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  The Singing Sword

  ( Camulod Chronicles - 2 )

  Jack Whyte

  From Publishers Weekly

  A sequel to The Skystone, this rousing tale continues Whyte's nuts-and-bolts, nitty gritty, dirt-beneath-the-nails version of the rise of Arthurian "Camulod" and the beginning of Britain as a distinct entity. In this second installment of the Camulod Chronicles, Whyte focuses even more strongly on a sense of place, carefully setting his characters into their historical landscape, making this series more realistic and believable than nearly any other Arthurian epic. As the novel progresses, and the Roman Empire continues to decay, the colony of Camulod flourishes. But the lives of the colony's main characters, Gaius Publius Varrus?ironsmith, innovator and soldier?and his brother-in-law, former Roman Senator Caius Britannicus, are not trouble-free, especially when their most bitter enemy, Claudius Seneca, reappears. Through these men's journals, the novel focuses on Camulod's pains and joys, including the moral and ethical dilemmas the community faces, the joining together of the Celtic and Briton bloodlines and the births of Uther Pendragon and Caius Merlyn Britannicus. Whyte provides rich detail about the forging of superior weaponry, the breeding of horses, the training of cavalrymen, the growth of a lawmaking body within the community and the origins of the Round Table. It all adds up to a top-notch Arthurian tale forged to a sharp edge in the fires of historical realism.

  The Singing Sword

  A Dream of Eagles 02

  Jack Whyte

  For Beverley ... my personal Jean Armour

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The Singing Sword is a work of fiction, but the historical background against which the action of the story takes place is very real, and the major political events occurred as described herein. As we approach the turn of a new century, few of us understand much of what went on at the birth of the twentieth. The story of The Singing Sword is set at the turn of the fifth century — fifteen hundred years ago — and most people have no idea at all what life could have been like in those days.

  Some circumstances, occurrences, words and expressions in the narrative will be unfamiliar to modern readers. As the author, I could have changed or "modernized" all of these, but I have opted often to retain them in the interest of authenticity. Measurements, for example, were not as precise then as ours are now: seconds and minutes, inches and yards, were unknown to the Romans. They spoke in terms of heartbeats and moments, handspans and paces. A Roman mile was a thousand (mille) paces long, slightly less than a modern kilometre.

  None of this should have any effect on the enjoyment of the story by modern readers, nor should this Author's Note be thought of as necessary reading before starting the tale itself. The purpose of the following information is merely to clarify some points that might be puzzling. Read on, by all means, but if you would rather plunge immediately into the story of The Singing Sword, please do. You may choose to refer back to this section as and if necessary.

  Ranks and Titles

  In the introduction to The Skystone, the first book of the four-volume cycle A Dream of Eagles, I included some notes on the composition of the Roman army, the legions of ancient Rome. I have not reproduced them all here, because by the time the events in this book took place the influence of the legions had declined, and they play no significant role in the story that follows. A few terms remain, however, from that root, and they are easily explained.

  The cohort was a legion's major operating formation, as today's Company is a regiment's, and the senior Warrant Officer of each cohort was known as the pilus prior —- the front spear. The title of Lead Spear — primus pilus — was held by the senior Warrant Officer of the entire legion, the regiment to which the cohort belonged. The Commanding Officer of a legion was a Legate, and I have used that term interchangeably with the title "General," since that is what it means. Occasionally, a triumphant and popular general would be hailed in the field as "Imperator" by his victorious troops. Imperator literally means "Emperor," and by the end of the fourth century A.D., when Rome's day was almost over, many an emperor — most of them short-lived — was proclaimed in this manner.

  The modern titles "Count" and "Duke" descend directly from the Roman titles and leadership roles of comes and dux, both popular in the late days of the Empire, but the best-known Roman rank today, thanks to Hollywood epics, is probably that of Tribune. Each legion had six tribunes, and they were the equivalent of today's Staff Officers: Colonels and Majors. The Roman court martial, with its jury of assembled tribunes, has given us the word tribunal.

  Roman Cavalry

  By the end of the second century AD, cavalry was playing an important role in Roman legionary tactics and represented up to one-fifth of overall forces in many military actions. Nevertheless, until the turn of the fifth century, the cavalry was the army's weakest link.

  The Romans themselves were never great horsemen, and Roman cavalry was seldom truly Roman. They preferred to leave the cavalry to their allies and subject nations, so that history tells us of the magnificent German mixed cavalry that Julius Caesar admired, and which gave rise to the cohortes equitates, the mixed cohorts of infantry and cavalry used in the first, second and third centuries AD. Roman writers also mention with admiration the wonderful light horsemen of North Africa, who rode without bridles.

  Fundamentally, with very few exceptions, cavalry were used as light skirmishing troops, mainly mounted archers whose job was patrol, reconnaissance and the provision of a mobile defensive screen while the legion was massing in battle array.

  Roman cavalry of the early and middle Empire was organized in alae, units of 500 to 1,000 men divided into squadrons, or turmae, of 30 or 40 horsemen under the command of decurions. We know that the Romans used a kind of saddle, with four saddle horns for anchoring baggage, but they had no knowledge of stirrups, although they did use spurs. They also used horseshoes and snaffle bits, and some of their horses wore armoured cataphractus blankets of bronze scales, although there is little evidence that this form of armour, or armoured cavalry, was ever widely used.

  Until the fifth century, and the aftermath of the Battle of Adrianople, it would seem that almost no attempt had been made to study the heavy cavalry techniques used in the second century BC by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. It was that renaissance, allied with the arrival of stirrups in Europe somewhere in the first half of the fifth century, that changed warfare forever. In terms of military impact, the significance of the addition of stirrups to the saddle was probably greater than that of the invention of the tank.

  The Early Christians and Their Christ

  We use the name Jesus Christ today as though the two words were first name and surname, but that is a relatively modern usage. To the Christians of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, Jesus was "Jesus, Christus" — Jesus the Christ — because Christus means the Savour, the Redeemer. The definite article is built into the name. For that reason, the device shown on the left, known to us as the Chi-Rho monogram, was in widespread use at that time as the Christians' symbol of belonging.

  The Greek letters Chi and Rho, joined in the monogram exactly as they are today in Christian liturgical vestments, were the first two letters of the written word Christus, and the Chi-Rho had long since replaced the sign of the fish, which had been the password of the earliest, persecuted Christians.

  Proper arid Place Names

  Most of the names used for characters in this novel would have been common in Roman times. The following is a guide to phonetic pronunciation:

  Caesarius

  [Cee-zary-us

  Caius

  [Kay-us^

  Claudius

  [Klawdy-us

  Flavius

  [Fla
vey-us

  Gaius

  [Guy-us

  Luceiia

  [Loo-chee-ya

  Plautus

  [Plough-tus

  Quintus

  [Kwin-tus

  Seneca

  [Sen-nic-a

  Stilicho

  [Stil-itch-o

  Tertius

  [Tershy-us

  Theodosius

  [Theo-dozy-us

  Valentinian

  [Valen-tinny-an

  Vegetius

  [Ve-jeeshy-us

  The land the Romans called Britain was only the land we know today as England. Scotland, Ireland and Wales were separate and known respectively as Caledonia, Hibernia and Cambria. They were not recognized as part of the province of Britain.

  The ancient towns of Roman Britain are still there, but they all have English names now. What follows is a guide to phonetic pronunciation of Roman place names, with their modern equivalents. They are numbered to correspond to the map provided.

  1

  Londinium

  [Lon-dinny-um]

  London

  2

  Verulamium

  [Verr-you-lame-eeyum]

  St. Albans

  3

  Alchester

  4

  Glevum

  [Glev-vum]

  Gloucester

  5

  Aquae Sulis

  [Ack-way Soo-liss]

  Bath

  6

  Lindinis

  [Linn-dinnis]

  Ilchester

  7

  Sorviodunum

  [Sorr-vee-yode-inum]

  Old Sarum

  8

  Venta Belgarum

  [Venta Bell-gah-rum]

  Winchester

  9

  Noviomagus

  [Novvy-oh-maggus]

  Chichester

  10

  Durnovaria

  [Durr-no-varr-eya]

  Dorchester

  11

  Isca Dumnoniorum

  [Isska Dumb-nonny-orum] Exeter

  12

  The Colony

  13

  Camulodunum

  [Ca-moo-loadin-um]

  Colchester

  14

  Lindum

  [Lin-dum]

  Lincoln

  15

  Eboracum

  [Eh-borra-cum]

  York

  16

  Mamucium

  [Mah-moochy-um]

  Manchester

  17

  Dolocauthi

  [Dolla-cow-thee]

  Welsh Gold Mines

  18

  Durovernum

  [Doo-rove-err-num]

  Canterbury

  19

  Regulbium

  [Re-goolby-um]

  Reculver

  20

  Rutupiae

  [Roo-too-pee-ay]

  Richborough

  21

  Dubris

  [Doo-briss]

  Dover

  22

  Lemanis

  [Leh-mann-iss]

  Lympne

  23

  Anderita

  [An-der-reeta]

  Pevensey

  The Legend of the Skystone

  Out of the night sky there will fall a stone

  That hides a maiden born of murky deeps,

  A maid whose fire-fed, female mysteries

  Shall give life to a lambent, gleaming blade,

  A blazing, shining sword whose potency

  Breeds warriors. More than that,

  This weapon will contain a woman's wiles

  And draw dire deeds of men; shall name an age;

  Shall crown a king, called of a mountain clan

  Who dream of being spawned from dragon's seed;

  Fell, forceful men, heroic, proud and strong,

  With greatness in their souls.

  This king, this monarch, mighty beyond ken,

  Fashioned of glory, singing a song of swords,

  Misting with magic madness mortal men,

  Shall sire a legend, yet leave none to lead

  His host to triumph after he be lost.

  But death shall ne'er demean his destiny who,

  Dying not, shall ever live and wait to be recalled.

  PROLOGUE: 387 A.D.

  The tribune recognized the first signs from more than a mile away, just as the road dropped down from the ridge to enter the trees: a whirlpool of hawks and carrion-eaters, spiraling above the treetops of the forest ahead of him. With a harsh command to his centurion to pick up the pace of his men, the officer kicked his horse forward, uncaring that he was leaving his infantry escort far behind. The swirling birds meant death; their numbers meant that they were above a clearing in the forest; and their continuing flight meant that they were afraid to land. Probably wolves. The tribune lowered the face-protector of his helmet to guard himself from whipping twigs and took his horse into the trees at a full gallop, sensing that all danger of ambush or opposition was long gone.

  He heard wolves fighting among themselves while he was still far distant from them, and he kicked his horse to even greater speed, shouting at the top of his voice and making the maximum possible noise to distract them from their grisly feast. He had little doubt about what they were eating.

  As he burst into the clearing, the wolves crowded together, bellies low to the ground, snarling and slavering as they faced the newcomer. He put his horse at them without hesitation, drawing his short-sword and slashing at them, his horse using its hooves in its own battle. The snarling fury of the pack quickly became a crescendo of yelps of pain and fear as horse and rider laid about them, and soon one, and then all of the lean, grey scavengers broke off the fight and fled to the protection of the bushes that surrounded the clearing.

  When they had gone, out of sight among the bushes and safely beyond his reach, the tribune looked around at the scene he had ridden into. The clearing was dominated by one massive, ancient oak tree that had an arrangement of ropes and pulleys strung across one of its huge branches. One of these ropes reached to a ring fastened to a heavy stake that had been driven deep into the ground. The condition of the ground around the stake — the grass trodden flat and dead and scattered haphazardly with piles of human excrement — showed that someone had been confined there for many days. The bodies of three men, one of them absolutely naked, sprawled on the dusty, blood-spattered ground. Flies swarmed everywhere, attracted, like the birds and the wolves, by the smell of sun-warmed blood. The two clothed bodies had both been badly bitten about the face by the wolves, particularly the younger of the two, a blond man whose neck and throat had been slashed by a sword almost deeply enough to decapitate him.

  The naked man lay face down, his left arm extended and ripped open on the underside, close to the shoulder, where one of the wolves had been chewing at it. There was another clear set of tooth-marks on the body's right thigh, although the bite had not been ripped away. The only blood visible on this corpse was pooled beneath it.

  Incongruously, a rolled parchment scroll lay pinned beneath the outstretched arm of the naked body, and the tribune idly wondered what it contained. He threw his leg over his horse's neck and slid easily to the ground, where he collected the scroll, carefully making sure no blood touched it. That done, he rolled the corpse easily onto its back and gazed at the massive, eloquently fatal stab wound in the centre of its chest, just below the peak of the rib-cage. He snorted through his nostrils, then prised open the seal on the rolled parchment and began to read, whispering the words to himself to clarify the sense of them as he deciphered the densely packed characters. After the first few sentences, he stiffened and lifted his eyes to look at the dead man at his feet, then squatted, picked up the corpse's wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none. He dropped the hand, stood erect again and continued to read.

  The sound of his men approaching at a dead run brought the tribune's head up. As they broke from the tre
e-lined path and drew up in two ranks facing him, he ordered them to spread out and chase away the wolves hiding in the undergrowth, offering a silver denarius for any wolf killed. The soldiers scattered enthusiastically to the chase, their centurion with them. The tribune watched them until they were out of sight, then returned to his interrupted reading, his lips once again moving almost soundlessly as he worked his way through the document. When he reached the end, he made a clicking sound with his tongue, glanced again at the naked corpse and then read through the entire scroll a second time, scanning the words more quickly this time, his face expressionless until he reached the end again, when his brow creased in a slight frown. He folded the scroll carefully several times, creasing the edges sharply to reduce the bulk of the packet thus formed, and tucked it securely beneath his cuirass. By the time his men returned to the clearing, he had remounted his horse and was deep in thought.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the centurion approach him and asked what he wanted.

  The centurion nodded towards the naked corpse, a look of uncertainty on his face. "What d'you want us to do, sir? With the bodies?" He cleared his throat nervously. "Is it him, sir? The Procurator?"

  The tribune took his time in answering, but when he did speak, he pitched his voice so that the men standing silently at attention could all hear him.

  "Am I in debt to anyone for bounty on those wolves?"

  Several of the men shook their heads along with their centurion. The wolves had all escaped. The tribune looked all around the clearing, tacitly inviting his men to do the same.

  "I have no idea, at this stage, what happened here," he said next, "although any man with a brain could probably make an accurate assessment simply by looking around him. The man with no clothes obviously escaped from bondage beneath the big tree, there. You can see the scabs on his wrists, and the ropes and tackle they bound him with, and the trampled area where he was confined. You can also see from the piles of human dung that, whoever these other people were, they showed him no humanity. It seems evident that he loosed himself — broke free, somehow — snatched a sword and managed to kill two of his captors before being killed himself. Whoever these abductors of his were, they allowed themselves to grow fatally careless."