My aunt accepted all I said, but still did everything in her power to dissuade me from leaving, and to influence my thinking in the matter of her grandson. We talked for a long time, but I was adamant. My path lay clearly before me. I took my leave of her at last and went in search of Lucanus.
It was raining heavily enough to have doused the torches on the walls as I made my way across the pitch blackness of the parade ground to Lucanus's quarters, but I found him where I had expected to, not yet abed, writing in his sick bay surrounded by lit tapers. I paused before entering, struggling with myself and with my rage against Uther. Lucanus, I was determined, should have not the slightest hint of my renewed suspicions. This interview was crucial to my plans, central to my ability to walk away from Camulod and my responsibilities. Luke would fight me, I knew, if he suspected me of harbouring new doubts about my cousin. I reviewed the course I wished this conversation to take, then stepped into the sick bay.
Lucanus glanced up as I entered and nodded briefly. He held up a hand to indicate that he would be with me in a moment and waved me to a chair as I shrugged out of my rain-damp cloak, and I sat waiting in the shadows until he had finished writing. Finally he put down his pen and turned to me. "Well," he began. "I haven't seen you all day and did not expect to see you so late tonight. What's on your mind?"
I plunged straight in. "How did you get back to Camulod after we left you on the road with the northern king.. .what was his name?"
He made a face of surprise then rueful dismissal. "Derek. Derek of Ravenglass. We returned quickly and directly, but not without trickery. As I've told you before, your friend Derek was a mixed benison. He escorted us to the meeting place, but then abandoned us in the middle of Lot's army, which was short of wagons for transporting their supplies. He had to meet his two hundred men. I was glad, yet strangely sad, to part from him. I found him offensive, but his men protected us. After he left, I thought we would lose the wagons."
"He was supposed to escort you through and past Lot's army. That's what the gold was for."
Lucanus shrugged. "I know, but he changed the terms-" He broke off, his features sharpening as he gazed keenly into the shadows, trying to see my face. "Who told you about the gold? You and I have not discussed that."
I nodded, acknowledging his acuity. "No one told me. I remembered."
He was on his feet instantly, moving towards me, all of his physician's instincts on full alert. For a while we sparred verbally, he trying to question me on every aspect of my recovery, and I to avoid being diverted from my purpose. I gave up eventually, realizing that I would make no progress until he was at least partially satisfied with my recovery and the cause of it. I told him of recovering my memory while kneeling by Cassandra's grave, a minor lie, but one that was necessary to avoid approaching the matter of Uther's guilt. He threw a thousand questions at me, and I attempted to answer all of them until I reached the point where I could take no more.
"Enough, Luke," I told him finally. "I am fully recovered and that's that. And not only do I recall everything that happened before I was struck down, but I recall everything that has happened since. There are no holes in my mind now, so leave off with your infernal, snooping, physician's questions."
"Surgeon's questions." He was grinning at me and I grinned back.
"As you wish. Surgeon's...but I have some questions of my own that require answers." I stopped, remembering. "You mentioned trickery a while ago. You said you came here directly but not without trickery. What did you mean?"
He grinned. "Deceit. I remembered the towns we passed on the way to Verulamium and our fear of plague. So I put it about that the men in our wagons were sick of some pestilence, not wounded. Derek's people had gone by then, so there were none who knew anything different, and suddenly our wagons were undesirable. We cut straight through Lot's army and moved ahead of them and safely back to Camulod."
"I see. Inventive of you. And where was I when you arrived?"
"Abed and dying. In your aunt's house. You had been there for several days. You were barely alive. As soon as I saw you, and the state of your head, I knew what had to be done, although I thought I might have come too late."
"So you drilled a hole in my head."
"I did, and let some of the air out." He smiled again. "It was only a small hole, but I was amazed by the blood that came out of it. I have to tell you again, however, that I am still deeply concerned by the recurrence of that haematoma. I'll be watching you closely from now on, since I can't trust you to report your pain."
"You can. I've promised you. I owe you my life now twice over, obviously."
Lucanus shrugged, his smile still in place. "No more than you owe it to Donuil or Uther. Between us, in our different ways, we've managed to salvage you. How will you reward us, I wonder?"
The irony of his question made my heart leap in my breast as a voice in my head said clearly: Painfully, my friend.
To escape my sudden confusion, I stood up and moved forward into the light, pausing by his desk to run my fingertips across the papyrus on which he had been writing. "Tell me what happened to the army we encountered north of Aquae Sulis that time. They were poised to take Glevum, then Aquae, then Camulod. Obviously they didn't, but why not? I must have heard at the time, but I was not myself and since then I've forgotten, until now."
He smiled and grunted. "They killed their own threat, with no trouble to us. It was a small army, no more than four thousand men, it seems. They struck Aquae Sulis, but found nothing there worth having, so they demolished what little remained of the temple of Sulis Minerva, then marched north against Glevum. Lot, as usual, was not among them, and the 'general' he had sent to marshal them was killed in a squabble in Aquae, leaving them leaderless. Anyway, Glevum brought them less than Aquae had, and so they struck west, into Cambria, seeking the gold-mines at Dolocauthi. We heard no more of them."
"I see. It seems God was on our side then. We were in poor condition to repel their attack, had it come." Lucanus nodded in agreement, looking up at where I stood above him. I perched on the edge of his table. "I intend to send Donuil tomorrow at first light to carry a message to my brother Ambrose in Lindum, or in the kingdom of Vortigern if that's where he is now. I am convinced he should come here. God knows, we have need of him. I would also like you to welcome him for me when he arrives and make him feel this is his home. May I rely on you for that?"
"Of course, you know that." A tiny frown of curiosity ticked between his brows. "Where will you be?"
I shrugged. "Away. I'm leaving for a while. As I've already told the Lady Luceiia, I need to spend some time alone. There are too many memories here right now, and they are all too fresh, too new... too sudden."
"Aye, I can understand that." His voice was pitched low and filled with sympathy. "Where will you go? Do you have any idea?"
Loathing myself for the direct lie to my best friend, but fortified by that same, icy calm that had been in me all evening, I forced my face to remain expressionless. "No," I answered, shaking my head to emphasize the unimportance of that. "Perhaps south, perhaps east. I'll follow my nose. But it's important that Ambrose be made welcome here, and that he involve himself to some extent in the destiny of this place. His grandfather and his father built it, so it is his legacy. And he has martial skills that we can and must use in any way we may. I've no fears of his not prospering here, and loving it, and Uther will like him." Then, with the barest pause, as though the thought had just occurred to me, I went on. "Where was Uther headed, by the way? Do we know?"