Finally, once Ambrose had satisfied himself that all was well in hand and that the troops would have no difficulties settling in, I managed to take him aside and sequester him in the steam room of our bathhouse, having first made sure that we would not be disturbed. There, after he had enjoyed the first flush of pleasure at being able to relax and cleanse himself of the soil of his long journey, I was able to question him about his passage from the south, developments in Camulod and most particularly about the matter foremost in my mind: the new sword that was to be forged from the Lady of the Lake.
He set my mind at ease on the latter question immediately. My concerns about the sufficiency of metal in the statue had been unfounded, he said, because it had quickly become apparent, upon a cursory examination of the rough-sculpted form, that Publius Varrus could only have used about one-third of the total mass of the Lady for the making of Excalibur. Joseph and Carol together had developed the formula that led to this conclusion: Excalibur, when finished, would have weighed approximately half as much as it did on first being forged. The difference in weight would have been shed in filing, trimming and chiselling the metal into its final shape and size. The surprising and welcome news, then, was that there ought to be enough metal remaining in the statue of the Lady to fashion two identical swords, if such was my wish.
That gave me pause. Was it my wish to have two duplicate Excaliburs?
The question was no sooner asked than answered. These swords were representations, not duplicates; they would be practice swords and, as such, would be subjected to much overuse and great indignities. Better to have two of them, therefore—particularly since Excalibur could then remain concealed. That resolved, my next question concerned the length of time it would take to make both. Ambrose's response was an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. He would not return to Camulod until the start of winter, he pointed out, and until he did, Carol would make no start upon the second piece. The first might well be complete by then, but even so, it would remain in Camulod until the following spring.
I had to content myself with that, and for a long time · we spoke little more of things political, since all Ambrose now wanted to do was bathe and steam and close his eyes and mind to everything except the pleasure of the moist heat as it leached away his tired and aching stiffness. That process, however, had no deleterious effect on his ability to talk about his own home life and his family in Camulod. Ludmilla had borne him beautiful twin daughters, one radiant blonde and the other raven-haired, late in the summer of the previous year, and their father was enraptured with them, entirely unimpressed by the prevalent opinion that daughters were a burden to a man. He had named them Luceiia and Octavia, in honour of the Britannican ancestors whom he had discovered only after meeting me in Verulamium years earlier, and I believe he could have talked of them happily in his sleep.
Ludmilla was thriving, he reported, and had sent her love to all of us, but most especially to her beloved mentor Lucanus. She had assumed overall responsibility for the medical welfare of the Colony on Luke's departure, at his insistence, and under her supervision all matters of health and hygiene in Camulod were carefully policed and well- maintained. Her staff had grown with the arrival of a young surgeon who had been trained by die military in Antioch, and who had made his way to Camulod purely on the strength of stories about Luke that he had heard in his travels in south Britain. There, having met Ludmilla and no doubt tested her abilities in his own way, he'd decided to settle and practise his skills in Luke's superbly built Infirmary.
From there, our conversation drifted pleasantly to other topics, all of them quite trivial and all of them making me slightly nostalgic for the life and folk of Camulod. By the time Ambrose began to bestir himself and show any inclination to talk seriously again of "important" matters, I had already decided it would be selfish of me to keep his tidings from the others, and equally inconsiderate to keep the pleasures of the baths from my brother's troopers. And so we dressed and left the bathhouse to those who were no less in need of its seductive joys than he had been.
Within the hour, we had assembled the remainder of our initial group, including Donuil and Shelagh, and made our way outside the fort to sit informally in a casual grouping at the top of the chasm that guarded our rear, and there Ambrose told us all the details of his journey from the south. Arthur, of course, was there with his three bosom friends, Bedwyr, Gwin and Ghilleadh, the four of them perched, still as stone pillars, fearful that they might be dismissed. Everyone ignored them, and they eventually settled down to listen.
My brother brought surprising but welcome tidings. The towns he had passed through in his journey, having lain abandoned and neglected for years, were now being inhabited again—not in any highly organized fashion, he reported, but there were definite signs of revitalization. Glevum and Aquae Sulis, in particular, he said, each had populations now of several hundred people, although the new citizens, rather than living in the indefensible Roman ruins, preferred to dwell on the outskirts of the towns, finding security in rapid access to the safety of the deep forest in case of attack. The bridge outside Glevum, over the Severn River, had been repaired and reinforced and was once more, as it had always been, a natural gathering point for people from north and south of the river wishing to trade. Elsewhere, too, he told us, along the great Roman road the people were now calling the Foss Way, because of the wide ditches or fossae that lined it on both sides, small centres were springing up where natural routes crossed the high road. People were organizing themselves again in small communities, looking to their own defences, planting crops and even clearing new ground in many places, because that section of the land, at least, was relatively peaceful and unplagued by war. No Saxon hordes had penetrated this far north and west, to date, and raids from Eire were now few and far between. I had little doubt, on hearing that, that thanks were due there to our alliance with Athol's Scots, and to the damage done to the Sons of Condran in the past year.
Ambrose and his troopers had been welcomed everywhere, once the realization had spread ahead of them— magically, it seemed—that they were not intent on pillage and raiding. The sight of strongly armed and disciplined warriors who posed no threat, and their promise to return that way again regularly in the future, had put new heart into people all along the great road, which, he informed us in response to a question from Dedalus, was surprisingly in superb condition, still almost free of weeds and erosion. I smiled at Ded when he asked his question, knowing he was remembering our comrade Benedict and his prediction, on returning from Eire a decade earlier, about trees destroying die roads in Britain, given time. Ambrose went on to talk of the force he had brought with him: three squadrons of cavalry, each forty strong, and a full Roman maniple of infantry consisting of ten twelve-man squads.
Ambrose turned to me directly, saying he had thought to leave four squads of infantry with us, in addition to the squadron of cavalry we had discussed. Could we feed such numbers? I looked to Derek, silently inviting him to speak, since his would ultimately be the task of feeding them. We had no fields of crops, up here on our plateau, and all our food, save wild meat and freshwater fish, was grown by Derek's folk and traded to us in return for our help in their fields and in the forest, plus our commitment to assist them should the need arise to defend their town. Derek thought for several moments and then shrugged, smiling slightly. Forty-eight trained warriors and their officers, he admitted, might be an asset worth making the occasional sacrifice to keep and feed.