For King and Country

Chapter Seven

Dragging himself into the saddle was harder than it had been the first time. They set out in total darkness, a clattering mass of heavy cavalry, and rode without stop through the night. It was well past sunup when a landmark Stirling would've known anywhere rose out of the smothering downpour: a long, cat's-claw glint of silvery-grey water and rising high above that, the immense volcanic plug known in his day as Dumbarton Rock. Mary Queen of Scots had taken refuge there as a child, before being smuggled to France at the age of five. He had no idea how many successive fortresses had been built atop that craggy high ground, but there was no question about where Artorius was headed: Caer-Brithon, home of the kings of Strathclyde, the latest of whom rode strapped to a pack horse, colder and stiffer than Stirling's aching body.

He would have given a great deal to bypass Caer-Brithon and the queen who did not know, yet, that she was a widow. Morgana caught his glance, her own pale and grim, and shame for his own cowardice touched his heart. Prince Clinoch, lips thinned, back ramrod straight, led the entire thundering cavalcade of Briton cataphracti up the muddied road toward the fortress atop Dumbarton Rock. The horses slipped and snorted protests at the steep, choppy climb, which Stirling would have dreaded making when snow and ice lay on the ground. Sentries saluted as they passed the outer walls, which did not look to Stirling like Roman construction, but which would certainly have sufficed to stand off most invaders for a good, long while.

Once past the wall, Stirling could see the royal hall of the kings of Strathclyde. The design echoed Roman construction, with outer walls of heartlessly plain stone and roof of overlapped stone shingles, but it was rougher than Roman buildings, the stone not as finely dressed, although certainly solid enough to withstand siege. It occupied the place where a Roman camp's principium would ordinarily stand, but the barracks buildings and workshops surrounding it were scattered haphazardly, taking advantage of the existing terrain features rather than altering that terrain to fit human notions of organization.

Lacking the neat, ruler-precise order of a Roman fortress, the settlement was a startling visual symbol of the Britons' slow slide toward darkness, a darkness settling rapidly across all of Europe. These people were clearly desperate to keep their Roman civilization running, without the highly skilled engineers, stonemasons, and architects to carry it off properly. Still, they'd done a good job building this fortress, large enough to shelter everyone in the town below, if necessary. A colonnaded entrance, its sandstone pillars drenched by the cold rain, was a suitably impressive entryway for visitors coming to call on Strathclyde's royalty. The doors opened as they clattered into the courtyard, a sea of mud with a border of chipped and shivering Romanesque sculpture, graceful nymphs and proud heroes half drowned in the stinging downpour, looking half frozen with filmy gowns and nude male torsos bare to the wind and rain.

A woman in her late thirties rushed into the muddy yard, taking in their grim faces and silence with a look of fright. Clinoch sat swallowing repeatedly, apparently unable to stir from the saddle. Morgana was the first to break out of the awkward paralysis that held them all as frozen and cold as the statuary watching from the fringes. She slid fluidly out of the saddle and crossed the muddy courtyard to grip the other woman's hands. "Braithna..." she said inadequately, voice breaking.

"He's dead, isn't he?" the queen of Strathclyde cried, voice shrill with terror. Her hair, streaming wild and wet down her face, lay in limp copper ribbons and her skin had run ashen beneath a dusting of freckles. Clinoch, deathly pale beneath his own scattering of freckles, sat watching in numbed silence from his saddle. The boy obviously had no idea how to comfort his grieving mother. Morgana lifted the wet hair back from the woman's trembling lips and brow so she could meet streaming blue eyes that did not want the worst confirmed.

"Braithna, I grieve with you, for my own husband is not yet in the ground, and my sons too young to safeguard the throne he has left empty. Your Clinoch fought as bravely as any man I have ever seen, Braithna. He will rule Strathclyde wisely and will take care that no harm comes to you or to any more of your family."

The other woman began to sob uncontrollably, collapsing into Morgana's arms. The two queens clung together, their grief as raw as the rain pelting down with such pitiless fury. Stirling found himself on the ground without realizing he'd intended to move, and guided the women out of the rain, all but carrying Braithna. "See to the horses," he called over his shoulder, then they were inside and Clinoch was right behind them, paralysis broken, shouting for servants to see to his mother.

The royal reception hall was several degrees warmer than the raw outer air, clearly having been constructed by someone at least passingly familiar with Roman central heating, but all resemblance to Roman architecture ended there. Bare stone walls lacked plaster or murals, although someone had fastened animal skins as decorative insulation along most of the open wall space. Oil lamps rested in iron brackets riveted to the stones. One long wall boasted an open hearth, the most strikingly un-Roman feature of the large room, where a large fire blazed cheerfully. A bed of coals two meters long spilled additional heat into the room, while smoke escaped through a narrow opening in the roof.

A wide-eyed, red-haired boy of perhaps five stared at them from beside the hearth, sitting in the midst of toys he had clearly been playing with just a moment previously. He hung back, frightened and beginning to cry. A girl of perhaps ten, a slender, freckled version of her brothers, gathered the boy in, hushing and rocking him as Ancelotis guided their mother to the hearth.

Morgana retrieved her satchel of medicines, crushing a handful of leaves into a steaming kettle hanging over the fire and steeping them until the water turned a dark, mysterious shade that satisfied her. Someone brought blankets and wrapped them around the shuddering Braithna. Morgana dipped up her brew into a simple, wooden cup and got the entire cupful down Braithna's throat, coaxing her with apologies for the strong and bitter taste.

"Just a bit more, that's good, I've made it strong, to fight off the shock you've had."

Artorius, Stirling noticed, was quietly and efficiently giving orders to summon the council of Strathclyde while Clinoch sent riders to bear his father's body to the chapel. The boy retained enough presence of mind to order servants to bring food and hot, mulled wine for the weary and chilled soldiers who still waited in the rain outside. "Quarter the men of Gododdin with our own," Clinoch told an older man who clearly filled the role of that ageless and ever-present type of official who appears wherever courts of power come into existence, calm and colorless and competent. "Then send hot food for the men, hot bran mash for the horses, we've come a wicked long way and have a worse ride ahead. Artorius is calling for a full high council of the Briton kings at Caerleul. Bid the council of Strathclyde meet in this hall no later than one hour from now. Decisions cannot wait for time nor tide when the Saxons are on the march."

The colorless official bowed and departed in considerable haste.

Meanwhile, whatever Morgana had persuaded Braithna to swallow, it seemed to be helping. The harsh, uncontrollable weeping had tapered off to a few sodden hiccoughs now and again as she struggled to bring her wild grief into some manageable form of containment. More blankets put in a welcome appearance and Stirling wrapped himself in thick, woolen warmth, grateful as well for the mulled wine and fresh-baked, hot-from-the-oven barley cakes beginning to make the rounds.

Servants were bringing piles of dry clothing, as well, and set up a heavy wooden screen near the fire, which allowed Morgana, Covianna Nim, and Ganhumara to doff heavy, wet gowns and capes that held the rainwater against the skin and added to the chill. The women soaked up the heat of the hearth on their side of the screen, even as the men changed clothing on the other side of the screen, equally grateful for the warmth. Servants took their wet garments away, presumably to hang near other hearth fires to dry them. The women emerged at length and began working on their drenched hair, while Queen Braithna had calmed enough to call her children to her and hold them close while they wept.

Grey-haired councillors began to arrive, full of apologetic horror at the news, hardly knowing whether to address their own grieving queen, their dead king's heir, Artorius the Dux Bellorum, Morgana who was also recently widowed, or Ancelotis, because he now sat on the throne Morgana had declined. They reminded Stirling of a flock of fluttering, uncertain pigeons, trying to decide which cat to placate first.

Artorius put them at their ease with few enough words, outlining the entire series of disasters in a handful of terse, to-the-point sentences, making it quite clear that he supported Clinoch ap Dumgual Hen. Morgana added her support, as did Ancelotis. Within a quarter of an hour, the decision was made and Clinoch was officially King of Strathclyde. His younger brothers and sisters looked on in confused awe as he was invested with the full power of the crown by the church, in a ceremony only slightly more formal and ornate that Ancelotis' own.

It was, however, just as brief.

The new king's first order was to see to his father's funeral arrangements in his absence, "for the Saxons are massing to the south," he explained to his councillors, "and maneuvering in the midlands, and if successful in both places, they could punch through to demolish the northern kingdoms within the year."

Braithna kissed her son's cheeks and murmured, "We will see to all proper ceremony. Ride like a sudden summer gale and do your part to keep the Saxons guessing and off guard."

They waited only long enough to shovel down hot stew and bread and stow more trail rations in their kit bags, then they were under way again, amidst a great flurry of trumpet calls. The brassy voices of the signal trumpets pursued them down the twisting, muddy road from the fortified heights down to the Clyde estuary. Narrow, cobbled streets echoed with the sound of unshod hooves on uneven stone. Then they were through the town's southern gate, clattering onto a well-paved stretch of Roman road leading south. Once past the cat's-claw hook of water that formed the very tip of the Firth of Clyde, they drove straight down through the Southern Uplands and the Tweedsmuir Hills toward the distant and meaningless—to anyone from the sixth century—border between modern Scotland and modern England.

After a grueling day Stirling hoped never to repeat in his life, the rain clouds finally broke up and let the sky show through, pale as ice and just as cold. The chilly sun dropped gradually behind the hills and left them riding into the faces of long, purple shadows. The sky blazed with the colors of blood and flame and faerie gold. Night slipped over them on silent cat's feet once more, toying with the vanishing sun until the fiery plaything fell over the edge of the world and left them riding by starlight. The heavens were far from dark, however. Stirling's first glance up left his mouth hanging open in astonishment. Stars blazed in such brilliant profusion, scattered like a carelessly overturned saltshaker on a velvet tablecloth, Stirling's breath caught.

He had never, not even during desert training, seen a night sky to equal it. The heavens were so thickly populated, it took him long moments just to spot familiar constellations and several moments more to understand why they were slightly skewed from true in their not-quite-changeless march across the night skies. Gooseflesh prickled beneath armor and sodden wool. Little wonder the ancients had revered the night sky as sacred, filled with the shining souls of departed heroes. Every man, woman, and child on Earth ought to see a sky like this at least once. The experience might instill perspective on the insignificance of squabbles like Belfast's, when weighed against the infinite reaches of the heavens.

Stirling held back a tired sigh.

The column entered the upper reaches of a land Stirling heard referred to as Caer-Guendoleu, passing a stone post which marked the border. Ganhumara, having ridden in silence for hours, beckoned to the nearest of Artorius' cataphracti, an officer if Stirling judged correctly the quality of his arms and the deference of the men who rode with him. The man reined closer to the queen's lighter mount.

"My lady?"

"Bear a message to my legate at fortress Caer-Guendoleu. Bid him sharpen my late father's sword."

The ominous words chilled Stirling, heavy reminder of the dead they'd already left behind, who were themselves mere tokens—or so Ancelotis feared—compared with those slated to die if this challenge weren't stopped in some bloodless and apparently impossible fashion. The officer bowed stiffly at the waist and reined around—but not to depart, as Stirling expected. He requested permission to leave the column from his commanding officer. A moment later, he vanished into the darkness with a muted drumming of hooves against wet earth.

Stirling watched him go, brows twitching in impressed surprise. Clearly, not even a royal command superseded military discipline. Artorius commanded well. Of course, he must command well, given the odds he fought against and his track record of victories. It occurred to Stirling for the first time that he could learn a thing or two about soldiering from the Dux Bellorum. The observation wrung another derisive snort from Ancelotis. Stirling sighed. He was not making a particularly good impression on his host.

It was well past midnight, with the constellations wheeling silently overhead in a bitterly cold sky and Stirling reeling in the saddle, when the bulky shadow of the Sixth Legion's stronghold appeared at last. An immense fortress of classic Roman design, it towered above the final stretch of road. The grey shadow of Hadrian's Wall, shocking Stirling with its height—a good five meters of it, when the only surviving remnants in the twenty-first century stood barely a meter high—vanished into the darkness on either side of the fortress, marching toward the sea in both directions. The moonlit waters of Solway Firth glittered in the distance, silver where an onshore wind pushed ripples across the black stretch of water. The estuary's farthest reaches vanished into the blackness of sky at the horizon line.

Torches burned at the entrance to the great Roman fortification. A sizable civilian settlement—which Ancelotis referred to by its Latin military term, the canabae of Caerleul fortress—had grown up around the Legion's winter camp. Houses and shops were an odd mixture of wattle-and-daub hovels, stave houses built of planked timber with twig-thatched roofs, and stone structures resembling miniature Roman villas, many of the latter in poor repair. No lights showed in the few windows Stirling could see, although a glance over his shoulder revealed sleepy inhabitants peering nervously from darkened doorways, roused by the thunder of Artorius' return to Carlisle.

The fortress, in sharp contrast to the canabae, had been maintained in excellent repair. Or, at least, had been repaired excellently. The circumvallation's outer layer consisted of a latticework of pits and potholes and trenches into which sharpened stakes had been sunk, pointed outward, with raised berms on either side of the trenches. Inside this defensive ring lay a series of five narrow trenches like the rings of a bull's-eye, filled with the bristling nastiness of thorny shrubbery, hawthorn boughs, from the looks of it. A good twenty-seven feet wide, when measured together as one massive unit, each of the five rings boasted a ramped earthen face, up which an attacker would have to toil before attempting to cross the thorns.

Inside the prickly circles lay two ditches, both of them nine feet wide and seven feet deep. And finally, the immense stretch of the fortress wall itself, made of blood-red sandstone which rose twelve feet above the bottom of the innermost ditch. More thorny branches had been embedded in the wall, which was topped by a tall stone palisade with twenty-foot stone towers every few yards. Each tower stood three stories high and provided three fighting platforms. The place had been built to last, since this fortress had been designed to serve as winter camp to the entire Sixth Legion.

Tired as he was and dark as the night was, Stirling still pinpointed the locations of a full guard contingent along those palisades. If he'd been an invader, he'd have thought twice—three times—before putting this fortress' defenses to the test. Maybe the Saxons counted on drawing Artorius' army into the open by laying waste to the dozens of little villages scattered throughout the region? It was the only sane tactic Stirling could see, without access to black powder and cannons, at the very least. Doubtless, the Saxons had already thought of it—or would very soon after Cutha's arrival. Artorius would have considered that, as well, if he was half the commander Stirling already suspected he was.

What Stirling hadn't expected was the prickle of awe which ran up his spine as they slowed to a walk and filed through the narrow, guarded entrance of Artorius' military stronghold. Stirling was, after all, accustomed to living and even shopping in buildings hundreds of years old. And he'd seen Stonehenge, which was considerably older than these fortifications—by several millennia, in fact. But he couldn't help feeling the strange, hushed wonderment that comes from entering a place of great antiquity, any more than he could help searching out what details he could see.

They entered by way of a traverse outside the fortress gate, a short arc of wall surmounted by an armed guard, which forced them to ride parallel to the fortress wall for a long way before entering the actual gate—then they had to ride back along the return of the long, S-shaped curve past an inner arc of traverse wall, doubling the distance and time a defender could shoot at them. It was nearly as effective as a medieval castle's murder room, which served the same purpose, come to think of it, allowing archers, javelin—or, in the Romans' case, pilum—throwers, or pikemen ample opportunity to wreak their lethal havoc.

Once through the convolutions of the gate, Stirling's gaze came to rest on a veritable small town of red sandstone barracks, stables, buildings for which he couldn't even hazard a guess as to their functions, tired as he was. A broad avenue at least a hundred and twenty feet wide ran along the inside perimeter, with stair-stepped terraces making access to the palisades and towers quick and easy. They followed this road to the left, riding nearly four hundred yards before reaching the corner—whereupon Stirling discovered that they'd entered through the narrow end of the fortress. The length of wall stretching out before Stirling's bleary eyes was half again longer than the length of the wall behind them.

They passed torches at regular intervals, their ruddy light flickering across neat lettering on the walls of buildings at the corners of the perimeter road and interior cross streets. Only half the width of the outer road, the street Artorius led them down was still a good sixty feet from side to side, with the intersection neatly labeled Via Quintana in Roman lettering. Clearly, someone had been renewing the paint during the past century. The Britons were clinging to their Romanized roots with a typically Celtic passion.

Stirling was more than happy to turn his horse over to the boys assigned duty in the stables, which bordered the Via Quintana for many yards. He slid out of the saddle and had to grip the nearest saddle horns tightly to prevent himself sliding all the way to the ground. Horses whickered greetings, tired newcomers welcoming sleepy stablemates. One of the stable boys carried a water pail and dipper, which he gave first to Artorius, who passed it to Morgana, Ganhumara, and Covianna in turn before drinking his fill. Stirling got next crack at the water, which he needed rather desperately. He passed the dipper on to Medraut and the king of Strathclyde.

Stirling was pleased, at least, that he hadn't fallen down, although he had to speak sternly to Ancelotis' legs before they consented to carry him across the open courtyard. Artorius led them through the doorway of Caerleul's principium, clearly the largest building inside the fort, a long stone rectangle with its short end opening onto the Via Quintana. The men of Artorius' escort and the cataphracti of Gododdin and Strathclyde tended their horses before heading for other structures, presumably barracks, laid out with all the formal precision typical of a Roman encampment.

A young girl, a child no more than twelve or thirteen, with dark hair in braids and dark eyes too mature for her years, held the door as they passed the threshold. How much war had this child witnessed firsthand? Eleven victories Artorius had already won, driving back invaders from every direction. And how many children just like this girl had already died? Not as many as would die, if Brenna McEgan weren't stopped.

He saw the room through a haze of bleary-eyed exhaustion and the reddish gold, smoky light of torches flickering across the red sandstone of the walls. Torchlight was augmented by Roman-style oil lamps in both pottery and stone varieties. Sullen coals lay heaped in an immense hearth which sprawled across the very center of the room like a child's playbox full of sand, with marble border stones enclosing a space a good twelve inches deep and at least four feet on each side, sixteen square feet given over to the coals. The hearth had clearly been designed to augment the central heating beneath the floors, a double effort to keep out the chill of a Scottish border town's winter. The huge hearth simultaneously allowed a small army of women to prepare a wide variety of foodstuffs over a blazing sea of embers. A small forest of iron pothooks, support tripods, and roasting spits jutted up like stiff snakes. The huge firepit vented through a smoke hole in the ceiling, an opening that reminded Stirling of the atrium in Roman villas, only smaller and covered with some type of protective hood on the roof to keep rain from falling directly into the firepit during bad weather. Tables and benches surrounded the central hearth, forming a shape that was more a twelve-sided polygon than circular. Weary travelers collapsed onto the benches closest to the fire, huddling beside the coals for warmth.

Servants moved in shadowy anonymity, shapeless in woolen tunics and drab woolen dresses. Flames leaped higher in the huge firepit. Someone had added kindling to the coals. As firelight flared up, Stirling caught more details of the room. Most of the furniture had been crudely constructed from rough planking, underscoring the utilitarian, military function of the place, although he saw a group of massive wooden chairs along one wall, nearly hidden in shadow, which appeared to be more finely wrought. If this was supposed to be Camelot, it was a big disappointment in the aesthetic department.

Still, there was an indefinable air of mystery about the place, a sense that Stirling had stepped into a museum peopled with ghosts who'd forgotten they were dead. He rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his head, senses swimming. Thus distracted, he failed to notice the woman's appearance. At the sound of her voice, Ancelotis jerked his gaze up. Thaney, Ancelotis' niece and queen of Rheged, was not a beautiful girl, but there was a compelling intensity in the clear green eyes and if that mouth had ever uttered a cruel word, Stirling was no judge of human nature.

"Artorius!" she cried with glad welcome, while quietly gesturing for a servant who brought a pitcher of something that tasted strongly of alcohol and washed the fuzz out of Stirling's mouth when his turn came at the cups circulating round the tables. "We feared you would return too late. The Saxon emissaries are no more than a few hours' ride to the south. They will be here by dawn." Her gaze found Ancelotis and her eyes widened in considerable surprise. "Ancelotis? It's good to have you here, Uncle, but I don't understand why you've come."

Ancelotis moved quickly to take her hands in his much larger, calloused ones. "Your father is dead, child," he said softly. "Killed by Picts at the border, north of Caer-Iudeu. The council has given me the kingship until Gwalchmai is of age."

Thaney paled and her eyes widened, but she made no sound, although her fingers tightened almost convulsively around his. After several swallows, she finally whispered, "I will mourn him more than you know."

Stirling understood, even though Ancelotis was puzzled. She had desperately wanted her father's love and approval and had nearly been murdered by him instead, and now she had lost all hope of ever gaining what she had so understandably wanted and needed. As Stirling's insight burst through Ancelotis' awareness, he folded his niece into his arms and just held her while she trembled.

"What's wrong?" a man Ancelotis recognized as Thaney's husband asked urgently, having come into the room still buckling on his sword. Meirchion Gul was a tall and exceedingly lean man, with the incongruous look of an over-muscled scarecrow, too tall for grace, too physically fit for any real sense of awkwardness. Despite the lateness of the hour—it was the middle of the night, after all, and bad news had not traveled any faster than they had, bearing it—there was an alertness to his eyes that told Stirling this man missed very little, indeed. He moved swiftly to his wife, stroking her hair with a protective gesture. "What is it? What's happened?"

Ancelotis gave them the disastrous double dose of bad news quickly, neatly, and quietly. Meirchion Gul scowled like thunder and struck one fist against his other hand repeatedly. When the telling was done, King Meirchion greeted Morgana and young Clinoch in turn, murmuring the inadequacies one is reduced to mouthing when nothing can be said that will lessen the pain and shock of loss. "We will, of course, honor Lot Luwddoc and Dumgual Hen with all appropriate funerary rituals, given the short shrift you have each been forced to give your honored dead."

"My thought exactly," Artorius nodded, "and the very complexity of the rituals will buy us time with the Saxons."

Before Meirchion could respond, another voice interrupted, rising in irritation like a waterspout out of a storm-slashed sea. "The devil take you hindmost, imbecile! May Hades, Lord of Darkness, eat your ill-mannered cockles and spit out your soul for Manannan to bait his fishhook! Out of my way!"

The man who swept into the room was taller than anyone Stirling had yet seen, taller even than Meirchion Gul, certainly a distinction in a land peopled with compactly built Brythonic Celts. He was powerfully made, moving with the speed and single-minded purposefulness of a bull charging into a wolf pack. His chilly blue eyes missed nothing—and the moment Stirling looked into those eyes, he was utterly and irrevocably convinced that a great deal of what those eyes saw was invisible to mere mortals.

Whoever he was, he'd twisted iron-grey hair into long and intricate braids, reminding Stirling more of Vikings than Dark Age Britons. The man had counted at least fifty years, at a guess, and the robes he wore would have been monkish had they not been bleached the same snowy white as Covianna's and cut in exactly the same style, with the same long hood folded back over the shoulders. He wore no ornamentation, not even a cross, which Stirling certainly would have expected of a Christian priest.

"Emrys Myrddin," Artorius greeted the man drolly, "one day your wife will toss you into the nearest loch and where will the people of the dragon be then, eh?"

"Bad news travels swiftly, Artorius," the grey-haired man said coolly, ignoring the jibe, "and you have left it late, this time. Morgana, Clinoch, I grieve for your loss. Meirchion, summon the high council of Rheged and send messengers to all the kings of the Britons, north and south. Tell them to send their sons to vote their pleasure, if they cannot tear themselves away to meet in high council by week's end. Artorius, you did well to order the ancient hill forts of the south strengthened and refortified, where the old walls had crumbled to dust. With the deaths of two kings of the north, the Saxons will abandon guile and attack as soon as they hear the news. Ancelotis," he said with an abrupt shift of attention, "you are not well. Sit you down, before your knees collapse."The concern in his tone surprised Stirling, who was still trying blearily to follow the lightning-swift observations and predictions.

Stirling wiped cold sweat from his brow and stared, surprised, at his damp fingers. "Sorry," he mumbled, stumbling to the nearest wooden bench, where he sat down a trifle too heavily. Queen Thaney frowned and spoke sharply to the servants. They brought him another brimming mugful of the same alcoholic beverage he'd just drunk, which he decided must be mead as he gulped the stuff down like medicine. A joint of roasted meat arrived—he had no idea what kind—and hot soup rich with meat stock, vegetables, and barley. A few mouthfuls later, he started feeling almost human again. Myrddin sounded his pulse while the others tore into their own meals.

As Stirling downed a third mugful of mead—probably a mistake in his exhausted condition—Morgana sat down across the table from him and consumed her own meal with the determined look of a soldier who is too keyed up to feel hunger, but knows he must eat, to retain his strength. Standing near the end of their table, Covianna told Myrddin succinctly everything she knew about Ancelotis' collapse, finishing with a description of the treatment Morgana had rendered that first night.

"Well thought," the older man nodded approvingly toward Morgana, who nodded back in appreciation, leaving Covianna's eyes glittering and her fingers curling into talons where she crushed the long skirt of her robes beneath her angry grip. By the time Emrys Myrddin glanced back at her, Covianna had herself under control again and presented him with a sweet smile.

"I would count it a great honor, Emrys Myrddin, if you could find just a few moments to teach me a bit more. I would have been all but helpless to assist Ancelotis, had Morgana not been present to see to his care. And with the Saxons massing on Glastenning's border, I would count it a great favor to learn all I can of healing, should the swine overrun Glastenning Tor and attack my kinsmen and the priests of the abbey."

Emrys Myrddin missed the piercing look Morgana shot his way, because he was gazing at Covianna Nim with such pleased infatuation, sharply at odds with his earlier, surgically precise manner, even Stirling felt a serious twinge of alarm. "My dear Covianna, I would be honored to continue your instruction." He lifted a hand to brush a wisp of honey-colored hair back from her brow, where it had escaped her long, single braid. She smiled radiantly and murmured, "I am all gratitude."

Emrys Myrddin gave her cheek a final caress, then dragged his attention back to the business at hand. "Ancelotis, you must be fit to meet those Saxon swine when they ride into Caerleul and you have a hollow, dazed look about you that I mislike."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Stirling mumbled around a mouthful. "And on time."

Myrddin favored him with a thin smile. "Indeed. And if you fall flat on the ground in front of Cutha, you might as well have stayed in Gododdin."

The barb struck home, mostly because it was true. Not that Stirling could have prevented the collapse, given the immense shock of transition through time. "I won't fall down in front of Cutha or anybody else," he muttered, washing down the mouthful of roast. "I'm fine. Or I will be, after I've had more sleep." He couldn't stifle the jaw-cracking yawn.

"We'll all fare better for some sleep," Artorius agreed, shoving back his empty bowl, scraped clean of every speck of stew. "Ganhumara." He rose, holding one hand out to his wife. "Morgana, Clinoch, Ancelotis, we'll speak again at first light." Artorius gave them a strangely formal salute, Roman-style, then took his leave.

The company was breaking up, servants scurrying to clear away wooden trenchers and mugs, Medraut escorting his aunt away while Thaney and Meirchion departed, and Covianna and Myrddin, still comparing notes on how best to treat Ancelotis' "ailment," abandoned him without a further glance. Sage and disciple, more interested in the intellectual puzzle than the patient—or perhaps merely self-absorbed in one another. If Emrys Myrddin had a wife, as Artorius had mentioned, Stirling wondered how she would feel about Covianna's presence. Clearly, Emrys Myrddin wasn't terribly concerned with a wife's opinion, as publicly besotted as he appeared to be over the hypnotically attractive Covianna Nim.

Whatever the case, Stirling wanted nothing more than to hit the nearest bed and sleep for about a year. Stirling staggered to his feet, then paused. He had no idea where Ancelotis was supposed to sleep, when in garrison. The king of Gododdin had no such difficulty, however, and steered a mostly steady path through the tables toward the doorway where everyone but the servants had already departed.

The narrow corridor in which Stirling found himself had the look of a covered portico which had later been closed in, the now-solid stone wall keeping out cold and rain and snow. Bricks, carefully mortared, filled in the spaces between heavy stone columns. These were not the fancier Roman variety—most of which were not solid marble, in any case, constructed rather of a thin facing of fluted marble over a rougher stone for interior support—but were simple, massive pillars of rough-dressed red sandstone, much like the stone used to build Carlisle's great castle and cathedral in later centuries.

It was entirely possible that the ancient Roman fortress had been dismantled to build that castle and cathedral, pre-dressed stone being easier to cannibalize from existing structures than undressed stone could be quarried raw from the earth and moved into place. And if Stirling's memory of his last visit to modern Carlisle was accurate, the castle and cathedral sat on the very site occupied by this stronghold.

Stirling stumbled into a little room Ancelotis had evidently used before, barked his shins on a wooden bed frame, and collapsed onto another fur-covered bag stuffed full of straw. He was asleep before he could even fumble his way out of his clothes.