"In a moment, wait!" He had begun to urge his horse forward, but now he stopped again. "Where are we obtaining our iron nowadays?"
"Where we always have—anywhere we can find it Carol has contacts scouring the countryside all the time. The ore beds are mostly in south Cambria to the north of Glevum, and along the southeast shore. But few people are mining them now and, of course, the south-eastern shores are Saxon occupied. So most of our raw iron still comes from Pendragon country... " He fell silent thinking, then sniffed. "Publius Varrus said in his writings that iron would one day have more worth than gold. I wish he had been wrong. "
"He seldom was, in matters of metal. And that reminds me, I have something for you, in my quarters. It's not a gift, since it's as much yours as mine, but it will please you. As soon as we are finished down below, if you'll ride back with me, I'll give it to you. In the meantime, our troops look magnificent, as they ought to... Let's ride on down. We have kept them waiting long enough. "
We made our way down onto the plain, and as we approached the dense mass of our army, coming close enough finally to be able to discern the unsmiling, individual features beneath the rows and rows of identical war helmets, it struck me forcibly that I would be seeing very few soft, feminine faces in the days and months that stretched ahead.
It took more than two hours to inspect our troopers, but it was a pleasant and rewarding task in the warm springtime sunlight. Our men were ready, primed for war, and there was a sense of bubbling anticipation among them, though they stood silent and arrow straight as we walked among them, peering critically at their weapons and armour, their animals and saddlery.
The veterans of Lot's War, years earlier, stood out unmistakably among the assembly, distinguished by the decorations they had won in the conflict. They alone had the right to wear a stiff, whitish crest of boar bristle on their parade helmets in commemoration of the fact that they had fought and defeated Gulrhys Lot, whose emblem had been the Boar of Cornwall. All other Camulodian troopers wore crests made of brown horsehair.
In addition to the crests, many of our veterans also wore combat rings, directly adapted by my grandfather Caius from the ritualized reward system employed by the Romans, where meritorious service in varying degrees won individual soldiers, the right to carry rings of differing sizes and metals—gold, silver, bronze and iron—mounted on their cuirasses. Some of these rings were ornate, others were plain, and each of them had its own significance.. The largest, the size of a man's palm, symbolized the crowns that could be won by heroic soldiers in ancient times for outstanding deeds of valour, such as capturing an enemy stronghold.
Tertius Lucca, our primus pilus, wore three rows of three such rings on his breastplate, covering his whole chest. Two woe of plain gold, indicating instances of unparalleled personal valour and achievement, while two more were of silver carved to look like rope, announcing to the world his leadership of victorious companies in two distinct campaigns; two more were plain silver, and the three on the bottom row were bronze, each denoting a companion's life saved single handedly in battle. He wore shoulder flashes, too, of polished iron, covering the seams of his front and rear armour, and these were crusted thick with twelve smaller honour rings, welded atop each other in layers. Atop his helmet, which was equipped with full face flaps that protected everything except his gleaming eyes, he wore a huge, spectacular crest of stiffened white horsehair, sweeping from shoulder to shoulder in the centurion's manner.
Tertius Lucca, in the prime of his manhood, made an impressive sight in his parade armour, and at the conclusion of our formal inspection of his troops we thanked him ceremonially and returned the control of the assembly into his hands after our final salute to the podium, where the massed standards of our formations were ranked together. As we rode away then, the two Commanders side by side, followed by our corps of staff officers, we heard Lucca's voice, as loud as Stentor's, marshalling the throngs one last time, bidding them prepare to be dismissed in good order.
Back at the fort, I thanked the other officers and dismissed diem, before leading Ambrose into the room in my quarters into which I had piled all the crates and cases I had not yet unpacked. I quickly identified the one I sought and prised the lid off it to reveal Excalibur's case, carefully packed in wood shavings, and the two replicas made from the last of the skystone metal. I hoisted one out and tossed it to Ambrose. He caught it by the sheathed blade and held it up to the light, staring at it.
"I thought of this the other night, when you reminded me about making ourselves identical that day in Saxon country. Remember how you worried because our bows were different, as if the people we attacked could notice such a thing from a hundred paces distant?" He smiled and brought the hilt closer to his eyes. "Well, our swords will be identical from now on, at least. " I held out the other of the pair, so that he could see that they woe, in every respect, identical from pommel to sheath tip.
"Who made the scabbards?"
I held mine out and withdrew the blade. "Joseph made them, using the same techniques Uncle Varrus used. They're sheepskin, as you can see, folded and sewn, with the fleece inside and shaved away to a mere nap that polishes and cleans the blade each time you draw it out or slip it in. The upper part is reinforced with a metal sleeve, to keep it stiff and snug around the top of the blade, and to support that long, straight hook on the back of the scabbard. We needed something to enable us to carry these things, and this hook is what Joseph came up with.
'The blade's too long to permit a straight arm draw, either over your shoulder or from your side, and it's far too long even to let you walk, if you are carrying the sword hanging by your side. The only alternative you have is to carry the thing in your hand all the time, and that is obviously ridiculous. So, the long tongued hook on the back of the sheath slips into the harness ring between your shoulders, and the sheathed blade hangs down your back, the hilt above your shoulder. Nothing new there. The new part comes when you need the sword. See?" I had been demonstrating as I spoke. "You take hold of the hilt, reach behind you with your free hand, low, push the scabbard up until the hook clears the ring at your back, then flip the blade forward, over your shoulder, to where you can catch it again in your free hand. Draw the sword, like that, and slip the sheath hook into your belt, so you don't lose it. The sheath dangles, flexible and harmless, and you have a naked, dangerous weapon in your hand. You approve?"
"Hmm, I do. Very ingenious. Joseph came up with this?" Ambrose was fumbling behind him, attempting to insert the long, straight hook of the scabbard into the ring at his back where his long bladed cavalry spatha normally hung, its blade through the ring.
"He did. You'll grow used to that manoeuvre. I had difficulty with it myself, for the first few days, but it's usage, like anything else—balance and feel. I slip the hook in there nowadays without even thinking about it, and I can have the sword drawn and bare in my hand before a man can count to three. "
He slid the scabbard into place eventually and then went through the motions of drawing the weapon, his movements slow and clumsy. I repeated them, my own movements smooth and liquid, bouncing the sheathed blade against my right shoulder for impetus, then twisting my wrist inward on the down pull, bringing the blade across my chest to where my left hand could grasp the scabbard just below the hilt; a straight pull in opposite directions with either hand, and I had my bared sword ready to strike. The scabbard flopped empty in my left hand as I slipped the retaining hook into my belt.
"As I said, you'll soon capture the trick of it, and the marvellous thing is that it works even better on horseback than it does on foot. "