Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"No, Ullic." My interruption was firm and instantaneous. "This time you are wrong. Picus is Cay's son. He is one of us. His loyalty is first to Stilicho, his best friend and his commander while he is still in uniform. But after that, I'll swear his loyalty is to us first and then, only then, to Rome. I would stake my life on that."

"You already have, Publius Varrus. And you are correct, I know it. This question of Enid is a thorny one that plagues me badly from time to time. I see my son wed now, and am reminded that my duty is to find a husband for my youngest sister. She does nothing, either, to make my task easier."

"She is very beautiful, Ullic."

"Aye, she is, and very stubborn, wilful, obstinate, infuriating and intransigent. She drives me mad. Now if, as you suggest, I approach Picus and he laughs at me, what would my reaction be? I really don't know, Publius, how I might react."

"Then try it and see, my friend. I have a feeling that he might not turn you down." I could feel a slight smile growing on my face.

"Why?" Ullic was looking at me closely. "Why are you smiling? Have you seen something? Has he said something to you?"

"No, Ullic, not at all." I was laughing at his earnestness. "But I saw Picus see Enid yesterday, if you know what I mean ... He was highly conscious of the fact that she was there in the same hall as him. And Enid saw him, too."

"When? I didn't notice."

"Of course you didn't. Why should you? I only noticed myself by accident." That was almost true, I told myself.

"By God, Publius, that's encouraging! I'll watch them tonight and see how they behave towards each other. If they look interested, I'll bring the matter up with Cay."

"With Cay? Why would you do that? Why not approach Picus directly? He's a man full-grown."

"Aye, so he is. But Cay is still his father." Ullic was sounding stubborn, so I shrugged my shoulders and let the matter rest, telling myself that I was no one to balk at the proper way of doing things.

As it turned out, however, Picus had bypassed both of us and spoken directly of it to his father when the two of them went out together to the horses, telling Caius bluntly that he wished to take Enid to wife as soon as possible. It was probably one of the shortest marriage negotiations on record, wrapped up and agreed to by all concerned within the hour, celebrated that evening by firelight because everyone necessary was already present and the groom had to go to war the following day. And once again, everyone had a drunken night. Uric and Picus, early abed naturally enough, were probably the only two men in the assembly who did not have thick heads the following morning.

I know Picus was tempted to steal one extra day of love before going back, but the spirit of duty was bred too strong in him, and before noon he led his files of men off, down the winding road on the hillside and out of his new bride's life again. She watched with us from the top of the walls until they entered the distant forest and were lost from sight, and then, dry-eyed, she went to join the other women. I watched her leave and spoke to Ullic.

"We are binding ourselves closely, my friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Your sister. Now she is my niece, since my wife is aunt to her new husband. Any child of theirs will be great-niece or -nephew to me. And your son is now my son, and his son will be our grandson, yours and mine."

"True, Publius." Ullic laid his great paw on my shoulder. "Their blood will not be to blame should they not prosper. I only hope Picus comes back soon to plant his crop."

"You jest, of course! He is a Britannicus, Ullic! They are not noted for standing idly by and getting nothing done. He planted it last night." Or the night before, I thought with a smile.

XXIX

The priest, Andros, sat across from me, shaking his head sadly. "I am sorry, Publius," he said, "but that is my only suggestion. I see no other way to do what you want."

I was still stunned. We had been over this problem time and time again, for months now, and we kept coming back to this one, inescapable point. There seemed to be no way to go around it. I had asked Andros to help me with the design of a cross hilt for the new sword. I wanted to pour the hilt, using a mould, so that it would be one solid piece, and he understood my needs perfectly. Now he was asking me to accept and acknowledge his needs and my own hitherto unrecognized requirements before we could make the thing work. I had made a basic error in the design of my new sword, a very basic error, considering what I now wanted to do with it. I looked down again at his drawings. They were very simple: three small sketches side by side.

The first sketch showed what I had given him; the second showed what I should have given him; and the third showed how the second must be adapted to serve as a skeleton for the moulded hilt. I squeezed my temples between the heels of my hands.

"Damnation, Andros! This means I have to start all over again, from the beginning, every step of the way!"

He nodded, his honest face untroubled. "Yes, if you want to do this correctly. Is it that important? The cross-hilt, I mean?"

I thought about the plans I had been making for this new sword, the hands that would some day wield it. I nodded, resignedly. "Yes, Andros, it's that important. But it's going to take months, all over again."

He smiled. "Well, you have them. Now that the wedding is over, you have time on your hands. The fort is completed. So is the Council Hall. The road is built, and your big stables up on the hilltop, inside the walls, are all but completed, too. You have plenty of time, Publius." I glared at him, balefully, but he continued, unperturbed. "Besides, you have already done it once. It will be easier the second time, and if you pray to God for help, He may even make it turn out better this time."

"It was perfect this time!"

Andros shook his head gently, a sad little smile of human understanding on his lips. "No it wasn't, Publius. That is why you now have to do it again."

I gritted my teeth in the face of his naive honesty. "Thank you, Andros. You can go now."

As soon as he had gone, I crossed to my work-bench and unwrapped the long bundle that lay there. It gleamed at me, liquid silver in the gloom of the smithy. It had a shine, to be sure. Shine and to spare. It was the finest blade I had ever made. But it was wrong, flawed, and the fault was mine; it had nothing to do with the skystone metal. I took it in my hands, looked one last, long look into its mirrored surface, and then I thrust it into the fire, deep into the glowing coals, and reached for the bellows. Now I had to untemper it, melt it again to a shapeless mass of metal and recreate it with a triple tang.

The smithy was deserted, save for myself. Equus and the other smiths worked up in the new smithy in the fort most of the time now, and the villa proper was strangely silent nowadays. The staff of servants was being removed little by little to tend to the new quarters up above as they were built. The villa would remain in use, but only as spare quarters. The new living accommodations for the family up in the fort were less spacious, and less gracious, but they were luxurious enough and would grow more comfortable with use. They were far safer, too, now that the fort itself was impregnable, with walls that were twenty-five feet high in places, rising vertically from the steep hillside.

I moved back to the work-bench again and found a scrap of papyrus and a stick of charcoal. I knew I would have few distractions in my second struggle with the sky-stone metal, so I set myself to thinking of the difference the triple tang would make to the weight, proportions and temper of the blade. I would not again deprive Caius of a portion of his goddess; I would make do with the piece of her I had already, and that thought led me to a consideration of my own women at home in the fort on the hill.