Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

The following morning, soon after sunrise, Athol sought me out again, and once more we sequestered ourselves in his "sometime" house, free from interruptions and the daily commerce of the settlement. He had thought further, he told me, on what we had talked of the night before, and had lain awake almost until the sky had begun to pale with the new day. His bearing gave no hint of sleeplessness, for all that, reminding me of Luke's observation that the aging process differs in each of us. It evidently affected Athol only superficially if, at his age, he could so easily forego a night of sleep.

He began by questioning me on Britain, particularly on the lands that lay between Camulod and Glevum, where we had met with his envoys, Feargus and Logan. He asked about the nature of the countryside; whether it was densely wooded like his own territory, or more open to the sun. He wished to know about the people: Was the territory populated? If so, by whom? Did they farm the land? Who claimed the land? He knew it was not Camulodian ground, but to whom, then, did it belong?

I tried to answer all his questions, although I wondered why he would ask such things and asked several questions of my own, inquiring whether he had plans for colonizing Britain. No, he assured me, smiling, all he sought was local knowledge. If his grandson were ever to be living in that place, he felt it fitting to know as much about the region as he could learn. I accepted that and told him that all of the territory around Glevum lay in the Pen- dragon lands, to which Arthur himself was the true heir, and it was clear the information

Soon after the noonday meal I begged leave of him to ready my men and made my way out through the gates of the Scots' stronghold to where my cavalry, such as it was, had already assembled to wait for me. Only Donuil was missing. I had left him behind with his father and the other counselors, charged with the responsibility of explaining the few brief manoeuvres we would be presenting for their amusement. The delegation was an act both of self-preservation and consideration; Donuil's horsemanship was still far from the equivalent of the others', and his participation might have endangered the brief exhibition we were to mount. Besides, I saw no point in making his shortcomings as a cavalryman obvious to his own people. As it was, I felt acutely embarrassed at the paucity of the resources at our disposal in this exercise, and had I been able to conceive of any means of avoiding what lay ahead I would gladly have grasped it. Always a believer in the strength of initial impressions, I felt strongly that there could be no advantage to Camulod or its reputation in presenting a vague shadow of its potency. If the thing could not be done right, I saw no benefit to anyone in doing it at all. The thought of eight men attempting to portray the power of Camulod's thousands seemed ludicrous to me. The king, however, had requested a demonstration, and I felt honour bound to indulge him.

My men looked their best, dressed in the finery I had insisted they bring along for formal occasions, and their equipment and armour gleamed in the watery afternoon sunlight. It had rained heavily through most of the morning and I had begun to hope that the day might be too inclement to permit a public gathering, but these hopes were dashed in the late forenoon, when the sun broke through the cloud cover and encouraged great wedges of blue sky to follow it. I saw Dedalus sitting his horse slightly apart from the others, holding the reins of my black, and made my way towards him. There was no formalized order of rank among my companions; all of them were capable of command and each of them had known his fellows too long for such niceties to be necessary. On this occasion, however, Ded seemed to have assumed the lead. I went straight to where he sat, thanking him with a nod as I took my reins and pulled myself up into Germanicus's saddle. He nodded back, indicating the crowd of Scots who had already assembled on the gently sloping meadow outside the walls.

"They're out in force, expecting a spectacle. I hope they won't be disappointed. Eight men won't amount to much of a cavalry charge."

I grinned at him, refusing to allow my face to show how much I shared his misgivings. "Rely on it, old friend, they will be impressed. Bear in mind they have never seen anything like us before. The mere size of our horses is enough to awe them, and their armour, even the best of it, is paltry beside ours. When they see a line of us, leg to leg in formation, charging them at the gallop, they won't even think to count and see that we are only eight. They'll see only force and power, weight and threat, and terror is the only thing they'll feel." I looked him over carefully, from the freshly unpacked and carefully brushed centurion's crest of horsehair bristles on his helmet to the polished silver mountings on his spurred boots. Dedalus wore the crest of a senior centurion, a primus pilus of the Second Augusta Legion, which had served faithfully in Britain for almost four centuries, based in the legionary fortress of Isca Dumnoniorum, now reduced to the sad, dilapidated huddle known merely as Isca. He had never served in the Second Augusta, gone since before his birth, but his great-grandfather had, and the crest had been passed down from him to Dedalus, who wore it with as much pride as had his ancestor. It was dyed to a startling, chalky white and the horsehair bristles projected a full handspan above the crest's silver mounting, which sat across the helmet's crown from side to side, rather than from front to back like a staff officer's. The effect was striking.

"You look magnificent," I told him. "So do the others, but that centurion's crest is finer even than Rufio's."

He grunted. "It is. It's Second Augusta. Rufio's is a mere imitation: Twentieth Valeria."

"Careful, Centurion," I grunted. This was an oft-repeated piece of raillery. "My own grandfather commanded the Twentieth, as Legate. Given the opportunity, he would probably have kept your grandfather hopping. In his day, the Twentieth took second place to none."

Dedalus sniffed. "Aye," he said disdainfully. "So I've heard. Second place to none. That's why the Second Augusta lads were proud to call themselves 'None.' " He looked around at the others, most of whom were watching us, waiting for my signal. "But you're right, we look good. And so we should. When you sent word to me last night about this nonsense, the men were all too far gone in drink for me to make any arrangements, so I let them sleep. But they were all up at dawn, cursing you and me, and I've had them hard at work preparing for this ever since."

Dedalus was the only man among us who would drink neither wine nor ale nor mead. The only things I had ever seen him drink were water and the juice of fresh-crushed fruit: apples, pears and plums. All of us had long since grown used to this strangeness in him, and I knew from many past experiences that it made him utterly reliable at times when, were it not for him and his sobriety, no man could have done service.

"Look at the size of that thing," he muttered, gesturing with his head to some point behind my shoulder. "Surely in the name of all the ancient gods he doesn't throw it?" I turned to see what he meant and saw Rufio talking down from his horse to a stocky, massively muscled Scot who clutched an enormous spear, bigger than any I had seen before. As I looked, Rufio reached out and grasped the shaft of the thing, trying to lift it. It was as thick as his forearm at the base, and scarcely tapered towards the head, which consisted of a heavy, wickedly barbed, spade-shaped blade that reared up far above the head of the mounted centurion. Curious, both about the Scot and his weapon, I kicked my horse into motion and walked across to where they were. He saw me coming and eyed me calmly and I nodded a greeting as I approached. Rufio turned to me, alerted by his companion's look.