I met with all our folk the following day and told them of my thoughts and my decision, taking great pains to let them know that I considered none of them to be bound by my wishes. They had accompanied me from the south long years before and since then had created a new home here on this harsh mountain plateau, forging friendships and alliances with Derek's folk in the town beneath and with those of Derek's folk who had come up to live with us in Mediobogdum. Any who wished to remain behind when we left for Camulod, come spring, would do so with my fullest blessing and support, and any of the people there from Ravenglass who wished to come to Camulod would be equally welcome.
When I had finished speaking there was a long silence, broken finally by a loud and prolonged belch from Dedalus. As the laughter died away, he said, "Well, having rid ourselves of that foul air, we had best apply ourselves to bethinking what we have to take with us when we leave. Winter will soon be down about our ears, and when it's gone we'll be too close to leaving to have time to spend rooting around for things we've missed. My proposal is, we draw an inventory from the stores, tally up everything we own and have, and decide then what we must leave behind. Derek's folk will be glad to have anything we choose not to take, and that could amount to many wagon-loads of goods. Who are our scribes and clerks? Let them go first to work, and then the rest of us will improve on what they have to say.
"But first, Cay, if you're sure you want to leave in the new year, you ought to send word in advance to Camulod, now, before the first snowfall. Otherwise Ambrose will know nothing and will send out the relief column to come up here. We might miss them on the way, if they're patrolling."
And so the work began. Within the week a mounted party of ten men went spurring south to Camulod, bearing a letter from me to my brother, explaining what was in my mind and telling him that we would be beneath the walls of Camulod within a month of the last snow's disappearance from our northern hills. Systematically, we set about dismantling the home we had created for ourselves in Mediobogdum. Two hundred years it had sat empty ere we came, and after we had gone it might be yet two hundred more before another came to live in it.
Tress began to pack up all the objects that surrounded our life together, secure in knowing that we would be travelling side by side and that she need have no fear of being abandoned. Nothing was actually moved away from where it would normally be found, but I began to note that every article, every utensil, every stick and piece of furniture was marked with a twist of coloured yarn. I said nothing, content to leave the marshalling to her, but I found it interesting to compare the various items that were marked with the same colours. I felt sure there must be logic and reason behind the patterning, but it escaped me utterly.
Arthur found me, one dull and cloudy afternoon not long after that, engrossed, for the first time in years, in a meticulous inspection of the contents of the larger of the two wooden, iron-bound chests that had belonged to Caspar and Memnon, the long-dead warlocks who had brought about my father's death and plunged us into the first battles of our war with Gulrhys Lot of Cornwall. I had kept the heavy, solidly constructed boxes close to me, always locked, ever since they had first come into my possession, years before the boy was born.
Always I had told myself that I would learn the secrets of their tightly wrapped and carefully preserved contents, and in the early days of owning them I had, in fact, tested many of them and formed some hazy notions of the uses for which several might have been intended. As far as I had been able to discern, however, every single item contained in those chests had but one purpose: the infliction of death by means unknown and unconscionable to the soldier warrior. The forms of death within these two receptacles, meticulously ordered in nested trays and laid out in some bewildering symmetry of malevolence, represented an abundance, an entire spectrum of chaos that lay far beyond the intent or understanding of ordinary, sometimes violent men.
Each of the two chests contained several layers of trays, varying in depth, but each carefully fitted as a cover for the one directly beneath it, and all of them equipped with long, looping thong handles to permit their removal. As far as I could see, all of the evil deaths of political assassination, of sorcery, of necromancy and of ruin sown among mankind for the sheer pleasure of creating terror and chaos were represented in this unique collection. There was nothing in either chest, that I could find, that embodied anything other than grief and pain and agony and despair. And so I had soon abandoned any study of them.
Not daring to accept the risk of having them fall into other hands, I was nonetheless unable to destroy them. I had not yet explored them fully; indeed, I had not even looked at all the contents of the second, smaller, chest. My better judgment told me there was no such thing as good in either of them, but until I knew that to be absolutely true, I would remain incapable of simply destroying them.
My renewed interest in the chests had sprung from Tress's personal coding of our goods with coloured yarn. Within the seeming chaos of her coloured threads, I knew, there was a clear and flawless pattern, discernible to her, and that thought had led me to renewed thoughts of the warlocks' chests. A similar pattern, I suspected, must lie waiting to be deciphered among the neatly wrapped packages in their trays and compartments. Everything within them spoke of care and order.
"What are you doing, Cay? Oh, your pardon—may I come in?"
I waved to Arthur to enter and then sat back on my stool with a short, violent sigh, looking at the ordered disorder I had strewn about me. The contents of the two topmost trays of the larger box lay spread out on my left and on my right, arranged beside the empty trays themselves. The third tray, consisting of twelve compartments, four across by three down, all a handsbreadth deep and each containing a clay bottle of some kind, lay exposed within the chest. Several thoughts flashed through my mind as I heard the boy's voice, the foremost among them that I should banish him with the rough edge of my tongue before he could see what I was doing. I abandoned the idea even before it formed.
"Pull a stool over here and sit beside me, and don't touch anything else."
He did as I said and then sat there, bent slightly forward, his bright, gold-flecked eyes flicking over everything that could be seen within and outside the chest. I held my peace, waiting for him to speak, but he said nothing for a long time. Finally he glanced at each of the empty trays on the floor.
'Trays upon trays. There must be others beneath that one there, still in the chest?"
"Aye, there are. How many would you estimate?"
His eyes flicked back to the two empty trays. "Which one of those was uppermost?"
"That one." I nodded towards the one on my left.
"Hmm. Then they grow deeper as they nest deeper, so I would say there might be three more, the same depth as the one still in there. No more than that and probably fewer—one or two. Is the other one the same?" He was gazing now at the second, smaller chest.
"More or less," I answered him. "Different contents, but the same overall effect, I imagine. I find enough to occupy me here, in the larger one."
"What's the overall effect you mentioned? What's in diem?"
"Death, and a dilemma."
He glanced sideways at me, his eyes wide with surprise. "What do you mean?"
I turned to face him. "Do you recall the story of my father's death?"
He nodded. "He was murdered in his bed by sorcerers. What were their names ... ?" His eyes were distant, seeking recall. "Caspar, that was one of them, and Memnon."