For King and Country

Chapter Four

Trevor Stirling's hands sweat against the plastic cushion of the transfer couch, while Cameron Blair, the medical technician whose supervisor had committed step one of the worst terrorist atrocity in the history of humankind, fitted the transfer headset to Stirling's skull. Blair was pale, eyes shell-shocked, jaw set in anger at what McEgan had done. The Irishwoman had inherited Blair, not brought him with her, but it was clear that the medico felt the suspicion radiating from his colleagues. He'd worked for the woman... Stirling had to quell a deeper flutter in his belly, letting the man fit him for a transfer he could not control, when he hadn't had a chance to thoroughly vet the man, himself.

No time, dammit, there's simply no time to do a proper job of this. He clenched his teeth, very much aware that his own arrival had triggered Beckett's murder and the terrorist's hasty flight into history. The only other people in the transfer room with him were senior staffers. Zenon Mylonas sat in full symbiosis with his computer equipment, preparing to insert Trevor Stirling's consciousness into the same time stream Brenna McEgan and Cedric Banning had entered. Dr. Indrani Bhaskar was attempting to give Stirling a last-minute briefing on the historical situation he would emerge into, while Cameron Blair fastened more electronic leads to his scalp, his cheeks and brow and jaw.

He cut off Blair's attempted explanation of why the transfer equipment was attached only to his head, when the energy field of human consciousness existed throughout the body. It sounded like New Age psychobabble about chakras and out-of-body soul transference, leaving Stirling's head whirling when he needed to focus as clearly as possible on what he was about to attempt.

"Only your consciousness will transfer," Dr. Bhaskar had taken over the explanation. "You will arrive inside a host mind. That is what Dr. Beckett described. The pattern of his consciousness entered another person's body and he shared awareness with that person for sixteen minutes."

"Shared awareness?" Stirling frowned. "You mean, he took over the other person's mind?"

"Not... precisely." She hesitated. "Terrance said it was more like a symbiosis of awareness. His host was terrified witless by the experience. Of course, when Dr. Beckett transferred, the power setting was lower."

"Lower? You mean, Brenna McEgan set it high enough to displace the host's mind?"

Indrani bit her lip. "I don't know. None of us do. We never transferred. And with only one short field test to judge by, we simply haven't the data to answer that. It's possible that the host mind is displaced."

"Killed, you mean," Stirling interrupted grimly.

"Or perhaps completely suppressed. Or not. There may be a synthesis of minds, a bit like split personality, with a struggle ensuing for control of the body."

Lovely things to look forward to, Stirling groaned inwardly. Murdering an innocent bystander's personality—or driving the poor sod mad for control of the hijacked body—was not how Stirling had envisioned ending his career with the SAS. The very act of arriving might alter history in a catastrophic fashion, if a critical person's mind was the one's displaced.

"There's no way to determine who I'll take over when I arrive?"

Indrani shook her head. "I'm afraid not. We've theorized that you'll gravitate toward someone whose mind is very similar to yours, but there's no evidence to back it up, yet, of course. And there'll be very little to go by in identifying Dr. McEgan or Dr. Banning. Neither of them will be able to speak openly, or even act openly, for fear of giving themselves away. To one another, if not to the temporal natives."

Stirling closed his eyes briefly. McEgan could sit like a spider at the center of a web for months, doing and saying nothing, while her pursuers blundered about, giving themselves away in the very need to search her out. And if the natives grew too suspicious, they might well either confine or kill someone who had apparently gone mad or turned traitor. Nobody ever said the SAS was an easy job. When he got his hands on McEgan, or rather on her host...

What if she inhabited someone he couldn't safely kill?

For that matter, could he safely kill anyone without risking the whole future?

"Any last-minute instructions?" Stirling asked. "What's this transfer going to feel like? How do I get home again? What happens if my host's body is killed before I complete this mission?"

Marc Blundell, who sat at a computer console beside Dr. Mylonas, said over one shoulder, "Terrance Beckett said it was like being kicked in the head by a mule. As for the other, you'll return home when the timer begins shutting the transfer equipment's power down, a year from now."

"What if the power goes off?"

Blundell tried to smile. "We're operating on our own generators, Captain. Snap generators."

Nuclear power in a compact package. Bloody wonderful. At least a simple thunderstorm shouldn't be able to disrupt power to the equipment.

"We don't know what will happen if your host body is killed," Blundell added unhappily. "You might die from the mental shock. It could disrupt your own energy pattern of consciousness, when the host's pattern is disrupted. You might find yourself floating about, like a ghost, possibly a permanent state, or perhaps only until someone comes close enough for you to transfer into another host. We just don't know."

"But I wouldn't, say, return here?"

"No." Blundell hesitated. "What the shock might do to your body here, we don't know either. Dr. Beckett's heart was badly strained by the entire transfer process."

"But he wasn't young," Blair put in grimly. "Bloody lousy candidate for the procedure, but it was his project, his decision. He wanted to be the first to make history. Dr. McEgan and I barely got his heart restarted, when the timer brought him back." The savage tone implied, And she killed him, afterwards, in cold blood.

"How close will I arrive on their heels?" Stirling wanted to know, wiping sweat onto his trousers from damp hands.

"The method isn't precise," Blundell said quietly, adjusting his equipment. "You should arrive after them, as they've been gone for more than an hour now, but it may be weeks or even months afterward. It might conceivably be prior to their arrival."

I've let these people strap me into a time-traveling shotgun and they can't even bloody well aim it!

Eventually, there was nothing anyone could add that wasn't sheer speculation. Dr. Mylonas detached himself from his computer long enough to say, "We're ready for the transfer, Captain. I've pinpointed it as closely as I can."

Trevor Stirling swallowed very hard. Tried to brace himself. "Right. Do it, then."

The last thing he heard was a chorus of good-luck wishes from the scientists.

Then a very large mule kicked him between the eyes.

Lailoken the minstrel, a dark man full of dark ambitions and angers, bitter from professional failures and personal losses, strode down the verge of the ancient Roman road which angled westward out of Gododdin, singing to an audience of bracken, cracked stones, and rainclouds. His harp and flute lay nestled at the bottom of the rucksack hitched over his shoulder, wrapped in waterproof sealskin bags which were, along with the instruments themselves, the most valuable things he owned. Without them, he would've been utterly penniless. But poverty didn't matter to him this morning, any more than his tattered and patched cloak mattered, or his worn boots, or his much-mended tunic and trousers, their plaids faded nearly to grey. None of it mattered, because he was the most blessed man in Britain.

Between sunset the previous night and dawn this morning, Lailoken had been chosen by the gods of old, the gods of thunder and blood sacrifice and revenge. They had singled him out as a worthy vessel and rode with him now, in his own mind. Banning, the god called himself, and promised wealth and fame beyond anything Lailoken could dream.

And they both hated the Irish with cold, murderous passion.

Who would not hate them? Banning had agreed the previous night, when Lailoken still sat reeling from the shock of being selected. They rape and pillage, destroy everything that is good and holy and civilized. Drunken, vicious brutes, heathens who can't even worship God properly. They've destroyed my people and I will destroy them utterly. And you, Lailoken, will help me.

Lailoken understood the need for vengeance. He had watched Irish invaders hack his little family to death before he could run across the fields from the plowing to fight for them. The Irish had struck him down as well, leaving him for dead after laying open his head to the bone, but God had seen fit to let him live—the better to take vengeance upon the people who had shattered his world at the end of Irish swords.

He had taken to the road, vowing never to farm or marry again. Lailoken had wandered from the Antonine Wall on the farthest northern border to Caer-Lundein in the south, a city almost abandoned now with the threat of Saxon invasion sending farmers and town-based traders alike scurrying toward the closest hill forts they could find, refurbishing the ancient walls and beating pruning forks and plowshares into swords and long, wicked spearpoints. From the dying city of Caer-Lundein, he had wandered west to Cerniw, where the Merry Maidens stood in a great circle, nineteen foolish girls turned to monolithic standing stones for daring to dance on a Sunday. He had loved Cerniw, where the Minack Theater lay dreaming in the summer twilight, its worn golden stones remembering the Roman engineers who had built it, centuries previously, flocking in to watch the ancient Greek dramas and the bawdy Roman comedies performed in it over a span of more than four centuries.

Lailoken had played his harp and flute for money at Minack, standing on the semicircular stone floor where even the whisper of the breeze carried with the clarity of bronze bells, and his music floated magically to the highest tier of stone seats and drifted above the sea, skimming out across the deep turquoise waters of the Purthcurno Bay, with its lacework fringe of breakers spilling across the shingle.

And from Cerniw, the long journey north again to Caerleul, along the Roman roads to Rheged and Strathclyde and up to Caer-Iudeu, nestled deep in Gododdin's mountain passes which guarded the way into Pictish country. Somewhere along the way, after months of starving as a desperately mediocre instrumentalist and singer, Lailoken had discovered a meager talent for composing poetry and a slightly greater one for making men laugh at the songs he sang.

He employed those talents well, hiding his rage and the black dreams of vengeance behind foolish smiles while drunken soldiers and celebrating sailors with more money than sense gathered in tavernas to spend their hard-earned pay on cheap wine, cheaper women, and Lailoken's raunchy comic bravado. They roared with laughter and tossed him coins by way of approval and gave him answers as freely as the wine flowed, when he asked about the Irish in the port towns and trading centers he was able to reach.

It was his dearest prayer to strike a blow that all of Ireland would bewail, leaving her screaming widows to rend their clothing in grief. Oh, yes, Banning promised darkly. We shall certainly send them to hell, my very dearest friend. Thousands of them. Do as I command and we will destroy the Irish race for all time.

Lailoken had never been happier in his life.

As they walked, Lailoken answered his new god's questions about where he had been, and where he had planned to go next. I left the garrison of Caer-Iudeu yesterday, when the King of Gododdin and his brother left to strike across the northern border into Pictish Fortriu. There's no money for a minstrel in a town with no soldiers left in garrison to pay my bills. There is talk of war again, rumors drifting north with every southerly breeze. When I left Caer-Iudeu, I vowed to journey to Caerleul, where the Dux Bellorum presides over the high councils of the northern kings. They send their cataphracti to him to do his bidding, defending the kingdoms of the Britons. Men of the cavalry enjoy the singing, the mead, and the women on the eve of battle or after a long, chilly patrol of the borders. A city full of soldiers, that's the place for a minstrel at such a time as this, if he wants to put food in his belly.

The Dux Bellorum? Banning mused. Artorius, himself? Excellent, better than I could have planned. By all means, we must journey to Caerleul. I can carry out my plans there as easily as anywhere and it would be amusing to meet the great man. But, Lailoken, we cannot walk all the way to Caerleul. I have no intention of taking weeks to get there, while my enemies entrench themselves so completely I will never discover their hiding places.

Enemies? Lailoken asked, startled. Have the Irish infiltrated spies into Caerleul itself?

No, I speak of other enemies. Creatures of my own kind, two of them, fools and criminals who would stop me if they could. I must discover them, Lailoken, discover who has sheltered them, as you have sheltered me, and destroy them utterly. No matter who serves them as host or hostess. Do you flinch from killing a woman, Lailoken? Or a traitor?

He considered the question. Lailoken knew he would have had no more qualms about killing an Irish woman than he would have had about squashing lice. They had taken his woman and children away forever and deserved to lose their own, in return. But a Briton woman? That disturbed him. Still, if the woman harbored an enemy who would betray the Briton people... She would deserve a traitor's death, were she born of royal blood.

Aye, Lailoken answered grimly. I would kill such a woman, or a man traitorous enough to harbor any creature favorable to the Irish. With my own hands, if necessary.

In that case, Banning answered with a cold and delightful calm, I suggest we find and steal a horse.

He was lying on the ground. At least, it felt like the ground. Hard, lumpy, uneven beneath back and shins. He could smell smoke and dirt and rank human sweat, unpleasant odors that triggered a ballooning headache. Or maybe the headache had been there first. Disorientation swept him every few seconds, while his thoughts gibbered in a voice not quite his own.

It wasn't precisely like hearing voices inside his head. It was more like some previously unfelt part of himself was making its presence known, as though a portion of his personality which had been submerged was now fighting to free itself from Stirling's internal censors. The sensations reminded him, oddly, of colliding air masses, which boiled up into storm fronts before mixing into something that was neither a cold front nor a warm front, neither high pressure nor low, a hybrid sort of weather that was wildly unpredictable.

The buried part of his eerie new personality was radiating abject terror, swamped with overtones of rage. Without conscious awareness of the process, he found himself thinking in a very archaic form of Welsh—Brythonic, Dr. Bhaskar had called it. Other voices were swimming into his awareness. Men's voices, rough with worry, a woman's shrill in tones of fear. One deep voice commanded instant respect from Stirling's fractured thoughts.

"Take him inside," that voice said, the meaning coming only after the flow of words had ended. "Thank God we were so close to Caer-Iudeu! With Lot's death, we can ill afford his brother's life in the crucible as well." The whole process of understanding what had been said was as fractured as Stirling's awareness, coming partly from a slow translation of the strangely accented Welsh and partly from the portion of his new and dual awareness, which gibbered in the same language as the unknown speaker.

He was abruptly overwhelmed by a frantic desire to cry out in terror. Stirling reacted violently and automatically—and bit his own tongue bloody in the effort to shut off the frantic plea for help. Oh, God... He wasn't entirely sure which portion of his dualized mind had thought it. Even as he clenched his teeth, he was struck by a critical need to know whose body he had invaded. Somehow, the struggling and terrified portion of his mind didn't sound female. And his senses were working well enough, at least, to recognize the familiar feel of male anatomy under his clothing.

He was thankful for that much, at least... .

He was lifted and carried by several men. Stirling caught a flash of chilly, star-dazzled sky circling in dizzy arcs as he was ferried ignominiously toward "inside"—wherever that would prove to be. His jaw already ached from clamping his teeth over his host's screams. Stirling caught a glimpse of dark stone walls, firelight, a smoke-stained ceiling. Footsteps thudded with a distinct, indoor sound. Then he was eased down onto a horizontal surface and felt fur under his skin, a fur sack stuffed with something that smelled organic. Straw maybe. It made a lumpy mattress, although not as lumpy as the ground had been, and a good deal softer.

A woman Stirling couldn't see snapped, "Fetch Covianna Nim!"

Another voice said, "Who is here? Thunders and damnations, man, fetch her at once!" And on the heels of that, "We're fortunate, Ganhumara. Morgana's here, on her way home from Ynys Manaw with Medraut. They were told we'd ridden north toward the border and followed to catch us up."

Who, Stirling wondered fuzzily, was Covianna Nim? Who were Ganhumara and Medraut? And who, exactly, was he? The strange new portion of himself radiated surprise that he didn't know. How on earth had Cedric Banning and Brenna McEgan adjusted to this disorienting sense of being divided into warring factions inside one's own skull? A twinge of guilt struck at that thought. Not his skull, at all. McEgan probably didn't care that she'd crushed some innocent's personality. And Cedric Banning? The Aussie raised in Manchester? Poor sod. Stirling wondered how many weeks it would take them all just to adjust. And whether or not any of their host minds went mad under the strain. It'd be one way to track them, he supposed—look for the unfortunates who'd lost their minds, apparently between one moment and the next.

"Where is he?" a new voice, low and beautifully female, demanded.

Stirling tried to get his bearings and managed to blink his eyes open. Steel-grey eyes met Stirling's with a forthright calm that spoke of a powerful personality held carefully in check. There was a quality of expression in those eyes that suggested she had recently received a dreadful shock of some kind and was keeping some terrible emotion at bay through the force of her will alone. She was in her late thirties, at a guess, dark haired and strikingly beautiful. She carried a brightly colored, woven cloth satchel. Her voice, when she spoke again, rippled like a waterfall deep in a sacred grove, full of mystery and compelling grace. "Lie quietly, Ancelotis, while I sound your pulse." She peered into his eyes as well, fingers light and gentle on his wrist and eyelids.

The other woman he'd first heard spoke again. "He collapsed without warning, Morgana, actually fell from the saddle on the road up to the fortress. It happened so quickly, Artorius wasn't able to break his fall, for all they were riding knee to knee."

Artorius? Stirling closed his eyes for a moment over dizzy relief. At least he'd arrived at the proper time and place. And he hadn't arrived in Arthur's body, which would have been utter disaster.

"Ancelotis," Morgana asked quietly, "can you tell me what happened? Was there pain anywhere before you fell?"

Both of them—Stirling and Ancelotis—tried to answer at once, each half of their dual personality determined to control shared mouth, tongue, and lips. The resulting sound came out part strangled groan and part choked wheeze, half in English and half in archaic Welsh, and all of it hopelessly garbled. As Stirling groaned and his host persona whimpered, Stirling wondered, Who the bloody hell is Ancelotis? God in Heaven, don't let it be Lancelot... if that's whom I've invaded, we're all in serious trouble. Bloody hell, wasn't Lancelot something the flipping French made up? His head throbbed fiercely, making it difficult to retrieve what he did know of Arthurian history, and his ignorance was making the headache worse—he could feel it thickening, like a summer thunderstorm building up behind the long black ridges of the Highlands.

I've changed my mind, he shouted uselessly at the scientists back in the lab, scientists who couldn't hear him anyway, and couldn't retrieve him for a whole year, no matter how badly he regretted his hasty decision to follow McEgan and Banning. He was stuck, well and truly stuck. And he had a terrorist to find. The room steadied down and he took a shuddering breath, then another. All right. I've a terrorist to find and stop. That, I'm trained for.

Morgana was frowning. "His armsmen saw nothing before he collapsed? No warning of illness?"

"None, stepsister." The male voice that had ordered him carried inside must belong to Artorius himself. Morgana was pouring something into a cup, holding it to his lips when a newcomer arrived. A slim woman in white robes swept into the room, doffing a heavy woolen cloak and striding toward them. "I'm dreadfully sorry, I was out collecting herbs under the full moon when the messenger traced me down. I came as quickly as I could. Does he rest quietly, Morgana?"

"Aye, Covianna Nim, more quietly than he deserves, I'm thinking."

Covianna Nim, whoever she might be, was striking, her long blonde hair unbound and flowing over her shoulders. She wore a very simple garment, which stood out against the sea of brightly colored reds and blues and yellows worn by the others, by virtue of being an unsullied white, only slightly dusty along the bottom hem which swept the ground. The robe, with a deep hood shrugged back over her shoulders like a cape, open down the front over an ice-pale gown of softest lamb's wool, was belted closed with a beautifully worked girdle of silver links, intricate with the loops and the interwoven animal shapes of Celtic knotwork. Stirling, lying dazed and confused, couldn't decide which healer he preferred bending over him, and finally decided he'd just as soon have neither of them.

"Drink this, Ancelotis."

Stirling had no idea what it was, but he didn't want it. Neither did Ancelotis. Unfortunately, Morgana was not to be denied. He swallowed the bitter stuff, which sent creeping lassitude through limbs and brain. Maybe, if Stirling got really lucky, he would wake up when the drug wore off and find this whole thing was only a nightmare.

Morgana sat close to the great hall's hearth, sipping a cup of mulled wine to which she had added soothing herbs, and listened in silence while her stepbrother outlined the size of the nightmare which had descended upon her. Upon them all, for that matter. Voices from the other side of the hall distracted her, officers of the garrison patrolling their northern borders, and the hastily summoned council of advisors for all of Gododdin, who had ridden hard half the night from the capital at Trapain Law. They had all gathered to speak quietly on the other side of the hall, making decisions for the kingdom's defenses in light of this latest disaster.

"It was the Picts," Artorius said quietly at Morgana's shoulder, resting a warm hand against her back. "If I'd known that Lot had taken most of his cataphracti from Trapain Law up to Caer-Iudeu, I might have arrived in time to change things. But I didn't find out until we were halfway to the capital. We stopped at one of the mile forts along the Antonine Wall, to rest the horses, let Ganhumara stretch her legs a bit. They told us he'd passed through with the bulk of his cavalry not twenty-four hours previously, heading for the border. That he was planning actually to cross into Pictish Fortriu, not just repel raiders. Lot meant to strike at their base of operations, prevent them from pillaging across the northern borders with such ease—"

"Yes," she interrupted harshly. "I am aware of the problem, stepbrother."

He moved around to grip her hand. "I know that, Morgana. God forgive me for having a blunt soldier's manner. Would that a learned Druid such as Emrys Myrddin had the telling of this, to soften it."

She managed a fleeting, watery smile. "I have no complaints in you, Artorius, and not even Emrys Myrddin could soften such news." The smile died away. "I, too, spoke with the officer of that mile-fort garrison, on my way home from Galwyddel. They told us you had passed not eight hours ahead of us." Her throat thickened. "I came north with news for him, news I thought shouldn't wait, and little thought I would never have the chance to tell him a word of it." Her voice shook and the wine in her cup sloshed dangerously up the sides. She sipped again to prevent spilling any across her lap.

Artorius found a square of linen tucked into a pouch at his waist and handed it to her, to dry her eyes, then soothed her arm with gentle fingers until she had herself under control again. Across the room, the councillors had either reached some decision or had a weighty question to ask, as their spokesman bowed his apologetic way into her awareness.

"Forgive the intrusion, Queen Morgana, but we must know... Will you insist on your eldest son inheriting immediately?"

She lifted her head sharply. "Put little Gwalchmai on Lot Luwddoc's throne, and the boy not above seven years of age yet? We would do just as well inviting in the Picts to take their choice of plunder!"

The councillor winced. "Yes, our thoughts precisely, but we had to ask. Will you then serve as queen of Gododdin until your son has reached manhood?"

Morgana gripped her wine cup until her fingers went white and cold, having dreaded this very question from the moment the council had arrived. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. Already I have Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw to govern, which I have done from Trapain Law since my marriage. To add Gododdin to this..." She shook her head once again. "It would be unfair to the people of Gododdin and to those of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw."

The councillor paled. "Who then, Queen?"

Morgana glanced at her stepbrother, then sent a look toward the chamber where Ancelotis, her husband's younger brother, lay sleeping, having collapsed in the wake of his brother's death. Artorius followed her glance and nodded. "Yes, Morgana, you have the right of it. Ancelotis is exactly what Gododdin must have until Gwalchmai reaches his maturity."

Relief flooded visibly through the councillor. "Ancelotis. Yes, of course. You give your approval to this choice, Queen Morgana?"

"I do," she said softly, echo of other words, another time and place that seemed a lifetime ago, now. "Ancelotis is the best choice Gododdin could hope to have in this troubled time." After a moment's thought, she added quietly, "Indeed, Ancelotis may prove a better king than his brother." She winced to speak ill of the dead, but couldn't help remembering the fate of poor little Thaney, her husband's daughter and only child by his first wife. Disinherited and nearly drowned for failure to reveal the name of her lover...

His ire had not even been a Christian anger at the poor girl's immorality, for Lot held far more closely to the old ways than the new. A view she had shared, in fact, or her marriage would have been intolerable. No, there had been nothing of religion in his actions. He had simply been infuriated by Thaney's stubborn refusal to obey him. Lot's temper had, indeed, been a great failing of his character. But he had never quite dared strike Morgana during a rage, given her own pedigree and the strength of well-honed steel behind it, all the steel of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw combined, her birthright as queen of those lands. Ancelotis, at least, was an even-tempered man, who would rule as a conscientious regent for Morgana's young son.

A short vote lasting less than two minutes confirmed it. When he woke, Ancelotis would be king. And Morgana would no longer be queen of Gododdin. The quiet presence which shared Morgana's inner awareness listened intently, trying to understand the nuances of what she heard. Poor refugee, to choose a place and time like this one as better than her own...

"Will you travel on to Trapain Law, Morgana," Artorius asked quietly, "to be with your sons, or return with us to Caerleul?"

She glanced up, gaze sharply focused on Artorius' worried eyes. "There will be a High Council of Kings, will there not, over this?"

"And over the renewed Saxon threat, yes."

"I am still a sovereign queen, Artorius, and must therefore join that council to speak for the people of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw." She paused, then added, "Perhaps my sons might be fetched from Trapain Law, to join us at Caerleul?"

Artorius nodded. "I will send a rider immediately. There are men-at-arms enough to defend Gododdin's borders and still provide escort for the boys. Lot brought a fair number of Gododdin's cataphracti with him from the capital, to meet the Pictish raiders. They will serve well at Ancelotis' back, to greet the Saxons with a show of strength."

Morgana sipped again at her doctored wine, but before she could speak, Covianna swept into the room and headed straight their way, having apparently stopped at her own room to put away her satchel of healing herbs. She moved with compelling grace and stopped to chat with most of the men in the room, by ones and threes and sevens, making the rounds with a charming smile for everyone and an avid eye for any conversation that might turn up interesting tidbits she might later use to her advantage. The men followed her with their eyes, like a pack of anxious puppies, tails wagging frantically in the hope of having those keen eyes and that flashing smile turned on them.

Even Morgana was affected by the woman's aura of mysterious sensuality. Lessons learned at her mother's knee, Morgana supposed, the need for secrecy about family business spilling into secrecy about everything, and all of it contributing to that aura of allurement. Her unseen guest, puzzled, asked understandably enough, Who is this Covianna Nim, then? Is she someone we must watch?

Oh, aye, Morgana agreed, she'll bear watching, whether your madman or your soldier have anything to do with her business or not. Intrigue and secrecy are as necessary to her as feet are for me.

But what's the secrecy about? If she's untrustworthy...

Morgana almost laughed aloud, converted it to a cough and sipped her wine again. I should sooner trust the great Satan of the Christian church than trust Covianna Nim on any number of matters. But is she a traitor to the Britons? No.

What is she, then? Brenna McEgan wanted to know.

Covianna Nim's family is part of a clan of metallurgists. Smiths who've been hiding their secrets on island smithies in an unbroken line stretching back to the days when Rome had not yet found the means to conquer Britannia. They make the finest weapons in all of Europe, better than the finest swords of the Franks and far superior to the few swords the Saxon lords carry.

Indeed, Covianna Nim herself made the sword Artorius wields in battle. None better exists. She is both healer and swordsmith, of high status in her clan and trusted with the secrets of her family's trade as well as those of the abbot of Glastenning Tor. She and all others at Glastenning, priests and monks included, know how to keep their secrets most effectively. And they've acres of surrounding marshland and treacherous bogs to protect them, and the annual springtime floods that overflow the River Brue. 'Tis not so easy a thing, to enter Glastenning Tor, if its inhabitants don't bid you welcome.

Morgana's guest didn't hold a high opinion of relying on the marshes and tidal lakes, should open warfare break out with the southern Saxons. Is there any sort of army available to Glastenning?

Morgana sighed. None that would serve the purpose, no. The community, if one can call it that, has for centuries consisted of reclusive metallurgists and alchemists. They greeted Joseph of Arimethea sixty-three years after the Christ was born and helped him build his abbey, the first Christian church in Britain. And then quietly went about their business, paying open homage to the new God of the Abbey, while carrying on with the old ways at their iron forges, their goldsmithies and glassmakers' furnaces. They're a bit like my own family, in that regard, Morgana admitted, as we both hail from some of the greatest Druidic lines in Britain, craft masters and healers, poets and artists. Both our families started calling things by varying new names wherever and whenever expedient.

Her guest was impressed. As a survival strategy, it sounds fiendishly effective, Brenna murmured. So the local clergy and the metal smiths discourage casual visitors. Do Saxon merchants come under this heading?

Morgana frowned. Not as much as we should like. The Saxons have an eye to snapping up the finest items our British forges and glassworks and looms can provide, at the lowest possible cost—at the point of a sword, when artisans have refused insulting offers made for their wares.

There was no further opportunity for discussion, as Covianna Nim finished her rounds of the councillors and officers, and undulated in their direction.

"Ancelotis is resting quietly?" she asked, voice a low and sultry purr. It had not set well with her when Morgana had made it clear Covianna's help was neither necessary nor welcome.

"He is," Morgana nodded. "It was fortunate they were so near Caer-Iudeu when the illness struck."

"Indeed," she smiled. "And fortunate to have such skilled healers to look after him."

Morgana bristled silently, more at the tone and the glance from under hooded lashes than the actual words spoken. Covianna flicked the hem of her white robe aside and drew a chair up to the hearth, settling herself immovably into their conversation. She shrugged her long, blonde tresses over one shoulder and began plaiting them into a neat braid with nimble fingers. "I will, of course, journey with Ancelotis all the way to Trapain Law or Caerleul, whichever proves his destination," Covianna smiled, "to be sure he receives the best possible care."

Artorius stepped hurriedly into the conversation before Morgana could devise a rejoinder chilly enough to suit. "A gesture we all appreciate, Covianna Nim, and it looks to be Caerleul, rather than the capital of Gododdin. Your family is well?"

"They are, and thank you for the asking." She glanced briefly at Morgana. "I offer regrets for your sorrow on behalf of my entire family, Morgana. You will ride to Council at Caerleul?"

Morgana inclined her head. "I will. My sons will join me there."

Covianna nodded, apparently satisfied with the jibes she'd already delivered. "I regret your sorrow as well, and I am only too glad of other healers to look after Ancelotis on the journey." She added with a flash of gleaming white teeth, "As it happens, I have been longing for another opportunity to study with Emrys Myrddin, if he will have time for teaching me."

Considering the fool Emrys Myrddin had made of himself the last time Morgana had seen him in Covianna Nim's company, Morgana had no doubt that the Druidic councillor would find the time for such lessons, even if he had to forgo sleep to do so. Indeed, sleep was doubtless the last thing on a man's mind, in close and private company with Covianna Nim.

"I have not seen your nephew, Morgana," Covianna added, glancing around the hall where deadly serious conversations still held sway in every corner. "Is he not with you?"

"Medraut? Indeed, he is."

Artorius put in, "I sent him with instructions to the officers of the cataphracti, to send for Morgana's sons."

"And is the son of Marguase as well as the last time I saw him?"

Morgana stiffened, so utterly infuriated she could not even draw breath to answer.

Artorius had gone white to the lips. "We will not speak of that poisoner in my presence!"

Covianna's eyes widened in shocked alarm.

Artorius struggled visibly to control himself. "She was executed for good reason—and I am not a man given to speaking ill of kinfolk! I will not have her name uttered within my hearing, is that understood, Covianna Nim?"

Covianna returned his blistering gaze with a demure glance that hid more than it revealed. "Forgive me, Artorius," she purred with all the sweet civility of a Highlands wildcat with claws extended, "I intended neither insult nor challenge to your decrees as Dux Bellorum. Marguase was many things to many people. I meant only to ask after her son's health. The boy was young, the last time I saw him."

"He is young still," Morgana said coldly. "But not so young as you might imagine, nor half so arrogant as his mother. I will thank you never to speak to him of my unlamented half sister."

Covianna's blue eyes smoldered. "Of course not, Queen Morgana." She finished off the plait of thick, honey-bright hair and rose with a swirl of white robes. "I will take leave of you for the night. It is a long ride from Caer-Iudeu to Caerleul and we have all lost sleep we can ill afford."

She inclined her head to Artorius first, slighting Morgana with the gesture, then gathered up her skirts and strolled languidly through the doorway, once again drawing appreciative stares in her wake. Morgana held back a hiss of displeasure. Spend the whole, long ride to Caerleul in Covianna Nim's poisonous company? She tossed back the last of the wine in her cup with angry impatience, then rose from her own chair. "As much as I despise finding myself in agreement with that creature, she is right about the need for sleep. There is little anyone can do for Ancelotis that I have not already done, so I will take my leave, stepbrother."

Artorius laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't let her nettle you so, Morgana. She is envious—and has much to envy where you are concerned. Still and all... You know that I will allow no harm to befall you and yours?"

Quick tears prickled behind her eyelids. "Yes. And I thank you for it."

She hurried away before he—or anyone else—could see those unshed tears fall.