by Jack Whyte
Her father's men searched for her in the aftermath of the great storm, hunting high and low for three days, at the end of which they pronounced her dead. And as they were preparing her funeral rites, she walked into the middle of them, dazed, with eyes staring.
They dried and cleaned her and put her to bed, and her father's finest healers cared for her, feeding her potions to break the fever that racked her. Watched over and protected by the tribal priests, the child tossed and turned for four days and her fever persisted, burning up her tiny body and ravaging her reserves of strength. Then, on the fifth day after her return, the fever receded and she awoke and described, with crystal clarity, the place where she had been during the storm. She told of a rocky cavern, reached by a passage slanting downward from a cave on die side of a hill, and filled with skeletons and treasures. When questioned as to how she had reached this hillside, who had shown her the place and why she had gone, she would not answer, but she described the route she had taken, and the landmarks that marked the way.
Her father Athol sent a group of warriors immediately to seek this place, and they found it without difficulty, although more miles away than they had thought to look. And they found the skeletons, and the treasure—a hoard of ancient weapons made mostly of bronze, and bars of gold, silver and iron, as well as jewellery.
In the meantime, however, even before the searchers had set out, Deirdre's fever returned, more virulent than ever, and the child fell rapidly towards death. The fever rose and rose, beyond the point where any healer had ever known a fever go without causing death, and then it levelled off and stayed at that pitch for days. The flesh fell, almost visibly, from the child's body until nothing was left but bone and sinew. The priests and healers tried everything to keep the child hydrated. They bathed her constantly. They fed her with water sweetened with honey, administered through tubes of animal intestines fed down her throat. And they waited for her to die.
But she did not die. She hovered on the edge of death for six full weeks, and then she began to recover. She regained her weight and her strength and her smile. But her hair had lost its colour and so, to the horror of everyone who saw it, had her eyes. People began to whisper, and then to say aloud that Deirdre of the Lilac Eyes had died, and had been replaced by a changeling. And the only person who might ever have convinced them that the truth was different—the child herself—made no attempt to do so. She came back from her illness to live an alien life among them. She never responded to their voices and she never spoke again.
In spite of the fact that they had all benefited by the child's experiences and been enriched by the treasures of the cavern she had found, her people grew more and more afraid, as people will, of what they saw as her magical experiences. As time passed and the strangeness of the changes in her became more and more widely known, the word was put about that she had been accursed, and that no good would come to anyone associated with her. The treasure, people whispered, was but the god's replacement fee for having abducted the child. It was obvious, they said, that the child had fallen-or been cast down-from being blessed by the gods. From being a child beloved by all, she became a creature feared without cause and shunned by all but those who loved her most dearly—her father Athol, and her favourite brother, Donuil.
In die aftermath of the illness, unable to understand what had happened to her, but convinced that she was still his beloved sister, Donuil had spent long hours and days with the child, learning again, from the beginning, how to communicate with her. He learned that her mind had emerged unscathed from her illness, that her soul, the essence that made her who she was, had remained intact. And, over the next five years, they had developed the hand-language they used between them. At the end Of that time, Deirdre had fallen sick again, although not so seriously. She had developed a fever and had taken to her bed. The following afternoon, while Donuil and his father were hunting, she had disappeared again, unseen by anyone, and this time she had not returned. They had all assumed her dead, until today, five years later. And now I had to sit in silence, seething with impatience, while Donuil learned the story of his sister's disappearance, by watching and translating the messages of her flying fingers.
It was a story that did not take long in the telling, although there were aspects of it that were both confusing and mystifying. In listening to Donuil's translation of what his sister's hands were telling him, I was frustrated by 'my inability to question her directly. There was far more to her story, I felt, than what she was telling us, but I had no way of asking her for more details, not knowing what details there were to be added.
She remembered nothing of her second illness, nothing at all. She had no memory of leaving her bed or her father's hall. She knew only that she had awakened one bright summer morning among complete strangers who, by their familiar treatment of her, were obviously not strangers at all. These people knew her extremely well, although she had no recollection of ever having seen them before. They knew, for example, that she could neither speak nor hear, and they communicated with her by touch and by broad hand-signals, Their treatment of her was rough, but neither intolerant nor unkind, and yet she was treated as a servant, a menial. Knowing who she was, but not how she had come to be where she was, Deirdre had tried to run away from the encampment that night, but she had been caught without difficulty and put directly to work, performing tasks that were strange to her, but to which her body responded with the ease of long practice.
She had noticed her clothes, too. They were alien and coarse, but they clung comfortably to her body with the ease of long wear and they were very obviously hers. Frightened and confused, she suspected that she was no longer in the land her father ruled, but she had no idea where else she might be. She had never travelled beyond her father's lands.
Days later, she came face to face with her own reflection in a bronze mirror and fainted dead away with terror. She did not recognize the face she had seen. It was a woman's face. Hers had been a girl's. A second, fearful look had convinced her that she had not lost her mind and was not insane, but that somehow, by some evil magic, she had lost much of her self; she had lost years of her life, during which she had grown from being a child to being a woman, with no knowledge of the change or the passing years. And now she lived a life of silence among strangers.
She shared the lives of two particular strangers, a man and a woman who fed her and sheltered her. The man was a pedlar, the woman a herbal healer, and they were constantly travelling, selling his wares and her skills throughout the countryside. Deirdre's main job was to help the woman gather her herbs and simples, although sometimes she would help the man with his goods, carrying burdens like a pack animal. And sometimes, when the mood was upon him, the man would come to her bed and use her sexually, without passion, and she permitted this without thought, because she knew, somehow, it had always been thus.
And then one day, without any warning, the man had fallen sick. The woman came down with the same sickness the following day, and Deirdre had nursed them both until they died, within hours of each other. She had been kneeling by their bodies hours later when Uther and I passed by and found her.
I do not know how long I lay awake in camp that night, remembering. I know only that the camp had quieted without my noticing, and only the occasional whickering of a horse broke the silence before I fell asleep.
XXXI
We set out jauntily on the second day of our march, filled with well-being, and confident of reaching Sorviodunum by mid-afternoon. The sun, too, began its journey across the new day's sky bravely, blinding us as we rode directly into its brilliance, but the sky behind us in the west soon filled with banked clouds that outmarched both us and the sun. By mid-morning the brightness had gone from the day, and by noon we were riding through rain squalls that followed each other like yoked oxen, ever more frequently until the rain fell relentlessly and stayed with us all the way to Sorviodunum.
I do not know what we had expected to find in Sorviodunum, but I remem
ber that the town's dreary dilapidation appalled all of us. It was a town in name alone, in that it was a large concentration of buildings, many of which had been public edifices at one time and more of which had been the homes of townsfolk. Now almost all the buildings were in ruins and the citizens—we used the word reluctantly—ran in terror from our approach. Needless to say, we found no food to purchase. We camped overnight in an overgrown field outside the town and moved on at daybreak.
Fortunately for our spirits, the weather had improved overnight and we were greeted once again by clear skies come daybreak. We made good time from then on, meeting no one on the road, so that, in time, my unease over the deterioration of the once-fine town of Sorviodunum began to dwindle. The weather continued pleasant, with no more of the rain that had fallen on our second day out of Camulod. We skirted the tiny town of Silchester completely, making no attempt to approach it, and eventually came to Pontes, the last remaining town between us and Londinium. Here we found signs of life aplenty, but they were not signs that I responded to with warmth.
As soon as the townspeople saw us approaching, they withdrew behind their walls and barred their gates, refusing us entry. Seeing that they feared our strength, and respecting their fear, I held our men at a distance and approached the walls alone, seeking to speak with someone in authority. That was useless. No one would speak with me, even from the safety of the walls, in spite of every protestation I could offer them. Eventually, seething with anger and frustration, and controlling a very strong urge to provide them with real reason to fear us, I accepted the futility of the situation and led my people away from there as quickly as I could, riding in a black rage that kept my subordinates intent upon not catching my eye and thereby attracting my displeasure.
Only Donuil and Lucanus had the confidence to impose their presence on my bitter mood. Donuil rode in silence, slightly behind me, his horse's nose level with my right knee, close enough for me to address him should I wish to, yet just far enough removed for me to ignore him, as I chose to. Lucanus, on the other hand, stayed away and allowed me to stew for the space of an hour, but then he cantered forward and demanded my attention.
"Why are you so angry?"
I jerked my head towards him, attempting to wither him with a look, but he would not be intimidated. I looked back at the road ahead and rode on in silence. He spoke again.
"They were afraid."
That was so obvious that I still did not deign to answer him; He tried again.
"You're acting as if those people back there had insulted you personally. Is your pride that fragile?" I glanced sideways at him again, silently consigning him to Hades as a persistent nuisance. "Caius!" He was almost laughing. "In God's name, you'd probably have done the same thing, in their shoes. They're vulnerable—and terrified."
Now the anger spilled from my mouth. "Of what?" I jerked my head backwards, indicating the ranks and files behind us. "Do we look like Saxons? Is this an undisciplined rabble, looking for rape and plunder? Did they take me for a marauder, a raiding thief?" I saw immediately from the shock on his face that this response was totally unexpected. He opened his mouth to respond, but I gave him no opportunity. "Damnation, Luke, that's the third town in four days I've had to bypass! We were supposed to eat there tonight—at the very least, we were supposed to reprovision! Our commissary isn't set up to feed two hundred men and their horses all the way from Camulod to Verulamium. That's why we are carrying money! It was part of our operational planning to purchase rations along the way. There was never any question of having to be entirely self-sufficient! Had I known—or even suspected—that the towns along our route would be in the condition they are in, or that any of them would close their gates to us, I would have done things very differently."
"Ah, I see. You're feeling guilty."
"No! Dammit, why should I feel guilty? There was no way I could have known this would happen."
"Correct, except that, as Commander, it's your responsibility to anticipate things like that. Isn't that so?"
It was one thing for me to berate myself for my shortsightedness. It was quite another to have to hear about it from a subordinate. I had to bite back a surge of petulance before my good sense reasserted itself and I was able to identify the tone of his voice as being sympathetic. I looked at him again.
"Yes," I answered. "It is."
"Horse turds, Commander." I blinked in surprise and he kneed his mount closer to mine. "You can no more be held responsible for those towns than you can for failing to anticipate the situation in Londinium."
"What situation in Londinium?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, any more than you can be expected to. I haven't been there in thirty years."
I felt the anger swell up in me again, born this time of his apparent frivolity. "Damn you, Luke, this is no matter for foolery. We are seriously short of provisions."
"I'm being completely serious, Caius. We may fare no better at Londinium than we have elsewhere."
"I doubt it," I snapped. "But first we have to reach the place, if we don't all starve first. We'll reprovision there and buy enough to carry us to Verulamium. As you yourself pointed out, it's the administrative centre of Britain!"
Now, however, Lucanus shook his head. "No. That's what I told you the day before yesterday. But I've been thinking since then about everything I said to you that day, and I now admit I was probably talking nonsense. My heart, not my head, was ruling my thoughts. I think now we'll find you were the one whose guess was more accurate. Londinium by now will be just a town like any of the others we have seen—bigger, but probably no better off. In spite of what I might like to believe, you were right and the past days have proved it. Britain is no longer an imperial province, Caius, and Londinium's no longer Roman."
I stared at him. "What are you hinting at, Luke?"
"I'm not hinting, I'm simply restating the fact you brought home to me the other day. It has been twenty years since the last Romans left. Londinium will no longer be the Londinium I knew. You've never been there, and I haven't seen it since the armies left, but twenty years can bring a lot of changes.
"The engineers are all gone, long ago, as are the magistrates and governors. Now, as a physician, I have had to ask myself who has been running the water and sewage systems for the past two decades? Who's been collecting taxes to maintain the public works? If I allowed my imagination free rein, I could frighten both of us with thoughts of plague and pestilence." He paused, and when he resumed, his voice was lower, more introspective. "I think both of us may have been expecting great things of Londinium, Caius, in different ways, and I think we are both due for a grievous disappointment."
I heard hoofbeats approaching quickly from the rear. It was a messenger from the First Squadron to remind me that the men had not dismounted in almost four hours. I grunted acknowledgement and sent him back to his commander with word to rest, feed the troops and water the horses.
As the column halted and began to dismount, I nodded to Lucanus to accompany me and rode off the road. The fields surrounding Pontes had been few in number, small and ill maintained, and had petered out within a mile of the town. Since then, we had been riding through dense forest that hemmed us in tightly on both sides. The broad, cleared ditches that had originally protected the roadsides had long since disappeared without trace. Now the space they had occupied was choked with thick shrubs, bushes and mature trees. For the past half-mile, however, the trees had begun to thin out, and now we were flanked on both sides by a large, grassy clearing, strewn with the charred remnants of an old forest fire. I aimed my horse towards a pile of boulders about fifty paces from the roadside, and there we dismounted and climbed up to sit on the rocks.
When Lucanus had made himself comfortable beside me, we shared a drink from my water bottle. I watched him as he drank. "Were you serious about plague?"
He grunted and shook his head, lowering the flask. "No, of course not. I was simply being an alarmist. It's a pessimism born of my pro
fession. We have absolutely no reason to suspect any such thing."
I was disconcerted, nonetheless, and his denial did not reassure me. I cleared my throat, hoping to clear my mind with it, and continued. "Well, let's suppose you're right and Londinium's a mess. What can we do?"
He replaced the stopper in the flask and handed it back to me. "About what? Provisions? Nothing we can do, except try to forage elsewhere. There's still game in the forests and fish in the streams, and the horses can still graze."
"And what about the remainder of our journey? If there's no food available in Londinium, then things might well be the same in Verulamium, too. This whole adventure could be a fiasco. Our objective is to demonstrate our strength and presence. If all the towns are abandoned, or closed to us, our time and effort will be wasted. Should we abort now? Turn around and go home?"
He thought about that for some time, mulling over the pros and cons as I was doing. Finally he shook his head. "I would say no. Bear in mind the word was sent out that the debate would be held in Verulamium. It would seem reasonable that arrangements have been made there to house the people coming from all over to attend." He paused. "In the final analysis, we will know nothing about Londinium until we arrive there."
He dug a small pouch out of the scrip by his side and tipped some shelled hazelnuts into his palm before offering the pouch to me. I shook a few into my hand and began popping them into my mouth, one at a time. The silence between us stretched, each of us engrossed in his own thoughts. I looked at the troopers who had dismounted all around us. They had filled every inch of space in the clearing, it seemed, and were sitting, lying or walking around, according to preference, all trying to rid themselves of saddle soreness. Most of them were very young. If I were leading them into a wasteland...if Lucanus were correct and Londinium lay empty or, God forbid, filled with pestilence, many of them might not return home, and the responsibility would be mine. Luke had dropped the thought of plague into my head, and now I could not ignore it. I had recognized his reference to public works and the difficulty of maintaining them; stagnant waters, particularly in congested urban areas, bred plague and pestilence. My mind conjured a vision of bleak, lightless streets littered with swollen corpses. Committing my men to die in battle, should the need arise, would cost me not a moment's discomfort. But the thought of leading them like sheep into a filthy, plague- ridden town, to die in agony and filth and squalor, with no more dignity than rabid rats, appalled me. And suddenly my mind was made up.
