Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Long after darkfall, Donuil and I made our way back to our encampment, having bidden farewell to Lucanus and his friend Mordechai. I had achieved, I felt with some pride, a modicum of understanding of the fate of these people smitten by the most dreaded illness in the world. I had spoken with most of them in the course of the evening, and had found them to be very much like other people. But neither Donuil nor I had been able to bring ourselves to share their meal as Lucanus had, and some time in the middle of the night I sprang into wakefulness, shuddering in horror at the sight of my own leprous, fleshless face in some dream mirror.

X

Donuil was astir before any of us the following morning, up and out hunting. He brought back a brace of hares and a handful of wild garlic for that night's pot. I had gone to relieve myself and then to wash in a nearby brook as I did every morning on awakening, and he returned to camp at the same time I did, the hares hanging casually from his left hand and the garlic clutched in his right. I noticed them and nodded to him in passing before the significance of what I had seen struck home to me, but then I spun on my heel and called to him.

"You've been hunting, out of camp." He nodded, smiling faintly, and I continued, hardening my voice. "You know better than that! That was foolhardy. You know the rules."

"Aye, Commander." He was still smiling slightly, his response accompanied by a nod. "But I knew what I was about and I was careful. There's no one out there; neither friend nor foe."

I breathed deeply to keep my flaring anger under restraint. "Don't do anything like that again in hostile territory, ever, without my specific permission," I snapped. "I know you think these people who have been following us might be your friends, but you yourself admitted you don't know if it's them or not. You could be lying out there now, gutted like one of those animals you're holding."

His smiled widened, infuriating me. "I hardly think so, Commander."

"Oh, really, you hardly think so? Trooper, I don't give a damn what you think! It's what I think that's important here. It's not your place to think under these circumstances." Only now did his eyes widen with the realisation of the depth of my anger. "As far as your father's people are concerned you are still a hostage to my goodwill, and they have no cause to trust me. You are already late in returning home. Had there been enemies out there, you might have been killed, slaughtered like the fool you appear to be, perhaps after a heroic fight in which you satisfied your stupid Celtic honour, but where would that have left me? I'll tell you where! It would have left me looking like a liar in your father's and your brother Connor's eyes, a self-serving, lying coward with no hope of rescuing the child they are holding against your safe return. Your corpse, and all my tears, would have been useless in gaining his release."

He looked stunned, crestfallen, recognising and accepting the truth of that. His big head dipped in a chastened bow. "You're right, Commander. I didn't think about that."

"Of course you didn't think, you idiot! That's why I'm angry. I said it's not your place to think, but it is, Donuil. It is! I cannot afford to have you or anyone else, but most particularly you, operating thoughtlessly now. There is too much at stake here to permit such foolishness."

Donuil nodded contritely. "It was irresponsible of me, I can see that. It won't happen again."

"Good. Please make sure it doesn't." He nodded again and turned away, showing no evidence of being upset by my displeasure, then turned back.

"May I say something, Commander?"

"Of course you may. What is it?"

He pursed his lips, then inhaled deeply through his nostrils. "We're getting very close to Glevum. Have you thought any more about what you're going to do if there are no ships there? We have thirty beasts for transport: a spare for each fighting man, the matched pair for my father, and six pack-

horses."

He was right. It would be virtually impossible to find a vessel, any vessel, large enough to transport our men, let alone all, or even half of our livestock. My own father, more than thirty years earlier, had been forced to leave behind more than six hundred head of prime stock in Britain—stock that now formed the breeding herds of Camulod—because of the overpowering and insuperable logistical difficulty of transporting livestock by sea upon short notice.

His words, unexpected as they were, made me realize that, until this moment, I had been drifting along, blithely convinced, utterly without reason other than some inner prompting, that everything would work out and we would cross to Eire without difficulty. The enormity of my hubris, and this sudden reminder of it, brought me to my senses. I expelled a gusty, deep- chested breath. "Well, we may have to make adjustments. We were aware of that before leaving Camulod. If everything goes against us and there are no boats big enough to take us all, the others will have to return to Camulod with the horses. If necessary, you and I will cross the sea alone."

"We should take Rufio with us. He's a good man in a tight corner."

"Aye, perhaps. Very well, the three of us."

"And our horses."

"What?"

He spread his hands, palms upward. "We have to cross by boat, and we had intended to find one big enough to carry thirteen of us, counting the boys, and thirty horses. We might still be able to find one that big, something from beyond Britain, unloading cargo."

"Consigned to whom?" The irony on my face made him shrug, conceding my point.

"You're right, it's probably impossible. But we should be able to find one, even a fishing boat from along the coast, that can transport three men, instead of thirteen and perhaps three horses where the other eleven men would have been."

"We'll see. Call the men together."

When they were all assembled, looking at me in curiosity, I cleared my throat and reminded them that, on the face of it, it was highly improbable we would find a vessel capable of transporting all our horses. If that were the case, I said, only three of us, Donuil, Rufio and I, would embark for Eire with, or without, our personal mounts. Thereafter, the remainder of the party would return to Camulod.

These men had all been personally chosen by me. They were not only excellent soldiers, but comrades-in-arms of long standing, and that gave them a certain freedom in responding to what I had said. Two of them, Quintus and Dedalus, were veterans who had ridden with me on the earliest patrols I shared with Uther in our boyhood. Now Dedalus looked at me through a frown.

"You'd really go without us? I don't like that, Merlyn. It's too damn dangerous for only three of you, heading into a land filled with Outlanders. Donuil there's one of them, and we all trust him, but even he makes no secret of the fact he can't speak on behalf of any other than his own people, and not all of them, either. Why can't we all go with you, and leave the horses here with the boys? We can fight as well on foot as from horseback."

I smiled at him. "None of us can go at all if we can't find a boat, Ded. I'm wagering on finding one. If I do, as many of us will go as is feasible. The others will remain behind. I merely wanted you all to know my mind."

There was a deal of muttering and mumbling, but no one could alter the truth of what faced us. Everything depended upon what we would find in Glevum.

The former port town of Glevum, which we reached early the following morning, was an abandoned ruin, devastated by war and time. I had expected that. I knew it had been ravaged by Lot's second army several years earlier, the army, originally bound southward for Camulod via Aquae Sulis, that had caused me to ride into the fight that cost me my memory. On that occasion the army had changed direction and, leaderless, had ravaged both Aquae and Glevum before disbanding. I had also seen the effects of time and the lack of civic government and maintenance on other towns, such as Noviomagus and Londinium itself. Glevum, I decided, had been at far greater risk than all of these during the past two decades since, as an open river estuary port, it had no protection from sea-borne raiders. I had spent the intervening day railing at myself for my own idiocy in even presuming to find sea transportation of any kind available, and my men were all aware of my frame of mind. With all of this taken into consideration, we approached the place very cautiously, yet prepared, by the time we arrived, to find it completely deserted.