Excited without really knowing why, I got to my feet and fetched the weapon, laying it on the bench in front of me and focusing my attention on the blade. It was spear-shaped, tapering from a sharp point to a broad, flared base before plunging back down to the width of the shaft, like a diamond with two sides extended to the point of being ludicrous. The thing was fully three feet in length to its broadest point. I looked closely at the way Equus had reinforced it. In section, it was diamond-shaped again.
Now my charcoal began to work again in earnest, sketching the lines of the blade, the proportions of the taper on its width, and finally I had what I was looking for. I couldn't have told anyone what it was, but I knew it was almost right.
"Equus, come here a moment, will you?" I heard him put down whatever it was he was working on and then I felt his presence beside me.
"Aye," he said. "What've you got?"
I didn't raise my head, for I was concentrating so hard on what I was thinking about that I could feel the tension of a frown between my brows. "I want you to look at this and then do what I ask you to do, without any comments or any argument, understand?"
"I hear you."
"Good. Now think of the elements of a sword: blade, tang, hilt, grip and pommel. The hilt fits over the tang to add weight to the fulcrum and support the grip. The grip fits against that and the pommel holds the whole assembly together."
"What's this? A lesson in elementary armoury?"
"Be quiet and listen. Look at this spear of yours. A heavy, strong blade, shaped like a spearhead, but three-feet long, with a three-foot tang, the shaft, bound with strips of wood, fitted and bound together. We've been arguing about the balance because we've been looking at it as a spear."
"So? That's what it is. It's a spear."
"I know it is, but listen. I want you to try something else for me — something different — and the last thing I need right now is a list of a thousand reasons why it can't be done. I want it done, even if the end result is something I'm not strong enough to pick up off the floor. Do you still hear me?"
"Aye. What's in your mind?"
"This," I said. "I want you to make me a blade one-fourth as long again as this one is. I want you to reduce the width of it by one-fourth again, at its widest point. You follow me?"
He nodded, his eyes glowing with interest now that I was improvising. "The most difficult part, technically, will be the taper," I went on. "I want you to keep this blade double-edged and as near to straight as you can get it, and yet I want you to taper it from its point of greatest width to half that width about a hand's breadth from the point." I could see that he was holding himself in check with difficulty, bursting to speak. "Can you do that?"
He surprised me by not bursting out with a response immediately. He bit his lower lip between his teeth, staring at the blade, and then he picked up my stub of charcoal and began to draw with rapid, sure strokes, weighing the changes he would have to make.
"Aye," he nodded, at last. "I can do it. But that narrowing worries me. It could be a waste of time." At least he hadn't said it would be a waste of time!
"How so?"
"You know as well as I do. The width, combined with the length." He laid his hand on the spear blade. "This thing is as strong as I could make it, but beyond the midway point from the shaft, it's too thin for the job it has to do, and at its widest, up here, it doesn't get enough support along its edges from the central spine. The metal becomes too thin. It's like a scythe — great for cutting grass, but we've got thicker, tougher things to chop."
"So? Have you a better suggestion?"
"Perhaps. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we do what you suggest. We lengthen the blade by a quarter of its length, but we taper it by a third of its width only, instead of half. Say then we extended the taper so that the full third was narrowed from the base all the way to within a thumb-length of the point, which would be sharp and abrupt. That way, the reinforcement would be greater all along the blade, although it would still bend under the leverage from the shaft."
"What shaft? I want no shaft on this." He looked at me as if I had lost my wits. "In any case," I went on, giving him no chance to argue, "the shaft is not important right now. Let's get the blade fixed up, first. I like your idea. It obviously adds strength. But we still have to reinforce the thing. How do we do that?"
"Same way I reinforced this spearhead. Make the spine an iron bar."
"No, I don't think so. You said yourself, that doesn't give enough support to the edges. What if we merely thicken the blade?"
"How? Like what?"
I drew him a quick sketch. "Like this. Start it oblong in section and then round it."
He looked at my drawing. "Boudicca's belly, Varrus, that's just like a gladium!"
I grinned. "It is, when you draw it like that, and it will be when you make it. Except that it will be far longer and totally different. I'm serious, Equus. The proportions are different. One-third along the length from the shaft, this blade will be thinner in section than the gladium. Two-thirds along, it will be thinner still."
His eyes narrowed. "You mean a two-way taper?"
I nodded. "Yes. I told you it would be technically difficult."
"Aye, you did. You were right, too. But it's not impossible. What about the thick end of the blade? How steep a plunge there?"
"Vertical. I want it flat-ended, just like a gladium, with a tang two handsbreadths long."
"A tang!" His voice was leaden. "So, we've designed a sword! Now, can you tell me how we're going to engineer a fulcrum point that will balance this thing?"
"I think I can, Equus, but I won't know until I've tried it. I have a thought in mind, though, that might work. When can you start on this?"
He never got the chance to answer me, for the door was flung open and one of the household servants stumbled in.
"Commander Varrus! We're being attacked!"
XXI
It usually took me about five minutes to stroll from the house to the forge. Today, at my fastest speed, it seemed to take twice as long. Men were running in every direction, but there seemed to be no panic. I could hear trumpets blaring in the distance and I recognized one of our centurions as he strode past me in the gathering dark. I grabbed his arm as he swept past, oblivious to my presence, and asked him what was going on. He blinked at me in surprise.
"Commander? I'm sorry, sir, I didn't see you. It's Vegetius Sulla, sir. His place is under attack."
"Under attack? By whom?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know. Don't think anyone does."
Vegetius Sulla's place! This caught me totally off guard. Of all our villas in the Colony, his was the one generally thought to be the safest from attack, since it was the most south-westerly of all, guarded by high, hostile hills at its back, with nothing to the south and east for thirty miles except the high, rolling plains that led to Stonehenge.