Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Donuil, come help me. Take one for yourself and one for Cardoc there." He brought the other two back to where I sat, handing one of them to me, then sat down again and sipped deeply. I tasted mine. It was delicious, and I said so.

"Aye," he said. "It is, is it not? Shelagh makes it, and holds the secret of its preparation to herself as if it were her child, which, in a way, I suppose it is. Anyway, she'll tell no one what it is she adds to give it that peculiar tang of heat it carries. Others have tried to copy it, but none has come close so far."

I drank again, this time more deeply, and nodded appreciatively. The drink, whatever it was, was excellent, fiery and potent, yet sweet and smooth on the palate.

"It's some kind of mead, but I could not begin to guess at that flavour." I looked around me. "Will your daughter join us?"

"Join us?" He laughed. "Aye, she will that, and will not quit us until she has decided it is time for you three to go home. But for now she is seeing to the cooking of our meal. She insists none but she can oversee these things in the proper manner." He nodded, staring into his cup. "She's quite right, too. None can."

Donuil was saying nothing and looking at no one. He sat staring into the flames of the fire. Cardoc was tuning his instrument, his head cocked sideways in total concentration upon the pitch of each string. 'Tour house is very fine," I said, glancing up into the darkness beneath the roof tree. "Donuil was telling me it is the largest and finest in all King Athol's land."

"It may be so." He nodded modestly "Except for the King's Hall. It is unusual, I know that, but we like it thus, Shelagh and I."

"Do you have a large household?"

He blinked at me. "What do you mean, household?"

I blinked back at him, surprised in turn. "You know, servitors."

"Servitors? I don't know this word."

"Forgive me, servants. You know, a housekeeper, a majordomo . . ." Even as I spoke I was recalling where I was. He was watching me closely and now his face crinkled in amusement.

"Servants, is it? You will forgive my bluntness, I hope, Caius Merlyn, but you are a long way from your home in Britain, when you are here in our little kingdom. There are no servants here, not even in the king's house. There's little of the formal in the way we live our lives, but no man of ours, or woman for that matter, would ever consider accepting the indignity of actually working for another, in that other's house, as a servant, for recompense." He paused, his eyes fixed on mine, and his next words were aimed at putting me at my ease. "I am not offended by your suggestion, Master Merlyn, understand that clearly, please. I know such things are common in your land, where wealthy people have servants and entire retinues of followers and retainers. We have retainers here in Eire, too, but only in the role of warriors, sworn to defend and to assist their king in waging war whenever and wherever war may occur. But we have no servants."

I glanced at Donuil, who was perched sideways in his chair, watching me with a tiny smile hovering about his lips. I nodded, taking no offense where no rebuke had been tendered, but then I asked the question that had been in my mind since Liam started speaking of this.

"Then who, if you will forgive my asking, was the woman who brought in the mead?"

Liam's face split into an enormous grin. "My neighbour, the wife of Maddan the smith. And I must now concede your point. We do have people who work, from time to time, assisting others in the preparation of major events and festivals, but their contribution is always voluntary and they expect the right to share in those events as equals, once the work is done." He hesitated, still smiling. "And, I will admit to you here, as my guest, they do, from time to time, receive other. . . considerations in return for the willing provision of their help."

I nodded, schooling my features to permit no trace of irony to show. "I see," I murmured, nodding.

"Aye. I can see you do." Liam made no attempt to disguise his irony. He turned then to Cardoc, who had finished tuning his instrument. "Cardoc, a song, if you please. Something short and tuneful, until herself joins us." Cardoc inclined his head and began to sing, stroking the strings occasionally to enhance the mood his song evoked, and for a spell all three of us sat entranced, enjoying the smooth, mellow tones of his deep voice and liquid words.

When Cardoc's song eventually died away to silence, no one spoke for a long time, until Liam turned to me again and said softly, "Master Merlyn, I have been sitting here thinking, as I listened to Cardoc, that there must be many things in this land of ours that are strange to you, perhaps confusing. I know how ill it is to be a stranger in an unfamiliar land, unused to the customs of the folk around you, and fearful of committing some offense through simple ignorance, so I wish you to understand you run but little risk of offending anyone here by such an accidental slip. Ask me anything you wish about anything you do not understand. I will answer you as plainly as I can, without evasion." He nodded to where Donuil sat beside me, listening. "Young Donuil here I have known since the day of his birth, and he is an able, worthy young man, but not sophisticated in the ways of such as you and your people. There is much that will simply never have occurred to him as being needful of explanation." He stopped, and then grinned at me, the expression taking years away from the age in his face. "Listen to me, the world traveller. In truth, I can be little better than Donuil, but I am older, and I have travelled farther and more freely than he has, having travelled to your land in my youth."

"You have been to Britain, Master Liam?"

He nodded, his eyes on Cardoc. "Aye, several times. And on one occasion, when I was a mere boy, I remained there for more than a year, living among the Romans, in Londinium."

"You surprise me," I admitted. "What took you there?"

He smiled again and sniffed, turning his gaze back to me and hitching his humped shoulder as he had done before, when I first arrived. "This did. I was an acrobat. That should surprise you even more greatly, I suspect." It did indeed, but he gave me no chance to say so, continuing with that self- deprecating smile I was coming to recognize as one of his key attributes. "Contrary to what most people believe, Master Merlyn, a young hunchback is not necessarily at a loss for normal, bodily movement—within certain clearly defined limits, of course. As a lad, I was agile and physically gifted. What I lacked in dexterity because of my twisted spine was more than compensated for by the greater than normal ease of movement I had in my arms and legs. An ability to contort them, allied with my small size and weight and the naturally amusing quality of my . . . differentness, made me a popular figure at entertainments, and I did well for myself for several years, travelling the lands with a troupe of showmen. We were particularly popular in Britain, where we travelled widely among the various garrisons and military bases, amusing the troops. I have always had a good head on my shoulders, thanks only to good fortune, and I managed to acquire enough in silver, and even a little gold, to start me off in my life here when I grew too old to perform."

"How old were you then?" His recitation had fascinated me.

He drew his brows together, reckoning. "I began to stiffen up in my thirteenth year. . . Once it began, however, it progressed quickly. I began to suffer, as did my performances. Within the year came three consecutive occasions when, where a short time earlier I would merely have fallen and bounced easily to my feet, I broke bones instead; once in my arm, twice in my right leg. By the third time, my tumbling days were finished. I was home less than seven months later, having used my small store of hoarded coin to purchase six healthy, breeding pairs of well-matched goats from the hill country in the north of Britain and then to ship them back here to Eire with me. Iain, Athol's father, who was our king in those days, gave me back the right to farm my father's land—my parents had been dead, and thus my claim forfeit, since shortly after I left home, although I had been unaware of it— and I began to build my own herds and mind only my own affairs from that day forth. By the time King Iain was killed, a half score years later, and Athol elected king in his place, I had established a fine herd of goats and another of cattle, and a few sheep, too." He shrugged, a tiny, self-deprecating gesture. "I suppose I had earned myself a reputation, too, for being both fortunate and singleminded. At any rate, the new king, Athol, sought me out more and more often in the first few years after his election, always to ask for my advice, it seemed to me, on things about which I knew very little, if anything at all." He sniffed again. "I thought at first he came to me merely to placate his first wife, Rhea, who was sister to my mother, but he always seemed to listen to what I had to say, to follow my advice and to value my judgment. . ." He shook his head and sat silent, staring into the fire, obviously overtaken by thoughts that were far removed from where we sat. Neither Donuil nor I sought to interrupt them. I, however, raised my cup to sip again and discovered, to my great surprise, that it was empty. Liam sensed my plight immediately and returned from his wool-gathering.