Despite the strategic attractiveness of the invitation, however, the whole affair was vastly convoluted and fraught with political risk. Conflicting thoughts and notions flitted through my mind more quickly than I can define them now, all of them influenced by my own reservations over the manner in which Enos had defined Vortigern's sympathetic stance towards the heretics. It occurred to me that Vortigern might not be over pleased with my commitment to Germanus and his orthodox views on Pelagius, despite and notwithstanding the consideration that my commitment, if indeed I made one, would be born out of loyalty to my old Mend and not out of any active dedication to the premise he espoused.
In fact, the teachings of Pelagius, as I had been taught to understand them long ago, made eminent good sense to me. I accepted the basic belief that mankind was made in the image of God, born in possession of the divine spark enabling him to choose between goodness and evil. I could find no moral fault in the premise that each man and woman was therefore capable of communing directly with God and achieving his or her own salvation. The Fathers, of the Church, however, had decided in their wisdom that this belief was a form of pride, one of the greatest of the Seven Deadly Sins, and that mankind was incapable of achieving anything without the intervention of divine grace, administered through God's deputies, themselves. The theological hair splitting in the controversy that was bringing Germanus back into Britain was beyond my grasp, but I was fundamentally unswayed by the theologians' disputations. I had been taught the Pelagian way by the living example of my own dearest relatives and Mends, and I could find no fault in any of them. The result was that I lived my life according to the dictates of my conscience and I sought to sway no other person to my own beliefs.
Vortigern, however, I suspected of being more politically concerned in this dispute. He called himself a Christian king, though he admitted he was no theologian and therefore unconcerned with fine theological distinctions. He had never openly taken sides at the debate on Pelagianism in Verulamium. Yet it was true, nonetheless, that the two most outspoken champions of the Pelagian way, the bishops Agricola and Fastidius, were from Vortigern's domain, and he had allowed them thus far to function as they would, spreading their teachings throughout his extensive lands, north to Hadrian's Wall and all the way westward into northern Cambria, far north of the Pendragon lands. From that viewpoint, I thought, Vortigern would surely be inclined to look upon my services to Germanus with displeasure—a displeasure much allayed by the advantages to him in having; Camulodian cavalry present in Horsa's new territories.
By the time I stopped pacing and sat down to read the letter a second time, I had arrived at a number of decisions. I sat thinking for a while longer, and then took up a pen and a pot of ink and wrote down my list, simply to see how it looked. I found myself smiling as I did so, aware that my own habit of writing things down, now ingrained by years of practice, had led me to distrust, instinctively, the essential shape, outline and content of any idea that was not written down.
I read my list when it was done and felt some satisfaction. I would, as I had promised, lead a thousand cavalry into Vortigern's territories in the coming year. Before that, however, I would dispatch messengers to inform Vortigern that I would be delayed until midsummer, since I first must ride southward to. meet and greet our old friend Bishop Germanus and bring him safely to Verulamium again. Should; Vortigern come south to Verulamium for the occasion, I would lead my people back to Northumbria with him. In the meantime, I would have had a space of months in which to assess what dangers threatened Camulod from the Weald and the regions that surrounded it, and to impress the resident invaders there with the strength and power of our cavalry and our willingness and readiness to go to war against anyone who thought to abuse our peace. By the time I arrived back in Camulod from Vortigern's domain, it would be autumn again and Arthur's Cambrian sojourn would be at an end. He would then be of age to take up a full command as a captain and commander of the Forces of Camulod.
I had attempted, in drawing up my list of decisions, to define the impediments to success I could identify, but there were none of any importance. Ironhair had suffered a resounding defeat, on land and sea, and Cambria was now safely in the hands of Huw Strongarm. Huw's presence, aided by Connor's vastly increased naval strength with his two captured biremes, would, I believed, prove strong enough to deter Ironhair, and with him Carthac, from any quickly renewed attempt at conquest of the Pendragon. Similarly, Horsa's newly launched colonization of the Weald would remove the threat of war from Northumbria and the north in general.
Only in the far southwest, in Ironhair's Cornwall, could I see any threat of unrest, and there was nothing I could do about that, outside of sending my own spies into Ironhair's lands to discover what was happening there. I resolved to do that as soon as possible, after consulting with my brother and our senior strategists. In the meantime, I would write to Germanus, in care of Enos, and also to Vortigern.
Thus resolved, I set out to look for my brother, to share my thoughts with him.
THIRTEEN
I arose earlier my second day home, but dawn was already bright in the sky and Tress was absent from my bed again. I made my way downstairs, my head still full of sleep, and found my way to the bathhouse, but judging by the evidence of water splashed about, she had already been there and gone. Some time later, fully dressed and hungry, I entered the Villa's kitchen to break my fast and learned from Plato that my lady had made her way up to the fort to join Shelagh, as she had the previous day. Curious now as to what these two might be about so early in the day, I asked Plato to have my horse brought to the main entrance, and when I had eaten I went directly up to the fort to find them.
I had another mission that morning as well. I needed to go to the stables and talk to one of our masters of horse about selecting a new mount to replace my faithful Germanicus. My requirements were simple: the horse merely needed to be physically large enough to bear my weight. I would have preferred it to be a black, but I was prepared to accept anything I could find, for the time being. The loss of Germanicus was yet too fresh for me to relish the thought of having to replace him with another mount of which I might become fond.
Although the morning sun was now high in the sky, it had not yet penetrated the open doors; the stables were still dark and cool, illuminated by flickering lamps set into mortared sconces over wide bowls that would catch any falling sparks before they could ignite the straw that lay piled on the floors. I rode directly in through the large double doors, to be surrounded immediately by the thick, living smell of the place. Nothing else in the world smells like a horse barn. I breathed deeply and looked about me before dismounting, searching for the groom who ought to be on duty, since the stables were never to be left untended. On this occasion, however, I was alone in the huge building, save for the animals, more than three score of them, in their stalls.
I tied my reins around a post, intending to return and unsaddle the animal and brush him down once I had looked at the horses at the far end of the barn, where single stalls housed the aristocrats of our equine population. The stables had been swept very recently, the streaks of broom sweeps still clearly visible on the hard packed floor, and a fresh pile of straw had been brought in but not yet spread. Clean as the floor was, I picked my way carefully as I walked, attempting to keep my fine new boots dry. There were twelve single stalls, but I went no farther than the first of them, where I found a high and noble head craning high above mine, looking down at me. My first impression was of tremendous height, and then of jet black ears twitching and pointing downwards, the space between them filled with a stiff, high standing mane. And then I saw the eyes.