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impression on me, and I made up my mind that I could do the same. I was to
learn over the coming months, however, that writing in this fashion was hardly
as simple as it looked. There were a thousand times when I would have given up
in disgust had it not been for the encouragement I got from Caius himself. He
simply would not allow me to stop trying. He made me see that the effort of
concentration was worthwhile. He told me of his own troubles in getting
started properly and showed me his early efforts, which were not much better
than mine. He convinced me that if
I tried hard enough, and kept on trying harder, I would one day be able to say
what I felt to myself on parchment. And he has been proven right. But those
first months of working at it were among the hardest
I have ever spent in learning to do anything. It seemed at first that I could
do nothing properly, until the day came when I wrote a piece and discovered,
to my absolute surprise, that I had said almost what I
wanted to say. That was my real starting point. Everything that had gone
before was basic training.
It was late, that first night of reading and discovery, when I finally got to
bed, my mind seething with excitement. Later still, I had to rise and void my
bladder, and I was glad to climb back into bed beside the silky warmth of my
wife.
XVIII
The next day did not start off auspiciously. I awoke in the pre-dawn to the
sound of torrential rain and decided to start off my day with a hot bath and a
massage, only to find that, for the first time anyone could remember, the
furnace that heated our hypocausts, our central heating system, had broken. I
settled for a cold bath and a stinging massage and drew little comfort from
the knowledge that an entire army of workers was busily trying to trace the
source of the trouble.
I had intended to ride up to the fort in the course of the morning to check on
our operations up there, but the mere exercise of crossing the courtyard to
the bath house in the astounding downpour was enough to convince me that a
prudent man would look for things to do indoors on such a day. And yet the
house was cold because of the broken furnace, or the broken pipes, or whatever
else it was that was causing the trouble, so I wrapped myself up in my cloak
and made my way down to the forge and its welcome warmth.
Equus had already been there for more than an hour, I reckoned, by the time I
arrived, since it was full daylight outside and he still had lamps burning. He
looked up from his work as I hung my sodden cloak by the forge to dry.
"Raining outside?"
I thought at first he was jesting, but quickly saw that he was not really
interested in my response, whatever it might be.
"Raining? How long have you been here?"
He was concentrating on something on the bench-top in front of him and spoke
perfunctorily over his shoulder, his eyes on his work. "All night, I reckon.
Wanted to get your spear done." He finished something, tapped metal with a
hammer and straightened up, looking out for the first time towards the
daylight. "Looks like a whore of a morning out there."
I ran my fingers through my wet hair, flicking them afterward to shake off the
rain. "Not pleasant, Equus
 but why a whore?"
He grinned down again at what he was doing. "Wet, and available to anyone who
wants to get into it, but basically cold, unpleasant and taxing to everyone."
I returned his grin. "Philosophizing this early? You must have had a rough
night. What's the matter?"
He straightened up. "Ah, I don't know." He looked disgusted. "I'm not happy
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with the way this spear thing turned out."
"Why not? What's wrong with it?"
"Split me if I know! But something isn't right about it."
"Where is it? Let's have a look."
"It's over there." He nodded backwards with his head. "Against the back wall."
I saw it from where I was standing. "It looks all right from here  a little
strange-looking, but that's what
I expected."
I went and picked the new weapon up. It felt heavy and serviceable. The blade
was three feet long and double-edged, flaring from the point to a two-inch
width within six inches, and then gradually to about four and a half inches at [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]