Orion and King Arthur

CHAPTER FOUR Cadbury Castle

1

They attacked us while we were sleeping.

It was our second night on the hard journey from Amesbury to the High King’s castle, and we were all weary, bone tired. That morning we had been forced to turn off the good Roman road that led arrow-straight to Salisbury and instead plunged into a thick, dark forest that seemed endless.

After hours of walking our horses through the lofty, thick-boled trees, hardly seeing the sun through their dense canopies, Arthur decided to make camp in a small clearing.

“We’ll reach Cadbury castle tomorrow,” he said, trying to cheer the twelve knights he had chosen to accompany him as they sat tiredly on the mossy ground.

Their squires—me included—were tending the horses while the half-dozen churls Arthur had brought with us were busy gathering firewood and preparing to cook the salted meat and dried beans that the packhorses carried.

The attack that night was meant to kill Arthur.

We were sleeping soundly, even I, who needs very little sleep normally. But the exertions of nearly constant battle and the long wearying days of painfully slow travel across the hilly, forested land had made even me drowsy.

I dreamed of Anya.

It was more than a dream. I was with her, the goddess whom I loved, the Creator who loved me. For only a few moments I stood in another world, another dimension, on a grassy hill warm with sunshine where flowers nodded happily in the gentle breeze coming in from the nearby sea. Soft puffs of clouds scudded across a brilliant blue sky. In the distance, where the hill sloped down to a wide sandy beach, there stood a magnificent city filled with gigantic monuments and graceful temples.

But the city was empty, lifeless. It was the city of the Creators, I knew, the beings who traveled through time to manipulate human history to suit their whims.

Anya: supernally beautiful with her lustrous sable-black hair and fathomless gray eyes. In other times she had been worshipped as Athena, Isis, Artemis. I had given my life for her, more than once.

She stood before me on that sun-dappled hillside, draped in a supple robe of silver threads. I reached out to her, but she raised a warning hand.

“Awake, Orion,” she said, her voice urgent, her lovely face intent with alarm. “Arthur has been betrayed.”

My eyes popped open. I was back in the clearing in the forest, hardly a moonbeam breaking through the dark canopy of the trees. Our fire was down to feeble embers. I didn’t move a muscle. A chill wind sighed through the boughs so high above. An owl hooted once, then again.

It was no owl, I realized. Men were creeping around our little camp, signaling to each other as they surrounded us.

Furtively, I reached for the sword that lay at my side. My eyes adjusted to the dim light of our fire’s embers and I could see the shadowy shapes of the attackers edging closer to Arthur’s sleeping men.

“To arms!” I bellowed at the top of my voice, leaping to my feet, sword in hand. “Saxons!”

There were at least forty of them. I ran straight at the nearest ones, a trio of burly men gripping long two-handed swords. My senses went into overdrive; the action before me seemed to slow down, as if time itself had suddenly altered, stretching like taffy into a sluggish dreamlike pace.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Arthur and his knights rousing themselves. Men were shouting, cursing, and someone screamed his death agony.

All this as the three before me braced themselves and raised their heavy two-handed swords against me. I dove headfirst into the nearest one, leaving my feet entirely in a leap that buried the point of my sword in his chest. We toppled to the ground together, his blood spurting as I yanked my sword out of him and rolled away from a mighty two-handed clout that would have cleaved me in two if it had landed on me.

Scrambling to my feet, I sliced the villain through his throat before he could swing at me again. He crumpled, gurgling blood, as I danced away from the powerful swing of his companion, then took off both his hands with a single blow to his wrists. He shrieked, wide-eyed with pain and terror, as his sword fell to the ground with both his hands still gripping it.

Leaving him, I turned to see that Arthur’s knights were giving a good account of themselves. Without shields or helmets, without even their chain mail, they still were hacking through the attackers with grim efficiency.

I saw one of the attackers standing off, lurking beside the massive bole of a rough-barked tree. Their leader, I thought, and raced toward him. He saw me and turned to flee.

I hefted my sword and threw it at him. It was a clumsy throw and the sword hit with the flat of the blade between his shoulders. The impact was enough to send him sprawling, but by the time I reached him he was scrambling to his feet, his own sword in his right hand and my sword in his left.

He grinned at me like a wolf. “Now you die, fool.”

I reached for the dagger I always kept strapped to my thigh, the dagger that Odysseos had given me in the Greek camp on the shore of Ilium. Not much against two swords, but better than my bare hands.

Behind me I heard the din of battle: swords clanging, men screaming in pain, even the panicked horses neighing and stomping, trying to break their tethers and run away from this bloody mayhem.

He advanced upon me, waving his two swords as if trying to hypnotize me. I watched him, my supercharged senses studying every bunching of his muscles, every movement of his eyes. He was stalking me, still grinning confidently.

I flipped the dagger in my hand so that I held it by the point and, before he could think to move, hurled it into his chest. It hit him with a solid thunk and he staggered. The confident grin faded. His mouth filled with blood. He tried to step toward me, tried to reach me with the swords, but his legs had no strength in them. He collapsed face-first at my feet, driving my dagger even deeper into his chest.

By the time I had retrieved both my sword and dagger and cleaned them, Arthur, Bors, and Gawain had come up to join me.

“Your warning saved us,” Arthur said, still breathing hard.

Gawain’s chest was heaving, too. “A few of them ran off into the woods, but thirty or so of them will never leave this clearing.”

I nodded. My senses had calmed down to normal. “Did we lose anyone?” I asked.

Bors answered gruffly, “Not a one. Two of the churls were cut down and several men are wounded, but that’s all.”

Obviously Sir Bors did not consider laborers to be worth counting as real men.

Arthur asked, “These knaves were not Saxons. They were Celts, as we are. Why attack us?”

“Robbers,” said Gawain. “A band of robbers who thought they saw easy pickings.”

“Attacking armed knights?” I asked. “And an equal number of squires? Robbers are not so bold.”

“A dozen sleeping knights,” Gawain countered.

Arthur added, with a smile, “And most squires are not fighters of your caliber, Orion.”

Bors bent down to examine the dead man at our feet. “This one was no common robber, my lord,” he said to Arthur.

“What makes you say that?” Gawain challenged.

“I know this face. He was a man-at-arms at Cadbury castle.”

Arthur stared at Bors, dumbfounded. “He served my uncle Ambrosius?”

Bors nodded grimly. “Look here. He still wears the High King’s crest on his tunic.”

“Treachery,” Gawain whispered.

With a shake of his head, Arthur said in a low, hollow voice, “I can’t believe that my uncle would send these rogues upon us. Why would he do so?”

“Jealousy, my lord,” answered Sir Bors. “Your victory at Amesbury gives the High King pause. He fears for his throne.”

“But I would never…” Arthur seemed thoroughly shocked. “He knows I would never seek his crown.”

“Does he, my lord?” Bors replied. “I wonder.”

2

The next day was sultry, the last touch of summer that we would see that year. Our little column of mounted knights and squires climbed the steep dusty road slowly, the horses tired, the men sweating and too weary even to grumble about the long journey or the hot sun blazing out of the cloudless sky.

I rode beside young Arthur, as a squire should. Usually Arthur was bright and eager, full of youthful enthusiasm, but this day he was quiet, thinking, worried about the treachery of the night before. The tunic he wore over his chain mail was covered with dust, stained with sweat. His light brown hair flowed past his shoulders, his amber eyes that usually sparkled with dreams of glory seemed to be focused elsewhere, looking for answers they could not find. Unconsciously he scratched at his bristly beard. It was coming in nicely, but it must have been itchy.

“I wish Merlin were with us,” he said, with a sigh. “I miss his advice.”

We had left the old wizard behind at Amesbury; too frail to make the trip with us, he would be coming later by wagon, together with the arms and other spoils from the battle Arthur had won.

“Merlin is very wise,” I said.

“He prophesied I would win a great victory and he was right,” Arthur said. He treated me more as a friend than a squire, and often unburdened his inner thoughts to me. “It was a great victory, wasn’t it?” he said, smiling at the memory of it.

“Indeed it was, my lord.”

“Thanks to you, Orion. And your Sarmatian stirrups.”

“You led the charge, my lord,” I said to Arthur. “It was your vision and courage that convinced the knights to accept the new ideas.”

Arthur nodded, his face going somber. “Now I must convince the High King.”

He had concocted a plan to drive the Saxons and all the other barbarian tribes completely out of Britain. Only three men knew of it, so far: Arthur, Merlin, and myself. It was a plan that could work, I thought, if Ambrosius was willing to accept it and was not already fearful that Arthur was threatening his position as High King.

There was one other obstacle in Arthur’s path, as well: me. Aten had sent me to this time and place to prevent Arthur from defeating the barbarians who were invading Britain. To assassinate him if his enemies didn’t kill him first.

“Look!” Arthur stood in his stirrups and pointed. “Cadbury castle!”

It stood at the crest of the steep hill we were tediously climbing. Cadbury was a real castle, built of stone, not one of the rude wooden hill forts that Ambrosius had strung along the countryside to contain the Saxon invasion.

“It must have been built by giants,” he said, staring at the high stone wall and the towers rising above it.

“No,” I said. “It was built by men.”

“But Orion, mortal men could never lift such stones! Look at them! It’s impossible.”

I had scaled the beetling walls of Troy and helped to burn the fabled towers of Ilium. I had tried to defend triple-walled Byzantium against the ferocious Turks. Cadbury was nothing compared to them, but to this eager young knight it was the grandest architecture he had ever seen.

“Roman engineers built most of it,” I told Arthur. “The High King’s stonecrafters have added to it.”

He refused to believe such a mundane explanation. Arthur was barely out of his teens, full of the naïveté and credulous innocence of wide-eyed youth.

“Not even the Romans could have built so high without the aid of the gods,” he said. Then he crossed himself.

I held my tongue. If he knew what the gods truly were, he would weep in shocked disillusion.

“Look, Orion!” he shouted. “Ambrosius himself is at the parapet to welcome us!”

It was true. The bright blue-and-gold flags of the High King snapped briskly in the hot breeze up on the crenellations atop Cadbury’s main gate. The drawbridge was down and through the open gate I could see that the castle’s courtyard was thronged with people. If Ambrosius had truly sent those scoundrels to murder Arthur, why would he be waiting at his castle’s main gate with pennants flying?

I thought I knew the answer. The would-be murderers had been sent by Aten, the Golden One. He knew I was resisting his commands to kill Arthur, so he arranged the previous night’s attack. Even though it had failed, it had opened a wound of suspicion between the High King and his young adopted nephew.

Arthur spurred his mount lightly and trotted up the steep, dusty road, eager to reach the castle. I urged my horse forward, to be close enough to protect Arthur if the need arose. He had no idea that the gods he dreamed of wanted to kill him, no idea that I was defying those so-called gods to protect him.

“My uncle Ambrosius waits to greet us,” Arthur said as I pulled up beside him. His handsome face was wreathed in a delighted smile.

“You see? The word of your victory at Amesbury has pleased him,” I said.

“Yes, perhaps so,” Arthur agreed.

I glanced up at the flapping banners atop the open castle gate. I could see a group of men standing there, watching our approach. One of them must have been Ambrosius, Arthur’s uncle, High King of the British Celts.

Arthur’s eyes followed my gaze, but I heard him muttering, “We can drive the barbarians completely out of Britain, drive them away for good—if only Ambrosius will have faith in my plan.”

“He will, my lord, I’m sure,” I said.

Arthur nodded, but it was obvious that his thoughts had turned elsewhere. We rode along in silence up the switchbacks of the road, climbing the hill on which Cadbury castle was sited.

“What do you think of the castle, Orion?” Arthur asked at last. “Have you ever seen such mighty walls, such high towers?”

I smiled and kept the truth to myself. “It would be difficult to take by storm, my lord.”

“Difficult!” He laughed, a youthful, boyish laugh. “I could defend Cadbury against all the barbarian hordes for a hundred years!”

No, I thought. You won’t be allowed to live that long.

3

Ambrosius styled himself High King of the Britons, which meant that many of the petty kingdoms of the isles professed allegiance to him. He had earned that fealty by battling the Saxons and the other invading tribes for many years, building the string of hilltop forts such as Amesbury in the hope of holding the invading barbarians to their beachheads and not allowing them to penetrate into the heartland of Britain.

He had fought other Celts, as well. Celtic Britain was a patchwork of petty “kingdoms,” each ruler jealous of his neighbors, suspicious of the kingdom over the next hill. When the Romans ruled Britain, the Celts had all bowed to Roman law. But once the legions were withdrawn, the very year that Rome itself was sacked by the Visigoths, the Celts swiftly reverted to their paltry rivalries.

Like his father before him, the Elder Ambrosius, this High King had won his shaky allegiances as much by the power of his sword over his fellow Celts as the need for all the Celts to unite against the invaders. The allegiances sworn to him were grudging, at best. Only a High King of inflexible will and exceptional power could keep the lesser kings loyal to him.

Now, as we assembled in the castle’s great hall to have audience with the High King, I saw that Ambrosius Aurelianus—as he styled himself—was getting old. His lifelong struggles against the Saxons and his own Celtic neighbors had taken their toll. He had once been tall and stately, I could see, but the weight of responsibility had bent him and stooped his once-broad shoulders even though he tried to appear dignified in his royal fur-trimmed robes. His hair and beard were gray, nearly white, and thinning noticeably; his face had the pallor of approaching death already upon it.

In contrast, Arthur was strong and straight and vital, practically glowing with youth and bursting with confidence and enthusiasm about the future.

We had all washed off the dust of our journey from Amesbury before this audience with the High King. Sir Bors had teased me, as usual, in his rough way: “Pity the wash bowl isn’t big enough for you to sit in, Orion,” he had said, with mock seriousness. “We all know how you like to bathe yourself, like a fish.”

The other knights had laughed uproariously. My cleanliness was a subject of much humor among them.

But we were all scrubbed, beards and hair trimmed neatly, and wearing our best tunics for Ambrosius. Even young Lancelot, his battle-earned knighthood scarcely a month old, had dressed in his finest Breton linen for this exalted moment.

The audience was largely ceremonial, however. Ambrosius received us in the great hall, with half the castle’s inhabitants thronging the room. The women wore long gowns of rich fabrics, decked with gems and pearls. None of the men wore mail, although they each carried their favorite sword at the hip, many of the scabbards more heavily jeweled than the women.

“A pretty bunch of dandies,” Sir Bors growled under his breath. “They’d be useless in a fight.”

The hall itself was almost as large as Priam’s court in old Troy. Long embroidered tapestries covered most of the rough stone walls, some of them not yet finished, their pictures of battles and hunts incomplete, lacking. Late afternoon sunlight streamed into the hall through the windows set high in the walls. It would take hundreds of candles to light this chamber at night, I thought.

The High King walked slowly, stiffly, through the bowing crowd. A woman walked beside him, dressed all in black and so heavily veiled that we could not see her face. She seemed youthfully slim beneath her floor-length skirts. She kept her gloved hands at her sides, she did not take Ambrosius’ arm or touch him in any way. Indeed, he seemed to keep apart from her quite deliberately.

Ambrosius sat wearily upon his hard throne of carved dark wood. The mysterious woman remained standing off to one side. The High King welcomed his nephew and thanked Arthur in a thin, parched voice for driving the barbarians from Amesbury fort. Arthur knelt and kissed the High King’s hand, then got to his feet.

“My lord,” he said, in a clear tenor voice that carried across the room, “we can drive the Saxons completely out of Britain, if you will allow it.”

I was well away from the throne, standing behind Bors and Gawain and the other knights, among the squires, but I could see Ambrosius’ eyes shift momentarily toward the veiled woman.

“We will speak of this another time,” Ambrosius said. “This day is to be given to feasting and celebration, and to prayers of thanks for your great victory.”

Arthur wanted to insist. “But my lord—”

Ambrosius silenced him by lifting a hand.

“In addition,” the High King said, “it is my wish to introduce you to another visitor to this court.”

He turned toward the woman in black. She stepped forward, still veiled so heavily her face was impossible to see.

“This is the princess Morganna,” said Ambrosius, “of the kingdom of Bernicia, far to the north.”

Morganna reached up with both her gloved hands, lifted the veil from her face, and let it drop back over her shoulders. A sigh swept through the great hall. She was the most fabulously beautiful woman any of them had ever seen: hair as dark as a stormy midnight, eyes that glowed like sapphires, skin as white as alabaster.

I had seen her before. I knew who she was. Among the Creators she called herself Aphrodite.

4

For the next two days—and nights—Arthur spent every moment with Morganna. He was infatuated with her, besotted as only a young man can be.

“She’s enchanted him, all right,” said Sir Bors, chuckling.

I had sought Bors out, worried that Arthur was being cleverly turned away from speaking to the High King about his plan to drive the Saxons and all the other barbarians out of Britain for good. Bors had made himself at home in one of the castle’s many private chambers, a room so near the stables that I could smell the horses. But to Bors it was almost sinfully luxurious, with a feather bed and serving wenches at his beck and call.

“And why not?” he added. “The lad’s done well enough. Why shouldn’t the High King give him a princess to wed? It makes political sense, Orion, tying Bernicia to Ambrosius’ domains here in the south.”

“But Arthur’s plan…”

Bors grunted. “It’ll keep. Winter’s coming; there’ll be no campaigning for months to come.”

“The Saxons will use those months to fortify their bases,” I said.

“Can’t be helped. No man can outfight the weather.” Bors hefted a flagon. “Relax, Orion. Enjoy the fruits of victory. Have some wine. Find yourself a wench or two.”

It was tempting. Too tempting. Ambrosius was blunting Arthur’s purpose with the luxuries of his castle. Wine, women, and winter were going to delay Arthur’s plan, perhaps fatally. Or was this Aten’s doing?

“Thank you, my lord,” I replied to Bors. “Perhaps later.”

He laughed and poured himself a mug. I bowed and took my leave of him.

“Find yourself a wench or two,” Bors repeated as I stepped through the heavy oaken door of his chamber. I could hear his thick laughter even after I closed the door.

I thought of Anya, the goddess I loved. How could any mortal woman compare to her? Yet … the temptation was there.

5

That night, as I lay in the dark, narrow barracks on my straw pallet among the snores and stinks of the other squires, I tried to make contact with Anya. I needed her help, her guidance, her warmth and love. Squeezing my eyes shut, clenching my fists with the effort of it, I strained every atom of my being to translate myself into the realm of the Creators.

And found myself, instead, in the middle of the dark night out on a windy plain. I had not traveled all that far. Looming all around me were the giant megaliths of the stone circle of Salisbury.

I immediately recognized the place; in another lifetime I had helped the Stone Age tribes of this region to build this site. They were just beginning to turn from hunting to agriculture, and my goal had been to help them predict the seasons so they would know when to plant their crops. Ever since, though, Stonehenge was revered with awe as a religious site. The Druids had conducted human sacrifices here until the Romans stamped out the practice. I wondered if they had returned to their bloody ways, now that the Romans were gone.

Black clouds were boiling across the sky, blotting out the moon and stars. Forks of lightning flickered in the distance. A storm was coming, driven by the wind that scattered the dry leaves and set the trees to moaning. In the blue-white glare of a lightning strike I saw that two people were approaching the center of the ring, where I stood beside the sacrificial altar. A man and a woman. I could not make out their faces but I knew who they were.

“Orion, is that you?” Arthur’s voice.

“Yes, my lord.”

I could see now that the woman walking beside him was Morganna—Aphrodite, as I knew her.

He lifted both his arms and swung around, pointing at the immense stones rising all about us.

“Don’t tell me that this was built by mortals,” he said, his voice a mixture of awe and delight.

I said nothing. In centuries to come, I knew, men would claim that extraterrestrial visitors built Stonehenge. How little they believed in themselves!

“How did you get here?” Arthur asked.

“The same way you did,” I replied, looking at Aphrodite.

Suddenly he seemed embarrassed, as sheepish as a lad caught in a misdeed.

“Morganna brings us here every night,” he said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper against the gusting cold wind. “By magic.”

Another lightning bolt cracked the black sky, etching her incredible face in cold white brilliance for a flash of a moment. I could see she was not pleased.

Even in fury she was matchlessly beautiful. Her eyes, which had been as richly blue as sapphires when I’d seen her at Ambrosius’ court, were emerald green now. Instead of the heavy stiff gown she’d worn then she was clad now in a long white hooded robe that left her lovely arms bare. The hood was down, and her hair cascaded past her soft shoulders like a stream of flowing ebony.

“How dare you?” she spat.

I glanced at Arthur. He was standing absolutely still, frozen in time, as if he’d been turned into a statue. She had put him in stasis, I realized, so she could deal with me.

“You mean to murder him, don’t you?” I accused.

“He will experience pleasure enough before he dies,” Aphrodite said, gesturing to the dark stone altar. I saw that a groove had been chiselled into it, to carry away the blood of the sacrificial victims.

“I’m here to protect him,” I said.

“Aten told me you’ve become troublesome,” she said carelessly. “So be it. The Druids will have two victims this night.”

I was unarmed, except for the dagger strapped to my thigh. I tried to reach for it, but found that I was frozen, too, unable to move a muscle.

Thunder rolled across the dark sky. Aphrodite laughed. “You would defy Aten, Orion? How foolish of you. Tonight you die the final death. There will be no revival for you.”

I strained with every speck of energy I possessed, but could do nothing. I was imprisoned totally.

Smiling like a cobra, Aphrodite stepped to me and twined her bare arms around my neck. “I could make you very happy, Orion, if only you wouldn’t resist me. Forget your Anya and love me, Orion, and you can live in rapture forever.”

Only one word could force its way past my lips. “No.”

Her smile turned cold. Beyond her, off in the hilly distance, I could make out a procession of torches heading toward us, their flames guttering in the blustery wind. The Druids, come for their sacrificial rite.

“You choose Anya over me?” Aphrodite hissed. “Then after you watch Arthur die, you yourself will be killed. Slowly. Very slowly.”

She turned away from me. Arthur stirred to life.

“Where is Orion?” he asked, puzzled, looking right at me but not seeing me at all.

“Gone,” Aphrodite said, with a shrug of her lovely shoulders. “Forget about him. Come with me, my love, now that we’re alone.”

She took his hand and led him toward the altar. I stood there, invisible to Arthur, unable to move, hardly able to breathe. I felt an icy chill creeping over my body, as if I were being submerged in a glacier. I recalled one of my deaths, deep in space, slowly freezing until my heart stopped beating.

And the torchlit procession of the Druids marched steadily closer.

Lightning flashed again and thunder boomed. Rain began to pelt down, but it didn’t strike Arthur and Aphrodite; she was shielding them somehow.

A titanic crack of lightning struck the ground almost at my feet, blinding me for several moments. When I could see again, Anya stood at my side, dressed as she had been when she’d given Arthur his sword, Excalibur, in a flowing silver robe garlanded with flowers.

Arthur’s eyes went wide. “Look, Morganna!” he cried. “It’s the Lady of the Lake.”

Aphrodite/Morganna whirled to face Anya, surprise and rage on her exquisite face. Two goddesses, each divinely beautiful but in very different ways. Aphrodite was all flame and passion, the embodiment of sexual allure. Anya, who had been worshipped as Athena in another age, was cool and calm, certain of her strength.

“It’s time for you to leave,” Anya said.

“Never!” spat Aphrodite. “He’s mine! You can’t have him.”

“Arthur is under my protection. You cannot harm him.”

“You think not?” Suddenly there was a slim dagger in Aphrodite’s hand. “One scratch with this and the poison will turn his blood to molten fire. He’ll die in agony.”

Anya did not move. Arthur stood goggle-eyed, too close to Aphrodite and that poison-laden dagger to try to move away.

“You can’t defy Aten’s desires,” Aphrodite said, smirking. “Not even you can get away with that.”

“Can’t I?” Anya replied.

Another lightning bolt crackled out of the black clouds and struck the dagger in Aphrodite’s hand. She howled like the tormented souls in hell as for a flash of an instant she was outlined in ghastly blue light. Then she was gone. Vanished completely, except for the whimpering echo of her scream.

I felt warmth returning to my body. I could feel the rain pelting down on me, I could move my arms and legs again. Arthur stirred, too. He dropped to his knees before Anya.

“My lady,” he said, in heartfelt gratitude, “you have saved my life.”

“The witch has gone back to her own realm,” Anya told him. “She is not dead. You will see her again. Be on your guard.”

“I will, my lady,” he said. “I will.”

Turning toward me, Anya said, “Orion, escort your lord back to Cadbury castle.”

With all my being I wanted to remain with her. But I bowed my head submissively. “Yes, my lady.”

And in the blink of an eye I was back on my pallet in the squires’ barracks. For a moment I thought it had all been a dream, but then I realized that I was dripping wet from the rainstorm that had struck Salisbury plain. Through the window set up near the barracks roof I could see a serene moon riding across pale, thin clouds. It had not rained at all here at Cadbury.

6

At first light I sought out Arthur. He was already risen and in the exercise yard, working out with a practice sword against a dummy target mounted on a swivel so that it pivoted when it was struck. Its two broomstick arms could swing around and strike a nasty blow to a man who was not quick enough to parry or at least duck.

I could see Latin graffiti carved into the dummy’s wooden torso by long-departed Roman legionaries. Arthur was thumping and banging the poor thing as if it were all his frustrations gathered into one passive body.

He saw me approaching him and stepped away from the dummy, sweating and breathing hard. No one else was yet in the yard; morning sunlight had barely touched the upper turrets of the castle’s towers.

“She’s gone,” Arthur said, his voice bewildered and sorrowful.

“She is a witch, my lord,” I told him. “You are well rid of her.”

He shook his head. “She certainly had me in her power. If it weren’t for the Lady of the Lake I would be dead by now.”

“Yes, truly.”

“Why, Orion?” he asked, his voice suddenly pleading. “Why did she want to kill me?”

I didn’t hesitate an instant. “To keep you from your rightful destiny, my lord. To prevent you from driving the Saxons out of Britain.”

Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Then was she serving my uncle? Is it he who wants to stop me?”

“I don’t believe that,” I answered. “The High King did not know Morganna’s true nature, I’m sure. Ambrosius wanted a strategic marriage between his house and the kingdom of Bernicia, nothing more.”

“I wish I could be certain of that.”

He was deeply troubled, I could see. “There is a way to make certain of it,” I said.

“How?”

“Obtain the High King’s approval of your plan.”

“How?” he asked again. I had no ready answer.

Other knights and squires were coming into the exercise yard now and began working out. Soon the yard was clanging with swords and shields under the watchful, impatient eye of Sir Bors. Young Lancelot, as usual, was a blur of zeal and frenzied action, knocking down one opponent after another. Even Gawain had a hard time against him.

Arthur and I practiced against one another for a while. I did my best to refrain from hitting him, and allowed him to whack me now and then.

Once we paused for a drink from the rain barrel, panting and sweaty, Sir Bors approached us.

“My lord,” said the gruff old knight, “it’s good to see you out in the sunlight once more.”

Arthur nodded without enthusiasm. “Morganna is gone,” he said simply. “She won’t be back.”

“Headed back to her northern realm, I expect,” said Bors.

“I suppose so.”

Gawain came up and banged Arthur on the back. “Good riddance to her!” he said, with a happy grin. “There are plenty of other women in this world.”

“Not like her,” said Arthur.

“That’s what makes it all so wonderful,” Gawain countered. “No two of them are alike!”

Bors broke into a hearty laugh and Gawain guffawed loudly. Even Arthur managed a slight smile.

He’s going to be all right, I thought. He’s going to be his old self again.

“My lord,” I dared to interject. “We have much work to do.”

Arthur shook his head, as if to clear away cobwebs. “Yes,” he said, “I must seek an audience with Ambrosius immediately.”

Yet the High King evaded Arthur’s request for days on end, offering one excuse after another. Arthur began to worry that Ambrosius truly feared for his crown and had intended for Morganna to murder him. I stayed as close to Arthur as I could, fearing that Aten—or perhaps Ambrosius, after all—would send another assassin after him.

Autumn was drawing to its close. The air turned sharply colder, with a hint of snow in the gray clouds that covered the sky. Ambrosius ordered the last hunt of the season, and all the knights and squires rode out of the castle to run down the deer and other game that would provide meat through the coming winter.

“How can I convince him of my plan when he won’t even see me?” Arthur complained as we rode several ranks behind the High King and his entourage.

“We need help, my lord,” I said.

“Help? From whom?”

“Merlin.”

7

Since his arrival at Cadbury some weeks earlier Merlin had remained closer to Ambrosius than Arthur. Yet when Arthur called for him, Merlin invited the young knight to his tower-top aerie that very night.

Arthur brought me along with him; together we climbed the winding stone stairs that circled endlessly up the lofty round tower. At last we reached the low doorway at the top. It was open, and the cold night wind whistled through the high chambers. I could see Merlin perched on a stool at a broad wooden table, wearing a frayed gray robe, poring over some parchment whose corners were held down with various weights, including a human skull. The wind made the lamp hanging above his table swing back and forth; it tousled his long white hair and plucked at his beard fitfully.

Arthur ducked through the doorway without knocking and walked up to his table. I stayed at the doorway, as a proper squire should.

The old man looked up from his parchment and smiled at Arthur. Through the wrinkles and the long, unkempt beard and hair I thought I saw a hard intelligence burning in his deep-set green-gray eyes. Again, I asked myself if Merlin could be one of the Creators in disguise. If so, which one: Sharp-witted Hermes? Self-assured Zeus? Surely he wasn’t the burly, imperious Ares.

And if he is one of the Creators, whose side is he on? Is he working for Aten, as Aphrodite was? Or against the Golden One, as Anya and I were?

Merlin listened quietly as Arthur, pacing around the tower chamber, poured out his worries about Ambrosius. I stood by the open doorway, silent and unnoticed.

“Fear not,” the old wizard said. “The High King bears you no ill will, of that I am sure.”

“But why won’t he listen to me?” Arthur demanded impatiently. “An army of knights equipped with stirrups and spurs could smash all the barbarian camps and drive the invaders out of Britain.”

Reaching up to place a calming hand on Arthur’s broad shoulder, Merlin explained, “Ambrosius is a proud man. Strong and intelligent.”

“But he won’t accept a new idea,” Arthur grumbled.

“He will,” Merlin explained, as he guided Arthur to a canvas chair. “He will accept your new idea … as soon as he becomes convinced it is his new idea.”

Arthur glanced at me. We both knew that the stirrups and spurs that had led to Arthur’s triumph at Amesbury had been my “inventions.”

Turning back to Merlin, Arthur asked, “And how do we get Ambrosius to think it’s his idea?”

Merlin pursed his lips for a moment and stared off into infinity, his eyes unfocused as if he were in a trance. Arthur gaped at him, wonder and hope written clearly on his young face.

At length, Merlin bent his gaze upon Arthur once more and smiled broadly.

“A tourney, Arthur. That is the way to fix the High King’s attention.”

“A tourney?”

Tugging at his knotted beard, Merlin nodded thoughtfully but said nothing for many long moments. At last he said, “Yes, a tourney will do the trick. Ambrosius likes tourneys. He takes a childish pleasure in seeing his knights bash each other.”

8

Ambrosius was delighted with Arthur’s suggestion of a contest: the knights from Amesbury pitted against the knights of his castle. In later centuries, when the so-called Middle Ages reached their zenith, knights wore complete suits of steel armor from head to toe, so heavy that they had to be hoisted up on their mounts. Even their horses were armored. Tournaments then were highly regulated affairs, a pair of knights entering the lists to thunder straight ahead at full gallop and try to unhorse each other with blunted lances.

That was all centuries in the future of Arthur’s time. On that gray late November afternoon at Cadbury castle there was hardly any organization to the tourney. Ambrosius’ mounted knights gathered at one end of the bare dirt field in their chain mail and helmets, their shields emblazoned with their individual emblems, armed with lances that were barely padded. There were forty-three of them, by my count. Arthur’s knights, on their steeds at the opposite end of the dusty field, similarly clad and armed, were less than half that number.

Because the Cadbury castle knights so outnumbered Arthur’s men, Ambrosius had graciously allowed ten squires to ride with Arthur. I was glad of that. Nosing my mount to Arthur’s side, I intended to stay close by him, on the alert for treachery. It would not be difficult to “accidentally” murder Arthur once the melee started. Knights were often badly hurt in tourneys, sometimes even killed.

Lancelot was grinning broadly as he slipped his helmet over his head. I was uneasy about him: a teenager who could fight like a whirlwind, he had sprung up out of nowhere to win his spurs of knighthood at the Amesbury battle. He seemed eager for combat, perhaps too eager. Was he Aten’s chosen assassin?

Gawain, for once, was serious. As we milled about, waiting for Ambrosius to start the fray, he rode up to the other side of Arthur’s horse and muttered, “There’s a lot more of them than there are of us.”

I could not see Arthur’s expression behind his steel helmet, but his voice sounded calm and even. “Yes, but we have stirrups and they do not.”

“They’re all experienced men,” Gawain said.

Patting the neck of his nervous, snuffling mount, Arthur said, “Today they will experience something they’ve never seen before.”

Off to one side of the field stood the crowd of onlookers from the castle and the town outside its walls, the women gaily arrayed in their brightest dresses; the elderly knights, too old even for mock combat, dressed in their finest, as well. Ambrosius was the only one seated; his servants had carted out a fine chair for him. Of course, many of the churls and yeomen and townspeople squatted on the grass at the edges of the field to watch the festivities.

A herald stepped self-importantly to the middle of the open field and made a long, rambling announcement of what everyone knew was to come. Then trumpets blared, drums rolled, and Ambrosius lifted his right hand above his head. He held it there for what seemed an hour, while we sweated with anticipation and our steeds pawed the ground impatiently.

Ambrosius let his hand drop at last and the two sets of knights—screaming their bloodthirsty battle cries—charged each other.

We prodded our horses into a full gallop and hurtled straight at the Cadbury knights, who were advancing at a noticeably slower pace because they did not have stirrups to keep them in their saddles. My senses went into overdrive; time seemed to stretch out into dreamy slow motion.

I galloped slightly behind Arthur, who was crouched low over his steed’s mane, his lance pointed straight and true, the red dragon on his shield bright and gleaming, the red plume on his helmet streaming in the wind.

Arthur’s men could charge at full tilt, and that is exactly what we did. We smashed into the Cadbury knights with a frightful roar and clang. Men went flying off their mounts; several of the horses themselves went down. Lances split and shivered.

Through the narrow eye slits of my helmet I saw a knight riding straight toward me, his helmeted head low over his shield, which bore the figure of a black raven. My own shield was plain and unpainted: as a squire I had no right to an emblem. I pointed my lance at his eyes, and when he unconsciously raised his shield slightly, I made the center of that black raven my true target.

I could see the padding on the point of his lance unraveling as the distance between us narrowed. I took the shock of its blow upon my shield, angling the shield enough to let the lance slide off harmlessly. Firmly mounted with my stirrups, I absorbed the impact easily enough. Not so for my opponent. My own lance struck his shield dead-on. He was jolted completely out of his saddle and went hurtling to the bare dusty ground with a painful thump.

Our compact formation drove straight through the Cadbury knights and wheeled around, ready for another charge. Half our opponents had been unhorsed; many of them were staggering off to the sidelines, dazed and bruised, some of them helped by their squires. Others lay on the dirt, too hurt to move. The crowd was roaring with bloodthirsty glee.

Two of our men were down, but Arthur seemed unscathed. Gawain had shattered his lance; roaring with fury and battle lust, he bent down from his saddle and grabbed another one from the spares stocked at the edge of the field.

Across the field, what was left of the Cadbury knights milled about in shocked confusion. Arthur raised his lance above his head and shouted, “Follow me!”

We drove at them again, but there was little fight left in our remaining opponents. It was all over in a few more moments. We knocked down almost all of them, and then Ambrosius jumped to his feet and waved both his arms. The heralds blew their trumpets and the tourney was abruptly ended.

I pulled off my helmet. From where I sat on my trembling, blowing steed, I could not tell if Ambrosius was pleased or not, exhilarated or furious.

9

He was more furious than exhilarated. At supper in his dining hall that evening, Ambrosius sat at the head of the long table, brooding and sulky. He barely glanced at Arthur, who was seated with his knights at the far end of the long table. The Cadbury knights were mostly a glum lot, bandaged and bruised, stiff and hurting. A few of them, though, asked Arthur and his men about the stirrups that had obviously made the difference in the afternoon’s tourney.

Ambrosius did not. When he toasted the tourney’s victors, as was customary, it was grudging and grumbling. He was not pleased with his nephew, not at all.

Even Merlin was unhappy with the High King. After dinner, when Arthur and I climbed up to his tower-top aerie, the old wizard shook his head cheerlessly.

“You have been too successful, Arthur,” Merlin said sorrowfully. “Ambrosius sees his knights turning to you and away from him.”

Arthur had seated himself before the wizard’s heavy trestle table. From my post at the doorway I could see that his usually bright and eager face was a picture of gloom.

“My uncle fears more any danger to his own power than he does for the dangers of the Saxons.”

And the Jutes, I added silently. And the Angles, the Danes, the Frisians, and all the other barbarians swarming into Britain. Aten wanted them to win, I knew. The Golden One wanted Arthur to go down in ignominious defeat and allow the barbarians to conquer this Celtic island just as they were conquering most of the old Roman Empire.

Merlin fiddled with his long, ratty beard. “I was so sure that a tourney would make him see the wisdom of your plan.”

With a sigh, Arthur responded, “As you said, we succeeded too well.”

“He truly fears you now, Arthur. He fears that you will take his throne.”

“I don’t want his throne!” Arthur burst out. “I want to fight the barbarians and drive them into the sea!”

Merlin got up from his elaborately carved chair and paced to the window. As he looked out into the dark cold night he muttered, “The curse of the Celts. I have warned you of it many times, Arthur.”

“They will not unite, not even against the foe that threatens to destroy us all.”

Turning back to face Arthur, Merlin shook his head wearily. “Ambrosius likes to think of himself as a Roman ruler. If only he would behave like a Roman!”

I knew what he meant. The Romans knew how to organize, how to delegate authority and responsibility, how to make a chain of command work. But despite his pretensions, Ambrosius knew nothing of such things. He was a Celtic king, possessive of his lofty position, unable to share his power.

Unless …

10

That midnight, as black clouds began to drop the year’s first snow on Cadbury castle, I sought Anya once again.

Suddenly I found myself on that same sunny hillside, overlooking the Creators’ city by the sea. The water glittered as gentle waves lapped onto the bright golden beach. The empty city itself seemed to shimmer in the warm sunshine. A protective dome of energy, I realized. Through its slight haze I could see the monuments that the Creators had collected from all the eras of human history, from the pyramids of Egypt to the levitated temples of the New Stellar Dominion, hovering in midair.

“Orion.”

I turned and saw Anya standing slightly above me on the grassy, flower-strewn hillside. The sun behind her seemed to create a halo about her head. She wore a gleaming metallic uniform of pure silver.

“I need your help,” I said.

“I know,” Anya replied. “Come with me.”

She reached out her hand. As I touched her fingers there was a moment of utter darkness and immeasurable, cryogenic cold. Before I could even blink, however, we were standing on the shore of the lake where Anya had given Arthur his sword, Excalibur. It was a calm, soft moonlit night. Anya was now the Lady of the Lake once again, dressed in a long flowing robe, her hair decked with flowers, her graceful arms bare.

Ambrosius stood before us, knuckling his eyes from interrupted sleep, awkward and confused in a long wrinkled nightshirt, frayed and gray from many washings.

“Where am I?” he gasped. “Who are you?”

I realized that I was in the uniform of a Roman legionnaire; a tribune, no less, with a gleaming bronze cuirass sculpted like a beautifully muscled man’s torso and a helmet crested with a crimson horsehair plume.

“I am the Lady of the Lake, protectress of your nephew, Arthur.”

In the silver glow of the full moon I could see Ambrosius’ eyes widen. “My lady!” he whispered.

“You are not pleased with your nephew,” Anya intoned. “Tell me why.”

Ambrosius dithered for a moment, but he could not avoid Anya’s piercing gray eyes.

“The princess Morganna warned me against him,” he said at last. “She said she would enthrall him and take him to her kingdom in the north, where he would no longer covet my throne.”

“Arthur does not covet your throne, and you know that, no matter what lies the witch Morganna tells.”

The High King winced at the word witch.

“You must tell me the entire truth,” Anya demanded. “If you do not, I cannot help you.”

Ambrosius stared at her in silence for many heartbeats. Finally he confessed, “I am old. He is young. His knights revere him. My own knights are beginning to show him more respect than they do me. How can I hold my throne if he gains more glory?”

Anya did not hesitate an instant. She replied, “Send him on a mission that will bring glory to you.”

Ambrosius blinked with confusion. Such an idea was incomprehensible to him.

“As High King, you can command Arthur to sally forth against the barbarian encampments. Any glory that his victories win will be your glory, for Arthur will be obeying the commands of his lord.”

“My glory? How can that be if—”

“Arthur will devote each of his victories to you,” Anya said. “This I promise you.”

“But if he is defeated? What then?”

“If Arthur is defeated it will be on his own head. If he is victorious, the High King will be praised for driving the invaders from Britain’s shores.”

Ambrosius stroked his beard, thinking hard, pondering these new ideas.

“It is what a Roman ruler would do,” Anya urged. “You must think as a Roman. This is the way to glory. This is the way to win the obedience of all the kingdoms, throughout Britain. Then you will truly be the High King.”

The old man’s expression turned crafty. I knew what he was thinking: If Arthur is killed on his mission against the barbarian encampments, then his threat to Ambrosius’ throne dies with him.

“Think as a Roman,” Anya repeated. “That is the road to true power.”

Before Ambrosius could reply, before he could even blink an eye, it all vanished and I was back in the squires’ barracks at Cadbury castle, with the gentle snow sifting down through the silent, cold night.

11

That very morning Ambrosius held court in his audience hall. The entire castle turned out, thronging the cold, drafty hall with their colorful gowns and robes.

Ambrosius took his throne and gazed out on the crowd. All his knights were there, even those on crutches or bandaged from the tourney. Arthur and his knights had been invited to stand up close to the dais. I was behind them among the squires, off to one side by the unfinished tapestries that covered the icy stone wall.

I looked up and down the hall for Merlin, but the old wizard was nowhere in sight.

Once the crowd had settled down and the court’s chief herald had gone through a long-winded introduction of the High King, complete with Latin honorifics, the hall fell totally silent. It was as if everyone held their breath, anticipating some momentous announcement from the High King.

They were not disappointed.

Using the royal pronoun, Ambrosius said in his deepest, most impressive voice:

“We have been pleased to observe that our nephew, Artorius, and his knights have indeed demonstrated an important new method of fighting. It is our wish that he teach our own knights, and all other knights who wish to join us, in this new method.”

The crowd sighed with relief. Tension over a possible break between the High King and his nephew had crept all through the castle, I realized.

Ambrosius was not finished, however.

“Moreover, once the knights have been properly equipped and trained, it is our command that Arthur lead them out into the land to attack the barbarian invaders in their camps and drive them from the shores of Britain.”

Arthur broke into a boyish grin. Gawain and Bors, standing on either side of him, looked equally happy.

“To accept this responsibility is a heavy burden,” Ambrosius went on. “We know that our nephew will gladly obey this command of his High King, but to aid him in his new duties we have decided to revive a title from the old Roman days.”

Anya’s advice, I knew.

“Henceforth Arthur will be Dux Bellorum, our battle leader across the length and breadth of Britain.”

The crowd broke into spontaneous applause. Ambrosius let them cheer for a few moments, then raised a hand to silence them.

Looking directly at Arthur, the High King asked, “Nephew, do you accept this responsibility?”

“Gladly, my lord!”

“Then carry the title of Dux Bellorum from this day forward.”

Again the crowd cheered. I could see on Arthur’s face the eager anticipation he was feeling. Yet I knew that as the High King’s Dux Bellorum he had many months of hard fighting ahead of him. Ambrosius had placed himself in a clever position, thanks to Anya and me. With every victory Arthur wins, the High King’s power and prestige will grow. And if Arthur is killed in battle, a threat to Ambrosius’ future is removed.

I looked through the crowd, wondering which of them might be Arthur’s assassin. Would Merlin turn against him? Lancelot? Any of the other knights?

Then I remembered that Morganna—Aphrodite—was waiting in her kingdom in the northlands, planning her revenge against Arthur. And our campaign against the barbarian encampments would lead us northward, just as surely as the sun rose each day.