Jack Whyte - The Skystone

"Take the wagon to the smithy and get a few men to help you unload it. And make sure you warn them these things are heavier than they look. Don't let anyone get hurt handling them. "

I turned next to Luceiia. "My love, I have to bathe, and I'm as hungry as three starving men. Would you organize a bath and some food for me while I talk with Caius?"

She smiled up at me and squeezed my arm, stretching on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, dirty as it was.

"Gladly, my lord and husband, " she said, smiling. "Welcome home. I'll be waiting for you. " And she was gone.

I watched her walk towards the house, then turned to Caius with a contented sigh, throwing my arm around his shoulder. We began to walk together.

"Caius, have I ever thanked you for your sister?"

"Only ten thousand times. No more, I beg!"

"So be it. " I laughed again, throwing my head far back. "Caius, I feel so good that I could dance a jig!

There's iron in those stones! I know there is. Do you recall the time I told you of my grandfather's struggle to smelt his stone?" He nodded that he did, and I continued. "Don't you remember, then, my telling you that at his last attempt, just when he was about to give up in despair, he noticed that there had been a change in the surface texture of the stone?"

"Yes, I remember that. But what —?"

"What he had noticed, Caius, " I interrupted him, "was a glazing effect, as though the stone had started to melt just as the fire died down. The same glazing effect that is already present in these stones!" He shook his head, mystified.

"Don't you see, Caius? When these stones fell to earth in fire, the heat of that fire must have been enough to start that melting process. " But this was stretching Caius's imagination too far. He sought refuge in ridicule.

"So? Are you saying you don't need a kiln? That if you just throw these stones up in the air, they'll melt themselves?"

I stopped him short and turned him to face me, reading his disbelief straight from his eyes. We stood together thus for quite a space, and then we resumed our walk. When I spoke again my voice was more sober.

"Caius, " I said, " I wish that I could prove the truth of this to you right now. But I can't. I can't even explain the way I feel — how I know I'm right. It's just something that's in me. You think I am being foolish, and I know you well enough to know that you would suffer long before you'd take the chance of hurting me by saying so. But I also know that, of all the men I know, you are the one who wants most to believe that I am right, and to understand.

"You've seen the dagger, and you've heard the tale, and you believe what your eyes tell you is true. Everything inside you wants to believe that I am right and that I will smelt iron from these stones. Is this not so?" He nodded, and I went on, "The only false note in this scale is that your mind, rational being that you are, will not allow you to accept the truth of rocks of any size at all falling from the skies in fire. Unless they were pre-heated and shot up from catapults. "

We had arrived outside the bath house, and one of the servants already waited to assist me. I indicated that I would be there and looked back at Caius, smiling.

"Well, General, I can't give you an eyewitness assurance, but I promise you this. You leave me to indulge my folly in my own good time, and one of these days I'll give you metal from those heavenly stones. I swear it. In the meantime, if you would turn your mind to assuring everyone else in the world that I am not insane, I will be greatly in your debt. " He looked me straight in the eye and blinked rapidly, and for one incredible moment I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Then he swallowed hard, clapped me on the upper arm, nodded and said,

"Done!" Then he left me to my bath.

By the time I had bathed and eaten, Caius was once more immersed in his lists, and I did not see him again until we sat down to dine that night. No sooner had we begun our meal, however, than we were interrupted by the arrival of our old friend Bishop Alaric, accompanied by two of his priests. Caius insisted that they join us immediately, dusty and travel-weary as they were, and after our greetings were exchanged, they set about the meal with the single-minded gluttony of men who have not eaten for days. All of us noticed it, but apart from exchanging glances among ourselves, no one passed comment.

Finally, Alaric set down his knife and washed the grease from his hands.

"Caius, on behalf of my brethren here, I thank you for the meal. We have not broken fast since the day before yesterday. "

"In God's name, why not?" I responded, astonished.

"In God's name we could not afford the time, Publius, and I knew we could eat here before going on. "

Caius was frowning. "Going on to where? You are upset, my friend. What's happening outside there, in the world?"

Alaric returned Caius's frown with one of his own. "You have not heard?

No, obviously you have not. There is bad news on every hand, Caius. Invasions in the north, across the Wall. Nothing that's organized, but heavy raiding parties range far south, destroying whole towns and marauding widely. They have kept far apart from each other, moving fast, so that the northern legions have been split to combat them. "

"Has no one sent them help from further south?"

"No. The garrison at Arboricum has mutinied, stirred up by discontent, they say, over the newly commenced crackdown of discipline. It could not have come at a worse time. The garrison is confined within the city and the field forces containing them were faced with a choice of marching to the north to stem the Picts or staying there to quell the mutineers. It is chaos. They had to stay, of course. So the depredations of the raiders in the north have been massive and more or less unchecked. " He fell silent, but I could see from his expression that he had not finished.

"There is more, Alaric, isn't there?"

His eyes switched from Caius to me. "Aye, there is more. A fleet of Saxon longboats has landed in the southeast, on the Saxon Shore, and ravaged the country there. They managed somehow to outwit and ambush the forces sent to deal with them — slaughtered them all. "

"How many?"

"A full cohort of the Seventeenth. "

I felt the hairs on my arm stand up. "Good God!" I whispered. "Five hundred men?"

"A thousand! It was the First Cohort. The Millarian. " I leaped to my feet. "That's impossible! A band of undisciplined Saxons?

Never!" My reaction was involuntary, pure shock, for I knew Alaric was no liar.

He ignored the implied insult and looked me straight in the eye. "Not impossible, Publius. Improbable, perhaps, but it happened. "

"How, in the name of all that's good in Rome?"

He shrugged, shaking his head. "No one knows. All that is known is that they were taken on the march. The Saxons set fire to the grass. It has been a dry summer and the winds were strong that day. From the way the corpses were found, it was clear that they had been driven by the flames into a defile in the hills. They were trapped there and butchered. "

"It still seems impossible, " said Caius, his voice betraying shock similar to mine. "They must have had scouts out! Light cavalry. No Roman army, cohort or legion, marches blind!"

Alaric shrugged and had no comment to make.

"So, Alaric, where are you going now?" I asked him.

"South. To the coast. They have need of us. It seems another fleet has landed there, where no raiders have ever come before. The people were unprepared for them, and there is much suffering. "

It was Caius's rum to interrupt. "A fleet? South of here? But how? They couldn't sail along the Saxon Shore without being challenged by our naval forces. What's happening?"

"It seems, Caius, they came across the sea. From Gaul. "