I watched him closely, trying to hide my concern over the way he looked, for I knew he would resent any sign of solicitousness from me. I had remarked before, on the few occasions when I had seen him in less than perfect health, that Lucanus had no patience with his own humanity and simply refused to be sick like any other person. He seemed to take any sign of sickness in himself as a slight upon his own abilities as a physician, and that was the only vanity I ever saw in him. On this occasion, however, he was evidently ill and lacked the strength even to resent the plainness of the fact.
When he picked up his wine again I noticed that his hand was trembling so violently that he almost spilled his drink. I stood gnawing on the inside of my mouth, wondering what to do and how to do it without drawing down his ire. I resolved that, when this meeting reached an end, I would commit him to the care of Tress and Shelagh. He could bark and roar at them, and they would ignore him as casually as they did Donuil and me. Now he was staring down into his cup and I looked down at him, seeing the pallor of his scalp shining through the sparseness of his hair. My old friend had grown frighteningly aged, too suddenly, and was all at once too physically frail. Always a tall, lean figure, he was stooped now, and gaunt, his frame emaciated and his movements tentative and slow. Yet mere weeks earlier, when I had thought him far too frail to journey out to look for Rufio, he had surprised me first by stubbornly refusing to remain behind and then by travelling as quickly as the others in his party, showing no sign of weakness or infirmity.
I told him he looked sick and should be in his bed, not here, and I started to order him away there and then, but he growled at me again, something unintelligible. Then he collected himself and apologized, admitting that he had caught a chill, some nights earlier and that it had lodged in his head and chest. He was not vomiting, he told me, nor were his bowels loose. He merely suffered from some inflammation of the joints, a heavy, rheumy cough and a congestion in his head that affected his eyes, making them tear over constantly and depriving him of the ability to read. I informed him that I was going to send Shelagh and Tress to visit him, and to feed him some medicinal broths, and he muttered and grumbled but made no great commotion.
From that point, having won my concession, I thought it better to change the topic, and so we discussed Rufe's progress as we waited for the others to assemble. As each one joined us, he listened for a spell and then asked questions, so that poor Luke had to repeat himself several times. Eventually, everyone was present and each held a cup of wine and withheld from questioning me. They all knew about the letter I had received, of course, and all were curious, but they held their peace. I said nothing until everyone was assembled, at which point I read the letter aloud and invited their reaction and comments.
They were understandably slow to respond, mulling over the tidings and weighing the portent, each from his own viewpoint. Dedalus, as usual, was the first to speak, and he asked me if I would read the letter for them again.
Even after the second reading, no one had much of anything to say. Ambrose had said it all and no amount of wishing or analysis could change the content or alter the way matters stood.
Philip spoke up. "If Connor does appear before we leave, will you do as Ambrose suggests and sail back aboard his galley?"
"Aye, I think that makes good sense. I'll take my original party with me, too, leaving you and your troops to return the way you came. If things are as bad, or become as bad as Ambrose thinks they might, then the sooner we're back in Camulod, the better it will be for everyone concerned." I stopped, seeing doubt in his eyes. "You disagree with that?"
He shrugged, shaking his head. "No, not at all. On the surface, it makes good sense, as you say. I was but thinking of what Ambrose said about Carthac invading Cambria. There could be a fleet of Cornish galleys between here and the coast off Camulod, so your safety might depend on the number of vessels Connor brings back with him. We've no idea of the number of galleys Carthac has, but if his fleet is large enough to move an army, it's large enough to cause you grief on your way south. You might be safer on the road."
I glanced at Dedalus, who nodded, and then I looked to Donuil.
"What think you, Donuil?"
"Philip's right. If Connor brings a strong contingent with him, and I think he will have no less than he's been bringing for the past few years, then we ought to be safe enough. But he'll be shipping no more cattle from the south now. This latest shipment was the last. So he might not bring a strong escort. He might not come at all, in fact. I'm sure my father will have work enough for him to do in the north." He paused then, throwing up his hands* "But who knows what will happen? My advice would be to make a decision about when you'll go, but you can't even do that until we see how fierce or mild the winter will be. If there's no snow, or little; of it, you'll be able to leave early, and if you leave early enough, you'll be half-way to Camulod before Connor drops anchor here. If your departure and his arrival coincide, on the other hand, then you can make up your mind which way to go when you see how strong his fleet is. But that's months away, so any decision we seek to arrive at now will be futile."
"Aye," I agreed. "Futile, premature and foolish. So be it, we'll have to wait and see. But one thing has changed, since we first discussed returning. We now face the certainty of war, on at least one front. Even if the threat from the north-east does not materialize, Cambria will not be put to rest until Carthac and Ironhair have been stamped out. I want this winter to be spent in training for war. I don't care if the snow reaches the roof tops, we'll find some place to train our men and keep them in fighting trim. And the same applies to the four boys. They might well see their first campaign before the summer comes, so I want their training stepped up and intensified in every area."
"Rufio should be able to help there." Lucanus had not spoken since I began reading the letter aloud, and now his words brought every head around to look at him. He nodded, sniffing gently and dabbing at his weepy eyes with a square of cloth. "He will be well enough to move around within the month, and that is when he'll need something to do, to keep him occupied. His right shoulder will take months longer to knit, and he may not be able to walk much for the immediate future, but his mind is as active as ever and he needs to be kept from boredom. The boys should serve that purpose."
The assembly, in full agreement, dispersed shortly afterward.
I did not dream of the death of Lucanus, although that night, when Tress woke me from a deep sleep, raising the alarm, I leaped up in bed with a terror that I had previously known only in connection with my horrifying, prophetic visions.
Luke's health had failed completely in the days and weeks that followed his last meeting with his friends in my quarters. The cough that racked him had grown worse and he had started spitting up blood, as though something had broken loose deep within him. The flesh fell from his bones, so that he withered almost visibly from day to day, and he had grown fevered, alternating between burning temperatures that brought the sweat pouring from his every pore and agued, shivering chills that made him shudder uncontrollably, tossing and turning wildly in delirium.
He had been strong enough to feed himself at first, for several weeks, and had chafed constantly about being kept abed by Shelagh, Tress and the other women of our small community, but as his sickness persisted he grew weaker and the trembling in his hands grew more pronounced, so that by the time the first heavy snow fell he was incapable of spooning broth unaided and his meals were fed to him, with great patience and greater love, by whomever of his friends was present when mealtimes arrived.