There was silence for a few moments as Caius and I digested this disquieting news, and then, as usual, it was Caius who spoke up.
"I had no idea things were so bad up there. We heard some rumours, of course, but we thought the enemy in the north was being held, by and large, in abeyance."
"They are. For now." Picus sounded sceptical. "But that won't last long. They're too well co-ordinated. They have some first-class military minds directing them."
A female shriek rang out behind us and then a booming roar of laughter. I swung around to look back, but I could see no sign of the source of the hilarity, nor the cause of it.
"Anyway," Picus continued, paying no attention to the noise, "that's talk for later, when the ladies are abed. This morning should be for pleasure alone."
We rode in companionable silence for a time, enjoying the beauty of the day and listening to the tinkling of the Celtic musicians entertaining the ladies behind us. The first of Picus's troopers sat his horse on the left side of the road about half a mile ahead of us, right at the bottom of the hill.
"Look," Picus observed, "Janus has staggered the men, ten paces apart on opposite sides of the hill. That's good. I like a man with initiative. Now you have almost half a mile of mounted guards."
"Aye," Caius grunted, good-naturedly, "that will please the ladies." He paused, as if reflecting, before he observed, "Do you know that yours are the only imperial troops some of our people have ever seen? Especially the young ones."
Picus's voice showed his surprise. "I suppose they are, now that you mention it. You are a bit off the beaten track."
"Aye," I added, "and, please God, we'll stay off it. By the way, what news of your young friend with the wild ideas? What was his name? Pelidorus?"
"Who? Pelidorus?" There was bafflement in Picus's voice, then, "Oh, you mean Pelagius!"
"Aye, Pelagius, that was it. The theologian. What of him?"
Picus shook his head. "Nothing. No news. I haven't heard his name mentioned in ages. Not since we spoke of him that day, in fact."
"Do you think he's still alive?"
"Why not?" Picus laughed aloud. "It was a bishop he offended, Uncle, not the Emperor. And speaking of bishops, when did you last see Bishop Alaric?"
"Alaric? About an hour ago. He's right behind you, about the middle of the column. He will consecrate the wedding and our new altar-stone at the same time."
"Altar-stone? What's this?"
"You'll see. The good bishop has talked the Council into establishing a meeting-place for priests and prayers alike, in the Council Hall."
"Has he, by Mithras?" There was ungrudging admiration in Picus's tone. "How did he do that?"
"Cleverly," I answered him, smiling. "And at a time when it had most effect. It got the chamber finished."
Picus pursed his lips and glanced from me to his father and then back to me.
"You said this morning marks the start of all my father's dreams coming true. The marriage I understand, but what else is there?"
"Well, there's the new Council chamber, as I said, and our new quarters. The fort itself is coming into full use today for the first time as well. This is the first procession of our people as a group along this new road, too. And this is the first springtime of a new century in the year of our Lord the Christ. Think about that, Picus. What you will witness today is, in its own small way, the birthing of a new society, in a new place, surrounded by new walls at the opening of a new age. And all of it — the people and their dreams, the place, the soldiers and their weaponry, and all the hope for the future — has sprung from the mind and from the dreams of your father."
Caius coughed and cleared his throat in embarrassment and would have demurred, had I not cut him short in mid-cough.
"No, Caius, you may not interrupt and you may not dismiss my words. Everything I say is true and there is no way you can escape retribution for your plannings and machinations, so you might as well not try."
Picus spoke for his father and for himself. "Publius Varrus," he said, "your words make me both proud and humble that I should be my father's son."
"Good. That is as it should be. In both instances. Pride is a strong man's sword, and a little humility does no man harm."
We had drawn abreast of Picus's first man who sat stiffly at attention, reining his horse in hard, his naked blade shining in the sun as he stared straight ahead, his motionless eyes fixed on infinity as his Legate rode past. Both Picus and I had drawn ourselves up into our formal stance as we approached him and we remained that way, our bearing a reciprocal tribute to the guards themselves, until we reached the gates at the top of the hill.
The noise there was unbelievable — a cacophony of horns, whistles and cheers of welcome for the bride and her escort. The inside of the fort was brightly and appropriately decorated for the day's festivities. Long bolts of brightly coloured cloth hung from the walls, and Ullic's Celts, brightly clothed at the best of times, were all bedecked in their gaudiest finery. The entire scene was a maelstrom of colours. My ears picked out several sources of music of one kind or another, and off to my left I saw the gigantic brown awesomeness of a dancing bear. Then, as the lead party started to enter through the gates, someone began to beat out a slow, welcoming cadence on the Celtic war-drum, and others took up the beat, the tempo increasing gradually and steadily until the very air throbbed with the rhythm of the percussion. These were the drums that had frightened the lights out of Caesar's men four hundred years earlier, and their effect had lost nothing in power over the centuries. Yet they looked deceptively flimsy, being light, easily carried affairs, nothing more than a dried skin stretched over a wooden hoop a handsbreadth deep, reinforced by two cross-braces that formed a handhold at their junction in the centre of the drum. Struck with either end of a short wooden stick, which these people wielded with amazing dexterity, these devices produced an inordinate amount of fierce, martial, reverberant and threatening noise.
Ullic, grand showman that he was, stood waiting to greet us, surrounded by his family, his chiefs and his Druids, the latter dressed in either all-black or all-white robes, depending on their function. Ullic himself was something to behold, blazing with colour, crusted with jewellery and wearing on his head the symbol of his kingship, the huge eagle helmet I had last seen at our first meeting at Stonehenge. His men had built a platform for him and for his party so that they stood head and shoulders above the surrounding crowds. Uric stood on his father's right, a proud young man wearing a simple tunic of blue cloth tied with a crimson sash and trimmed with a Greek pattern of golden squares. His legs and feet were encased in fur-lined boots with golden studs, and on his head he wore a ceremonial helmet adorned with the horns of what must have been a mighty ram, for they curled downward to rest on his shoulders.
Caius, Picus and I kneed our horses directly to the space left clear for the approach of the bridal party and halted directly in front of Ullic's dais, leaving enough room between Caius and me for Veronica's litter, and between Caius and Picus for Luceiia's chair. The remainder of our people spread out on both sides of us in good order, so that when the bride and her party entered the enclosure of the fort they were able to make their way unhampered to their proper place.
It took about one-third of an hour for our entire group to wend its way into position, but at last everyone was in place and Ullic raised his right arm high, commanding an instant silence, since all eyes were already upon him. He allowed the silence to grow to a point just short of discomfort before he began to speak, and then he welcomed everyone, singling out Caius Britannicus as the prime reason for the wedding being celebrated here in this place and enumerating the achievements of the man that everyone present there had grown to admire, if not to love. After a few minutes of this, and amid a growing tide of approbation, Caius raised his own hand in protest and Ullic stopped.