Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

"You called him evil. Why would you say that about him?"

"Because he hates women."

I began to relax, feeling a superior smile invade my face. "Come now, Auntie! How does that make him evil? I can think of a dozen men I know who have no liking for women." Ludo's face had popped into my mind immediately.

"Caius, listen to me," she snapped, utterly impatient with my male obtuseness. "Listen to what I am saying. I know men, and what they like and dislike. That one hates women. He cannot conceal his hatred. He tries to dissemble it, but it comes out. I am not suggesting the man is effeminate; I am saying he is depraved."

I was frowning by this time. "Auntie, I remember seeing him, but I don't remember anything about him. Who is he? Where will I find him? And why would you think he could do such a thing? I mean, disliking women, even hating them, is one thing, but beating a girl almost to death for no reason other than that is another matter altogether. Particularly if the man is a Christian priest."

Aunt Luceiia sat erect and began to pleat a fold in her gown, looking down at her hands almost primly. "You know Bishop Patricius?" I nodded, and she continued. "He is a pleasant man, and well-meaning, but he is not half the man his predecessor, Bishop Alaric, was." Alaric had been a dear and lifelong friend to my great-aunt and all her family and I knew him well from their writings. "I saw that the first time I met him, but I could not condemn him for that. God makes very few Alarics. Patricius will be an able enough bishop, but not an inspiring one. He lacks the human insight Alaric had.

"Anyway, Patricius came here to visit me, and he brought this Remus with him. I did not like him then. He disturbed me, but I said nothing to Patricius. Remus returned that same day you and Uther did, and I sent him away. I am not normally discourteous or inhospitable, but he offended me deeply and so I banished him. I told him to leave my house and this fort immediately and never to return. I threatened to call the guards and have him escorted from the main gates, but he left before I could do so."

I was impressed. The man must have been a boor indeed to have such an effect on my aunt, who was the most gentle- natured person I had ever known.

"What did he do to offend you so deeply?"

"He was himself, that is all. He refused to accept a drink from the hands of one of my serving girls. He dashed the cup from her hands and told her to stay away from him, that she was unclean! Unclean, Caius! In my house!"

"I see. So what did you do then?"

"I threw him out. Told him to leave immediately, not just my house, but Camulod itself. He was unwelcome here and would remain so."

"And you threatened to call the guards?"

"Yes."

"But you didn't?"

"No." She shook her head. "I told you, there was no need to. He left."

"And? That was all of it?"

"No, not quite. That was all that happened, but there was something else that I dismissed at the time because it was unimportant: He walked with a slight limp, and instead of a staff, he leaned on a curious stick, strongly made and shaped to fit his hand."

"Sweet Jesus! Why have you waited so long to tell anyone this?"

She threw up her head, in mute protest at my outraged tone, her face betraying a strange mixture of resentment and guilt, and the asperity of her immediate response showed me how deeply conscious she was of having said nothing about this earlier. "Because I did not know until this afternoon that the girl had been beaten with a stick. When I heard that, I sent for you at once. It was late in the afternoon when this man Remus left here. Almost dusk. I think now he might have lingered in the fort and spent the night in the stables."

"Might have!" I was on my feet. "Auntie, you did well to make the association with the stick and tell me this. How well, you may never know. But I wish you had screamed for your guards at the time this happened. Excuse me now, I have to find this man." I kissed her on the cheek and almost ran out of there.

A search of the entire fort, backed up with intensive questioning, produced only five people who had seen this priest, and all of them had seen him on the way to Aunt Luceiia's quarters. No one had seen him leave again, and no one had seen any sign of him after that. I sent out patrols to scour our entire territory in search of him, but it was hopeless. He had had three days and three nights to remove himself and we found no trace of him, nor was anyone resembling him ever seen again in our lands. Proof of his existence had, however, established reasonable doubts of Uther's guilt in my mind, and I was glad of them. There was another suspect, the only one, as far as Aunt Luceiia was concerned, and I did not undervalue her judgment.

Notwithstanding all of that, a secondary reason for my failure to confront Uther with Cassandra was the fact that life in Camulod quickly returned to normal, which meant that a messenger arrived, begging our help against a raiding party of Saxons to the south-east. My father had just returned from a patrol sweep, and so I was sent out with a flying column to do what I could against the raiders. They were long departed, safely back at sea by the time we arrived, however, so after remaining for a day with the villagers, doing what we could to help put their lives together again, we headed back to the fort.

Uther had returned during my absence, offering no explanation of where he had been, but accompanied by twenty of his father's bowmen, and had already left again, this time on a routine sweep of our territories in the southwest. I was glad to have missed him by several hours, for even with my reasonable doubts established, I still did not relish the thought of meeting him face to face with my remaining concerns unresolved.

"How was he?" I asked my father.

'The same as ever, just Uther. No guilt in evidence, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. Did you tell him the story?"

"I did, yes."

"How did he react?"

"Shock, and concern. Both, I felt, quite genuine. But he didn't believe the story of her magical disappearance. He knew you had something to do with it."

"How could he know that?"

"He didn't know anything, Cay. He merely said it smelled like one of your tricks."

"What tricks?" I remember the injured innocence in my voice before the next thought occurred to me. "You didn't tell him how we did it, Father? Did you?"

"No, I did not, nor did he ask me."

"I wonder if he asked Titus?"

"I asked Titus that. He didn't."

"So," I shrugged my shoulders, hitching my armour so it hung more comfortably, "shock, concern and no guilt. Good for Uther." I shook my head. "I'll be glad when this affair is over, one way or the other."

The next day I rode out to the valley to check on Cassandra, hoping to find her much improved. She was. I could see that the moment I opened the door of the hut. She was sitting up against the wall, feeding herself with a spoon from a bowl that Daffyd held for her. I looked around the interior of the tiny room.

"Hello, Daffyd. Where are the boys?"

"Hello, yourself, Princeling. They are gone. I sent them home days ago. They were driving me mad, cooped up in here like a couple of randy weasels."

"How is she?" She was staring at me over Daffyd's shoulder and her eyes were enormous, far bigger than I remembered. The bruising had begun to heal, and her whole face was now a mottled, yellow colour, tinged with blue in places. There were a couple of small scabs on her eyebrows, and around her mouth where her lips had been split open.

"She is recovering. Don't you think she looks better?"

"Aye, she does. How are her teeth?" I did not know what had prompted me to ask that.

"Oh, she'll bite again. They are all still there. Two were a little loose, but they are stiffening. She's young and she's healthy and mending fast."