VIII
Well, I thought about that spear. I thought of little else for a long time. I worked on it and worried over it day and night for months after that evening, not knowing it was to be another ten years before the discovery was made that would revolutionize our way of waging war, and even longer before we would recognize what we really had.
Victorex, the bailiff from Terra's estate, took to Caius's ideas before he had even finished outlining them, for horses were this man's life. He even looked like one. He was tall and bald except for a thick corona of stiff, straight, dun-coloured hair that encircled his head above his ears like a cropped mane. He had long, pointed ears, large, pale eyes that were slightly too close together and a face that seemed to fill up his whole head. His nose was long and flat and his big, oblong teeth seemed squeezed together at the front of his mouth. And he had no chin. A strange-looking character, altogether. The first time Equus saw him he said, "My God! And they call me Equus!"
Victorex was the perfect man to put in charge of Caius's new project, and he could not wait to get started. The first thing he did, after he had moved his belongings from Terra's villa to ours, was to examine every head of stock we had. Within a week he had divided them all up by sex, weight and colour and begun to devise complicated plans and charts for his "bloodlines," as he called them, and for his breeding stables. All told, including the horses from the other villas in the Colony, we had twenty-seven stallions, about fifty mares and a number of geldings, mules and horses too old to be useful. Victorex selected the three finest stallions and the ten biggest, strongest mares as breeding stock, to be kept at the villa. The rest he allocated to the various farms that made up the Colony. Caius had informed all of our people of his plans, and if there were any ill feelings over this relocation of stock, they went unvoiced. The word went out, too, that every expedition that left the Colony had to keep constant look-out for new stock. No plugs or swaybacks were wanted, but all horses judged to be suitable for breeding purposes were to be bought at a fair price and brought back to the Colony.
The first opportunity came on my next excursion to Noviomagus to meet with Statius, but we found no horses on that journey other than the nine pairs we bought from him, complete with wagons loaded with iron ingots. Caius had been correct, in his usual manner, about our timing on that trip. The twenty-one days of grace accorded to Lignus the carpenter expired as we were preparing to leave the Colony, and he was granted another two days in custody so that we could escort him safely off the Colony's lands. His son Simeon was recovering slowly, and there was now every reason to expect that the boy would grow healthy again, although his leg was broken and twisted beyond even Cletus's ability to repair. Lignus's burns, on the other hand, had been largely superficial and were healing quickly, except for the oil burn on his left ear, and hair had already begun to grow on the rest of his head, leaving him with a mangy, scabby look that I thought well suited to him. He still stank like a goat, too, and I ordered him forcibly washed before I would allow him to approach my train.
We were taking only two wagons with us on the outward journey, to carry the salt and provisions we intended to pick up along our route, and Lignus sat chained in the bottom of one of them as we marched away. No one came to see him off or to wish him well. We took him far beyond the boundaries of the Colony and left him, free of his chains at last, just outside the small town of Sorviodunum, where four main roads intersect.
From there onward, relieved of his company, our journey to and from Noviomagus was direct and uncomplicated, and we avoided being seen from any of the towns we passed by. We concluded our business with Statius quickly and to his immense satisfaction, and contracted to meet with him again just prior to the start of the new year. With the proof of our madness and riches, this second exorbitant payment of gold safe in his hands, Statius would have been happy to bring his next shipment of iron all the way to our Colony, but I balked at the thought of him knowing where to find us and our gold. I told him that I had to come back to Noviomagus then anyway on other business.
Five days after leaving Statius in Noviomagus, we were back on our own lands, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that my old friend Bishop Alaric had been installed as a house guest during my absence. He was the first person I saw among the small group waiting to welcome me home, standing straight, tall and white-haired beside Caius. He had brought joyous tidings with him on this visit, but no mention was made of them to me at that time. Luceiia had missed my arrival, being away from the villa on some business connected with her emerging Council of Women, but Caius assured me that she would be home presently, and I went about the business of overseeing the unloading of my wagons and the disposal of the goods they held before making my way to the bath house to wash the stains of the road from my pores.
When I entered the house again, I found Caius seated by the window in his study, poring over one of a pile of tightly rolled parchments, all sealed with wax, that lay on the table in front of him. Curious, I asked him what he was reading and he reacted with the euphoria of a man who has just found buried treasure. The parchments were all letters from his son Picus, written over a period of years and dispatched by a variety of military couriers from all parts of the Empire, in care of Plautus at the garrison in Colchester. Plautus had been transferred to Londinium since Picus left Britain, and the postmasters at Colchester had taken very little interest in forwarding letters to him. Eventually, however, a large number of letters had been delivered to Plautus in bulk, and he had duly forwarded them to Alaric, knowing they would come, in time, to Cay. Having waited years to receive them without even knowing of their existence, Cay had now determined, he told me, to wait a little longer before permitting himself the pleasure of reading them, teasing himself with the self-discipline of not yielding to his impulse to rip them open and wallow in them. Now, however, he yielded slightly, permitting himself to read one. I grinned and left him to his pleasure, knowing he would give them to me to read later.
After dinner that evening, when Luceiia and the two women who would be staying at the villa that night had retired to Luceiia's new cubiculum to discuss their Council business, Caius, Alaric and I sat alone in Cay's study, and I caught up on everything that had happened while I was away. Cay was not ready yet to discuss Picus's letters. The pleasure of them was still too new, too solitary, too precious to share, and Alaric and I understood how he felt. Neither of us pressed him, and our talk was desultory as a result.
"Philip Ascanus was here, right in the Colony," Caius said, suddenly, during a lull in the conversation. "Arrived the day after you left."
"Who?" I had heard him perfectly well, but the impact of his words was so outlandish that I had to ask him to repeat the name.
"Philip Ascanus. You remember him?"
"Remember him? Of course I remember him. How could I forget? What was he doing here?"
"He came to claim his patrimony." Caius's voice was dry as a desert wind and I was floundering for a foothold among my swirling thoughts.
"Patrimony? What patrimony? Have you spoken with him? I am amazed that he would even dare come near you, after the way you dealt with him when you last saw him. How long ago was that? My God, Cay, that's twenty years ago — more, closer to thirty."
Caius grunted. "You are growing old, my friend, and like an old man, you are starting to exaggerate.