For King and Country

Chapter Eleven

The first report of disaster came before Ancelotis' manservant, Gilroy, had even finished packing for the journey back to Gododdin. Stirling, helplessly along for the ride in the unfolding political and military affairs of Britain, jerked around in startled surprise when a great bronze bell began to toll a clangorous alarm. An armed soldier appeared at the entrance to the council hall, moving at a dead run and escorting a boy of no more than thirteen, a runner who staggered with every stride. Mud plastered his clothes and ran in rivulets from sweat-soaked hair. "Attack," the lad gasped out, "attack by raiders near Long Meg and Her Daughters! They've burnt every farm within five miles of the standing stones!"

"The heart of Penrith!" King Meirchion snarled. "We should have hanged that Saxon bastard from the nearest oak! More's the pity you didn't cut his throat, Ancelotis, when you had him at your mercy, and host laws be damned. The Saxons certainly don't abide by them." He strode away, bellowing orders as the alarm bell continued to send its warning reverberating through the late afternoon air, the sound dropping through the open ceiling above the hearth like hailstones.

Artorius met and held Ancelotis' gaze. "I must stay here and prepare the campaign in the south. Meirchion could use your judgement and skill."

Stirling most emphatically did not want to leave Artorius unguarded, convinced as he was that the Dux Bellorum was the IRA's main target, but he didn't have much choice, since Ancelotis agreed at once.

"Aye," his host nodded, "I'll send riders to Gododdin to spread the word, to strengthen the forts and raise an army to send south. I'll take most of the cataphracti who rode with me from Gododdin and try to catch that Saxon bastard before he does more damage. Meirchion was right. I should have killed him."

Within minutes, Stirling found himself in the saddle once more, shouting orders to the narrow-lipped Sarmatian cavalrymen who had ridden with him from Caer-Iudeu. The combined cataphracti of Gododdin, Strathclyde, and Rheged thundered through the great fortress gates and left Carlisle behind in a sea of churned-up mud flung on house walls by nearly three hundred heavily armored horses. Stirling couldn't help the thrill of adrenaline through his veins, caught up as he was in the glittering midst of sun-struck armor, helmets, and spearpoints.

They followed the Roman highway south toward Penrith, a town deep in the heart of Cumbria, which Stirling had driven through on many a holiday. The Cumbrian mountains rose as a massive barrier to the west, lifting their craggy heads from the lowlands around Carlisle and marching straight south through the Lake District. It was less than twenty miles to Penrith from Caerleul's sandstone walls. At a gallop for much of the way, they covered the distance in just a few hours.

Smoke and ruin rose on every side as they neared Penrith. Farms lay scorched, with wildfires still spreading beyond villages that were nothing but smoking rubble. Livestock—cattle, goats, sheep, horses, and barnyard fowl—lay slaughtered in every direction while carrion crows flocked in such numbers, the sky blackened when they took wing, deafening the armored column with their raucous protests. Far worse than the livestock were the other bodies lying twisted in the late-slanting sunlight. Farmers cut down with cane knives or spears in their hands, women butchered in their kitchen gardens, skirts disarranged in violation inflicted before the killing blow. Children, rosy-cheeked boys and fair-skinned girls with their hair in long braids, had been hacked to pieces, gobbets of flesh scattered in ghastly splashes of blood.

The deeper they rode into the zone of devastation, the harder Stirling ground his teeth over rage. The Saxons, like the Vikings who would sweep down from the north in later centuries, were not averse to using the blood eagle, where a victim's rib cage was hacked open and his lungs yanked out across his back like hideous wings. Rage swept the length of the cataphracti's column. Everywhere the stench of blood and death permeated the air, thick with coppery blood, sickly sweet. The only sound was the massive clatter of horses' hooves on the stone road and the calls of the crows, interrupted in their grisly feast.

The village of Penrith still smouldered, embers flaring beneath the top layer of white ash, adding to the general stench a sickening smell of cooked flesh. At the head of the column, King Meirchion halted his horse and sat staring at the destruction for long moments, jaw muscles working and fingers knotted around his reins. Ancelotis joined him.

"You know the land better than I," Ancelotis murmured. "Where will the bastard strike next?"

Meirchion spat to one side, as though trying to spit out the taste of death itself. "He may follow the Roman road south out of Penrith, but I suspect not, as he's fired every farmhold between here and the great stone circle on the River Eden. If he cuts east between Long Meg and the Caldron Snow rapids, he could strike as far north as Wall's End, then follow the coast south to Sussex. If he fired the villages near Long Meg first, destroying Penrith last, he may have ridden south already, toward Merecambe Bay and the road that drives through south Rheged, into the Pennines, and south through Calchrynned and Caer-Lundein to Sussex."

Stirling superimposed Ancelotis' knowledge of the region and the oxhide map of the great council over his own mental map of England. "Whichever route he takes, he'll have to move fast, for he knows the cataphracti will ride hard to catch him. The borders of Wessex are closer than those of Sussex and Creoda rides with him. He could also reach Dewyr, south of Ebrauc, which would give him a Saxon haven far closer at hand and ships to return south without risking the long ride through Briton-held territory."

"We must split our forces then," Meirchion decided. "I'll take my own cavalry south, following the possible route through south Rheged. Take your own cataphracti and Strathclyde's to the east, toward Long Meg and Her Daughters. If he's raiding in that direction, you'll find evidence of it soon enough. If it's Dewyr he's heading toward, you'll have a hellish ride trying to catch him up."

On that point, both Stirling and Ancelotis agreed.

The column split, with Meirchion heading south out of the smouldering ruins of Penrith and Ancelotis riding hard east, with young Clinoch leading the men of Strathclyde behind him. Cutha and Creoda had clearly passed this way, for Ancelotis' path followed a swath of devastation sickening in its barbarity. It was nearly nightfall before they reached the headwaters of the Eden and the great standing stones of the megalithic circle known as Long Meg and Her Daughters. Smoke hung on the air, turning the sunset at their backs a lurid, blood-smeared red. The immense stones stood eerie watch above the countryside, with its squabbling, black-winged clouds of scavenging crows rising in drifts like charcoal mist in the long, slanting light. In the distance, they could hear the roar of water as the Eden gathered herself to tumble her way to the sea and the Caldron Snow rapids in the other direction snarled their way toward the lowlands of the south.

Beyond the sound of falling water, dark against the smudge of approaching night on the far horizon, smoke bellied up into the evening, clear evidence that Cutha was, indeed, riding east for Dewyr as hard as he could push his horses. The villages and farmholds in his path would have no warning before death burst in amongst them. Stirling ground his molars over the deepest and most savage anger he had ever felt in his life. Desperate as he was not to alter history, he could not witness such butchery and not hate the man responsible with a cold and knife-edged passion. Stirling found it difficult to bear, that by his failure to kill Cutha when he'd had the chance, Stirling himself had condemned these people to the ghastly butchery Cutha had gifted them with. The thought that he might already have changed history with an irrevocable failure to act haunted Trevor Stirling long after sunset, as they guided their horses deep into the smoke and shadows looming ahead.

Morgana waited for the first shocked hubbub to die down, then sent her sons with Medraut to begin packing for the journey home, and quietly took aside the young runner who'd brought the news. She poured a cup of wine for him with her own hands and guided him to a bench near the fire, gesturing for servants to bring hot food. The lad gulped almost convulsively at the wine, with a stark look in his eyes that Brenna McEgan had seen all too often, in the eyes of survivors after a bomb blast or a spray of bullets or a bottle of flaming petrol had set a block of flats alight. Both she and Morgana waited patiently for the lad to calm himself, to recover his strength and his wind, waited for him to begin eating the thick venison stew in his steaming bowl. At length, Morgana spoke, very gently. "When you are able, lad, I must know what you've seen."

He jerked a frightened gaze up to meet hers. "Isn't seemly t'tell a lady such things," he said, voice cracking with distress.

"I understand your concern. But I am a sovereign queen, Morgana of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, and my lands and people are also threatened. I must know the scope and depth of what our Saxon adversary is willing to inflict, before I can make decisions on how best to protect my people."

The boy thought for a moment, tears battling a hardened, old man's anger in his eyes, then he nodded. " 'Tis vile, Queen Morgana. They left alive not even one downy yellow chick in the farmyards. Burnt the fields and forests for miles, it was, and left the dead hacked into pieces. Men, women, infants in their cradles. 'Twas unnatural savage, what they did, and to every living thing that came in their way. I'd gone to the marshes to cut withies for me mother, when they came. Burnt the house and killed her and all my sisters, and me with nothing but a three-inch knife on me belt."

Tears welled up, impatiently knuckled aside. "I wanted to kill them, and would have tried, but if they were killing everyone the way they killed me mother and sisters, there would've been no one left to sound the alarm at Caerleul. So I lay in the mud with the marsh grass all round me 'til they'd gone, and ran from Long Meg to Penrith, to reach the Roman road, and everywhere I ran, there was nothing left alive save the crows." He hesitated, then asked in a voice breaking with youth and stress, "Did I do wrong, to lie in the grasses while me own family lay dying?"

Morgana smoothed the boy's lank, sweat-soaked hair back from his brow and placed a gentle kiss there. "No, lad. Hundreds of others may well be saved, because you hid in the grass to warn Caerleul. Thousands, perhaps, for once the cataphracti of the northern kingdoms begin the hunt, Cutha will be forced to fly ahead of our chargers, without taking the time to butcher every Briton whose path crosses his. 'Tis certain, God guided you to the wisest course, there in the marsh, and sent you with wings on your feet to speed the warning. Finish your stew, then, and I'll have a servant show you where to wash and sleep tonight. Were your father's people freeholders?"

The boy nodded.

" 'Tis good, then. I'll ask King Meirchion to look after you properly. If ever you need or want a place to start again, remember my name and come to Caer-Birrenswark at Galwyddel. I'll see that you receive a fine freehold."

The tears spilled over as the boy's eyes lost at least some of the starkness which had aged him so traumatically. "I'm that grateful, I am."

"And so am I." Morgana left him to finish his meal and found Queen Thaney, who was busy organizing an army of servants to help the kings and queens of Britain make haste for departure. Morgana passed along her request that the boy's courage and quick wits be rewarded suitably. Her stepdaughter's eyes misted. "Of course we'll take care of the lad, Morgana. Thank you for letting me know."

"I'll be riding for Caer-Birrenswark as soon as the horses can be saddled."

Thaney gave her a swift embrace and Morgana kissed the younger woman's cheek, then left her to her work. It was the task of only a few moments to ready her own things, find Medraut and her sons busy stuffing clothing into leather satchels, and arrange for her retainers, who rode as armed escort everywhere Morgana traveled, to prepare for the journey north. As she was looking for a servant to help carry their baggage out to the stable for tying to the packhorses, the minstrel Lailoken brushed past, murmuring, "Half an hour's ride north along the road to Caer-Gretna?"

She nodded, moving on without speaking.

When someone behind her began whistling a shockingly familiar tune, Brenna whipped around, startling Morgana with the force of her reaction. She peered into the throng of men and women jammed in the hall, unable to see who had been whistling that particular song.

What is it? Morgana wanted to know, understandably perplexed at having her body hijacked in so public a fashion.

Realizing that she might well have given herself away by her own reaction, Brenna turned quickly and headed for the door, fighting hard to disguise her distress. That particular song was engraved in her memory, sung each July during the Orangemen's parades, commemorating a battle in the bloody seventeenth century. Bloody, indeed, as Irish Catholics had been slaughtered like pigs, hunted down in the fields for sport by the conquering English Protestants, with bounties offered on Irish heads, the same hideous sort of bounty the huntsmen collected for bringing in wolf pelts...

More than four hundred years of gloating later, the Orangemen still celebrated their victory in their "marching season" with parades through Catholic neighborhoods—parades received with much the same welcome as American Ku Klux Klan marches were received in the Jewish neighborhoods they swaggered through, exercising their right to free speech and assembly to rub salt in the wounds of their favorite victims. Every marching season, violence erupted between hotheaded Catholics who refused to take it any longer and hotheaded Protestants who had not yet tired of dishing it out.

No, Brenna McEgan was not likely to forget that song.

Morgana, realizing the full horror of Brenna's associations with Cedric Banning's favorite tune, not only sent her a great wave of sympathy, she also stopped the next servant she spotted, asking softly, "Can you tell me, has anyone been singing this tune?" She hummed the melodic line in a near whisper, to keep the sound from carrying to anyone else's ears.

The woman gave her a curious stare, then nodded. "Oh, aye, that they have, Queen Morgana, all the minstrels have been singing it of late. It is a catching little tune, isn't it? I've caught meself many a day now, humming it while I work. It does make the day go a bit faster."

"Yes, I can see that it would. I was just curious, since I hadn't heard it before this week. I'd like my minstrels at Caer-Birrenswark to learn it. Thank you, I'll ask Rheged's court musicians about it."

One of the minstrels...

Lailoken himself?

'Tis possible, Morgana mused, but with so many visitors in Caerleul, who can guess where the tune was first heard and from whom? Minstrels have a quick ear for such things and it does have a way of sticking in the mind.

It certainly does, Brenna agreed darkly.

Morgana pursed her lips in thought. Would your mad Banning have needed a host somewhere close to Caer-Iudeu, as I was for your arrival?

Brenna hadn't thought about that. It's likely, yes. But I can't tell how far the range might be. We'd had no chance to field test that, before Banning murdered poor Dr. Beckett.

It would be interesting, Morgana mused, to discover who has recently been in Caer-Iudeu, and compare those names with the men and women who've been in Caerleul this week past.

Brenna held back a groan. Beginning with Artorius and your brother-in-law Ancelotis and Medraut. And Covianna Nim. There's nothing to indicate that a host's body must match the traveler's gender. Banning could have taken over any man or woman within several miles of Caer-Iudeu. Lord, and there's every servant who came south with us, not to mention the soldiers of the cataphracti, Brenna rattled off the list in some despair.

True, Morgana nodded, making her way back to the stable to collect her palfrey, but we can look for other clues. I'm thinking Ancelotis' collapse is a matter to consider most carefully. If someone arrived in his head the way you appeared in mine, like a thunderclap out of hell, I would've been astonished if he hadn't fallen from his horse, struck senseless.

In one sudden and blinding flash, Brenna put together all the odd little discrepancies about Ancelotis' recent behavior. A frequently distracted air, as though in conversation with himself, focused inward. Clumsiness on horseback, when Ancelotis must surely have grown up in the saddle. And that display of martial arts in the arena, when he'd defeated Cutha with his bare hands. That was a twenty-first-century fighting technique.

But is it something your terrorist, Banning, would have learned? Morgana wanted to know. Or is it likely the other traveler, the soldier who is mistakenly hunting you?

Brenna wasn't sure. I don't know what Banning will or won't have studied, learning his trade. Martial arts are popular enough with all sorts of men; with women, as well, come to that. But the SAS most certainly does train its soldiers in unarmed combat techniques. Just like the ones Ancelotis used.

Morgana frowned. If your life depended upon a guess, which would you choose? Terrorist or misguided enemy?

Huh. Brenna grimaced, unhappy with the choices offered and well aware that a mistake could cost her life—and the lives of innocent billions. Weighing all the factors at hand, she finally decided. Misguided enemy, I think. Somehow, Ancelotis' behavior strikes me as confused but honorable. And if there's one thing I learned, working with Cedric Banning day after day, it's his love for games of deception. Hiding his true identity while flaunting little hints like his paisley scarf. I haven't seen any such quirks in Ancelotis' personality.

What is this paisley scarf, what does it mean? I don't understand its significance.

It's a nasty little visual pun. Paisley is a pattern woven into cloth. It's also a name given to Orangemen who advocate violence. Banning's a Paisleyite, Brenna explained grimply. The group is named after a Protestant minister of the late twentieth century, an icon of Orange culture. He preached Orange supremacy from his pulpit in Belfast, to the shame of many other Protestant ministers—most of whom deplore the killing as much as the Catholic priests do. But Paisley was so caught up in the fight to save Orange culture from the Catholic menace, he behaved like a man under siege, fighting for survival.

Brenna sighed. He gave many a questionable organization his public approval, while never quite staining his own hands. Wearing the Paisley scarf was Banning's way of laughing at me, flaunting his beliefs under my nose when I'd no way to prove who and what he was. And I'd not act to kill a man unless I were absolutely sure of his guilt. For the first time since finding the inner strength to leave Cumann Na Mbann, Brenna regretted—bitterly—her decision to wait until she had more evidence. If only she'd called in the IRA hit squad sooner...

Morgana said gently, her thoughts full of grief and understanding, Never castigate yourself, Brenna of Clan McEgan for trying to spare the lives of innocents before moving to strike the guilty. To do otherwise is to become as he is, mad with hatred and the desire for vengeance. There are many great injustices in life—that, at least, has not changed over the centuries. We shall simply do our best to see that your world's injustices do not add to mine.

Brenna could not ask for anything more.

Covianna Nim watched in deep satisfaction as Morgana rode out the gates of the Sixth Legion's fortress of Caerleul, on her way to commit treason—a circumstance that Covianna found utterly delicious. Once certain that Morgana and her fool of a nephew were truly gone, she returned to her own room, where her clothing and satchels of herbs and other substances—poisons with far darker uses than mere healing—sat waiting for her own departure.

She pulled from her baggage a small, flat packet in which she kept a precious supply of thin-scraped vellum, calfskin as pale as the skin of a white onion, with a far smoother surface. She chose a smallish piece, trimmed from a larger vellum she had written while in Caer-Iudeu, and set it on the table beside her borrowed bed. Mixing a small amount of ink from a powdered base, using a few splashes of white wine—the best liquid for producing a fine writing ink—Covianna trimmed her goose-quill pen, tapped her lips with the feathered end of the shaft, then dipped and began to write.

Artorius, she began, using the beautifully scripted, cursive Latin she had learned as a girl from her dearly beloved Marguase—it pains me enormously to be the bearer of ill tidings, but my concern for the safety of Britain impels me to send you this warning. It is, perhaps, a symptom of some inherited madness, but Morgana has lost all reason. She has made secret arrangements to betray Galwyddel to the Irish of Dalriada.

I heard her, with my own ears, plotting to secure for Medraut the throne of Galwyddel, which he will earn by betraying you and all of Britain. It is the form of this betrayal which distresses me so deeply. He is to marry a princess of Irish blood, a marriage Morgana is negotiating to bring about. As soon as the marriage is consummated, he will invite in her Dalriadan kinsmen as foederati.

My heart grieves that this is so, for I believe Morgana truly thinks this insanity to be the right thing to do. It is clear to me, at least, that the Dalriadans will take full advantage of our distraction in the south and invade at full strength the moment she has concluded this mad treaty. Please, for the sake of Britain, ride to Caer-Birrenswark and stop her before she commits this act of desperate folly.

I will ask a minstrel to deliver this into your hand, as I must ride south with all haste to help my own kinsmen at Glastenning Tor prepare for defense—for if the Saxons break through our lines at Caer-Badonicus, they will surely strike next at the Tor. I pray that you do not blame Morgana too deeply, for I believe the shock of her husband's death has left her so deeply shaken, she is not in her right mind. Treat her gently, I beg of you, but halt this madness before it is too late for Galwyddel and all of Britain. I am, humbly, your obedient servant, Covianna Nim of Glastenning Tor.

She carefully blew the final lines of ink dry, disposed of the excess ink by pouring it into the chamber pot, and rinsed the little glass inkwell with water from her basin before carefully storing it away again in her baggage, along with the quill in its pen case and the penknife in a second case tucked inside the first. She lit a taper of beeswax from an oil lamp, then creased the vellum into a small square, so that all sides were sealed by folds.

Covianna dripped melted wax onto the final, open edge and pressed her ring into it, leaving an impression of Glastenning Tor's heraldic symbol: a labyrinth with a sword at the center. Blowing out the candle flame, she sat back and surveyed her handiwork. A small, satisfied smile chased its way across her lips. She laughed softly, a low and sultry sound, then tucked the note into the sleeve of her gown and went in search of a minstrel who could be trusted to do exactly what he was instructed to do, no more and no less. She had made use of him before, a time or two, and had found him to be quite reliable. His eyes lit like bonfires at Beltane when he saw her.

"Covianna Nim!"

She allowed him to kiss her fingertips.

"Bricriu, I would have you deliver this note to Artorius after I have gone. But do not take it straight to him. I must try and verify the matters written herein. If I do not contact you by the next full moon, then the matter is true and Artorius must know of it."

She handed the small, folded vellum over—and with it a coin glittering golden in the late and slanting light of afternoon. A gold aureus of Rome, it bore the portrait of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus. Twenty-five years after their last minting, the golden Augustulus coins still circulated amongst the peoples of the vanishing empire, even as far afield as Britain, which still managed a lively trade with her former imperial masters despite unrest, civil war, and invasion that seemed to sweeping across the entire known world.

Covianna, brought up in a tribe of artisans who were also shrewd traders, had learned the value of such coins almost before she could walk. She had acquired a goodly collection of the aureus coins over the years, which she made excellent use of from time to time. When she held up the glittering golden disc, worth a hundred silver sestertii and twice the value of Constantine the Great's gold solidus, and caught the answering glint in the minstrel's eye, she knew she had him.

"Agree to follow my instructions to the letter," she purred, "and this will be yours immediately. Breathe not one single word of this to anyone, not even to your fellow minstrels or bedmate, but give it straight into Artorius' hand, and I will provide others. Multiple others. Once you have given it to Artorius, bring his response to me at Glastenning Tor—and ride like wildfire, for time will be critical by then." As she spoke, Covianna turned the coin over and over in her fingers, toying with it, watching in amusement the way the minstrel's eyes followed the glitter of light. She flipped it to him without warning.

He caught it with a snatch like a starving dog, turning it over and staring at it while babbling, "I swear by Afallach and Christ, I will put your letter into the Dux Bellorum's own hand and no other's, even if I must ride to Avalonis across the waves and back again." He slipped the coin into his belt pouch, then held out his hand for the note. "Provided I have not heard otherwise from you, come the full moon, the task will be done."

Satisfied, Covianna slipped the letter into his palm and it vanished up his sleeve. "Do this for me quietly and you will be rewarded accordingly."

"Your servant," he bowed.

Covianna left him whistling merrily and retrieved her satchels, carrying them across the road and giving them to a stable hand to pack behind her saddle. Emrys Myrddin appeared in the doorway as she was making her way back to the street.

"Covianna," Myrddin smiled, eyes brightening when his gaze rested on her. "Where will you go, in all this turmoil and confusion? Back to Gododdin?"

"No," she said in a low voice, giving him a look of grave concern. "With war brewing in the south and my kinsmen at Glastenning Tor considered one of the most lucrative targets on the Saxons' list, I will be needed there far more than at Gododdin."

"You need not risk yourself," he protested, twisting a strand of her golden hair around his fingertips.

"I don't fear death, Emrys Myrddin, any more than you. You must understand, surely, that my place is working at the forges with my kinsmen? Making swords and doing what I can to doctor injuries."

He frowned. "Do you think so little of our chances that you must be on hand to treat the wounded if the Saxons break through and lay siege to the Tor?"

Covianna laughed softly. "Oh, no, you mistake me entirely. I have every confidence in our fighting strength. But when kings demand hundreds of new weapons in a very short time, to prepare for war, smiths must make many more blades, spearpoints, and pilum heads in one month than they might ordinarily make in half a year. Such a heavy demand means long hours at the forge, with little time for food or even sleep.

"Even the apprentices are run into exhaustion, keeping the forge fires hotly stoked and the bellows in good working order, turning out simpler pieces on their own anvils, or heating the iron bars the master smiths and journeymen will forge into weapons. Work done at that pace causes fatigue and accidents—and if the work goes on long enough at that pace, exhaustion can cause crippling injuries, even death. Master healers are desperately needed when the forges are kept running day and night before battle."

Myrddin blinked in surprise, much to her delight. It wasn't often anyone was able to startle the aging Druid. Then he gave her a rueful smile.

"Forgive me, my dear, for being so obtuse. At least"—he caressed her cheek fondly—"I will have the pleasure of your company on the road south."

Covianna let her gaze smoulder. "I cannot think of anyone I would rather travel with, Myrddin."

He cupped her chin, lifting her face to meet his lips. He then breathed against her ear, "It is, alas, a long journey in the company of others."

Covianna whispered back, "Even an overcrowded taverna has a stable, and stables have hay lofts and not even the stableboys stand guard on a dark and empty hay loft."

He laughed aloud. "I haven't been in a hay loft in..." he paused to consider "... it must be twenty years, if it's a day. It wasn't until after I'd tumbled her that I decided to marry her."

Covianna, who disliked—intensely—any reference to Emrys Myrddin's wife, swatted him in seemingly mock ferocity. In truth, Covianna hated Myrddin's wife, who was not only alive and likely to outlive God himself, but was an intensely suspicious bitch, nosing around in Covianna's affairs whenever both women happened to be in the same city. Which was as infrequently as possible, making it difficult to find time to pump Emrys Myrddin for everything he could teach her—including how to apply one's own ambition and make it look like another's idea, or how to salve the affronted intellect of the British kings who were, in Covianna's opinion, among the dullest, stupidest men on the earth.

Myrddin grimaced. "My apologies, Covianna, I will forget and mention her. I will make it up to you on the road south to Caer-Badonicus."

You'd better believe you will! Covianna snarled under her breath, while smiling with the fondness of a mildly irritated mistress. Men, even those with Druidic training or Emrys Myrddin's keenly incisive mind, were by and large a stupid lot, driven by their gonads more than their brains. Aloud, she murmured, "I must go and see that my medicines are properly packed and stored."

"We will meet, then, on the road out of Caerleul."

Covianna slipped back into the great hall and spotted Artorius deep in conversation with a group of grey-haired kings and their younger sons. The Dux Bellorum had removed his sword and sheath, neither of which were in evidence. A swift search of the hall found no trace of the weapon, so she slipped away to the room Artorius and Ganhumara had shared.

The young queen was not in the room, although an appalling amount of clothing and jewelry was scattered carelessly like peacock feathers thrown down in the barnyard mud. From beneath one of Ganhumara's exquisite silk gowns Covianna spotted the tip of Artorius' scabbard. Covianna slipped the lovingly forged blade from the scabbard, letting Caliburn itself drop to the bed again amidst the riot of silks, furs, and kashmir wool imported from far Constantinople.

The sword, she left behind, leaving Artorius with nothing but naked steel between him and a ruined reputation. The power of Caliburn was not in the Damascus pattern-welding so coveted by wealthy, high-ranking officers, but in the sheath—and Covianna intended to remain in possession of that for a long time to come. Laughing softly, she hid the scabbard in the folds of her skirt and slipped away to her own room to hide it amongst her remaining baggage.

Intrigue, she sighed happily, was nearly as delicious a sport as murder. Particularly since those she planned to embroil in her nasty little web would—if all went well—end up deliciously dead.

Caer-Gretna wasn't much of a village, Brenna thought sourly as their horses plodded through the gate in the town wall, taking them toward a fortress that might have been better dubbed a mud hovel. It was smaller, even, than the mile forts along the Roman roads through Gododdin and Strathclyde, and boasted a garrison of ten soldiers, their plump wives, and a gaggle of scrawny hens and equally scrawny children vying for the same patches of dirt to scratch in. The town wall overlooked a long, low slope to the sea, where Solway Firth, its waters turned luridly crimson by the slanting light of the setting sun, lapped against tidal mud flats and a short stretch of sandy beach where fishing nets had been strung up to dry overnight. The tidal flats and beach stank of mud, dead fish, and human waste.

You want us to sleep here? Brenna asked with a note of dismay she could not hide.

Morgana sighed. It is safer inside the walls than it would be further along the road, where there are no forts at all to protect us should an Irish raider and his crew decide to strike. I enjoy the smell no more than you, but I prefer my sons and I to wake tomorrow still among the living.

There being no argument to counter that, Brenna tried to breathe shallowly until her nostrils accustomed themselves to the pervasive stink. The little garrison was, at least, kept scrupulously clean inside by the commander's wife, whose reaction to royal visitors was to fly into a frenzied state of agitation that soon had the entire town in an uproar, bringing in foodstuffs to be cooked, properly comfortable beds from the hamlet's wealthiest residents, even a keg of ale from the taverna, into which Lailoken happily disappeared with his harp and flute uncased and ready for the evening's merriment.

Morgana wisely suggested they allow Caer-Gretna's women time to work uninterrupted on their evening meal and guest quarters. Medraut followed Lailoken into the little taverna, smiling and eager for a bit of fun after the strain of the week at Caerleul, while Morgana's sons, carefully chaperoned by their guards, joined the village boys in a game involving wooden hoops, sticks to keep them rolling, and at least a dozen eager, panting puppies which kept darting underfoot as the boys ran and shouted. Morgana, feeling a need for more solitude than the taverna, the garrison, or the children could offer, sought out the little village church, a rough-hewn structure of planks and logs cut from the surrounding forest.

She stepped into the chilly, dim interior, where a low table to one side supported a few flickering candles. There were no pews, no chairs, just a long, flat floor made of smooth-worn sandstone, an altar of finely carved wood, and a riot of paintings on the wooden walls, half Christian saints, half pagan symbols left over from earlier beliefs that could not and would not be set aside in a mere handful of centuries. Morgana observed the proper form, going to one knee in genuflection, crossing herself while facing the altar, then pulled her fur-lined cloak more closely about herself for warmth and walked slowly toward the front of the little church, needing the balm of silence it offered. So much had happened in such a rushed blur of days, she had not yet been granted the luxury of simple grieving for her husband.

When the tears began to well up, Morgana sank to the floor, leaning against the carved wooden rail separating the altar from the rest of the church, and cried in deep, gasping grief. She wanted Lot Luwddoc's arms around her, a foolish desire, since even his arms would not have kept the threat of war at bay, but she had felt so very much safer when lying beside him. The decisions she had made for Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw had been so much easier when her husband still lived.

She'd felt secure in the knowledge that she could always turn to someone as familiar as she with the heavy responsibility of command, and with the sometimes desperate necessities one had to force upon one's people, to protect them from greater harm. With Lot Luwddoc dead and Artorius riding south into war, Ancelotis at his side, Morgana had no one left to share the burden of decision with, no one left to calm her fears in the night, no one to whisper, "It will all come right, you'll see it will."

Was she wrong to pursue alliance with Dalriada?

The Irish invaders had already struck at Galwyddel repeatedly, landing on her shores by the hundreds, eager for conquest and rich farmland, until Morgana's cataphracti had managed to drive them northward, toward easier conquest against the Picts. Was she signing the death warrant of Galwyddel, giving it to Medraut to rule with Irish foederati as kinsmen? She had not yet found an answer when the village priest, who lived in a small hut behind the church, stepped into view through the rear entrance, halting in surprise when he saw her leaning against the railing, lost in helpless weeping.

"Oh, my child," he murmured, hurrying forward, "how long have you been here, alone and crying in the dark?"

She shook her head, too choked to answer.

He knelt beside her, stroked wet hair back from her face, gathered her into his arms and simply rocked her like a child, allowing her to weep out her grief against his shoulder. At length, with the worst of the emotional storm spent, she simply leaned against him, breathing quietly and feeling absurdly safe once more. He murmured, "We heard the news, these seven days past, of Lot Luwddoc's death and the call to council. Know that we grieve with you, Queen Morgana."

She managed to dry her cheeks with one hand. "I am grateful for it."

"How can we of Caer-Gretna help?"

She managed a smile, surprising even herself. "You have already." She sighed and sat up, pulling herself together again. "It is a poor time of year for the necessity, but we must look to refortify every fortress in Galwyddel. It is our task to hold the northern and western borders secure, as war is breaking out in the south."

"The Saxons again."

"Aye. Sussex and Wessex, both. You've heard the news of Penrith?"

"We have," the priest growled. "Godless bastards, they are, Queen Morgana. They'll not take Caer-Gretna by such surprise."

"Nor any other village of the Britons," she agreed. "Word has gone out in every direction to leave the harvesting and the fishing to the smallest children, for the men and women of Britain are needed for the heavier work of rebuilding stone walls and forging weapons."

"Troubled times, indeed. There is little here to protect, but even a humble priest knows from Caer-Gretna a band of raiders could strike deep into Briton land, doing enormous damage."

"Yes. You must organize the people to do whatever the commander of the garrison needs done. I will speak with him before the night is out."

"The tithes to the church, small as they are, will help buy iron for the forge. We've a good smith in Caer-Gretna, with three strong sons and a good, strapping daughter, as well, all learning the trade from him."

"Put some of that coinage aside to buy grain, in case of siege. With the armies of the Britons riding south to war, our coastal towns will be at greater risk of raid than ever before."

"It shall be done."

"There is little more I can ask than that." She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, grateful for the priest's steadying hand. "I thank you for the comfort rendered."

"It is harder to bear grief when frightened people look to you for strength and guidance. But you descend from kings and queens of iron strength and the well-tempered will to survive. Galwyddel rests easier, knowing the daughter of Gorlois has the task of leading us when war looms on the horizon."

The comment struck unexpectedly deep, hurting her heart with the knowledge that she was preparing to hand the Galwyddellians to an untried youth, in a risky gamble for safety. "I will do what I believe best for Galwyddel. Whatever comes, try to remember that."

"A promise I will gladly keep. Here, you're shivering, pull that cloak tighter round yourself." He tucked the edges firmly together and warmed her hands in his own, rubbing them briskly while she battled to blink back more tears. "There. Go now, go and find a warm fire and eat a good supper with your sons beside you. Drink a mug or two of ale, it will help you sleep."

Her lips twitched in a faint smile. Advice from a novice to a master healer—but welcome, nonetheless, for its gentle concern. "I'll do that. Thank you."

She left him to tend his guttering candles and found her way back to the garrison, where the mouth-watering scents of a major feast wafted through the evening air. Shortly, she and her children were served up a good, hot meal, insisting that the garrison officers and their families share the repast, and spoke of Britain's danger and Caer-Gretna's need to arm and defend itself. In that odd way men have of greeting trouble with a certain inexplicable air of excited anticipation, the garrison commander and his men launched into a voluble, animated discussion of precisely what was needed, where it could be obtained, and who was available to procure it.

She left them to their happy plottings and retired for the night, exhausted and bruised in body and spirit. The dawn and another day's grim reality would come all too soon, as it was.