"You mean magic?" Uther's tone was openly sceptical.
"Of a kind. The magic of venom for arrows, certainly, and God knows what else besides."
"Shit and corruption!" The scepticism had vanished.
"You stopped that morning before coming into the fort Can you remember exactly where that was?"
"Of course. At the crossroads by the big, shattered ash tree, about five miles out on the east road, where the forest thins out for a space. I let my men clean themselves up in the brook there."
"Then that's where they must have hidden the boxes. Who was the man you detailed to watch them?"
"Gareth, one of my own men. But they couldn't have hidden anything, Cay. They didn't have time. We didn't stop for long enough."
"Long enough to defecate?"
"Yes, of course. Some did, but—" . "Then that was long enough. I didn't say they buried the boxes, Uther, only that they concealed them. You can be sure they had planned their move, probably in their own heathen tongue, long before the opportunity arose."
Uther was frowning suddenly. "Wait a moment, wait a moment.. .There was a disturbance of some kind, now that I think about it...Something to do with the horses. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, because it was over quickly. That might have been when they did it. There was something about redistributing the loads." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Cay, I can't remember."
"Your man Gareth should remember. Where can we find him?"
Uther gazed into his cup and swallowed a draught before answering, "We can't. He's in the common grave, down on the plain. He was one of the first of my men to go down."
"Damnation! Anyway, I know the place. I'm going to go and look around there tomorrow. I'll take Donuil with me."
"I'll come too." He stood up. "I know exactly where . they were, and where the disturbance occurred. If they did hide anything, it must have been near there. If the boxes exist, we'll find them. But now I'm going back to sleep. I had a few hours earlier, but I haven't had a decent sleep in days. What about you?"
I yawned. "I don't know. I'm yawning, but I don't feel sleepy, and yet I'm bone tired, does that make sense? I think I'll take a walk to digest this meal, and then get some more sleep myself."
"Good. Hammer on my door when you get up. We'll break fast together, find your young heathen and be on the road early. We should be able to find those things, if they are there, and be back here by noon. Good night to you. Sleep well, Cousin."
I bade him good night and walked outside to the main courtyard. An honour guard detachment still ringed my father's pyre, which now smouldered angrily, glowing bright red and blue in the blackness of the night. I walked through their circle and stood close to the fire, even now feeling its fearsome strength tighten the skin of my cheekbones and bare legs as I peered into its heart, seeking the iron coffin that contained the remains of the man who had sired and shaped me. I knew it was there, but I could not see it in the incandescent brightness. I offered up a prayer for my father's soul and stood there a long time, silently remembering.
Finally I stepped away from the fire and back through the ring of guards into the darkness, but I carried its heat with me for some time as I walked in the coolness of the night. At length, however, the heat wore off and the chill of the darkness reminded me that I was lightly dressed for night-time walking. I made my way back to my quarters and climbed into bed, where I slept dreamlessly.
We found the warlocks' boxes the following day, with almost no need to search. Uther led us directly to the spot where the disturbance with the horses had occurred, and we struck into the woods immediately. Donuil, who had been driving Uncle Varrus's sprung, two-wheeled cart, left it on the road to follow us on foot. We found the boxes less than twenty paces from the road, hidden in a small gully cut by a streamlet. Donuil jumped down into the gully immediately, catching his clothes on the wild brambles that filled the place and cursing at the thorns that clawed at him. The image chilled me instantly.
"Donuil!" I shouted, "Get out of there!"
He looked at me in amazement, as did Uther, but he turned and climbed back up out of the hole. I slid from my horse and drew my sword, using it to hack away the brambles that choked the hiding-place, kicking them aside until the boxes were uncovered. When I had cleared the space around them completely, I knelt on one knee beside the boxes, peering closely at them, ignoring the heavy chains that bound them and concentrating only on the wooden cases. My presentiment had been right. I looked up to where Donuil stood watching me. "Come down now, carefully, and look at this." When he had joined me, I pointed a finger where I wanted him to look. "Recognize that?"
He shuddered in loathing as he saw and recognized what I had found. "One of them," he whispered, staring wide eyed at the sharp, black thorn that was lodged in the woodwork of the case.
"Aye, and there are more. Anyone finding these boxes and trying to remove them would not have lasted long. Uther, come and look at this."
Uther jumped from his horse's back and came down to join us. I pointed again to the thorn. "See that? It's first cousin to your poisoned arrows. A prick from that, and you're a dead man. Those are the thorns that Caspar used to kill his twelve men, one thorn, one man."
He grimaced. "Come on, Cay. Are you serious? That's not possible."
"Try asking those dead men to agree with you. I'm telling you, Uther, these little things are deadly."
He stooped closer to peer at the one I had shown him, prepared to be impressed in spite of himself. "They don't look deadly, do they?"
"That's why they work so well."
His eyes were now moving over the boxes. "How many of them are there?"
"Too many. Eight that I can see, but there's probably a score more of them around all four sides and the top of each box. There wouldn't be any on the bottom."
"How do we get them out?"
"Cautiously," I said. "One at a time."
I used the point of my knife to dislodge the thorns, and I handled each of them with great respect, thrusting them, one at a time, point first into the packed earth of the stream's bank. Eventually, the task was complete and the boxes were safe to handle. Uther wanted to open them immediately, and so did I, but I had doubts. The care with which the outside of these things had been protected worried me. Anyone patient enough, and knowledgeable enough, to work his way through the maze of thorns, chains and locks around these boxes would be ill advised, it seemed to me, to simply throw open the lids without further precaution.
We carried the boxes intact to the racing cart and took them back to Camulod, where, in spite of the curiosity and impatience of the others to see what they contained, I stored them in my quarters until such time as I could approach the problem they presented calmly and examine their contents with an open mind.
XXVII
I waited for two weeks before opening the chests we had recovered, and then spent the following weeks in a state of absolute fascination as I examined, item by item, the contents that lay revealed. Had anyone been watching me, observing my behaviour as I first opened their lids, he might have doubted the soundness of my mind. I had had the chests moved into the main smithy, and had then banished everyone, sealing myself inside with my prize. As soon as I was alone and safe from interruption, I set to work immediately to open them. They were big, and heavy, one slightly larger than the other, perhaps a handsbreadth longer and a span higher.
A maul, a cold chisel and an anvil made short work of the chains, but each box was sealed by a spring lock that required a key. Publius Varrus had been a master lock- maker, and when I was a boy he had explained to me the action of spring locks. I crossed to his old work space by the main forge and opened the battered, much-stained wooden box that he had used to hold his collection of keys. They were all still there, dozens of them, coated with rust. I found only two that seemed as though they might fit the locks on the warlocks' cases. A few moments scraping each with a fine file to remove the rust, a few drops of oil, and the lock of the first box, the larger of the two, clicked open in response to my gentle pressure.