Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Donuil grunted. "Hmm! That's what my father meant by folly. You could have been killed and that would have been a tragedy, especially in such a useless, unpremeditated way as that."

"Unpremeditated, perhaps, Donuil, but far from useless. It led me to Cullum's spear."

"What d'you mean?"

"I succeeded by accident, but I did succeed."

"So?" He unslung a wineskin from his shoulder where it had hung unnoticed by me and swallowed a mouthful of its contents. "You were fortunate Cullum was there. On the spot, by your own admission."

"I know, but that's not what I mean. The spear was wrong, but it felt right, too. I killed the bear by chance, but I could easily have killed it the same way on purpose."

He glanced sideways at me, and his response was heavy with irony. "Forgive me, Commander Merlyn, but what you are saying sounds like nonsense to me. What, exactly, are you trying to say?"

"No, it's not nonsense. Give me some of that." He passed me the wineskin and I gulped at it heartily before asking, "Where did you get this?"

"Camulod. I brought it with me."

"Damnation," I said, regretting that I had not thought to do the same. "Anyway, I don't think what I'm saying is nonsense. Before Uncle Varrus died, the last thing he said to me was that we still had much to learn from the weapons, the old ones, in his Armoury, and he mentioned Alexander and the sarissa specifically. Alexander's chosen bodyguard, the Companions they were called, rode into battle carrying an enormous spear over their shoulders.

They charged and left the spear in the first man they struck. Created havoc among their enemies. But that's what made me think of seizing that spear from Cullum." I stopped, and took another mouthful of wine. I was thinking carefully about my words now, wanting to clarify my thoughts to Donuil and to make him see the potential of the half-formed idea that was exciting me.

"I don't know the feel of a sarissa, but I know that boar spear was too heavy—too much weight in the head, and the shaft's too thick. And yet the sarissa was five, perhaps six arm's-lengths long and Cullum's spear no more than four. When I hit that bear at full gallop, it was like riding headlong into a wall. It stopped me solidly. But the ridge of the saddle against my back added to the impact. I flew off and almost broke my back, because I had both hands on the spear. I wasn't holding the reins. If the saddle hadn't stopped me, I would have been pushed from the back of the horse at the first impact. Do you follow me?"

"No, quite honestly, I don't, but go on."

"Donuil, I think it was that extra punch from the saddle back that drove the spearhead all the way through the bear's neck. You remember the tale of the first time I smashed the vase in Uncle Varrus's Armoury?" He nodded, his eyes betraying his interest. "Well, that's the kind of leverage I'm talking about. I think, I'm not certain, but I think that if I had been holding a lighter spear, still strong, but with a smaller head—or even a longer one like the sarissa—and if I had been holding it under my armpit, and if I had been leaning forwards when I hit the bear, instead of backwards, and if I'd had the reins tight in my left hand and my legs braced properly, controlling my horse . . ." My voice trailed away.

"A profusion of 'ifs,' Merlyn."

"I know, I know, but bear with me, Donuil. What I'm trying to put into words here is important. I believe that if I had done all of those things, I could have driven that spear clean through that bear, even through its chest, without being unhorsed."

He looked me straight in the eye, all trace of levity gone. "Without being unhorsed. You really believe that?"

I nodded. "Yes. Completely. Anyway, I want to try it. Alexander's Companions always lost their spears on their first charge, because they had no way of holding on to them, they could not brace themselves against shock. We can. Our stirrups give us the option of using spears, hitting hard with them and retaining them to use again."

Donuil was frowning now, deep in thought. "You could be right, Caius, but not with a spear as long as the one you seem to be describing. That's far too long, it seems to me. I know I'm no cavalryman, not yet, but it seems to me that what you should be talking about is a spear that's long enough to take a man in front of you chest high, whether he be mounted or on foot, knock him down, and be short enough to pivot under you and be pulled out by the force of your momentum as your horse goes on past him."

"Exactly, Donuil! That is exactly what I mean. So perhaps it might be half the length of a sarissa. Three arm's-lengths."

"Aye, that's more like it. Three arm's-lengths, at the most. A light, strong spear, heavier than a javelin, stronger than a pilum, with a long, unbarbed head that will pull out clean. Should I have our smith attempt to make one? I can have him start on it tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be difficult to make, merely a variation on the spears he makes already." His enthusiasm was total, and infectious. I grinned at him.

"Why not? I'll come with you when you talk to him. The sooner he tries, the sooner we'll see whether or not I'm right. Now pull me up, I'm beginning to feel like a tired old man, and that illicit wine of yours has made me hungry. Is it still raining?"

Donuil returned my grin. "It's always raining, that's why the land is so green. Our gods want to ensure that we never become ungrateful for the sunlight, so they dole it out to us in tiny rations; each day of sunshine reminds us of the beauty of our land, but they're few and far enough between to make sure that we never become overused to it. Come then, let's get you up and moving, and if you feel up to it, we can eat with Connor. His wife killed a young pig three days ago and she's roasting some of it tonight."

It was still raining heavily the following morning when we went looking for the local smith, trudging almost ankle-deep through muddy water that seemed to have nowhere to drain to, although in fact it all drained into the nearby river. The smith to Athol's people was a man called Maddan, and no one setting eyes upon him for the first time could have thought him anything but a smith, even discounting the ingrained soot and charcoal that polished his visible skin to a glossy black in places. He was short and stocky, broad of shoulder and thick of forearm, wearing only a rough tunic beneath the thick, heavy leather apron that protected him from flying sparks. I smiled on seeing him, for he was, as I had expected, clean-shaven and therefore something of an oddity among the hirsute, bearded and mustached Scots. I had never known a bearded smith except my Uncle Publius, and even he had kept his beard close-cropped and neat in the Roman fashion, not, as he had once explained to me, because he thought that highly of Roman styles, but simply because a beard was a hazard for a smith, liable to ignite at any time while he worked at his forge.

Maddan knew his craft and understood very quickly what we were seeking. He had, of course, been present in the meadow the previous day and had seen my struggles with the bear and the boar spear. When I began to explain how my thoughts had developed after that encounter, he nodded his head immediately and thereafter listened in carefully attentive silence as I outlined my idea. As soon as I had finished speaking he grunted and disappeared into the farthest recesses of the gloomy cavern that was his smithy, emerging shortly afterward with a spearhead that was almost as large as the one on Cullum's weapon.

"This might do, to start out with," he suggested, dropping it on a counter-top with a metallic clang. "It's rusted, but that's easily mended. Forge'll take care of that. I made it last month, but I was in too much haste and I made it too big and too heavy. It's too big for what you want, but not by much. I can lengthen it and narrow the head, and by the time you decide on the kind of shaft you want, it should at least give us a working model we can make adjustments from. What d'you think?"