Autumn-foaled and autumn-found — I knew the name that was his as by right; I should call him Signus, for the four stars of Signus the Swan, that comes winging up into the southern sky just at the time of the autumn gales.
I gave it to him now, as a kind of covenant between us. “Signus — Signus, I call you. Remember that, small one, against the day that we go into battle together.”
And the foal ducked his head and then tossed it up again. It was no more than my hand on his muzzle, but it looked like agreement. We all laughed, I remember; and the foal, suddenly turning shy, backed a little, and wheeling about on long splayed legs, turned himself to the comfort and reassurance of his mother’s milk.
Later, sitting on our hams about the crackling furze fire in the herdsmen’s bothy, Old Hunno brought out a jar of fermented mare’s milk (it is wonderful what unlikely things can be used to make fire-drink) and the peeled willow wands on which he kept the tallies, both of his own and those which Amgerit his son sent down to him every year from the Arfon breeding runs, that the whole record might be kept as one. There, marked by variously shaped notches on the white wands, was the record of every foal born in the last seven years. Round about ninety to a hundred foals a year, save for the third year, when there had been less than half that number. “That was a bad black year,” Hunno said, “a wet spring, a drowned spring, both here and in the hills. And there was more than a score of foals dropped dead, besides them that sickened later; and we lost heavily among the mares too. But this year — Ah now, this year has been a good one; see —” The old brown finger with its ridged and back-curved nail moved up the newest and whitest of the willow wands, touching mark after mark. “A hundred and thirty-two-three-four-five — a hundred and thirty-six, seventy-three of them colts; and we have lost no more than nine. The number of births goes up, look you, because we have added certain of the young mares to the breeding herd.“
Besides the occasional losses, there had of course been some horses that did not come up to the needful standard, besides mares who were stallion-shy or consistently bad breeders, and Hunno had sold off these poorer beasts as I had bidden him, to pay for fodder or occasionally for other horses; but save for these sales, we had kept faithfully to the original plan, however sore our need, of not drawing on the herd until it had had time to become well established. But now the time had come when we might safely begin to do so and we looked at each other about the furze fire with brightening eyes. “We have done well to wait so long,” I said, “and now, thanks to your good stewardship, Hunno old wolf, we can begin to draw on the herd.”
He nodded. “What have you in mind?”
“All the half-bred stallions of four and five years old — the Septimanians are enough to serve as many mares as we possess — possibly some of the three-year-olds, too, come the spring, when they are fully broken. That should give us something over two hundred and fifty.”
“What of the surplus mares?”
“Not for us,” I said. “Too precious to be risked in war save in the last ditch. Let them go back to free range in the hills; they may do something to improve the stock, and we can call them in again in another year should we need them.”
There was a great content in me. We should be able to replace half our present mounts, who were mostly fen horses by that time, good willing brutes but without much fire; and they could go to form a reserve with the rest of the newcomers. (Never wise to put too many raw mounts into the battle line in any one year, however well trained they be.) We had never been able to count on a reserve of spare mounts until now; and God knew how sorely we had sometimes needed them. God, as Cei had said, was good.
When the jar was empty and many things had been talked over, we took our leave, and set out once more for Deva. The mare’s milk was the most potent liquor that has ever come my way. I have always had a hard head, but that night the stars were the color of honeysuckle and soft as the stars of midsummer. I think we sang a little, on the road back to the City of Legions. But it was not all the mare’s milk.
It was well into the second watch of the night when we got back, but a handful of men who were none of mine were standing under the lantern at the entrance to the old officers’ courtyard. They were well-set-up lads, all young and hard, and they had their weapons with them. What they wanted I thought I could guess, even before one of them — it was the youngster who had carried my message to Kinmarcus — stepped forward to my stirrup. “Sir, my Lord Artos, may we have a word with you?”
“I expect so.” I dismounted and handed Arian over to my armor-bearer, with an extra pat because I felt all at once the guilt of disloyalty to him. “Take over,” I said to Cei, and gesturing the newcomers to follow me, led the way to my quarters. The lantern was lit and there was a small fire burning in an earthenware brazier, and I sat down beside it, holding out my hands chilled from the bridle rein, for the softness of the past day was turning raw, and looked at the young men crowding before me. “Well? What is the thing that you wish to say to me?”
The one who had been my messenger answered for the rest. “Sir, we have brought you our swords, we would join the Company that rides with you.”
I looked into their eager and earnest faces. “You are very young, all of you.”
“Fion is the youngest of us, and he will be eighteen next month. We are all made men and carry our own weapons, my Lord Artos.”
I leaned forward studying them, face after face. What I saw there pleased me, but certainly they were all very young. “Listen,” I said. “There are two degrees of following me. I want men for the Company, yes; I always want men for the Company. But I want also —” I hesitated, seeking for the word: “Auxiliaries and irregulars; men to serve with me as light horsemen, as archers and scouts and spearmen, as faithfully as my Companions serve with me as heavy cavalry; men who will follow me out over their own frontiers when the need arises, and hold to me for as long as I need them — knowing always that as soon as I can spare them, in a year, or two, or three, they will be free to return again to their own homes. For the men who ride with me as my Companions, the thing is very different. From them I demand loyalty to myself and to each other, alone and for all time — or at least until the last Saxon looses his hold from the last headland of the British coast. We are a brotherhood, and for us there can be no bond outside, and no release after a few years. By your faces you would seem to be such men as my heart calls to, and gladly I will accept your swords in one degree or the other; but before you decide, in God’s name think. You have all your lives to live, and afterward there can be no way back with honor.”
They glanced at each other; one, a red-haired youth, licked his lower lip, another fidgeted with the handle of his dirk. “Go home,” I said. “Talk it over, put it under your pillow and sleep on it; and come to me again in the morning.”
Another man shook his head. “We came this evening to lay our weapons at your feet, and we would not go back to our own hearths again with the thing still unsettled. ”Give us leave to speak together in your doorway for a few moments, my Lord Artos.“
“Surely, for as many moments as you wish.” I drew my dagger and fell to burnishing it with the tail of my cloak, abandoning them and their councils. They drew aside into the doorway, and I heard the low mutter of their voices for a while. Then the pad of their feet came across the floor, and I looked up to see them standing before me again. The boy who had been my messenger stood a little out from the rest, and two more with him. As before, he acted as spokesman for the rest.