Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"No, I don't think so. I'm serious. I would wear a heavier breastplate, and the added advantage of being able to swing this thing would offset not having a shield. Father? What do you think?" He was feinting with it as he spoke, holding it straight out at arm's length, the strength of his arm muscles making a mockery of the weight of the thing.

Britannicus looked at it, his eye running the full length of Picus's outstretched arms and the seven-foot length of the spear. "I have no idea at all, my son. It might work, I suppose. How much of the shaft would you remove?"

"About half the length."

"You're both mad," Equus was growling to himself. "Cut off half the length — any of the length, for that matter — and you foul up both the balance and the weight. Weapons are designed in proportion, you know. We don't just leave an extra length on there for decoration."

I was listening closely, although I was taking no part in the conversation, and something was beginning to tickle at the back of my mind.

"That's a spear you're talking about," Equus went on. "Boudicca's buttocks! You're swinging it around there as if it were an axe."

"But it almost is an axe, Equus. I think it's because of the shape and weight of the blade."

Equus slapped the top of his bench in his frustration. "That's right, man! It's neither one thing nor the other. It's a bastard thing, bred in a moment of unwisdom. The weight distribution in the blade's all wrong, so you can't use it for a hard swing. All the weight is concentrated at the top, too close to the shaft. Hit anything hard with that thing and it'll crumple like a piece of parchment. Believe me, Picus."

Picus screwed his face up in a wry expression of regret. "Well, if you really feel that strongly about it, and you designed it, I'll have to take your word for it. But it seems a shame, for no matter what you say, I know there's something about it that's right!" He looked at me. "Varrus, you're saying nothing. How do you feel about it?"

I reached out my hand and he passed the spear to me. It was very heavy.

"Equus is right," I said. "It's too cumbersome. You can handle it, but you're almost a giant. No ordinary soldier could use the thing the way you suggest, and I suspect it would tire even you in a short space of time if you were swinging it in a fight. The weight is wrongly distributed for that, and by shortening the shaft you'd only aggravate the imbalance." I tossed it back to him, smiling at his crestfallen look. "But you're right, there is something good about it. I just wish I could define what it is. I'll work on it."

"Good! When you've solved the problem, I'll buy them from you by the hundred."

The conversation moved on then to other topics, but I paid little heed to what was being said from that time on. There was something bothering me, something that had almost formed in my mind in the course of the conversation between Picus and Equus. Of course, the more I tried to pin down what it was, the more it eluded me.

There are few things more frustrating than trying to recall a fleeting, half-formed thought. I even found myself trying to tell myself that it was not important, but I knew it had to be, or it would not have been worrying me. Eventually, however, when the others had gone and left me on my own for a while, the elusive memory I had been seeking suddenly sprang into my mind and I cursed myself for having been so intense about it. They had been talking about weight and balance and Picus had said that the spear was almost like an axe, because of the shape and the weight of the blade. And now I remembered seeing, as a young soldier, a child in some remote African village splitting wood with an ancient bronze sword that had a heavy, leaf-shaped blade. The thing had been really old and battered, and what edge it once had had been lost long in the past. But the boy was using it to split wood, and the lover of arms in me was saddened by this menial use of a weapon that must at some time have been someone's proudest possession. I tried to buy it, but the boy fled, taking his sword with him.

So that was what had been driving me mad, and now I was irritated because I could not see the significance of it. Why should it have flashed up into my memory after more than thirty years of oblivion? What possible connection could my mind have formed between today's conversation about a spear and an axe and that encounter in a dirty north African village street so long ago? Obviously, the shape of the blade was the connection, but why? It made no sense to think of Equus's spear with a leaf-shaped blade — that would be worse than useless — so what was it? I was becoming angry at myself — I recognized the symptoms — so I forced myself to empty my mind as much as I was able to and began to walk back towards the house, nodding to those I met along the way and trying to keep my mind bare of thought. I knew the answer would come to me. I simply hated having to sit around and wait for it.

Four of Picus's escort were squatting by a corner of the wall that surrounded the house. They saw me coming and put away the dice they had been using to pass their time, standing erect as I approached. I nodded to them in response to their salutes and asked them where their legate was. One of them, the oldest of the four, appointed himself spokesman.

"We're waiting for him, sir. He went into the house a few minutes ago with the Proconsul and told us to wait here for him."

"Good, then I shall wait here with you, if you have no objection." Naturally, they had none. I talked with them for about five minutes before Picus appeared. They were like soldiers everywhere, cocky, confident and proud of their elite unit, and slightly awed by the fact that a senior officer, even a retired one, would stop and talk to them as people.

"Here comes the Legate now, sir."

I looked up and saw Picus striding towards us through the gateway. He saw me at the same time and smiled.

"Commander Varrus, you have a nose for secrets that always leads you to the right place. Pecula, show the Commander your sword." The youngest of the four flushed to hear his general address him by his nickname, which meant thief or pickpocket, and grinned in embarrassment as he drew his sword and offered it to me, hilt first. It was an ordinary Roman gladium, or short-sword, with one abrupt difference that I felt as soon as my fingers closed over the hilt. I immediately tightened my grip, looking the young man in the eye.

"What is it? Where did you get it?"

"What, sir?"

"The covering on this hilt. What is it?"

I was answered by Picus himself, who waved to the soldier to say nothing. "What do you think it is, Commander Varrus? Without looking at it."

I turned to him, gripping the hilt of the sword tightly and flexing my wrist hard, testing the grip. "I have no idea what it is," I said. "But I want to know."

"What does it feel like in your hand? Think hard."

I concentrated on what I felt, fighting the temptation to look down and see what it was. "It feels unlike anything I've ever felt before. It's not leather — too rough for that. It's not metal, not bone, not wood. It feels like..." I squeezed my grip again, feeling the texture against my palm. "Like leather covered with fine sand."

"You're nowhere close, and you never would be if you tried all day. Look at it."

I looked. The hilt was covered with a material that was neither black, nor grey, nor silver, but a mixture of all of them. The texture was as rough as a file. This thing would never slip from a sweaty or a bloody palm. Whatever it was, it had been wrapped tightly around the hilt and then bound there with tightly crisscrossed metal wire.

"I give up. What is it?"

"It's fish skin."

"It's what?"

"Fish skin."