Our camp was laid out, as it always was, in the fashion of the traditional Roman military encampments. For this; occasion, however, with the feeding of close to fifteen hundred personnel, I had ordered the quartermaster cooks to set up a feeding area beyond the camp itself, and the smells of spit roasted sheep and venison were carried on the gentle breeze to every corner of the camp. I led the way through the centre of the camp to my own quarters and those of my senior commanders. I had ordered three additional tents set up beside my own, for Germanus's use; the two tents flanking his own were commodious enough to house as many of his personal staff as he might choose to place there. I led him directly to his own tent and we dismounted, handing our reins to the troopers who were waiting there to take our mounts. As I turned to leave him, however, Germanus caught me by the wrist and held me there until the troopers had gone; then he cocked his head to look at me.
"Your officers, those whom you introduced to me. I can't recall their names, but they were tribunes, centurions and: decurions. I found that strange.".
"How so? Why should it be strange?"
"Those are Roman rankings. "
"So? That is unimportant, Bishop. They are military titles. "
"Call me Germanus when we are alone. Why Roman? You are not Roman, are you?"
"No, we're not, we're British, but our roots are Roman nonetheless. "
"Hmm. What do you call your officers?"
I blinked at him. "Forgive me, but what do you mean, what do I call them? They're my officers, I call diem by their names. "
Germanus shook his head, smiling now. "No, you should forgive me for being so unclear. But the historian in me knows that no Roman tribune was a cavalry officer by birth and training. The same applies to the centuriate. They were infantry to a man. Decurions were cavalry, but all your officers are cavalry. "
I was still confused. "So? What are you saying?"
Now he shrugged. "I suppose I am saying that, if you are determined to adhere to Romanness, then you should adhere strictly to that bent. The founding fathers gave their name to the Patrician order in Rome, and all others were Plebeians. Later, another order emerged, between Patricians and Plebeians, and to mark their rank, the state awarded them horses, fed from the public purse. Thus they became Equestrians, known to the world today as Knights. All of your men are equestrian, therefore your officers deserve the title of Equestrians. You should call them Knights, my friend, and find some way of distinguishing them in the eyes of other men, not merely your soldiers. "
"Knights? You mean—" My mind was racing now, seeing a host of possibilities. "You mean we should found a new order of nobility? Within Camulod?"
"Why not? Perhaps not an order of nobility, per se— nobility is such an abstract word and all too frequently misleading—but certainly a new order of military excellence. From the appearance of your troops today, I would say Camulod has come of age sufficiently to honour its own in some such signal way. It was merely a thought, but it might be worth considering. It could provide incentive for your aspiring warriors. "
"Aye, it could indeed. But how would we mark such an honour? We all have horses already, and the Colony looks after them. "
"Who knows?" Germanus shrugged his shoulders. "No doubt something will come to you. As I say, it was a mere thought. Think on it further, my friend. God will guide you, of that I am sure. Ah, and on that thought He now guides me. Here comes Ludovic, my secretary and my personal cross to bear throughout this life. Pardon me, for I must speak with him before we take the time to eat. "
I left him to the attentions of the corpulent, pink faced cleric who came bustling over to claim him and went looking for Tress, my mind in a turmoil with the idea he had stirred up in me so quickly. I had to share it with someone, and she was first and foremost in my mind.
We talked about it while we ate, and Tress grew nearly as excited as I was, her nimble mind perceiving almost from the first the exciting possibilities that founding such an order might present, were we to approach it properly. By the end of that afternoon, when Germanus was deeply involved with his British bishops in a session that would last long into the night, I had mentioned the idea to all my closest associates. None of them, however—and I was saddened to note this— appeared to see in it the potential that had screamed itself into my mind and Tressa's. Even Shelagh merely blinked her lovely, long lashed eyes and said little. I covered my disappointment and lowered the intensity of my enthusiasm, fearing to embarrass any of them, but the idea would not lose its resonance.
That night I awoke long before dawn with a vision in my mind, a vision that might well have been a dream. I saw Arthur, years older than he was, holding Excalibur in front of him as he stood within a ring of shining young men, all of them helmed and uniformly armoured and gazing at him in love and admiration. I sat up in bed in the darkness and concentrated upon what I had seen, drinking in the brightness and the light that surrounded this assembly until it faded from my memory, and then I lay back down and vainly tried to go back to sleep.
FOURTEEN
I was up and abroad well before dawn the next morning, but by the time I emerged from my tent the business of breaking camp was already well in hand. Indeed, it had been the noises from the horse picket lines and the sounds of wagons being loaded that had driven me from my cot. I washed quickly in cold water at the communal ablutions area and foraged a cold breakfast for myself in the camp kitchens, then spent the next few hours touring the encampment, supervising the preparations for departure.
A strong, warm breeze sprang up out of the west soon after daylight and grew warmer as the sun climbed higher in the sky, so that by the time we set out, the small banners on our squadron leaders' spears were fluttering almost horizontally and our standard bearers were having difficulty with the great, square banners that proclaimed our identity: my own great silver bear, picked out on thick, black cloth, and the rampant dragon of Camulod, white on a field of red.
Our exodus seemed chaotic at first, since most of the throng who had gathered to welcome Germanus waited until we were ready to set forth, then fully half of them scattered to the winds to make their own ways homeward. By the time we had travelled half a mile, however, most of these travellers had disappeared from view and we were left alone, an arrow straight, strong column moving northward at the pace of our slowest wagons, the heavy, wide wheeled, mule drawn vehicles that housed our commissary. Here, far from any road and travelling through a countryside of gently rolling, treeless hills, these wagons were our greatest strength, since they held our supplies, and also our greatest weakness, since they were vulnerable to every hillock and declivity they encountered. The ground was firm, however, and there were few boulders on the chalky, grass covered terrain, so although the progress of the wagons was slow, they moved forward without difficulty, their wide, iron tyres leaving sharp edged impressions in the shallow soil.
We carried our travelling rations in our saddlebags and ate in our saddles at noon without pausing to rest, since our leisurely rate of travel posed no threat to our horses' stamina. Some time after that, perhaps an hour later, I smelled an elusive hint of smoke. Philip, who was riding at my side, detected it on the same gust of wind and identified it as grass smoke. I nodded, and we rode on, but the hint we had detected strengthened to an ever present, growing stink, and soon the distances ahead of us were obscured in a drifting haze through which I saw Dedalus and Benedict cantering back towards us from their advance position with our foremost scouts.