For King and Country

Chapter Sixteen

Trevor Stirling and Ancelotis caught up with Artorius just a few miles short of Caer-Birrenswark, by riding three good horses into the ground, switching mounts at three of the fortified towns in Galwyddel. Artorius had done the same thing, they discovered, but was traveling at a slightly less frantic pace, which gave Stirling and the king of Gododdin the chance they desperately needed to catch Artorius up. They passed a column of foot soldiers heading south out of Galwyddel, presumably the men Morgana had sent to Caer-Badonicus, and—of greater surprise—they met Lailoken, the minstrel, who was also heading south.

"Have you seen the Dux Bellorum?" Ancelotis asked, flagging the minstrel down.

Lailoken gave him a searching look, then nodded, pointing back the way he'd come. "Aye, perhaps ten miles further on. He was moving fast. Is there trouble?"

"I've a message for him. They said in Caerleul you rode out with Queen Morgana?"

"That I did," the minstrel nodded, "but I left her these several days past. She had private business away from Caer-Birrenswark and when a queen is not in residence, there's little enough work for a court minstrel."

"You don't know where she's gone, then?"

"That I don't, I'm afraid. Myself, I'm riding south, to join kinsmen."

A glint of some private mirth the minstrel did not wish to share caught Stirling's attention, but Ancelotis was too distracted by worry to notice. "Godspeed to you then, and the less said of this, the better."

"I am the soul of discretion," the minstrel murmured, sweeping a bow from the waist, a bow that held an elusive, mocking quality, disturbing Trevor Stirling once again, but Ancelotis was already putting heels to his horse's flanks, sending them galloping down Artorius' trail. Only ten miles more to catch him and Ancelotis was waiting for nothing and no one.

Their fourth horse was beginning to show the strain, when the Dux Bellorum finally came into sight. Ancelotis pulled loose the signal horn strapped to his saddle and gave a good, loud blast that carried a long way. Artorius pulled up and turned in the saddle, peering back with one hand raised to shade his eyes. They came thundering down the final stretch of road, the lathered horse blowing with distended nostrils.

"What news?" Artorius asked tersely as Ancelotis pulled his mount to a sliding stop.

"The same that sent you racing for Caer-Birrenswark," Ancelotis replied, voice grim. "I'll not believe ill of Morgana, whatever you've been told. Nor will Thaney, who begged me to ride after you."

Artorius' glare made summer storms seem mild. "This is my affair! As Dux Bellorum—"

"If you were here as Dux Bellorum, the cataphracti would be riding at your heels."

The jibe scored; Artorius flushed a dark red. "Morgana is my stepsister, which makes it a personal matter."

"And she is my sister-in-law, which makes it a personal matter to me, as well."

The measuring look Artorius leveled at him only served to stiffen Ancelotis' resolve and left Stirling very glad, indeed, that this man was not his declared enemy. At length, Artorius let go a weary sigh and turned his gaze to stare down the road toward Caer-Birrenswark, the uppermost tower of which could just be seen across the treetops. "I am desperately hoping history will not repeat. It would be agony to condemn Morgana, as I once was forced to condemn Marguase."

"Morgana is no poisoner. Nor will I believe her a traitor without a great deal more proof than whatever letter Covianna handed you."

A startled look broke loose. "Thaney knew about that?"

"Oh, yes. She persuaded the minstrel to confess to it, after you left Caerleul in such a tearing hurry, without a word to anyone."

Artorius snorted. "I pity the poor minstrel, then. Your niece is a woman I would not care to cross."

Ancelotis grinned. "In that, we are fully agreed. May I see the letter?"

The Dux Bellorum hesitated, then fished into a leather satchel strapped behind his saddle and handed over a folded bit of vellum. Ancelotis read it quickly, while Stirling attempted to make out what it said. He could understand spoken Brythonic, thanks to the merging of his mind with Ancelotis', but the written form still baffled him. Ancelotis translated silently, leaving Stirling groaning under his breath. It looked very bad, indeed, if this were an accurate rendering of the conversation Covianna claimed to have overheard. Alliance with the Irish, through a marriage between Medraut and the heiress to Dalriada... Little wonder Artorius had rushed north to try and stop Morgana from committing irrevocable folly.

He had just handed back the scrap of vellum when several fast-moving horsemen appeared from the direction of Caer-Birrenswark. Artorius muttered, "More bad news, it looks like," an assessment Ancelotis was forced to agree with, particularly when the riders came close enough to identify as soldiers of Galwyddel's cataphracti. When their officer recognized the Dux Bellorum, they drew to a halt to greet Artorius. The man spoke without preamble.

"Have you seen Lailoken, the minstrel?"

A queasy sensation hit Stirling square in the gut as Ancelotis answered. "I spoke briefly with him, some ten miles further back." He gestured down the road that led toward Caerleul.

"Then we may yet catch the bastard. King Medraut sent us to fetch the god-cursed traitor back for trial."

Even as Ancelotis gasped, the Dux Bellorum said in a soft and dangerous voice, "King Medraut? Mean you not Queen Morgana?"

The officer hesitated, clearly upset by that piece of news, as well as whatever disaster Lailoken might have unleashed. The man cleared his throat, then said, "No, it was King Medraut who gave the orders to find the minstrel. The abbot of Caer-Birrenswark himself drew up the agreement to transfer the throne of Galwyddel to Medraut. That news was startling enough, but the lad, er, the new king has also married."

An unhappy look darkened the man's eyes. "It seems utter insanity, but Father Auliffe has lent the support of the Holy Church to Medraut's marriage and I cannot imagine a man less likely to support treason. Medraut has married the heiress to Dalriada, you see, and the abbot swears it is a good alliance with nothing of treachery in either the girl or her father. The hope was to secure the northern border between Strathclyde and Dalriada against invasion. And it might have worked, truly it might, only..." He hesitated.

"Only what?" Artorius growled, eyes dark and grim.

"Only Lailoken has betrayed all of Britain. He's a Saxon agent, in the pay of King Aelle."

"Lailoken, a Saxon spy?" Ancelotis asked, eyes widening in astonishment. "How can that possibly be proved? I've seen the man in my brother Lot's court and he spent a week or so entertaining the soldiers of Caer-Iudeu. You saw him yourself, Artorius, at Rheged's festivals. He's a comic buffoon and a passable minstrel, but a spy?"

The officer nodded, eyes bleak. "A Saxon spy and much else as well, I fear. There is far worse news than Medraut's marriage to Keelin of Dalriada. Lailoken is a poisoner. A monstrous saboteur. While he and Medraut visited Fortress Dunadd to arrange the marriage with King Dallan mac Dalriada, he poisoned the entire city, poisoned the wells, at least that's what Father Auliffe and Queen Morgana suspect. A Briton slave escaped across the border into Strathclyde and rode for Galwyddel with the news that all of Dunadd is dead, down to the infants at their mothers' breasts. Vomiting, convulsions, paralysis—it was no natural plague that killed those poor bastards." Distress roughened the man's voice.

The image struck Trevor Stirling with a familiar sense of horror, even as Ancelotis and Artorius went stiff with shock. Biological warfare was a reality Stirling had witnessed before, in the twenty-first century, but neither the king of Gododdin nor the Dux Bellorum had any experience with such atrocity.

"The whole town?" Artorius whispered. "My God, Dalriada will massacre every Briton in Strathclyde before marching into Galwyddel!"

"Not if we can catch Lailoken and hand him over to the Irish," the officer muttered. "Queen Morgana and King Medraut have taken ship to try and catch Dallan mac Dalriada before he returns home, to try and convince him it was Saxon treachery, not Briton. Queen Keelin and her Druidess have gone with them, to try and prevent utter disaster."

Artorius just shut his eyes. "Oh, God, watch over her," he groaned.

Ancelotis muttered agreement, while Stirling tried to sort out a confusing issue that puzzled him immensely. The murder of an entire town by some form of biological weapon was entirely in keeping with an agent of the Irish Republican Army. But why would Brenna McEgan massacre the Irish? It made no sane sense. The IRA terrorist had come here to further Irish interests, so why destroy the very Irish settlers who were destined to form the political and social structure of the entire Scottish Lowlands?

If McEgan had poisoned Caerleul, or even Artorius, it would have been perfectly understandable. But not Dalriada. And if Brenna McEgan had not killed every soul in the Irish colony's capital, who had? The Saxons? It was difficult to credit such a notion, when the sixth century's natives were completely unfamiliar with the ways in which a whole settlement could be taken out with chemical or biological agents.

Artorius was asking, "And Morgana has already left for Dalriada? You're sure of that?"

The officer nodded. "Father Auliffe said she took sail from the Lochmaben coast, by way of a fishing sloop, trying to catch up with Dallan mac Dalriada's ship."

"Whether or not she succeeds," Ancelotis said quietly, "there is nothing you and I can do to change what will happen between her and the king of Dalriada. All we can do is strengthen the northern garrisons against invasion and turn our own attention to the Saxon threat in the south."

"King Medraut has already ordered riders north to warn Strathclyde of the danger to the border forts. Just in case."

"Then we must ride south," Artorius said heavily. "And pray God the Irish believe her. For myself, I must suspend judgement against Morgana and Medraut until the war with the Saxons has been decided, one way or the other."

"Agreed," Ancelotis murmured, half sick with grief and worry.

They turned their horses about and set out in pursuit of Lailoken. They had gone perhaps three miles when one of the men back in the line of cataphracti broke into song, a stirring, cadence-rich marching tune which brought the hairs on Stirling's arms and nape standing straight up. He drew rein sharply, trying to locate the singer.

"Where did you hear that?" he demanded.

The soldier blinked in surprise. "One of the minstrels was whistling it at Caer-Birrenswark. I hadn't heard it before and asked him to teach it to me. It's good for the riding, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes, it's a snappy little tune," Stirling agreed darkly. "Let me guess? He learned the tune from Lailoken?"

The man stared in absolute shock. "Aye, that's what he said. He'd been to Caerleul and learnt it there, from Lailoken. How did you know? Is it a Saxon tune, then?" the man asked worriedly.

"In a manner of speaking." Stirling was cursing himself as the worst fool ever to put on the uniform of the SAS. All the little clues he had failed to notice before had fallen neatly into place the instant he heard that particular song. It was a marching song, all right. An Orange marching song. One of the Orangemen's favorites, in fact. It wouldn't even be written for more than a millennium and a half. If Lailoken had been singing it, he could have learned it from only one soul: Cedric Banning. The man whose British affectations had struck Trevor Stirling as odd, that first night, the kind of snobbery a status-seeking colonial might display—or a very clever man wishing to pass himself off as one.

And he'd worn a paisley scarf, must have been laughing at Stirling the whole time they'd sat in that pub, wearing such a blatant, insulting clue and watching the SAS officer blunder his way right into the trap Banning had set up. Brenna McEgan hadn't killed Terrance Beckett. Banning had. McEgan must have been planted by the IRA as a countermeasure against an Orange terror plot. The bruises on her face—and on Banning's knuckles—floated into his mind's eye, another humiliating clue he'd ignored. McEgan must have walked into the lab right on the heels of the murder. And Banning, clever bastard, had led Stirling straight down the garden path with that note about her ties to Cumann Na Mbann.

It was entirely possible that she had been part of that terrorist group. It was also entirely possible that she was innocent of everything Stirling—and London—had suspected of her. And Cedric Banning had excellent reason to poison an entire Irish city. Stirling wondered who, exactly, had tipped off London that an IRA mole had infiltrated the lab staff? Banning himself? Trying—with embarrassing success—to divert attention from his own agenda? It hardly mattered, now that the damage had been done.

The question of how he'd done it was answered shortly enough. Moving at a steady gallop, they covered the remaining miles rapidly, only to discover that their quarry was no longer on the road. He had bolted, abandoning his packhorse, which they found grazing at the verge of the Roman highway, snatching up greedy mouthfuls of grass. A search of the horse's panniers brought to light several wine bottles and ceramic jars, all carefully stoppered, with the corks and sealed lids bound down with twists of heavy twine.

Artorius held one of the glass bottles up, peering curiously at the lumps visible inside. "It looks like chunks of meat and rotten vegetables."

"Don't open any of them!" Stirling warned sharply, seeing all too clearly how Banning had committed the atrocity at Fortress Dunadd. Botulism toxin. He felt an utter and complete fool, with no way to undo the damage already wrought. Damage which might well have destroyed Stirling's entire future, with no way to tell until the equipment shut down at the end of a year—and no guarantee that it even existed any longer, to be shut down. From this end of history, there literally was no way to tell.

Worse, yet, was the damage Banning could still do. Using botulism, the man could literally poison every Irish town and farmhold from Londonderry to County Kerry and further south, to Cork. All he'd need was a cover story—and what better cover than a traveling minstrel, bringing news of a marriage of alliance between Dalriada and Galwyddel? He wouldn't even have to mention it had ended in treachery, since no one in his wake would survive long enough to find out differently.

Stirling had to shut his eyes against the vision of all Ireland dying, leaving the island wide open for Saxon invasion. Banning was an Orangeman and the Orangemen were descended from pure Anglo-Saxon stock. An Orangeman could take no better revenge than to utterly annihilate the entire Irish population, while simultaneously stirring up war between Dalriada and Galwyddel—at a time when his Saxon ancestors were laying waste to the entire south of England. Divide British attention between war at both ends of the island and the Saxons would conquer it all, the entire British Isles, in one fell swoop. Frosting on the cake would be a few bottles of death emptied into the wells of strategically important Briton strongholds.

The question was, which way had Lailoken and his unseen guest bolted? West, to Ireland? To spread the word of alliance and treachery, while quietly leaving mass murder in his wake? Or south, to join his Saxon kinfolk and take to Aelle and Cutha the secret of biological warfare contained in these monstrous little bottles?

In low, terse tones, Stirling told Artorius as much as he could, without compromising Ancelotis' status as his host. Artorius listened in black silence, then spat to one side.

"We'll have to split our forces, meager as they are. Two riders west, toward the coast, two east, in case he's bolted for Dewyr, as Cutha did. The rest of us will ride south, toward Caer-Badonicus. And pray God we catch him before he reaches his paymasters."

Staring utter disaster in the face, whichever way Lailoken had bolted, they mounted their war-horses in silence and set out in grim pursuit.

Dawn's first hint of oyster light had touched the eastern sky when one of the sailors who'd climbed the mast to act as lookout spotted sails dead ahead.

"I see them!" he shouted, pointing. "He's landward of us, rounding the tip of Kintyre!"

Morgana's heart lurched into her throat and Brenna gripped the gunwale, fingers turning white in the crepuscular light. At her side, Keelin clutched Medraut's hand and braced herself against the wild pitching of the boat as the captain turned the tiller, sending them on a tack that would take them on a shorter and faster route, seaward of the longer, looping journey Dallan mac Dalriada's crew had chosen, keeping closer to land. The Irish king's sails rose up out of the sea as they narrowed the gap, plowing deep into the troughs while the sails rattled and snapped taut again on the new course.

Brenna wished mightily for a pair of radios or even a signal cannon to flag the other ship's attention and was too distraught to try and explain to Morgana what either device was, much less how they worked. As they drew steadily closer, Brenna realized the only thing that had allowed them to catch up was the lighter, smaller boat they rode in, much faster across the water than Dallan mac Dalriada's larger and heavier warship. Like the Greeks at Salamis, whose smaller, faster boats had wrecked the massive Persian navy, the Briton fishing sloop rapidly overtook the Irish ship, finally drawing within shouting distance as they both rounded the tip of the Kintyre Peninsula.

Riona Damhnait had already taught the sloop's captain the words to shout, as deeper male voices carried farther across water than women's voices ever could. The captain bellowed out the message, which drew startled reactions from the Irish crew. A moment later, they had dropped a sea anchor overboard, slowing their speed enough to match pace with the slower Irish ship. Dallan mac Dalriada appeared at the ship's rail, shouting a question across. Riona answered, shouting as loudly as she could, while the sailors of both craft flung ropes across, snugging the ships together and running burlap bags filled with sand over the sides to act as bumpers, so the hulls didn't grind one another to splinters.

"Help me across, Medraut," Morgana said, swallowing down nausea that had very little to do with the wild pitching of the deck under their feet. "And help your bride and Riona, as well."

A moment later, all four stood on Dallan mac Dalriada's deck, while Keelin flung herself into her father's arms and sobbed out their awful news. The Irish king washed white with shock, holding his daughter tightly while he flung questions at his Druidess. Riona spoke rapidly, urgently, hands sketching gestures in the cold, wet dawnlight as she relayed the message which had come by way of the young Briton slave. His face clouded over with black rage as he listened. When he snarled some order, sending his men toward the Britons, weapons drawn, Keelin flung herself into Medraut's arms and spoke shrilly, nearly hysterical in her effort to stop whatever her father had just ordered. Given the black looks the crew sent their way, neither Morgana nor Brenna McEgan had any illusions as to the nature of that command.

Keelin braced herself at bay, arms thrown wide to protect Morgana and Medraut, like a wild vixen run to earth and snarling at the hounds who snapped at her helpless kits. Even Riona stared in surprise at the violence of the girl's response to Medraut's abrupt danger. What Medraut did next sent Morgana's heart plunging straight into the sea. He unslung his sword and dropped it onto the wet deck, took Keelin gently by the shoulders, and lifted her aside. He then stepped forward and faced the wild-eyed king straight on. Without turning his gaze away from Dallan mac Dalriada's for so much as a half-second, he said to Riona Damhnait, "Please tell my father-in-law that I will gladly die by his hand, if it is his will. But my death will accomplish nothing, not even vengeance, if he attacks Britain and allows the true culprits, the Saxons, to escape unscathed, laughing in their beards at blind Irish rage."

Brenna was absolutely convinced that she and Medraut were about to die.

She could do nothing but whimper in the back of her shared throat when Morgana stepped to Medraut's side and said, "Please tell King Dallan that I, Morgana of Ynys Manaw, have placed myself and all that I love in his hands, risking everything to bring this warning. Has he or any man aboard this ship drunk from Lailoken's wine cask?"

Dallan's eyes widened. "Wine cask?"

The words were pure Gael, but—unmistakably—he had said, "Wine cask?"

The translation came when Riona sagged in relief so profound, she nearly slid to the decks, braced at the last instant by an alert sailor who caught her from a nasty fall. "Your God has looked upon us, Morgana," the Druidess whispered, staggering back to her feet, "for no one has yet tasted the gift."

Keelin was speaking urgently now, so urgently, her father could not get in a single word of protest or negation. Judging by the expressions and gestures, she was telling her father that Medraut and Morgana had themselves insisted upon accompanying Keelin on this voyage, knowing full well they might be executed for it, that she had come to love Medraut for the honorable and courageous young man he was, that Medraut would fight to the death whole armies of Saxons, to protect his new Dalriadan Irish kinfolk, those the Saxon treachery had left alive. And judging by the tears sparkling in the dawnlight on her cheeks and the thunderous black look on her father's face, those kinfolk were very few in number now, and therefore doubly precious.

The king's reply, when it came, needed no translation. I ought to have my head examined, that look said. He gestured and two of the sailors bound Medraut's wrists behind him, and Morgana's as well, while Irish sailors spilled over into the British fishing sloop and tied the hands of every man aboard her. But they had not been gutted on sight, which was more than Morgana, at least, had expected.

"Ask the king if he has a dog aboard this ship," Morgana said, turning her gaze to meet the Druidess' unhappy gaze. "Or better still, a rat. Feed the creature some of the wine from Lailoken's cask. If it contains the botulism toxins, the animal will be dead within twelve to twenty hours. And he will have enough proof to hang whomever he considers guilty for the atrocity at Dunadd."

Dallan mac Dalriada snarled out a reply. Keelin shrieked, "Nay!" and threw herself in front of Medraut again. Impasse. One that did not last long. At a bellow from her father, two burly sailors dragged the girl away, fighting and clawing, even biting them in her desperation to escape and prevent Medraut's untimely slaughter. That he had won not only the girl's heart, but her unswerving loyalty, was not lost on Dallan mac Dalriada. It was equally clear that the Irish king had no idea what to do about it, a hurt and bewildered and angry parent doing his best to protect his child while his entire world crashed down about his ears.

When he finally gave a curt order that sent Medraut and Morgana below the deck, dragged down into the cramped cargo space—cold and damp and unutterably wretched with dirt and foul smells of dead fish and live rats—Keelin broke free, striking her father with both fists in a paroxysm of raging emotion, then collapsed in Riona's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

A heavy wooden hatch slammed down across the only exit from their watery prison, robbing them of further sight of Keelin's wild grief, which was just as well, for Medraut's sake. The boy trembled where they lay crammed together between ship's hull and a heavy case of something that thumped and rattled like shifting crowbars. Ingots of iron, no doubt, ferried north to be forged into weapons.

Battered and bruised, Morgana lay still, the ropes hurting her wrists, and tried to catch the sound of Irish voices arguing in Gael. It was, like the German spoken by the men of Saxony, a language one ought to understand, if one simply listened hard enough to catch the similarities of phrase and slightly odd pronunciation of familiar words.

Medraut whispered, "I've learnt enough Gael to know a little of what's being said. Dallan mac Dalriada is ordering rats brought to him, along with Lailoken's wine cask. He's going to try it, Aunt."

"Pray God he believes Keelin and his Druidess, for Riona Damhnait is no fool and it's clear he knows that. He's also turning for home," Morgana muttered as the ship wallowed and rolled and took up a new tack, but without turning around to sail back south. "He'll go straight to Dunadd to verify the deaths himself. God pity us when we arrive, Medraut, for I very much doubt that Dallan mac Dalriada will."

"I'm sorry," Medraut choked out, his whisper a badly shaken child's apology for creating an unwanted mess.

"No, never be sorry, Medraut, for doing the right and honorable thing."

"No," he countered her at once, "I'm not sorry for coming. I'm sorry for allowing you to come along, as well. For that, I am twice the fool and will regret it as long as the Irish allow us to live."

She wished there were some comforting thing, anything, she might say to the boy.

There was not a single, useful word in her weary and battered brain.

So she laid her head against a pile of coiled rope and waited for the rats—and doubtless soon thereafter, the prisoners—to die. The day passed in agonizing slowness, the most physically miserable day of Morgana's life, not as painful as childbirth, but bone-jarring as the ship plowed through heavy seas, rolling and bashing them against one another and the contents of the cramped space below deck. Nausea tore her throat, occasionally leaving her helpless in the throes of uncontrollable heaves. Medraut tried to brace her at such times, using his shoulder to help lift her over his own body, as their hands were bound tightly behind them.

Brenna McEgan, unused to travel by water, suffered in silence. She had never taken up the sport of sailing and preferred air travel for the short hop between Dublin and London or Dublin and Edinburgh. While Morgana had made the sea journey from Ynys Manaw to the mainland many times, she had never traveled locked in a tiny, dark space unable to see sky and waves. Medraut, too, was messily ill several times, mumbling abject apologies as they took turns trying to assist one another. They were given no food, which was probably a mercy, and no water, either, which was an added cruelty. Not that Morgana could have swallowed any without disastrous consequences, but she would've dearly loved to rinse the sour taste from her mouth.

What felt like an entire lifetime later, night descended, robbing them of the few meager cracks of light that found their way between boards and joins. The total darkness was suffocating. When the ship wallowed heavily, coming around on a new heading, Medraut murmured, "We must be entering Dunadd Harbor. It feels like the right amount of time to've reached it."

"I wonder," Morgana said bitterly, unable to keep the sound out of her voice, "if the rats have died yet."

"At least they haven't forced us to drink from the cask. I've halfway expected him to order it."

Morgana shivered. "He may yet."

A distantly heard splash reached their ears and the ship pitched and yawed and came to a rocking standstill, tethered by her anchor line. They could hear voices overhead, shouting in Gaelic, and other voices replying faintly. "They must have brought the fishing sloop along," Medraut said in a faintly surprised tone.

Morgana forced a chuckle. "What, fail to secure a free ship and several new slaves for himself? Your father-in-law is no fool, nephew. He will," she added darkly, "have need of a few slaves, to replace the men and women Lailoken murdered. Winter is nearly upon them and this blow bids fair to destroy his whole colony."

Overhead, the hatch cover was lifted clear, allowing torchlight to spill into their eyes. As Morgana squinted against the light, a sailor slid down and lifted her into the hands of another man who hauled her up onto the deck. Medraut was hoisted out, in turn, while a third sailor busied himself untying her wrists. She rubbed the chafed skin and bruises gingerly, wincing and trying to keep her balance, more weakened by thirst, battering, and fear than she'd realized.

Medraut stood glaring at their captors, shaking with visible rage as he pulled Morgana protectively to his side. For once, she was more than happy to lean against him. As her eyes adjusted to the torchlight, she made out Dallan mac Dalriada's thickset figure and beyond him, Keelin and Riona Damhnait. Keelin bit her lip when she saw the bruises and stains on their clothing from the seasickness.

Dallan mac Dalriada gave a rough-voiced order and they were prodded none too gently into a small boat which had been lowered over the ship's rail and bobbed on the water, making the task of entering it difficult—particularly with all her limbs still trembling. She and Medraut were herded into the bow, while Dallan mac Dalriada, his daughter, and his Druidess sat in the center, leaving the stern for the sailor who rowed them across black water toward an utterly silent town. Waning moonlight picked out the whitewashed walls of cottages, and gleamed ominously along the darkened watchtower of the fortress above the village.

The offshore wind carried a stench so foul, Morgana found herself swallowing convulsively over sharp nausea. She gripped the rough wood hard, trying to distract her senses from that hideous smell. Not a dog barked as their little boat scraped ashore and Medraut jumped out to steady her onto the strand. They waited silently on the beach while the boat went back for several of the ship's crew, who carried torches. Morgana bent to tear strips of cloth from her skirt, wetting them and tying them over her nose and mouth against the foulness on the air. She handed one to Medraut, who hastily copied her example. Even Riona and Keelin accepted the strips she offered, poor Keelin near to vomiting.

A dull anger burned in Morgana's breast that Dallan mac Dalriada would subject his daughter to the horror waiting in this village, where literally everyone she knew and loved lay rotting in the streets. Even from this distance, she could see bodies lying at grotesque angles, some of them visibly gnawed on by scavengers.

The moment the crewmen arrived with the torches, Dallan mac Dalriada prodded them into motion. They walked numbly through street after street, encountering at least a few graves already dug, where survivors from the outlying farmholds had begun the grim work of burying the dead. Keelin began to cry within a few short minutes, stumbling along in her father's wake as he stalked straight through the town and up the long ramp to the fortress gates. What Morgana could see of Medraut's face above the mask was ashen in the torchlight, with beads of cold sweat shining along his brow. Morgana steeled herself not to look too closely into the shadows as they passed open cottage doorways and narrow little alleyways between houses and shops.

When they finally reached the fortress gate, they found bloated dogs, horses with their legs stiffened, grotesque in the moonlight, and pathetic little bundles of fur that had once been pampered housecats. Keelin fell to her knees over one of the cats, sobbing beneath her makeshift mask and uttering a little cry of protest when Riona urged her back to her feet. Morgana's heart broke, watching the distraught girl, but dared not offer comfort; Medraut's eyes shone with unshed tears, even as his jaw muscles clenched in rhythm with the fists he tightened every few seconds. Staring at the charnel-house ruin of the great courtyard, Brenna McEgan whispered silently, Lailoken and Banning must have poisoned every well in town, it couldn't have been anything else, to kill the animals as well as the people.

Morgana, lips trembling beneath her own mask, could not even reply, lost in an agony of grief. She could not even ask what sort of hatred Brenna's world bred, to create such men, when her own world and time had created the likes of Cutha. The Saxon prince had merely used a sword instead of poison. The devastation was just as bad, either way.

Inside the great hall, they found servants lying where they'd collapsed, trying to assist the noble ladies and lords of the royal household. As the torchlight revealed the scope of destruction, Keelin uttered a wild shriek and darted forward, cradling a child's body to her breast and weeping uncontrollably. Medraut's voice came out strangled over a string of curses as he dared Dallan mac Dalriada's wrath to rush to Keelin's side, gathering her close and stroking her hair, very gently prying the dead child from the girl's hands.

"We must bury her, Keelin," he choked out. "Please, you must let her go, there's nothing you can do for her and I would sooner die here and now than see you struck down by contagion from holding what is left of her."

The sobbing girl refused to loosen her hold on the child's body until Riona and Dallan mac Dalriada stepped in to separate them by force. One of the sailors carried the broken little body away, hurrying at the king's urgent gesture. Keelin uttered a wailing protest, then turned and collapsed. Not in her father's arms, but in Medraut's. Dallan mac Dalriada's eyes widened in shock as his child clung to her new husband, shuddering and weeping, moaning what must have been the child's name over and over.

Morgana saw the shift in the Irish king's eyes, that moment of stunned recognition when he realized his child truly did not believe the Britons responsible. And she saw the doubt come surging into his face as well, the first doubt that Keelin and Riona Damhnait just might be correct in that belief. Medraut was stroking his young wife's hair, rocking her gently, helpless in the face of her wild grief and weeping for that helplessness.

Dallan mac Dalriada stumbled toward the nearest chair, which happened to be his own throne, next to the hearth, and sank down onto the cold stone. Wetness shone on his own face, now. He choked out something in a low voice, speaking at some considerable length. When he had finished speaking, Riona touched Morgana's wrist.

"My king would have you know the depth of his regret for treating you so ill, this day. We captured a number of rats, forcing them to drink Lailoken's wine as you suggested, poured it down their throats while holding open their jaws. They all died, just at sunset. He pondered long and hard on this, during the final hours of our journey home, thinking if you had meant treachery against his life, you surely would not have come chasing after him with a warning. Why would you have brought such terrible news yourself, with your nephew in your company, if you had ordered the poisoning of Dunadd?

"Then he thought perhaps you are very clever, intending him to think these things, while plotting yet more destruction while he was distracted by grief. He begs forgiveness, begs you to understand all that he has lost, kinsmen and brave people who trusted him and his father before him, men and women who came to this wild new land, many of them only within the last year, trusting his word that they would be safe to build their homes and raise their families here. Your ship he restores freely, and the brave men who knew what they risked in bringing you with the warning. King Dallan mac Dalriada asks only one thing more of Queen Morgana and King Medraut."

"Name it," Morgana said quietly.

Riona's eyes were hard as flint in the firelight.

"Help him kill the Saxons."