Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

I dropped the cockle-shell back in my scrip and left the blade lying on the work-bench as I strolled back to the villa in search of Grandfather Varrus's old scroll on the ancient art of pouring moulds.

Luceiia sat in the family room talking earnestly with Veronica and her younger sisters, Lucilla and Dora, both of whom were awed and overcome by their older sister's imminent transition from girlhood to womanhood. In their eyes, Veronica had already passed into adulthood, leaving them far behind her. Not that they were in any way jealous of her — slightly envious, perhaps, but only in that wide-eyed, wonder-filled, breathy manner that seems unique to very young adolescent girls.

The four women of my family enjoyed an easy, close and warmly intimate companionship. They were discussing the wedding, of course, which would take place in the spring, and I am sure they completely failed to notice me as I apologized for disturbing them and passed on through, taking away with me the image of my daughter Veronica's bright eyes and high, proud breasts. She was a beauty, my Magpie. I was still whistling under my breath as I searched for the scroll, wondering idly, for the hundredth time at least, about the magical process that could so abruptly transform a beautiful, trusting little daughter into a ravishingly self-possessed young woman. I found the scroll right where I had left it and took it back to the smithy to study it, and it did not take me long to arrive at the conclusion that I was going to need help from Father Andros.

XXVI

By the time the hawthorn blossomed in March that year, there was a steady stream of two-way traffic on the new road every day from dawn until dusk. Everyone in the Colony was completely absorbed in the task of preparing our new quarters, with the exception of my own womenfolk, who had a wedding to worry over, too. There was an air of buzzing activity everywhere, and even the absence of the soldiers withdrawn from the fort for active patrol duty — about two-thirds of our forces — seemed to make no great difference to the tempo of the work.

The extra horses Picus had promised us, including two magnificent and unlooked-for stallions, provided purely for breeding purposes, arrived early in March and were put into service immediately, making a major difference to our capabilities.

One of our colonists, a white-bearded veteran of many wars, had approached Caius in January with the idea of starting our young men's training early. He was prepared, he said, to take on that responsibility and Caius was happy to allow him to do so. Now he commanded a body of forty-five young men between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who spent their days marching and countermarching, learning the use of weapons and studying the new cavalry tactics.

It was a warm spring, full of promise. We were moving into a new, safe home, facing a new century, according to the Christian calendar, and we felt sure of our destiny. All around us, where we had been prepared for threats and danger, there was only tranquillity. We were ready, however, for anything that might occur. Our farmers ploughed their fields under the gaze of watchful soldiers and the wagon train we sent to Glevum that spring went under heavy escort. We were determined that no raider would find any sign of weakness among us.

The wedding was to be in April, the feast time sacred to both Celtic Druid and Christian alike, and by the end of March, Ullic's people began to arrive. They set up their camps in the open fields around the villa, mainly along the new road to the fort, and Ullic and his main party arrived in pomp and savage Celtic splendour on the first day of Eastertide. His arrival coincided with the far less ostentatious arrival of Bishop Alaric, who had come, as promised, to conduct the wedding services and to celebrate the completion of our Council Hall with a special Mass.

Ullic brought gifts and barbaric excitement; Alaric brought our new, hand-dressed altar-stone. Ullic brought love, laughter and song; Alaric brought love, laughter and piety. Ullic brought Druids in his train; Alaric brought one priest, a gentle giant of a man called Phonos who was barely out of his teens. The scene was set for war or peace the first time the Druids and the Christian priests came face to face on that first day. That, at least, was the way I saw it, but as it turned out, I had no cause for concern; there was no sign of any hostility between the two groups then or later.

At dinner that night, a festive gathering, the talk was all about the prospects of the bride and groom and of the great hunt I had arranged for the following day. Caius was at his mercurial best that night, and the conversation around the table sparkled with wit and humour.

I am not normally a superstitious man, but I remember feeling that night that everything had been going too smoothly. It suddenly seemed to me, looking around the table and feeling the warmth and love there, that our lives, for the past eight months, had been too easy. I felt as though somewhere, out there in the night, forces were gathering to annul our gaiety, so that all during dinner I half expected to hear the slap of leather soles on the floor outside as someone came running with news of catastrophe. But no one did, and the evening passed with no alarums, as did the week that followed. The wedding was set for the day of Easter, the festival of spring and resurrection, the emergence of new life. It seemed appropriate and correct and approved by Heaven. Our hunting was successful every day and we enjoyed a plethora of fresh meats of every kind and fresh fish, both salt-water and fresh-water.

There was one young woman there, with Ullic's group, who turned the head of every man who saw her, including me. Her name was Enid and she was Ullic's youngest sister. Her skin was golden and her teeth were fine, snow-white against the amazing redness of her lips. Even my gentle Luceiia showed her claws the first time she saw Enid, warning me almost, but not quite, playfully to keep my attentions to that one casual. This surprised me, for it was the first time that my wife had ever made such a comment. I mentioned it jokingly to Caius later that first evening and he was wise enough to observe immediately that Luceiia probably felt she was no longer young enough to compete with such an animal as Enid.

And an animal she was, although I say so with not the slightest hint of malice. She was wild in the way a deer is wild: sleek and clean-lined, apparently timid and easily startled, giving one the impression that a too-sudden movement would cause her to disappear from sight immediately. And yet she was savage-looking, with all the allure and grace of the great cats of Africa. Her eyes were green-blue and her hair was startling in its tawniness among the black-haired, blue-eyed Celts. She was high-breasted, and her breasts were large and firm, and even though I was innocent of any lustful feelings towards her, I was tempted more than once, finding her close beside me, to attempt to span her tiny-looking waist in my big hands. Of course, her waist could not have been that small, but placed as it was between the lushness of her breasts and the sweeping swell of her hips, it looked that small. And I looked, as did every other man there who was not related to her directly. My own admiration of the young woman, conducted from a distance and modified by a need to give no offence to my wife, was avuncular — a combination of "I wonder...," "What if...?" and "There was a time ...". There were others in our gathering, however, who were unhampered by the twin constraints of age and marriage, and among them they managed to keep Enid from becoming bored. She was the undisputed centre of attraction for every single young male in the Colony, and for a fair number of others who were neither young nor single. My youngest apprentice, Joseph, at not quite sixteen years, was sore smitten with first love and followed her around like a pup, sitting as close to her as he could get, and sometimes forgetting even to eat.