The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [32]
There is a race of horses that are said to be the best in the world. Certainly they are the most beautiful. I had seen them in the East, where the men of the desert prize them more than their gold or their women; but they could be found, I knew, nearer than that. The Romans had brought some of these creatures back from North Africa into Iberia, where they had interbred with the thicker-bodied horses from Europe. The result was a splendid animal, fast and fiery, but strong with it, and supple, and biddable as a war-horse should be. If Arthur would send across to see what might be bought, then as soon as the weather would allow safe transportation, the makings of a mounted force could be his by the following summer.
So when I got back to Caerleon in the spring, it was to put in motion the building of big new stable-blocks, while Bedwyr was dispatched overseas to do the horse-trading.
Caerleon was already transformed. Work on the fortress itself had gone quickly and well, and now other buildings were springing up nearby, of sufficient comfort and grandeur to grace a temporary capital. Though Arthur would use the commandant's house inside the walls as battle headquarters, another house (which the folk called "the palace") was being built outside, in the lovely curve of the Isca River, by the Roman bridge. When finished this would be a large house, with several courtyards for guests and their servants. It was well built, of stone and brickwork, with painted plaster and carved pillars at the doors. Its roof was gilded, like that of the new Christian church, which was on the site of the old Mithras temple. Between these two buildings and the parade ground to the west of them, houses and shops were springing up, making a bustling township where before there had only been a small village settlement. The folk, proud of Arthur's choice of Caerleon, and willing to ignore the reasons for it, worked with a will to make the place worthy of a new reign, and a king who would bring peace.
He brought peace of a sort by Pentecost. Colgrim, with his new army, had broken bounds in the eastern regions. Arthur fought him twice, once not far south of the Humber, the second time nearer the Saxon boundary, in the reedy fields of Linnuis. In the second of these battles Colgrim was killed. Then, with the Saxon Shore uneasily recoiling into quiet once more, Arthur came back to us, in time to meet Bedwyr disembarking with the first contingent of the promised horses.
Valerius, who had been to help disembark them, was enthusiastic.
"High as your breast, and strong with it, and as gentle as maidens. Some maidens, that is. And fast, they say, as greyhounds, though they're still stiff from the voyage, and it'll take time before they get their land-legs again. And beautiful! There's many a maiden, gentle or otherwise, who'd sacrifice to Hecate for eyes as big and dark, or skins as silken..."
"How many did he bring? Mares as well? When I was in the East they parted only with the stallions."
"Mares as well. A hundred stallions in this first lot, and thirty mares. Better off than the army on campaign, but still fierce competition, eh?"
"You've been at war too long," I told him.
He grinned and went, and I called my assistants and went up through the new cavalry lines to make sure that all would be ready to receive the horses, and to check yet again the new, light field-harness that the saddlers' workshops had made for them.
As I went, the bells began to ring from the gilded towers. The High King was home, and preparations for the crowning could begin.
***
Since I had watched Uther crowned I had travelled abroad, and seen splendours -- in Rome,