Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"Aye, lad, I know what you mean. But don't let that blind you to the facts here, which are military, whether you accept that right now or not. This is the most outlying of our properties, and it's too far from the home farm. That's a fact that's been tragically proven today. As a farm it is now useless to us. That's another fact, a proven extension of the first one. We're going to have to redefine our borders, cut down our properties and redeploy our forces to defend the ones we intend to hold. That's another fact.

"The animals who did this had cavalry cover. That's a fact, and it alters our whole concept of the forces that are coming against us. It means that the enemy, or part of them at least, are just as mobile as we are. From this time on we have to make allowances for that. That's a lot of facts, Picus, all military realities and none of them wholesome. We've got to get back to the Colony just as fast as we can and alert the Council. We have to define some new priorities for our growth and for our defence."

"What about burial for the victims here?" His face was bleak.

"They're already in their grave, lad. We'll lay Vegetius out beside his wife and sons and burn the place over them. As martyrs of the Colony, it will be a fitting end."

"You're right, Uncle, as usual. I'll see to it."

"Wait. Summon all of our men, infantry and cavalry, to stand as a funeral honour guard. They should know what we are doing and why it's being done. And bring the prisoners, too. They will be confronted with their atrocity and executed." He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "No arguments, Picus. They die."

He nodded, after considering the look of me for a few moments. "How do they die?"

"I ought to crucify the swine, and if I had the time, I would. But I don't."

"How, then?"

"In the fire. They burn. They seem to worship a fire god. Now they can meet him, face to face." He gazed at my face for the space of ten heartbeats, and when he spoke, his voice was low.

"You are a harder man than I thought you, Publius Varrus."

I spoke through my anger. "Vegetius Sulla was my friend. His wife was a gentle, kindly woman, full of dignity and peace. You saw how they used her. They burn."

"So be it. They burn."

"You still sound unsure. Does your conscience bother you on this?"

"I don't know, Uncle. Perhaps it does. They deserve to die, but burning them alive seems unchristian."

"Remember your friend Pelagius, Picus. Freedom of choice and personal responsibility. As I see it, that's the only route available now to men of true conscience. We're not dealing with Christians here. Turn the other cheek to such as these, as the priests would have us do, and we'll all be dead within the year. The old God of the Hebrew testaments suits me far better, now, with his eye for an eye, than the gentle Christ does. I choose His way and I'm ready to stand responsible for the survival of our people."

"Aye. You're right." There was conviction in his voice now. "I'll see to it. But what about the pit they're digging now, for the others?"

"Leave it. Let them rot in the open. None of our people will be around to smell the stink. Assemble the men. We'll march them past the pit and show them what has been done here, then we'll let them see justice done in the execution of the criminals in the pyre of their victims."

And so it was done.

XXIII

It was a long, quiet ride back to the Colony. Every man among us had plenty to occupy his thoughts, and the black smoke of the Sulla family's pyre hung all around us, although we had left it far behind. When we arrived, Picus and I went directly to meet with Caius. He was waiting for us in his day-room with Bishop Alaric, who had arrived on one of his regular visits. As we entered the room both men rose to their feet, scanning our faces. I nodded to both of them and spoke to the old bishop first.

"You should have been with us, Alaric. We could have used you."

"For what?" Caius's voice was tense.

"Funeral services."

"It was bad?"

"Worse than you could imagine." I told them what had happened and what we had found in the cellar. Picus did not attempt to add anything or to interrupt me in any way. By the time I had done, both of my listeners were as white-faced as Picus had been when he emerged from the stables.

"You executed the prisoners?" This was Caius.

"I did."

He looked into my eyes, and if he had any difficulty accepting my actions I saw no sign of it. He turned and walked away from his chair a few steps, his shoulders hunched over. "This changes everything," he said. "We had not expected an enemy with cavalry. Now we have to plan our defences differently in every way."

"Not cavalry, Caius, horses." He turned and looked at me, frowning. "I made the same mistake, at first, but the people we chased were not cavalry. They were just mounted men. But that alone makes a difference in terms of the mobility of the enemy. It was obviously the strength afforded by a band of horsemen that encouraged the others to venture so far inland."

Bishop Alaric had so far said nothing. He had merely subsided into his chair and sat looking from face to face among the three of us. Now he spoke.

"But where would these people — Franks you say they were? — where would they find horses here?"

"They didn't, Alaric. They brought them with them."

"From Gaul? How?"

"By boat, the same way Picus brought his."

"No comparison," Caius broke in. "Picus used imperial galleys for transportation. Large ships. The Franks have none of those."

"No, Caius, you're right, they don't," I said. "But they don't need them. We saw only ten or a dozen mounted men. That number of horses could be accommodated easily on two or three longboats. But it's not the numbers that matter, it's the fact that they're doing it at all. We have to find out where they landed and make sure that none of their friends follow them, and if that means constant patrols of the entire south-west shore-line, then that is what we are going to have to be prepared to live with. Picus agrees with me. We discussed it this morning on the ride back."

Caius grimaced. "Then you do think they came up from the south coast? All that way?"

Picus nodded. "Thirty, forty, perhaps fifty miles overland, depending on the route they followed. Yes, we do. The horses would give them the added protection they felt they needed — speed and mobility in scouting the land ahead of them. We estimate that this was a three-boat party, with about thirty-three men and three or four horses to a boat."

"I see." The tone of his voice confirmed it. "So what do we do now?"

I told him. "We call a Council meeting for tomorrow morning to define some new priorities."

"Such as?"

"Such as deciding how much of our land we should give up as untenable under these new circumstances. We absolutely have to abandon some of the villas, even if we continue to farm the land. We have to pull our most outlying people back to where we can defend them properly. And from now on, every party working our fields has to have an armed guard."

He nodded wordlessly, agreeing with each point as I made it.

"What else?"

"Well, I was thinking about our defences all the way back. It seems to me that as soon as we have our harvest safely in, we have to concentrate all of our efforts on finishing the fort on the hill. We should build a permanent headquarters there and be prepared to move all of our people in to shelter at a moment's notice."

"That makes sense. Picus, you agree with Publius?"

"Yes, Father, I do. But remember that you're going to need easy ingress and egress. You're going to need a road, even if it runs no further than from the bottom of the hill to the top."

"Yes, I suppose we are, we have to have some way of getting our people in and out quickly."