Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"But I'm not qualified to command cavalry, Caius."

"Nonsense. You are, or have been, one of Vortigern's most trusted captains, and Vortigern's neither fool nor incompetent. How many men have you commanded at one time?"

"Armies," he said. "But armies of infantry."

"How many men, in total?"

He thought for a moment. "Twenty thousand, in our last campaign in the north."

"That's almost four Roman legions. You were in sole command?"

"Overall command, yes."

"Did you win?"

"Of course I did."

"Of course you did, and thus you are qualified to command my men . . . The horses have nothing to say about it, you know. I said you must be my second-in-command. I didn't ask you to share my saddle with me. You'll have to learn to ride with stirrups and a saddle. As you do that, once you begin to grasp the advantages those bring, you'll learn quickly enough what cavalry can do. And here in Camulod, remember, your credentials come built into your appearance, your name and your family. No one will doubt your worth -; none will quibble with your authority; and your staff—my staff—will guide your steps until you wish to strike out alone. I have no doubts that will be soon."

We had reached the spot towards which I had been guiding him in more ways than one, and now I reached out my arm and stopped his progress, directing his eyes downward to the ground at his feet. He looked down curiously. The ground on which we stood was hard-packed, but three wide slabs of hand-dressed, dark blue slate were recessed, side by side, directly in front of us.

"What are these, Cay?" I could tell from his tone that he already suspected what they were.

"Your credentials," I said, feeling a roughness in my throat. "Your right to be here in Camulod, and in command in Camulod. In the centre lies your grandfather, Caius Britannicus, founder of this Colony; on his right, your great- uncle by marriage, Publius Varrus; and on his left, the ashes of your father, the Imperial Legate Picus Britannicus. This is the very heart of Camulod, Ambrose, the centre of a dream created by these three. I wanted to show it to you with no one else around."

We stood there for some time and then he sighed, a sudden, gusty sound. "Thank you for this," he said. I did not know if he was thanking me or speaking to the people in the ground.

I cleared my throat. "Come on, there's more to see." I led him now towards the Armoury, that room in the Varrus household that contained Excalibur. He had been there the previous day, late in the afternoon, but he had seen only what all people saw therein: the wealth of weaponry collected empire-wide during the lifetimes of two men, Publius Varrus and his grandfather, to whom Publius had referred as Varrus the Elder. On the occasion of that first visit, there had been too many others around for me to show him the room's hidden treasure. Now we were alone, and having barred the heavy, double doors, I opened the secret hiding-place beneath the floor with the ease of long practise and produced the polished wooden case that held the sword. Impatient now to see his reaction, I remained sitting on the floor with my feet dangling down into the hole beneath as I placed the case on the floor in front of me, springing the hidden lock and handing him the weapon wordlessly, hilt first.

For long moments, neither of us moved or spoke as he stood there staring at what he held in his hand, but then he leaned forward slowly, dipping into a fighting crouch, and began to wield the sword in slow, exaggerated motions, spinning and pivoting, rising and falling on his toes, his movements resembling some solemn, ritual dance of sacrificial awe and reverence. He began by holding the weapon in his right hand, but by the time he had completed his first, tentative series of moves, both of his fists were locked about the long, sharkskin grip and his eyes glittered with the play of light along the edges of the flashing blade that circled his head. Gradually, almost without volition, the tempo of his movements began to increase, until the air hissed audibly with the passage of the lethal, lovely, whirling silver blade.

He stopped, abruptly, his arm muscles tense, holding the sword now motionless, extended at arm's length, and then he grounded the point, reversed his grip, and held the hilt towards me.

"Magical," he whispered, his voice husky. "It should be used, not hidden beneath a dusty floor."

"It will be, Brother, when the time is right." Taking it from him, still sitting with my legs beneath the floor, I yielded to a sudden impulse and struck the blade against the boards, raising the point to the vertical immediately and pressing the cockleshell pommel to the floor to produce the bell like, resonant effect of which I had read in my uncle's books. In all the years of my guardianship of Excalibur, it was the first time I had done so, and even I was unprepared for the effect it produced. Out of nowhere, springing from the very air of the room, it seemed, an unearthly sound of crystalline, sense-searing beauty sprang into being, transfixing both of us with its power, clarity and shocking strength. Startled myself by its awesome purity and ringing loudness, I jerked my arm upward, breaking the contact between the sword and the solid floor, and the sound faded quickly, to die away completely and suddenly as I touched the blade with a pointing fingertip, feeling a sharp and eerie tingle in my hand at the contact so that I pulled my hand away again.

The silence that followed was profound until Ambrose broke it with a whispered question.

"What was that?"

I cleared my throat and smiled again, regaining my self-possession. "Excalibur, singing. I read about it in my uncle's books, but I had never heard it before now." Ambrose was gazing at the sword, an expression on his face of almost superstitious dread, and I knew my own would have mirrored it had I not known what I knew. "Apparently it has something to do with the purity of the metal," I said, for his benefit. "Some kind of vibration. According to Father Andros, the man who first did that the day the sword was made, the ancient smiths could gauge the quality of their weapons by the sounds they produced."

"What ancient smiths? I've never heard of that."

I shrugged. "No more had I, but it is obviously true. The purer the metal, the sweeter the temper, the truer and more powerful the sound produced."

"But there were sounds, Caius. That was not one simple sound, not one clear note. I heard several, high and low."

"I know, but don't expect me to explain it. As I said, I've never done that before. It shocked me as much as it did you."

"Do it again."

I did, this time with more confidence, and we listened enthralled as the mighty, ringing clarity of the song of Excalibur made the very air of the room vibrate, setting the dust motes quivering in the beams of light from the roof vents. Then came the sound of running footsteps outside, rushing towards the doors, and I stifled the sound by pressing the blade this time against my leg, feeling again the transient, tingling sting before the blade grew still. Someone thrust against the doors from the outside and I was grateful I had taken the time to bar them. Then fists pounded against the bronze-covered wood and we heard voices raised in anxious questioning. Grimacing at Ambrose, I quickly replaced the sword in its case and dropped it into its hiding- place before replacing the floorboard hurriedly. The pegs that locked the board in place projected still, but I ignored them.

"Open the door, but not too quickly." I crossed the room quickly to a small table, where I picked up one of the devices that lay there, a hollowed- out stone attached to a long, leather cord. I quickly wrapped the small loop in the end of the cord around my right index finger and then nodded to Ambrose, who swung open the doors to admit Trebonius Velus, Centurion of the Guard for that day. As Velus stepped across the threshold, looking uneasily about the room, I saw the press of armoured bodies behind him.