Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

Starting to my feet, I flung myself towards it, feeling the water tugging at my armoured legs as I progressed. Deeper and deeper the water grew as the boat bobbed just beyond my reach, until I knew that one more step would take me under. Then, drawing a mighty breath, I launched myself with all my strength and felt the fingers of my right hand grasp the tailboard of the vessel. I scrambled and clawed and soon had both hands firmly in place, knowing that if I let go now I would drown, sinking straight to the bottom in all my armour. I waited and drew several deep breaths, gathering my strength, and then heaved myself up, swinging my right leg up and around to hook my heel over the side. It lodged on the wrong side, hampered by the spur on my heel, and it took great effort to twist it sidewise and inboard so the spur hooked instead on the safe side, holding me firmly. Moments later I had dragged myself up and fallen gasping into the safety of the boat, coughing and spewing bitter salt water, but enjoying the sheer pleasure of lying still, warm and wet, but safe.

I found the baby lying against the single mast, swathed in, and tied into, a black bear skin. A beautiful boy, no more than eight or nine weeks old, his tiny, chubby face was wrinkled in rage, eyes tightly closed as he protested against the hunger he was feeling.

I have never been able, nor am I able now, to describe the emotions that swept over me in those first moments of looking at the child who was to be my ward and this land's too brief-lived glory. I recall the feeling akin to reverence that filled me as I undid the bindings around the bear skin and peeled it away to look at him. He was swaddled in a long, white cloth that was stained and wet with the signs of his discomfort, and as I picked him up and loosened it his howls of outrage grew louder. Shortly thereafter, I held him naked, save for a soiled loincloth, and marvelled at the sturdy strength of him. This tiny, squalling mite was Uther's son, the fact attested to not by his red-gold hair, but by the red dragon crest of Pendragon on the signet ring fastened by a gold chain around his tiny neck. This was my nephew of a kind, blood nephew of my dear, dead wife Cassandra and nephew equally of my faithful friend Donuil, and in his veins, surging in virile potency, ran the pure Roman blood of the families of Publius Varrus and of my own grandfather Caius Britannicus, mingled with the royal Celtic blood of Ullic Pendragon, and of Athol, High King of the Scotii, the Scots of Hibernia. Here, in these minuscule, clenched fists, red face and squalling lungs, was a potential giant, distilled of a truly powerful concoction. A Leader, perhaps, to weld together the strongest elements of the people of this land of Britain. A King, perhaps, to wield Excalibur. In my mind, I clearly heard again the words Publius Varrus had spoken to me upon his deathbed: You'll know the day, and you'll know the man. If he hasn't come before you die, pass the Sword on to someone you can trust. Your own son. You'll know. You've been well taught. And you have learned well. You found the secret of the Lady, Cay, and then the secret of the saddle. You'll find the secret of the King, someday. You'll know him as soon as you set eyes on him. I looked at this small prince and I knew him and I shivered with foreknowledge, recalling another dream of a shining, silver sword piercing a stone.

As though conscious of my awe, the child stopped screaming and looked directly up at me with wide eyes and my breath caught in my throat. He was well haired, his skull covered with thick, red, curling locks, the kind of curling hair that reminded me of my great-uncle Publius Varrus. But it was his eyes that gave me pause. I had never seen anything like them, yet I had read of them in Varrus's books. They were the deep, golden eyes of a raptor, a mighty bird of prey, an eagle. I had never heard of or seen a baby with golden eyes, but I knew that this baby's great- grand-uncle Caius Britannicus had had such eyes. I drew him close to me, smelling the baby smells of him and knowing I would have to clean him soon, knowing also that I knew not how. And then I raised my eyes for the first time since boarding this craft, and looked towards the shore.

There, shockingly distant and far to my right, I saw my black horse standing on the beach, watching me, his head tilted to one side as though he wondered where I was going. He was the only living thing on all that long stretch of sand, and behind him the land rose rapidly to form a line of cliffs against the sky. We had already drifted almost to the mouth of the bay, and the broad, deep stretch of water between the boat and the beach told me that we would not be returning there today. The breeze that had sprung up, blowing from the land, was gentle on my face, but it was strong enough to drive our boat further from the land with every heartbeat. For a long, long time I knelt there, holding the now quiet child protectively against my breast as we drifted out to sea. Together we watched the shores of South Britain fall further and further behind us.

THE END

Book II Metamorphosis

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in Viking by Penguin Books Canada Limited, 1994

Published in Penguin Books, 1995

109876

Copyright © Jack Whyte, 1994 All rights reserved.

Publisher's note: The Eagles' Brood is based in pari on actual events, but all the principal characters are fictional.

Manufactured in Canada.

Canadian Cataloguing In Publication Data

Whyte, Jack, 1940- The eagles' brood

ISBN 0-14-017048-0

PS8595.H88E34 1995 C813\54 C94-931222-3 PR9199.3.W58E34 1995

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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