Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

I had told him that Luceiia was concerned that our colonists were losing touch with the morality necessary to communal living. The words sounded pompous to my own ears, now that I thought about them, but even so, could that have been the cause of his fury? Pomposity? Or was it the moral stance? Had he taken offence at that, misconstruing my words as a personal attack on his own morality? Surely not, I decided.

I had been describing Luceiia's concerns. She had been talking in generalities most of the time, but she had pointed out a number of specific instances in support of her claims, some of which I had been aware of, but many of which I had known nothing about. All of them had worried me, but several had been really frightening. The Titens family's situation was, strangely enough, the easiest for me to accept, in spite of my own role in it, for it embodied the entire situation in miniature. And Luceiia had assured me that the particular instances she cited were only random examples of a widespread and growing disease in our Colony.

I had told Caius some of this, and I had said that, in Luceiia's opinion, and now in my own, we, as the leaders of the Colony, were faced with a moral responsibility to ensure not only the physical welfare and well-being of our people, but also their moral, if not their spiritual welfare — an uncomfortable responsibility, certainly, if adopted, but an incontrovertible one.

I had then told him Luceiia had convinced me that the ancient laws and morality of Rome were no longer flexible or versatile enough for our times. The context of the times had changed, I said, and was still changing, and it seemed to Luceiia, and to me now, that the rules of the society we were building called for a more simplistic, more personal and more intimate set of laws and regulations.

It was at this point that Caius had interrupted me angrily, but examine it as I might, I could not find any reason for the ferocity of his rejection.

Eventually, after an hour or so, I had cooled down enough to return to the villa. I saw no sign of Caius and made no attempt to find him. I excused myself to Luceiia, claiming to have work to do, and took myself off to my forge with a cold roast fowl, a loaf of bread and a skin of wine. I ate alone and worked until nightfall, when I made my way back to the house to find Caius waiting for me in the family room. He stood up as I entered and I stopped on the threshold, looking at him and trying to gauge his mood. He shrugged and turned up his palms, with a curiously shamefaced look in his eyes.

"We need to talk, Publius. As friends."

I put down the bag I was holding and crossed towards the couch by the fire, and he turned to watch me as I passed him. My anger had long since disappeared and the room was warm and cosy with flickering light and dancing shadows.

"Where's Luceiia?" I asked.

He moved to sit across from me. "With the children. She will leave us alone for a time. I told her how ungracious and offensive I was to you this afternoon and she will not come in until I have stewed long in my own juices and made my apologies to you for my — "

"Forget about that, Caius." I cut him off, standing up and moving towards the table where I had seen a leather bucket filled with ice and salt and a stone jug of my favourite Germanic wine. Ullic's people brought us cartloads of ice from the mountains every spring, cut into large blocks and insulated with straw and, stored with care in the whitewashed cool room of the villa, it kept our stored meat and poultry fresh through the heat of the summer. It also served to cool our best wines on festive occasions.

"No apologies are necessary between us, Cay. We have been friends too long. I angered you, you angered me. Things like that happen, sometimes." I picked up the wine jar, feeling its icy coldness and reaching for two cups. "Why the best wine? This is celebration stuff. What are we celebrating?"

He smiled, wryly. "My apology? My dear sister thinks that I should admit to failings more often. She seems to think it makes me more human."

"You told her what we argued about?"

"Yes. I was surprised you hadn't already done so."

"I wasn't ready." I poured for both of us and handed him a cup. "I would have told her eventually, but it was too soon and I hadn't had time to think things through." I tasted my wine. It was perfect. Chilled and delicious. "What did she have to say?"

"Not much, at first." He raised his cup to me and sipped his own wine. "God, this is nectar! No, she had little to say at first. I knew she was ashamed of me and angry at me for turning my tongue on you, but she was remarkably patient and showed her usual forbearance."

"Yes," I murmured, "but your sister is a remarkable woman. I've told you that before now, more than once. So, you discussed her... conclusions? Civilly?"

"Civilly, and thoroughly."

"And ... ?"

"And she is absolutely correct, of course. We have a problem of some magnitude, one that will have to be addressed."

"Hmmm..." I sat down again in my favourite chair. "Addressed by whom?"

"By all of us, Publius. Initially by you and me, I suppose, working together with Luceiia. Eventually, however, this is going to demand the involvement of everyone in our little society."

I moved to a more comfortable slouch, holding my cup carefully so as not to spill a drop of wine. "Why did you get so angry with me?"

"I don't know." He grimaced, tacitly admitting to the lie. "Yes, I do. I suppose it was fear."

"Fear?" I could not keep the surprise out of my voice.

"Yes, Publius, fear!" He sat down across from me and was silent for a few moments, staring into the fire, then he continued. "I've been aware for some time now that there are changes happening here, Publius, changes we can't control; changes I don't like; changes in the way people are thinking and behaving." He paused again and sipped at his drink. "On the surface, many of them don't seem very profound or serious. But they are. And the remedies are dangerous in and of themselves."

"I don't follow you."

He smiled, a small, enigmatic smile. "Oh, you will when you start to think about it."

"About what? What danger? There's no danger involved anywhere that I can see."

"Isn't there, Publius?" Caius sat up straighter and leaned forward, looking me directly in the eye and balancing his right elbow on his knee. "Then look at your own reservations from this perspective: the matters you brought to my attention this afternoon are all concerned with the common everyday things people do. Luceiia has noticed a... what was her word? Laxity? That was it. A laxity in the structure of life around here. And now you agree with her, since she brought it to your attention. I agree with her too. She's absolutely right. But it's not just here, Publius. It's not just on our villa. It's everywhere. It's in the towns we visit, in the cities and in the villages, and it's growing all the time. Have you put a name to it yet?"

I shook my head. I was fascinated because he had already taken me far beyond the boundaries of my own thinking. He carried on without waiting for an answer.

"It's called anarchy, Publius."

Now I responded, laughing in disbelief. "Anarchy? Cay, you can't be serious!"

But Caius was not laughing. "Yes I can, Publius, and I am. Oh, it's a very small degree of anarchy at this point, but it will spread like a pestilence."

I laughed again, trying to ease him out of this train of thought, but he was not to be put off and he silenced me with an upraised hand.

"Please, Publius, let me finish. I find no humour in this, now that you and my sister have forced me to confront it."

"Really, Caius!" I was still trying to laugh this off, to put it aside as trivial. "We said nothing of anarchy. Luceiia was upset about one of the carpenters, a drunkard who terrorizes his wife and children. You know how she is about things like that."