The Saxon Shore

I assumed that if he judged bulk according to his own, then even the fiercest boar might seem insignificant. He was enormous in chest and shoulders, with arms that seemed as thick as an ordinary man's thigh and huge hands that easily circled the thick shaft of his massive spear. He was also flat bellied, although his overall dimensions made it difficult to appreciate that. I could detect no sign of fat on him. Cullum was a formidable figure. I nodded to him again and spoke to Rufio.

"Are you clear on what we will do here? The order of manoeuvres?" He nodded his head. "Good, then we had best line up with the others." I spoke again to Cullum. "I hope you'll find this spectacle to your taste." He smiled and bowed his head very slightly, saying nothing more. Behind him the meadow was rapidly filling now with people of all ages. It seemed the entire populace had come to watch us ride.

When I rejoined Dedalus his face was closed and guarded, a sight sufficiently unusual to prompt me to ask him what was wrong. His response was short and terse. "I'm upset, and I'm nervous."

I laughed aloud, hoping to put him more at ease. "Of what? This? It's only a demonstration, Ded!"

He was unimpressed. "Aye, so you say. But it's a test. These Outlanders, fine people though they seem to be, will judge us by our performance here today. I'm telling you, Merlyn, I haven't felt this vulnerable since the first time I stood on defaulters' parade waiting for your old man to come down on me from his godly height."

"You? On defaulters'? God, Dedalus, that must be thirty years ago!"

He threw me a scathing look. "No, young man, it was twenty-three years ago and I remember it well. I was a lowly trooper and I'd been in a drunken brawl and belted a young tribune by mistake. A killing crime. I thought I was for a flogging, at least. The General had that look in his eye. But he knew what was what, and I found out long afterwards that he would have enjoyed the seeing of it. The tribune was not well liked. But I'll never forget that morning. Turned my bowels to water."

I laughed at the look on his face. Dedalus was of old, pure Roman blood. He had a beak like an eagle and a thin slash of a mouth, and he had always been something of a dandy among his peers, dressing more flamboyantly than anyone else, and getting away with it because he was capable of disembowelling anyone with his bare hands.

"Don't tell me you were afraid of him, Ded?"

He looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Afraid? Of your father when he was on the rampage? Only a fool wouldn't have been. Picus Britannicus was implacable, once he decided that punishment was called for. Should have thought you'd know that. He must have had the hide off you a few times."

The thought surprised me. In all my years of childhood, my father had never raised a hand against either me or Uther: his voice, yes, and loudly, but never his hand. I had never thought about it before, but I thought about it now and saw that it was surprising, for he was a strict and fearsome martinet. I knew his men had walked in dread of him most of the time although, paradoxically, they loved and admired him, too. I had seen men flogged and even executed at his command, for his discipline was absolute. Dereliction of duty carried a death sentence, whether it was for sleeping on sentry duty, cowardice in the field, absence without leave, or theft from a comrade. Rape meant execution, as did murder. All of these offenses were tried by military tribunal and clemency was extended only under the most extenuating circumstances. I knew of only one instance, a case of suspected but unproved theft, in which the accused was given the benefit of the doubt and freed. One instance in all the years since I had started paying attention to such things, but it had been at my father's insistence that the man was given his life.

Abruptly, all thought was driven from my mind by the explosion of a bellowing roar of rage from the woods that bordered the meadow to the right of the main gates of the stronghold, and a giant bear burst into the open, in pursuit of a fleeing, terrified man who died as we all watched, smashed to extinction by the sweep of a massive paw. The beast was less than sixty paces from where we sat. It had come bounding into the sunlight, killed its tormentor and now reared up on its hind legs in triumph, a nightmare thing whose heavy, matted, blackish brown coat seemed to draw daylight physically into its enormous bulk. Again it bellowed, its weak eyes now attracted by the press of people on the slope above, and the volume of the sound stirred the short hairs on my neck. Someone behind me, a woman, screamed, and I sensed, rather than saw, a ripple of terror-stricken movement along the front line of Athol's people at my back.

"Stand fast!" Dedalus's bellow was almost as startling as the bear's, and such was the power of his roar that even the people of the settlement stilled their panicked rush for safety, freezing where they stood. Dedalus pulled his horse up into a rearing turn and faced the rest of our men, defying any of them to show fear.

I saw all of this from the corner of my eye, for from the moment of first hearing that awful sound, I had felt myself swept up into something beyond my control and my eyes were fastened on the bear to the virtual exclusion of everything else. It stood there, erect and huge, emanating menace and destructive power, and then the prancing movement of Ded's horse caught its attention so that the beast swung its massive head towards us, dropped to all fours and broke immediately into a lumbering charge. Dedalus had his back to it at the time and the skittish agitation of his horse had placed him between the bear and me. I saw, without being able to believe, the speed at which the monstrous animal was coming, and I knew that it would be upon Ded before he could regain control and kick his horse to any speed, but I was horrified to find myself kicking my own horse and going straight towards the abominable thing.

It saw me coming and reared up to a halt, flinging itself erect again to wait for me. I hauled on the reins, leaning far out to my right, and brought my horse heeling hard over, almost within grasp of the dreadful animal's great claws, galloping past it and on down towards the line of brush that had concealed the beast. Standing erect, the monster towered above my head, even mounted as I was. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that it was chasing me now. I kicked again, letting my reins fall slack, and gave Germanicus his head. There was one isolated clump of bushes straight ahead of me; one single, fair-sized thicket. I guided my mount as close to it as I could, knowing the beast was gaining on me, and then twisted his head into a savage turn, risking a fatal fall. Thorns and branches ripped at my clothes, but I kept the big black's head pulled down, far to the right, making almost a complete circle around the clump. Then I kicked him flat out, back towards the line of my mounted men. I heard a cheer and knew that my ruse had worked. The bear had gone charging ahead and I had gained some distance. I was almost back to the line by the time I heard another bellow of rage over the thudding of my horse's hooves and glanced backwards in time to see the bear drop back to all fours and come after me again. But suddenly there was Dedalus, cutting across diagonally between us at full gallop. The bear, confused, stood up and roared again as I brought my horse to a sliding stop almost upon the line of Athol's spearmen who were advancing, grim-faced and shoulder to shoulder, towards certain death. Cullum's wicked boar spear reared up among them, closest to me.

"Give me that!"

Cullum blinked at me in surprise, then stepped forward and handed me his weapon. It was bigger and thicker than I had thought, wickedly heavy. Sarissa . . . Alexander. . .

The words rang in my head in the tones of Uncle Varrus, and I remembered him telling me that the Great King Alexander's Companions had ridden into battle with a spear six arm's-lengths long, the sarissa, balanced on their shoulders and angled forward and down. The spear I now held was less than two-thirds that length, thick in the shaft and grossly heavy, and no thought had been given in its design to serving a man on horseback. I knew as soon as I took hold of it that I could not hope to balance it on my shoulder, but the bear was there, bellowing, and my own reflexes were in control of me. I tucked one end of the gross shaft beneath my arm and kicked Germanicus back into a run, the butt of the ungainly weapon held close to my hip, against the back of my saddle. It was too heavy, far too cumbersome, so I jerked it up, allowing the point to fall forward and catching the butt directly beneath my armpit, struggling with gritted teeth to keep the point up and free of the ground as I flew towards what I knew to be certain death. The muscles of my arm and shoulder were already screaming with pain and I knew I was going to drop the spear. I had to drop it, to save my life. But I dropped the reins, instead, and used my left hand to pull the spearhead upwards. I was leaning backwards in my saddle, my legs braced solidly in the stirrups, when Germanicus felt the freedom in the reins and swerved violently. I saw a mighty paw swinging from above and screwed my eyes closed, and then came a jolt the like of which I had never felt, and I was plucked bodily from the saddle and sent flying. I heard my horse scream as the ground came flying up to meet me, and I fell into darkness.

When I came to my senses again, I was strapped to a cloak of some kind stretched between two spears, being carried through Athol's gates by four men, two of my own and two of the king's. Donuil's face loomed above me, creased with concern. I tried to speak, but a dizzying blackness fell on me again.

Later, of course, I discovered that I had killed the bear. The swerve of my horse and the pull of my left arm had brought the point of the heavy spear up to a perfect entry point in the creature's throat, and the angle of penetration, combined with the speed of my approach, had driven the great head of the weapon with sufficient force to sever the animal's spine. The bear had gone over backwards, the mighty spear's shaft had snapped, and I had been catapulted into the air while my poor horse had fallen heavily, frightened almost to death by the feral smell of the giant beast that sprawled beside it.

My early protests of an accidental victory fell on deaf ears. Everyone had watched me take a spear and charge a maddened bear, killing it on the spot, alone and without help of any kind except for that one diversionary pass by Dedalus that had given me time to arm myself. I gave up arguing and enjoyed being a hero.

Hearing that I had regained consciousness, Donuil and his father both reached me at the same time, the latter frowning and the former now grinning widely.

"Merlyn, how do you feel?" Athol asked. "Can you stand? It shames me to think that you might have been killed defending my people while a hundred and more of my own warriors stood idly by."

I stilled his anxious protestations with an upraised hand. "Peace, King Athol. The responsibility is mine alone. The bear was already attacking, and none of your warriors was at fault. There was no time to do anything else."

He shook his head. "No, not so. My spearmen should have made short work of it. You should have left it to them."

Donuil interrupted. "You saw the size of that thing, Father. It's enormous! It would have killed a dozen men, perhaps more, before they killed it. Caius Merlyn was born for deeds like that. We should simply thank the gods that he was there." Donuil hunkered down beside me, grinning again. "By your Christian Christ, Cay, you must be mad! I've heard men tell that you're a wild man when you're roused, but I wouldn't have approached that thing with fifty of my father's spearmen!"

I grinned, feeling foolish again. "I didn't intend to, Donuil, it just happened. There was no time to think, only to do something, anything, it didn't matter what."

"Aye!" He laughed. "The thing really is enormous, at least three times the size of the boar your people killed last week."

Donuil's father cut his banter short with a wave of his hand, then stood gazing down at me on my cot. From my position, looking back up at him, the old king seemed even larger than I remembered. He stood silent for long moments, his lips sucked inward, then nodded as if to confirm what he had been thinking.

"My son is garrulous, Caius Merlyn, but he may have much the truth of things. I heard about the boar you killed in the south; the size and weight of it and the splendour of its tusks. And now this, with the bear. Measured erect, I am told, it was almost twice the height of our tallest man, the largest creature of its kind any of our people have seen. But it was folly to do what you did, no matter what the provocation. One man alone against a creature of that size should have been killed immediately. There should have been no contest. How did you do it?" Before I could frame an answer he held up his hand to forestall me as he had his son. "No matter. I do not think I wish to hear your answer to that. I am content that you succeeded and in the process saved the lives of several of my people. For that, atop all else, you have my gratitude." He smiled then, a smile of genuine amusement. "I told the people they would see a demonstration of the power of cavalry. What we saw, all of us, filled us with awe. We have no need now to watch more. One man alone has convinced us."

"Well, sir, not one alone. I had some help from Dedalus."

"Aye, a diversion. That was bravely done. But Dedalus did not front the beast by himself and kill it. We will speak further later, when you have regained yourself." He lowered his head, almost in a bow, and left Donuil and me to watch him go.

"So," Donuil said, perching himself on the edge of my cot and wasting no time with niceties. "Tell me what happened. I was late in arriving, after my father, and I saw only the closing dash. I missed all of what had gone before, and since then I've heard four different versions. Tell me your version of the foolishness."

"There's not a lot to tell," I said, swallowing against a soreness in my throat. "It didn't seem foolish at the time. It was as though the entire thing was predestined, and I could not really believe it was happening even as it occurred. There was simply nothing different I could have done. Had I not moved when I did, the bear would have killed Dedalus. I simply knew I had to divert the thing's attention. Once it began, I had no other course."

"Hmm!" His voice sounded reflective. "I asked Dedalus about it. He told me that you behaved with brilliance. That's his word, not mine. He said you hauled your horse around a clump of bushes in a move he has never seen any rider equal."

I grinned. "That was desperation. It was a matter of making that turn or being caught by the bear."

"How did you get the spear?"

"I took it from Cullum—is that his name? The thickset fellow with the enormous muscles." Donuil nodded. "Aye," I continued. "Anyway, Dedalus saved my life by his charge and gave me time to get Cullum's spear, so we are equal there. I saw the spear with its huge blade thrusting up into the air and remembered what Uncle Varrus said about sarissas, the great, long spears Alexander's men used to carry. It seemed to me that even a boar spear would be a better weapon against that beast than a sword, so I seized it and charged and the rest was pure, blind chance. I killed it, but should not have. It was fortune, good fortune, thank God. My horse swerved, I managed to haul the point up into the air at last, and it hit the bear in the neck. No judgment, no skill involved, mere blind chance. A couple of finger breadths to either side and I would have missed it completely and be dead now."

Donuil grunted. "Hmm! That's what my father meant by folly. You could have been killed and that would have been a tragedy, especially in such a useless, unpremeditated way as that."

"Unpremeditated, perhaps, Donuil, but far from useless. It led me to Cullum's spear."

"What d'you mean?"

"I succeeded by accident, but I did succeed."

"So?" He unslung a wineskin from his shoulder where it had hung unnoticed by me and swallowed a mouthful of its contents. "You were fortunate Cullum was there. On the spot, by your own admission."

"I know, but that's not what I mean. The spear was wrong, but it felt right, too. I killed the bear by chance, but I could easily have killed it the same way on purpose."

He glanced sideways at me, and his response was heavy with irony. "Forgive me, Commander Merlyn, but what you are saying sounds like nonsense to me. What, exactly, are you trying to say?"

"No, it's not nonsense. Give me some of that." He passed me the wineskin and I gulped at it heartily before asking, "Where did you get this?"

"Camulod. I brought it with me."

"Damnation," I said, regretting that I had not thought to do the same. "Anyway, I don't think what I'm saying is nonsense. Before Uncle Varrus died, the last thing he said to me was that we still had much to learn from the weapons, the old ones, in his Armoury, and he mentioned Alexander and the sarissa specifically. Alexander's chosen bodyguard, the Companions they were called, rode into battle carrying an enormous spear over their shoulders.

They charged and left the spear in the first man they struck. Created havoc among their enemies. But that's what made me think of seizing that spear from Cullum." I stopped, and took another mouthful of wine. I was thinking carefully about my words now, wanting to clarify my thoughts to Donuil and to make him see the potential of the half-formed idea that was exciting me.

"I don't know the feel of a sarissa, but I know that boar spear was too heavy—too much weight in the head, and the shaft's too thick. And yet the sarissa was five, perhaps six arm's-lengths long and Cullum's spear no more than four. When I hit that bear at full gallop, it was like riding headlong into a wall. It stopped me solidly. But the ridge of the saddle against my back added to the impact. I flew off and almost broke my back, because I had both hands on the spear. I wasn't holding the reins. If the saddle hadn't stopped me, I would have been pushed from the back of the horse at the first impact. Do you follow me?"

"No, quite honestly, I don't, but go on."

"Donuil, I think it was that extra punch from the saddle back that drove the spearhead all the way through the bear's neck. You remember the tale of the first time I smashed the vase in Uncle Varrus's Armoury?" He nodded, his eyes betraying his interest. "Well, that's the kind of leverage I'm talking about. I think, I'm not certain, but I think that if I had been holding a lighter spear, still strong, but with a smaller head—or even a longer one like the sarissa—and if I had been holding it under my armpit, and if I had been leaning forwards when I hit the bear, instead of backwards, and if I'd had the reins tight in my left hand and my legs braced properly, controlling my horse . . ." My voice trailed away.

"A profusion of 'ifs,' Merlyn."

"I know, I know, but bear with me, Donuil. What I'm trying to put into words here is important. I believe that if I had done all of those things, I could have driven that spear clean through that bear, even through its chest, without being unhorsed."

He looked me straight in the eye, all trace of levity gone. "Without being unhorsed. You really believe that?"

I nodded. "Yes. Completely. Anyway, I want to try it. Alexander's Companions always lost their spears on their first charge, because they had no way of holding on to them, they could not brace themselves against shock. We can. Our stirrups give us the option of using spears, hitting hard with them and retaining them to use again."

Donuil was frowning now, deep in thought. "You could be right, Caius, but not with a spear as long as the one you seem to be describing. That's far too long, it seems to me. I know I'm no cavalryman, not yet, but it seems to me that what you should be talking about is a spear that's long enough to take a man in front of you chest high, whether he be mounted or on foot, knock him down, and be short enough to pivot under you and be pulled out by the force of your momentum as your horse goes on past him."

"Exactly, Donuil! That is exactly what I mean. So perhaps it might be half the length of a sarissa. Three arm's-lengths."

"Aye, that's more like it. Three arm's-lengths, at the most. A light, strong spear, heavier than a javelin, stronger than a pilum, with a long, unbarbed head that will pull out clean. Should I have our smith attempt to make one? I can have him start on it tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be difficult to make, merely a variation on the spears he makes already." His enthusiasm was total, and infectious. I grinned at him.

"Why not? I'll come with you when you talk to him. The sooner he tries, the sooner we'll see whether or not I'm right. Now pull me up, I'm beginning to feel like a tired old man, and that illicit wine of yours has made me hungry. Is it still raining?"

Donuil returned my grin. "It's always raining, that's why the land is so green. Our gods want to ensure that we never become ungrateful for the sunlight, so they dole it out to us in tiny rations; each day of sunshine reminds us of the beauty of our land, but they're few and far enough between to make sure that we never become overused to it. Come then, let's get you up and moving, and if you feel up to it, we can eat with Connor. His wife killed a young pig three days ago and she's roasting some of it tonight."

It was still raining heavily the following morning when we went looking for the local smith, trudging almost ankle-deep through muddy water that seemed to have nowhere to drain to, although in fact it all drained into the nearby river. The smith to Athol's people was a man called Maddan, and no one setting eyes upon him for the first time could have thought him anything but a smith, even discounting the ingrained soot and charcoal that polished his visible skin to a glossy black in places. He was short and stocky, broad of shoulder and thick of forearm, wearing only a rough tunic beneath the thick, heavy leather apron that protected him from flying sparks. I smiled on seeing him, for he was, as I had expected, clean-shaven and therefore something of an oddity among the hirsute, bearded and mustached Scots. I had never known a bearded smith except my Uncle Publius, and even he had kept his beard close-cropped and neat in the Roman fashion, not, as he had once explained to me, because he thought that highly of Roman styles, but simply because a beard was a hazard for a smith, liable to ignite at any time while he worked at his forge.

Maddan knew his craft and understood very quickly what we were seeking. He had, of course, been present in the meadow the previous day and had seen my struggles with the bear and the boar spear. When I began to explain how my thoughts had developed after that encounter, he nodded his head immediately and thereafter listened in carefully attentive silence as I outlined my idea. As soon as I had finished speaking he grunted and disappeared into the farthest recesses of the gloomy cavern that was his smithy, emerging shortly afterward with a spearhead that was almost as large as the one on Cullum's weapon.

"This might do, to start out with," he suggested, dropping it on a counter-top with a metallic clang. "It's rusted, but that's easily mended. Forge'll take care of that. I made it last month, but I was in too much haste and I made it too big and too heavy. It's too big for what you want, but not by much. I can lengthen it and narrow the head, and by the time you decide on the kind of shaft you want, it should at least give us a working model we can make adjustments from. What d'you think?"

I thought it might be close, and told him so, looking to Donuil for his concurrence, but he was looking elsewhere, his eyes wide and filled with pleasure and something else that I defined instantly and without reason as awe. Curious, I turned my head to follow his gaze and saw a figure crossing the open space outside the forge, head down against the pouring rain, its shape tilted to one side from the weight of the burden it bore. I saw no more than that; a shapeless, indeterminate figure, obscured by the rain and by a long, heavy cloak. Intrigued, I glanced back to Donuil, seeing him still rapt, and then returned my gaze to the newcomer. As I did so, the figure lost its footing in the mud and slipped, almost falling, dropping its burden. It was no more than a momentary loss of balance, but it provoked a surge of energetic resentment from the cloaked figure, who seized a fresh, firm grip on the heavy bundle and swung it mightily, releasing it to fly through the air and land with a sodden thump mere paces from the open front of the smithy. Even before the bundle had landed, the thrower was moving towards it again, grasping it afresh with surprisingly small hands and propelling it, with a heave of shoulders and a guiding knee, into the open doorway.

"Shelagh," Donuil said, his voice almost a whisper. The figure stopped in surprise, then straightened, peering into the darkness of the smithy and raising one arm to pull back the hood from its head. Beyond surprise for some reason, I saw that it was a young woman, whose long, dark hair hung down in rain-plastered ringlets over a featureless face.

"Donuil? Is it you then?" She stepped forward into the shelter of the doorway, combing her wet hair off her face with the fingers of one hand, and stood there for a moment, staring hard at Donuil, her expression unreadable. None of us moved. Finally, her lips formed what might have been the beginnings of a smile and she nodded, a tiny movement of her head, and then her eyes moved to where I stood watching. She ignored Maddan completely. She regarded me from head to foot and back again, and spoke again to Donuil.

"I heard you were back. I met Finn on the path to the mountains yesterday. I would have been here to greet you, but none of us knew if you were yet alive, let alone coming home." Her gaze returned to me, looking me straight in the eye. "You must be the Merlyn fellow. You're almost as big as Donuil. I've seen you before, but not clearly, and even so, you're better- looking than I expected from what Finn told me of you, but it was obvious even then that you and he had not made friends the moment you met. I'm Shelagh. Donuil and I were friends once, long ago, before he went off to be your prisoner." I was confused, and becoming more so by the moment. What had she meant by saying she had seen me before? She could not have, unless she had been in Britain recently, and had I met her I felt sure I would have remembered.

I bent my head in a courteous nod, but before I could respond she had turned her attentions once more on Donuil. "Well, I can see they didn't starve you over there. Have you been to my father's house yet?"

"No." I could tell from the slow, deliberate way Donuil shook his head in emphasis that he was far from being at his ease in this meeting.

"Well, that's something, at least. Why not?" She answered her own question. "Och, never mind. I know why not. My father was probably waiting for me to come home, to look after him as well as you. There's little comfort in a house that has no woman in it."

"No," Donuil finally rallied some words. "We haven't had time."

"Time?" She threw him a look of wide-eyed astonishment. "Then what have you been doing since you came back? Never mind. Will you have time tonight?" Donuil nodded, wordless again. "Good. Then we'll expect you." Her eyes flicked back to me. "You, too." Now she turned to Maddan, indicating the sodden bundle on the threshold with a wave of her hand.

"There are eight wolf pelts there, Maddan, a bearskin, a badger and four of them lovely tree fellers with the big, flat tails." I did not recognize the name she used, but it was plain that the animals were the dam-building creatures the Romans called castora. "They're all salted down," she continued, "but they need to be stretched and dried out. Will you be a love and make some frames for me? You can have the bearskin, if you will." Maddan merely nodded, smiling patiently and saying not a word. I could see that these two had worked together before. Shelagh smiled at him now, in a flash of white, even teeth. "And I'm carrying half the soil of Eire on my body and in my hair with this rain and the mud. Would you heat me some water for a bath?" Again, a silent nod from Maddan. "Thank you, sweet man. I'll see you two tonight." And suddenly she was gone, leaving Donuil and me staring at each other.

He smiled at me, suddenly shy and awkward. "That was Shelagh."

"Aye, I gathered that," I answered, making a determined effort to keep any trace of irony out of my tone. "But who is she, and who is her father?"

"Liam, Liam Twistback's her father."

"Liam?" I was too surprised to dissemble. "Is she . . . ?" I broke off, belatedly, not wanting to ask the question. The long cloak could have hidden any deformity.

"Is she what? Oh, you mean is she a hunchback?" He laughed, and I heard Maddan behind me laugh with him. "No, Cay, she's no hunchback, not Shelagh. She was always the pretty one in the old days . . ." His voice faded, and then resumed with wonder. "But I'd no idea she'd grow to be so . . ." He coughed and turned his attention immediately to the long- forgotten spearhead on the bench beside us, picking it up and hefting it in his hand before stooping to peer at it closely, angling it towards the light. "There's a lot of rust on this thing, Maddan."

I covered my smile and respected his reticence for the time being, and we returned to the topic that had brought us to the smithy, picking up our discussion almost as smoothly as if we had not been interrupted. We agreed that the existing spearhead, with minor modifications, would be as good a starting place as any, and Maddan thrust it immediately into the fire of his forge and began to work his bellows, making it clear to Donuil and me, without the insult of words, that our continued presence in his smithy was likely to be a distraction thereafter. We pulled on our heavy, waxed wool cloaks and walked out into the downpour.

"What now?" I asked Donuil, raising my voice above the hissing roar of the rain.

He glanced up at the leaden clouds and sniffed. "Doesn't make much difference, seems to me," he shouted back. "Whatever we do, we'll be wet."

"Hmm. I think I'll go over to the camp and visit the others. Will you come?" Aware of the pitch of both our voices against the noise of the weather, he merely nodded now, and we made our way towards the main gate and out towards where "the horse camp," as the townspeople were already calling it, had been set up. Donuil hitched his cloak more comfortably around his shoulders and spoke again, loud-voiced against the elements, but without looking at me this time, his eyes fixed on the waterlogged ground where we walked.

"Well, Caius Merlyn, you have been here two nights now. Different from Camulod, isn't it?"

"Aye, it is," I called back. "Very different. But I expected that. It's a different land altogether."

"Aye. Primitive, would you say?"

I stopped walking immediately, forcing him in turn to stop and look at me. "What do you mean?" I asked, lowering my voice and moving close to him so that he could hear my words clearly enough. His face was flushed, as though angry, but I knew I had given him no reason for anger, so I sought another cause for his evident discomfort and could only come up with defensiveness. I knew immediately I was correct, although his reasons and the timing for such feelings escaped me.

"This is your home, Donuil, and I have been made welcome as a guest in it. Do you suspect me of comparing it to Camulod and finding it less agreeable?" He made no move to respond and so I prodded him. "Well, do you?"

He shook his head, obviously ill at ease, then mumbled, "No, no, I merely pointed out that it is primitive. It is, compared with what you are used to."

"Horse turds," I snapped. "I'm a soldier, Donuil, and you know that as well as I do. I'm more accustomed to sleeping in a leather tent in pouring rain than I will ever be to sleeping in soft beds with fine coverings. Your father's home is not primitive. It is civilized and well governed and its people are safe and happy. Its houses are soundly built and functionally strong, as strong as any in Uther's land." He was looking at me in surprise and I continued speaking, unwilling to allow him any time for interruption.

"Don't forget that while Camulod may be unique in some ways, it is frequently as cold, wet and uncomfortable as any place on earth. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that many of its buildings were erected by Romanized people, using Roman techniques: Roman architects and Roman skills and Roman building materials. But you've already seen how useful Roman building materials are when the Romans leave. That's what those pirates were carting out of Glevum on their barges—Romanism—so I don't wish to hear any more of that sort of rubbish. I have seen no reason, anywhere, since I arrived here, for you or anyone else to feel shame over where or how you live. The ordinary folk of Britain, outside of Camulod, live in settlements and small towns very like your own here—many in far worse case—and if you have not been aware of that in your travels, then you must be either blind or stupid. You have also seen the once-great Roman towns of Britain ruined and abandoned: Isca Dumnoniorum, once the headquarters of the Second Augusta Legion, now an empty wasteland. Verulamium, Londinium, Colchester, Lindum: all of them lying empty, save for a few last citizens either too stubborn or too afraid to leave the false safety of their walls. Don't talk to me of fine houses, Donuil, as though they housed only fine people and vice versa. A fine marble villa built by a Roman nobleman's fortune is no more than a large, empty space to catch the howling wind when its owner is gone. It's far too big for one small family unconcerned by affairs of state and government. A family needs warmth and comfort. My family in Camulod has warmth and comfort, thanks only to fortune. That they are where they are is almost accidental; they are blessed and highly unusual." I paused. "Your family has warmth and comfort, too, man, and happiness, as much as any large family can have that gift. I count myself fortunate to be here. Am I clear?"

He nodded, chastened, yet visibly relieved. I began walking again and he fell immediately into step beside me.

"Good," I said, and then remained silent for another twenty paces or so. "Now tell me about this young woman Shelagh. She means much to you, I could see that."

Now he coughed and cleared his throat and made a useless but determined effort to wipe the streaming rain from his face. I said nothing, simply walking, my head hunched down against the teeming rain, and waiting. We had progressed a further ten or twelve muddy paces before he attempted to respond. As he began to do so, however, drawing a deep breath and turning slightly towards me, we were hailed by a figure that loomed out of the murk just ahead of us. It was Rufio. Donuil shook his head, sharp and hard, as though to warn me from saying more. "We'll talk about it later" was all he had time to say before Rufio joined us.

"God's balls, Donuil," he spat. "Is it always like this in this godforsaken place? Don't you ever have a single day without rain?"

Donuil was grinning again, his earlier discomfort vanished. "Aye," he said. "Sometimes, but not often at this time of the year. Why do you ask?"

Rufio rounded on him, then realized that Donuil was laughing at him. I cut both of them short before he could form a retort. "Were you looking for us, Rufio?"

"Aye, I was," he answered, ignoring Donuil thereafter. "Dedalus and Quintus and I were talking about how long we're going to be staying here, and we realized that none of us knows, and that led us to the awareness that we haven't seen you since yesterday, when we left you to go back to camp. We expected you to come over this morning, but when you didn't come and we had heard nothing, we began to wonder if you were as well as you ought to be, and so Ded asked me to find you and check on your health."

"I am at full strength. How is Quintus? Is his leg mending?"

"It must be, he has done nothing but complain for the past three days, and he wouldn't give out as much as a grunt if he were really in pain, so I suppose that means he's mending. Anyway, he's sitting up in his cot, being waited on hand and foot by everyone else around, including an entire covey of young Eirish girls. I've been giving some thought myself to slipping and falling heavily."

I grinned and slapped him on his armoured shoulder. "Is Ded warm and dry?"

"Aye, and as lazy as ever, and just as cunning. Why d'you think it's me out here looking for you in the pouring rain, and not him? He's safe by the fire, keeping it fed for your advent."

I looked at him in surprised disbelief. "Dedalus ordered you to come and find me?"

He had the grace to shrug and deny it. "Well, no. Not exactly. We tossed for it."

"You tossed for it. Against Dedalus. Rufio, there are times when I wonder about your wit. When did you last know anyone to win the toss against Dedalus?" Dedalus had a reputation of long-standing for never having lost on a spin of the coin. His luck was legendary in Camulod.

He shrugged. "Never. I know that, but the coin was mine, out of my own scrip, and I spun it. There must be a first time."

"You really believe that, Centurion?"

"Yes." He was completely serious. "I really believe that, Commander."

"Well, when it happens, I want you to let me know, and if you are the one to beat him, I will personally pay you twenty times the value of the spin, or of the coin you spin, whichever is greater. Do you believe me?"

"Aye."

"Good. And do you believe I believe I'll ever have to pay?"

"No."

"Even better. Now, do you believe it's possible to drown, simply standing out in the rain?"

"No."

"No more do I, but I have no desire to find out whether or not I'm right. Let's get inside." We lumbered into a run, clanking and splashing, all three of us, to the warmth and smoky comfort of the wooden hut Rufio shared with Dedalus and Quintus. Once there, and drying quickly in the heat of the roaring fire in the open hearth, we were soon at our ease and the talk turned to soldiers' matters, so that the remainder of the day passed quickly and the rain lost all importance.

XV

I did not know what to expect in the home of Liam Twistback that night, so I dressed with some care. I decided to wear neither armour nor weapons, acting upon the assumption that our hostess this night might be seeking an opportunity to redress any false impressions Donuil and I might have drawn from her soaked and bedraggled condition earlier in the day, when she had just returned from a long journey. I guessed that this night, in consequence, would be a time for easy conversation and social intercourse, an occasion where the emphasis would be more likely placed upon the feminine arts than on the masculine. That assumption, let me admit, was bolstered greatly by my having heard the young woman arrange for Maddan to prepare a hot bath for her that afternoon, and by my anticipation, based upon my own observation and intuition, that her interest in Donuil might be at least as keen as his evident interest in her. It was an assumption almost completely undermined, however, by the uncomfortable awareness that I had no real idea of how the women of this society were accustomed to behave in social situations within their own homes. I was entirely unaware of the local customs or of standards of protocol in such circumstances. The only guide to whom I might have turned for enlightenment in such matters was, of course, Donuil himself, and, for one reason or another I had had no opportunity to question him on any of these things.

Donuil had steadfastly refused to speak of Shelagh at all throughout the day, and I had eventually decided not to pursue the matter, aware that his discomfort stemmed more from doubts over his own feelings about the young woman than from any natural reluctance to discuss her with me in front of strangers, even though those strangers had become his friends. Given the opportunity, I guessed, allied with a modicum of genuine encouragement from me, he would have talked me to death on the subject.

The rain had abated but still fell steadily as I made my way through the darkness to the house of Liam Twistback, which was, next to that of the king himself, the largest building in Athol's stronghold. I had learned, at least, that Liam was the wealthiest of all Athol's people, a situation, strangely, that had resulted from Liam's physical condition. Born unfit by his deformity to be a warrior among a people who prized physical abilities above all else, Liam had used the brilliance of his mind and the power of his personality to become the most successful landholder among his peers. He had expended years of singleminded effort in the husbanding of arable land and the gathering and breeding of cattle, goats and oxen, and had established himself as the prime commercial source—indeed, the only reliable, consistent source— of provender to his people. All this, Donuil had told me, Liam had managed to achieve without provoking either jealousy or envy among his fellow Scots who, over the long years during which Liam had amassed his wealth, had simply come to accept that in the little hunchback's industrious but eccentric nature, they had been gifted with a unique asset that was worthy of protection and pride. Liam was wealthier than his king, and wealthier by far than any of his tribe, but he bore his riches casually and self-effacingly, giving offense to none. The only things upon which he lavished his wealth were his house, and his daughter Shelagh.

As a young man, he had wed a cousin of the king, an unmarriageable young woman born, like himself, with a physical deformity. In her case—her name, Donuil had told me, was also Shelagh—the disfigurement had been twofold, consisting of a withered right leg, malformed at birth, and an unsightly, dark red blemish that stained her neck and lower jaw on one side. That both she and Liam had been permitted to survive their birthing had been akin to miraculous, apparently, but each had been born to prominent, elderly and otherwise childless couples. Liam, the elder of the pair by a decade and more, had watched the little girl grow up, an outcast like himself, and had befriended her. By the time Shelagh began to approach marriageable age, Liam had long been successful in impressing his people with the powers of his mind and intellect, and his industry and single-minded application to whatever tasks he set himself had attracted the friendship and admiration of the young king, Athol, to whom Liam had become, at the youngest age in living memory, a personal adviser. Athol it was who, at the risk of scandalizing his entire people, had given his regal and personal blessing to the union of the two most unsightly people in his lands.

That two such people, each set far outside conventional comeliness, had combined to generate a child of such exquisite, glowing beauty as their daughter Shelagh had been a wonder still unforgotten among Athol's Scots. Liam's wife, however, had died in presenting him with their child, and for years Liam had been inconsolable. As the child grew lovelier and stronger, however, the hunchback had transferred all of the love he had harboured for her mother to her. He would never have a son: but he had more: his daughter Shelagh was living proof that his flawed exterior was capable of generating more beauty than any of his sound-bodied contemporaries. He had built her a house to live in, rather than a hut, and had filled it with everything he could devise to make her happy.

As I approached that house for the first time, curious to see inside it, it seemed I was the only person astir in the entire settlement, and yet I could smell the smoke of many cooking fires in the moist air, a blend of wood- smoke and some other, unrecognizable but distinctive-smelling fuel. As I raised my hand to knock on the door, the top half of it swung inward and Donuil himself looked out at me and then sprang backward in fright, as surprised as I at the unexpected confrontation. He had been about to come looking for me, he told me moments later, but had not expected to find my face within a handsbreadth of his when he opened the door. And so I entered Liam's home amid lighthearted laughter that was to be sustained throughout the major part of an extremely pleasant evening.

Liam's house was justly famed among the Scots. Large and spacious, thick-walled and rectangular like the Great Hall, it was high-roofed and quite untypical of the other dwellings in the settlement, which were, in the main, squat, circular, solidly built huts of a material Donuil called wattle—clay strengthened and bound with a strong, interwoven framework of willow sticks.

The interior of the house into which I stepped directly from the door-yard was partitioned into at least two large, separate areas by high screens of plaited reeds, painted and varnished in bright colours. The entrance door, the only one of which I had been aware, was situated far on the left of the longer wall of the rectangular structure, which stretched laterally from there to my right, to where my view was blocked by the painted screens that stretched inward from front and rear walls, overlapping approximately in the centre of the room to create a passageway to the other half of the building. The large main area in which I now stood was brightly lit, and my admiration for our young hostess grew as I recognized the source of the brightness as a large number of the fine candles I had presented to King Athol. I accepted her enterprise in this immediately, for it did not cross my mind for a moment that Liam himself might ask for such bounty from his king. The candles were clustered in four main concentrations of candelabra: one cluster, by far the largest, on the massive, black wooden table that stretched the length of the shorter wall of the house to the left of the door, another on a smaller, circular table in the centre of the room, and one more on either side of the great stone fireplace that filled up much of the long wall opposite to where I stood. My eyes were filled with impressions of bright colours, flickering light and hospitable warmth. Donuil stood beside me, one hand on my arm, and another man sat opposite me, by the side of the great fire that roared in the hearth, holding a small harp in the crook of his arm. As I saw this man, recognizing him as one of the minstrels who had performed the previous evening and whom I had met twice now although his name escaped me, Liam Twistback himself came into the room through the gap in the overlapping screens to my right.

"Caius Merlyn! Welcome to our home." He moved quickly towards me, his hands outstretched to enfold my own, and I had time to admire the way the long, rich-looking robe he wore was cut and draped to minimize his deformity. When he took my hands, his large, intelligent brown eyes looked smilingly into my own, and he hitched his left shoulder, the humped one, and glanced down at it quickly, smiling a wry smile. "If you'll recall, they call me Twistback for good reason, but the twist is no more than physical. My mind has no unwelcome kinks, at least none I'm aware of, and I am looking forward to listening to your words this night. Be welcome, and sit down over here, close by the fire. It has been a foul day, but my daughter assures me that the evening will be very different. Have you met Cardoc, our minstrel?"

Cardoc. That was the name I had forgotten. I nodded towards him, smiling, and he returned my gesture, smiling easily. Liam, meanwhile, was ushering me towards a solid, wooden chair with a deep, curved back, one of a grouping of five that had been placed in an arc in front of the open fire. As I sat down, Donuil dropping into the chair on my left, another figure emerged from behind the screen, this one a woman, carrying a heavy tray on which stood a jug and a number of cups. She placed it on the circular table and withdrew without speaking. As I watched her leave, Liam sat down on my right, then rose again immediately and went to the newly stocked table where he busied himself pouring what I took to be some kind of mead into four cups.

"Donuil, come help me. Take one for yourself and one for Cardoc there." He brought the other two back to where I sat, handing one of them to me, then sat down again and sipped deeply. I tasted mine. It was delicious, and I said so.

"Aye," he said. "It is, is it not? Shelagh makes it, and holds the secret of its preparation to herself as if it were her child, which, in a way, I suppose it is. Anyway, she'll tell no one what it is she adds to give it that peculiar tang of heat it carries. Others have tried to copy it, but none has come close so far."

I drank again, this time more deeply, and nodded appreciatively. The drink, whatever it was, was excellent, fiery and potent, yet sweet and smooth on the palate.

"It's some kind of mead, but I could not begin to guess at that flavour." I looked around me. "Will your daughter join us?"

"Join us?" He laughed. "Aye, she will that, and will not quit us until she has decided it is time for you three to go home. But for now she is seeing to the cooking of our meal. She insists none but she can oversee these things in the proper manner." He nodded, staring into his cup. "She's quite right, too. None can."

Donuil was saying nothing and looking at no one. He sat staring into the flames of the fire. Cardoc was tuning his instrument, his head cocked sideways in total concentration upon the pitch of each string. 'Tour house is very fine," I said, glancing up into the darkness beneath the roof tree. "Donuil was telling me it is the largest and finest in all King Athol's land."

"It may be so." He nodded modestly "Except for the King's Hall. It is unusual, I know that, but we like it thus, Shelagh and I."

"Do you have a large household?"

He blinked at me. "What do you mean, household?"

I blinked back at him, surprised in turn. "You know, servitors."

"Servitors? I don't know this word."

"Forgive me, servants. You know, a housekeeper, a majordomo . . ." Even as I spoke I was recalling where I was. He was watching me closely and now his face crinkled in amusement.

"Servants, is it? You will forgive my bluntness, I hope, Caius Merlyn, but you are a long way from your home in Britain, when you are here in our little kingdom. There are no servants here, not even in the king's house. There's little of the formal in the way we live our lives, but no man of ours, or woman for that matter, would ever consider accepting the indignity of actually working for another, in that other's house, as a servant, for recompense." He paused, his eyes fixed on mine, and his next words were aimed at putting me at my ease. "I am not offended by your suggestion, Master Merlyn, understand that clearly, please. I know such things are common in your land, where wealthy people have servants and entire retinues of followers and retainers. We have retainers here in Eire, too, but only in the role of warriors, sworn to defend and to assist their king in waging war whenever and wherever war may occur. But we have no servants."

I glanced at Donuil, who was perched sideways in his chair, watching me with a tiny smile hovering about his lips. I nodded, taking no offense where no rebuke had been tendered, but then I asked the question that had been in my mind since Liam started speaking of this.

"Then who, if you will forgive my asking, was the woman who brought in the mead?"

Liam's face split into an enormous grin. "My neighbour, the wife of Maddan the smith. And I must now concede your point. We do have people who work, from time to time, assisting others in the preparation of major events and festivals, but their contribution is always voluntary and they expect the right to share in those events as equals, once the work is done." He hesitated, still smiling. "And, I will admit to you here, as my guest, they do, from time to time, receive other. . . considerations in return for the willing provision of their help."

I nodded, schooling my features to permit no trace of irony to show. "I see," I murmured, nodding.

"Aye. I can see you do." Liam made no attempt to disguise his irony. He turned then to Cardoc, who had finished tuning his instrument. "Cardoc, a song, if you please. Something short and tuneful, until herself joins us." Cardoc inclined his head and began to sing, stroking the strings occasionally to enhance the mood his song evoked, and for a spell all three of us sat entranced, enjoying the smooth, mellow tones of his deep voice and liquid words.

When Cardoc's song eventually died away to silence, no one spoke for a long time, until Liam turned to me again and said softly, "Master Merlyn, I have been sitting here thinking, as I listened to Cardoc, that there must be many things in this land of ours that are strange to you, perhaps confusing. I know how ill it is to be a stranger in an unfamiliar land, unused to the customs of the folk around you, and fearful of committing some offense through simple ignorance, so I wish you to understand you run but little risk of offending anyone here by such an accidental slip. Ask me anything you wish about anything you do not understand. I will answer you as plainly as I can, without evasion." He nodded to where Donuil sat beside me, listening. "Young Donuil here I have known since the day of his birth, and he is an able, worthy young man, but not sophisticated in the ways of such as you and your people. There is much that will simply never have occurred to him as being needful of explanation." He stopped, and then grinned at me, the expression taking years away from the age in his face. "Listen to me, the world traveller. In truth, I can be little better than Donuil, but I am older, and I have travelled farther and more freely than he has, having travelled to your land in my youth."

"You have been to Britain, Master Liam?"

He nodded, his eyes on Cardoc. "Aye, several times. And on one occasion, when I was a mere boy, I remained there for more than a year, living among the Romans, in Londinium."

"You surprise me," I admitted. "What took you there?"

He smiled again and sniffed, turning his gaze back to me and hitching his humped shoulder as he had done before, when I first arrived. "This did. I was an acrobat. That should surprise you even more greatly, I suspect." It did indeed, but he gave me no chance to say so, continuing with that self- deprecating smile I was coming to recognize as one of his key attributes. "Contrary to what most people believe, Master Merlyn, a young hunchback is not necessarily at a loss for normal, bodily movement—within certain clearly defined limits, of course. As a lad, I was agile and physically gifted. What I lacked in dexterity because of my twisted spine was more than compensated for by the greater than normal ease of movement I had in my arms and legs. An ability to contort them, allied with my small size and weight and the naturally amusing quality of my . . . differentness, made me a popular figure at entertainments, and I did well for myself for several years, travelling the lands with a troupe of showmen. We were particularly popular in Britain, where we travelled widely among the various garrisons and military bases, amusing the troops. I have always had a good head on my shoulders, thanks only to good fortune, and I managed to acquire enough in silver, and even a little gold, to start me off in my life here when I grew too old to perform."

"How old were you then?" His recitation had fascinated me.

He drew his brows together, reckoning. "I began to stiffen up in my thirteenth year. . . Once it began, however, it progressed quickly. I began to suffer, as did my performances. Within the year came three consecutive occasions when, where a short time earlier I would merely have fallen and bounced easily to my feet, I broke bones instead; once in my arm, twice in my right leg. By the third time, my tumbling days were finished. I was home less than seven months later, having used my small store of hoarded coin to purchase six healthy, breeding pairs of well-matched goats from the hill country in the north of Britain and then to ship them back here to Eire with me. Iain, Athol's father, who was our king in those days, gave me back the right to farm my father's land—my parents had been dead, and thus my claim forfeit, since shortly after I left home, although I had been unaware of it— and I began to build my own herds and mind only my own affairs from that day forth. By the time King Iain was killed, a half score years later, and Athol elected king in his place, I had established a fine herd of goats and another of cattle, and a few sheep, too." He shrugged, a tiny, self-deprecating gesture. "I suppose I had earned myself a reputation, too, for being both fortunate and singleminded. At any rate, the new king, Athol, sought me out more and more often in the first few years after his election, always to ask for my advice, it seemed to me, on things about which I knew very little, if anything at all." He sniffed again. "I thought at first he came to me merely to placate his first wife, Rhea, who was sister to my mother, but he always seemed to listen to what I had to say, to follow my advice and to value my judgment. . ." He shook his head and sat silent, staring into the fire, obviously overtaken by thoughts that were far removed from where we sat. Neither Donuil nor I sought to interrupt them. I, however, raised my cup to sip again and discovered, to my great surprise, that it was empty. Liam sensed my plight immediately and returned from his wool-gathering.

"Och, you are dry! Donuil, have you no eyes at all for seeing to our guest? Here, Master Merlyn, let me bring you another." He took my cup and looked at Donuil, one eyebrow raised high. "I suppose yours is empty, too? Cardoc, another?" Cardoc shook his head in polite refusal, but Donuil proffered his cup sheepishly and Liam snatched it from him in mock surliness, smiling as he moved away to refill both. While he was doing so, his daughter Shelagh swept into the room, moving quickly and with confidence, her hand outstretched to greet me and the hem of her long garment brushing the floor, concealing any movement of her legs and giving the distinct impression that she glided rather than strode with long, sure steps.

"Master Merlyn, welcome to our house." She looked me straight in the eyes and made no attempt to apologize for not having been here to greet me when I arrived, and as I took her hand in greeting, her eyes were already scanning the rest of the room, taking a brief, keen inventory. Apparently satisfied, she looked back at me. "Has Cardoc been singing for you?"

"He has, and very well."

"Aye, he is our finest bard, in my opinion, although I keep that private, for the good of all." She flashed a smile at Cardoc and then her gaze moved on to Donuil, who was gazing into the fire again, but her next words were still for me. "I can see Prince Donuil is as talkative as he has been since he arrived. Father? Will you pour a cup for me? I'm parched from the heat of the kitchens. Be seated, Master Merlyn, and I will, too." She sat down immediately, in the seat her father had occupied, and he returned silently, holding a cup for her and one for me, after which he returned to collect his own and Donuil's before settling into the next chair on his daughter's right. I, too, sat down again, holding my cup aloft and smiling with admiration at this mercurial young woman.

There was no sign in her of the harassed and road-weary traveller I had met earlier in the day. The creature who sat easily beside me now, taking a deep draught of the brimming cup her father had poured for her, was wondrous to behold, with long, carefully tousled, burnished hair of a deep, rich brown, interspersed with lighter textures that caught the light in streaks and reflected the glimmer of flames from fire and candle. Artless in their abundant artifice, her tresses were luxuriant, waved, rather than curled, and held casually in place by several jewelled pins and one finger-wide band of polished amber that circled her high forehead a fingersbreadth above her eyebrows. Her eyebrows were remarkable: straight and full, they rose slightly upward at the sides, creating a dark band the entire width of her face, broken only by the space, again a single finger's width, between them. Beneath those startling brows, her eyes tugged at my consciousness, suggesting something I could not at first define, and therefore demanding my closer attention. They were the colour of hazel, neither brown nor green and yet a blend of both with overtones of grey, but it was the shape of them that had caught my attention, I decided moments later. They were straight, almost as though ruled across the bottom, making them starkly different from the eyes of others. Most young people's eyes are rounded, top and bottom. Only the advance of age mars their perfection, tugging and twisting inexorably downward with the years, until the eyes of older people become as individually different and wrinkled as their owners. Shelagh's eyes were straight across the lower lids, and only slightly curved upward across the top, yet they were huge, large and lambent and beautiful. She was speaking now to her father, turning her head slightly towards him and away from me, allowing me to look more closely at her, seeing her almost in profile, and only now did I recognize another artifice to match the skill with which she had arranged her hair: she had highlighted the shadow of her upper lids with some kind of cosmetic, very faint and only slightly darker than her natural skin colour. That hint, the merest suggestion of additional depth, lent her eyes the appearance of slanting slightly upward as they swept out from the narrow bridge of her nose, and lent emphasis also to her cheekbones, which were already full and high, smoothing the skin that covered them to polished planes. Her nose, narrow, clean-edged and perfectly proportioned to her face, was very slightly hooked; not aquiline in the sense of the great Roman beak of my own forebears, but a gentler, less aggressive yet unmistakably avian curve. A hawk, I thought, seeing that. This woman is a hawk! She is a kestrel, soft to the touch and beautiful, once trained, and a pleasurable, exciting companion, but intrinsically savage and untamable unless she herself has chosen to accept a master, after which her loyalty will be unswerving until death.

Surprised and slightly uncomfortable with these thoughts, I glanced away again, towards Donuil, only to find him gazing at the woman as raptly as I had been. There was an open vulnerability in his expression that I found even less comforting than my own thoughts, and so I returned my eyes to Shelagh, aware that I had absorbed no word of the conversation taking place between her and her father.

Now I heard her say, "They should be ready now. I'll go and start them moving so we can eat." She tossed back the remainder of her mead, tilting her head backward and gulping it like a man, then stood up, smiling widely at Donuil and me. "We will eat within the quarter hour, I promise you, but now I'm back to the kitchens." I watched her lips, wide and bright red and full, forming the words, and admired the perfectly shaped brightness of her strong teeth. Belatedly, remembering my manners, I began to rise to my feet but she was already gone, and I watched her move quickly and surely across the floor and disappear behind the screens that masked the far end of the house, where I could now hear the sounds of other people talking and moving Liam himself had twisted around in his seat to watch his daughter leave, and now he turned back to me, a small smile of bemusement on his lips.

"She's the wild one, and I love her more than is good for either of us, I fear, but there are times when I cannot help wondering what she is, and times when I wonder if she knows, herself." He saw my look of mystification and his smile grew a little broader. "Daughter or son, I mean. Oh, she's all female; the gods know, a blind man could see that, but she has some fearful male attributes about her from time to time. She refuses to be . . . what's the word I want? . . . constrained's as good as any, I suppose. She refuses to be constrained by her womanhood." He paused, his head cocked to one side, regarding me. "D'you understand what I mean by that, Master Merlyn?" I shook my head, not trusting myself to words. "Well, I'm not complaining, you understand, not really. She could not be a better daughter, and she lacks none of the affection or the warmth an old man looks for in his daughter. She looks after me as though I were an egg, too fragile to be entrusted to any but the gentlest care. And she's beloved, I truly believe, of all the other women in this place, helping them with their troubles and their children, and as you can see, she keeps a house for me that is unlike any other in this land, in terms of comfort and cleanliness." He finished off the contents of his cup before continuing. "But there's the other side of her. She prides herself on being a hunter and a warrior and, truth be told, she is one of the best and strongest fighters in the place. No other woman can match her with sword or spear or club, and precious few men would care to face her in earnest, either. And with a knife, she is almost a demon. She can throw a knife—any knife—and pierce a target, clean and centre, nine times out of ten . . ." This time his pause was long. "No other that I know—no one anyone else knows, either—can do that. But she's my daughter. . ." I heard a note of agonizing plaint in his voice, but before I could respond, another voice broke in.

"She could always do that." I turned in surprise, This was almost Donuil's first contribution to our talk since I had arrived.

"What? With the knives?"

"Aye," he nodded. "When she was no more than ten years old, she could hit and kill a running rabbit with a knife; with the point of it, I mean, not just the weight of it."

"A running rabbit?" I could hear the doubt in my own voice. "Not regularly, surely? I mean, she might have hit the odd one. I can believe that. But not consistently, Donuil. That's not possible."

He shook his head, smiling and pursing his lips. "I can't blame you for doubting, Merlyn, but it's not only possible, it is true. I saw her do it often, and she missed no more than occasionally. Mind you, the rabbit had to be quite close, and not yet settled into its run, but she could do it. We used to spend hours, creeping about, knives in hand, stalking the things. I never killed a single one, but we seldom came home empty-handed."

I shook my head again, believing him this time in spite of myself, and then we were disturbed by the beginnings of a period of activity radiating from the kitchens, during which the main table by the side wall was laden with food brought in by a half-dozen people, each of whom made a number of return journeys to the kitchens, where the proceedings were evidently being supervised by Shelagh. At length the hubbub died down, Shelagh rejoined us, and we each pulled our own chairs over to the table, which groaned now beneath the riches piled upon it. Before we began to eat, I gazed at the bounty provided from Liam's kitchens.

"Are we to dine alone, the five of us? There's enough here for fifty."

He smiled at me again. "Aye, so we must try to leave some for our friends who worked so hard preparing this. Normally we would all eat together, but tonight is a special night. My daughter has returned from a lengthy journey, as has Prince Donuil, and you yourself are an honoured guest, so our friends have graciously decided we may eat alone, to talk of things we wouldn't think to discuss were they all with us. Where would you like to start?"

I ate far more than was my habit, succumbing to the excellence and variety of the food laid before us. And as we ate, we talked and drank, although I sipped but sparingly at the fiery, potent mead, and then we talked further, barely pausing as the table was cleared and the fire replenished and we dragged our chairs back into the crescent they had formed before we ate. Liam was the perfect host, in the grand, Roman style—although he might have been appalled to hear the thought—attentive to his guests and assiduous in making sure each had enough to eat and drink, and topics enough on which to speak. Donuil had found his tongue again as the meal began, and Cardoc had proved himself to be a gifted thinker and a quick-minded debater. Shelagh was a complete delight, quick-tongued, as I already knew, and possessed of a devastating wit that she used mercilessly and without compunction on each and all of us, including her father. As the night wore on, I grew increasingly pleased with the open and wholesome attraction that she and Donuil were rediscovering for each other, each of them, I thought, losing the reticence born of long separation and intervening maturity, and returning almost seamlessly to the friendly intimacy they had shared throughout their childhood. Lucky man, Donuil Mac Athol, I thought on more than one occasion, for it was plainly evident, to me at least and surely to the others, that the friendship of old between these two had been transmuted into an attraction deeper and more adult than they had known before.

It was late in the evening by the time we were interrupted by the arrival of a rain-soaked young man looking for Cardoc, who took him aside and listened carefully to what he had to say. The bard then asked him several low-voiced questions before returning to where we sat watching, curious about this new development. Rud, his sister's husband, he informed us, had failed to return home from checking his traps that afternoon in the neighbouring forest. His sister, Cardoc explained to me, was heavily pregnant and frantic with worry, and he begged Liam to allow him to \eave and go to her.

Liam had risen instantly to his feet when Cardoc began to speak, all concern and offering immediately to accompany Cardoc to his sister's house, and to assist in forming a search party if need be, but Cardoc would not hear of such a thing. He knew where Rud had his trapping territory, he insisted, and he and his own two brothers, aided by Rud's two brothers and his oldest son, would be more than enough to find the missing man, who had probably injured himself and fallen along the path.

In spite of Cardoc's embarrassed protestations, nevertheless, Donuil and Liam insisted upon accompanying him to his sister's house to see what might be required if the need arose for a larger search. I was ready to go with them but was overruled and persuaded to remain with Shelagh, by the fire, since Donuil and Liam would not be gone long and would return to take up our evening again, doubtless wet and cold and in need of more mead and a welcoming blaze.

XVI

Liam's house was very quiet after the door closed behind the three men. No sounds came now from the kitchens as Shelagh and I stood side by side, facing the closed door, our backs to the fire. I cleared my throat and waved a hand towards the screens at the far end of the room.

"Has everyone gone, back there?"

She nodded, moving away to stand in front of the great fire. "Some time ago. They all went home to share their supper with their families." She was holding her hands out to the blaze and speaking to me over her shoulder. "That is one of the benefits my father enjoys from his wealth. He can't do it often, for fear of offending the fierce pride in some people, but from time to time, when we have an occasion important enough, like this visit of yours and Donuil's return, he takes the opportunity of preparing a private feast much too large for our own needs, and insists that the remains be divided equally among the folk who worked preparing it. They then take the food home and their families eat better, while the leavings last, than they would normally." She turned back to face me and smiled. "The most difficult task, apart from making the events look natural, is deciding in advance which families we will ask to help us with the preparation each time."

Now she moved away from the fire again, walking to the table that held the mead flasks, where she lifted a cup, holding it towards me with one eyebrow raised in question. I nodded, not having drunk anything for some time. I had been nursing a small drink, sipping it only occasionally, since early in the meal. Now she took two cups and moved back to the chairs by the fire, where I joined her.

"Of course," she continued as I sat down, "I could be cynical about the entire thing and regard it as an elaborate game, allowing myself to believe that everyone knows exactly what's happening, but that no one wants to break the conspiracy of silence and run the risk of having the 'special occasions' stop."

I turned to face her, sitting almost sidewise in my chair. "A conspiracy of silence? That does sound cynical, and you are too young and fresh for cynicism. Do you really believe that?"

She laughed, shaking her head, and we sat in silence for some time, staring into the flames, and then she asked me about the life young women lived in Camulod. She could hardly have asked me anything to tax me more, but I did my best to answer, basing my remarks upon my imprecise recollections of the daily lives of the nubile young women who had shared my aunt Luceiia's household over the years. I found it ironic that I could have spoken with far more authority in the area of their night lives, but that would have been insulting to this vivacious young woman. My halting recital seemed to satisfy her, however, for she began telling me of her own life here in Eire, pointing out the differences between the Eirish customs and those I had so inadequately described.

The most significant point she made addressed the question of femininity—an area utterly alien to me. She was amazed that our young women received no military training, and pursued no athletic activities, like running and climbing. I listened happily, agreeing from time to time with what she said and remembering with nostalgia my early days with Deirdre, when she and I had run and walked and wrestled strenuously among the hills surrounding Avalon.

It was only when the fire collapsed upon itself, belching a cloud of sparks, that I realized I had lost track of time and that an hour must have passed since her father and Donuil's departure to search for the man Rud.

"What about the missing man? Will he be found, d'you think?"

"Oh aye, he'll be found, but whether whole or injured, dead or alive, I cannot tell. I suspect some accident has happened to him. But they will find him. Rud is a steady man, solid and trustworthy, and unliking of things new. Of all the people in the place who might be expected to lose themselves, Rud would be the least likely, for he seldom travels far in trapping his animals, and he never wanders from the track he has beaten over the years through the woods behind his house."

"Hmm." I sat back in my chair, feeling totally at ease with this impressive young woman. "You think your father will be gone for long?"

"Mmm-mmm." The sound, accompanied by a brief headshake, was a firm negative. She put down her cup, leaning over to place it on the floor, and then sat back, twisting her body sideways to rest her back against the arm of her chair so that she could look directly into my eyes. "So, Master Merlyn, what think you of my man, really?"

Her question caught me unawares, and I realized that I had been looking at her breasts, aware of them for the first time that evening only because of the way in which she had twisted to face me, throwing the right one, small but perfectly formed, into sharp relief beneath the heavy covering of her robe. Now I flicked my eyes hastily upward to her face, seeing again, as though afresh, the startling, hawklike beauty of the eyes that gazed back at me with no sign of discomfort, from beneath her brows. She smiled at me, displaying her fine teeth again, supremely confident of who and what she was.

"Your man? Oh, your father."

She cut me short with a shake of her head, her smile growing wider. "No, my man. Donuil Mac Athol."

"Oh . . . I see." I cleared my throat. "Well . . . what do you mean, what do I think of him? I respect and admire him greatly. He is my friend, and I am honoured by his friendship."

"He is young, though, to have you as a friend, would you not think so?"

"Young?" That observation disconcerted me slightly, and I had to think about my answer, attempting to ignore her question's implications about my own years. "Aye," I said, finally. "I suppose nine years might be seen by some as a large gap in age, particularly between close friends. . ." I hesitated only briefly. "But Donuil is unique, and he and I have come to know each other well over the past five years. I have found nothing in him to dislike or to mistrust. Absolutely nothing . . . But tell me," I went on, unable to resist the urge to ask. "Is he aware of your conviction? Does he know you regard him as 'your man'?"

Now she laughed, her voice as clear and ringing as the tone I had struck from Excalibur in the Armoury at Camulod. "Of course not, no! He has no idea!" The mere thought of such a thing clearly struck her as ludicrous and her laughter grew even stronger. "Oh, poor Donuil! He doesn't even know himself that he is!" She held up a hand, begging me to sit still while she mastered herself, and then, when her laughter had died down she coughed slightly and said demurely, although smiling still, "As I have said, Donuil is young, and in some ways very young, but he will learn."

"I see," I said again, and this time I did, and clearly. "I think he will, too. But have you always known that he was yours?"

Now her smile grew gentler, more subdued. "Almost, Master Merlyn, almost. I have certainly known since I was very young. Donuil and I were destined each for the other."

"Hmm, Destiny." I almost added "again," but caught myself in time. "And how can you know that with such certainty?" I was smiling now, too, not doubting her sincerity for a moment.

"Because I know. He and I will be wed and I will bear him two sons, called Gwin and Ghilleadh." She raised one eyebrow, looking at me serenely. "I simply know these things, Master Merlyn, but were I to tell you how I know, you would disbelieve me and think me foolish."

"Call me plain Merlyn, without the 'Master,' or Caius, if you prefer. I doubt that I could think you foolish." She bowed her head in gracious acceptance of both compliments and I stopped speaking, staring into her eyes. She waited, knowing that I had more to add. Finally, when I had straightened out the thought that had returned to me, I continued. "You said something to me this morning, when we first met, something strange. You said you had seen me before, but not clearly." She blinked, a long, slow, birdlike closing of her wide, exotically slanted eyes that was deliberate, I felt; an attempt to guard herself against my gaze. When her eyes opened again, looking into mine, I pressed on. "I know your father has been in Britain, but I did not think he had been there recently. Has he? And did you accompany him? Because unless you did, you could not possibly have seen me before today, clearly or otherwise."

Shelagh's smile had disappeared as I spoke, and now she reached upward to her mouth, smoothing the softness of her lower lip with the tip of the smallest finger on her right hand. I watched the gentle pressure push the pillow of her full lip slightly askew and then she curled her fingers, cupping her chin delicately.

"It was a slip of the tongue. Is your full name Caius Merlyn or Merlyn Britannicus? Which is correct?"

"Both. My name is Caius Merlyn Britannicus."

"It's a good name, strong and solid."

"My thanks. And what is yours?"

"My full name?" Her smile had returned. "Shelagh. Shelagh, daughter of Liam, known as Twistback. But I am not Shelagh Twistback, simply Shelagh."

"Then, 'Simply Shelagh,' I will congratulate you on your attempt to divert my attention, unsuccessful though it has been. A slip of the tongue, you said.

I hope you will forgive me if I doubt you. You were looking at me as you said the words this morning and I believed you recognized me. You had seen me before. So how could that be?" My heart was suddenly beating hard in my chest as I waited for her reaction, because I had begun to feel, all at once and without logic, that she and I might have far more in common than either of us could ever have suspected. She stared back at me, her face now in repose.

"I meant what I said, Merlyn. It was a slip of the tongue."

"No." I shook my head, dismissing her response. "Pardon me, but a slip of the tongue is an inadvertent yet revealing lapse. An error of statement that contains a truth."

"Really?" Her eyes glinted with amusement and a hint, I thought, of stirring anger. "And what does that mean?"

I decided to gamble, but began by prevaricating. "Nothing, really," I said, pretending resignation. "It was mere curiosity that prompted me to say it."

"Curiosity about what?"

Now I smiled at her. "About you, about who you are and how you think. I found myself wondering if you had dreamed of your future with Donuil, and of the names you would give your sons."

"Well, of course I have." She smiled at me now with all the guile of womankind. "All young women dream of such things. Surely you knew that?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "To an extent, I did. But I had not known they dreamed quite so minutely. Most of my own dreams are formless pictures, difficult to recall on wakening. I had presumed everyone's were the same."

"No, not so. I dream quite clearly, most of the time."

"Aye, I believe you, and you dreamed of meeting me before you saw me."

Her face underwent a sudden, startling change, her eyes narrowing and her colour receding rapidly. I held up a hand quickly to forestall her flaring, evidently frightened anger, feeling a surge of excitement in my breast. "Wait, Shelagh! Before you fly at me, know this: I am not accusing you of anything. I, too, have dreams that come to pass, dreams that come true."

She froze, her eyes wide, staring into mine. Silence settled and lay between us, solid and tactile as a heavy veil of drifting smoke. In the stillness, I could feel my heartbeat rally and slow down, and still she sat motionless, tense and poised as though for flight. Then, when I had begun to feel concern that she might never speak to me or move again, her voice came in a whisper, each word hissed separately.

"What . . . what are you saying?"

Unable to define the tone in her whispered words, I allowed myself to relax and raised my cup to my lips again, drinking slowly before responding.

"I am saying that I dream strange dreams," I answered finally, speaking slowly and without heat. "Prophetic dreams, and frightening. And I have done so all my life. Never, at any time, have I met another person with the same ability."

She was gazing at me fixedly, but the colour had returned gradually to her cheeks. Another silence grew and lengthened between us.

"Why would you tell me such a thing?" she asked eventually. "What attraction could such perilous knowledge hold for me? And why would you even think to entrust it to me?"

"Perilous?" I was confused, caught unprepared by the unexpected answer.

"Why would you say that?" I asked her. "There is no peril involved for me in your knowledge, how could there be? Nor is any need for trust involved. It is simply a thing, an ability—I know not whether gift or curse—that has troubled me throughout my life, although I became convinced of its potency only recently. It's a personal burden, a secret of my own, of which I have spoken to but very few, because it has frightened me for years, but only for my mind, not for my bodily health. There is no danger involved in it, no peril."

Now it was she who looked confused. Her eyebrows drew closer together and her eyes scanned my face, looking for I knew not what, before she pursed her lips and spoke again.

"The power you speak of is sorcery. The Sight, it is called. The known possession of it means banishment from the world of ordinary folk."

"What? Banishment? By whom?"

"By everyone. It is the law."

"But, Shelagh, that is ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous?" Her anger flared again. "Laughable? How dare you mock me, Caius Merlyn! I speak the simple truth. Foreknowledge—the ability to see the future, godlike—is unhuman. No man or woman can possess such powers without being touched by the gods, and therefore without the taint of immortality. The law decrees banishment from the homes of men."

"I see. It is akin to leprosy. Its possessors are unclean." She had begun to frown again and I pressed on. "To where, then, would I be banished?"

"To anywhere you wish to go, so long as you remove yourself from all human contact."

"And if I should refuse?"

"You would be killed."

"In the name of God, that is barbarism!" Even as I said the words, I saw, belatedly, the reason for her earlier hostility. The thought of banishment, of a life of eternal solitude, cut off from her father and her folk for her entire life, must terrify her. I nodded my head in understanding, letting the sympathy I felt soften my voice. "So that's why my questions frightened you so much." She made no move, but I saw gratitude in her eyes. "But tell me, if you will," I continued, keeping my eyes fixed on hers. "Tell me why you would speak of dreams to me at all, even light-heartedly, if you had any fear of being thought to have . . . what was it you called it? The Sight?"

She nodded, a tiny gesture, acknowledging the legitimacy of my question. "You are a stranger, with no knowledge of our ways. I thought I might toy with you, in the safety of your ignorance." Her voice was soft now, reflecting her changing mood.

"You had no thought that I might share your gift?"

"None." She shook her head and then realized what she had admitted, and her alarm flared up anew, her eyes widening in panic. Again I raised a hand, palm outwards, to soothe her.

"Hush, Shelagh, be at peace. You risk nothing with me. It is a gift we share, remember?"

She nodded again, nervously, appearing suddenly and sadly cowed, her hands clasped tightly on her lap, her eyes darting around the room as if in terror of being overheard, so that my throat swelled up with compassion for her.

"Come, girl," I whispered, gentling her as I would a frightened horse. "There is nothing to fear. We are alone. But take heart from the knowledge— and I will swear the truth of this on any oath you care to name—that such laws do not exist in Britain, nor anywhere else save here that I know of. There's nothing wicked in the ability you have, Shelagh; nothing willful either, for that matter. It is something born within you, as it was in me, something over which we have no control." I broke off, thinking of what I had just said. "Can you summon your ability at will?" She shook her head emphatically. "Well, then, in that we are alike, the two of us. But you can recall your dreams clearly, is that not so?"

"Sometimes," she whispered, more strongly this time.

"And do they frighten you, these dreams?"

"No," she looked at me, wide-eyed. "Do yours?"

"Aye, they have, on almost every occasion, although I have no clear memories of them on waking. You can recall the events in your dreams?"

"Yes, clearly." Her voice was growing stronger with every word, her confidence increasing as her fears abated. "But I cannot always understand what I have dreamed. There are times when I can recall a dream clearly and see the pictures in my mind in detailed colours, and yet have no idea of what any part of it means. That happens often."

"Often? How often do you dream such things?"

She shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. It varies. Sometimes I may have several in the course of a single year, but I have known whole years to pass without one." She leaned down again and collected her cup from the floor, then drained it at one gulp, after which she sat back and breathed deeply. I sat still, saying nothing, my thoughts racing. I had found someone who shared my gift, someone who knew the strangeness of the alien power exercised in me! The sound of her voice brought me back from my reverie.

"I saw your face in one of those . . . the kind I never understand, I mean."

I sat up straighter. "How so? What did you see?"

She gazed intently into my eyes for several moments and then turned to stare into the fire. The logs had burned away almost completely, and now she rose and crossed to where a fresh supply lay in a stout, wooden frame. I made no move that might interrupt her thoughts as she selected several sawn lengths and threw them on the fire, finally pushing and prodding them into position with a long, heavy iron poker.

"There was a bear," she said, her voice almost lost in the snapping and flaring of the fuel so that I had to lean forward to hear her. "It devoured a boar, and then it killed and ate a dragon that was black, with green scales, and breathed fire. Then, later—I think it was later, but it may have been directly afterwards—it rode on a bull's back to where it met another bear, and all three creatures fought each other in a ring of wolves, among waterfalls of blood, and when the fight was done, the bear, the first one, was sorely wounded and prepared to die among the wolves, but a darkness fell, and out of the darkness, on a broadening beam of light, came a great eagle to attack the wolves and scatter them . . ." Her voice died away completely and she remained there, head down by the fire, staring into its depths.

"And?" I prompted her. "What happened then?" She gave no sign of having heard, and I stood up and went to her, standing beside her. She paid me no heed. "Shelagh? What happened then, after the eagle came?" She turned to look up at me, frowning and shaking her head as though unable to remember, but I persisted. "You said an eagle came, upon a broadening beam of light. What then?"

"It killed the dominant wolf, a giant, and then stripped the coat from its back with its great talons. . . and underneath its coat, the wolf had green dragon scales, and it roared its breath of fire at the eagle, burning its feathers, burning it to death, and as it fell dying, the eagle, too, became a dragon- shape, crimson with its own blood. And the light faded, and I saw you, standing among the shadows, masked in almost darkness, and all else disappeared but you, with the crimson dragon bleeding on your shoulder and the great eagle itself, fully restored, perched upon your wrist."

As I stood there listening, my heart pounding, I realized that she had no more to tell me. I swallowed hard and stepped back from her, looking around me for my cup of mead. It sat on the floor by my chair, where I had no recollection of having placed it. I stepped to it and picked it up. It was empty. Breathing a great sigh, I crossed to the small table and poured a fresh supply for both of us, after which I returned to my chair and sat down.

"Shelagh," I said. "Come, join me."

She moved back to sit beside me again, taking the cup I offered her. We sat for a spell in silence, and then I asked her the question in my mind.

"You have no idea of what it means?"

"No." Her voice was still subdued with the memory of her dream. She looked at me. "Have you?"

I gusted a sigh. "No, I have not, although there are some elements of it that might make sense, in a demented way."

"Oh?" Her tone was livelier now, responding to my reference to dementia. "And what are those?"

"The animals, some of them at least. I myself might be the bear. It is my symbol. But I am only one bear; you saw two and I know of no other. Uther, my cousin, who is dead now, wore the symbol of the dragon, but his was red, not green. Lot, King of Cornwall, whom I believe Uther slew, had for his sign the boar. But there it ends. Of bulls and wolves and eagles I have no knowledge." I sighed again. "It is nonsense. I have the same problem with the dreams I dream, and they are less succinct than yours. Most often, it is only after seeing the things I dreamed about that I become aware of having dreamed at all. You are the only other person I have ever known to share the curse, and I had begun to hope for a moment there, having found you, that your dreams might be more intelligible than mine. Obviously I was wrong." As I spoke, we heard loud voices outside in the rain, and both sat up straighter, almost guiltily. "Here comes your father, so we will speak no more of this tonight," I said. "But if we have the chance, let's talk again when we can do it safely." Shelagh nodded and then rose and left the room hurriedly, exiting through the screens that masked the other end of the dwelling. I crossed idly to the fire again, where I stood gazing into the heart of the blaze, puzzling over Shelagh's dream and awaiting the entry of Liam and Donuil.

When they stomped in, muffled in close-wrapped cloaks and dripping wet, I eyed them closely, seeing the failure of their mission in their bearing and the air of weary frustration that hung about them.

"Oh, you're still here?" Liam began to unwind the cloak from about his shoulders as Donuil barred the heavy door behind them.

"Aye, are you surprised? You asked me to wait and you have not been gone that long. You didn't find him?"

Donuil's loud sniff was eloquent, and he crossed in front of me to spit violently into the fire before responding otherwise. "No," he growled then. "No sign of him. We might have passed him in the dark, lying dead or unconscious somewhere, but I doubt it. There were six of us and we searched thoroughly, though we were damnably hampered by the rain and mud. I think he's gone."

"Gone? Gone where? Shelagh says he is a creature of habit, never known to change his settled ways."

"And Shelagh's right, he is," Liam put in. "But even cattle can change their habits." He dropped the last of his sodden outer garments and crossed directly to the table where the mead sat in its jug, then poured out two fresh cups, looking at me with a raised brow to see if I would have some. I shook my head and he busied himself in bringing a cup to Donuil, who still stared into the fire. "The problem is," Liam went on, "that once a bullock or a cow changes its pattern, a mere man has little chance of understanding the change, or predicting its outcome." He sipped his drink loudly, then gasped in appreciation of the silken warmth of the mead.

"So? Are you saying he has absconded?"

Liam looked at me with a small, bitter smile. "Absconded? To where? No, Master Merlyn, I am saying merely that we were unable to find him. He might have wandered farther from his path than is his habit. If he did, and if he is to be found at all, it will have to wait until daylight. We will sleep now for a few hours, and search again at daybreak."

"I'll come with you."

His eyes travelled the length of me, from head to toe, and he smiled. "Not in those clothes, you won't."

I had forgotten how I was dressed, and now I returned his smile. "Of course not," I agreed. "I'll return before you leave."

"I don't think you should, Cay," Donuil muttered, almost inaudibly.

I looked at him in surprise. "Why not? Another pair of eyes will aid your search."

"We have no shortage of pairs of eyes. I'd rather you stayed here. There's something wrong, something beyond the loss of Rud."

I looked quickly to Liam and saw his gaze sharpen, his brow furrow as he seemed to lean towards Donuil. "What do you mean?" I asked, though my eyes remained fixed on Liam.

Donuil turned now to face me. "I don't know what I mean. But something is amiss, I feel it in my belly. Rud's vanishing is one thing, perhaps easily explained. We will know quickly, come morning. But in the meantime, something else is nagging at me, annoying me, something I ought to know, yet have missed seeing in the passing."

I heard a sound behind me as Shelagh came back into the room, and when she spoke I knew she had overheard what Donuil said. "You think there are enemies out there?"

Donuil looked at her and shrugged. "There could be. Have you ever felt yourself being watched, Cay?"

Shelagh answered for me. "By whom?"

"By someone, or some animal, that remains hidden."

I immediately recalled the feeling I had had the first time I discovered my brother Ambrose watching me, in Verulamium before we met face to face.

"I know that feeling," I replied. "It is unmistakable."

"Aye, well I had it tonight, while we were searching in the forest."

"Pshaw!" Liam's voice sounded relieved somehow, as though some kind of tension had been removed from it. "That was mere night nerves! I felt something of the like myself, but it was only because, even with our torches, the place was black as the pit. 'Twas nerves, nothing more."

"No, Liam, it was not. I know the difference. The lad who left here five years ago has grown up now, and can distinguish between fear and fancy. I felt we were being watched."

"By whom, then, lad? Who would be watching us, rooting about there in the dark? Rud himself, unwilling to be found?"

Donuil shrugged helplessly, looking to me for aid, but I had not been there. I could only shake my head. "I don't know, Donuil, but say you were right, and you were being watched, who could it have been, apart from Rud? An enemy? A single enemy? What could he hope to achieve, other than being caught? Did you look about you?"

"Of course I did! But it was pitch black. I could see nothing."

"Even with a torch?"

He frowned. "What d'you mean?"

Now it was my turn to shake my head. "Foolishness. I was about to ask how anyone could have seen any more than you, lacking a torch, but of course he could have watched you by your light and you would have been flame blind, peering into the darkness . . . which means, I suppose, there could have been someone there."

"Who, in the name of all the swarming gods?" Liam's exasperation was growing and it was his daughter who answered him, her tone cutting through his impatience.

"It doesn't matter who, Father. If there was someone out there, and the possibility cannot be overlooked, then he was no friend of ours. If no friend, there remains only an enemy, there in the forest close to us in darkness, waiting for light. If that's the case, we have until dawn to prepare ourselves."

"Aye, but—"

"No buts, Father. There's either someone out there or there isn't. If there is, it could be a whole host, a raid in force. If no one's there, we will all have an early start in our search for Rud. Either way we'll be prepared for whatever comes with the day."

"Damn me, Daughter, think what you say. The only people who could be out there are the Wild Ones from the south, and they lack the skills and even the discipline to do what you suggest they're doing. They never could—"

"Och, hold your tongue, Father!" Shelagh's voice cracked like a whip. "You're wasting time when we have none to waste. If I am wrong you'll have all day to tell me so tomorrow; for now, I'm thinking Donuil could be right." She spoke now to Donuil. "Go to your father. Tell him what is in your mind. Have him make ready, but be sure to warn him of the need for stealth. If there are enemies out there preparing a surprise for us, foolish we'd be to warn them we suspect it." She swung to me. "Merlyn, we could have need of you and your horses. Will you stand with us?"

I smiled at her, seeing clearly her father's sometime dilemma as to whether he had sired son or daughter. "Your peril is ours, Lady. Of course we stand with you. I'll go right now and prepare my men."

"Go then, but wait a while before you have them prepare. We still have several hours of darkness and nothing will occur before daylight. No one can fight well in the dark. Whoever is out there will be terrified when you and your beasts appear. They could not have seen you before now. Any approach before nightfall would have been detected by our people, so if they are there indeed, they must have approached after dark, in the secrecy of night. Early they might have been, which would explain their finding Rud, but that would have yet been distant from our walls. Now go, both of you. I must arm myself. Father, the king will need you, too, for your counsel."

We three men left together, taking our separate ways immediately, Donuil and Liam to the King's Hall and I towards my own camp outside the gates. The rain had stopped finally, but the ground was wet and slippery underfoot and I had to place my feet with care. The settlement lay dark and quiet around me, no lights discernible in any of the huddled, night-still dwellings. I made my way to the main gates without seeing another sign of life, and as I passed through, I heard the deep, even sounds of snoring against the wall to my left. A sleeping guard? I had not been aware of seeing any gate guards since we arrived, and I had assumed, I realized only now, that outposts ranged the forest. From what I had learned tonight, however, I knew now that that was not the case. On impulse, I sought the source of the snores and found one man huddled at the foot of the wall, dead to the world. As I leaned over him, I caught the smell of ale and vomit. No guard, this. I left him where he lay and passed out through the open gateway.

"Hold!" The challenge, peremptory yet not too loud, came as I approached the huddle of seven empty huts outside the walls, used for some summer purpose I had not defined, that had become our camp. I recognized the voice of Philip, the youngest of our band apart from Donuil. For as long as I had known him, more than fifteen years, he had been called Philip Broken Nose for reasons none could miss. A blow from a wooden practice sword had flattened his eagle beak forever when he was a mere lad.

"Philip, it's me, Merlyn. Is everyone abed?"

He emerged from the shadows beneath the eaves of one of the huts. "Merlyn. You're late afoot. We've been turned in for hours, since darkness fell. Too miserable a night even for drinking. Mine is the second watch, relieving Rufio. Is something wrong?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not, but I'm glad everyone has had some sleep. Has your watch been quiet?"

"Aye, yours was the first movement I have seen or heard since coming out here. What's up?"

"I don't really know, but Donuil should be coming in a while. We may or may not be receiving visitors come dawn. Either way, we should be prepared. Stay alert." I left him to his watch and went directly to Dedalus, who awoke as I approached his cot. I told him briefly of Rud's disappearance, and of Donuil's misgivings, and he swung up out of bed, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his face and eyes "Are we beset, then? How long do we have?"

"Until dawn. If there's to be an attack it won't come until then. There's no moon tonight, and heavy clouds. Too dark to see, too dark to fight."

"Hmm. What hour is it, anyway? Who's on watch out there? Philip? Good, his is the second watch. That means there's four and more hours of darkness left. Have you been to bed?" I shook my head. He yawned and stretched, grunting with pleasure. "Well, you had better try to sleep, then, if you can. I'll let the others lie for another hour, then get them ready. I'll wake you in good time." He paused, frowning. "If Donuil's right, Merlyn, and there's an enemy out there, waiting to come in with the first light, where will we deploy ourselves? We can't go charging off into the forest; we would all be unhorsed before we saw anything. The only space open enough for us to fight in is right here, outside the gates."

"True," I said. "So our task will be to wait until the attackers swarm around the gates, then hit them from behind. I'll sleep two hours, if I can, but no more. Wake me then."

I left him moving around in the darkness of the hut and made my way to my own cot, convinced that sleep would be impossible to achieve.

I was wrong. Two hours later, Rufio had to shake me hard to bring me back to awareness, though I collected myself quickly enough, once stirred.

"Everything's prepared," he told me. "Dedalus and the others are fully armed and the horses ready and safely out of sight in the empty huts."

I was sitting up by that time, looking around the interior of the hut in the light of two lamps. The shutters were closed tight over the windows, so I knew no light would spill outside. "Whose idea was that, to hide the horses? That was good thinking."

Rufio grinned at me. "Mine. I was talking to Ded, and we guessed that whoever is out there might not have seen us or our horses, if they sneaked in here after darkness fell. Remember when we arrived? We were the first horsemen these people had ever seen."

"I know. Old Liam's daughter Shelagh pointed out the same thing to me last night, when first we heard of this alarum. Did Donuil arrive?"

"Aye, not long after you had gone to sleep. Said to tell you that his father's people are prepared, but will give no signs of life until the attack begins. The gates lie open, too, he said, though forces are in place to close them quickly once the attack begins. In the meantime, they are an invitation to tempt invasion."

"Good; Athol's thinking matches my own. What's that?" I had noticed a leather washbag steaming at the foot of my bed, where it hung from a wooden tripod, and could not take my eyes away from it. "Hot water? Is that for me?"

Rufio was grinning still. "Aye, to wash in. Ded again. He said if you had less than two hours' sleep you wouldn't be fit to walk unless you had the chance to wash the sleep out of your weary face. Personally, I think he spoils you." He walked to the door. "Take your time. We have about an hour, perhaps more, before first light. But remember, we may have to fight, so tighten all your buckles properly . . ." He left, still grinning at his own wit, and I moved to the steaming water.

A short time later, feeling alive again and fully refreshed, I fastened the final buckles on my armour, took up my long, sheathed sword and carried it in my hand as I went to join the others in the largest hut, which had been selected as our gathering place when we arrived. They were all there, waiting for me, and I greeted each man personally. When I had done, Dedalus waved me towards an empty stool beside a table that held a partial loaf of bread, a bowl of roasted grain, a morsel of hard cheese, four withered apples and a cup of water, weakly flavoured with vinum, the harsh, red wine for which we had inherited a taste from Rome's legions. "That's the last of the vinum," he said, as I picked the cup up and sniffed it. "From now on, it's water or Eirish ale."

As I broke fast, we discussed strategies for dealing with whatever might befall. Fundamentally, as Ded had pointed out three hours before, our choices were limited by geography. We could not fight among dense undergrowth, nor would our horses be of any tactical advantage within the settlement. We were confined, therefore, to the open space before the gates. If we had to fight, Quintus would be sequestered in the farthest hut, guarded by the two herdboys while we were gone. That settled, we spent the intervening time before dawn as soldiers do, talking among ourselves and preparing ourselves, each in his own way, for the death that might lie in wait for us.

At length the door opened and Paulus, Philip's relief, came inside to join us in concealment, warning us that the sky was showing signs of lightening. We rose and made our way to our horses, moving in silence broken only by the muffled squeaks, chinks and clinks of harness and weaponry. We did not mount, but remained there in the darkened huts, each man holding his own horse's bridle, waiting for a signal, a summons of some kind in the stillness of the dawn. When one came, it was not at all what we expected. There came a stealthy movement outside the door of the hut in which we stood, and then a fumbling at the latch. Everyone froze. A breathless, anticipatory pause, and then the door swung inward, revealing a hulking shape in the doorway against gathering light outside. Someone, I knew not who, moved swiftly forward, grasping the shape and jerking it into the room, then swinging, pushed it against the wall inside the door. These movements were accompanied by a grunt, the metallic scraping of a dagger being unsheathed and then the sound of a blade being hammered home into a torso.

"Commander, take this!" As the whispered words hissed in my ear I felt a set of reins being pressed against my hand and seized it as a second shape loomed in the open doorway, peering in. Then I saw Rufio, whose voice it had been, lunge forward, dagger-wielding arm above his head, to bear this fellow backward and to death. The doorway was now filled with figures, hampering each other at first as they sought to leave. I heard the clang of blade against blade in the air outside, and then a chorus of shouts and the sounds of hand-to-hand fighting.

"Out! Bring out the horses!" someone yelled, and I moved forward, Rufio's bridle in my left fist, my own in my right. I released Rufio's horse to follow me and led my own horse out. There were figures struggling everywhere, evidently more of them than us, and I decided I would do more good above than I might on foot. I seized my saddle horn and hopped on my right foot, finding the stirrup with my left on my first attempt and hauling myself up above the ruck. My long blade cleared its sheath as my right foot housed itself in the other stirrup and I pulled my horse up into a rearing turn, seeking a target. They were there in plenty. One tall, lanky fellow stood agape close on my right, his sword arm arrested as he stared up at me in stupefaction, and I clove his skull with my first swing, even before my mount touched all four feet to earth again. Rufio, his horse directly behind him to my left, was unable to mount, facing three men, and I kneed my way towards him, riding them down, then guarding him until he could swing up to his own saddle. Ded, too, was having trouble reaching his seat, using his horse as a barrier between himself and four feral assailants, one of whom began to dodge around the horse only to meet death at the end of Rufio's blade. I pulled my horse into a rear again and he kicked out, as he was trained to do, braining another. Rufio's horse breasted the other two aside, and Ded was mounted, shouting his thanks. Philip was up, too, as were two others, leaving only two, one of whom was Donuil, still afoot.

At a shout from me, we five who were mounted rallied, forming on our two beset companions, winning them time to mount. Then we were unassailable, wheeling and moving as one entity, and our opponents fled, some of them throwing down their weapons.

"Let them go!" I roared, reining my horse tightly. "Now listen! What's afoot there, over by the gate? Listen!"

Over the dwindling sounds of retreat from our erstwhile opponents we could clearly hear the sounds of battle coming from our left, still hidden by the pearly morning mist, yet swelling by the moment. Our horses snorted, their nostrils blowing plumes of vapour into the coldness of the morning air. Idly, my ears attuned to the noises in the distance, I glanced around at the corpses scattered on the ground. Ten I counted, before Rufio broke in on my thoughts.

"Well, Commander? Are we to sit here all day while they have all the glory?"

I glanced at him wryly, knowing he was being ironic. No man here among us retained the smallest illusion on matters of "glory" in battle. We were all too experienced for that, having lost too many friends in too many ungodly places.

"We are no more than eight, Rufe," I said. "And all we have on our side may be surprise. After our first appearance, that will be gone. So we will wait a little longer, to ensure that our appearance is appreciated. We'll hit them line abreast the first time, hard and fast, right in the centre of their press, for my guess is they'll have no line of battle. Then we'll swing away and form an arrowhead on the gallop, circling completely to the left, and hit their centre, right before the gate, cutting through them and veering left again, along the line of the wall. As soon as we've won free of them the second time, we'll turn, form staggered lines, four to a front, a sword swing apart from side to side, and hit them again. Remember, the surprise will be gone after our first charge. After that, they'll fight for their lives, so we'll be relying on our weight and speed. Let's hope the horses frighten them to death before they think of striking at the mounts, rather than the riders." I listened again. The noises to our left seemed to have reached a crescendo. "Very well, let's ride, and God grant we may all feast well when this is over."

I kneed Germanicus to a walk, pointing his nose towards the distant gates.

By this time the light had brightened enough to be almost worthy of the name of day, but a heavy ground mist hemmed us in and swirled about us as we rode forward. Dedalus remarked on it, observing that it would help our efforts by keeping us concealed until we charged through it, and I knew he was right. The noise grew more appalling as we travelled and soon I brought my horse to a trot, then to a canter, straining my ears and eyes to find the optimal spot at which to kick us to the gallop and full charge. And then a breath of wind scattered a patch of mist and showed me running figures, travelling from our left across our front towards the walls of Athol's stronghold.

"Come together! Dress your lines. On me!" I had been leaning forward as I rode, one hand downstretched to grasp the handle of my iron flail, where it hung from my saddle bow. Now I unhooked it, feeling the dangling weight of the heavy ball on its iron chain. I sank my spurs deep and swung the thing aloft and around, feeling the pull of it in my arm and shoulder muscles as my horse lengthened his stride, gaining full momentum.

And then we were among them, falling upon their crowded press like a crushing mass of stone, our mighty horses trampling and battering their way forward and through them as our weapons rose and fell, swung from above and dealing death and crippling wounds to all who barred their passage. On the instant, it seemed the air was filled with noise of a different kind. Exultant battle cries gave way immediately to piercing screams of terror, and I saw faces raised to us in direst awe, screaming mouths widened in panic and superstitious disbelief. Mere moments we were among them, then we were through and swinging our horses wide and to the left, regrouping to narrow arrowhead formation as we rode, me at the point, tightening the circle, charging back again into their midst, scattering them like wind-blown leaves before us. I struck far fewer blows the second time, for there were none who sought to withstand me or argue passage. The gates loomed before me and I swung my mount hard left again, galloping flat out, then left again, where we regrouped to a double line of four, the rear filling the gaps left in the front, and back to the slaughter, save that slaughter fled us, in a rout, streaming to both sides of our charge, leaving the field scattered with abandoned weapons and the corpses from our first and second passes. I raised my arm and slackened my reins, allowing my horse to slow, and the gates swung wide and Athol's Scots emerged, howling with glee, to pursue their shattered foes.

I looked about me. All present. "Is anyone hurt?" I shouted, ignoring the rabble of vengeful Scots pursuers who streamed by us. Miraculously, it seemed, no one had taken so much as a scratch. I turned my horse around, placing my back towards the open gates, and watched the slaughter being performed on the edges of the forest where some of Athol's blood-hungry warriors had caught up with the straggling remnants of the fleeing enemy. Dedalus moved into my line of vision, bringing his horse up to stand alongside mine so that only I would hear what he had to say.

"Well, that's about as heavy a draw on Fortune's bounties as any of us can hope to effect for a long time. They thought we were devils, straight from Hades. I don't think I saw one thrust aimed at any of us. They folded and ran at the mere sight of us."

"Aye. Total surprise, allied with terror. We'll never have a success like that again, for next time, no matter when it comes, they'll be expecting us and they'll fight us." I turned in my saddle to address the others, who were sitting patiently, awaiting my word. "My thanks to all of you, my friends. It has been short work, but effective. I doubt if they'll stop running before their legs give out. But I find myself wondering who they were. As you all know, there would be little point in taking to the forest in pursuit; they're being pursued thoroughly enough, and once we rode off the traffic-beaten paths, we would be at their mercy. I don't know how you feel about that, but I think I prefer matters the way they are." That won me a smattering of grins and chuckles, and I held up my hand for silence, aware that a number of Athol's people were standing around us, gazing up at us where we towered above them. "I doubt we'll see more trouble today, but it would be folly to assume all danger past, so we will remain mounted and ready, here, where we are. I go now to find the king, to discover his intentions. I'll not be long. Donuil, come with me."

I swung Germanicus around and rode through the gateway, only to find Athol, Liam, Connor and several others on their way to find us, their jubilation evident even from afar in their bearing and their gait.

"By all the spirits," Athol said to me, gripping my stirrup leather and gazing up into my face. "I have never seen, nor will I see again, the like of that attack of yours."

"You saw it?" My surprise made me forget the formalities of addressing a king.

"Saw it? Aye, I saw it. I was up yonder, on the tower to the east."

I glanced in the direction he indicated and saw the square-framed tower, built of logs, the top of which was jammed with waving, cheering Scots. "A good vantage point!" I shouted.

"Aye, for watching, though, not for being involved. Come you, to the Hall. Your men will not have eaten, and there's bread, and ale, and meat left over from last night. Bring all of them and join us there."

"But sir! King Athol, is it wise to leave the gates unguarded?"

He laughed aloud, a deep-bellied shout of a laugh. "Unguarded? When more than nine tenths of my own men have not yet wet their blades? Come, bring your people."

XVII

That early-morning meal, turned into a day-long celebration that escalated every time another contingent of warriors returned in jubilant triumph from the chase through the forest. It had become clear, almost from the first moments of the attack, that the invaders were the people I had come to think of as the Wild Ones, the anarchistic renegades in whose territories we had first been blown ashore. It was equally clear, however, that their attack could not have been occasioned by our trespass on their lands, for had they known of us, they would have been aware of, and prepared for, our horses.

Whatever the reasons for their presence in Athol's territories, they had been destroyed by the sudden apparition of our cavalry, utterly demoralized by our swift and savage onslaught, and their lack of any form of discipline had doomed them. Once broken in their initial attack and frightened into flight, they had continued running, leaderless and without plan of any kind, ruthlessly hounded to the death by their intended victims.

Estimates of their original strength varied from one hundred and fifty to three hundred men. My own guess was that there had been two hundred or so before the gates when we arrived, but I had been too preoccupied in closing with them to assess their numbers consciously. Some people, most of them observers from the walls, argued that as many as two hundred others had remained in the fringes of the forest, holding back from the attack on the gates, awaiting its success before committing themselves. I found that hard to credit, simply because it suggested a discipline that had otherwise been proved lacking. I felt confident that my own reckoning was close enough to the truth. Reports of the slaughter in the forest, however, became confusing. If the stories we heard were all to be believed, close to five hundred raiders had been hunted down and killed among the rocks and trees. It seemed to me there was much exaggeration in the celebrations taking place. No matter, I thought. The victory was real.

The celebrations were truncated, late in the afternoon, by the arrival of two unexpected guests, Rud, whose disappearance had triggered the entire affair, and Fingael, the most truculent of Athol's sons, who returned without the mountain goat he had been sent to kill. They arrived slightly more than two hours apart.

Rud's unexpected reappearance added, initially, to the celebrations, which had become almost riotous by the time he arrived. He had been found in the deep woods, tied and stifled, abandoned there to be collected later and hauled into slavery, and subsequently forgotten in the flight of his captors. He would have died there, hidden away from the main paths, save for the call of nature that fortuitously took one of his neighbours in search of privacy right where Rud lay.

Pleased enough about being freed and delivered, Rud's blunt-hewn features were yet grim enough to intrigue me, so that I mentioned his apparent unhappiness to the king—who stood beside me at the time—asking him if Rud were always so dour at such celebrations. Athol, who had not noticed anything amiss until I pointed it out, called Rud to him and asked him what was wrong and why deliverance should cast such a shroud of gloom about his face. The answer he received quickly cast a pall on all within hearing distance.

Rud had become captured just before dusk, he told us, when he had finished checking his traps and was preparing to head homeward. He had taken a prime marten in his last trap and was busy skinning it, bent upon his task, when he himself had been taken, all unawares, by someone who crept up on him from behind and clubbed him over the head.

On regaining consciousness, he had found himself tightly bound, hand and foot, with a gag filling his mouth, making him want to vomit. There had been a small fire close by, masked behind a screen held up by sticks, and he had heard voices discussing him, briefly, and then the attack they would launch come daylight. One of them sought to kill him out of hand, not wanting the encumbrance of a prisoner. After tomorrow, this one said, they would have slaves aplenty, so he could see no need for keeping this one alive. Another, however, the one who had taken Rud, was adamant that Rud would be his slave. He had need, the fellow said, of Rud's size and muscles. Rud had felt a chill of despair on hearing that, knowing his life was over, no matter which way the discussion was resolved.

Another voice diverted the first two from their argument, however, and Rud's fate was forgotten. This one, clearly a minor leader of some capacity, was unhappy that they should be here, in these woods, at this time, rather than awaiting the arrival of their allies, as they had promised. His opinion was unpopular and stirred up an altercation that attracted others to the unseen group around the fire, where the argument became loud and bitter. Most of the men, clearly, were in favour of the planned dawn attack on Athol's stronghold, and bitterly scornful of any dubious advantage that might be gained by waiting for outsiders to join them. They were strong enough by themselves, they said, to deal with Athol's folk, and their dawn attack would be sudden and lethal. Victory would bring them the treasures of Athol's people: weapons and tools, stored grain and livestock, strong men and ripe women. They had no need of help and no desire to share the plunder with foreigners. No one suspected their presence, and the gates of the stronghold had not even been closed, according to the information brought back by one of their own scouts. Gladud—Rud had assumed they spoke of the objector— was mad and deluded if he thought to put faith in the MacNyalls and the Children of Garn as allies. Creatures of night these were, and fit only for lies, greed and betrayal.

Gladud had responded angrily to the slur on his integrity and had come to blows with at least one of his fellows. Unable to see what was happening, Rud had listened to the sounds of strife, terminated by a sudden, gargling cough, after which Gladud's voice had become permanently silent. In the relative quiet that ensued, no one had said anything to indicate the outcome of the sudden fight, and the gathering had soon broken up as men sought shelter and a few hours of sleep before the attack.

I watched King Athol closely as he listened to Rud's tale, noting the unease that brought wrinkles to his brow when Rud named names. The names meant nothing to me, but they were plainly of concern to Athol. He restrained himself with difficulty, I could see, from interrupting Rud at their mention, and allowed the man to finish his story in his own way before congratulating him again on his deliverance. Rud nodded his thanks and stood there, obviously waiting to be questioned.

"MacNyall," the king said, his voice low-pitched. "And the Children of Cam. You are sure those were the names you heard?"

"Aye." Rud took no offense at the king's question.

"Hmm. Did you hear talk of other names?"

"No."

"Nothing of the Sons of Condran?"

Rud frowned, thinking hard, searching his memory. "No. But I heard the name Brian. Nothing more than that, only the name, and it might have been one of them."

"Aye, it might. Thank you, my friend. Get you home now to your wife." The king watched Rud walk away and then spoke to Connor. "Summon my Council now. Cullum!"

At the king's shouted summons, the giant whose boar spear I had used to kill the bear two days before stepped forward. Athol spoke crisply, issuing his orders.

"Close off the ale. I want no more drinking this night. We may have need of clear heads again, come morning. See to it." As Cullum nodded and resolutely moved away, the king turned to me. "Merlyn, come with us." He swept away, followed by Connor, Donuil and their brother Kerry, Liam, me and several others of the king's counselors. I saw Dedalus standing off to my right, talking with Benedict and Paulus as I approached the doorway. I beckoned him to me and told him not to wait for my return, but to get the men back to our quarters and hold them ready. I did not have to tell him to mount a guard.

Donuil had waited for me as I spoke with Dedalus, and now he led me to the skin-hung room where Athol had taken me the night I told him of my wife. By the time we arrived, the others were already seated, seemingly in no particular order, crowding the chamber, which had seemed spacious to me on my first visit. I sensed their Council meeting was about to begin without ceremony. Donuil found us two stools, and we seated ourselves at the rear, where we could see and hear clearly. Athol watched me until I had arranged myself, and then spoke, his first words bringing silence.

"Master Merlyn and my son Donuil are here at my request, and neither of them knows of the matters for discussion. I intend, therefore, to speak of what has passed to this point mainly for their benefit, but also because the retelling may refresh all our recollections and hence bring some new insight into our current problem." There was a muttered chorus of assent and some nodding of heads among his listeners, two of whom, the corpulent man called Mungo and Donuil's other brother, Kerry, turned to look over their shoulders to where we sat. Mungo glowered, his face strained and red from the effort of twisting his great frame around, but Kerry grinned and winked at me, and I nodded back to him, permitting myself a slight smile of acknowledgment and wondering again at the familiarity I found in him.

Athol sucked in a great breath, drawing himself erect and marshalling his thoughts, and then began to speak.

"Let me begin by thanking you, Caius Merlyn, as king of my people, for your assistance this day. You and your. . . cavalry"—he pronounced the alien word with scrupulous care—"saved perhaps hundreds of my own, for this attack would have cost us dearly had you not been here." He paused, and as he did so I felt a liquid stirring in my bowels and a sudden cramp, not strong or long-lasting enough to cause me great discomfort, but sufficiently assertive to let me know that my intestines were about to demand my attention. As I tensed my stomach muscles against it, the king spoke on. "We are a strong people, and prolific, and our values, the love of family and clan, mark us as very different from our neighbours, some of whom you faced today. But at this moment we are weak in numbers, and hence open to attack." The cramp subsided and he had all of my attention now as I wondered whence this numerical weakness, which I had not suspected, had come. He did not leave me wondering.

"For some years now, five at the least, no, even more, for Donuil had not yet left when we began, we have been removing ourselves—our entire people—from these territories, from this land. It is too much enclosed, as you have seen, and is not fit for grazing on the scale we need to raise our beasts and feed our folk. We can cut down the trees, and the soil is rich enough to bear crops, but the lack of sunlight is a hazard to the harvest every year. So, as I said, we decided to move—Have I said something amusing?" His voice was chilled, suddenly, as he glared at Connor, who had smiled at me. Connor was immediately contrite, his smile vanishing as he turned to face his father's abrupt displeasure.

"No, Father. Forgive me, but your words brought to mind a discussion Caius Merlyn and I had only nights ago on the nature of kingship."

"And? To what end was this discussion of kingship?" Athol was far from placated, and Connor shrugged his shoulders.

"I remarked that the king of a land was tied to that land, but that the king of a people could take his people wherever they wished to go."

"I see. An astute and learned observation." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "May I continue now?"

"Of course. I beg your pardon." Connor's face was expressionless, but I fancied I saw humour glinting in his widened eyes.

"My thanks to you, Lord Connor." Still somewhat stiffly, the king returned his attention to me.

"What my ill-mannered son said is true. This land, which we have held since time out of mind, is no longer sufficient for us. We have outgrown it and the time has come to move beyond." His eyes moved away from me to sweep over the faces of his councilors, as though his words were meant to reinforce their memories. When he had scanned each face, he returned his gaze to me. "Such a move, Master Merlyn, as I am sure you have already decided, may not be lightly undertaken. It requires much planning and great organization . . . More than anything else, however, it requires great resources to be expended on exploration, for it is futile to think of moving if there is no place where you may go. And to go blindly, without searching for that place ahead of time, would be suicidal." I nodded slowly, keeping my eyes on his.

"To that end, therefore, we have searched hard and long. We have found, not surprisingly, that all the living spaces that surround us are inhabited. We could take them by conquest, but that would solve nothing, since the land we won would have the same disadvantages as that we quit. So we sought farther afield. And finally we found a land that suits our needs. It has no name, but it is suited to our purposes, even though inhabited."

Beside me, Donuil raised his hand tentatively, seeking recognition. His father glanced at him. "You wish to speak?"

"Yes, Father, but not to interrupt. This was afoot long before I left home, though I was too young then to enter Council. Do you still speak of the same place? The islands and the land to the northeast?"

"Aye, I do. You have something to add?"

"A name for it. The Romans, and now the people of Britain to the south of it, gave it the name of Caledonia."

I felt gooseflesh stirring on my arms and back as he said the name, and its utterance crystallized the thoughts that had been stirring vaguely in my mind as I listened to the king's words. These Gaelic Scots were speaking of annexing Caledonia in exactly the same way that the other Outlanders we called Saxons were sailing onto Britain!

"But what of the Picts?" I blurted.

The king looked back at me, smiling now, a glint of humour. "The Picts? You mean the painted people? What of them? They will make room for us, one way or another. They hold only the mainland, anyway. Most of our outposts are among the islands off the coast—we have established only three small settlements on the mainland, in three of the mountainous glens that descend to the coast. And besides, these Picts, as you call them, are hunters only. They grow no crops and tend no beasts or cattle. They live off the things that live off the land itself, eating their flesh and fruits. They are not a people as we think of a people. They are too primitive to hold such wealth." He cleared his throat, collected his thoughts and returned to the main topic. "Let it be understood, this matter is afoot and well in progress. My firstborn son Cornath has been given the task of organizing our new settlements; Brander, his brother, is our admiral, in charge of the fleet responsible for moving our people to their new home. That task goes on, even in winter, save for the darkest months when the danger of sea crossings is too great. Each year, before that time, Brander returns home to make ready the next fleet of travellers. We expect him daily, and with him he will bring three hundred men, manning his fleet of galleys, roughly twenty to each craft. The normal complement of men per galley is twice that many, but those places will be filled come spring, when the fleet sails again, taking women and children with them . . . to Caledonia." He glanced towards Donuil as he added the name and then continued, speaking more briskly.

"In the meantime, until Brander arrives, we are undermanned. Half of our remaining men are scattered throughout our holdings, organizing the withdrawals, putting things in order. We would be badly at a loss, had we to fight a war at this time."

He stopped speaking, evidently waiting for me to say something. I could only shrug my shoulders. "The punishment we inflicted today should keep you safe enough for a time, at least until Brander arrives."

He nodded, agreeing with me, though I could see that he had more to say.

"Aye, Caius Merlyn, that is so, but there is more at risk here than you know." Again his eyes flicked to the men of his Council and again I had the feeling he was prodding them, somehow. "It seems that we are not the only clan thinking of moving north and east, beyond the sea. Word came to us several months ago of a fierce sea fight waged there between our galleys and those of a king who holds vast territories to the north of us. His name is Condran, and his fame as a warrior is widespread, extending far beyond the bounds of his own lands. He is aging now, but his people hold him in high regard and call themselves the Sons of Condran. You heard me speak the name to Rud, earlier."

"Aye," I nodded. "But he said he had heard no mention of these Sons of Condran."

"He did so. But Condran is aging, as I said. He is still hale enough, but his eldest son now acts as commander of Condran's forces on land, while his younger son, named Liam, like our old friend here, controls his ships. These people, unlike the Wild Ones who attacked today, know discipline. That eldest son is called Brian. And Brian's name was heard by Rud."

"But inconclusively, I believe, Sir King," I ventured.

"Aye, inconclusively, as you correctly say, but ominously, when you know all of it. The sea fight I spoke of occurred long months ago, early in the summer, and Brander's galleys were victorious, taking many captives and sinking many of Liam's vessels while capturing many others. More than a few fled to safety, nonetheless, and took word back to Condran that our folk were there in the northeastern seas. Then, mere weeks ago, word came to us from the north, sent by a friend in my employ who dwells amid Condran's folk, that Condran and Brian have been spending time with other tribes, long enemies of them and theirs: folk of the Clan MacNyall, and others of a verminous horde who dwell in the west and call themselves the Children of Gam. Alliances were forming, the message said, and a gathering of armies to stamp out the Gaels. Those whisperings seemed strangely echoed in Rud's tale, would you not agree? We are the Gaels, Caius Merlyn, we whom I know your people call the Scots. And now you know the reason for this Council gathering. You are welcome, should you care to remain, and any thoughts or ideas you might have in listening to our talk will be listened to and heeded by all here."

I nodded courteously, indicating my willingness to stay and listen, and the meeting came properly to order as Donuil and I exchanged glances and grimaces.

For the next hour or so, the Council talked and I listened, but I heard nothing that stirred my mind to life or motion, and I found myself drifting into my own thoughts more and more, digesting the implications of what was happening here and attempting to ignore the steadily increasing upheaval in my gut. I had no idea how many of Athol's people had been moved to Caledonia thus far, or how many remained here in Eire, but I knew he had dispatched three thousand men against Camulod a mere six years before. Two thousand of those, however, had perished at our hands, and such losses must have been wellnigh insupportable. I leaned forward to whisper to Donuil, asking him how many people his father ruled. He gazed at me blankly, eyebrows raised, and shrugged his big shoulders in ignorance. I sniffed, and returned to my own thoughts. If Brander were returning with three hundred men, twenty to a galley, he would bring fifteen vessels with him. Fifteen galleys seemed like a paltry fleet to move an entire people, for I had not missed the king's reference to other settlements throughout his holdings. The more I thought about that, the more it concerned me, and I leaned towards Donuil again, feeling slightly guilty, like an inattentive student, and fully expecting to be eluded by the king. Donuil leaned to meet me, his ear cocked to hear what I had to say.

"Twenty men to a galley? Is that what your father said?"

"Aye," he nodded, whispering back. "Skeleton crew."

"And three hundred men? That's only fifteen galleys, nowhere near enough!"

He flashed me a grin and shook his head, holding up three fingers. "Fifty, at least," he hissed. "Each manned boat tows at least two more, empty. The larger ones tow three or four, stretched out in line astern of them. It's easy, if the weather holds."

"That's more like it. But what if they're attacked?"

"That's only half the fleet. The other fifty, fully manned, come with them halfway, to see them safely past the Condran shores, then they return. From there, Brander is safe, unless they meet an unexpected storm."

"How do you know all this?"

"My father was wrong. It started seven years ago, not five. The first two seasons, the return of the fleet was the biggest event of the year. I remember it well, because I wanted to ship with Brander that first year, but my father said I was too young. By the following year, I was preparing to go to meet you." Now one of the councilors did turn to glare back at us, and we fell silent again.

So, I thought, fifty loaded galleys at a time began to resemble a migration on a tribal scale, especially if the feat were repeated annually over seven years. That would amount to three hundred and fifty galleys, laden with folk and goods, cattle and possessions, each galley capable of shipping at least forty oarsmen and a tight-packed cargo of bodies uncaring of comfort.

As I was mulling over those numbers, the door of the chamber swung wide and Fingael strode in, his face tight with urgency. At his entry, all sound in the room was stilled, save for the clump of his shod feet. Athol rose to meet him.

"Fingael. What are you doing here?"

The young man continued to advance until he faced his father. "My regrets, Father, and I must beg your pardon. I was unable to procure your mountain goat."

"Oh? And why was that?"

"My way to the mountains was barred by a host bigger than any ever seen in these parts, I believe."

"Whose host?" Athol's voice was grim, his acceptance of his son's tidings unconditional.

Finn shook his head. "The one we heard of, I assumed. I know not who leads them, but I saw MacNyalls among them by the hundred. No mistaking those colours of theirs. And others, many others, marched under massy banners of some kind, green and yellow, with black bars descending from one side to the other."

"The Children of Garn. How far away?"

"Two days' march, perhaps longer, for their numbers restrict their speed and movement. But they weren't coming here. They cut across my path, headed to the south. That was yesterday, some time after noon. I watched them for more than an hour, but they were still crossing to my left when I crept away. I came straight back, stopping only the once to sleep for a few hours when it grew tot) dark to see."

"Hmm. You did well. Your news confirms what we have been discussing here. You must be tired. Go, eat and sleep and then come back to me. We have much to do."

Fingael bowed to his father and left the room without even having been aware of my presence, and from that point onwards the Council took on a palpable air of urgency. Runners should be sent out, the king decreed, to summon all his people to the stronghold, and every able-bodied man would be put to work strengthening the defences. I watched the king handle the crisis and saw the real reason behind what Connor had called "his enduring kingship." Athol reminded me of my own father at his best, a consummate general, handling his people surely and with ease, the fullness of his confidence and competence riding his shoulders like a mantle. And as we sat listening I became sure, after a while, that no calls would be made upon my advice. Athol the King commanded now, and had no need of assistance. As the thought occurred to me, my guts twisted violently, jerking me erect, and I felt a painful surge that threatened not to be withheld. I gritted my teeth and fought the pain down until it was bearable, then I nudged Donuil and motioned with my head for him to come with me, and we quietly left the room. Athol, however, stopped us in the doorway, bidding me wait on him after the Council. I replied that I would, and left, but as I closed the door behind me another cramp clawed at my bowels and I had to fall back, my shoulders against the door as I battled to restrain my sphincter from giving way.

Shelagh was the first person Donuil and I saw as we left the Council room, and despite my immediate concern, or perhaps because of it, I saw her in great detail. She waited against the wall of the building opposite, leaning at her ease, clothed in full armour of mail shirt and leggings over strong, thick-soled boots. Her shoulders were encased in a broad iron collar, studded with decorative bosses, and deep enough in front to cover and protect her breasts. Above this collar, slung from right to left, she wore a broad leather belt from which hung a heavy sword and an array of identically hilted knives. Greater in bulk than I had ever seen her, she seemed yet smaller, somehow diminished by her warrior's garb. As she saw us, she straightened up and moved towards us. Only then did Donuil turn and discern my condition.

"Caius! What ails you?" His voice was filled with sudden tension but I was grateful for his presence of mind in sweeping up his hand to stop Shelagh's advance. She stopped at once, several paces distant, her face showing concern and puzzlement.

Whatever ailed me, it had struck with ungovernable ferocity, unmanning me completely. I felt as helpless as a young boy. "Nothing serious." I grated the words between clenched teeth, seeing his near panic. "Nothing fatal, anyway. Stomach cramps. Need a latrine, right now."

His shoulders sagged visibly in relief. "Christus! For a moment there I thought you were going to die on me. Can you walk?"

"Aye, but not far." My teeth were still tightly clenched with the effort of controlling my bowels. "I'm in dire shape, Donuil, and I'd hate to lose my dignity while your lady's watching."

By this time he was right beside me, holding my arm to brace me. "Lean on me. The king's own privy is close by, no more than twenty paces. Can you manage that?"

He helped me to Athol's private latrine, quite an elaborate affair with rails on which to perch above the hole beneath, and left me to do what I had to. I hung there for what seemed like hours, my guts twisting like snakes, prolonging my torment long after everything within me had been expelled. By the time the spasms eventually died away enough to give me confidence that I might be able to leave the noxious place, my brows and hair were wet with sweat and I knew beyond doubt that I was too ill to wait on Athol as he had requested. At length, after another age-long period of resting, preparing myself, I stood up and began to rearrange my clothes, but as I stooped over in the process, my stomach heaved and I vomited, retching in agony as my throat and abdominal muscles rebelled at this new atrocity. Dimly, as if from somewhere far off, I heard Donuil calling to me, and then his arm was about me, holding me up as I sagged against him.

"Dia!" I heard him say, then, "Shelagh! Cay is sick, and too heavy for me. Fetch someone strong to help me. Anyone!" I felt motion then, and blackness claimed me, until I opened my eyes again and found myself being carried into the hut I shared with Quintus, Rufio and Dedalus, whose face now loomed above me, brows creased in concern. They lowered me onto my cot, then stripped me rapidly, turning me this way and that as though I were a baby, finally wrapping me in blankets. Ded approached me shortly after that, carrying a stiff, leather bucket which he placed on the floor beside my head.

"Here," he growled. "If you have to puke again, use this. Use it to shit in, too, if you get the runs again. Benedict's building a wooden frame for it, for you to sit on. When did this start? Have you not got the sense of a boy, enough to keep you indoors when you don't feel well?"

I managed to smile at him, but I was very weak. Somehow, the thought of what he had said was amusing. I had not been sick in years, and neither had any of my fellows, apart from the infrequent unpleasantness of overindulgence in wine. Our bodily functions, matters of simple human routine, were acts we took for granted and seldom had occasion to consider, other than in the casual performance of them. Now I could see the unsettling effect my condition had on my companions. I had to lick my lips before I could speak, and when the words emerged, they were a whisper.

"I must have eaten some bad meat. Is anyone else affected?"

Ded was frowning. "No, not like you. Cyrus threw up an hour or more ago, but he's fine now. No one else has been behaving any differently than usual." He paused. "Course, I haven't checked Athol's people."

"Cyrus," I said. "The bird. We shared a cold fowl earlier, before noon, a partridge I think, but he only ate a leg. I ate more of it, but I noticed a strange taste and threw the rest away."

His brow cleared immediately. "That's it then, you're poisoned, but at least it was self-administered. I was beginning to think one of these Outlanders had slipped something into your cup." He paused, squinting at me in speculation. "It might get worse, but I don't think you'll die. You're too damn strong and far too stubborn to go that way. Besides," he grinned for the first time since I had been brought back, "from what I heard about the way you puked and shat, the poison must be out of you by now."

I closed my eyes. "I hope so, Ded. I hope so."

During the remainder of that day and night I awoke frequently to drag myself—and there were times when the intense pains racking me made me think I would never succeed—to the bucket beneath the wooden frame Benedict had built for me to use for either of my two urgencies, and on each occasion, I remember, the room was lamplit and the bucket was empty and clean. The last time, somewhere in the deepest part of the night, Cyrus thrust his head through the doorway as I was crawling back into my cot.

"How are you, Cay? It's my watch. Can I help?" I shook my head, unable to trust my voice, and he stepped forward to collect the stinking bucket. "By the Christus, I'm glad I wasn't as hungry as you were when we started on that bird. Sleep, man, and forget all else. Things are well in hand and there's nothing for you to do or to fret about. I'll clean this and bring it back."

When I opened my eyes again it was full day, and Athol himself was standing by my cot. Somewhere outside a bird was singing, and I realized I had been listening to it for some time. Athol saw I was awake and leaned forward, pressing his hand against my forehead.

"The fever's broken," he said. "How do you feel?"

"Better." I had to work my mouth to gain enough saliva to wet my lips with my tongue, for they felt as though they had been stuck together. "I hear a bird singing."

His eyes crinkled. "Aye, you do, and it sings for you. It's a blackbird."

"A blackbird?"

"Aye, with a wondrous power of song. We call it a merlen."

I drew a deep breath, filling my lungs cautiously, aware that I was no longer in pain, yet expecting my outraged stomach muscles to cramp again immediately. "What time of day is it?" I asked him.

"Late afternoon, nigh on evening. The sun has been shining all day long."

I was shocked. "You mean I've slept the day away?"

The king's smile grew broader. "This day, and yesterday, and the day before that. You have had some kind of fever, from the poison in your system. But it's past now, and you look stronger already. You'll be up and moving again by tomorrow, I'm sure."

Alarmed by his words, I moved to sit up, but the weight of the blankets that covered me kept me pinned to the bed. I was completely without strength.

"You're weak now," Athol said, as though he had read my mind. "But that will pass quickly, as soon as you have some solid food in your body.

Welcome back, Caius Merlyn. Your friends will be happy, and they are loyal, honest friends. Not a man among them but is genuine in his love and admiration for you. Not a bad word, or a shallow affection for their Commander in any one of them. I will send Dedalus in as I leave, and I shall come back tomorrow early. You and I have much to discuss." He turned to leave and I sought to stop him.

"Wait! Sir King—"

He turned back to me, smiling. "No more 'Sir King,' Merlyn. My name is Athol. Only those I govern treat me as a king, and then only when I am being King. To my friends, I am but a man like them. I have learned much of you from your own people these past few days, while you lay sweating, muttering to yourself. And I have spent long hours with my errant son Donuil, while he, too, told me of his love for you, the love of a warrior for a Champion and Leader. I have been much impressed and will be honoured if, from this time forth, you think of me as a friend." He left then, before I could summon a response.

Moments later Dedalus strode into the room, sweeping aside the screen around my bed. Until he moved it, I had been unaware of the thing. Now I gazed at it, noting its construction of woven wicker and the bright colours that adorned it.

"Where did that come from? That screen."

Dedalus glanced at me and continued folding the device, leaning it eventually against the wall by an open, unshuttered window. Finally he clapped his hands together as though dusting them and turned to face me. "From the Lady Shelagh. She came to see you the first day, before dark, shortly after Donuil and the big fellow, Cullum, brought you back. The next morning she came again, bringing this and an army of women. Erected the screen to give you privacy, she said, and cleaned out this hovel from roof to floor, then opened all the shutters. Made me promise to leave them open, too, even at night, no matter what the weather; claimed the clean air would do you good, as long as you were well wrapped up against the chill. Perhaps it worked, perhaps not. I only know that Paulus and I almost froze our arses for the past two nights. You hungry?"

Was I? With the question, I was suddenly ravenous, the mere thought of food triggering a flood of saliva. "Aye," I said.

"Good. I'll be back." He started to leave, then stopped. "You need to piss or anything?" At my headshake he nodded and then quickly left.

I lay there in the sun-bright room, looking at the long, afternoon shadows from the window and listening to the bird outside, the merlen. Three days I had been sick! The thought spurred me, and I made another effort to raise myself, this one less feeble, but no more successful than the first. Subsiding, I lay still for a time, gathering my strength, then loosened the tight-wrapped blankets that swathed me and tried again. This time, by gripping the edge of my mattress and using it for leverage, I managed to sit upright, swinging my legs free of the side of the bed. I was naked, I discovered, as my feet fell to the floor as though my legs were made of wood and I sat there, swaying and clutching at the edge of the mattress. A wave of giddiness almost overcame me, but I fought it off and forced myself to breathe deeply, willing the room to stop gyrating. It did, after a short time, and I sat motionless, gathering my strength again before I attempted to stand up. Then, when I felt I had my mind and body under my control once more, I stood, and swayed, and fell, twisting my body at the moment when I knew I must fail, and managing to sprawl facedown on my right side across the bed, rather than crashing to the floor.

"Sweet Jesus, there's no leaving you alone, is there? You're not fit to be trusted on your own at all. Here, wait a moment." I felt Ded haul me bodily until I lay where he wanted me, properly positioned on the cot. He then covered me up, tucking in the blankets before gripping me beneath the armpits and hauling me up into a sitting position, after which he wrapped a soft, warm woollen shawl about my bare shoulders. I protested at being treated like an old man, and he growled.

"No one's treating you like an old man, but you're a sick man and you might have killed yourself, eating that rubbish the way you did. Bad meat! By the Christus, Merlyn, even a child knows enough not to eat tainted meat, especially fowl!"

"It didn't all taste bad, Ded. The leg Cyrus ate didn't taste bad to him. Am I to live without eating meat? What's in that bowl?"

"Meat, but good meat, and there's little of it. Mainly it's broth, with onions, garlic, mushrooms, some cheese, some green things and a generous taste of salt. And bread, floating on the top. Get it into you. Here, I'll hold the spoon, otherwise you'll spill more than you sup."

"Cheese?" I said, as he began to spoon the broth.

He paused and grinned at me. "That's what I thought, too," he said. "Until I tasted it. It's some kind of hard goat's cheese, and they grate it into powder, then mix it into foods of one kind or another. It's wondrous stuff, you'll love it."

I did, and as I ate and the flavours of salt and garlic and that Eirish cheese mingled on my palate I felt the strength flow back into my body. When the bowl was empty, I lay back, savouring the flavours that lingered in my mouth.

"You're right, Ded. That cheese is wondrous stuff. Now I need to piss."

"Well, your throne's still there. Here, I'll help you." He crossed to replace the bowl on the table and then came back and helped me to rise. It was much easier this time, and I barely had to lean on him as I took the two paces to the bucket and relieved myself, leaning on the frame and smelling the strong, ammoniac stink of my own urine. I even smell sick, I thought. Then, as I was finishing, I asked him if the bucket and its frame had been moved closer to the bed.

"Moved from where?"

"From where it was. It was much farther from the bed than it is now, that first night I was here."

He shook his head. It had not been moved, he told me, since the moment he had brought it into the room on that first occasion. Benedict had built the frame and placed it over the bucket. Besides, he pointed out, there was no room for the thing to have been placed anywhere else. I could see the truth of that for myself even as he said it, and was left shaking my head over the memories of the struggle I had had on several occasions to reach the spot from where I had lain. He helped me turn and supported me again for the two steps back to the bed. I was glad to arrive. As he tucked me in again, flat on my back, Paulus, Philip and Benedict crowded in at the doorway to see me. I waved to them and smiled and they seemed delighted at my talent. Ded chased them away. I noticed that the sunlight had vanished and that the sky beyond the window had turned a deep, dark bluish grey. Ded crossed to the door and stopped to look back at me.

"It's getting dark. I'll bring some lamps."

I was asleep when and if he did.

By the time Athol arrived to visit me again the following morning, I was up and fully dressed, wearing a quilted tunic. The sunshine of the previous day had given way to overcast skies, although there seemed to be no rain clouds threatening for the time being. I felt ten times stronger than I had the day before, and had broken my fast on another bowl of the delicious broth, brought to me this time by Donuil and Shelagh.

I had watched them as I ate, feeding myself, so much was I improved, and it was plain to see that matters between them had progressed apace. They touched each other frequently, each going to great lengths to do so, and to make the contact appear casual or accidental. They were concerned for me, I could see, and glad to see me so much improved, but a blind man could have seen that they had eyes, in truth, only for each other. Love had visited Athol's kingdom, it appeared, while I lay sick. They talked brightly to me, promising to return again, and soon left, and I watched them from my window, walking hand in hand now that they thought themselves unobserved. A short time after they had gone, the king arrived, and we sat together at the table beside the open window, where, after the pleasantries concerning my improved condition, Athol came straight to what lay on his mind.

"The army that Finn saw lies quartered in the south. I believe their intent was to join with the Wild Ones, but those animals could not wait, or would not, and hoped to wipe us out before their allies arrived."

"Then why are the newcomers waiting now?"

"I don't know, but I suspect they are waiting for others to join them."

"Others? From where? Have you had further news from your spy among the Sons of Condran?"

He shook his head. "No, but I sent men to mingle with the people already there in the south. None of them saw any sign of Brian or his forces. The warning I received was that Brian and his tribe were to ally themselves with the MacNyalls and the vermin of Garn. That has not happened, yet the other two are here and have not moved against us. That makes me suspect that Brian has been delayed for some reason, but has sent word of it. Otherwise there would be no question of their waiting."

"And what could that reason be? You suspect he has waited to engage Brander and his fleet?"

Athol's headshake was emphatic. "No," he growled. "Brian is a land warrior, not a seaman. Besides, his brother Liam does not lack for men to fill his galleys, especially now, when he has so few galleys to fill. No, that's not the reason. Even had they the will, Condran's brats no longer have the strength to tackle Brander. I fear something else, something different . . ."

"Like what? Have you any suspicions?"

Again Athol shook his head. "None that I can define, but the uncertainty has made up my mind on one thing." He paused, tugging at the beard beneath his lower lip, and I waited. At length he straightened his shoulders and spoke again, looking me straight in the eye. "You talked, the other night, of your plans for the child, to make him High King of Britain." I said nothing, waiting still. "A great part of his task—the greatest part, as I understood it, listening to you talk—will be to unite his people against the invader, the Saxons who are chewing at your shores, is this not so?" I nodded. "Aye. It could not have escaped your attention, I suppose, that what I plan for my people in the land you call Caledonia is exactly what the Saxons are attempting to achieve in Britain?"

"No, it had not passed me by."

"And how do you feel about that?"

I shrugged. "Were I a Caledonian Pict, it would move me to defy you. But I am not. I am a Briton, from the land beneath the great Wall built by Hadrian to keep the Picts locked out of Britain. The Wall is useless now, ruined and overrun, but the Picts are still a threat to us. Should you succeed in occupying Caledonia, coming to terms in whatever way you must with these same Picts, we would have a friend and ally thereafter beyond the Wall. How could I be aught but pleased? I have thought about it, Athol, this colonization and conquest you propose, and it would be to my advantage, solving a great part of our problem at no cost to me. But it has also made me consider something that could never have occurred to me before this time . . ." Now it was he who sat silent, waiting for me to gather my thoughts.

"Seeing your dilemma through your eyes has taught me that my judgments are too often based on too little knowledge, an old fault of mine I thought I had outgrown. My cousin Uther once accused me of being overly judgmental, and the accusation caused me grief, but I came to see he was right. I saw that I had been a prig, and I set out to change that. I will never know if I have been successful, though I live to be a toothless old man. But I feel I know your people now, thanks mainly to your son, and will never again think of them as Outlanders, as I did before. You and yours are now, and will remain forever, people like my own, with lives to lead, and dreams, ideals and families you love. Your planned invasion has the appeal of logic, when listened to in the terms you used to me. I think, now, that for the sake of the boy and of the king he will become, I have to find some accommodation in Britain, among the Saxons. Not all the Saxons—I am not completely mad. Like your own Eirish folk they come from many tribes and clans, some good, some bad. But some of them have been in Britain for many years, even generations. So I ask myself, have they the right to be there, to hold the land they have farmed for years? I confess, I have no answer for my own question, but I am highly aware, at last, of the question's importance."

He looked at me long and hard before responding, then nodded and took up an earlier point. "We have no strategy for occupying all of this Caledonia. But when we gain a foothold there, my grandson will profit by it. I want you to take him home with you to Britain as soon as you are well enough to travel."

I blinked at him, astonished, as he continued. "Winter has not yet come, and Brander not yet arrived, so there is still time, and opportunity, for you to make a safe passage home, rather than sit here until spring and find yourself trapped. I said that I had no idea what might have delayed Brian, but sitting here listening to you talk of invasions and Saxons, I have become convinced there is a possibility that he is on his way directly from the north.

I told you his father Condran's lands are enormous. So are the numbers that he rules. It came to me, listening to you, that there are many lesser tribes in the coastal territories between his land and ours. Condran, and Brian, control no harbours at this time, south of their own strongholds. If they have decided to move against us, sending their allies down from the northwest, southward through the interior, it would provide a perfect opportunity for Brian to conquer all those lesser tribes between him and us while free of any threat from his own western allies. That would delay him, but it would also strengthen him greatly, providing harbours for his brother Liam all the way down to our river entrance.

"If I'm right, and that is what he's about, then we are plunged into war for a long time to come. We are in any case, with the MacNyalls and Garn about our ears, but this of the coastal harbours could make all the difference between victory and defeat. By now, Brander will be far south of Condran's coast, and he should arrive within the week. His escort will have turned back towards Caledonia, having seen him safely past all threat of interference. I need those galleys here, however, not in the northern isles, so I have ordered six of my swiftest galleys here to bring them home, where there is work for them. If those six ships leave now, within the next few days, before Brander arrives, Brian will not know they have gone, and we'll retain a chance of setting him on his rump in the months to come with a surprise attack of our own." He paused, assessing my reaction. "Six galleys will go out; three pairs in tandem, in the hope that one pair, at least, might escape attack by Liam's remaining vessels—for you may be sure Liam will be following Brander, in support of his brother, as soon as his way is cleared by the removal of the remainder of our fleet. One pair of my messengers will escort you, with the child and your men and horses. They will leave you safe on your own coast, then make their way northward. You have something to say. What is it?"

My frustration almost made me stammer. "We can't. . . It's not. . . How can we go? We lost the craft we used to bring our horses over. We would have to build another to replace it."

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "Already foreseen and resolved. We have such a craft, or Liam does: a small galley, a toy ship he has been building for his daughter Shelagh. Not a fighting ship; more of a pleasure vessel, if you can believe such a thing. It is broad in its middle, much more so than our war galleys, and draws little water, gaining balance from its extra breadth and from a weighted keel. For your purposes, however, it will suit perfectly, since it is unfinished; undecked, I mean. It will accommodate your horses and your people. Donuil has told me how you shipped the last time. This craft will be easier to tow, and more seaworthy. Our builders are fitting temporary decking now, and that should take no more than a day. You could sail as early as tomorrow or the following day."

"And what does Liam have to say about that? It is his galley, after all; his gift for his own daughter."

Athol sat straighter, squaring his shoulders.

"That is what I wanted to discuss with you, the night of our Council gathering, when you fell sick. Because of the lack of time, I have proceeded in the hope that you will take no ill of my suggestions and the arrangements I have made without your knowledge." He smiled briefly, a swift, wintry lightening of his sombre face. "Much has occurred while you lay ill."

"Hmm. I had noticed some of it," I murmured, thinking of Donuil and his evident, newfound love. "Tell me."

"Liam will go with you to Britain. No, let me finish!" I swallowed the retort that sprang to my mouth. "So, too, will Donuil and Shelagh. Those two will be wed. Liam and I had decided on that long since, when Donuil first went away, but now the pair of them have arrived at that decision on their own."

"I guessed at that," I told him. "But this of Liam going to Britain sounds foolish. Why, and to what end? What would he do in Britain?"

"He would live, safe under your protection, as will my grandson. I have no confidence that I could say the same were he to stay behind, here in my lands, with enemies the like of which we face swarming all over. Liam Twist- back is no warrior, but beyond doubt he is the most valuable of all my counselors, his wealth aside. He has abilities and skills no other of my people can provide: the breeding—the selective, skillful breeding—of livestock; the organizing of regular, useful traffic between our outposts in the northern isles . . . We think, the mass of us, in terms of warfare and of conquest as a means to ensure our safety to raise our families and live our lives as simply as we can. Liam thinks in terms of trade and the means of improving life. I can't afford to lose those strengths of his, not when we are on the very brink of needing them more than ever before, in our new home."

"I understand that, Athol, but why send him to Britain? Why not directly to your new holdings in the north?"

He inhaled, then smiled again, without mirth. "Because they are so new. Some of our people are already living there, as you know; some, but nowhere near enough. And their life is harsh, far harsher than here, where at least we know the land and its problems. There in the northeast, everything is different. The islands are mountainous, bare on the high slopes, the valley choked with forests. The earth is fertile, though, in places, but such places have to be first cleared, then broken to the plough by hand, and shelter from the weather has to be built by hand, of stone and sod. Such work does not yet come easily to our men."

"What about creatures? Game, and the like?"

"Deer, on most islands, wolves, bears; goats and some mountain sheep on the heights. Very few cattle, and those only on the largest of the isles. And you have placed your finger on the need for Liam's skills. Donuil steered my thinking, when he told me of your troubles with your horses, the difficulty of sending them by sea. We face the same problems. We have shipped very few beasts with our people. Now, with this war threatening us, our cattle here are at grave risk and we'll lose most of them no matter what the outcome. That is why I have decided to do what I must, if you will grant your aid. Liam's breeding stock, his prime animals, goats, sheep and cattle, are too valuable to risk losing. If we are to save them, we must ship them out, soon. To do that, we'll have to build vessels to carry them, and now that can be done, using Liam's small galley as a model. But no matter how quickly we build, the winter storms will be upon us before they can set out, and the journey to the northeast through winter seas would be impossible. Far safer, I thought, though still hazardous, to ship the beasts across the narrower sea to your lands—to some part of your holdings close by the sea, where no one lives, and where Liam Twistback can perform his wonders breeding new stock. His closeness to the sea will mean my galleys can remain in touch with him and you. Then, when the weather changes, not next year but the following one, my galleys can remove the young stock in safety, shipping them north to where our people are. Do you follow me?"

I nodded. "Aye, and it makes good sense." I drew a deep breath. "Would Liam join you in the north eventually?"

"Of course. As soon as we are settled and the wars are done. I'll need his counsel then far more than I need it even now, providing I'm still alive. And even if I'm dead by then, my folk will need him."

"And what of Donuil and Shelagh? What plans have you in mind for them?"

Athol grinned this time. "Think what you ask, man! What plans does any man, king or father, dare make for a newly lovestruck pair? Donuil is your man above all. What was the word? Adjutant? He speaks of being your adjutant some day. I asked him what that meant and what he told me mystified me, and yet, for all my lack of understanding, I found myself approving of the notion. He will learn much that is unknown to us in Eire, and his ward, my grandson, will learn thereby from him." He paused, and then his tone became almost musing. "Apart from that," he said, "young people being what they are, Donuil and Shelagh will have sons. It would be good for our young High King to have cousins to grow up with, don't you think?"

I nodded, pleased by the thought, and then considered all else he had said.

"Athol," I said, eventually, "I can see no objections to your scheme, providing we can have the agreement of Uther's people. It's their land you'll be on, not mine. Camulod lies too far in from the sea to suit your needs."

"Will that be possible, to gain such agreement?"

I thought about that. "It ought to be simply done. None of their people live there, south of Glevum, and the town itself lies ruined. Their relationship with Camulod has always been as allies. I knew most of the elders, when Uther's father was alive, though I have not set foot in the Pendragon lands since Uther became king. I'll visit them again when I return, and seek their agreement, based upon your own promise and mine that Liam's presence will be but a short one—two or three years."

He nodded and stood up. "No more than that. And now I have to meet with Finn and Connor. My thanks, Caius Merlyn. You'll have no cause for regrets in years to come."

"I don't doubt that, King Athol. I, too, should be abroad now. I've been too much out of touch these past few days. I need to inform my men of what's afoot and ready them for the journey home. You have not told them anything, I presume?"

"Nothing at all. No one has. I forbade mention of it until I should have the time to speak with you. You might have refused me, after all . . ."

"What about Donuil and the others?"

"Oh, they all know, and are already making their preparations to depart. The woman Turga, whom you brought to Connor that first day, is still the baby's nurse, ferociously attached to the child. She is a changed woman from the half-witted creature that was led ashore from Connor's galley. She is comely now, and at peace in her mind, still young enough to bear more children of her own. Food and rest, some kindness from our own, and great love for the child she suckles have made a new being out of her. She will go with you, too. It seems to me the morning tide the day after tomorrow might not be too soon."

"It is very soon, Athol."

"Aye, but our enemies could well be about our ears before then. As it is, every day free from attack surprises me. Still, most of our people are here now, safe behind our walls, their villages abandoned. The swine of Garn and MacNyall will be hard put to stamp us out."

"You think they might succeed?"

Athol smiled and grasped my arm. "That, my friend, lies in the dominion of the gods. But I intend to remind those same gods where their loyalties should lie. We shall meet again someday, you and I, when this is over."

I walked with him to the door and watched him walk away, escorted on either side by Fingael and big Cullum, who had been outside together, awaiting him. As he went, I wondered what the future might hold and whether he and I would ever meet again, and then my thoughts focused on Finn, who had not acknowledged my presence as I emerged from the hut with his father. That young man was no friend of me or mine, no matter how his father felt. They disappeared from view around the corner of another hut, and I re-entered mine, flexing my right arm against the pressure of my left fist and thinking I would have little time for exercise or training in the days that lay ahead. I called through the open window to Dedalus, who was practising formation manoeuvres with the rest of our companions in the grassy space behind our camp. While he made his way towards me, I thought briefly about the woman Turga, young Arthur's nurse, whose name I had not known. I had forgotten her completely, assuming that she had served her purpose and been released somehow, though where, and to what end, I could not imagine when I brought my mind to it. Now I realized that I would not have known her had I seen her, which led me to assume that I must have, at some time during my stay here. I resolved to visit her and take her measure, since she was as important to the child Arthur as he was to me. And then Ded entered and our preparations for departure from Eire began.

I told him briefly about the tenor of what Athol and I had decided, and was only mildly surprised that he listened solemnly and merely nodded when I had finished, accepting all I had said without demur. Our discussion thereafter was equally brief, the subject matter being simple and soon dealt with; having decided to return to Britain, there was little for us to do in preparation. Athol's people were the ones who would have to make the necessary arrangements. It merely remained to us to advise our own men and those few others who would travel with us, to pack our possessions, and to present ourselves on the wharf at the appointed time on the chosen day.

As soon as Dedalus left, I draped myself in my heavy cloak and went looking for the woman Turga, determined to set my neglect of her aright and to thank her for her assistance in saving the baby Arthur. Even as I phrased that thought, however, I recognized its towering inadequacy. She alone it was who had saved the baby's life, nourishing him from her teats. All of us who cared for the child were forever in her debt, for the strongest man among us would have been powerless to save young Arthur's life, lacking her contribution. And I had ignored her completely since my arrival here in Eire.

I walked cautiously at first upon leaving my hut, recalling my weakness of the previous day, but I was soon striding confidently, exulting in the growing awareness that my incapacity seemed to have disappeared completely overnight. I saw Connor's wife, Margaret, standing by the open door of her house, talking with another woman, and I made my way directly to her. She blushed deep red and smiled at me nervously as I approached and stopped, and remembering how agonizingly shy she was when faced with strangers, I smiled and nodded amiably as I greeted her, inquiring slowly and with great courtesy if she knew where I might find the woman Turga. Her eyes immediately flew wide in confusion and she darted a glance towards her companion, but before she could say anything, the other turned to me, meeting my gaze boldly, almost defiantly, as though challenging me.

"I am Turga. What do you wish of me?"

The words were strange-sounding, but intelligible, a rough blend of the local Celtic tongue of Cornwall and the liquid, rippling Erse of Athol's people, and I realized that Turga, in her few months here among strangers, had adapted to their ways and to their language more aptly than my own Latin- speaking soldiers could have. But that awareness was swept aside even as it occurred to me, in the face of the new realisation that swept me immediately afterwards. My shock was so great that for several moments I stood gaping like a fish, bereft of words or any kind of sane reaction. I had known I could not remember what she looked like, but I would never have recognised this woman who faced me now as the half-mad wretch I had found keening by her murdered child in front of her ruined house. This woman was a virago, tall and strong, with a commanding presence and a haughty, truculent air about her. She carried her head high and her breasts were proud and thrusting—full of milk, I realized belatedly, as I felt my eyes drawn to them and found myself unable to resist the impulse to stare at them. She stood gazing at me directly, making no move to avert her eyes or her body, or to assist me in my confusion. Finally I found my tongue and looked her straight in the eye.

"Forgive me," I said, speaking in her own tongue, almost stammering in my discomfort, cursing myself for not even knowing how to address her. "I did not know . . . I came to thank you . . . for the boy."

A tiny frown ticked between her brows and her pale blue eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean, thank me? What did I do?"

"You saved his life."

"Oh, that." Her tone said that was insignificant. "Why now?"

"Why—?" The astonishment on my face must have been eloquent, for she took pity on me, although her voice remained heavy with hostility.

"That was months ago, and you came here days ago. Why do you seek me now?"

Poor Margaret was hovering in an agony of apprehension, her eyes flickering from one to the other of us as if afraid we might quarrel and come to blows there on her doorstep. I took a half step backwards and came to attention, bringing my clenched right fist to my left breast in a crisp, military salute.

"I was at fault in that, Domina," I said, speaking easily now that I had begun. "I should have come first to you, to give you my thanks, and those of my people, for your services to the child who is my heir. Without you, he would have died where we found him, starving among helpless men whose food was useless to him. We could not have saved his life, for all our so- called strength and power. You alone did that, and for that service I, and all my people, will be eternally grateful. That should have been my message to you, directly and in person, on the day we first arrived. That it was not so is something I shall always regret, since it reflects an ingratitude that was not really there. I know not what I was thinking of, to be so inconsiderate and uncivil. . . so ill-mannered . . . but I have no excuse. I can only ask your forgiveness and forbearance, and I stand here now to do precisely that."

As I spoke, I had watched the expression on her face change from haughtiness to puzzlement, then to a stirring anger as she began to think I was mocking her, and then finally to one of. . . what? It was not disdain, nor was it scorn, rather it was a combination of skepticism and barely disguised impatience with such foolishness. And still the small frown creased the center of her brows. Margaret, in the meantime, merely gazed at me wide-eyed with amazement at my sudden fluency.

"Hmm!" My mind scrambled to assign a description to Turga's grunt, but before I could define it, she spoke on. "You'll want to see him, I suppose, since he's your heir?" There was only the slightest emphasis on the last word, and once again, she left me wondering what her tone entailed. I nodded, suddenly afraid to say any more.

"If I may," I managed to say.

She turned away to Margaret. "I'll come back later, and I'll bring the salve." She glanced back at me, over her shoulder. "Come, then."

I followed her wordlessly to a hut three buildings down from where Margaret stood, still watching us, and she bustled inside and disappeared, leaving the door open behind her for me to follow. I stopped just beyond the threshold, blinking my eyes against the sudden darkness, and then, as my eyes adjusted, I saw the child's crib, a plain wooden affair on rockers, close by the fire that smoldered in the hearth. The woman was bent over in front of the fire, stirring the fuel to angry life, and a shower of sparks whirled upwards into the rough stone flue.

"He's asleep," she said, over her shoulder. "You can look at him, but don't wake him. He's not due for feeding for another hour."

I hitched my cloak back over my shoulders and crossed to the crib, where I bent forward, peering down at the baby who slept there. He was naked, except for a breechclout, and the unmistakable smell rising from it told me it needed to be changed. Turga's sigh startled me because it was so near. She had approached behind me and stood gazing down with me.

"He's a smelly little beast," she said. "A typical boy, all shit and shouting. Here, sit."

She held a three-legged stool in one hand, and now she placed it beside me. I mumbled a word of thanks and lowered myself to the seat, and she moved away again, back to the fireplace, where she piled several blocks of some kind of fuel on the fire.

"What is that stuff?" I asked. She twisted to look around at me, then grunted.

"Peat, they call it. They burn it all the time, here. They dig it up from the ground and dry it, then burn it. When I first came here, I couldn't stand the smell of it. Now I barely notice it. If he smells too rank, you can come and sit over here." She had a strange voice, for a woman, deep and gruff, and yet I sensed a tenderness there that her gruffness denied.

"No," I said, "I'm fine here. Do you . . . do you know who I am?"

The look she threw me was utterly sardonic. "Merlyn," she said. "Merlyn of Camulod, no? Like Uther of Camulod. Is he kin of yours?"

"He was," I replied. "He's dead. But he was never Uther of Camulod. He was Uther of Cambria, Uther Pendragon. He seldom came to Camulod."

She stood staring at me now, her face cold, her voice flint-hard. "Seldom came to Cornwall, either, the black whoreson, but he killed my man and my children, and Uther of Camulod was the only name I ever heard him called. I hope he died badly."

"He did," I said, chastened by her hatred of my cousin. "He died the day I first met you."

Now she frowned, clearly perplexed. "What are you saying? I never saw you before you came here."

"You did, Turga, but you don't remember it. I found you kneeling on the ground outside your house in Cornwall, mourning your family. Your baby was newborn. That's why I thought of you when we found Arthur starving. His mother was dead, and I knew your baby was dead. He needed milk and you needed to give suck. That's why we came back for you. You have no memory at all of that?"

She shook her head, her frown deepening. "No . . . or only very vaguely. The first memory I have is of feeding the child—this child, Arthur—by a fire on a beach. I didn't know where or who I was. Later, when we had crossed the sea, I remembered my own family, my man and my little daughter—" Her eyes filled with sudden tears and she wiped them away with the back of her hand, but her face remained expressionless. She drew a great, deep, sudden breath. "So, this boy . . ." She waved her hand towards the crib. "He is your heir, you say. Is that the word? What does it mean? Is he your son?"

"No, he is my nephew, and my cousin. His mother was my wife's sister and his father's mother was the daughter of my grandfather's sister. That sounds complex, but it is the simple truth. He is bound to me by family ties in two ways." I thought it might be unwise to name his father at that time. Turga blinked at me.

"And what do you intend to do with him?"

"I'll take him home, to Camulod."

"And me? What will you do with me?"

"Do with you? I'll do nothing with you. You are free to do whatever you wish."

"What if I wish to stay with the boy?"

"Then you shall. I was hoping that you would, and I suppose I had assumed you would. He's nursing still, is he not?"

Her face had relaxed, and now her voice sounded slightly less hostile. "Aye, he is, and will be for another year before he's weaned, although he's bigger and stronger than most." She crossed back to where I sat and stood close to me, looking down at the sleeping infant, and when next she spoke her voice was softer yet again, as though she were speaking to herself alone. "I saved his life, you said. But he saved mine, too. We are close bound, this child and I, and I would kill to keep him safe and by my side." She turned to look at me. "Will kill . . . so if you have thoughts of taking him away from me, best kill me now."

I shook my head. "Turga, I have no slightest thought of separating you from him. The boy is orphaned. You are the only mother that he has, and he needs you. Therefore, I need you, too, to care for him and keep him safe from harm. There is a place for you with him in Camulod, and you will be happy there, at peace. What? What is it?"

She was looking at me strangely. "You tell me the answer to that question, Merlyn of Camulod, because there's more to this than I can see. A babe's a babe, and there are countless others to be found where it came from. But here we have a baby causing great concern among grown men and soldiers, warriors and kings."

I shrugged, accepting and acknowledging her insight. "He will be a king in Britain, in his own right, and he is grandson to Athol Mac Iain. He is a very special boy."

"And you? You must be a very special man, to be his guardian."

"No," I sighed, shaking my head. "I'm merely his cousin and his uncle both, but I am sworn to see to the raising of him, in memory of his. . . mother." I hat was not strictly true, but better, I thought, than stirring up questions on his paternity. She might have asked me about that then, but that was when the boy awoke and voiced his own displeasure at his smell and his condition.

"Dia!" she said, and bustled away to where a wooden bucket filled with water sat in a corner by the door. She picked it up effortlessly, swaying with it slightly so that the slopping contents barely spilled as she carried it to the fireplace, where she poured the contents into a deep, blackened metal pot with a semicircular, iron bucket handle. Then, carefully and deliberately, she settled the heavy pot among the coals of the fire, twisting it and testing its balance until she was satisfied that it would not tip over. "Here," she said. "Watch this and don't let it spill over."

I moved my stool over to the low fire, where I could now see that the pot sat supported on an arrangement of flat stones that had been buried and hidden by the coals, and as Turga picked up the howling infant, I kept one eye on the iron pot while watching her openly and admiringly as she tended to the child.

The soiled breechclout was disposed of quickly, loosened and removed and thrown into another wooden bucket before I had had time to see how it was fastened. That done, she seized the child by his ankles, holding them easily in one hand while she lifted and twisted him gently, cleaning his caked and soiled nether regions with another cloth before throwing that, too, into the bucket. She showed no repugnance as she performed the unpleasant task, and watching her, it occurred to me for the first time that this was a commonplace thing in a woman's life, that all mothers and nurses must do daily for their helpless charges. The realization, new as it was, surprised me and filled me with a novel admiration. I had performed the same task, when I had first found the child abandoned in the birney that had borne us out to sea, but I had done so merely because I had seen no alternative, and the entire exercise had sickened me, with its stench and foul stickiness. Now I watched it done with dispatch and the confidence of long practise and found it fascinating. In moments, it seemed, the child was clean again and had stopped wailing. Turga half turned in my direction, glancing at the pot on the fire, then brought the boy to me.

"Here, hold him while I get his bath ready." I took him in my arms, holding him against my quilted tunic, but ready to turn him away the moment he showed any sign of pissing on my tunic as he had on my armour. He blinked up at me, then his features twisted into a tiny scowl and he began to wail again.

"He's hungry, the brat," Turga said, not even glancing at us. She had wrapped a rag around the metal handle and lifted the pot from the fire, holding it away from her as she carried it to the only table in the small room where she tipped it, using another rag to hold the fire-heated bottom as she poured water into a large, shallow basin that had been hollowed from a wide section of log. She tested the warmth of the water with her elbow—something I had never seen anyone do before—and then she set down the water pot beside the fire again and took the child from me. He stopped howling as soon as she lowered him into the tepid water and I moved to stand beside her as she bathed him, holding her left hand behind his head as she washed him with a soft cloth held in the other. His eyes seemed enormous, and I watched in amazement as he kicked and splashed, his tiny limbs jerking reflexively in the freedom of the warm water.

"He's swimming," I said, hearing the amazement in my own voice. "He was swimming in the sea, when I went after him the day they threw him overboard. I didn't see it until now."

"That's silly, babies can't swim." Turga did not even glance at me. "He's splashing, that's all. He likes the warm water. Don't you, you little ruffian?" She released the washing cloth and tickled the baby's ribs, and he smiled up at her and gurgled, kicking harder. She scooped water over him gently for several more moments, then took up the cloth again and wiped his face and head, and I laughed at the way he screwed his eyes shut but made no signs of protest. Finally she picked him from the water in both hands and dangled him above the surface, shaking him gently to dislodge the water that still clung to him, and nodded towards a thick roll of cloth on the tabletop.