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and the opportunity, your people could construct a permanent home to house the
stone. A house that would be God's house only."
"You mean an ecclesia?"
"An ecclesia. In Germany, in Gaul and in Italia itself there are many ecclesia
being built today. Permanent houses of prayer. I would die happy if I knew one
would be built here, some day."
"Then rest easy, old friend." Caius smiled. "I promise you there will be a
house here for God."
One of the Druids, who had been standing back observing us, asked then, "What
is the significance of this stone?"
The old bishop looked at him with a smile.
"It has the same significance as those your people erected in bygone days. It
is to the glory of God. It is sanctified  blessed  and contains, as I have
said, a relic of a wise and holy man. When this stone is taken into a room for
prayerful use, that room itself is blessed by the stone's presence, and any
table upon which the stone is set becomes an altar sanctified to commemorate
the Body and the Blood of the
Christ, both given in sacrifice to free mankind from sin."
The Druid frowned slightly but made no further comment, and Alaric closed the
wooden case, hiding the stone from profane eyes, after which he and Father
Phonos carried it between them to the small enclosure at the far side of the
Council Hall that had been specially built to hold the stone.
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Later that day, after the midday meal, we met as we had planned and rode
together down to the villa 
myself, Caius, Picus, Ullic, Uric and Equus. Picus and I were ready first, and
as we sat waiting for the others to join us, he tweaked my nose verbally about
my having drunk too much the day before, telling me that I'd missed the most
interesting part of the day. I smiled to myself as I imagined what his
expression would be were I to tell him of what I had seen and heard in the
night on the hillside. Of course, I said nothing, and the others soon joined
us so that he left off his teasing.
When we arrived at the villa I led them past the house and directly to the
forge itself, a move that occasioned some comment, since we had been talking
on the way down from the fort about cracking a jug of wine as soon as we
arrived. The inside of the forge was dark and the fires were all out. We threw
open the doors at the front and back of the forge and opened the
window-shutters, letting in enough of the bright spring sun to lighten all but
the darkest corners.
Picus perched himself on the edge of a bench, first taking care to clean the
dust from it. Ullic leaned against a pillar, oblivious to dirt, smacking his
lips and clearing what was obviously supposed to be a parched throat, with
much spluttering and dumb show. Young Uric stood quietly beside his father,
saying nothing. He had barely spoken six words since leaving the fort, this
being his first outing as a man among men. He had taken unmerciful teasing all
the way down here from all of us, myself included, and had not been a
bridegroom long enough to develop the confidence that was needed to cope with
such banter without embarrassment. And that, naturally, provided more fuel for
the fires on which we roasted him.
I seated myself on one of our three-legged stools and nodded to Equus, who
walked to a chest at the back of the forge and produced a long, cloth-wrapped
bundle.
"Equus has something to show you," I said.
He brought the bundle back, dropped it with a clank onto the floor and
unwrapped four long swords, one matched pair and two others. Wordlessly, he
passed them around, giving Picus one with a long blade that was slightly
curved, with a flared end just behind its point. Ullic took the other
singleton, and Caius and Uric each held one of the pair of long, tapering,
straight-bladed swords with the heavy, leaden pommels and long, two-handed
grips.
"We've all been looking for a new kind of weapon to suit the needs of our
horsemen," I began. "The standard sword we've always used is too short, now
that we're up on big horses. These are some of the results we've come up with.
Picus? What do you think?"
Picus was holding up the sword he had been given in his two hands, his right [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]