"No, Arthur, not this time. That's the day before we leave. You'll be needed here. Everyone will be needed that day, every pair of hands will work at packing and lading. We'
must be away from here and across the pass long before noon on the morning after that, and beyond Galava, on the Great Mere, before nightfall."
His frown grew more pronounced, suggesting a hint of defiance, which perplexed me. It was unmistakable in his next words. "But what about King Derek? If he is to come with us, he'll come the following day. Could I not ride back here with him?"
I turned slowly to look directly at him, feeling, for the first time ever with the boy, a real need to assert discipline. "What?" I said, keeping my tone cool and level yet with a hint of asperity. "And leave your work here to be done by others who will have their own hands full while you amuse yourself in Ravenglass? I'm surprised you would even think to ask such a thing. No, you will return tomorrow afternoon, obeying my instructions and arriving before nightfall. Is that clear enough?" He nodded, but his face was set in lines of displeasure, almost a scowl, and I hardened my voice. "Good, then we understand each other perfectly. Besides, you will find that if King Derek has decided to come with us, he will be ready and will doubtless ride back with you tomorrow. He has known for months that we are leaving as soon as we may. If he has decided to remain, on the other hand, he will come back with you tomorrow anyway, to say goodbye. So the true answer to your ill considered question is both no and yes. No, you may not stay in Ravenglass, and yes, you may ride back with Derek. Clear? Good. That's all, young man. You may go now."
He stood there in the doorway, clearly angry and struggling for words, but then he lowered his head, biting at his lip. Finally he nodded, his head still downcast, and went out without looking at me again, closing the door gently behind him. I had the distinct impression that he wanted to slam it shut, however, and I opened it slightly again to watch him walk stiffly away into the gathering dusk with his fists clenched and his entire bearing radiating anger and frustration. Then I heard Tressa's voice calling his name from the street on my right and I pulled the door to as he turned around to look for her.
Moments later, she opened the door and came in, unwinding the long stola she had wrapped around her shoulders.
"Cay, what on earth did you say to Arthur? I've never seen him so upset. He could barely stand to talk to me and I swear he was on the point of tears. Did you two quarrel?"
"No, my love," I said with a sigh, "we did not." I went to her and threw my arms about her, holding her close and kissing her deeply before moving away again to the high backed chair at my table, where I seated myself and told her everything that had passed between the boy and me, making no attempt to disguise my bafflement at his strange behaviour.
When I had finished, throwing up my arms and declaring my exasperation, she simply smiled and shook her head. "Rebellious, was that the word you stopped yourself from saying a moment ago?" She did not wait for me to respond; she had heard me correctly. "Arthur is not rebellious, Cay, you know that. He's the best natured boy in the world, and what you've said here confirms that. But the first words that come to you when now he shows a spark of his own feelings are 'surly' and 'selfish.' You really have no idea what's wrong with him, do you?"
I placed both hands flat on the table top and looked at her, raising my eyebrows, aware I was about to learn. "Haven't I made myself clear on that, woman? If I understood any of it, I would not be so frustrated, would I?"
'The boy's in love, you great, clumsy, dimwitted male!" Her perplexed but understanding smile robbed her words of any sting, and in the tone of them I heard her ask, wordlessly, What am I going to do with you, when you are so thick-skulled? "Have you no sense at all, no eyes, no empathy in you? He's changed, Cay, forever. Gone, vanished. What was that great long word you told to Derek, about butterflies? Meta..."
"Metamorphosis."
"Aye, that's it. Well, that's what's happened to the boy. He's metamorphosized."
I had to smile, she looked so earnest and concerned. "Metamorphosed, we say."
"Pah! You say it—it's too big for me, twisting in my mouth like something alive. But changed completely, that's what it means, howe'er you say it. The Arthur that you've always known is lost, Cay. Lost in love, for the first time in his life, and all he knows is that it's about to end and he is powerless to stop it. For you've just told him that you're ending it, tomorrow, come sunrise, tearing him and his love apart, sending her home and carrying him away to Camulod."
"Love?" I sat staring at her, attempting to grapple with what she had told me. "Arthur's in love? That's nonsense. With whom?" But even as I spoke the words, I saw it, my mind showing me images that I had seen in open view these past two weeks and chosen to ignore: Arthur, cow eyed and spellbound as he sat at dinner, gazing wordlessly at the beautiful young woman who sat demurely with her aunt and uncle, turning her head from time to time to smile in his direction; Bedwyr, grinning and slyly nudging Gwin as they watched Arthur watching her; the two young girls from Ravenglass, Stella and Rena, their faces the very picture of dislike and open hostility as they glared at the sight of Arthur in the street, standing alone with Morag between the buttresses of the central granaries, in a flood of bright sunlight that painted the entire west wall; and last, but most telling, the memory of that first moment when I had seen the two of them staring raptly at each other on the day she first arrived, each of them utterly, compellingly, immediately absorbed in the blinding totality of the other.
Thunder bolted. The term sprang into my mind, jarring me with bittersweet recollections forgotten thirty years before; the word we had used, as boys, to indicate the crippling swiftness with which love could strike. I had been thunder bolted once, and lost my love, a bright faced girl of twelve whose father had been banished for some crime against the Colony, and now the sharp, aching strangeness of the feelings that had filled my breast returned—the incredulous joy and wonder of sharing the world with her— and unreal though it was, the merest, fleeting shadow of a memory, the painful sweetness of it yet reminded me of what it had been like to live with such a love possessing me: terror and awe, offset by wild, thrilling joy and disbelief that I could be so blessed; capering, carefree madness spurred by an excitement beyond bearing; soaring elation blended with an incendiary purity of thought and purpose and the grand resolve to lay the whole world at my true love's feet. Her name had been Lueth, and now I wondered, for a flickering moment during which her face burned in my mind, how life had dealt with her. I thought, too, of Publius Varrus and how he, in his day, had been thunder bolted by a girl in blue, a girl whose real name might or might not have been the one she had given him on the sole summer afternoon they spent together. He had lost her in finding her, that single afternoon, and had spent years searching for her face throughout the Empire.
Tress moved now to sit on the floor by my feet, and she leaned against my knee, her bent arm on my thigh, supporting her face in her hand as she gazed up at me.
"What is it, Cay? What are you thinking?"
I reached down to stroke her hair, then looked at her, feeling suddenly very old. "About first love, and what it does to us. It shatters us, that first time when we see that there's another species in our world of men, a species concerning whose existence we had been in utter ignorance—the
goddess species. First love, the thunderbolt, is the loss of
innocence." I stopped, feeling a swelling in my throat the like of which I had not felt in years. And then, because Tressa was so wide eyed and intent, staring up at me, I rubbed my thumb against the smoothness of her cheek and spoke what lay within my mind.