Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"About Lignus, nothing. About the fire, anger and concern but no great urgency yet, although if we don't get a good harvest this year it's going to be a long winter. About you, I feel proud and wonderful. About sleep, I'm not capable of feeling anything. I'm on my way to find a quiet corner where the soot and grime that crusts me can do little damage, then I'm going to collapse and slip into a coma."

She thrust her face into the hollow of my neck and sniffed deeply. "You do smell rather smoky." She pushed me away and smiled up into my eyes. "I know you don't want to hear this, but you might sleep far better after being bathed and massaged. I know it seems like too much trouble at this moment, but life will be much the better for steam and perfumed oils and a brisk pummelling. Hmmm?"

I nodded my head, scrubbing at my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Very well, my love," I muttered, "you are correct, as usual. I'm going, I'm going."

I have no recollection of entering the bath house or of removing my clothes, but I do remember walking through the tepidarium, where I splashed cool water all over myself, dislodging some of the soot that covered me, and into the steam room where, for the next quarter hour or so, I luxuriated in the intense heat, feeling the dirt and the grit being washed away by the natural rivers of my own sweat. I ended up with a series of plunges into the hot and cold pools before subsiding and lying face down on the masseur's plinth, regretting his absence as I imagined how he would go to work mercilessly on my ill-used body. But he had been up at the fire too, working as hard as everyone else, and would be sound asleep somewhere. I could have sent for him — I even considered it, half-heartedly — but in the end I did not have the heart to disturb his rest, wherever he was.

I dozed off, eventually, then awoke again, plagued by the discomfort of the plinth I lay on. I felt cleaner and more presentable, but I was dead tired as I made my way towards my own chambers. Luceiia was still not abed, but our little invalid Dora, our four-year-old daughter, lay in our bed peacefully asleep, her thumb stuck deep in her tiny mouth. I bent over and touched her cheek, marvelling, as I always did, at the miraculous softness of her skin and the utterly helpless innocence of her trust. I dropped my clothing where I stood and crawled into the bed beside her, cradling her tininess in my arm before I fell asleep.

BOOK TWO- The Regent

IX

Father,

Greetings from an errant son, whom you have probably consigned long since to perdition for a lack of filial attention, if you do not believe me already dead.

I am alive, healthy and well, and hope, with guilty optimism, that you are, too. How foolishly we treat the rushing passage of time! I deeply regret having permitted so many years to pass without making any serious attempt to write to you. I remember you telling me, on many occasions, how difficult it is to write down one's thoughts so that they reflect, accurately, one's feelings on any particular subject at any one time. Words, you told me, are but ungainly tools, ill suited to the use of serious, intelligent men. I have often recalled, with bitter irony, the scepticism with which I dismissed, in my youthful omniscience, the import of those words. I now know, as the result of many long hours of effort, how accurate your observations were.

This missive, which I must believe you will someday read, will no doubt impress you with its clarity and the apparent ease with which it has been written. Disabuse yourself of any misconception, Father; I am as awkward in my efforts to write today as ever I was. The letter you read now is no more than a painstaking copy of the last of many scribbled, much-altered, often-perspired-upon scraps of parchment and paper, laboured over on many a night by the agued fluttering of an almost lightless lamp.

I know you will have little need to be reminded of the discomforts involved in writing a letter on campaign. I have been on campaign endlessly now for years, ever since leaving Britain with Magnus Maximus, and throughout that time it has ever been too easy to find reasons for never having enough time to write. It has been several months since I decided to end that condition, and it has taken me until now to produce something I consider fit enough and substantial enough to send to you after so long a silence.

I am in Constantinople, serving on the personal staff of Flavius Stilicho, Count of the Domestics, Commander of the Emperor's Household Troops. You might be amused to know that I have met Theodosius now on several occasions and have endorsed, in my own mind, the verdict of Publius Varrus, who declared that Theodosius was, "for all his faults and personal shortcomings, " an able administrator and a fine soldier. In those days, Theodosius was Count of Britain. Now he is Emperor and still, again in Varrus's words, " a grandiloquent and pompous pain in the arse!" But he is, above all, an able Emperor and a notable judge of men...

That I can write such words in a letter will give you some idea of the import of my posting and the security we enjoy in our communications. All of that is due to the personality and influence of my commander, Flavins Stilicho. It is he whose privilege and personal seal attached hereto enable me to write my mind thus openly, and it is he who has finally made me wish to write to you, for many reasons, although mainly to tell you about Flavius Stilicho himself, and the privilege and honour I enjoy in being close to him.

Father, you would take Stilicho to your bosom! He is all that you hold honourable in the Roman tradition. He is half Vandal, his father a low-born captain of mercenaries. And yet, for all that, by the strength of his own intellect and the astounding abilities he has demonstrated in his short career

—

he is but twenty years of age, seven years younger than I!

—

he has completely won the affection and esteem of Theodosius and is married to the Emperor's favourite niece, Serena. She, too, fell victim to the charm of Stilicho.

If, as I suspect, you and Publius Varrus have just exchanged mutual snorts of "Nepotism and privilege!" you must withdraw them. I swear this is a man among men, for all his youth

—

a military genius on the level of Alexander.

I met him just over a year ago, in the late summer of the second year of Magnus's campaign in southern Gaul. Things had been going well for Magnus (as they still are, I hear) and we had won many victories against all sent against us. My own mind was not at peace, however, with the way the affairs of our army were developing; the Magnus I had known and admired in North Britain was neither the man nor the Emperor I followed now in Gaul. Greatness had worked great changes in him, and as far as I could see, none were improvements.

One afternoon, on a routine patrol ahead of the army, my party unexpectedly encountered a fair-sized group of the enemy, men and officers. We discovered them first, fortuitously, and I was able to entrap them. In the course of the fighting I found myself matched against a young tribune, barely out of boyhood, richly appointed and uniformed, who fought like a madman

—

a very skilled madman, be it said. Luck was with me. He slipped in the grass, and I had his life in my grasp and my sword at the ready. Thank God I could not bring myself to kill him at that moment! Telling him to live for another day, I clubbed him with the hilt of my sword and left him lying there. Moments later, we were surrounded and outnumbered by an army of newcomers sent, as I discovered later, to meet and escort the party we had attacked. I was taken prisoner with my entire force and brought to the camp of Proconsul Glaucius Mamilias. As you will have deduced, the boy I spared was Flavius Stilicho.