For King and Country

Chapter Fourteen

The fortifications at Caer-Badonicus went up with astonishing speed. Covianna Nim had never seen so many men in one place, hundreds of them, with more arriving every day from the kingdoms of the midlands, bringing arms and armor, long pack trains of supplies to be cached in the summit's new granaries, groaning wagonloads of rough-dressed stone blocks, ripped hastily from quarries for miles around and ferried by the hundred-weight per horse, thousands of stones to build walls and barracks on the high hill.

Nor had she seen so many labor for so many hours without stopping, day and night, working in shifts to haul the stones laboriously to the top of the five-hundred-foot hill. Five layers deep, the walls went up, mazelike, the outermost layer studded with whole forests of thorny hawthorne branches, hacked down by women and children and carried on mules, on ponies, on grunting, waddling sows that stood as tall through the shoulder as some of the ponies and had to be goaded along by children with swine prods, anything that could carry a load of thorned nastiness.

Paving stones lined every inch of space between the long, snaking, concentric stone rings, joins made impervious to water with barrels of heated pitch. The cisterns were roofed over, forming a massive conduit that ringed the whole eighteen acres of summit, a feat of engineering the Romans themselves would have been proud to claim. And even before they were roofed over, they had begun to fill with rainwater from the hundreds of shallow channels dug every few inches across the entire top of the hill. Water flowed in spidery lines and snaking rivulets, pouring steadily into the cisterns.

Myrddin had ordered waterwheels built every few yards around the perimeter to lift the runoff into the cisterns from the top. A small army of boys was charged with keeping the wheels in constant motion, round the clock, with buckets mounted on timber spokes lifting the spilloff from deep, narrow troughs along the very edge of the summit, butted up against the innermost wall. The boys chanted songs in the days-long driving downpour, keeping up the rhythm of cranking the ponderous, groaning waterwheels.

Dripping buckets lifted water from ground level up to the top of the first cistern, pouring gallon after gallon down into the stone-lined channel between the first and second walls. From there, it flowed through drains down into the lower circumvallation cisterns, gradually filling up the whole, massive stonework system. When the cisterns failed to fill fast enough to suit Myrddin, he ordered wells dug around the long base of the hill, with more waterwheels to lift the thousands of gallons necessary to complete the job properly. Horses worked treadmills to keep these larger waterwheels moving, until the immense, layered conduit was finally full.

The waterwheels were immediately torn down, the timber used for roofing the houses and barracks going up all across the summit. Great wooden gates had been carefully built into the walls, as well, many more of them than necessary. Most were false gates, set along the edges of the walls in a mock facade, to fool the Saxon armies as to the purpose of those few, critical gates slated to deliver Emrys Myrddin's surprise. Runners came daily to the hill fort, gasping out the news of fighting and skirmishes all along the northern borders of Sussex and Wessex, the unexpected Briton strength forcing the Saxons to march west, right toward the trap being so carefully prepared for them. Emrys Myrddin was everywhere, directing, advising, overseeing the work day and night, only pausing to eat and rest when Covianna Nim insisted.

"You will collapse, Myrddin, if you do not eat and sleep, and where will Britain be, then? Come, lie down, I'll sing you to sleep."

At such times, she would guide him, usually stumbling with weariness, up to her rooms in the very first building finished on the summit, serving as her dispensary to treat the injuries sustained by the construction gangs. In those private rooms, she and Myrddin did a great deal more than eat and sleep. The sport they shared did him good, relaxing him and drawing him ever more delicately into her own trap.

And while he was distracted by her not inconsiderable charms, she bled him dry of every secret she could wheedle loose, pillow talk shared between lonely druidic professionals with no one else to share or understand the problems of their work. Given Myrddin's flattery-susceptible ego, larger than the whole of God's wide heavens, coupled with his long-standing infatuation with her, it was very simple to persuade him to share everything Covianna wanted to know.

He whispered the teaching epigrams between kisses, between couplings which were sometimes hard and fast, but more often slow and lazy and deeply satisfying—and always profitable. She learned the secrets of his wizardly lore, much of which consisted simply in knowing what men and women—be they superstitious peasants or kings with fine, classical educations—would do under given sets of circumstances, then uttering pronouncements calculated to achieve the desired outcome. Parable after parable slipped from his lips to her ears, deepening her understanding of how to manipulate people and situations.

He taught her healing lore not even Marguase had known, secrets picked up as a boy in Constantinople, from healers he had known before Covianna's birth. And most valuable of all, she learned the greatest secret of alchemy, long sought by her tribe of master smiths, but never found. The simplicity of it set her to laughing softly in the darkness.

"To change lead—the basest dross—into gold," he murmured, nuzzling her breast, "all that is required is the philosopher's stone."

"What stone is that? Something found only in a far country? Worth more than all the gold in Rome?"

He chuckled. "No, nothing like that. The alchemist's fabled prize is no stone at all."

"No stone at all? But—"

He tapped her temple. "The philosopher's stone is the rock-solid knowledge of philosophy itself. What does philosophy teach a man to do? To look at the gross and ordinary world of clay, of lead and crass stupidity, and to see within each crass and stupid thing the shining sparks of divinity waiting to be set free. And how does one set them free? By seeing them in the first place and acknowledging their existence, through the philosopher's skill of symbolic sight. Any man can change 'lead' into the 'gold' of wisdom, does he but understand this one, profoundly powerful secret."

It was the source of Emrys Myrddin's power, Covianna realized with a wondrous opening to the possibilities it made suddenly real and shining. No wonder Myrddin had been revered as a prophet even as a child, when he had seen the world through his philosopher's eyes, trained by the best minds of the East. He had seen clearly where Vortigern's weakness and greed would lead both Vortigern and the entire Briton race—and had uttered his first profound "prophecy" in symbolic terms even a slack-brained fool like Vortigern could understand. Red dragon of Britain would fight white dragon of Saxony, and Vortigern was the inevitable loser.

The very utterance of the "prophecy" had been Vortigern's undoing, leading his own sons to betray him while uniting the people behind Ambrosius Aurelianus and his closest friend, Uthyr pen Dragon—chosen by the "dragon," by Emrys Myrddin himself, who had invented the "dragon" whole cloth to represent the whole of the British people. It was so delightfully simple, Covianna marveled that she had not seen it sooner. It was another mark of Myrddin's genius that he had shared the source of his power with no one, not even Artorius.

Until now.

And now it was her secret, as well.

There was not room in all of Britain for two powerful Druids to hold this same, volatile piece of information. She smiled, whispering into his ear and nibbling at his neck, and plotted and planned and smiled up into his trusting eyes. When the fortress walls were nearly complete and Myrddin's work essentially done, Covianna put those plans into action.

"I must leave for Glastenning Tor," she told him that night. "I have stayed longer than I should at Caer-Badonicus. I worry for my kinsmen's safety. I wish..." She allowed her voice to trail off forlornly.

"You wish what, my dearest heart?"

She brushed fingertips against his lips, drawing a deep shudder from him where he lay joined with her. "I wish that you would come to the Tor, for just a little while, even for a day, to overlook our defenses. Your advice would be worth so much, Myrddin, for you see with eyes other men do not possess. You see the strengths and weaknesses of a place, even as Artorius sees the strengths and weaknesses of an army. And you could personally collect from the smiths of my tribe our treasure trove of fine swords and spear points, made against just such a contingency and stored away at the Tor. You could see them safely back here, to arm the defenders of Caer-Badonicus with them."

"When the work is finished here..." he began.

"But there is nothing further here that needs your supervision. The walls are up, the cisterns roofed over and filled, the sluice gates and the decoys built, and the houses and cattle byres are going up at a grand pace. There is no reason, really, why you could not slip away for a day or two, to help my kinsmen prepare the Tor for invasion."

"An invasion which may never come..."

She frowned, converting the irritation into a look of worried fear. "There is no way to know that, for sure, and I would never forgive myself if I failed to do everything in my power to protect my kinsmen. Please say you'll come."

And he did, shuddering all the while.

They left at dawn, bidding farewell to King Melwas and King Cadorius as the rain continued to pour from leaden skies. "I'll not be gone more than a day or two," Myrddin assured them, "just long enough to see to the defense of the Tor's abbey and the townfolk at its feet. The runners coming in from Caer-Durnac assure us the Saxons are yet a week's march away, more than enough time for me to see to the Tor's defenses and return."

"God go with you, then," Cadorius clasped his arm, "and bless you for your help at Caer-Badonicus. Without you, we would have been lost, I fear. Come back to us as soon as you may."

Despite the steady rain and biting chill of the wind, Covianna enjoyed the ride home more than any other journey she could remember taking. It was perhaps twenty miles from Caer-Badonicus' windswept summit to Glastenning Tor, and considerably less than that from the Tor to the sea. Each day when the tides turned, the River Brue and the broad sweep of salt marshes meandering lazily along its low-slung, flood-prone banks, mile upon water-logged mile of them, filled up with brackish water flowing inland with a swirl of muddied currents.

With the tides and the filling of the marshes, the strange, upthrust jut of land known as Glastenning Tor rose up from the marshy lowlands, spending fully half of every day as an island, completely cut off from the rest of Britain despite nearly twenty miles between its shores and the sea. When the tidal marshes drained again, it spent the other half of its day as a high and dry hill firmly joined to the mainland once more, but surrounded by treacherous bogs, pools of brackish water, and long, landlocked oxbow lakes where saltwater fish swam in surprised dismay to find themselves cut off from the sea, easy prey to the thousands of waterfowl and wading birds and canny swamp foxes living in the marshlands.

The Tor never failed to inspire a ripple of awe down Covianna's spine. It was the Great Mother's teat, so the old stories ran, from which flowed the milky white spring dubbed Chalk Well. The whole of the Tor roared with underground water, buried rivers of it, pouring through deep caverns and spilling out into springs in a dozen or more places, here milky white, there blood-hued and iron-rich. Maps Covianna had been shown as a girl, learning from her elders the carefully hidden truths of the Tor, had revealed the great hill's sacred outlines in all their astonishing, mystical wonder. The Tor was the Mother, Her left breast jutting skyward where She lay on Her side, left leg outthrust in a long and elegant sweep ending in a perfectly formed human foot.

Her right leg was tucked up beneath Her, in the birthing position, with Her open birth canal spread wide, giving life to a little hillock just beyond Her sacred vulva, a hill which rose from the earth like an infant's head emerging from its Mother's womb. Bride's Mound, it was called, this infant's-head hill that was Covianna's actual birthplace. The Tor was beautiful and holy, filled with mystery, a place where Covianna's mothers and grandmothers had, for centuries, kept their greatest treasures and their sacred forges, down in the secret caverns, deep inside the body of Mother Brigit, who gave eternal birth to Virgin Bride. It was on Bride's Mound the smithies had built their reputations and their trade, not daring to profane the Mother's body with their anvils and hammers and glowing forges or the glass houses where Bride's silica-rich sands gave birth in turn to the lustrous glass for which the whole complex of hills and caverns had been named.

She smiled when she could finally trace the outlines of the great labyrinth of the Tor, an earthwork so ancient, no one in Covianna's line could remember the building of it, only that it had been, from time immemorial, the only way into and out of the Tor, with its quiet, wealthy rooms and snaking passages one had to follow—like Theseus hunting the Minotaur—in order to reach the summit. The labyrinth's pattern could be clearly seen across the wide, marshy floodplain, and smoke from the smithies rose black against the sky from Bride's Mound. Sight of her home never failed to lift Covianna's spirits. Her fingers itched to take up hammer and steel again, to forge some wondrous new blade to fit the stolen scabbard in her baggage. She chuckled aloud, imagining Artorius' rage when he discovered it missing—and apparently, at the hands of the disgustingly virtuous Morgana. Emrys Myrddin, riding beside her, smiled at the sound of her laughter.

"It is a long time, I think, since you have been home."

"Too long," she agreed. "There is much here I have longed to show you."

"I have heard wonderful tales of Glastenning Tor. I visited once, as a young man, but only the forges. It will be a pleasure to have you show me its secrets."

Laughter burbled up again, as wild and delighted as the water rushing through the heart of the Tor. "The Saxons long for the same thing, I think. I have heard the minstrels whisper that they call it Glastonbury, the glass mountain, where magic is done by the wizards and the smiths who hold the Tor."

"The Saxons," Myrddin chuckled, "consider an ordinary sword a thing of magic, forged by the gods they worship. They buy theirs, I am told, from the Franks. Which is why," he sighed, "they are so anxious to capture the southwest of Britain, to take the Tor and all your family's secrets. And why I agreed to come look over the defenses."

"For which I am forever grateful."

A cry went up as they approached the little town which lay sprawled on the flanks of the hill, spreading out down the long, slender leg of land toward the Goddess' outthrust foot. As the rain slacked off to a mere drizzle, children came running from cottage doorways, shouting the news to their parents and older siblings. Smiths emerged from the forges, wiping sweat and soot and thrusting tools into the pockets of their leather aprons. Covianna led the way along the safest path through the marshy bogs until they were close enough to be recognized.

"Covianna Nim!" the cry went up. "Covianna Nim's come home!"

Their horses splashed through the last of the marshes and Covianna slid from the saddle, flinging her arms round cousins and aunts and uncles amidst the noisy welcome. Her mother came running from the largest smithy on Bride's Mound, grey hair caught back in braids, face and hands streaked with soot. Tears tracked down the weathered lines in her face, losing themselves in the drizzling rain.

"My child! You've come home at last! And safe from marauders!"

They embraced long and warmly while Covianna's mother pressed kisses to her cheek, her hair, any part of her that would hold still long enough.

"Aye, Mother," she stepped back laughingly, "I've come home safe and sound, with a guest to be shown the Tor's hospitality."

Her mother gazed fondly into her eyes, then smiled. "Introduce us, Covianna. Who is this distinguished guest you've brought among us?"

She turned to Myrddin, who had dismounted and now bowed elegantly to her mother.

"It is my pleasure," Covianna purred, enjoying the excitement in her mother's eyes, "to present the legendary Emrys Myrddin, Druid to the Dux Bellorum, Artorius. He has come to the Tor to look over our defenses. Myrddin, my mother, Vivienna of the Tor."

Her mother gasped, went pink to the ears, and dropped a deep curtsey. "You are most humbly welcome, Emrys Myrddin. We have heard much of your wisdom. You do us great honor to visit."

He took her mother's sooty hands and kissed them gently, saying, "Not at all. The honor is mine, dear lady. Your daughter is a remarkable woman, wise and skilled in the ways of healing and of forging steel. She has been a treasure to have with us in Artorius' court at Caerleul."

Vivienna beamed fondly at her daughter. "We knew, child, that you would go far, in this life. You were marked for it from birth. Now, then, come up to the abbey, I'll introduce you to the abbot and see that you are given the finest quarters on the Tor."

"I would be pleased to bear you company," he offered gallantly, giving her his arm and minding not at all the wet soot that streaked his fine tunic sleeve, although Vivienna did try to wipe off the worst of it on her skirts. They set out, walking up the narrow road while children danced around them. Older boys took charge of the horses, leading them behind and finding apples to feed them as they clopped sedately in Myrddin's wake.

All the sights and sounds and scents of home rushed forward to surround Covianna with a delightful medley of familiarity: the hot-metal smell of iron drawn red-hot from the glowing coals; the ring of hammer on anvil; the sound of men blowing through long metal pipes, shaping molten glass into delicate pitchers and cups and vases to be traded the length and breadth of Britain; the homey scents of plain cooking and newly washed laundry. It all wafted in a wonderful mixture from the forges and low stone cottages and glass houses and washerwomen's huts lining the road and each lovely scent and sight and sound whispered a glorious welcome home. Covianna relished every fine moment of the walk.

She told herself she would never leave the Tor again, now that she had what she wanted from the last of her mentors. Her mother would be immensely proud of the secrets Covianna had brought home with her this time, proud and pleased that her daughter's wandering days were over, at last. It was time she settled, took a mate, and produced children to follow in her own illustrious footsteps. She laughed softly to herself, deciding not to take the herb she had been using for years to prevent men's brats from sticking to her womb. It would be quite a coup, to boast the child of Emrys Myrddin as her own son. Or daughter. It hardly mattered.

Emrys Myrddin was saying to her mother, "As much as it pains me to admit, I fear that I must give you a solemn warning, Lady Vivienna. My visit is not entirely motivated by pleasure."

Vivienna's sharp glance betrayed worry, which Covianna's mother usually managed to hide. "The Saxons?"

"Aye. They're on the march, as you must have heard by now."

She nodded. "We've heard, all right. The armies of the midlands have already marched south and the people who live beyond these marshes," she swept a hand outward, indicating the broad stretch of flatland skirted round by the shaggy Mendip Hills, "have fled already, taking their harvests and their flocks and herds to the caves until this war is ended, one way or the other."

"It's at Caer-Badonicus we'll stop them, Lady Vivienna, of that you may be certain. They'll not soon forget the drubbing we give them there. But you're wise to worry, for it's the Tor and the smithies they want, there's no mistaking that."

She nodded and tightened her fingers on his arm in a gesture of gratitude. "Then I am doubly pleased to make you welcome, for the runners have also brought tales of the work done at Caer-Badonicus. All Glastenning holds its breath—and for excellent reason. Many of us have cousins and brothers and sisters in Caer-Durnac, who have fled in advance of the Saxons, with tales of shocking murder and mutilations."

Myrddin's mouth went grim, a marble-hard line. "It seems to be a Saxon habit. Cutha slew every farmholder and villager within five miles and more of Penrith. The bastards outran pursuit to Dewyr and escaped across the Saxon border."

As Myrddin filled her in on the latest news, they left the low leg of land and began to climb up the path which led around the hill in a winding labyrinth of stone walls and flagged pavement. The great whorls and loops were scrupulously maintained free of weeds by a small army of monks who had taken holy orders at the abbey.

"To teach them patience," Vivienna explained with a gleam in her eyes and a lilt of laughter in her voice. They circled back and around seven times, passing monks at work in the orchards, harvesting the last of the apples and pears and repairing the labyrinth walls.

The low spires and arched windows of Glastenning Abbey rose from the very summit, dark and forbidding against the cloud-lashed sky, offensive in Covianna's eyes for squatting so leechlike on the Mother's breast. She smiled and nodded to monks she secretly loathed and daydreamed about someday having the personal power necessary to drive the Christian church out of Britain, returning her people to the ancient ways that had been preserved in her family's lore.

It would be rather nice to go down in history as Covianna the Apostate, Queen of Britain and Empress of the Celts. She had to bite back a burbling laugh at such an image, torn between outrageous humor and the self-mocking realization that such an outcome was very, very unlikely, if only because the Christians, once they'd gained a toenail's hold on a piece of turf, utterly refused to let go until they'd swallowed down the whole ruddy thing, indigestible bits along with the rest.

The trick was to be placed to take advantage of whatever change might be in the wind—and Covianna was more than half convinced that the Saxons' day had come, or soon would. Whatever miracles Artorius managed to pull out of the seat of his britches this time, the day of the old guard was done, for the world had changed and nothing Artorius did could stop that reality from crashing down on all their heads, whether it crashed on them during this battle or one next year or next decade. It was nothing more than breathing room, a delay of the inevitable disaster, that Artorius fought for, a bitter folly that was killing Britons and smashing British futures under men who would all too soon be their new masters.

What might it be worth to a Saxon king like Aelle, to have the way smoothed for a peace that would prevent needless slaughter of Briton lives? It was only when men like Aelle were crossed and humiliated, as Ancelotis had humiliated Cutha, that their tempers turned savage and butchery of innocents commenced. There had been no such slaughter when Wessex had joined ranks with the Saxon kings. Yes, much might be gained by helping the Saxons to a peaceful takeover of key Briton strongholds.

She could do nothing about Caer-Badonicus, but Glastenning Tor was another matter. And there was one more thing in the Saxons' favor, from Covianna's viewpoint. The Saxons were still a decently non-Christian group of pagan souls. She felt far more in common with the likes of Aelle than she did with the abbot who presided over the rape of the Goddess Brigit's most holy shrine. What worth could be placed on the restoration of one's faith and the destruction, stone by hated stone, of the abbey perched so hideously atop the Tor? Covianna would risk much, to see that fate brought down upon Glastenning Tor's abomination.

As they came around the last upward turn of the labyrinth, the abbey grounds opened out onto a relatively flat summit. Wind blew briskly, full of gusting rain and biting chill. The dour stone walls rose forbiddingly against the slate of sky and storm. It was not a particularly large abbey, although Covianna supposed it would be enlarged in due time, as the abbey's power and wealth continued, like cancer, to grow. A young monk Covianna didn't know, barely seventeen, if that, met them near the abbey's heavy wooden doors. "Is there trouble?" he asked, hurrying across the small plaza.

Covianna's mother reassured him, "No, not immediately. The Dux Bellorum has sent Emrys Myrddin to look over the Tor's defenses."

Relief and worry chased by turns across his young face. "I'll take you to see the abbot at once. Father Elidor is in his chamber at this hour, going over the abbey's accounts."

"That will be fine, thank you," Myrddin nodded courteously.

The monks of Glastenning Abbey had learned, long ago, the folly of trying to keep the women of Covianna's family out of the abbey when professional business was involved; their escort merely guided them inside without even a brow raised in protest. Their footsteps echoed across the stone floor. Dark walls rose around them, claustrophobic, with squat columns and ugly arches and high, narrow windows.

The windows were the abbey's only attractive feature, as most of them had been glazed in beautiful colors by the smithies of Glastenning Tor's glasshouses, who had been making colored glass for centuries, learning the skill from Roman artisans. The patterns were simple, the pieces shaped to an approximate fit and held together by strips of soft lead. Little squares and circles of white and yellow light, punctuated here and there by more expensive greens and blues and reds, fell in lovely geometric shapes where the dull, fitful daylight passed through into the darkness of the room. The masterpiece was above the altar, a mosaic in glass, depicting the death of Christ. For all its beauty, it was still abomination in Covianna's eyes, a temple dedicated to death erected on a hill sacred to the deity of life.

They stepped through a doorway behind the altar and found themselves in the monks' private quarters, a long and even uglier building adjoining the church. Tiny cubicles lined the dingy corridor, empty now, as their occupants were hard at work elsewhere. The abbot's room lay at the far end, larger than the other cells, to accommodate the abbot's worktable, accounting records, and manuscripts he was studying. Covianna could hear the quiet scratch of goose quill on parchment as Father Elidor made careful notations. Head bent, absorbed in his work, he didn't hear their approach until their guide tapped at the open door. Elidor looked up in surprise, pausing with quill suspended midair, the tip glistening with wet ink in the light cast by his oil lamp.

"Lady Vivienna has come up from the village, Father."

"Vivienna? What is the trouble?" He rose to his feet, frowning. When he glanced at Covianna, standing behind her mother's shoulder, his eyes widened. "My dear child, you've come home at last!" He hurried forward, smiling in open delight.

She accepted his embrace graciously. "It's good to be here," she murmured with perfect honesty. "I've brought Emrys Myrddin with me."

Elidor frowned as he turned to greet his unexpected guest. "I'm sorry to meet you under such circumstances. It must be drastic news, to bring you to Glastenning Abbey. How can we help?"

Myrddin clasped his arm in greeting, then said, "I would like a tour of the entire abbey, its safe rooms, lockable doors, approaches not only up the hill, but through doors and windows, weak points that would be difficult to defend. There must be room for the townfolk to shelter here, as well, should a real crisis develop." Elidor was nodding. Myrddin added, "Do any of your men know the use of arms?"

A grimace came and went. "To my sorrow, yes, all too many. There are former soldiers among us, men so distressed by the killing they've waged this past decade, they have renounced the sword and sought refuge with God. But if it comes to seeing women and children butchered, I believe even they will find it easy to lay aside the commandment to turn the other cheek, and follow instead Christ's admonition that if a man has not a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one."

A smile, bittersweet, chased its way across Myrddin's lips. "A good thing to remember in these troubled times. Very well, the sooner we begin, the sooner you will be prepared."

The tour was thorough, with Elidor himself serving as guide, joined by half a dozen of the senior monks, who made notes as Myrddin made specific suggestions, often sketching out the defense works to be added to the labyrinth's existing walls.

"Anything to slow them down will help," Myrddin explained, pointing out places in the looping approaches where thorny branches could be piled atop walls—leaving Covianna to wonder whether a single stand of hawthorne would be left in the south of Britain by the time this war had ended—or where pitfalls could be rigged at strategic points to send invaders plunging down onto sharpened stakes.

Elidor was frowning. "Won't wooden stakes be useless against armor?"

"One thing Artorius has gained experience of is the strength of Saxon arms and armor. Most of the soldiers they send to battle have nothing but a bit of quilted leather. Even amongst their nobility, thegns, they call them, armor is usually of limited quality and quantity. They are not wealthy, these Saxons, and their chieftains make gifts of weapons and mail shirts to their favorites, to be returned to the 'king' when the thegn dies, for such gifts are mere loans, wealth returning to the leader whenever he demands it.

"A Saxon thegn cannot pass on to his sons his armor and weapons, for they are not his. Nothing is his, except what his king lends him for a while. And since most of their wealth has been taken from others, and most of those others have resisted vigorously, there is not a great store of weapons or armor in the Saxons' camps. A narrow, sharpened stake set into the ground in a deadfall can pierce virtually any ring shirt made or punch through legs and arms, rendering a man helpless, or at least, unable to fight effectively. Either will suffice for our present needs."

"Indeed," Elidor nodded. "I am twice enlightened. We had begun to fear these Saxon dogs were unstoppable, the way they've gobbled up the southern kingdoms of Britain and seek constantly to expand their borders."

"Oh, they're quite stoppable," Myrddin assured him with a nasty grin. "You would have enjoyed seeing that verminous little Cutha knocked flat on his backside by Ancelotis of Gododdin. He put to rest a fair number of unfounded rumors of just that sort. Bested him with bare hands, sent him skulking out of Caerleul like a scalded dog. The realization these bandits can be defeated, coupled with Cutha's ill-tempered slaughter afterward, showing us precisely what we may expect with Saxons to rule us, has sent the entire northern half of the Britons rushing to take up arms to stop these beasts for good."

The monks duly added notations on where to dig pits, to be lined with narrow, sharp-ended pole stakes. When their journey through the grounds led past well after holy well, springs gushing up from the depths of the Tor, Myrddin frowned thoughtfully. "There seems to be an immense amount of water pouring out of this hill."

"Oh, yes," Father Elidor nodded, "they flow like this year round. I've never seen them run dry, not even during a drought." He cupped his hand into the well they had paused beside, dipping up a palmful to sip, scattering droplets that lost themselves amongst the spatters of rain falling.

"A pity we can't harness it, somehow," Myrddin murmured.

Covianna began to laugh. "Oh, Myrddin, I don't think the Saxons will fall into that particular trap twice in one war."

He grimaced, then gave her a rueful smile. "No, I don't suppose they would. Has anyone ever tried to find the source of the Glastenning springs? Might there be caverns under the Tor where people could shelter?"

Covianna glanced at her mother, who was watching Myrddin through narrowed eyes, a look he missed, as Myrddin was gazing at the abbot. Elidor hesitated, clearly taken by surprise on a subject he'd obviously never considered, then dredged up an answer. "Well, we've the cold cellars, of course, beneath the abbey, where we store wines and smoked meats and other foodstuffs, and the cellars were built into a natural cavern, such as it is. It's very small and shallow. So far as I know, there's no connection with any other caverns."

Covianna's mother glanced warningly at Covianna, then said smoothly, "There are legends in our family lore, stories that the first smithies on the Tor were built by a race of dark dwarves, magical beings worshiped in the old days. The stories say the dark ones of the Tor lived in fantastical caverns deep in the hill and sold their magical weapons to men in exchange for what the dwarves wanted most: firstborn children. But these are very old stories, mere legends. If such caverns did exist, we've never found any trace of them. And our children find their way into the most amazing nooks and corners you could imagine. If the caverns were real, someone among us would have found them. Years ago, no doubt."

The abbot was smiling. "Vivienna doesn't exaggerate the children's curiosity. They do get into everything and manage to slip in everywhere."

Vivienna turned a mortified glance on the aging abbot. "Oh, dear, they've not been trouble, have they?"

"No, no," he laughed, "nothing serious. Just playing games, hiding and seeking, treasure hunts, exploring in the dead of night with a guttering candle, daring one another, all the typical games we played as children ourselves."

Covianna chuckled. "I remember my cousins teasing me mercilessly until I gave in and tiptoed into the abbey's root cellar one midnight. There was a new moon and everything was black as pitch. My horrid cousins sneaked in behind me and barred the cellar door, leaving me stranded in the midst of the carrots and onions and turnips. I didn't sleep all night. Poor Father Gildas found me next morning, stiff with fright and wrapped up in some old sacking I found on a shelf before my candle went out. And there was absolutely no trace of another cave. Believe me, I looked."

They shared a laugh, then the fitful gusts turned to a steady downpour, effectively ending the excursion. The labyrinth's walls cast long shadows down the flanks of the hill as they hurried toward shelter.

"You may wish to impose upon Father Elidor for a bed tonight," Vivienna offered as they returned to the hillcrest, "as most of us have children who would have to be shifted, but the village would never forgive me if I didn't insist that you share our supper. We'll make a real feast of it, open up the meeting hall for dancing and music."

"I am honored," Myrddin inclined his head graciously.

"You are most welcome as well, Elidor."

The abbot smiled. "I, too, would be honored. Myrddin, I'll show you where to find your room tonight, in case I retire earlier than you choose."

They parted, with Myrddin and the abbot kissing both Vivienna's and Covianna's cheeks, and disappeared into the abbey while mother and daughter descended the hill together, heads bent against the stinging cold of the rain. And as she walked, Covianna dreamed of the revenge which would be hers during this lovely, wild night.