Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

A single glance around having shown me that everything was happening as it should, I crossed to where I had left Publius Varrus's great bow leaning against a tree bole in the sunlight. It had been among my first concerns, after the welfare of my men. At the earliest opportunity, I had dried it carefully and coated it with a fresh covering of the light oil I always carried in a tiny bottle in my scrip, working the lubricant thoroughly into the surfaces with a soft, dry cloth. It was the same oil that Publius Varrus had always used in the bow's upkeep. I had been concerned about the effect of sea water on the old weapon's triple-layered composition—the smooth, deeply polished wood of its outer curve was backed by a layer of carefully grafted animal horn, which, in turn, was reinforced by a third layer of densely woven animal sinew, painstakingly plaited into a resilient strip, then stretched, glued into place and carefully dried and shrunk by a master craftsman now dead for more than a hundred years. I had been grateful to see no signs of deterioration in any part of the huge bow, although the rational part of me knew that its highly glossed finish was proof against a mere soaking, that the glue that bonded its layers together had endured for more than ten decades and showed no signs of deterioration, and that in any event, the weapon had not been immersed for long enough to have sustained damage. Satisfied that it was unharmed, I hefted it and turned it in my hand, checking the condition of the half-dozen bowstrings of woven gut I had wrapped tightly around the shaft, spiralling from one end to the other, to allow them to dry out, too. They were drying evenly; still too damp to use, since they would stretch when moist, but showing signs of hardening again.

A leather satchel inverted over a nearby bush had been filled with my supply of arrows, each of which Donuil had dried individually, to avoid rust on the heads, and laid out fiat while I took care of the bow. I could see traces of salt riming the feathers of the flights, but that would easily be dislodged between a finger and thumb. As I stood there, looking down at them, I heard a voice shout, "There they are!" and then a chorus of cheers told me that Feargus's galley had returned. As I looked, it came surging around the headland to the north, under full oars and sail, its prow slicing through the waves that had risen with the slight wind. Their lookout had seen us before we saw them, for the long, sleek vessel was turning sharply, cutting towards us, headed directly towards Logan's moored craft. It came impressively, swooping like a hawk and then slowing dramatically as the rowers backed water in unison and then allowed it to find its own way until it glided to a halt alongside Logan's vessel and was made fast. I saw Donuil striding along the beach towards the newcomers and I followed him, restraining myself against a ridiculous urge to run and catch up.

Feargus crossed into Logan's galley immediately, ignoring Donuil and me when we climbed aboard and greeted him. Only by a warning gesture of his upraised palm did he indicate his knowledge of our presence, but the peremptory gesture contained enough authority to inform both of us unmistakably that, irrespective of our rank elsewhere, our presence was unwanted until he had discussed the situation with his own subordinate. Donuil and I exchanged a glance and waited by the mast in the middle of the ship, out of earshot of the discussion taking place on the rear deck, until the little man snorted violently, pulled himself up to his full height, and walked to the edge of the deck. There he stared out towards the dark shape of the sunken barge for long moments, his hands clasped together at the small of his back.

I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, thinking to myself that this might be the proper time to assert my own authority, but Donuil's voice murmured gently in my ear.

"Give him time, Merlyn. He takes his responsibilities very seriously, our Feargus, and there's no point in upsetting him more than he is already. In his mind we are in his charge, for the time being, in spite of what we ourselves might think, and we'll remain so until he has delivered us safely to my father's Hall, fulfilling his obligation. He will be seeing our misfortune as his own fault, for all that he was nowhere near when it occurred. As he will see it, his is the command, so his must be the fault. Of course, he's an Erse Outlander, and they're all strange, don't you agree?"

I spun to look at him and saw him smiling. Recognizing his wry allusion to my own attitude to command, I resigned myself to waiting until Feargus was ready to speak. Moments later he turned from his musing and made his way down the central spine of the ship towards us, beckoning Logan to come with him. He stopped just short of us, looking up at Donuil first and then at me.

"This is dangerous. We are in hostile territory, almost ten leagues south of where we ought to be, and by now we should be overrun and dead."

"At whose hands?" He did not even dignify my question with an acknowledgment, let alone an answer. His attention had now focused upon Donuil.

"Yourself will have to remain here, aboard my vessel. The others will have to take their chances on the land, unless they care to come on board and leave the animals here for the Wild Ones."

I straightened up at that. "The Wild Ones" was not what my ears heard but what my mind supplied as a rough translation. Years with Donuil had enabled me by this time to speak his tongue fluently, so close was it to the tongue of Uther's Celts, but now that we were among his own people again, he was conversing naturally with them at great speed and using words and phrases and entire constructions that were alien to me. The phrase I had translated as "The Wild Ones" was one of those. The disdain with which the words were uttered—forming an epithet rather than a name—carried overtones of implacable savagery and inhumanity.

"The Wild Ones?" I looked at Donuil for help, but he was already shaking his head at Feargus.

"No, Feargus, I will not leave my friends here, and they will not leave their horses."

"Don't talk like a fool, Mac Athol! Your father charged me with the guardianship of you, and you will obey me in this as you would himself. I will send half my men to escort your friends overland, out of this place, but your welfare is more important than all of them together."

Donuil turned to me. "What do you say? Will you leave the horses here and come by boat?"

"No." I did not even have to think about it. "How far are we from the nearest road?"

My question startled him. He looked at me and laughed. "From the nearest road?" He waved his hand out to sea. "The nearest road is back there in Britain, Merlyn, beyond the sea! We have no roads in Eire, not in the sense you mean. We have tracks and paths, beaten by passage over the years, but there are no Roman roads linking towns and regions. This is a different land. It has never been conquered or colonized."

I blinked at him and then turned to Feargus, trying to hide my dismay. I had never envisioned an entire country without roads. "Who are these Wild Ones you mentioned, Feargus?" I used my own words, unable to recall the exact phrase that he had used.

He looked at me in disgust. " 'Wild Ones?' That's a pretty name for such as those. They are the creatures of the dark who infest this place. Savages is too weak a word for them. They are mindless and pitiless. They have no system: no king, no chiefs worthy of the name, no government of any kind, no clan structure."

"You mean they are outcasts? Alien?"

"Outcasts?" His bark of savage laughter was derisive. "Cast out of what? They have never belonged to anything except their own madnesses. Alien? That's a strange word I've never heard before, but if it means different then yes, they are alien, as different from ordinary people as the wolf is to a boy's pup. Different indeed. They are all blood mad and all they do is fight. They spend their lives looking for folk to kill, and when they cannot find them they kill each other. It is our law that any of them we find, we kill on sight."