I stood upright on the wagon tongue, holding the reins, feeling my grin threatening to split my face in two. And then I was in front of them, and I stopped and leaped down to kiss Luceiia and embrace Caius.
"So! You found it!" he said. Luceiia said nothing, smilingly enjoying my obvious pleasure.
"Aye. I found it. Right where I knew it was. " Elated beyond words, I squeezed him tightly to me, hooking my right elbow round his neck in an unusual display of my affection, unaware that I was endangering his dignity. He eased himself gently free from this uncharacteristic embrace and eyed the canvas-covered heap on the bed of the wagon.
"Well, then? Let's see this prodigy! Let's have a look at it!" I leaped back up onto the wagon bed and threw off the covering. It was huge. Or rather, they were. There were four of them. Four massive stones, the smallest of them as big as a strong man's torso, the largest like the hindquarters of a draft horse.
I had known what this sight would do to Caius. I saw all his doubts come crashing back to him at the sight of them. How could these mighty things have fallen from an empty sky? He bit his lip. Everyone had fallen silent.
The rocks seemed to gleam in the sunlight. They almost looked ordinary — four big stones. But they had that polished, glassy look in parts that marked the other seven, smaller stones.
Caius cleared his throat, since he could see that I, and everyone else, was obviously waiting for him to say something.
"They... They're very clean. "
I laughed aloud. "And so they should be! We washed them. "
"You... washed them?"
"Yes, of course we washed them. They had been buried under tons of muck for years. I had to wash them to be sure of what they were. Their weight told me they were skystones, but I couldn't be sure from looking at them, so we stopped at the first stream we came to and cleaned them. And there they are!"
There they were, indeed.
There was still a look of dreadful doubt on Caius's face. "Did you not expect to find only one, Varrus?"
I slapped my right hand onto one of the smooth surfaces. "They are only one, Caius. At least I think they are. My guess is that it shattered on striking the earth. If you look closely at them you'll see that each has smooth surfaces and jagged planes. I fancy that if a man had the time and the strength to juggle with them, he could piece them all together like a broken nut. "
"I see. " The tone of his voice told me he really did not see. "What will you do with them now?"
"Break them in smaller pieces and smelt them. "
"Will that take long?"
"Who knows?" I said. "I hope not. It depends a lot upon the kiln we build, the degree of heat we can generate and on the hardness of the stones themselves and the quality of iron they contain. It could take a month. Perhaps much longer. I only know I'll do it, no matter how long it takes. "
I could see the doubt tugging at Caius's mind. "Varrus, " he said,
"Publius... what if the stones contain no metal?" I leaped back down to the ground. "They do, Caius! They do. " I suddenly became aware that everyone around was listening to us, and I turned to address them with raised arms, acutely conscious of their scrutiny, their curiosity and the scepticism that few of them were able to conceal as well as Caius.
"My friends, " I told them, speaking into their polite, attentive silence,
"these are the skystones you've all heard me talk about. " I glanced from face to face, smiling at the studied non-expressions on most of them.
"They're not much to look at, are they? But they're big, and that's what I was hoping for. "
I jumped up onto the bed of the wagon and rubbed my hand against the smooth curvature of the biggest piece of stone.
"Don't let their plainness mislead you. They are real, and they were found where I expected to find them, and their true magic remains to be discovered in the months that lie ahead. " I drew my skystone dagger and held it up so that they could all see its shining, liquid-silver blade. "They contain metal, " I said, raising my voice to reach everyone there. "Metal like this, and as real as this is. I don't know what kind of metal it is, but it's more than simple iron. Whatever it is, I'll get it out of them. " I saw in their faces — and in a few kindly but sceptically shaken heads — that they were prepared to accept and make allowance for my strangeness. They had begun to go about their interrupted affairs even before I jumped down from the cart again. I turned to Equus, who had not left my side in weeks.
"Take the wagon to the smithy and get a few men to help you unload it. And make sure you warn them these things are heavier than they look. Don't let anyone get hurt handling them. "
I turned next to Luceiia. "My love, I have to bathe, and I'm as hungry as three starving men. Would you organize a bath and some food for me while I talk with Caius?"
She smiled up at me and squeezed my arm, stretching on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, dirty as it was.
"Gladly, my lord and husband, " she said, smiling. "Welcome home. I'll be waiting for you. " And she was gone.
I watched her walk towards the house, then turned to Caius with a contented sigh, throwing my arm around his shoulder. We began to walk together.
"Caius, have I ever thanked you for your sister?"
"Only ten thousand times. No more, I beg!"
"So be it. " I laughed again, throwing my head far back. "Caius, I feel so good that I could dance a jig!
There's iron in those stones! I know there is. Do you recall the time I told you of my grandfather's struggle to smelt his stone?" He nodded that he did, and I continued. "Don't you remember, then, my telling you that at his last attempt, just when he was about to give up in despair, he noticed that there had been a change in the surface texture of the stone?"
"Yes, I remember that. But what —?"
"What he had noticed, Caius, " I interrupted him, "was a glazing effect, as though the stone had started to melt just as the fire died down. The same glazing effect that is already present in these stones!" He shook his head, mystified.
"Don't you see, Caius? When these stones fell to earth in fire, the heat of that fire must have been enough to start that melting process. " But this was stretching Caius's imagination too far. He sought refuge in ridicule.
"So? Are you saying you don't need a kiln? That if you just throw these stones up in the air, they'll melt themselves?"
I stopped him short and turned him to face me, reading his disbelief straight from his eyes. We stood together thus for quite a space, and then we resumed our walk. When I spoke again my voice was more sober.
"Caius, " I said, " I wish that I could prove the truth of this to you right now. But I can't. I can't even explain the way I feel — how I know I'm right. It's just something that's in me. You think I am being foolish, and I know you well enough to know that you would suffer long before you'd take the chance of hurting me by saying so. But I also know that, of all the men I know, you are the one who wants most to believe that I am right, and to understand.
"You've seen the dagger, and you've heard the tale, and you believe what your eyes tell you is true. Everything inside you wants to believe that I am right and that I will smelt iron from these stones. Is this not so?" He nodded, and I went on, "The only false note in this scale is that your mind, rational being that you are, will not allow you to accept the truth of rocks of any size at all falling from the skies in fire. Unless they were pre-heated and shot up from catapults. "
We had arrived outside the bath house, and one of the servants already waited to assist me. I indicated that I would be there and looked back at Caius, smiling.