"Attenn-shun! Dress files and form your ranks on the right of line! Wait for it, Britannicus, wait for it! Hutt!"
I drew myself to attention and snapped a punctilious salute, which the boy returned with equal gravity.
"Permission to retire, Commander?" I asked.
"Permission granted. Dismissed."
I saluted again, spun about and began to make my way towards the gates again, hearing his feet flying over the ground to catch up with me.
"Will this place be ours, Merlyn? Will we live here?"
I looked at him. He was walking almost sideways now, gazing up at me with wide, anxious eyes, the full circles of his gold-flecked irises completely visible. His lean rump bore unmistakable traces of his hand-standing misadventure.
"It's possible, as I said earlier, but would we wish to? That's what we have to ask ourselves. That's why we're here today ... to answer that question."
"I would!"
I grinned. "I know you would, but that's only because it's an abandoned fort on a high mountain pass and the weather's still fine. As you said yourself, earlier, it'll be very different up here in the rain and snow. I promise you, you'd be even more aware of that with the cold winds howling through all the cracks in the walls and everything frozen solid, including your hands and feet. The adventures you think you could have here with your friends in the summertime are hardly sufficiently strong grounds for having all of us move up here to live permanently. I hope you will agree with that?"
His face fell and he lowered his head. He remained silent until we had entered the fort again and swung right, following the perimeter walk towards the northern gate. But it was not in his nature to give up without a fight. "We could fill in all the cracks in the walls, could we not?"
I laughed aloud. "Aye, perhaps we could, lad, and mount new doors and spread skins over those to keep the draughts out. All of that we could do, although it would entail months and months of work by every single person among us, including you and your friends. But there would still remain the matter of survival, of living from day to day." I stopped and laid my hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to look up and meet my eyes. "Look, Arthur, I'm not saying we will not stay here. We may well do exactly that. But you heard what I said to the others before we came in here, did you not?" He nodded.
"Well, then, you know how important I believe it to be for everyone to form his own opinions on this, since it is a grave matter affecting everyone. We will pool those opinions in the form of a discussion, leading to consensus and only then to a decision. That's the democratic way of doing things."
The boy gazed at me, his eyes narrowing, and then his face creased into a smile. "I know it is, but I heard you say to Dedalus and Connor on the galley, days ago when you were talking of the wars in Cornwall, that democracy works best under an enlightened and determined leader."
He had me flatfooted. I had to glance away quickly, covering my mouth with one hand to conceal my rueful smile, before I could look at him again. 'True, I did say that, but I didn't know you were listening. In this instance, however, and notwithstanding what I said to Dedalus and Connor, because there are so few of us involved here and all of them my friends, I am determined to allow the will of all the others to prevail."
"Until you decide they're being timid, of going wrong, or they aren't able to make up their minds properly to agree with your opinion." His face was straight now, although his eyes were dancing, and I found myself disbelieving once again that he was only eight, approaching nine years old. If his intellect continued to expand at its present rate, this child, already one to reckon with, would be a most formidable adult.
I nodded, equally straight-faced. "That is extremely impertinent, young man, and none of our group could ever be described as timid. But ... " I allowed myself a tiny smile. "You're right, of course. Could you think otherwise?"
He giggled, something he rarely did, and ran ahead of me, towards the north gate. As I followed him, I looked about me idly to my left, towards the body of the fort. In the distance, I saw Dedalus emerge and then disappear again behind an intervening wall, and Lucanus came into view from the end of the Via Principalis, the east-west axis of the fort, his hands clasped behind him as he walked, looking up at the walls and roofs of the granaries that towered above him. I caught his eye and waved to him, and he began to make has way towards me.
"Well," he began, offering a sardonic little grin as he approached. "I presume it's safe to speak again?"
"It always was, for you. Unless you've found some compelling reason why we can't live here, from a medical viewpoint. Have you?"
"No, not one. What does the boy think of it?"
"What would you expect? He's a boy. He loves the place. His own personal fortress."
"So you're pleased with his reaction? Good. What were you two talking about for so long before the gates?"
I was scanning the fort again. Dedalus had disappeared and no one else seemed to be moving. "About the construction of the place. The gate-towers and the stone. The child is amazing, Luke. Has everyone else finished already?"
"I doubt it. I heard voices in the granary as I passed, though, so someone's already broken your rule." He was smiling again.
"Were they arguing?"
"No, it sounded as though they were discussing something engrossing."
"Merlyn, come and see what I've found!" Arthur was waving to me from close by the north gate.
I glanced at Luke, who was also watching the boy. "I knew if there was anything at all to find in here, he'd find it. His eyes have been fixed on the ground since we came back in through the eastern gate. Let's go see what he has."
Whatever it was, it was very small. Arthur held it between his fingers and examined it closely, glancing towards the ground between him and the wall from time to time as he waited for us to reach him. As soon as we were close enough to be able to see what it was, he thrust his hand towards me.
"Look, it's gold. I found treasure. I saw it shining in the grass there, beneath the wall. There are black ones, too."
He had found a small cache of coins, one of them gold. I moved to where he pointed and, kneeling down, I peered among some loose stones, where I found several small, black and dark-brown metal tokens. The black ones were silver, long tarnished, and the brown ones copper. I had no doubt the purse some legionary once lost had lain here and rotted completely away. They would never have been found, had not the boy's bright eye been caught by the dull sheen of the only golden piece among them. I gathered them up, eleven of them, and tried to see the likenesses they bore, but they were tarnished beyond recognition. Not so the boy's, however. As I straightened up he thrust it at me, and I took it and held it up to the light.
"Who's the man on the front, Merlyn? Is he an emperor?"
The gold coin was small, and well worn, and I had to squint to decipher the crude lettering around its rim. When I did, I felt a shiver stir the hairs along my neck. "No, Arthur," I murmured, aware of my own wonder, "this is no emperor ... although he might have been, for he dreamed great dreams." Reverently, I handed the coin to Lucanus, who peered frowning at it, his eyes weaker than mine. "That is Marcus Antonius, Arthur," I continued. "The friend, some say the son, of Julius Caesar himself. Mark Antony, whose concubine was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. He must have minted his own coins to pay his legions, in Egypt, and one of them made its way here, to lie in wait for you."