The Lance Thrower

IX

MERLYN

TELL ME ABOUT THE DREAM you had … when Germanus spoke to you.”

I sat gaping at my questioner, wondering how he could have known of such a thing, and he smiled and waved a hand toward a table to his right, where papers and parchments were strewn in apparent chaos.

“Enos sent me a letter telling me about it and alerting me that you were on your way here. He had no way of knowing which of you would find me first—you, personally, or one of his priests—but he sent the letter anyway, anticipating that one of his people might reach me and warn me of your coming. So, when was this dream?”

I shrugged and leaned back into my chair. “I cannot say, with any certainty, Master Merlyn. It was at the end of the winter. Most of the snow had vanished, and Bishop Enos had finally been able to go out into the countryside, about his work. The earliest bloom of flowers had come and gone again … it was the end of March, perhaps early in April.”

I was sitting comfortably, in a folding, curule-style armchair that had a leather seat and back, and the man across from me, in an identical chair, almost smiled, the right side of his mouth twitching upward. “Do you mean to say that you had lost track of time?”

“Completely. It sounds ludicrous, I know, but it is true, nonetheless. We were very bored in Verulamium and it was a long, harsh winter. We would have left much sooner than we did, purely for the sake of moving, had it not been for Perceval’s injury. We were held down by that, waiting for his leg to heal.”

“It did heal, though, and remarkably well.”

“Aye, considering the damage he did to it. He walks now with only the slightest limp, and that will soon be gone. He grows stronger every day. But it was fortunate that his brother Tristan was there with us and knew what needed to be done.”

“Aye, it was indeed. Now tell me about this dream of yours, if you will.”

I shrugged again. “It was a dream, what more can I say? I dreamt it.”

“But it had a salutary effect upon you, did it not? Greater than any dream you had ever known. You told Enos that it was the most realistic dream you had ever had, and that it had forced you to change your plans. It sent you off to look for me, did it not?”

“Aye, all of that is true.”

“And why was that? What made it so different? You will forgive my insistence, I hope, but the matter is important to me.”

I sucked in a deep breath and sat straighter, stifling my impatience with this man whom I had met less than an hour earlier, after pursuing him three times across the width of Britain.

We had arrived back at the gates of Camulod without giving anyone warning of our arrival, but our presence had been noticed even before we reached the outer perimeter of the territories ruled by the colony, and as we approached the castellum, it was to discover that we were expected. Merlyn Britannicus, I was told then, had convened a gathering of Camulod’s senior strategists earlier that day and would be unable to join us until the meeting was completed with its agenda satisfied. Fortunately, the guard commander told me the assembly had been in session since shortly after dawn, and no one expected them to take more than another hour to conclude their business. In the meantime, we were taken to the bathhouse, where we cleansed ourselves of the accumulated dirt of ten days on the road, and then to the refectory, where we stuffed ourselves on freshly prepared food far richer than any rations we could ever carry in our packs.

Sure enough, soon after we left the cookhouse with our bellies full, a soldier came looking for me. Merlyn had emerged from his conference and invited me to join him in his private quarters. I went with the messenger immediately, my mind swarming with thoughts of finally meeting with the man I had come so far to see.

I had heard many things about Merlyn Britannicus in my travels across Britain and some of them were simply incredible, defying both logic and belief but titillating and terrifying the very folk who whispered of them. Merlyn Britannicus was a sorcerer, these people said, perhaps the blackest sorcerer ever to live in Britain. Even his clothing proclaimed the fact that he was a practitioner of the black arts, a familiar of the gods of darkness. He dressed in loose, long-flowing robes of deepest black, and no man or woman was permitted to look upon his face. But then, the person speaking always added, who would want to? This was Merlyn Britannicus, of Camulod, a man whose death at the hands of his archenemy hundreds had witnessed. And then, after his death, they had continued to watch in horror as the head was struck from his corpse with his own sword.

Carthac, the monster who had killed him, carried Merlyn’s head back to his camp, swinging it by its long, golden hair as he went. The camp was enclosed and virtually unassailable, high in the mountains and miles from the scene of the fight where the rest of Merlyn’s corpse had been left lying. Carthac had shown Merlyn’s severed head to his whole army, swinging it high around his own head before casting it into a bonfire, where it exploded in a fireball the likes of which no one had ever seen, filling the air with billowing, choking smoke and whirling sparks. And from that cloud of smoke, to the consternation and awestricken terror of everyone who saw it, Merlyn Britannicus had leaped into view, miraculously reborn, to kill and strike the head off Carthac in his turn and send all his followers screaming out into the open air, where they found Pendragon bowmen waiting to shoot them down from the mountain slopes above their camp.

From that day forth, these storytellers said, Merlyn had walked in silence, shrouded in robes of deepest black, and all men shunned him.

That was the people’s version, the tale told in hushed voices throughout the land on dark nights when the wind howled in the distant emptiness beyond the firelight.

The version I had learned from Merlyn’s. friends was very different. The man Carthac had beheaded was actually Ambrose Ambrosianus, Merlyn’s half brother, close enough to Merlyn in appearance to be virtually identical. The two brothers had worked hard to turn that close resemblance into a tactical weapon, cultivating it in such a way that they wore identical clothes and armor and were never seen together. Because they were frequently seen fighting on the same days, but at great distances from each other, the story spread that Merlyn the Sorcerer could win simultaneous victories and be seen triumphant on the same morning or afternoon on two battlefields twenty or thirty miles apart.

On the day when Merlyn was “reborn,” he had penetrated Carthac’s camp disguised as a sick messenger, and he was sitting by the fire pit, nursing a pouch full of some mysterious fire powder. It had been his intention to use the fire powder to create a diversion that would allow him an opportunity to kill Carthac, taking him by surprise in his own camp, by his own fireside, where he least expected any threat. Unaware that Carthac had even met Ambrose, let alone captured him, Merlyn was therefore taken completely by surprise himself by what transpired, and he had barely begun to assimilate what he was seeing when Carthac threw Ambrose’s head into the fire. Then, intent upon recovering his brother’s head before it could take further harm, Merlyn had dashed into the flames, forgetting that he was carrying the bag of his magical fire powder. The powder spilled into the open fire with a terrifying explosion of flames and smoke, and from that cloud Merlyn had emerged in front of Carthac, stunning everyone and stabbing the enemy leader. to the heart before he could react.

Carthac, however, was not to be easily killed. Panicked perhaps by the miraculous reincarnation of a man he had just beheaded, and ignoring the wound in his chest, he scooped Merlyn up and threw him bodily back into the heart of the bonfire from which he had sprung. Merlyn landed flat among the coals and sustained grave injuries, but fortunately—although he himself would come to question that good fortune in the long, exhausting months of rehabilitation that stretched ahead of him—the explosion of fire powder had blown the blaze apart and scattered the fierce-burning branches and bright embers that would otherwise have consumed him completely. As it was, he emerged only slightly disfigured and incapacitated, although his burnt legs ensured that he would never ride a horse again with any ease and would forever afterward walk with a pronounced limp. His left arm and hand, too, were badly damaged, his fingers reduced to little more than claws, and his face, particularly the left side of his mouth, bore scars of what could have been a far more hideous burn. Whenever Merlyn smiled, his mouth was pulled awry on that one side, twisted downward artificially to expose his lower teeth. But then, whenever Merlyn Britannicus smiled, everyone who noticed—and there were very few of those—was invariably glad, because his natural self shone through. The eyes of the people who made up the rest of the world never penetrated the darkness beyond the long, black outer robes he wore, or the hood that overshadowed his face and kept even his eyes concealed from unwanted scrutiny.

This was the man who sat across from me now, the hood of his outer robe pushed back to expose the yellow hair—now showing broad streaks of silver gray—that swept back from a wide, high forehead and keen, deep-set and piercing eyes beneath straight, golden brows.

It was hard not to stare at him, because this man had become a legend and much of the legend had to do with his unseen face, so I was signally aware of the honor he was doing me by allowing me to look upon his face. It was a strong face, but strangely coarse looking, almost as though the skin had undergone some kind of abrasion that had almost broken it. I was dissatisfied with that explanation even as it occurred to me, but I could find no better way to describe it.

The first, ridiculous idea that sprang into my mind upon seeing him was that here was some kind of lion man. I had seen two caged lions, in a traveling entertainment that had visited the Bishop’s School in my second year there, and they had impressed me greatly with their quiet dignity, their strength, and their coloring. Stretched out in the dusty afternoon sunlight on the floor of his cage, and surrounded by chattering, gesticulating boys, the old male, dusky, dusty, and stoic, had crouched motionless, ignoring everyone and everything, his eyes closed in disdain as he contemplated some other reality far removed from where he lay.

Something about Merlyn Britannicus had immediately reminded me of that old lion—perhaps the coloring, I thought at first, but then it struck me that it was the man’s face that had prompted the memory. Merlyn Britannicus’s face was leonine, and that had to do with the curiously roughened quality of his features. His nose was broad and spatulate, beginning between his brows, where it appeared to have thickened and grown flatter, and that general impression of additional and recent thickening persisted all the way down to his mouth, where even his upper lip showed signs of thickening, rather than swelling.

All of these thoughts and impressions flashed through my mind in the space of a moment, but I turned my eyes away quickly when I became aware that my host was watching me watching him. What I did not know, and would not learn for many more years, was that this leonine appearance, caused by a thickening and coarsening of the facial skin, is a primary mark of midstage leprosy.

I was thinking hard about what I hoped to gain from this meeting, but it was plain to me, even as I prepared to ask my own questions of him, that he would tell me little or nothing of what I wanted to know until he had heard all he wanted to hear from me. He sat watching me gravely from the opposite side of the fireplace in his personal quarters behind the Great Hall of Camulod, and the fire in the iron basket had died down to embers, wisps of smoke wafting up between us. There was not much light in the room, though the sun was shining brightly outside, and he sat between me and the only window, effectively placing himself in silhouette. Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod, soldier and warrior, philosopher and leader and, most recently by all accounts, sorcerer and warlock, sat waiting patiently for me to tell him all about something that mattered greatly to him but which barely signified with me at all. I had absolutely no interest in visiting the subject he was most curious about, because I had been living with the outcome of it for months past. I did recognize, however, that I had no option but to get on with it.

“Very well, Master Merlyn,” I said, successfully stifling a sigh, “let me start from the beginning.

“We set out to find you last year and it was already late autumn by the time we left Auxerre. Bishop Germanus had set out for Italia before that, to meet with the Pope and the other bishops, but before he left he gave me lengthy and explicit instructions about coming here and finding you, and he made it very clear to me that there was an urgency governing my mission to bring you his word.”

From that point I went on to tell him about our entire voyage: our landing at Glevum, our arrival in Camulod, and finding Bishop Enos in Veralamium.

“Bishop Enos had his men out looking for you,” I said in conclusion, “but it took a long, long time to locate you, since you apparently had no slightest wish to be found.”

Now Merlyn shrugged. “Why should I? The wars were ended and our home was safe again for the first time in years. I had been deeply involved in much of what had happened and had lost too many close friends and loved ones during the conflict without ever having time to grieve over any of their deaths. I felt then that it was time for me to withdraw, as far away as possible from everything, and be by myself for a while.

“Besides, in addition to my mourning, I had other matters to think about and decisions of some import to conclude, none of which would have been made easier by having other people around me. Had I expected or anticipated your arrival I would, of course, have returned earlier than I did, but Germanus had assured me that he would be coming in person this year and I took him absolutely at his word, never imagining that he might have superior orders that would preclude his coming here.”

I nodded, accepting the truth of that. “Well, it seems it was our fate to remain in Verulamium to endure what everyone has assured me was the longest, harshest, and most brutal winter anyone can remember.”

“That is true. I have never witnessed anything comparable to it. We had one like it many years ago, when I was young, and it killed many of the oldest and least healthful of our people here in Camulod, including my great-aunt Luceiia Britannicus. But even that winter, brutal as it was, was shorter and less savage than this one just past. Coming from Gaul, it must have been an unpleasant surprise for you.”

I nodded. “My young assistant, Bors, had never seen snow before. He comes from Iberia, to the southeast of Gaul on the shores of the Middle Sea, where he was born and bred to an unvarying climate of high heat and desert sunshine. He was thrilled by the first snow here, the newness of it, but that wore off quickly and left only the fact of a winter such as he had never imagined. The first two months of snow and ice and chill almost killed him. He wore more clothing during that time than any other three men in our group, and it required great effort at any time of day to prize him away from the fireside to do his daily tasks. He may never overcome his distaste for Britain’s climate now.”

Merlyn smiled. “Some of our own people feel the same way, and they were born here. A single trip to Africa, or to any of the warmer climes to the southward, can spoil a person forever afterward in their expectations of Britain. And after the winter had passed, you had to wait for your friend to heal?”

“We did, and were frustrated by the knowledge of time wasted. And then one night, in the blackest hours of the middle watch, Bishop Germanus came and sat on the edge of my cot. I knew he was there and I could see him clearly despite the darkness. I even felt his weight pulling my cot to one side as he sat down, and yet I could see myself as well, asleep on my cot and completely unaware of him. He reached down and shook me by the shoulder, but I was deeply asleep and merely sought to turn away from his grasp. He shook me again, and then a third time, whispering my name urgently, as though he wished not to be overheard by anyone else. It seemed to me I was standing apart, by the top of the bed, looking down at both of them—Germanus growing impatient with my unconsciousness and me, refusing to awaken. I remember wondering how the sleeping figure that was me could possibly be so unaware of what was going on, and then it came to me that I had been astir before dawn the previous day and had worked in the stables with Bors, almost without stopping, from then until I fell into bed late that night.

“Eventually, however, Germanus took my left hand and dug the point of his thumbnail into the very base of mine. That woke me up, quickly. I came up out of darkness snarling, aware of the pain in my hand and preparing to defend myself, only to find Germanus’s hand flat against my chest, pushing me down as he called my name again, bidding me wake up. Then, when he was satisfied I was awake and aware of him, but before I could even think to question him about his being there, he spoke to me.

“‘Clothar,’ he said, ‘listen to me. Listen closely, for I have but little time. You must find Merlyn Britannicus, quickly. That is the only reason now for you to be in Britain. Find Merlyn. Give him the information that you carry from me. Go, now, and do as I bid you.’ And then he placed his outstretched hand over my eyes and sent me back to sleep, and the part of me that stood as witness watched him rise and walk out of the tent. And even although he had carried no light, the tent darkened into blackness as he passed out through the flaps. In the blackness that remained then I grew dizzy and fell into I know not what. But I awoke the next morning with every detail of the dream brilliantly clear in my mind and went searching for Bishop Enos immediately.”

The man across from me, whom I still could not regard as the Merlyn Britannicus I had envisioned, nodded his head slowly, sucking his upper lip down into his mouth to where he could grasp and nibble it between his teeth. “Hmm,” he mused, “that is what Enos told me in his letter, although he lacked the details you have just supplied. Tell me.” He fixed me with a sharp gaze. “Do you believe the visitation really happened? You have already said that it was no more than a dream, and yet you acted upon it.You left Verulamium and came west. What do you really believe?”

I answered cautiously but firmly, choosing my words with great care. “I believed it at the time. I believed it was, as you say, a visitation, a vision of some kind. I had no understanding of what I had seen, or dreamed, or imagined, or of how it came to pass, and all the logic of my training told me that such things are quite impossible. And yet our faith teaches us to believe in miracles, and I have no difficulty in believing in those things when they involve holy and devout people in extraordinary circumstances.” I stopped and searched for words to express what I wanted to say next. “There are many stories told in Gaul of miracles performed by Germanus. Were you aware of that?”

“No,” he said. “I did not know that, but it hardly surprises me. Is it true?”

I shrugged. “It’s true that there are stories told of it. Whether or not there is truth in the stories is beyond me. But people over there speak of him as being saintly, and I truly believe he is. He himself, however, will have nothing to do with such tales. He has sworn to me in person that there is no substance to any of those reports. He says that people merely perceive what they wish to perceive and will bend truth and facts to suit their own requirements. I asked him once, when he was in full flight over this, if he was denying the existence of miracles, and of course he was not. He corrected me immediately and with great passion on that. But what he was denying—and he was adamant on this—was his personal ability to perform miracles or to contribute to anything that might ever be described in any way as being miraculous.

“I continued to believe, throughout the months that followed my dream, that contrary to logic and to all the laws of probability and possibility, Bishop Germanus came into my tent that night and spoke to me. I believed it happened. And I believed he had come there to tell me I had to come here, seeking you. And thus, I suppose I believed I had experienced a miracle. It was a wonderful sensation, although almost frightening, for as long as it lasted.”

“And do you no longer believe it was a miracle?” Merlyn was looking at me now through narrowed eyes, and I shrugged dismissively in response.

“How can I, now that I know the truth? Miracles are miraculous, Master Merlyn. They are supernatural occurrences originated and performed by God Himself, often through human intermediaries. They are ungovernable and inexplicable under the laws or the expectations of mankind—Bishop Germanus’s own words. That says to me, by extension, that they must therefore be incapable of error. If that visitation had been truly miraculous—had Germanus somehow found, or been divinely granted, the ability to travel mentally and incorporeally to Britain for the sole purpose of visiting me in my sleep—then how could he not have known that the coronation ceremony, which was his primary concern, would take place in Verulamium and not in Camulod?

“My dream of Germanus sent me off across Britain seeking you after you had already made extensive preparations to have everything take place in Verulamium, for all the best and most logical and obvious of reasons. Your letter to Enos, outlining your wishes in what was to take place within his jurisdiction, as well as describing all the arrangements that you had already set in motion long before then, must have arrived in Verulamium within mere days of my departure. In other words, your letter had been written and sent off to Enos, and all your arrangements had been decided upon and their organization delegated to those responsible for them, long before I had my miraculous dream. Ergo et igitur, as my old teacher Cato would have said, there can be no talk of miracles in this, because a Germanus possessed of miraculous powers would have known what you proposed to do, and would have been aware of everything you had arranged. He would not have dispatched me on such a worthless chase as the one I have been pursuing ever since then.”

Merlyn had been sitting with an elbow on the arm of his chair, supporting his chin on his hand as he gazed at me and listened to my rant. Now he sat up straighter, releasing a deep, pent-up breath. “Is that really what you think Germanus did? Do you honestly believe he would send you off on a worthless chase?”

“No, Master Merlyn, not at all. What I believe now is that I had a vivid dream that night, and because the details of it remained with me the next morning—which is unusual in itself—I chose to allow myself to become obsessed with what I had dreamt. All the foolishness that has followed since then has been my own fault, attributable to my own overheated imagination and to nothing else.”

He sat looking at me, unblinking, for a count of ten heartbeats, then grunted deep in his chest. “Hmm. So you believe that everything you have done since leaving Verulamium has been futile, a waste of time.”

It was more a statement than a question, but I felt myself rearing back in surprise. “How could it be otherwise? Our pursuit of you, sir, achieved nothing but disappointment and ever-increasing frustration. Acting on the single trustworthy report we had received about where you might be found—a report from a wandering priest who had not known we were seeking you—I traveled directly from Verulamium to Caerdyff, in Cambria. I arrived there to find that you had departed more than a month earlier, to travel west along the coast to the Pendragon stronghold at Carmarthen. I followed you then to Carmarthen, by road, only to find that you had long since left there, too, again by sea, accompanied this time by the Pendragon clan chiefs and their warriors, to sail across the river estuary to Glevum, on your way home to Camulod. But that departure, I discovered, had occurred even before our original arrival in Caerdyff, and so our entire journey to Carmarthen had been futile and we were already more than a month—almost two months, in fact—behind you.

“Even then, however, I would have followed you directly, but your departure with the Pendragon levies had stripped the entire coastline of large vessels, and we wasted four more days trying in vain to find a ship capable of carrying us and our horses. And so we had to make our way back by land, along the entire length of the south Cambrian coast and up the river until we could find a way to cross to Glevum, losing more time and distance with every day that passed. By the time we finally arrived at Glevum, with several more days yet ahead of us before we would reach Camulod, we had lost twelve more days in addition to the time that had elapsed between your leaving Carmarthen and our reaching there.

“I had estimated by then that we were at least two months behind you, and as it transpired, I was correct. We were two and a half months late. And I have since found out—because everyone we met along the road is bursting with the tidings and talking about the wondrous and magical events the ensued—that in the course of those two months you returned to Camulod and then traveled immediately onward to Verulamium with the Pendragon clans in the wake of Arthur’s armies, which had marched there earlier. And once there, you crowned Arthur Pendragon as Riothamus, High King of Britain, with God Himself apparently blessing the event and bestowing upon the new King a miraculous new sword.

“You then sent the new King off to fight a great battle, at the head of the largest army ever assembled in Britain since the Romans first arrived with Julius Caesar. He won the battle, of course, and it was a great victory, which people think will be but the first of many, and flushed with the fruits of success, all of you have now returned home to Camulod, where I am finally permitted to find you and meet you to present my respects and admit my shame at having been so far removed from everything of importance that has happened in this land since I first set foot in it nigh on a year ago.”

The anger that had been smoldering inside me was now threatening to spill over, and I was aware that I needed to bite down on my ill humor. Evidently the man across from me felt the same way, because he raised one hand quickly, palm outward, stemming my flow of words with a peremp tory gesture born of years of command. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Merlyn met me eye to eye.

“Germanus is dead.”

I blinked hard, I remember, because I felt I had been staring for too long and my eyes had begun to tingle strangely and then I shook my head, slightly confused, and cleared my throat. “What …? Forgive me, what did you say?”

“Germanus is dead. He died in Italia, after his meeting with the Pope and his fellow bishops. The word was brough to us a month ago, in a letter sent to Bishop Enos by Lu dovic, Germanus’s secretary. You know the man?” I could only nod, the import of what Merlyn was telling me begin ning to penetrate my awareness. “Aye, I thought you might He has been with Germanus for more than thirty years.”

“Forty,” I whispered. “Ludovic has been with the bishop for forty-three years. He is the bishop’s secretary, but they are close friends, too. They started out as students of law to gether, Germanus told me. He became a successful advo cate, but Ludovic quickly found that he preferred building cases to disputing them in open court, and so the two men became associates and remained together ever afterward.”

“I knew they were close, but I would never have suspected such a long friendship. Forty-three years is more than half lifetime. Anyway, Ludovic knew how important our affairs here in Britain were to Germanus, and so he took the time to write a long letter to Bishop Enos, describing the bishop’s final days and the circumstances surrounding his death, and he described in detail several of the conversations he him self had had with Germanus concerning our activities hen and the coronation we were planning. As you know, Ger manus firmly believed that the salvation of the Church Britain will depend upon the emergence of Camulod as military force under Arthur, and neither Bishop Enos nor can see any reason to doubt the accuracy of his expecta tions.”

Merlyn stopped talking and sat watching me closely whil I struggled to absorb all that I had just learned. Finally he leaned slightly toward me, his gaze still fixed on mine, and asked, “How do you feel?”

Even in my daze I recognized the futility of the question. I remembered having asked it myself of other people in pain, in just the same hapless way because there are times when you have to ask, and those are the only words that come anywhere close to framing the concern you are trying to express. I gulped and nodded my head, waving one hand in a small gesture to indicate that I was well and needed no help. It was a lie, of course, and we both knew that, but it served as an acknowledgment that my mind was still functioning. Merlyn accepted it and resumed speaking, still leaning toward me with the same narrow-eyed gaze.

“I want you now to think again about your dream, Clothar, in the light of what I have just told you. From all the information I have been able to gather—from Ludovic’s letter and from the eyewitness account of the priest who brought the letter to us—Germanus must have died very close to the time when you dreamed of his presence in your tent. I mean very close, Clothar … perhaps that selfsame night, and at the very hour you saw him, for he died in the deepest part of the night. His death occurred on the last night in March. Your dream, you said, occurred at the end of March or the beginning of April. I would like you to think more closely about that now, because it is of great import. I have asked Enos if he can remember when it was, but he was not in Verulamium at the time and did not return until several days later. He recalls only that you were excited by the dream and impatient to be on your way, and that you had waited for his return purely out of courtesy.”

I frowned, thinking about that. “I remembered the dream itself, no more. The particular night of its occurrence was unimportant.”

“Well, do you believe now that it might have been important after all?”

I felt myself frowning harder, knowing what he was now suggesting, but I was far from convinced that this theory of his might have merit. “How so?”

“How so? How so? Because, my young friend, if your dream occurred the night Germanus died, then he might really have been there in your tent, and for a purpose.”

I sat gazing at this man about whom I head heard so much and who now appeared to be disappointingly normal and quite incapable of performing any of the heroic exploits I had heard attributed to him. “That is nonsense,” I said eventually. “What possible purpose could he have for doing such a thing?”

“How is it nonsense?”

“I have already explained all of that, Master Merlyn, and even although it makes me sound ill mannered to say so, I thought I had made myself perfectly clear. If any of what happened that night had been real—if Germanus really had come to me in a dream—he would have known that everything was changing and that he was sending me off on a useless journey.”

Merlyn sat for a moment as though weighing what I had said, and then he nodded abruptly. “True,” he said. “From your viewpoint and as you perceive it, absolutely true. But look at it for a moment, if you will, from my viewpoint. What if I were to suggest that your journey was not merely useful but necessary, and utterly unrelated to anything you have envisioned? I have been thinking about that for some time now, but most particularly since you arrived here today, and I now believe that is the truth.”

I had no idea what he meant, and seeing my incomprehension, he said, “These,” and bent down to the floor at his feet and picked up the fat leather wallet I had given him on my arrival, an hour earlier, the wallet that contained all the documents Germanus had sent me to bring to his attention. He had accepted it graciously when I presented it and had then asked for my indulgence while he scanned its contents. His examination had been cursory, for the most part, and he had set several documents aside with barely a glance, quite irrespective of the imposing bulk of some of them.

One document, however—it appeared to be an epistle several pages long—had claimed his full attention, bringing him to his feet with muttered excuses as he walked away to read it in a muted whisper in the afternoon light of the window embrasure. That document now rested securely in the folds of his long outer garment, but he had stuffed all the other papers back into the wallet that he now brandished in front of me.

“The information contained in this wallet is the true essence of your task here in Britain, Master Clothar. I suggest to you now that it is the sole reason for your being here today, far more important in Germanus’s eyes than the matter of Arthur’s coronation. I invited Germanus to participate in that event because I knew his presence would add dignitas and authority to what we did, but he and I both knew, back then, that the event would take place whether he was present or not. So …” He paused, continuing to look me directly in the eye, then began again.

“Ask yourself this. Why did Germanus send you here, to me? He could just as easily have sent you directly to Enos at Verulamium. The letter you brought to him explained everything to Enos, did it not? Anything that he asked you after reading it was born of curiosity and not of a burning need to know important details, is that not so? Am I correct?”

I nodded, unsure of where he was going with this, and he returned my nod with greater emphasis. “Aye, so here is what I believe.” He raised the leather wallet and turned it back and forth in front of my eyes. “I never gamble for pleasure, but I would be prepared to wager a substantial amount that if either Arthur Pendragon or my affairs in Camulod and Britain are even mentioned in any of these documents, it will be but briefly and in passing, to illustrate some point or other that Germanus wants to bring to my attention. For Germanus did want—and still wants—all of my attention to be focused upon what is here in this package. I have no doubt of that, and you should have none, either.”

“The letter that you read so carefully, then, was from Germanus.” I spoke it as a statement, not a question, but Merlyn answered it.

“It was. From his hands, to my eyes. When he compiled these documents, and sent you off to bring them here to me, he could have had no knowledge of how events would develop—no one could have known that, at that time, including me. And so what happens? Think about this. Here in the west, in Cornwall and Cambria, in the aftermath of our victory over implacable enemies whose sole intent was our destruction and the obliteration of everything we stand for here in Camulod, great passions were stirred up and momentous events began to unfold that could easily encompass all of Britain and change life throughout this land. And then I received word from Bishop Enos that Germanus was unable to come as he had promised, but that he had exhorted Enos to stand in his place and to organize the events surrounding Arthur’s coronation so that they would demonstrate credible, solid evidence that the new Riothamus would have the blessings and support of God’s Church in Britain to assert and reinforce his authority.” He held up his left hand, and a young man whom I had not previously noticed but who had evidently been awaiting such a signal came rushing forward. Merlyn stayed him with an upraised finger and looked at me. “Are you thirsty, Master Clothar? I am. I have been talking without rest for almost six hours today. We have mead and beer, and even wine from Gaul. I am going to have some mead, myself. What would you like?”

I thanked him and asked for mead, too, and the youth vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Merlyn settled back farther into his chair.

“As soon as I had read the letter Enos sent to me, and read the copy he had attached of Germanus’s letter to him, it became clear to me that they were both right and that it was of vital import to our cause to hold the Riothamus coronation in Verulamium. It had not occurred to me until then, but once aware of it, I could not deny the rightness of it. Physically, the great theater there has a grandeur not to be found anywhere else in Britain today, and it can house seven thousand people—seated—at any time.

“Emotionally, too, the place recalls the glory days of Empire when, despite all the moaning and weeping that some people indulge in today, this land knew naught but peace and prosperity. And then there was the additional consideration that the theater has already served as a point of focus for the Church and the affairs of God, when it was used as the venue for the great debate hosted by Germanus himself two decades ago. And then, last in recollection but by no means last in order of importance, the place is neutral, politically speaking. If, as Germanus had suggested, Enos was to use his bishops and their influence to bring the regional kings and the clan chiefs of Britain to attend the events we were planning, they would probably find it easier to attract them all to Verulamium than to Camulod, first because Verulamium is more central—Camulod lying far to the west—but second, and more important, because Camulod itself stirs envy, and perhaps disquiet, in the hearts of the very men we wanted to attract.”

The young man returned with our drinks, and Merlyn waited until he had served both of us and left again before continuing. “And so the decision was made, by me and me alone, to move the events we were planning to Verulamium in accordance with the wishes expressed by Germanus and Enos. You had already been here in Britain for several months by that time, and before you left Gaul, Germanus could not possibly have foreseen my decision or how a change in my thinking might affect his plans for you. And so you were in Verulamium—in the wrong place and at the wrong time.”

He held up a hand quickly, smiling as he did so in order to deprive his next words of any sting or implied rebuke. “Allow me to finish my thought, if you will, before you object. Here is the meat of what I am saying: none of us, as it transpired, could have any real control over developments, once the entire affair of Arthur’s crowning had begun to gain momentum. Had you been in Verulamium when I arrived, you would have been lost in the midst of a turmoil, because Arthur’s armies had already been there for several days by then, and bishops and kings and chiefs and their various adherents and followers were assembling daily from all over Britain, all of them seething like ground oats boiling in a pot, and clamoring for my time and attention. The town was full to overflowing and surrounded by armed camps—Arthur’s multiple encampments being the largest of all, although several of those belonging to some of the lesser kings were almost equally impressive, given that they lacked the horse lines and cavalry capacity Arthur commanded.”

He leaned forward and looked me directly in the eye. “And so had you been there when I arrived, Master Clothar, and had I found the time to meet with you, our meeting would, of necessity, have been a very brief one, with no hope of discussing anything at length or in detail. You would have presented me with your documents from Germanus and I would have accepted them gratefully and set them aside to read later, with the best intentions in the world of doing so. But the matters you were bringing to my attention would have had nothing to do with the tumultuous happenings under way at that time, and thus, by definition, they would have been irrelevant in the context of Arthur’s coronation. I would have had no other choice than to set them aside in favor of more urgent priorities. Do you take my point?”

I nodded, albeit grudgingly, and wondering what his true meaning might be here. “Yes, I do.”

“Excellent, because my point is that Germanus’s appearance in your tent that night was miraculous, and the sole reason for its occurrence was his need to remove you, to send you away from Verulamium before the storm broke and the chaos began to eddy and swirl about the town. Thus, your travels across Britain were quite the opposite of useless or futile. They were intentionally designed to keep you safely away from me until my work with all those other factors was complete and I could give my full attention to these writings you have brought for me. I believe that, Master Clothar. And I believe, too, that Germanus came to you the night he died and that his visit was a miracle tailored, perhaps for the only time in his exemplary life, to his own requirements and his personal priorities. He wanted you to keep this wallet and its contents away from me until now, when I can deal with whatever they contain and might require of me.”

I sat gaping at him, unable to speak either to agree or disagree with anything he had said, and all he did was smile, watching the varying expressions as they crossed my face. Finally I coughed to clear my throat, and found my voice.

“That would make these documents extremely important.”

“Extremely so, I agree. Germanus never was a waster of people’s time”

“But what could be in them? What do they—?” I stopped short, abashed by the awareness that the answer to those questions was not for me to demand. The documents were for Merlyn’s eyes only.

He did not react to my impertinence, however, but merely held the wallet now in both hands and raised it up in front of him, gazing at it. “I have glanced very briefly at some of them, Master Clothar, as you are aware, but I must confess I am eager to learn more. So, if you will pardon me, I will go now and make a start upon the task of reading them, for I think it might take me several hours to read through everything and absorb the meaning of it.” He stood up and started to bid me farewell with a nod of his head, but I stayed him with my own upraised hand.

He eyed me courteously, one brow slightly raised as he waited to hear whatever it was that I had to add, but although my lips were parted, nothing emerged from my mouth, for I answered each point in my own mind even before I could begin to articulate it, until eventually I felt my cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

“Forgive me, Lord Merlyn,” I said then. “I have half a hundred questions in my head, all of them demanding answers, but there are several that I find particularly distracting and frustrating.”

“And to those you would prefer more immediate and satisfying answers. I can understand that, knowing how long you have been in pursuit of me.” He eased himself back into his chair. “Tell me about these other considerations, then, and let me see what I can do to set you at your ease.”

I remained silent, nonplussed, searching for the correct response to his invitation and failing to find it. What was I concerned about? And then suddenly, two things crystallized in my mind and I knew where I must go in this. I cleared my throat again.

“I would like to speak to you, if I may, about your ward, Arthur, the new King. For two years now I have been looking forward to meeting him, anticipating the event of his coronation as Riothamus and savoring the opportunity to offer him my services and my support in his endeavors as High King. I have even persuaded my friends Perceval and Tristan to join me. So I was deeply angered to discover that, through no fault of my own, not only had I missed his crowning in Verulamium but I had also managed to be absent for the first important battle he fought as King—his first strike against the invading Danes led by Horsa, and in all probability a battle that could define the course of his reign.

“I know it was an important battle—how could I not know? It is the talk of the land. Everyone has been talking of little else since it took place. Believe me, Master Merlyn, we have heard about it from many people, but none of those from whom we heard of it was actually present at the event—not one of them. None of them saw the fight, none of them knew the truth of what occurred, and the information they passed on to us when the tidings were fresh and new was already polluted by ignorance and the boastful claims of empty-headed loudmouths.” I drew a deep breath, forcing down the anger that was always so close to welling up in me nowadays and compelling myself to remain calm, at least in my speaking.

“We heard reports of everything that went on ahead of us as we crossed from Cambria to here, Master Merlyn, and we could trust none of it to be free of distortion or bias. On the purely personal level, all I really know to be true is that great events have been unfolding far from my ken and that, despite a deep belief that Bishop Germanus sent me here precisely to be involved in these events and to stand with Arthur the King and his people, I have somehow managed to miss all of them—to the point of utter and unhappy ignorance.”

As I spoke, intensely aware of my own frustration yet unable to control a burgeoning sense of unwonted anger, Merlyn had turned his head toward the fire basket, and when I had finished, he sat silent for a while longer, his lips pouted in thought.

“It is easy to see why you are angry,” he said at length. “On the matter of the King’s coronation, there is little I can do to ease your disappointment. I know there are stories circulating concerning what went on at the high altar, and I know, too, that they seem incredible and undeserving of belief. But I can offer you a few hard facts that are indisputable, despite their appearance of being fantastical. Mere moments after the King’s corona had been set upon his brow at the high altar by Bishop Enos, and after swearing a mighty regal oath to use his armed might to defend God’s Church against all pagan and godless aggression, Arthur Pendragon drew a magnificent long-bladed sword from the altar itself—from the altar stone—in full view of thousands of people. I have seen the sword, and held it in my hands, and there has never been a weapon of such beauty and splendor ever seen before, in this land or any other. That is the truth, Master Clothar. These events occurred. I was there and saw them take place with my own eyes. And as the new King held this wondrous sword aloft for all to see, a beam of purest sunlight shone through a gap in the clouds above and outlined him in golden glory in an unmistakable demonstration of God’s own approval of his crowning and his sacred oath.

“Those events you missed, and their like will never occur again, and I regret deeply that, after all the troubles you have gone through, you were unable to witness them. I can assure you, however, that you may trust my version of what occurred that day, and you may also be assured that Arthur will be happy to accept your sword, your service, and your loyalty when the two of you eventually stand face-to-face. Lose no sleep over that one, Master Clothar. Arthur Pendragon has a mighty task ahead of him and he will require, and be grateful for, all the assistance, loyalty, and support he can find.

“As to the other matter, the King’s first battle, I can provide you with accurate information on what happened there. I have in my possession not only the reports of the battle but the plan of battle from the King himself, drawn by his own hand, and I will gladly share those with you at another time—perhaps even tomorrow, if Arthur does not return in the interim.”

This was the first indication I had received since my arrival that the King was not even in Camulod, and I asked Merlyn where he had gone.

“He is on circuit patrol. Traveling around the perimeter of the colony, checking each guard outpost and patrol garrison, then striking outward to visit our outlying garrisons in surrounding towns and communities.”

“The King does that in person?”

“Aye, and happily, of his own choosing. It enables him to meet and speak with his men as men, and he enjoys that.”

“Commander to trooper, you mean, rather than king to subject.”

“No, man to man, rather than superior to minion. It is important to him.”

“Important to his men, too, I’ll wager.” I was remembering Chulderic’s story of how King Ban and my father had met Germanus. “How long might he be gone?”

Merlyn shrugged. “Who can say? It all depends upon who and what he encounters on his patrol, but we generally allocate ten days for each sweep—that’s what we call our routine patrols—then add sufficient discretionary time for them to extend that by two days. After that, if we have not received word from them, we send out rescue squadrons.”

“Have you ever had a patrol that failed to return?”

“Aye, several, but very few overall, in a sixty-year period.”

“So you are not concerned about the King’s absence?”

“Concerned?” Merlyn laughed. “No, not at all. He is not absent, Master Clothar, he is on a sweep, of his own lands, and he has only been gone for ten days. We expect him to return at any moment—he could be entering the gateway as we speak—but even if he fails to appear today, he yet has two days before we will begin to grow concerned. And even then, we would need evidence of some kind to arouse our suspicions to the point of sending out a rescue mission. This is not some junior subaltern or local kinglet, Master Clothar. Arthur Pendragon is Riothamus of Britain and a battle commander of supreme abilities. He will not be bullied, nor will he be easily dissuaded from completing whatever tasks he sets himself before returning home to Camulod.”

I nodded. “Yes, I understand what you are saying. I look forward to meeting him.”

“Good. You will, and very soon, I promise you. And now, if there is nothing else—”

“There is one more thing, if you will permit me.”

He hunched his shoulders expressively, his face indicating surprise but with a willingness to listen, and I felt myself flushing scarlet as the words that had been in my head began to drain rapidly downward, avoiding my lips. Merlyn sat waiting. “Well,” I continued, floundering, “I know not if I can find the proper words … but I think it is important that I try to say what I wish to say, if only to clear the air and allow myself to think logically.” I took a breath and thrust straight ahead. “May I ask you, Master Merlyn, whether Bishop Germanus mentioned me by name in the letter I brought to you?”

Merlyn slowly raised his hand and scratched delicately and deliberately at his chin with the nail of his little finger. “Yes, he did. But why would you ask me that? The content of that letter is my concern alone.”

“It is, sir, I know. But I must ask you to be patient with me and extend me your forbearance, if you will, no matter how ill mannered or clumsy I may appear to be in this … . I have been asking myself for some time now why Bishop Germanus chose to involve me in these affairs when he could very easily have sent one of his own priests to deliver letters for him. He had no shortage of young priests at his disposal and they cross the seas on God’s business all the time, so why would he pick me and send me off to a foreign land with no idea of what I must do once I have carried out my task for him? He had a purpose in mind for me, of that I am sure, but he told me nothing of what it might be. And now you tell me he is dead and that confounds me, for I know not what to do now, or where I should go. My mentor is dead. My task, as far as I know, is completed. And I have no clear indication, mental or otherwise, of what I should do next. I feel … abandoned, I suppose … cut off from all certainty.

“I have an unfinished task in Gaul, where the man who slew my parents and my grandfather yet rules in a kingdom that is rightfully mine, but although I intend to return there someday and claim his head in vengeance, I feel no burning urge to rush off and do it now. Part of me wishes to believe that my place is here, at this time, and yet I have no sense of … place—no sense of what awaits me or of what I should be doing next. I will meet the King soon, and that particular question may be resolved, but still I know nothing of what Germanus planned for me, if he planned anything. And so I must ask you more, and beg your understanding and indulgence. Did the bishop speak of me specifically? And if so, pray, what did he say?”

Merlyn grimaced, sucking breath between his teeth, then shook his head and blew out a great breath. “Damnation, Master Clothar,” he said, “you come upon me with this request at the worst time, because while I can answer you truthfully, I cannot tell you what you want to know.

“I have told you that he named you in his letter to me. But he has also enjoined me to be careful in what I say, to you or about you, until I have read everything that he has sent me. Don’t ask me why, boy, because I simply do not know why, and I will not until I have had time to read all this.”

“He told you to tell me nothing of what he has to say of me?”

“He told me to say nothing until I have learned everything there is to learn about you.”

“But what is there to learn that you do not already know?” I bit down on my anger yet again. “No, Master Merlyn. That makes no sense at all, because it makes too much of me, and for no adequate reason. Bishop Germanus was my mentor, but he was mentor to many others, too, all of them more worthy of his time and attention than I was. His interest in me, from the outset, was an obligation. He had been a close friend of my parents and my foster parents, too, and he had stood as godfather for me at my baptism, after the death of my parents and long before he became a bishop. So when I grew old enough, he took me into his school as a pupil. My father was a king, and he served in the legions with Germanus. But he is a dead king, eighteen years in his grave. He was murdered soon after I was born, and his lands usurped by his murderer, and in order to protect me and guard my identity after my father’s death, I was raised in secrecy by my uncle Ban, King of Benwick, in southern Gaul. That is my life, in its entirety. There is no more to learn.”

Merlyn shrugged. “Apparently that is not so. Perhaps you yourself do not know all that there is to know.”

“About myself? That is iniquitous,” I said, my anger spilling over. “Am I now to believe that I am unworthy to know some truth about myself—some arcane secret that no one thinks me capable of handling? Germanus himself told me nothing of what the letters contained regarding me before he sent me off to spend a year and more wandering through this land carrying his wallet. And now, having done so in all obedience and to the best of my ability, I feel slighted and insulted … deemed unworthy of trust, even with knowledge of myself.” Raising my voice to Merlyn Britannicus this way, this man I did not know but had every reason to treat with the utmost respect, appalled me, outraging every tenet of behavior with which I had been raised and leaving me with a sinking feeling of imminent remorse. But I had no way of stopping now. “Master Merlyn,” I continued, the bit between my teeth, “I know I have never done anything to earn, or to deserve, such treatment, and that makes me deeply angry, because I am utterly at a loss to understand why it happened, and that ignorance, that not knowing, is the most perplexing and infuriating thing about this whole situation.”

Merlyn rose fluidly to his feet, betraying no sign of any of the damage he had sustained from being burned in Carthac’s fire. “Very well, so be it,” he said, enunciating his words precisely and slowly. “This much I will promise you. I will tell you whatever is said about you in these documents, so be it I judge the information to be harmless to you. The only proviso I will add to that, having said it, is that I will pass along nothing that Germanus might ask me specifically, for whatever reason, to conceal from you. I say that because I cannot imagine him doing such a thing and then blithely sending you off to deliver the material to me in person. That kind of information only applies in situations that involve heinous crimes and shameful secrets, and Germanus himself clearly respected and admired you when he chose you for this task. He would never dream of using you so cruelly, so I believe you may set your mind at rest on that concern. Will that suffice?”

I nodded, mollified by his straightforwardness. “Thank you, Lord Merlyn, it will.”

“Good. But now I really must take leave of you. I have much to do, as you know, and there are other matters claiming my attention before I can be free to apply myself to our affairs.” He waved a thumb toward the door at his back. “I will have young Mark escort you back to the quarters assigned to you and your three friends, and you and I will talk at more length tomorrow, once I have mastered what you brought to me.” We exchanged nods of farewell, and he pulled his hood firmly forward to conceal his face again, then swept out, limping only very slightly.

Left alone in the room, I glanced down at the cup I held in my hands and was surprised to find it empty. I had no recollection of drinking its contents. I was still angry, too, although in the face of Merlyn’s courtesy and consideration I could not quite tell myself why that should be so. And then the answer came to me. Despite all his charm and courtesy, Merlyn had nonetheless committed himself only to telling me what he considered harmless to me. Any request from Germanus that specific information be kept from me, for whatever reason, would be sacrosanct in Merlyn’s eyes.

The anger boiling inside me grew stronger and I stormed out of the room, headed for the bright afternoon sunlight and spoiling for a fight with someone—anyone at all.

It was probably fortunate that I met no one during that angry journey from Merlyn’s quarters to my own, for my resentment continued to build, demanding an outlet. It was probably equally providential that when I arrived back at the accommodations assigned to us, neither Perceval nor Tristan were there and I could not even find young Bors, and that removed any possibility of venting my anger and unpleasantness on my uncomplaining friends. With no means of finding out where they had gone, however, the only options open to me were to remain in my quarters alone with my misery, or to go in search of them. I had paid little attention to the weather as I stalked from Merlyn’s place, but now that I was considering going out again, I had to acknowledge, albeit grumpily and with reluctance, that this was a perfect day on which to be walking and breathing deeply, savoring the scents of the world. It was one of those long, warm, late-summer afternoons that are so universally seductive and alluring, beguiling normally responsible people into neglecting and deserting their appointed tasks and wasting their time instead on frivolity and self-indulgence. At that moment, on that afternoon, having found no one on whom I could vent my anger, I was perfectly open to temptations of that kind, and in exactly the right frame of mind for them. I was in no mood to do anything constructive, aware that I would not be able to concentrate on anything except the questions that were threatening to drive me to distraction. Besides, I thought, if I went walking I might find someone, some stranger, I could provoke into a fight.

Bors had leaned my two quivers of throwing spears upright, as he always did, against the wall in one of the back corners of our quarters, and the long, needle-pointed metal heads gleamed dully in the afternoon light that filtered into the room. I caught sight of them as I moved to leave the room, and I hesitated there in the doorway for several moments, looking back at them and thinking that it had been far too long since I last practiced with them. The last time I had thrown one of them, in fact, had been that day at Saint Alban’s Shrine, when I watched the child Gwinnifer cast so surprisingly. The reminder of how quickly time had passed came as a shock, and shortly after that I found myself striding toward the stables, a small bundle of four spears tied with thongs and dangling behind my right shoulder.

I paid no visible heed to anyone, but I was aware of people noticing me and staring at the spears hanging from my shoulder as I passed by, for the weapons were extremely unusual and most of the people crowding the open spaces and narrow walkways I traversed were soldiers and warriors, trained and conditioned to notice and examine other people’s weaponry. No one made any comment, however, and I collected my horse and saddled it in silence, then mounted and made my way out of the gates.

Below me at the foot of Camulod’s hill, as was normal at this time of the year, the enormous drilling ground was almost completely obscured by the clouds of dust stirred up by the ceaseless movement of the riders training there. I avoided the place, purely because there were too many people there, and steered my horse well clear of the swirling dust clouds, angling it to my right, toward the woods that lined the outer edge of the approach road to the fortress. Once there, in the green-hued shade among the trees, I swung right again and began to ride around the base of Camulod’s hill, following a route I recalled from my first visit. About a mile back there, I knew, behind and below the hilltop fort, there was a gently sloping meadow, bisected by a wide, deep brook that was bridged by a trio of well-matched logs supporting a deck of heavy planking, and slightly downstream from the bridge there was a hole that was full of fine trout and was also deep enough to swim in. My intention, when I first set out from my quarters, was to go directly to the meadow, spend some time there practicing my throwing, both from horseback and afoot, and then perhaps to spear a fat trout and cook and eat it alone, since I had no idea what had happened to occupy my friends. To that end, I had gone first to the cookhouse, where I procured a loaf of fresh bread and a twist of salt before heading for the stables. But I was destined to fulfill none of my plans that afternoon.

The entire countryside was swarming with men—Arthur Pendragon’s victorious armies, freshly returned from their victory over Horsa’s Danes—and there was no avoiding them. I hoped at first to simply ride out the mass of them, passing beyond their presence into something at least approaching solitude, but it was not to be. There were simply too many of them, spread out too far, to permit anything close to privacy, and I realized that there was nothing I could do to change that.

As I penetrated deeper and deeper into the woodlands and drew farther and farther away from the fortress on the hilltop, my impatience continued to grow despite my awareness of the truth of things, and against all logic I found myself becoming increasingly resentful of the persistent presence of others around me. Most of them were men, but no army in history has ever failed to attract its share of women. There were enough camp followers scattered throughout these teeming throngs to keep everyone at a high pitch of excitement, for one reason and another. On three separate occasions I made my way toward spots that appeared to be deserted, only to find them occupied by lovers and even small groups of revelers in varying stages of undress and coupling.

There were other activities going on, too. In one spot, some enterprising soul had set up a game in which men threw horseshoes at a pair of iron spikes hammered into the ground some twenty paces apart from each other. They threw their horseshoes from one end of the playing space to the other and the object of the game appeared to be to land each one as close as was possible to the spike at the far end. I was unsurprised to see that, as usual among armies of any kind, large amounts of money were changing hands among the onlookers, based upon the play. Four men, playing in teams of two, each threw two shoes and when all eight had been thrown, the distances from the spike to those shoes that had landed closest to it were measured with extreme care and the closest throw was declared the winner and awarded points. Higher points were scored by anyone whose horseshoe ended up physically touching the spike, and even more were awarded for a shoe that was propped up and leaning against the spike, while the highest points of all were given to anyone who actually dropped a shoe cleanly over the spike, encircling it. Intrigued in spite of my foul humor, I watched the play for nigh on half an hour and saw only one man achieve that feat, to the uproarious delight of those who had bet on him.

In another spot, a clearing in the woods, a number of men were throwing knives and axes at a range of targets and from varying distances, and as I rode through, several of these fellows glowered at me with open suspicion, turning completely around to follow me with hostile, watchful eyes until I disappeared from their view. There was no gambling taking place there, that I could see, and it seemed to me that everyone involved was taking the entire exercise very seriously. I stared directly at one of the participants in passing, a tall, dark-haired fellow who looked as though he would be happy to fight any casual foe that life might throw at him, but he ignored my truculence completely, merely turning slowly to follow me with an unblinking gaze as sullen as my own.

As soon as I realized he would not fight me merely for looking at him, I ignored him and kept moving, for I knew exactly who and what he represented: that brotherhood of veterans in every army who have survived everything they encountered and have learned to trust and rely upon their own close comrades only, and no one else. I had shared that same comradeship of veterans during Gunthar’s War and thus knew at first hand how powerful a bond it was. But somehow, foolishly, I had not expected to find its like in Britain.

Now that I had become aware of this phenomenon among Pendragon’s armies, however, I found myself watching for similar instances as I rode on, and I found no lack of them. But what surprised me most, as I paid closer attention to the men I passed, was that I began to fancy I could gauge a man’s war experience merely from the way he reacted to my presence. The more I saw, the more I became convinced that I was right and that the true veterans, the hardened core of this army that was all around me, were a highly distinctive group, easily identifiable despite the countless human differences between each man and his neighbors.

Completely engrossed in this new and intriguing train of thought, I eventually lost all awareness of where I truly was and what I was about. I rode by one group of veteran spearmen, all of them wearing what came nigh to being a uniform of drab green tunics with bright yellow blazons at their left shoulders, and I put my theory to the test by approaching very close to them, almost to within touching distance.

The silence that fell over them at my approach was profound. I counted a score and a half of them before one of them finally looked up and saw that I was bearing directly down on them. He frowned and cleared his throat but no words emerged from his mouth. The expression on his face, however, made words unnecessary and heads began to turn toward me more and more quickly, until thirty pairs of eyes were glaring at me in outrage, their owners shocked into silence by the suddenness and effrontery of my approach.

I had identified the group leaders some time earlier, and now I nodded gravely in acknowledgment and greeting to the one I deemed to be the senior of three. Showing no sign of curiosity and making no eye contact with anyone lest it spark a challenge, I rode steadily through their midst and they moved grudgingly but wordlessly to grant me passage.

When I had passed safely through and beyond them I made no attempt to look back, for I could feel the glare of their collective gaze in the center of my back. I did, however, permit myself to smile then, knowing that it was only my appearance that had saved me from being dragged off my horse and thrashed for my presumption. The fact that I was in this place at all, riding among them, meant that I must be an ally of some stripe, but that would have mattered not a whit had any of those men decided that I needed to be taught a lesson in good manners and decorum. Had that been the case, they would have had me off my horse in the blinking of an eye and I knew I must have come very close to having that happen.

There was sufficient foreignness about my appearance, however, to have given them pause; not only was I mounted, but I was superbly mounted, on a magnificent and richly caparisoned horse, and although I wore none of the wondrous armor given me by Germanus, the clothing I wore, I knew, spoke loudly of wealth and privilege—loudly enough to suggest unmistakably that I might be someone with a great deal of power, or at least influence, whom it were better not to offend or accost.

I rode then for a short time through a lightly wooded area where I encountered no one. It was the first time I had been free of the sight and sounds of people since leaving my own quarters in the fort, and for some time I was not even aware of the change. But eventually I relaxed so that I nearly slouched in the saddle, allowing my horse to pick his way forward at his own speed. When he carried me to the edge of a pleasant and fast-flowing brook, I considered dismounting and simply lying on the grassy bank for a while, listening to the sounds of the swift-moving stream, but as I reined in, preparing to swing my leg over his back and slide to the ground, I heard the sudden, familiar, rhythmic clacking of heavy, hard-swung wooden dowels spring up nearby, very close to where I sat listening. Someone was practicing swordplay, just beyond the thick screen of hawthorn trees to my right, and the rapid, stuttering tempo of the blows told me that the people involved were experts. Instead of dismounting, I pulled my horse around and walked him through the hawthorn thicket toward the sounds.

I saw seven of them, at first glance, as I emerged from the trees surrounding the meadow where they were, and at the same moment recognized the place as my original destination. I had reached it almost by accident, but I saw at a glance that my memory of it had been accurate. There lay the bridge of logs covered with crosswise planking, and on the far side of the stream the gently sloping sward was dotted with copses and clumps of low trees and bushes, mainly hawthorn and elder. I turned my gaze back to the seven men and saw now that they were all young, strong, and vigorous warriors whose clothing, like my own, declared them to be well-born and privileged. Two of them were fighting skillfully with training swords of heavy wooden dowel, similar to those I had used since my earliest days at the Bishop’s School. I saw immediately, however, that these swords were longer and heavier than those we had used in Gaul, and I wondered briefly why that should be, but set the question aside as irrelevant once I saw that neither of the two opponents seemed the slightest bit inconvenienced or put out by the extra length and weight.

They were well matched, the fighting pair, neither one possessing any apparent physical advantage over the other. Both were of medium height, wide shouldered and heavily muscled, their bare forearms taut and tight with the tension and strain of controlling their whirling weapons. They circled each other as they fought, leaning forward on the balls of their feet and grinning ferally, their friendship as apparent in their faces as was the iron determination in each of them to win this bout. The man facing me as I emerged from the trees was the first one to. see me, and as soon as he did he took a backward leap and grounded his weapon, shouting something I failed to understand. And at that point, as is only natural, every eye in the place was turned toward me as I brought my mount to a halt, eyeing the group carefully.

There were nine of them, I could see now. Two had been lounging on the bank of the stream, my view of them obscured by a low-lying clump of heather or gorse, but now they had raised themselves on their elbows to look over at me. I ignored them after that first glance, avoiding eye contact with any of the group as I looked around again. Something white flashed from a dark place on the far side of the stream, and as I squinted in that direction my eyes adjusted to the light and the distance and I made out the shapes of several horses—nine of them, I presumed—hobbled in the shade of a clump of hawthorns. All of them were saddled, indicating that their owners were on their way to some other destination and had merely stopped here to rest for a time.

I nudged my horse gently with my spurs to start him moving again and then rode forward slowly, angling him toward the bridge. But I knew I would not pass unchallenged this time, for none of these people’s clothes were shabbier than mine. No one man among them made any overtly threatening move or betrayed any kind of hostility toward me, but suddenly they were all moving, perhaps in response to some signal unseen by me, and so fluid was their motion, so precise and instinctual, that I quickly found myself facing an unbroken line of them, seven men shoulder to shoulder across the front of the bridge.

I kept moving, guiding my mount with my knees until a mere ten paces separated me from the line of warriors, all of whom stood facing me. Three of them were smiling. I took note of that but drew little pleasure from it, since the likeliest reason for their smiles was anticipation of the pleasure they were about to take in thrashing me. Of the four who were not smiling, two were frowning and the other two had blank, expressionless faces from which wary eyes watched me intently. It was one of the latter two who spoke to me first, his tone of voice as expressionless as his face.

“Come now, fellow, how offensive need you be? Who are you and where have you come from?”

I saw two of his companions move their heads to look at him. The others kept their eyes on me. I merely shrugged my shoulders, answering him calmly but ignoring the matter of my name.

“I had no thought of being offensive. I am merely passing through.”

“Well, pass through at some other place, you inconsiderate lout. Can you not see that you are disturbing our leisure, trespassing upon our goodwill?”

Listening to his words I felt all apprehension drain away from me, to be replaced by the familiar tingling of prefight tension. I had been waiting for one of them to speak to me, to say something that would allow me to form a judgment, and this man’s words, offensive as his tone might be, had the double effect of removing my uncertainty and committing me to a course of action. I had been looking for a fight since the moment I left Merlyn’s quarters, but I had no intention of getting myself killed and thus had been looking for a safe fight, an outlet for my frustration. I knew now that I had found what I was seeking.

None of these people facing me bore me genuine ill will. Had it been otherwise they would not have spoken at all, outnumbering me as heavily as they did. They would simply have acted, and I would be dead or unconscious. But now I knew that what I was facing here was a modified form of the same kind of pride in belonging that I had been watching among the common soldiers. These young men were all officers, all leaders, sharing and enjoying one another’s strength and companionship in a place of safety. My presence among them, as an unexpected newcomer of their own stature, afforded them an opportunity for sport, at no cost, and I was sure they would not consider swarming me. The test of strength that was shaping up here would be single combat, one against one.

I glanced over to where discarded armor was piled neatly on a patch of close-cropped turf on the riverbank. Heavy spears had been arranged in two pyramids, and pieces of armor and weaponry—helmets, cuirasses, greaves, and a number of swords and axes—had been propped against them when their owners had stripped down to their tunics to rest and enjoy the sun. Now I looked back to my challenger, staring at him with one eyebrow raised in wry amusement that I hoped would provoke him.

“Goodwill, say you? You lay claim to goodwill, behaving this way, accosting and harrying passing strangers? You and I obviously come from different places, with different definitions of goodwill.”

His eyes widened in surprise and then he drew himself up, nodding his head in agreement. “Aye, we do. Different places indeed, and I can hear the country clodhopper in your voice. Where, in God’s name, did you learn to speak Latin like that?”

Again I shrugged, refusing to rise to his baiting. “In a place far removed from here, a place where anyone as surly and ungracious as you appear to be would be tied and left outside on a cold night, to feed the wolves.”

He blinked, clearly not having expected that, but he rallied quickly enough. “You are in Camulod now, fellow. We mislike foul-tongued Outlanders here. You should be praying to whatever gods you own to help you out of here in one whole piece.”

“I have a God, Master Mouth—the one, true God, as much yours as mine—and I had been thanking Him for leading me to this fair Camulod, until this place and this meeting. Now, having found that you are here, too, the awareness of your presence kills my appetite for the place.”

I saw his face flush at that and knew that I had penetrated his defenses, and when he spoke again his voice was heavy with truculence. “Ride away, little man. I’ve told you once already and will not do so again. Ride back to where you came from, or find another path across the stream, it matters naught to me. But you will not cross here, and if you move to try it, we’ll have you down off that pretty horse before you can put spurs to him. I asked you who you are and you have not yet answered me.”

I sat my horse, staring down at him and nibbling at my upper lip, and he and all his companions stood gazing up at me in silence, awaiting my response. The fellow who had spoken was, I guessed, close to me in age, perhaps a year or two my senior but no more that that. He was tall, too, but no taller than I was, and he lacked my breadth of shoulders. Had I been offered my pick of them to fight, he was the one I would have chosen instinctively, perhaps because he was so fair of face that I suspected he might take care to avoid disfigurement in any fight that was less than deadly serious. In making that judgment, I confess freely, I based my assessment purely upon a suspected vanity for which I had no evidence other than what my own senses told me. This man, I felt, would not be inclined to endanger his comely face in a casual bout of arms, and yet I had no doubt at all that he would be formidable and completely unaware of physical risks to his beauty when the die was cast and real fighting broke out.

I could almost feel the tension in the air as everyone waited to see how I would respond to this last insult, but I merely bowed my head very slightly and answered him again in tones of mild civility.

“Nor will I answer you, asked thus. My name is my own and I have no intention of divulging it to a nameless brigand on the road simply because he has a posy of pretty blossoms as sweet as he is to back him up in his prancing and posturing.” I watched their uniform reaction of amazed disbelief as my words registered in their minds and I continued before any of them could find his voice.

“As to where I have come from, you know that already, or you should, had you a brain with which to think and take note.” I pointed backward over my shoulder, then flipped my hand forward to point toward the far side of the stream. “I came from back there, I’m going over there, and you are in my way. Now stand aside and let me pass.”

My challenger smiled now and his entire face was transformed into radiance, but he shook his head slowly from side to side. “No,” he said, “I feel no overwhelming need to move aside; no urgency. I fear you may have to bludgeon your way past me—unless, of course, you would prefer to lead your horse across, farther downstream.”

“Bludgeon my way? Against all seven of you?”

“Why not? These are our lands and you do not belong in them. Do you mislike the odds?”

“That depends upon how you intend to fight me, fellow—to the death, with you afoot and me mounted, then so be it. I’ll kill all seven of you, using these.” I reached back and touched the bundle of spears that hung behind my shoulder.

My tormentor laughed. “You have only four of them and there are nine of us, not seven.”

I had forgotten the other two men I had seen earlier, and that made me angry at myself, but before I could respond in any way a voice spoke from my right, where the two from the riverbank had approached me unseen and, even worse, unsuspected.

“That’s enough, Bedwyr. Let the man go on his way.”

The man called Bedwyr swung his head to face the newcomer, his face registering astonishment and protest. “But, Magister, we can’t let him ride by without a toll of some kind.”

“Of course you can. Besides, I think he might have the advantage between the two of you.”

Bedwyr’s expression changed from protest to outrage. “What advantage, Magister, other than the horse? If he fights me on foot, face-to-face, I’ll crush him.”

I turned my head to look at the man they called “Magister,” the title of respect by which, as a student, I had addressed Tiberias Cato and my other teachers and which meant, in my understanding, a person who was teacher and patron combined. Here in Britain, however, to these young men, it clearly had another, additional connotation, one that denoted respect, clearly, but also entailed a deference and a recognition of authority. To my complete astonishment, I saw that he appeared to be no older than the man Bedwyr, but he was huge, and although he wore no signs of rank or any other rating, his physical presence stamped him unmistakably as a leader.

He was taller than I by a good handsbreadth, I estimated, and he was wider-shouldered, broad of back, and massive through the chest. His hair was dark brown, shot through with wide bands of a lighter, golden color, and his eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, the irises golden yellow, flecked with black. He was standing close by my side, gazing up at me as curiously as I was staring down at him, and when his gaze met mine he nodded to me, his expression grave but civil, and I saw a hint of something stirring in his eyes just before he spoke again, something that I thought might have been humor, although I had no reason to expect anything of the kind. When he did speak, however, it was to the man Bedwyr, although his eyes never left mine.

“But if he fights you afoot, Beddo, then win or lose, he will tell us nothing about these strange-looking spears of his, and while that might sit well with you, it would please me not at all. Those things look to me to be more than they seem at first glance. I suspect their like might never have been seen, here in Britain. Am I correct, Stranger? Is this a new weapon?”

I shook my head. “No, it is a very old weapon, but your suspicion is correct. There is none like it in Britain—or in Gaul for that matter.”

His eyebrows rose in polite disbelief. “Do you tell me so? Then where do they come from?”

I waved a hand casually, indicating the horizon. “From far away … a world away from here. They were made in a land a full year’s journey eastward from the Empire’s eastern border.”

His eyebrows had come down, and they stayed down at this additional piece of information, but his eyes narrowed as he gazed at me, assessing whether or not I was bluffing him. “A year’s journey beyond the Empire’s eastern borders? That seems unbelievable.”

I shrugged. “Believe it or not, as you will, it is the truth. The man who brought them back from there is my old teacher. His name is Tiberias Cato.”

The big man was staring now at the spears. “What kind of wood are those shafts made from?”

“A kind that does not grow within the known world of the Empire. It is called bamboo and is very light and very hard. We know nothing like it.”

He waited, watching my eyes, and then, when it became clear that I was going to say nothing more, he nodded his head. “I see. You have nothing more to say on the topic. So be it then. But I fear, in light of that, that you will have to fight and best our Bedwyr here before you can proceed.”

I looked over to where the man Bedwyr stood glaring at me and shook my head slowly. “No, I think not. There will be no fight between your bully Beddo and me.”

“Why not?” There was genuine surprise in the Magister’s voice.

“Why should I fight him?” I rejoined, turning back to him. “What have I to gain from it? Bruises do not seem like worthwhile rewards to me, nor does the prospect of providing entertainment for the rest of your crew—particularly when I have the option of refusing to do both.”

Bedwyr spoke up then. “If you win you can go on across the bridge.”

I looked at him again, sidelong. “The water in the brook is barely fetlock deep for the most part and I can make my way across anywhere, without fighting, as you pointed out.”

“Are you afraid to fight, then?”

“No, sir, I am not afraid to fight. I simply choose not to fight you, and I do not do so out of fear.” I turned back to look again at the Magister. “I will fight you, however, upon the clear understanding that when I win I will be allowed to go on my way without further trouble.”

There was a chorus of gasps at that, and sounds of growing outrage, but the Magister laughed aloud and quelled them all by the simple expedient of raising his hand. Then, when the noise had died down, he spoke to me again, his hand still upraised, enjoining silence from his men. He was smiling at me openly now, his teeth even and startlingly white between wide lips.

“Let me feed you back your own medicine now. Why should I fight you and run the risk of injury, when I can order any of my men to do it for me?”

I was ready for him, however, and answered him almost before he had finished speaking. “Because you are their leader—their Magister—and I am challenging you directly. Besides, if they attack me, singly or in any other way, you will never learn anything more about my wonderful spears.”

His grin grew wider. “What is to stop us from simply depriving you of them now? It would be no great feat, with eight of my men against you alone. I would not even have to be involved.”

“Very true,” I agreed, finding it easy to smile back at this man. “And there really is nothing to prevent you doing as you wish, if that is what you wish. But even when you have the weapons in your hands you will know nothing of them, or of what they were designed for, or of how to use them. I have only four of them, and you could never duplicate them.”

“Never? That sounds like bluster to me. What do you mean we could never duplicate them? Wait! Wait … Of course, the shafts … bamboo, you said?” He fell silent for a few moments, then resumed. “A few moments ago you said .that if we attacked you we would learn nothing of the spears. That implies, then, that if I myself agree to fight you we might learn something of them. Am I correct?”

“You are. That is what I meant.”

“Dismount then, and let’s try a bout, but I hope you have strong bones and a hard head.” He turned toward his men. “Who has the training swords? Bring them forward.”

There were mutterings and mumbles among the others, but they quickly stilled as I leaped down from my horse and hung my thin bundle of spears from a hook on my saddle before moving to face their leader, who stood waiting for me with a longsword made of heavy, wooden dowel in each hand, extending them toward me hilt first. He was even larger, seen from this level, than I had thought at first, fully half a head taller than me, broader in the shoulders and longer of arm and leg. An intimidating adversary.

“These are our standard training swords,” he said, quietly. “They are made from ash wood, so they have resilience, as well as strength and weight. Choose whichever one pleases you more.”

I reached out and took one in each hand, hefting them and feeling for balance and weight. “They are heavier than I am used to, and much longer.”

“Aye, they are half again as long in the blade as a spatha. Do you normally use a spatha?”

“I do.”

“We don’t, in Camulod. Our swords are longer—stronger, too. Hence the heavier weight of these, based on the principle that a training weapon should be twice the weight of a real one. Will this be too much for you?”

I looked him straight in the eye and managed a smile for him, then crouched into the fighting stance and began the circling dance of the blade fighter half a step before he did the same. Before we had made half a revolution, the others had surrounded us, silent but watchful, plainly expecting to see their leader teach me a lesson in short order. I felt the difference in the practice sword immediately and straightened slightly, realizing that the increased length and weight of the weapon would call for a different technique in handling the thing. It felt utterly alien in my grasp, cumbersome and ungainly, but I noticed, too, that the hilt was twice as long as the hilt on my spatha, and that told me that that the swords these people wielded could be gripped with both hands and swung ferociously.

My opponent immediately taught me something else about these weapons, because he held his in both hands, one on the hilt in the normal grip, and the other cradling the heavy end so that he held the weapon horizontally as he moved opposite me, assessing my capabilities. I could have told him I had none with such an ungainly weapon, but I knew he would arrive at that conclusion unaided, within a very short time. Prior to that, however, I would watch and hope to learn how to survive this encounter without disgracing myself. I began by holding my weapon the way he was holding his.

Decades have passed since that day but I can still recall it clearly and with ease, and the clearest recollection I have is the easy half smile on my adversary’s face, the supreme confidence expressed in his every move and the crouching grace with which he faced me. I knew that the weapon I was holding was going to hinder me, but I found myself taking encouragement from the way it nestled in my hands. And when he opened his attack by springing toward me, changing his grip swiftly to grasp the hilt in both hands and bring a mighty overhead blow down on me, I was ready for him. I could have jumped backward or to either side to avoid the blow, because I saw it coming from the outset, but I chose to step into him instead, raising my weapon high in both hands to meet and absorb his blow before it could develop full momentum.

From that moment of first impact, when his sword hit mine, I lost all awareness of any newness or strangeness in my weapon and I fought as Tiberias Cato had taught me to fight, using all his tricks. Inside the big man’s guard as I was, . I turned and rammed my elbow into the soft, vulnerable spot beneath the join of his ribs. He grunted heavily and staggered backward and as he went reeling I spun again and slashed hard at his left knee. He managed to block the blow with a downthrust blade and then exploded into a catlike leap that won him enough distance to leave him safe for a few moments. And then the fight began in earnest.

The exhilaration of combat and the thirst for victory combined to increase my focus and my concentration, so that all my normal fighting skills seemed enhanced and I adjusted quickly and completely to my new sword, manipulating it at times as though it were a spear with a solid, heavy shaft.

We fought long and hard, neither of us able to gain a lasting advantage over the other. When he attacked me, hacking and slashing ferociously, I would back away, fending off his blows and concentrating wholly on absorbing and avoiding his ferocity until the moment when I felt the vigor of his charge begin to wane. Then it became my turn to pursue him. Back and forth we went, time after time, the entire meadow echoing with the hard, dry clattering of blade against blade. We lost awareness, right at the outset, of the people watching us. We had no time for others. Our entire attention was focused upon each other because we both knew, within moments of our first clash, that we were equally matched despite his greater size and reach, and that this fight would go to the first man fortunate enough to land a solid blow. And each of us intended to be that man. But on and on it went, advance and retreat, neither of us able to land that solid blow and both of us growing more and more fatigued with every passing moment.

There came a time, and I had known it must come soon, when I began to feel, and to believe, that I was incapable of lifting my weapon above my head one more time. But he attacked again, hewing wickedly at my flanks, and one of his blows, a lateral slash, knocked aside my guardian blade and hit me at midthigh.

It was not a killing blow, for my own weapon had countered it and absorbed most of its strength, but had we been using real weapons it would have cut me deeply and been the end of me. As it was, I felt the crushing impact and my mind transported me instantly to Gaul where, three years earlier, I had been kicked in the same place, and with much the same force, by a horse. Then, as on this occasion, there was no pain, and I knew this time I would feel none until later. For the time being, however, my entire leg was numb. I could move on it without falling if I did so with great care, but I could not feel it at all.

Knowing he had hit me hard, my opponent held back instead of rushing in to finish me, and in doing so he gave the initiative back to me. I took full advantage of it, using a two handed grip to unleash a rain of blows, pushing him inex orably backward with a fierce but unsustainable attack. knew I was using the last of my reserves of strength but I ha gone beyond caring. I knew that I would be finished the mo ment my attack began to falter, but I was determined to go down fighting. And then, in jumping backward to avoid crippling slash, my opponent caught his heel on somethin uneven and fell heavily, landing hard on his backside an losing his blade in the process.

It was my victory. All I had to do was step forward an place the end of my weapon against his chest. Instead—an to this day I do not know why I did it, although I am glad did—I transferred my weapon to my left hand, grounded it and then stepped forward, offering him my right hand to pul himself up.

Only when he was standing facing me again, his righ hand still holding mine and his left gripping my shoulder did I realize that he was breathing every bit as laboriously I was. He finally sucked in one great, deep breath and held i for long moments before expelling it again, and when h spoke his voice was close to normal.

“That was well fought, sir Gaul, and it was a task I woul not care to undertake again today or any other day. Yo are …” He paused, searching for a word. “Formidable. Yes that describes you. Formidable. Now that you have thrash me, will you permit me to ask who are you and whence yo come, and who taught you to fight like that?”

He released my hand and waved away one of his men wh was trying to attract his attention, and I knew that he gen uinely wanted to hear my answers. I nodded my head. “M name is Clothar,” I said, looking him in the eye and seein the black flecks in the tawny gold of his irises. “And I am nc a Gaul. I am a Frank, from southern Gaul. A Salian F reared among Ripuarians in the south.” I saw the blanknes in his eyes immediately and knew he had no idea what I wa talking about, so I held up my hand quickly, palm outwarc to indicate that I was aware of his incomprehension.

“There are two kinds of Franks in Gaul,” I said then. “Two clans, if you like. Both drifted down into Gaul from Germania during the past hundred years and more, and each came from a different region. The clan who call themselves Ripuarians kept moving southward and settled in southeastern Gaul, and the others, who call themselves Salian Franks, settled the northern and northeastern territories. The tale of how I came to be raised among Ripuarians far from my own home is a long one and of little import here. But I was sent here to Britain, accompanied by two of my friends more than a year ago by my patron and mentor, Bishop Germanus, late of the town of Auxerre, in central Gaul. My task was to carry letters and documents from the Bishop to Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod. Sadly, the bishop is now dead, but I have completed the task he set for me.”

The entire group was listening to me now, but I kept my eyes on the man they called Magister. “As for the fighting,” I added, smiling slightly, “I learned that thanks to the Bishop, too. He was an Imperial Legate before he was a bishop, strange as that might seem … but then Germanus was a wondrous man. He was a close friend of the Emperor Honorius, too, married to one of the Imperial cousins … and he served victoriously as Supreme Commander of the Armies of Gaul in the wars against the Burgundians right up until he retired and joined the Church. So he knew well the value of training and discipline, both military and religious. I spent six years as a student at the school he founded in Auxerre for boys. They call it the Bishop’s School, and the stable master there, Tiberias Cato, is a former cavalryman who served under Germanus when he was Legate. It was Tiberias Cato who taught me to ride and to fight, and it was he who, as a much younger man, brought those spears back from the other Empire in the distant east. And now I am here in Camulod awaiting the return of Arthur the Riothamus.”

“Arthur? Why do you wait for him? Do you bear letters for him, too? And have you been carrying them about with you for a year and more?”

I smiled. “No, no letters for him. But for years I have been hearing much about Arthur Pendragon from Bishop Germanus, who heard of him through Merlyn and developed a correspondence with him personally when the king was but a boy. And now that my mission for the Bishop is complete and the bishop himself is dead, I intend to offer my sword and my services to Arthur, if he will have me.”

“Oh, he will have you. Never fear on that.”

Something in the way he spoke the words prompted me to ask, “You sounded very positive when you said that. How can you be so sure?”

He grinned again. “Because I know. I can speak without fear on behalf of the Riothamus when I say he needs good and loyal men. You said you brought friends with you?”

I nodded, “Aye, two of them, Perceval and Tristan. They are brothers. And we have a fourth with us, a servant lad called Bors, who has the makings of a fine warrior.”

“Hmm. And what of Perceval and … what was the other’s name? Tristan?”

“Aye, what mean you, what of them?”

“Are they fighters?”

I laughed, a single bark. “Do you mean will they measure up sufficiently to be acceptable to your Riothamus? Aye, they’re fighters and they’ll stand up to anyone. Both are mercenaries of long standing and of the highest order, and they’re nobly born. Had they been with me when I chanced along here, we would have taken on all of you.”

“Hmm.” The Magister grunted again and smiled, “Tell me your name again, if you will?”

“Clothar.”

“Aye, Clothar.” He nodded, slowly, repeating it almost beneath his breath, “Clothar. It is … different. I’ve never heard that name before.”

“It is common enough where I come from, and it is purely Frankish. Am I permitted to ask your name?”

He grinned and looked me in the eye, showing me his white, even teeth. “If I tell you my name will you show me the secret of your spears?”

I knew he was baiting me, gulling me in some manner, but I could not see how and I shook my head, smiling still, but now uncertain of what was happening here. “I have already said I would. I said so before we fought.”

“That’s true, you did.” He drew himself up straight and drew in an enormous breath, and his smile was open and completely forthright. “Come then, return to Camulod with us and make me known to these friends of yours, Tristan and Perceval, who have come so far with you to join the Riothamus. I am Arthur Pendragon, and men—some men—call me Riothamus, High King of Britain. But Riothamus, no matter who says it, is a mere title. I have yet to earn the right to it, to fill in the truth behind it, and I fear I have a long way to go before I can admit to the name without feeling inadequate.”

He paused, and then nodded his head once, quickly, and when he resumed he looked me in the eye again, no trace of a smile on his features. “But my given name is Arthur, and I am the Chief of Pendragon, and so be it you were serious about joining with us, I think we two could become friends. What say you, Clothar the Frank?”

My jaw had fallen open as he began to speak, and I knew I was gaping like a simpleton, but now I dropped to one knee in front of him, meaning to kiss his hand as I would a Bishop’s, but he caught me by the arm and pulled me back to my feet. “No, no, none of that. I have done nothing yet to earn that kind of treatment, and you have newly knocked me on my arse. Folly, then, to follow that by kissing my hand.” He smiled again. “When the time comes to swear loyalty to me, I will let you know. For the time being, if you feel a need to be ceremonious, you can call me Magister, as the others do. Now, what about those spears you have? Will you show me how and why they are different from ours?”

Before I could respond, I had to breathe deeply and calm my racing, exultant heart. I could hear a blackbird piping somewhere among the woods to my right and another, equally melodious and exultant, singing its heart out behind us, and hearing them both united in a paean of triumphant, all-consuming beauty, I felt all at once that anything would be possible in this new land to which I had brought my friends with the thought of serving this impressive man. And when I felt able to speak again without quavering, I nodded my head, partly in acknowledgment, partly in respectful awe.

“Aye, Magister,” I said, addressing my King thus for the very first time, “I will.”