Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

Ullic was suddenly looking around him, almost furtively. "Watch what you say, Publius," he muttered hoarsely. "Priests are not famous for their tolerance when mocked."

His comment surprised me and made me feel slightly ashamed, as though he had caught me doing something beneath my dignity. I cleared my throat to cover the sudden confusion he had stirred in me and made amends immediately.

"Come, Ullic, I would not mock your priests, nor your beliefs, I merely said what I have often thought, in the hope that it might amuse you. I can see that it was thoughtless of me. Forgive me."

Cay spoke up. "Where will we meet tomorrow? Must it be in private?"

"No," I replied, "not necessarily, although I would rather keep the content of our talk among ourselves at this stage."

"Well then, why don't we all ride down to the villa? We can talk on the way, have a cup of wine there and then ride back."

"Sounds fine to me," Ullic said. "But why go to the villa? We could take a wineskin with us and ride overland."

"True, we could," I agreed. "But it suits me that Cay would want to go to the villa. While we are down there, I have something I would like to show both of you. Don't ask me what it is, for I won't tell you. I'll show you what it is tomorrow. Now, let's go and do our duty as fathers of the father and mother yet to be."

"That leaves me out!" Cay sounded aggrieved.

I laughed and threw my arm around his shoulders. "Don't be silly, Cay, you're an honorary father for the day."

As we approached the entrance to the Council Hall, someone called Ullic by name. He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. When Cay and I stopped too, he waved us on.

"You two go ahead, I'll join you presently. I have to talk to Cymric here."

We continued walking, and I found myself shrugging mightily in a vain attempt to get my cloak to hang more comfortably. I felt like a walking anvil, so great was the weight of metal I was carrying, and I was looking forward now to getting into the shade of the Council Hall, out of the hot, strong sun.

Cay and I stepped through the main entrance and stopped there, blinking our eyes to adjust to the gloom after the brightness of the sunshine outside. There was a false wall, or partition, just inside the entrance, creating the semblance of an entrance vestibule and serving also to shield the interior from outside when the main doors were open. Picus was standing there, one arm outstretched, leaning his weight on the partition, and between him and the wall was Ullic's sister, Enid. Picus still wore his helmet and his cloak and both he and Enid were oblivious to our entry, having eyes only for each other. The tension between them was almost tangible, an aura of taut sexuality apparent in their very stance. I looked at Caius and found he was already looking at me, his eyebrow riding high on his forehead. Wordlessly, we made our way around to the other side of the partition without disturbing the couple. I am not normally perceptive of subtleties, my wife has often told me, but even I could pick up on the situation between Picus and Enid. It was as subtle as a kick in the groin.

As I was passing out of their sight, however, it occurred to me quite forcibly that if Ullic stepped through that door as we had done, and received the same impressions that had come immediately to me, he might be moved to react in a way that could be regretted by everyone concerned. The sexual force these two were generating by just standing together was that strong. I started to turn back, but then stopped myself. These two were full-grown, old enough to do whatever they wished to do. He was an imperial legate and a commander of cavalry, and she was a princess and a ripe, mature woman. What they did was no business of mine. I left them to their own devices.

Caius and I joined the revelry; Picus joined us shortly after, showing no sign of anything unusual, but every now and then I could see him looking off across the hall, and there she would be, looking straight back at him. The thing that amazed me most about this was that I seemed to be the only person present who was aware of the sparks flying back and forth across the gathering. I passed a remark to Luceiia about it and completely failed to stir a spark of interest in her. She looked around cursorily to find Enid seated some tables away, engaged in conversation, as chance would have it, with the fellow next to her. Picus was likewise talking at the time with someone else and looking nowhere in Enid's direction. Luceiia frowned at me in some perplexity and started to say something, then changed her mind and gave my hand a squeeze and launched into a retelling of the conversation she had had with two of the Council members' wives after the wedding ceremony. I sat there feeling foolish and let her words pour over me, in one unlistening ear and out the other, thinking that women, even the best of them, could be unutterably blind, even when telling us how blind we are.

My other recollections of that day's proceedings are like my memories of a fight; fragmented, frozen images: the bride, my daughter, radiant with joy, holding her husband's arm tight to her side, laughing into my eyes; the great, brown hill bear I had seen outside, dancing and beating on a tambourine; some of Ullic's men tumbling and spinning, turning somersaults in the air; a roasted swan, its flawless feathers back in place, surrounded by a flock of roasted ducks and geese, passing before me on a massive board carried by several men; and my own owlish eyes peering back at me from the surface of the wine in the goblet I was peering into. It was a grand feast, I gather; for perhaps the third time in my life, I was carried senseless to my bed. But then, I was the father of the bride.

I awoke in pitch-darkness, with no idea of where I was; I knew I was abed, but that was all. I could hear people singing drunkenly, off in the distance, and my memory came back to me slowly. I was in our tent, outside the walls of the new fort. I reached out slowly for Luceiia, but she was not there, and that left me wondering what hour of the night it was. I struggled upright to a sitting position and immediately wished I hadn't done so; my head felt as though all the smiths of Vulcan's forge were pounding inside it.

I was groaning unashamedly, in a fine stew of self-pity, by the time I got to the opening of the tent, and there I stopped, stung by the cool night air into realizing that I was wearing nothing more than my tunic. I wondered who had taken off my armour and my clothes. And then I wondered how.

Going back to the pile of furs that was my bed, I fumbled about in the darkness and finally found the cedar chest that contained my clothes. Luceiia had insisted I bring my sheepskin tunic, knowing that the nights would still be cool up here on the hill. It took a minute or two of ill-natured groping and fumbling in the dark before I located the heavy sheepskin, but then I pulled it over my head and went back to the entrance of the tent, throwing the leather flaps wide to admit the moonlight. The improvement was great and immediate. I then found my sandals and took down a woollen cloak from a peg on the tent pole before going outside to sit on the ground and lace up my sandals, realizing that even the light from the crescent moon was painful to my eyes. I was not happy; in fact, I could not remember ever having felt quite so awful as the result of what were supposed to be pleasurable activities. The ground felt cold against my backside, too, so I struggled back to my feet, groaning again, and re-entered the tent to pull a couple of skins from the sleeping pile. There was a tree of some kind no more than a few paces from the front of my tent. I threw the skins down at its base and seated myself carefully upon them with my back to the trunk, my cloak wrapped tightly around my shoulders as I breathed very deeply, gulping great draughts of the cool night air and squeezing my eyes tight shut.