Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

I felt the small hairs on my arms and at the back of my neck prickle in horror and it must have showed on my face, for he barked his short, abrupt laugh. "That shakes you, eh? It shook me, too, at the time. That woman was black with the guilt of murder and I was the instrument she used, and yet the circumstances did not include her at all. The old man may have been mad with grief and wounded pride, but he was no more insane than I was.

"I told you they fed me with tubes. I had been drugged, through my food, every night and used like a stud bull, but Ambrosianus could not have known that... Somehow, he found out that his wife was amusing herself with me, and under the circumstances he had no other option than to believe that I was her willing partner." He paused for a moment, looking at me keenly before continuing in a clipped, emphatic voice. "You must understand I am not denying that I might have been perfectly willing, had I had any say in the matter, but the old man interpreted the evidence of his own senses and concluded that I was putting horns on him in his own house while enjoying his hospitality.

Had I been him, I might have handled it a little differently, but the whoreson in that bed would have been dead!" He leaned over the table and took the knife from my hand. "How would you have interpreted the 'hard facts' had you been him, Caius?"

I was chagrined, my voice reduced to a whisper by the enormity of what I was only now realizing and appreciating. "I see what you mean, Father."

"I hope so. And don't lose sight of the fact that I said I might have been her willing partner, given the chance. The point is I didn't have the chance—or the choice. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in the final analysis I was not guilty of the sin for which he condemned me."

I dropped my face into my hands and combed my fingers across my scalp, heaving a deep breath. "So where does that leave us with Uther?"

The voice that answered me was gentler than I had ever known it. "Waiting to see how the girl reacts when she is well again and you confront him with her."

"And if he is guilty?"

"Then he pays the price."

"And?"

My father tossed back the remnants of his mead and stood up, reaching for his helmet, and indicating that our conversation was over. "And nothing, Caius. You know as well as I do, the price for violation of a woman in my command is death."

XI

To this day, I find it hard to believe that the confrontation between Uther and Cassandra never did occur. I have no explanation that a rational judge could accept as perfectly plausible. It simply worked out that, for one reason after another, the two were never brought face to face in my presence.

The first and most important of these reasons was that I was provided with genuine grounds for more than reasonable doubt of Uther's guilt by no less a person than my Aunt Luceiia, who had no suspicion of any suggestion of Uther's involvement in the matter.

I was summoned to her quarters on the afternoon of the day my father told me his story, and I went to meet her feeling guilty over my recent neglect of her. Aunt Luceiia was a very old woman by this time and she seldom ventured beyond "the family rooms," as she called her living quarters. From the age of six or seven, through the descriptions in my uncle's books, I had known another Luceiia. Therein I had met her when she was twenty-five, before she became wife to Publius Varrus, and thus she had remained in his writings over the years, unmarred and unimpeded by their passage. In reality, however, more than forty-five years had passed since then, and although the Luceiia Britannicus who lived today showed more than a slight resemblance to the raven-haired beauty of those writings, her hair was now snowy white and her face, still beautiful with its high- cheeked, sculpted lines, was deeply etched by the passage of time. I had not seen her since the day we returned front patrol, when I had stopped by to pay her the obligatory call to mark our safe return. I found her this afternoon, sitting in the light from the glazed window that was her greatest pride, a far more splendid aperture than the one in my hut, being made from four large and carefully fitted sheets of glass so fine that it was almost fully transparent.

As soon as she heard my footsteps, she turned to me and waited with upraised arms for her kiss. I embraced her and she squeezed me fondly. "Oh, you feel good when you're not all wrapped up in armour! I forbid you ever again to wear armour when you visit me, although I suppose that means I'll never see you at all, now that I've given you an excuse."

I took the rebuke as it was intended, gently. "I'm sorry, Auntie. I know I've been neglecting you, but I've been really busy. There's much happening."

She released me from her embrace but continued to hold my upper arms, leaning back slightly to gaze up into my face. "God, how those words sound familiar! That was Publius Varrus's favourite song! But at least he did come home to me, from time to time. He was not like you, staying away and breaking an old woman's heart while he tried to break a young one's hymen."

"Aunt Luceiia!"

"Don't Aunt Luceiia me! I've heard all about you, young man. And you needn't pretend to be shocked, either. One of the few privileges of being an old woman is that you don't have to worry about what people think of you, and another is that you can still remember what it's like to be young. Would you rather have me pretend that I don't recall what life is like? Or that I have never known passion or a man's love? That would dishonour me, as it would Publius Varrus. Here!" She grasped me by the wrist and pulled me down towards her. "Kneel down, boy, I have things to say to you."

Smiling, I knelt in front of her and she leaned close to me, directing her words straight into my eyes. "I—am— alive! Do you believe that, Nephew?"

I laughed aloud. "Of course I believe it, Auntie. What's the matter? Don't you?"

"Oh yes, Nephew, I believe it, but there are too many people around here who do not seem to. They all tippy-toe around me as if I'm not here, or as if I'm. asleep, or dangerously ill, and they are afraid of disturbing me. Even worse, some of them seem to think I am a piece of furniture that remains in the spot where it is placed and is not supposed to communicate anything other than its presence—and that mutely! Hmm!" She nodded her head and stamped her foot emphatically. "But I know what goes on around here," she continued. "More than most people think I know. For one thing, I know about that poor girl in the stables."

My heart almost stopped at the unexpectedness of this. I looked at her for several heartbeats, trying to mask my dismay while she grinned at me with a look of pure triumph. How had she found out? And how much? I forced my voice to remain calm, as I asked, "What do you know, Auntie? What about her?"

"I know who did it."

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. 'Then you know more than anyone else. Who was it?"

"Remus."

"Who?" The name meant absolutely nothing to me.

"Remus. The priest."

"What priest, Auntie?"

"The strange one. You know! Remus, the one with the cold eyes. He is an evil man, that one."

I took a deep breath. "Aunt Luceiia, I have no idea of who, or what, you're talking about."

"Of course you do, Caius, or you've simply forgotten him. I am talking about the priest, the Christian priest they call Remus. At least, he calls himself a priest. You met him here, the day you got back from your last patrol."

I remembered then that there had been a priest in the room when I had last called, but I had paid no more attention to him than I would to any other cleric, which is to say I had ignored him. Aunt Luceiia was always being visited by ecclesiastics on the search for alms and charity, and I had long since stopped paying attention to any of them. They were simply a fact of Aunt Luceiia's life. She was a very religious woman. I swallowed again, hard.