had ever said. Now he seemed to be challenging me. I felt myself frowning, though more from perplexity than displeasure.

"Is something biting you? I've never known you to sound like this before. I've fought a few of them, as you well know. You were there, and brought me my horse and helmet, the day we rescued Bishop Germanus and his party, near Londinium. How many of them do you know?"

"None. But I've met far more of them than you have."

"And?" I noticed that Ambrose had not moved and showed no sign of intervening.

"And it occurs to me you might be wrong."

You are always so correct, Cay. . . Have you any idea how annoying that can be to others? The words came flooding back into my head instantly, remembered from the only confrontation of this kind I'd ever had with Uther. I felt a surge of irritation.

"Wrong about what, in God's name? Wrong about their strangeness? Their foreignness? They are Outlanders, Donuil. This is our land, not theirs! They have no place here."

"I'm an Outlander, Cay. Have I no place here?"

That startled me, bringing me up short like a haltered horse. "That is ridiculous! Of course you have a place here. You've earned your place here."

He gazed at me levelly, no sign of anger anywhere about him, his eyes empty of expression. "So did your forefathers, Cay."

"What?" I turned again to Ambrose, seeking his support against such obscure logic, but he was gazing at Donuil, his face unreadable.

Donuil would have said more, was on the point of blurting something out, when a sudden clang of iron upon iron jerked all our heads round in concert towards a clear space beyond the camp, where two men, one of them the giant in the bright yellow tunic I had noticed first earlier that morning, crouched facing each other over the rims of their large, round shields, the bright blades of their swords raised high. Even as I saw them, my view was obscured by the bodies of others who came between us, moving forward to surround the pair.

"Jenner and Marek," Ambrose said. "They're my two best, and worth watching, even in practice. Come."

We moved to watch the two men in their mock combat, our own mild dispute left in abeyance, but even as I watched the skill and speed of the two antagonists, abstractedly admiring their ability, I continued to think about what Donuil had been saying, aware of how closely his sentiments, if not his words, had echoed the unwelcome information I had received not long before from Lars, the owner of the public hostelry I had visited on the road south to Isca.

Now here was Donuil, my own trusted friend, implying in his turn that all was not evil in the people who had usurped our lands. I knew he and I would have to talk more about such outlandish ideas. Ambrose interrupted my thoughts.