Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

Picus exchanged swords with Ullic and one swing of the new sword was enough to show him that I was right.

"I agree. Too heavy. Clumsy. The first one's far superior."

"Yes, but also no. It's better, but it's far too light in construction. It will bend in battle. It is the prettiest, the most aesthetically pleasing, but it is the least practical of all the prototypes we have tested." I held up the one I was holding. "This is the winner. The best we have come up with to date." I threw it to him hilt first and he dropped the one he was holding to catch the one in the air. He caught it, arm extended, and held it there at arm's length, his eye sweeping from the boss out to its distant point. Long seconds he held it there, unmoving, and then, as though its point were anchored at the centre of a circle, he began to walk around it, watching the light change on the blade as he made the turn. Then he flexed his elbow, bringing the weapon close up to his face until the iron touched his cheek before tilting his head back to look up at the point held vertically above him. This done, he took a slow step forward on his left foot and swung the sword, feeling its weight and balance at every point on its arc.

"There is nothing wrong with this one, Uncle. Much that is right, but nothing wrong."

"Let me try it." Ullic's face was rapt, and Picus handed the weapon over to him and then turned back to me.

"I think you have solved the problem, Uncle."

"So do we," I smiled at him. "Even Equus likes it."

"With the exception of one raw imperfection." Equus's voice was heavy with irony, and I tried to quiet him before he said any more, waving a minatory finger and frowning in reproof as I shook my head sharply, hoping Picus would not see. Naturally, he picked up on it immediately.

"What's wrong? What imperfection?"

I grunted and accepted the inevitable. "A minor imperfection, Picus, far from insoluble," I said. "The iron of the blades is difficult to control, because of its temper and the length of the swords. They bounce off each other and are dangerous to the unwary. But it is not a matter that is insoluble. We're working on it now."

"Then why is Equus so disgusted?"

I smiled at him. "For the same reason as always. He is a perfectionist and refuses to countenance imperfection. In the meantime, the problem I am working with Equus to solve should have no effect on you. I would like you to start immediately training your people to fight with the sword from horseback. By the time you have enough of the swords to begin the training, I should have solved the problem of the cross-hilt."

"The what?"

"The cross-hilt. I'll show it to you when it's done. Far simpler than trying to explain it. Just remember not to let your men even attempt to train against each other with these prototype weapons."

"As you wish, Uncle." Picus's acquiescence was unconditional, but his face betrayed his incomprehension. Nevertheless, he covered himself very well. He turned immediately to Ullic. "What do you think of this sword?"

"I think it is a good sword, as swords go, Picus, but I'll stick to my new bow, my short-sword and my axe."

"You don't like it?"

"Oh, I like it well enough." Ullic's shrug showed his disdain of the new weapon as clearly as his next words. "But what need would I have of a great thing like that? I don't fight on horseback. I walk to fight, and sometimes I run. A long sword like that, I'd be forever tripping over it and falling down. My kingly dignity would suffer sadly."

"Now there's a point, Uncle Varrus." Picus was grinning now, acknowledging Ullic's humour but holding the sword point-down by his waist, where Romans always wore their swords. "A man won't be able to wear this in the traditional way. It touches the ground."

"Aye, so it does," I agreed. "Nor would he be able to draw it right-handed from his right side. Our men will wear their new swords hanging from their necks, across their backs."

"How? In a scabbard?"

"I don't know yet, Picus, but probably through a metal ring attached to a cross-belt. We have plenty of time to work that out. First we have to make the swords. We can decide later how we will carry them."

"How long will it take you to make me two hundred of them?"

I looked at Equus with a smile. "How long, Equus? Two years?"

"About that."

"Two years?" There was pain and anguish in Picus's voice. "Two years? Why? Why so long?"

"Because, my impetuous friend, we have just begun working on this thing, this problem. Even this iron is not tempered properly. We have been more concerned with weight, shape and balance, than with quality at this stage. This weapon has a long, long way to go before it's ready for use in mock combat, let alone in battle."

"Then would you mind if I set my own armourers to work on the design?"

The question surprised me, and I looked at Equus to see his reaction before I spoke again.

"Don't ask me," I said then. "It was Equus who came up with the design. If he has no objections, how can I?"

"Equus?"

My big friend shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I don't mind," he responded. "It's a simple extension of the Roman short-sword in the first place. I'm surprised your Roman armourers haven't come up with it already."

"They have not come up with it, Equus, because they lack what you and Publius Varrus have between you: the genius to look at something that has been unchanged for centuries and see how it can be improved to meet new needs." Picus stopped short and then looked at Equus, and from him to me. "And I have just told myself why I am going to say nothing about this to anyone."

"No, Picus." My interruption was quick and sincere, for I knew what he was going to say next and I knew also that he was wrong. "You cannot do that. You have a duty to Stilicho, if not to your Emperor, and above all that you have a duty to your troops. If this new long-sword can improve their battle strength, you have to get it for them as quickly as you can."

Picus nodded and then glanced from Ullic to Uric. "What do you two think? Is Varrus right?"

Ullic held up his hands, palms outward, his expression one of entreaty and mingled fear and anger, and although it was clear that he was jesting it was equally clear that he was not speaking completely out of mockery.

"Leave me out of this, I want nothing to do with it! Why should I vote in favour of arming Romans better than ourselves? It might come back like a ghost to haunt me someday."

Uric watched his father in some awe, a smile in his eyes, but ventured nothing.

Picus turned back to me. "I will say nothing more on this now, Uncle, but I believe you are correct: this is a better weapon than anything we have, or are likely to have in the near future. I think I am duty-bound to give it to my armourers to play with. My men need this weapon in large numbers."

"So be it, Picus," I answered him. "You have talked yourself right into it, answered your own doubts. Now, let's get over to the house and try that jug of wine."

The wine was excellent, and by the time we saw the bottom of the jug, we had prepared a plan of action for the future that would see our combined forces — Ullic's, Picus's and our own colonists — working closely together in the coming months.

Ullic told us that he now had Cymric and four other bowyers working full-time at fabricating more of his great bows: a lighter, modified version of his original giant weapon, but still a mighty bow. He believed that the time would come when the Long Bow of Ullic, as he grandiloquently termed it, would become commonplace among his people. In the meantime, Uric, he had decided, would spend half of the year with us in the Colony, learning our tactics and the way we made war, and the other half teaching what he had learnt to his own people. Uric, however, was quick to point out that his mountain people were not the type that great cavalry troops were made from, nor were their horses. The Celts' mountain-ponies were admirably suited for their own terrain, but they offered little hope of organized weight of the kind we were developing in the Colony. And by the same token, he pointed out, our own great horses were simply too big and cumbersome to function satisfactorily in the mountains.