"Andros, have you ever swung a sword before?"
He threw me a preoccupied look. "No, I haven't. What difference does that make? I've never made a successful mould before, either." He walked quickly across to an anvil and slapped the flat of the sword against the tongue of it. The sound of the impact rang as clearly as the note of a bird. I looked at Plautus and shrugged my shoulders in bewilderment as Andros looked around again and fastened his eyes on my work-bench. He stepped determinedly to the side of the bench, whacked the sword blade against one of the legs, whipped the blade upright and pressed the end of the pommel to the table-top. The effect was magical. The whole room suddenly reverberated with a deep, musical hum that emanated from the sword itself. Plautus actually blessed himself with the sign of the cross and I raised my own hands to my ears, so intense was the sound. Gradually, over a lengthy period of time, it lessened and faded away entirely. The silence stretched and stretched.
"What was that?" I asked Andros.
He smiled his familiar, modest smile. "I don't know what it was, Publius, but I remember hearing somewhere, a long time ago, that the old smiths used to test their iron blades that way. The better the quality of the metal, the purer the sound it would produce when you did that."
"I've never heard of that," I said. "Let me try it." I did what he had done and again the vibrant, clean note filled the smithy. "That is astonishing. What do you think, Plautus?"
Plautus merely shook his head, his eyes on the sword. "Excalibur," he said. "The singing sword. I've never seen or heard of anything to match it."
I swung it, hissing, around my head. "There never has been anything to match it, that's why! Come on, let's go and show it to Caius and Picus, and to Equus. He is going to be angry to have missed its emergence from the womb."
We walked out into the sunlight, squinting against its brightness, and as I went I swung Excalibur from side to side, revelling in the apparent weightlessness of it. As we entered the lane leading to the main courtyard of the villa, I swung at a young sapling growing in the hedgerow and sheared through it completely without effort. I was wiping the sap from the blade with the hem of my tunic when I heard Plautus say, "That's peculiar!" Something in his tone alerted me even before he gripped me by the elbow, pulling me to a halt.
I looked up in some confusion. "What is? What's peculiar?"
He was standing motionless, staring towards the villa in an attitude that immediately set my nerves on edge. I hadn't seen that look in years, but I responded to it immediately.
"What's wrong?"
He nodded towards the portico. "You tell me!"
I could sense him withdrawing into his inimical, soldierly persona and I followed the direction of his look. Eight horses stood outside the main doors of the villa. Eight horses, all riderless. No guards. No one left outside. No one left waiting. All eight men had gone into the house. I felt goose-flesh stirring the small hairs on the nape of my neck at the wrongness of the sight before my eyes picked up another signal that was wholly out of place: a patch of black and white on the ground. It was Picus's great black and white standard! The one he had said was meant to be recognized from a great distance. It had been discarded casually, thrown aside on the ground as though its bearer had no further use for it. All my defensive instincts were now aroused, alarm-signals jangling. I heard Plautus say, "Shit and corruption! I haven't got a sword!"
His mind was far ahead of mine, but those words galvanized me. I rounded on him, a thousand thoughts jamming into my mind all at once.
"The smithy," I told him. "Against the left wall, where the mould was — there are two long-swords leaning there, and daggers and gladia on the table-top. I'll wait for you." He was gone almost before I had finished speaking. I dug my fingers into Andros's arm. "Andros, can you ride a horse?"
"If I have to, I can."
"You have to! Get back to the smithy and get your arse up onto my horse." I looked along the valley floor towards the bottom of the new road. Something was badly wrong, but I did not yet know what it was.
"Look, Andros," I said urgently, "something stinks here. I don't know what it is, but I want you to get up to the fort as fast as you can, by the back way, up the rear of the hill, out of sight of the plain, to the postern door. Do you hear me?"
He nodded. He had not read the same signs Plautus and I had, but he had read our reactions to them accurately. "Then what?" he asked.
"Find Tribune Bassus. Tell him I sent you, and where we are. Tell him I smell something rotten. If there are any of Picus's troops in the valley below the gates, I want them contained. In any event, I want a squadron of cavalry down here at the villa as fast as he can get them here. Have you got that?"
He nodded again. "What's happening, Publius?"
"I don't know, Andros," I said. "But something stinks. Get up there fast, and make sure nobody sees you. I don't care if you have to tie yourself to the horse, just get there as fast as you can. Will you do that?"
"I'm on my way, Publius." He was as good as his word, disappearing backwards towards the smithy just as Plautus showed up again, one of the new long-swords in one hand and a wicked-looking dagger in the other.
"Right," he said. "What's the plan?"
I stood there, hesitating for a second, staring towards the deserted portico, vainly hoping I was mistaken. "You really think there is something wrong, Plautus?"
"Horse turds, Varrus. Does shit stink? What now?"
That was enough. I sucked a deep breath. "What else? We have to go in. But carefully."
He threw me a look eloquent with unstated scorn. "You think I want to get my arse in a grinder for fun? At my age?"
Side by side, we ran across the empty space separating us from the main wall of the villa and flattened ourselves against the stone facade. We were about ten paces from the main entrance. He looked at me.
"What if they've left a guard inside the doors? We're dead. There's eight of the whoresons."
I grimaced. "Let's hope they haven't. If they'd meant to leave a guard, they would have left him outside to guard their horses, at least."
He nodded to me, formally. "You know, I've been wondering for years why Britannicus promoted you all those years ago. Now I know. You think. I suppose that's the final difference between an officer and a grunt like me." He was talking purely for effect, attempting to bring us both to the correct frame of mind, but as he said the words Enid screamed, loud and long, from inside the house. The sound made my blood curdle.
"Oh, shit!" he said. "That proves it. Now!"
Together we launched ourselves towards the entrance, diving through the open doors and separating just inside, throwing ourselves one to each side of the hallway. The place was deserted. Another scream rang out, agonized and harrowing, undistorted by distance and walls this time, from the back of the building.
Plautus waved me forward and we ran together again through the main atrium of the villa towards the living quarters at the rear, trying to make our sandals slide silently over the marble flooring of the hallways. In spite of my limp, I was slightly ahead of him as we reached the double doorway leading into the small, tessellated courtyard in front of Caius's day-room. I knew this was where they were and I waved him frantically to the side before he could charge through the doorway and betray our presence. We ended up staring at each other, holding our breath, one on each side of the open doors. He wiggled an index finger at me, indicating that I should take a peek. I inched my head forward, straining to hear and see without making myself visible, and heard an indistinct babble of sound coming from the room. The small courtyard beyond the doors where we stood seemed to be empty. I gritted my teeth and leaned out to look. It was. The doors of Caius's day-room were partially open. I bit my lip. But they were also partially closed — enough, I hoped, to cover our next move.