Seneca motioned with his head for the guard. to come closer, and when Randall had approached him, our prisoner smiled, a smile of frightening charm, considering his case. "I will hold the parchment, " he said. "You melt the wax on to it. " He watched the wax dripping to form a pool and then he imprinted the cooling puddle with his seal. "There, " he said. "And now my name. " He dipped the stylus into the ink and signed his name with a flourish. Even from a distance, I could see that his name was clearly legible. Tertius Pella examined the scroll and nodded to me.
"Good, " I said. "Now undo the rope, Tertius, and stand away. " As he started to obey me, I walked towards my sword.
As soon as the rope was clear of his head, Seneca sprang forward and snatched up the other sword. He crouched, panting, staring at me with a feral grin on his lips. "Now, cripple, you die!" I looked at him, stark naked, his phallus dangling between his legs, and I felt invincible.
We circled each other warily for a spell, each taking the measure of the other, and then came together in the middle of the circle we had described. Our swords met with a clang as each of us slashed brutally at the other, hoping to finish the matter at one blow. There was no technique here, and no need of it; neither of us had a shield. This matter would be settled by strength, swiftness and chance. I watched his eyes, looking for the message of his next move, and he almost had me, because he moved in again to the attack as swiftly as an adder and with no warning. The point of his sword flashed within an inch of my face as I threw myself backwards and away from him with no chance of a counterstroke. He followed me, fast, his sword poised to stab, and there was nothing laughable now about his nakedness. I was aware only of his ferocity and of the fact that I had underestimated him in every way. I had looked for the weakness and cowardice of the bully, and for the effeminate inadequacy of a limp-wristed homosexual. But where I had imagined weakness, I found strength and bitter determination, and I quickly lost all feelings of invulnerability in my scramble to stay away from his sword. He actually laughed aloud as he pursued me, and my limp felt more pronounced than it had in all the years since I had acquired it. Again his point slashed across my chest, missing, yet fanning me with its closeness. He came again, and I backed away, waiting for him to commit to his next move. He rushed; I stepped aside and swung at him and missed, and he kept moving forward. Forward, to where Randall, the guard, stood watching with his arms folded on his chest. The swipe of the treacherous blow that followed took all of us by surprise. Randall fell backwards, clutching at the gaping wound in his throat that sprayed his life's blood up and around his falling form like a cloud.
Before I could move or react, Pella flung himself into the fray with a vicious oath, drawing his sword and plunging at Seneca, who seemed still off balance after his killing blow at Randall. As Pella's hurtling body came between us, depriving me of a clear view of Seneca, I saw Seneca twist and dodge, and then Pella was rigid, drawing himself up onto his toes, his entire body expressing outrage and violent death. I heard the grating thud of the blow that killed him and the scraping sound of Seneca's blade plunging home through his breastbone. Like a cat, Seneca moved forward, braced one foot against Pella's sagging body and kicked the corpse free of his sword.
Astounded by the turn things had taken, I was conscious of my mind screaming "No!" and of both of my companions still kicking and squirming, although both of them were dead.
Now Seneca faced me alone, and he was laughing, his eyes shining insanely with the joy of battle and of killing. "Two gone, Greybeard, " he said. "Now, before you die, will you tell me your name?" I settled my feet squarely and braced myself to meet him head on. "I told you earlier, " I snarled. "For you, my name is Death — Death and Vengeance. " He sprang at me again, watching to see which way I would evade his charge, but I stood my ground, leaned forward to take his weight and stabbed hard, feeling my blade go deep in the killing thrust. His chin snapped forward onto his chest and his eyes flew wide, and for a space of heartbeats I held the whole weight of him upright on the end of my sword. I felt a savage exultation flow from my head to the muscles of my straining forearm. "Vengeance, " I whispered. "Vengeance and Death. " I jerked my arm back hard, wrenching my blade from his chest, and watched as he fell, first to his knees and then forward onto his face. I stood there above him for a long time, looking down. He did not jerk or squirm, and he still breathed, but I knew I had my vengeance. I raised my arm again to strike off his head, and suddenly found I had no wish to strike one more blow. I opened my hand and let my sword fall to the grass, and then I looked around me at the slaughter-ground. The soldiers would be there soon. I brought the scroll from the table, rolled it up loosely and stuck it between his right arm and his chest, feeling as I did so the flaccid deadness of his muscles.
I wiped my hand on my tunic, turned on my heel and walked away to where we had left our horses, leaving the clearing with its carnage behind me forever.
XXXIII
In due time, I confessed my sin and was shriven by Bishop Alaric, but I never did tell Caius or Luceiia what I had done. Not that I had any shame of my actions, but I had no pride in them either, and I decided that no purpose was to be gained by spreading the knowledge among those I loved. It would be sufficient that their lives were the safer for my removal of Seneca. The how and the when of his treachery and his demise would be known soon enough. The catalyst that brought about his death had no need to be named.
The good Bishop went on his way eventually, and life in our Colony resumed its normal pace. We continued to be isolated from the rest of Britain, to a very great degree, and I did not find it too surprising that the news of Seneca's quietus should fail to reach us. His family, I surmised, would have gone to great lengths to conceal his perfidy from the eyes of the people. In the meantime, our crops continued to improve from year to year, and Ullic aided us greatly by decreeing that each of his people who came to visit should bring a stone to raise upon our walls. This made a major difference to the pace of our building activities, for there was much traffic between his land and ours. Soon our masons were working mounted on scaffolding, so high were our walls, and the old hill fort inside the citadel had become a permanent camp, housing our growing army in stout log buildings.
Our governing Council had seen some changes, too. All of its members now lived in the Colony and met together once a month. None of them was selected for his timidity, so we had some stormy sessions, but by and large our lives went on peacefully.
On one of my first visits to Ullic's kingdom in the mountains, he and I discussed strategy in the event of Saxon raids. His men would guard the entry from the river, and he would keep outposts overlooking the main road from the north. We, for our part, would police the approaches from the east, south and south-west. Anyone threatening from the west itself would have to cross his lands. I was content.
And marriages had been celebrated between his Celts and our Britannic Romans. Only a few, but they happened. Life was good to us. On a rainy evening in March, in the eighth year of my stay in the Colony, I sent my daughter Victoria to bring Caius to the smithy. She was his favourite, his first-born niece. As a child, unable to pronounce his name, she had called him "Uncle Cay. " Quintus Varo had been calling him Cay for years, but now, given new currency by the love of a child, the name stuck, and he had been called Cay by the family ever since. He came into the smithy with his hand resting on her seven-year-old head as they walked together. I was waiting for him, Luceiia by my side, standing at my workbench. I stepped to greet him and surprised him mightily by throwing my arms around him in a hug and swinging him off his feet.