Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

There were six — what? cylinders? — arranged randomly on the parchment. That was all. Six vertical cylinders. He closed the parchment. The next scroll showed one cylinder, close up, with branches of trees and bushes, their cut ends showing, tied around it like the staves of a fasces tied around the axe handle.

"There's your magic, my friends." There was no doubting the conviction and the satisfaction in Vegetius's tone. His voice rang clearly throughout the room, convincing its hearers by its very resonance. "Take enough men and enough rope, cut enough branches, tie them around enough uprights, stand far enough away, and you will see a forest created where there was none before. As the uprights descend the slope, the branches tied around them mask the bareness of the ones above. Pile bushes at the bottom, back off for a mile or so and, until the branches all die, you have what appears to be a living forest."

He fell silent, letting what he had said sink in. Britannicus finally broke the long silence that ensued.

"Vegetius, that would work ! How long would the branches stay green?"

Vegetius shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know, Caius Britannicus. Two days? Three at the most, I would think. After that they will probably start to look very dry. But even then, it might not be noticeable from a distance. They'll be dead, but they might still appear green from down here. I wouldn't care to leave them for more than a week, though."

Caius was tugging at his chin, his brows furrowed in thought. "What about the top of the wall? What if you can't get your 'trees' as high as you'd like?"

"I would alter the shape of the top of the wall itself with dirt." He looked around him for information. "How wide is it on top? Six feet?"

"Closer to nine," said Tullus, one of the stonemasons.

Vegetius nodded approvingly. "There you are, then, three good paces. Ample room to build hillocks to break up the straight line. Given time, we could cut sod and cover the raw dirt, too."

Everyone in the room sat in astonished silence. Then, hesitantly, one of the newer Council members raised his hand for permission to speak.

Britannicus nodded to him. "Speak out, Horatio."

Horatio cleared his throat, and when he addressed Vegetius his voice was strong. "I believe that this idea might work. But it seems to me that it will take a lot of organizing, and much depends on the timing of the thing. Do you agree?"

"Aye, I agree completely," Vegetius said. "The Whole thing depends on timing, as I see it. What's your point, Horatio?"

"The greenery, and the time needed to gather it. It takes a lot of trees to make a forest. Even a false forest. And you said that, once cut, you would not want to have to trust the greenness for more than a week." He looked around at the faces of the Council members. "We talk of sending our men away. But we will need them to gather the greenery in enough quantity to mask the top of the hill. Especially if it all has to be collected and put together in a matter of days."

A buzz of agreement and speculation broke out among his listeners, and he raised his voice above the noise, silencing everyone. "I am not trying to find fault! I do believe this can succeed. All I'm saying is that we will have to plan carefully. It can be done! But we must make sure that it is we who control the timing of the whole thing."

"Horatio, think of what you're saying! That's impossible!" This was a shout from Varo. "We have no control over the timing. Are you suggesting we ask the people in Londinium to tell us when they'll be sending their investigators?"

Horatio's answer was immediate. "No, not at all! I'm not! But I am suggesting that not one person here, Vegetius included, has thought to mention that we have almost a hundred heavy horses to hide, as well as a thousand men. I say let's hide the soldiers in the fort itself and use the horses in our planning. We can hide them, and use them!" Horatio turned to me. "Varrus! Would it make sense to send our cavalry along the roads leading to the Colony, to build fires and watch for the approach of whoever it is that is coming?"

I nodded, non-committally. "Sounds interesting. Go on."

"Well," he was growing enthusiastic now, "there are only three ways we can be approached by road, am I correct? From the north, by way of Glevum and Aquae Sulis, from the east through Sorviodunum and from the south by the coast road? If we were to send out our cavalry, with orders to split up along the various routes and build signal-fires close enough to be visible to the next man along the line, then we could go to meet these 'investigators.' The news of their approach would reach us then as quickly as it takes a man to see a distant fire and light his own."

"Aye," I nodded, "that makes sense. But why send horsemen?"

"Because they can stay here longer, working, and then get to where they are going more quickly. They can get away more quickly, too — fade into the countryside and make their way back here slowly and safely after our visitors have left. That way, we do not have to hide the horses."

"By Hephaestus, Horatio, you're right!" I was up on my feet, limping to the front of the room. "Signal-fires should give us three, maybe four clear days' notice of their approach, if we can pick them up far enough in advance. And while we are waiting for the signal, we could have every man in the Colony working on the job! We might as well keep the soldiers here, for if we can't hide the fort, we can't hide them, either. We should be able to finish the whole thing in two days' hard work, let our men scatter and then look as innocent as babies under our tree-topped hill when our company arrives! Vegetius, Horatio, I commend you!"

My own excitement transmitted itself to everyone there, and a chorus of cheering ensued. Vegetius was the one who restored order by pulling out his whistling stone again, forcing everyone to be quiet to make him stop the fiendish noise.

"All right," he finally said, when all was quiet again. "It occurs to me that we have more work ahead of us in the next few weeks — if we have that long — than ever before in the history of this Colony. We have a lot of preparations to make. So let's get to it. Britannicus, the floor is yours."

Britannicus stood up, a smile on his face. "I thank you again, Vegetius Sulla, on behalf of all of us." He looked around the room. "Are we all agreed that the plan Vegetius proposes is the one we should adopt?"

"Aye!" It was unanimous.

"And are we all equally in agreement that Quintus Horatio's amendment to it is sensible?"

"Aye!" Again unanimous.

"So be it. Now we must plan the details."

Towards midnight, the plan was finished. Caius assembled a general meeting of the entire Colony at the main villa the next day to explain exactly what was happening. Directly after the assembly, work began on several fronts. Men were set to work building ramps to give access to the top of the walls, and others were set to digging dirt and piling it on top of the walls of the fort to break up their regularity. Others were cutting sod to mask the newly piled dirt, and still others were planting uprights, tree-trunk tall, on the side of the hill. All others not involved in this back-breaking work — women and children and old men — scoured the countryside finding copses and suitable woods that could be plundered, when the time came, in such a way that the depredations would not be noticeable to a stranger.

Britannicus reckoned that we had at least ten days available to us for preparation before the authorities in Londinium had time to receive the report, digest it, consult on it, arrive at a decision and finally dispatch an investigative force of some kind. Which meant that the cavalry could be put to work for a week, too, before being sent out to stand guard.