Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Donuil had been listening intently, frowning a little, and now he interrupted Feargus.

"Why did you move across the country with only six men, Feargus? You have two galleys full."

Feargus sniffed and looked at Logan. "Aye, true enough," the big man said. "But your father the king was most exact in his instructions." He glanced at me, then back to Donuil before continuing. "Remember, you stood as safeguard of the word of your father that there would be no war with your captors so long as you were safe. Five summers was the term. We had no proof that you were dead, and none that you were alive. And so the word of King Athol was that we were to find a place to lie with our galleys, safe hid, until the word of your life or death was known beyond dispute. If you were now a free man, according to the agreement, then there would be no need to show a warlike force. If you were prisoner still, we were to march and deliver you. If you were dead, we were to exact vengeance. But until we knew, one way or the other, we were to do nothing to endanger the peace to which your father had committed all of us. And so we had to make towards Camulod, few enough in number to occasion no alarm, but strong enough in number to protect each other. So we were six, and but lightly armed." He paused and grinned. "We arrived back today with enough of us to make you safe, one way or the other—until we heard that you had ventured into that town, among the snakes. Gave us a bad time there, you did." He swung his head to include me in his next question. "Are you mad, to ride in, twelve against half a thousand?"

I dipped my head in acknowledgment. "I must have been, for a short time. Rufio over there warned me against it, but I would not listen. I was too intent on shipping our horses aboard their vessel."

"Horses? Aboard a ship?" Feargus was blinking at me in amazement. "And where were you thinking of going?"

"Home, Feargus," Donuil answered. "We were going home to Eire."

Feargus blinked again. "All of you? With horses?"

I grinned, feeling distinctly foolish. "That was my fault, Feargus. I had not thought the matter through. Or perhaps I had set greater store by my instincts than by sound planning."

Logan was as perplexed as Feargus appeared to be. "Why would you even want to take horses to sea?"

The question rocked me for a moment. "To transport them, to take them with us," I explained, as though speaking to a child. I could see that he still could not understand why anyone would wish to pursue such folly. "We are cavalry, Logan. We operate on horseback, and our horses are essential to our. . ." Strategy and tactics had been the words I intended to say, but no equivalents for them existed in the Erse tongue as far as I knew. I looked to Donuil for assistance, saying the words in Latin. He smiled and took over from me without pause, directing his words to both men.

"Caius Merlyn was about to say 'essential to the way we fight,' but he found himself in the same situation as you were when you landed your galleys down the coast from here. He had no intention of fighting in my father's land, but his presence there might be unwelcome to some. His purpose was to bring me to my home, greet my father and Connor in courtesy, collect the child, his godson, and then return to his own home in Camulod. To do that, nevertheless, he knew he might have to pass through strange and perhaps hostile territories, particularly when returning. He was thinking in terms of self-defence, and self-defence to the people of Camulod entails horses."

Both listeners appeared satisfied with that explanation, and the tension faded visibly from their bodies.

"I still don't see how you could have done it," insisted Logan. "There's no room on a galley for animals, other than a few trussed sheep or pigs for slaughter on a long journey. The very thought is madness."

I agreed with him. "We would not have been looking for a galley like yours, a longboat. We would have required something much larger, with a wooden deck and some means of shelter for the beasts. Something like the bireme that left this morning."

"Hmm." Feargus interrupted, waving Logan to silence. "How essential are these horses to you?"

I shrugged. "They are not, now that the choice has narrowed to remaining here with them or going without them. We'll leave them behind. Do you have a favoured weapon. Feargus?"

"Aye," he answered, dropping his right hand to the shaft of a short, heavy- headed axe with a wide blade that hung from his belt. "This. I rely on it because of my size. I find it gives me an advantage over bigger men that's more than enough."

I nodded. "I think the same way of our horses. Mounted, each of us can master six or seven on foot."

He turned to Donuil. "And you, Prince Donuil, do you feel the same?"

"I do." Donuil paused. "I do now. It took me a long time, though, to learn the truth of that."

"Hmm." Feargus stood up, his face furrowed in thought, and walked around to the other side of the fire, his head bowed, his tiny hands clasped at the small of his back. Watching him, I found nothing ridiculous in the size of him. He paced for a while, then turned and beckoned for Logan to join him, after which the two of them walked off to a distance, muttering together. I looked at Donuil.

"What d'you think that's all about?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said, his eyes on the ill-matched pair across the fire.

Their colloquy, whatever its content, was brief, and they returned directly to where we waited. Feargus, whom I had long since identified as the senior of the two, dropped to the ground, his back against a log and his elbow crooked over it, and spoke his mind without preamble.

"I think King Athol would enjoy seeing his son atop a horse as big as those you ride, accompanied by good friends. You know that empty vessel in the town, tied up by the dock . . . the thing like a big coracle . . ."

"It's a barge. What about it?" I felt a flutter of excitement.

"A barge. Would it transport your horses?"

"Aye, and all of us, but we can't reach it, and even if we could, we could not move it, since it has to be towed."

"Behind a bireme?" He was smiling slightly now, and my excitement increased.

"Aye, or even a longboat, were it big enough."

"What about two fair-sized galleys?"

I was sitting erect now. "How would we reach the barge, guarded as it is?" I asked, knowing the answer from the grin that now split his elfin features.

"We go in from the water and take it. No one will expect anything like that. An empty barge is worthless. We send swimmers in before dawn to cut it loose, and then attack when the sun comes up. One galley to pull it off empty and the other to discourage interference."

And so it came about that the banners, the men and the horses of Camulod travelled to Eire in an open barge, pulled slowly behind Erse warriors and at the utter mercy of the winds, which graciously held their breath. BOOK TWO

EIRE

XI

Eire appeared to us as a mystical dreamscape, emerging silently and almost imperceptibly through the thick fog of an eerie dawn when nothing moved, not even the waters beneath our keel, and the only sounds to be heard were those we made ourselves. Ahead of us, attached by the long, heavy tow rope that sagged now beneath the motionless waters between us, Logan's galley drifted, looming dimly like a spectre in the fog, its big sail furled and its oars raised clear of the sea, so that the water dripping from the blades could be clearly heard by all of us. We lined the sides of our floating platform in silence, the moisture condensing on our armour and rolling down leather and metal like rain, each of us gazing intently to where, ahead and to our right, the fog bank seemed to thicken into solidness. Beside me, Dedalus leaned forward, his hands braced on the rail, the heavy wool of his cloak beaded with drops of water. Quintus stood next to him, and in the dim light I saw vapour coming from his mouth and nostrils as he breathed, and water dripping steadily down the back of his cuirass from the neck guard of his helmet. Someone behind me cleared his throat nervously and the stillness settled again, pressed down beneath the weight of the fog, absolute and impenetrable. A horse moved restlessly, stamping a hoof once on the solid planking of the deck, the sound damp and muffled and echoless, and still the silence persisted as we drifted. No one had warned us to be quiet. We had assumed our mantle of stillness in response to the sudden absence of sound from the galley. If those fierce Ersemen chose to proceed in stealth, we on our ungainly barge were glad to follow their example without prompting.