Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

Caius had a very strong and surprisingly uncharacteristic belief that he always adhered to in the Council's sessions, and it amazed me that it never failed. He believed absolutely in letting the Council solve its problems in its own way. He would sit back and remain generally apart from the debate, interfering only when it was necessary for the sake of order. He maintained that, no matter what the problem under discussion might be, the Council had the ability to solve it among its members. The final decision on Council matters never originated with him, but it was he who chose the Council members, and he took an almost indecent pleasure in co-ordinating their separate abilities to work together for the good of the Colony. The only rule that governed these sessions was one stating that no one could leave the meeting until the problem facing the Council had been solved to the satisfaction of two-thirds plus one of the members present.

The session dealing with the tribune's report was the longest I ever sat in: it lasted ten hours.

On this occasion, the words of sense and settlement came from Vegetius Sulla, the eldest son of Tarpo Sulla, who had died several years earlier. Vegetius, himself a man of forty-eight, had served a full twenty-five years with the legions in Gaul, in Africa and on the German frontier. He was a man of few words and wide experience who seldom spoke up in Council, but was always listened to when he did. The arguments had been going on for hours and some there had almost come to blows. Feelings were running very high, and there was total confusion in the Council room. No progress had been made in more than six hours.

I noticed Vegetius stand up from his seat and move away to a clear space in one corner of the room, fumbling in the leather pouch that hung by his side, and I watched, intrigued, as he drew out a stone of some kind, attached to a length of cord. He shook the kinks out of the cord and then, holding the end of the cord in his right hand, he began to swing the stone in circles around his head. As the stone picked up momentum, it suddenly began to emit a warbling, whistling noise that grew and grew to become a shrill, ear-bursting, wailing shriek.

All other noises in the room died away as people turned in open-mouthed stupefaction to stare at him. He moved his right arm out from the vertical and caught the whirling stone with a loud smack in the palm of his left hand. I could feel myself grinning from ear to ear, though I had no idea what he was up to. The silence in the room was astounding.

Vegetius looked around him at the staring faces and opened his left hand, letting the stone fall to dangle at the end of its cord.

"I got this when I was serving in Germany," he said. "The barbarians beyond the borders there make them. Their children use them as toys. You hear six or seven of them going at night out there, it can scare you. But it's harmless." He began to swing it again, harder and harder, until some clapped their hands over their ears. Then he let it go. It flew across the room and blasted to shards a vase on a table against the wall. In the stunned silence, tiny pieces of the vase pattered like raindrops. He spoke into the stillness.

"At least, it looks harmless. Fact is, it kills. When did any of you last see one of our warships?" No one answered him, and he continued. "They're blue, you know. So are the crews' uniforms. In some kinds of light, you can't even see them. But they are there, believe me, in full view and extremely dangerous."

"Vegetius," said Britannicus, gently, "I think you have a point you wish to make. If we all sit down, will you explain it to us?"

Vegetius smiled. "Happily," he said. Everyone sat down. Still smiling, Vegetius walked to the front of the room, retrieving his missile on the way. He paused and looked all around the room before he spoke.

"We have a problem. Several of them, in fact. We have an army that we should not have raised or trained; uniforms that we are not supposed to be wearing; fortifications that are not supposed to exist; cavalry that we're not supposed to possess; and a military expedition on its way here from the east to find out who we are and what we have." There was utter stillness now.

"My suggestion is this. Things are not always what they appear to be. We should take advantage of the time we have left to us before our visitors arrive, then show them what we have and let them see for themselves that we have nothing."

That speech created quite a stir. Some people thought he had lost his senses, for there seemed to be no logic in his statement. Then someone asked him how he proposed doing what he suggested.

"Simple," responded Vegetius. "We start with the most obvious. Disband our army. Send them away."

"A thousand men?" The question from the floor made the idea sound ridiculous, but Vegetius leaped on it.

"Why not? If we send them away now, the signs of their having been here will be gone by the time our visitors arrive."

"But where could we send a thousand men?" someone else wanted to know.

"Anywhere, man! But not in one great block. We split them up, send them out on exercises. Ullic could use some of them in his hills against the Hibernians for a month. Two or three hundred, I imagine. Another two hundred could lose themselves in the moors down to the south-west. Another hundred on the plains around Stonehenge."

"That's only five, six hundred. What about the others?" Everyone was throwing questions now.

Vegetius shook his head in disgust. "How many of them really live here? On the farms and in the cottages? A hundred? Two hundred? That's less than two men to a square mile of the Colony. So we'll be well staffed! As long as we're careful to conceal ourselves, to be as close to invisible as we can possibly be, we can lose another four hundred in plain sight."

Caius spoke up. "That still leaves a hundred men and a very visible fortification on the hill behind us."

Vegetius grinned. "Yes, Caius, it does — for now. But don't lose sight of the war galley."

"Forgive me, Vegetius, but I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that if we do it properly, we can hide it."

"Hide it?" Britannicus sounded astonished. "Hide the fort?"

"Why not? If the navy can hide a fleet of galleys in plain sight, why can't the army hide a fort?"

"God in Heaven!" said Britannicus. "How would we do it?"

Vegetius looked at Britannicus, almost seeming not to see him, his brows puckered in thought, his eyes far away from this room. "I have an idea, Caius, that will work — I know it will, if I can only find the proper key. It's not difficult. All it will take is imagination, conviction and luck." His voice dwindled almost to nothing and he scratched the point of his chin with the tip of one finger. Every man in the room watched the gesture, waiting for him to continue. "We once hid an entire legion in Gaul, in broad daylight, and an army marched past within a quarter mile of us and didn't see us." His voice trailed off again for a few seconds before he shook his head abruptly.

"No. That won't do it. We used nets with twigs and branches woven into the mesh. These walls are too high, and they're on top of a hill... Caius, can you see the walls and the fortifications from the rear of the hill?"

Caius shook his head. "I've no idea. I don't think I've ever been behind that particular hill. Why? Is it important?"

"It could be. Does anyone know?"

"Aye, I do!" This was Terra. "Firma and I were hunting out that way about a month ago and he remarked that, from the valley floor there, you can't see any indication at all that there's anything built up on the hill. We talked about how difficult it would be to get up or down the hillside from that direction. Didn't we, Fiona?" His brother nodded.

"Good." Vegetius was pleased. He opened his pouch and dropped his whistling stone inside, and then he crossed the room again to the table that had held the shattered vase. There was an open codex there, its pages covered by pottery shards. He wiped them off with his hand and stood there, looking down at the book, his back to the room. Everything about his posture made it clear that he was deep in thought. Finally he turned to face the assembled Council and leaned back, resting his buttocks on the edge of the table.