Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"So," he resumed after a spell. "You're right. Abstinence alone is not enough. There is also a requirement for discipline and training, as there is in all things worthwhile. But the training requires a lifetime of commitment and concentration from a very early age." He left that hanging in the air between us.

"How old were you when you began this training?"

"Eighteen, nineteen, when I first became aware of the phenomenon, twenty-something when I began to apply myself to learning it. Twenty-four, I believe."

"So I've lost eight years. That's all that means."

He glanced sideways at me. "That is almost a decade, Merlyn. Most healthy men have only five or six of those, and by your own admission yours are more than halfway gone." He stopped and then hitched himself sideways, to look directly at me. "Without evasion of any kind, without reservations, give me a quick and honest answer to this question: Why should this . . . this condition . . . suddenly become important to you?"

The question was a test, I knew, and I also knew that I had no time to think about my answer. "Philosophy," I said. I watched his right eyebrow arch.

"Philosophy?" His lips stretched slowly into a smile containing more than a little incredulity. "You will pardon me, I hope, my friend, for smiling at the thought, but I have never seen you as a philosopher."

"Nor could you have. I have never been one, and perhaps even now that is the wrong word. Philosophically speaking, I have come to believe that I am here on earth for one sole purpose, and thus it behoved me to exert all my energies towards the achievement of that purpose with devotion and single-mindedness. Sexual abstinence might help me to achieve my purpose, but would entail distractions. . . Celibacy, on the other hand, as I have understood you, is something that may be learned and practised to a higher end than mere self-denial."

He was still looking at me, one knee hitched up now between us on the wagon bench. "You have my complete attention, Caius. What is this single purpose you have defined?"

"The child, Arthur."

He blinked at me, saying nothing, and then, when he saw that I had said all I was going to say, he coughed, clearing his throat gently. "Forgive me, my friend, for seeming so obtuse. The child Arthur. . . ? What about him?"

"He is my purpose for being here, alive." I could see that Luke was completely mystified. "He is my responsibility," I went on. "He holds the essence of the Dream dreamed by my grandfather and Publius Varrus. Surely you see that?"

"No . . . But I can see that you see it. You forget I am not as familiar as you are with this dream of which you speak. I've heard you speak of it before, but never at any great length, and never in detail. Enlighten me, please."

"I will. I've been thinking about little else these past eight days." I began immediately, and he listened in absorbed silence as I told him about the vision of my ancestors, how they dreamed of resurrecting the greatness that had once been Rome, the great Republic, here upon this island of Britain, and how they had established Camulod as the first bastion of survival in the face of the chaos that would follow hard on the heels of Rome's desertion of Britain. When I had finished, he looked at me astutely.

"Uther was a king," he said. "His son, the child Arthur, may follow him into kingship one day. Is that your wish?" I nodded, and he smiled. "Kingship, my friend, the regal state, sits ill with the spirit of republicanism. The two are immiscible."

"No, Luke, not so." I had been through this matter in my own mind already. "On the surface, I will grant, the two seem at odds, and they are incompatible by definition. But what I am talking about now is not the essence of a republic, or of kingship, other than in the purely nominal sense. What I am propounding to you here is the difference between darkness and light, between civilization and barbarism, between chaos and order, between anarchy and . . ."

"Monarchy," he supplied the word I had been seeking.

"Monarchy. Yes." I felt deflated.

"Kingship."

I shook my head, impatient now with what I saw as sophistry. "Not merely kingship, Luke. I see it as leadership—the offer of enlightened leadership by one man: order and decency and literacy and justice and civility and all the things that make life worth living."

"Ah, I see. Enlightened despotism!" All of his sophisticated, Roman-bred distrust of the mere notion of kings was there in his voice.

"Damnation! How can I make you see what I mean?" He waited, saying nothing. "For four hundred years, this country was at peace, wealthy and prosperous under the Pax Romana. It was Britain, one Province, divided into several parts for administrative purposes, but those parts no more than sections of a complete entity. It had one set of laws and one system of government. It was united and its citizens were prosperous and content, and it was peaceful until shortly before the end of Rome's presence. That era ended the year that I was born. What have we now, in Britain? Within my lifetime we have seen the growth of Camulod, an enclave of sanity, and we have Vortigern, king in Northumbria and civilized enough, save that he has had to import aliens to help him hold his lands. We also had Lot, king in Cornwall, and Derek, king in Ravenglass, and Uther Pendragon, king in Cambria. How many other kings are in this land today? Only God knows. I, certainly, have no idea, but I suspect there may be dozens, and perhaps even scores or hundreds. All kings, Luke, and all supreme in their own petty realms, ruling by force and whim and whatever other methods take their fancy. Derek of Ravenglass is no arbiter of enlightenment; nor, God knows, was Gulrhys Lot, nor even Uther, rest his soul. These men are not kings, Luke, they are warlords, but they have assumed the power of kings. And then there are the 'kings'—again, God only knows how many—who now rule in the eastern lands along the Saxon Shore. Britain, in less than forty years, has fallen into utter anarchy."

"And you think this child may change all that?"

I looked him in the eye. "I do."

"How, in the name of all the ancient gods?"

"By uniting the people again, but even more strongly than they were before, when they were unified by Roman Law and Roman rule. This time, the people will be Britons, all of them, unified by the rule of a King of Britain, with an enlightened system of common laws."

Lucanus shook his head, gently and with sympathy. "My friend, I accept the dream has passed to you, down from your forebears, but it is a dream, I fear, and hardly likely to be realized."

I gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Aye, Luke, you're right, and more so than you know. It is a dream. But dreams are bread and meat to me, and they do come true, from time to time. This will come to pass. I know it will. It's why I'm here. It's why I am Merlyn Britannicus. My duty, my life's purpose, is to train the boy, to teach him all I have learned from all the sources to which I have been exposed, to make him High King of all this land. And that, my friend, will demand all of my attention, for all my life."

He was looking at me now in amazement. "You believe that! With conviction . . ."

"Completely, Luke. Never doubt that again. And I intend to become celibate from this day forward."

"But surely, if you intend to raise the boy, you'll need a woman's help."

"Aye, but there are many women, and I shall use as many as I need. But no wife. I have had a wife, whom I loved dearly, and she was to have borne me a child. She and the child were lost, and I will never know who took them from me, but I have come to believe, deep in my being, that they were taken to leave me free to assume the charge of this boy Arthur. I am convinced of it."

He shook his head again, and his voice was subdued. "Very well, I am convinced that you are convinced, and I will do what I can to help you, although I may never understand whence this. . . this sudden passion . . . this conviction arose. You will teach the boy well, I have no doubt of that. You will teach him your knowledge as thoroughly as my own tutor taught me his. But I'm afraid I may not be the teacher you require."