The Saxon Shore

"What's up? Who are those people?"

"Pendragon chiefs. Huw recognizes the leader, a war chief called Dergyll, cousin to Uther. I'm going forward to talk with him."

"Then I'm coming with you."

I looked at Dedalus and decided not to remonstrate with him. "As you wish," I said. "But the others will hold their position here. Bring forward my standard to advance with us. The rest of you await our signal here. If we are attacked or molested in any way, you will attack immediately in a pincer move. Columns one and five under Philip and Benedict to take the right and left flanks, bypassing the rise before engaging; two and four under Rufio and Falvo will mount the frontal attack, and column three, yours, Quintus, to hold in reserve behind Rufio and Falvo."

Quintus had the only question. "What if they have bowmen?"

"Where would they have them? There's no place to conceal them, Quint."

He nodded. "Fine. Then why are those leaders exposing themselves like that, without protection? We could ride them down and kill all of them."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Perhaps they know we won't do that. . . Or they might have another thousand men hidden behind their little hill." I paused, remembering Uther's experience in Cornwall, when the enemy had concealed themselves in covered pits. "Still," I added. "Best to take no chances. You're right, Quint. If trouble does develop, warn your men to be on the alert for a trap. The same goes for all of you. At the first sight of bowmen in any numbers, spread your people out, but keep them moving. Don't let them group tightly against volleys of arrows or they will be slaughtered. But—" I broke off, eyeing the distant Celts again. "I have a feeling we will have no trouble, so let's find out if I am right or not."

Benedict leaned forward in his saddle and spat on the ground. "Well, we all know your feelings, Merlyn. Let's hope you're right again this time." He swung his horse around without further comment and made his way back to his men, followed by the others. My standardbearer passed them on his way towards us. When he had arrived, I nodded at him and spoke to Huw Strong- arm, who had stood listening to all of this in silence. "Huw, I think you should stay here, too, since I don't know what kind of reception we will receive from these people. I see no point in endangering you."

Big Huw glowered up at me. "flow would you endanger me?"

"By simply having you among us. If these warriors decide to fight, they might well decide your presence here with us is worth your death before any of ours. Humour me, my friend. Remain here with the others."

Huw shrugged, sniffed and turned to walk back to where the troopers were drawn up. I looked at Dedalus.

"Well. Shall we go?"

He sank his spurs into his horse's flanks, and the three of us cantered together towards the distant Celts on their low hilltop. They sat motionless and watched us approach until we were within a hundred paces of them, at which point their leader kicked his own horse into motion and came towards us, followed by two of his people. We stopped and awaited them now, and when less than twenty paces separated our two groups the Celtic leader stopped and dismounted by swinging his right leg completely over his horse's head and sliding to the ground. His two companions remained mounted.

"Very well, wait for me." I dismounted and walked towards this man, searching my mind for memories of him and examining him as closely as he was examining me. He was not a large man, but was strongly built, bareheaded, compact and wiry with broad, straight shoulders and a thick neck supporting a high-held, proud head. His long, black hair and long, flowing moustaches in the Celtic fashion on an otherwise clean-shaven face gave him an air of severity. His clothing was simple, yet strikingly barbaric to my Romanized eyes. An almost-knee-length, kilted tunic of dark green wool, with an embroidered border of yellow leaves around the hem and across the yoke of his chest provided the only strong colours. His legs were covered by sheepskin leggings, worn fleece inward, onto which had been sewn small, overlapping, rectangular metal plates that gave a metallic ring to his walk and he wore a heavy breastplate of thickened bull hide, covered with the same plates, two larger, thicker pieces covering his breasts. A heavy cloak, fastened with a broad, silver clasp of interwoven snakes, had been thrown back over his shoulders so that it hung behind him, leaving his arms free. The arms were strong, heavily muscled and protected from wrist to elbow by thick leather armlets. A broad belt, slung across his chest from right to left, supported a heavy, much-used-looking sword, bare-bladed and slung simply through a ring of metal, and a second belt, of plain leather, girdled his waist and held an ornately hilted dagger in a jewelled leather sheath.

We stopped together, facing each other from a distance of a couple of paces. He spoke first.

"Merlyn," he said, nodding in greeting, his face otherwise expressionless. "It's been many years. What brings you to Pendragon lands? And with so many followers?"

I still could not remember him, although I knew we must have met, since he so evidently knew me. I returned his nod. "Dergyll, is it not?"

"Aye, that's right. Dergyll, son of Griffyd. My father was brother to Uric Pendragon."

"So we are kin?"

He shrugged. "Aye, of some kind, but not close. You have not answered me. What brings you here?"

"Horses."

He raised an eyebrow, looking beyond me to where my thousand men sat ranked in their five divisions.

"Aye," he said. "I can see that. Many horses, and large." He looked back at me and his mouth quirked slightly into what might have been a grin, although I could not know for sure beneath the fullness of his moustache. "There is one grand and tragic thing about horses, Merlyn. Do you know what it is?"

I was unsure how to respond, unable to define his attitude as either hostile or placatory. I decided to assume arrogance. "Aye," I said. "They are invincible, particularly against men on foot, or on smaller horses."

He was definitely smiling now, but his smile had a hard edge. "That's grand enough, I grant, but where is the tragedy in that?"

"Among the men on foot."

"Ah! I see. But no, you are wrong, Merlyn, and there's the right of it. Against most men on foot, you may be right, but against Pendragon? No. There you are sadly ill-advised. The tragedy of horses such as yours is that they make such grand targets." He raised his left hand straight into the air, holding it, with fingers spread, above his head, then turned his head slowly to his left. I swung my head with his and felt my skin chill with gooseflesh as the entire hillside above us, empty and bare until this moment, came to life. Everywhere, men threw back the covers over pits dug in the ground and came pouring into view, forming ranks rapidly, deploying into massed formations of bowmen, each nocking an arrow to his long bow and taking aim at the packed mass of my formations on the slope below. A full two hundred paces separated the closest of the bowmen from my men, but I knew that distance was as nothing to the great longbows. Close on four hundred men, I gauged, and likely more. Certainly more than sufficient, firing in massed volleys, to wipe out my cavalry before we could ever reach them. I fought to keep my own face expressionless, masking my dismay.

Now it was my turn to raise my arm, bidding my own men stand fast. I turned around to see Dedalus repeating my gesture. Behind him, my men remained immobile. I drew a deep breath, determined to allow my voice to show no tremor, and turned back to Dergyll.

"Very impressive," I told him. "But we expected no less. Uther used the same tactic frequently. I knew you would not expose yourself as you have done without good reason. I think, however, that you misunderstood what I said. I meant we came in search of horses, not mounted on them."

Again he raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"One of our border outposts was attacked, before the winter set in. All our men there were killed and forty horses stolen. We found Pendragon arrows in our men. The horses we could live without, but we could not ignore the slaughter. Before the snow came on we followed the trail of the horses. It led here. Before we could mount a proper expedition to find them, the winter came."

"I see. And as soon as the snow melted, you set out again."

I nodded.

"So you bring war against us?"

"No, I think not." He eyed me in silence, waiting for me to continue. "I think we rode against the men whose bodies hang from the oak grove back there."

"Hmm." It was neither question nor comment. I hurried on.

"I think whoever hanged them did our work for us, and I think it was you. If I am correct, and it was you, then I believe there is no quarrel between Camulod and your people. The hanged men back there were not Pendragon, at least most of them were not."

"How do you know that?"

"Huw Strongarm told me. He said there were only two Pendragon faces among the corpses. The others were landless."

"Aye. Renegades all, human filth. They slaughtered as many of our people, probably more of them, than they did yours. How many did you lose?"

"Close to fifty."

"We count ours in hundreds, thanks to your contribution to our wars."

That confused me, as he saw by my immediate frown. "What do you mean, my contribution? Your wars are no concern of mine."

He shook his head slightly. "Not yours personally, Camulod's."

I still had no idea of what he meant. "That is nonsense," I said. "What possible contribution might Camulod have made to your wars? I command in Camulod, with my brother Ambrose, and I would know of any such interference. This force here is the first from Camulod ever to set foot in Pendragon country."

"The first armed force, aye. I was thinking of force of another kind." He paused, his head tilted to one side, and suddenly I remembered him from that gesture. We had been friends, one summer long ago, when we were both but boys, years short of man's estate. I remembered him swimming like a fish and springing up from the water onto a bank, shaking the water from his long hair and tilting his head that way to look at me.

"I remember you now," I said.

"Aye, as I said, it has been many years, but I did not know you had a brother."

"A half-brother, and I did not know, either, until a short time ago. For almost thirty years we lived apart, in ignorance each of the other's existence. Now we are close. But I still don't know what you are talking about. What kind of force can there be that is not armed?"

"Personality, Merlyn. Character. The force of one strong man who can control and dominate one weaker than himself."

I blew the breath from my mouth sharply, turning away impatiently, my mind racing over his words and seeking his meaning. Above me on the hillside, the serried ranks of Pendragon bowmen stood looking down, alert and menacing. I glanced towards my own men, then swung back to face Dergyll.

"Look here, Dergyll, are we to fight? I seek no quarrel with you, but I believe you have our horses. I do not believe you stole them, or that you were responsible for any of the deaths in Camulod. But they were back there, by the grove of oaks, no later than a day ago, and if indeed you hanged the renegades back there, then you must have taken the horses."

He chose not to answer me directly, his tone indicating nevertheless that fighting was not in the forefront of his thoughts at that moment. "Does the name Carthac mean anything to you?"

I frowned. "Carthac? It is familiar, but I don't know how. Didn't Uther have a cousin named Carthac? A strange boy, it seems to me, though it has been years since I thought of him. He was misshapen, was he not?"

Dergyll nodded. "Aye, he was, and is. Misshapen is a good word for him."

I was perplexed. "Why would you ask me about him, Carthac? Does he rule in Uther's place now?"

The answer to that was an abrupt bark of savage laughter. "Hah! Do you remember Mod?"

"Mod?" The non sequitur confused me yet again, but a face jumped into my mind immediately. "Yes, I knew a lad called Mod, apprenticed to my friend Daffyd, the Druid. Is that the Mod you mean?"

"Aye, and what of Ironhair?"

"Ironhair!" The name stunned me. "You mean Peter Ironhair? The smith?"

"Smith . . . Aye, I've heard it said he is a smith. But Peter Ironhair is what this fellow calls himself. He is from Camulod, no?"

"No! Or yes, he lived there for a time, until he deemed it wiser to move on. He was a newcomer, though, not one of our own. He made himself a power there, for a short time, while I lay ill. When I had recovered, he and I... disagreed . . . over some matters of policy and government. He tried to have me killed, but failed, then disappeared before he could be taken. How do you know Ironhair?"

"Because he fled from you to us. But he told us no tale of flight, or of murder attempted. He told us he was your friend, sent by you as a gesture of friendship, to work among us after the death of Uther, the king, your cousin."

"What? But—"

"Wait you." Now Dergyll raised his other arm, his right, and one of the men sitting on the knoll behind him produced a long horn and wound a low, ululating note from it. For long moments nothing happened, and then two things occurred at once. The bowmen positioned on the flank of the hillside broke into new movement, breaking ranks and beginning to move laterally, back in the direction of the hill at the chief's back, to where they would no longer constitute a threat to my own men. At the same time, a new surge of movement broke out from behind the low hill ahead of me, and our forty missing horses were brought forward, herded by five or six men mounted on the smaller mountain ponies of the Celts.

"We have a camp, a mile farther down the valley. And we have hunters out. Bring your men, and join us. Mod is there, in our camp. He has a tale for you."

"I will, but wait you now. You believe this Ironhair to be a friend of mine?"

He smiled, and the grimness of his features disappeared. "I did, but your own face gave the lie to it. Now I know different. That's why I called away my men. Come you ahead when you have spoken with your people. I'll see you in the camp. There is a stream, and ample water and grazing for your beasts."

He turned and ran lithely back to where he had left his horse, leaping fluidly up onto its back without hesitation, so that I remembered again what a wondrous rider he had been even as a boy. I walked back to my own horse, mulling over the entire confrontation.

Dedalus sat and watched me, making no move to speak until I was safely anchored in my saddle. When he did speak, it was in his usual sardonic manner.

"How are your bowels?"

"Remarkable, why do you ask?"

"I simply wondered if they spasmed as much as mine when those creatures up there threw off their coverings. Come now, admit they did."

I smiled at him, nodding ruefully. "A little, I must admit, but I had already foreseen the possibility, thanks to Quint's comment earlier. And I remembered how Uther had been caught in much the same way, by Lot's people hiding beneath nets, in a ravine. That was the time Lot's bowmen used the poisoned arrows, you recall?"

"Recall? Shit! I was there, right in the thick of it. One of those arrows hit my cuirass, smack between the nipples, knocked me back in my saddle and then skipped off, up over my shoulder. Must have missed my neck and jaw by a hair's width. That's why my bowels turn to water when I see bowmen. When those whoresons jumped up above us there, my sphincter clenched so tight I hurt my stomach muscles. So what's to happen now? We have the horses. Are we going home?"

"No. We're going to join Dergyll and his men at their camp. We'll eat with them, probably spend the night there, and perhaps head home tomorrow." I could see from Ded's frown that he was about to argue with me, so I cut him off before he could begin to speak. "He has a tale to tell me, and there's also an old friend of mine in his camp. And Ironhair is here, in Cambria, no friend of Dergyll's. That much I can tell you. The rest I'll learn later. Come, let's tell the others what we are about."

Ded's argument, whatever it might have been, remained unspoken as we joined the rest of our party and led them towards the low hill where Dergyll's party had sat. Once there, I ascended the hill to where I could see all my men, and then I told them all that had transpired, thanking them and congratulating them for their steadfastness under the threat of the massed bowmen on the hill. That done, I led them onwards, still in formation, to Dergyll's campsite, which contained, I estimated, somewhere in the region of six hundred men.

Dergyll's Pendragon men stood watching us in silence as we arrived, and although I sensed nothing inimical in their silence it was, at the very least, disconcerting. My own men, for their part, took the silence as their tutor and responded in kind, so that the meeting of the two hosts was one of the most unusual any present there had witnessed. I led our formation, riding alone in front, almost directly to the edge of the encampment and then sat there while my troops lined up formally behind me. Then, seemingly at the precise moment when the sounds of moving horses and harness behind me faded to silence, Dergyll himself came striding from one of the few tents at the centre of the Celtic gathering and bade us welcome in a great, stentorian, parade- ground voice. His shout, clearly heard by every man present, and his wide- armed signal for me to join him, were the signals for a general surge of noise and activity as his Celts relaxed all at once, breaking away to resume the activities interrupted by our arrival and speak among themselves as though nothing had happened. That was not strictly true, however, for I noticed many of his men move forward to address some of my own veterans, and I realized there were more than a few there who obviously knew each other from the days of the wars with Lot. Huw Strongarm and his group, I saw, were mingling easily among the others. I signalled to Dedalus to take over the dismounting and deployment of our troops and horses, and dismounted, waving casually to Dergyll to indicate that I would join him presently, then made my way to where big Huw stood among his own group and others who had joined them. Huw saw me approach and moved to join me, and I pulled him aside, turning my back to the main throng and keeping my voice low, so that he had to lean in towards me to hear what I said.

"This Dergyll," I began. "You said that when you came back home you went to offer your services to him before any other?"

"Aye, why?"

"Then you would trust him?"

"Trust him?" Huw twisted his face into a scowl that might have been a smile of some kind. "Trust's a chancy thing . . . Aye, I suppose I would trust him as soon as any other, and more than most. He was a good man when I knew him well, before these wars broke out."

"Could I trust him? That's what I'm asking you, Huw."

He sniffed and appeared to consider his next words carefully, then he nodded once, and then again.

"Aye. Aye, you may trust him, so be it you both make plain in what your trust lies vested."

"My thanks." I left him there and made my way directly to where Dergyll stood awaiting me. As soon as I had joined him, he turned away and led me to the large, leather tent from which he had earlier emerged, holding back the flap to give me access. I stooped and entered, anticipating darkness, but then was pleased to see that it was open to the sunlight, thanks to a folded- back flap in the roofing. There, on a pile of skins, I found my young friend Mod, now grown almost to full manhood, and the sight of him deprived me of the power to speak.

Mod had always been a pleasant lad, fresh-faced and enthusiastic about everything to which he turned his hand and his mind. At our first meeting, he had been no more than seven or eight years old, newly apprenticed to the Druid Daffyd, but already well versed in the first of the complex tales assigned to him, the tales that had always represented, to my pragmatic Uncle Varrus, a form of earthly magic.

The invading Roman legions had sought to stamp out the Druids in the course of their conquest of Britain, hundreds of years earlier during the reigns of the emperors Claudius and Nero. The reason for their persecutions lay in their accurate assessment of the ancient druidic priesthood as the lodestone of Celtic resistance to the Roman threat. Roman records of that time told of a great slaughter of Druids conducted as a meticulous military campaign, culminating in a massive, thoroughly coordinated drive under the command of Suetonius Paulinus to isolate the last surviving Druids and their supporters on the Isle of Anglesey, the traditional seat of Druidism, where, amid the destruction of their sacred groves of trees, the pestilential priests were finally, officially extirpated, once and for all time. After that, the druidic religion and its traditions had been decreed dead in Britain.

The facts of the matter were decidedly different. A living religion, with its entrenched beliefs and spiritual traditions, is among the most difficult things on earth to eradicate, and the Druids were the custodians not only of their people's theology, but of their history. In consequence, once the direction of the Romans' malice had been defined and the objective of their dire campaign had been identified, the people of Britain set out to protect, defend and conceal their Druids. A Druid could become an ordinary Celt by the simple expedient of changing his clothes, and hundreds did. By the same logic, ordinary people could appear as Druids by donning those same clothes, and once again, hundreds did. The peaceful, solitary Druids, depicted by the Roman invaders for their own purposes as ravening beasts who practised human sacrifice, emerged as doughty fighters in the course of that campaign because, through one of those anomalous upsurges of feeling that occur from time to time in every land and all societies given the proper stimuli, strong men took up the cause of the Druids and fought on their behalf, wearing their robes and dying fiercely, seeking to deny dominion and conquest to Rome. The difficulties faced by Suetonius in rooting out this troublesome priesthood were compounded by his need to deal with the concurrent mass revolt of Boudicca and her Iceni on the other side of the country, and he had withdrawn his legions from Anglesey in haste, their task incomplete, to lead them north and east across the heart of Britain. Many Druids died on Anglesey, but many more survived to carry out their tasks and teachings, quietly and in secrecy thereafter, throughout the hundreds of years of Roman occupation of their land.

The Roman overlords themselves, victorious eventually throughout Britain, remained vociferously exultant over their "conquest" of the Druids, an exultation dictated by their need to be perceived as invincible, and by their superstitious fear of what the Druids represented, for the Romans' understanding of what the Druids had been, and what they had stood for, had never been complete. Druids, thereafter, had been attributed magical, supernatural powers by the descendants of the Roman soldiers who had "destroyed" them.

Magic, Publius Varrus had written, the Druids assuredly had, but he saw it as the "magic" of trained memory, enabling them to carry in their minds, verbatim and intact, the history of their ancient people. Each Druid spent his life, from earliest boyhood, working to become the custodian of several lengthy tales, learning them scrupulously by rote from his own teachers, retelling them at length to his own people in his most active years for their pleasure, entertainment and enlightenment, and then passing them along in his late years to the next bearer of the Druid's burden, a young boy chosen, as he himself had been, for his mental agility, his observed characteristics and his demonstrated willingness to learn.

Mod had been such a boy, as had his fellow student Tumac, two years his junior, both of them given into the care of the Druid Daffyd, whose face had been familiar in Camulod throughout my youth. The Mod who faced me now, however, bore little resemblance to the sunny lad I had known for years. This one, wasted and gaunt, his eyes deep sunken in his skull, his skin grey with the pallour of mortal sickness, looked ancient, far beyond his years. I had no doubt, however, that he recognised me, for his face lit up and he attempted to smile and greet me, seeming to move at the same time to sit up. The effort was too much for him and he subsided backward, catching his breath with an audible hiss and losing consciousness even as I fell to my knees beside him, calling his name. Evident as it was to me that he was far beyond my reach, I tried nevertheless to revive him and bring him back to awareness, but was finally forced to accept that there was nothing I could do. I knelt there beside him, my cupped palm against his brow, feeling the fever that raged there, and gazed up at Dergyll in fury.

"What happened to him?"

Dergyll shrugged his shoulders eloquently. "He was stabbed through the chest and left for dead, more than a week ago. Two of my men found him by sheer accident. They were on their way to meet me. They knew him by sight, and they brought him with them. He hovered on the edge of death for a few days, then seemed to rally, growing stronger every day for the following four days. He was speaking coherently by that time and told us what had happened to him. Then, the day before yesterday, he began to cough up blood, almost as though something had broken or given way inside him. He is still lucid, but growing weaker, as you can see, with every hour that passes. I doubt now he will survive the day."

Unable to remain kneeling, I rose to my feet and stared out through the open flap in the tent's roof.

"He was a Druid, Dergyll. Who among your people kills a Druid?"

He cleared his throat. "There are a few who have no fear of being accursed, since they already are. He was not a Druid, though, Merlyn; merely an initiate, not yet fully trained. Not that it would have made a difference. Those who killed him killed his teacher, too."

"Daffyd?" I felt my head begin to spin and heard a roaring in my ears. Daffyd had nursed and tended my wife. "They killed Daffyd?"

"Aye. Him first. The boy there sought to stop it, and was struck down for it."

"Who? Who has done this?"

Dergyll fell to one knee and tucked some of the skins around Mod's body, which was shivering now. "Fever's what will kill him," he said, then brushed a lock of hair from the young man's forehead. Then he turned his eyes up towards me, where I stood over him.

"Carthac," he said, his voice barren of inflection. When I made no move to respond, he rose to his feet again. "Let's find some mead." Another man, who had been standing motionless in the tent since we arrived, unnoticed by me despite the smallness of the space, now stepped forward and took Dergyll's place beside the dying youth. Dergyll glanced at him and nodded, then motioned to me to leave. I turned and did as he bade me, casting one last, sad glance at Mod.

Outside, in the bustle of the busy encampment, Dergyll said, "That's Timor who's with him now. He's a Druid, too. He'll tend him well. Come."

I followed him in silence as he wended his way among the few tents that served his army, until we arrived by a blazing fire stacked over a clay oven. Several thick logs were grouped around the fire and Dergyll sat on one, pointing me to another. From the ground at his feet he picked up a leather-bound flask and uncorked it, tipping back his head to swallow a great draught, then handing it to me. It was mead, and I gulped it deeply, after which I sighed and stared into the fire.

"Tell me about this Carthac," I said.

"What is there to tell? You knew him, as a boy. He is demented."

"Demented? I did not know that, or I don't remember. I never knew him well. I knew he was misshapen but can remember no more of him, other than that he was generally disliked. Uther, I recall, could not abide him."

"No one could. We were all first cousins. Carthac's mother, my father and Uther's father were siblings. And we were all much of an age, too, less than two years between Uther, who was oldest, and Carthac, the youngest of us. I fell in the middle." He reached for the flask and took another deep drink. "Carthac was always . . . troublesome, even as a child. His mother died birthing him and his skull was crushed out of shape in the delivery. But then he was kicked in the head by a horse, when he was eight."

"I met him after that," I told him. "Two years after he had been kicked. I thought it was the horse's kick that had deformed him."

Dergyll shook his head. "No. That happened at birth. The kick merely completed his undoing, it seems. He was never well liked. Even you remember that, after meeting him only long years ago. He was a treacherous little whoreson even then. Would he had stayed that way. In his fourteenth year, Carthac began to grow prodigiously, and it seemed he might never stop. But as his body grew, and his strength multiplied, his mind degenerated. He was ungovernable—still is . . . He would fly into fantastic rages, often for no reason that anyone could see or understand, and in such rages he would kill anything or anyone that crossed his path. Killed several people before he attained manhood."

I shook my head. "Couldn't anyone restrain him?"

Dergyll pursed his lips and shook his head. "Nah. Finally they banished him, drove him out altogether. But he kept coming back, and because his father was who he was, Carthac was permitted to commit atrocities no one else would ever have dreamed of. Then he turned to violating women, and several of us, myself and a few others, decided to teach him a real lesson. We beat him badly; broke a few bones, then dragged him, tied and kicking in a cart, up to a cave in the hills, miles from the village. We left him there and told him that if he ever came back, we would kill him. We should have killed him there and then.

"Anyway." He heaved a great sigh and looked around him before continuing. "It seemed we had made the correct impression on him. He stayed away for years, and we forgot he was even there. But he was there, and over those years he attracted some followers, the gods alone know how. Then Uther went to war with you against the Cornishman and died there, and all a sudden we had wars of our own. Uther had been king but had no son, and there was never any settlement of the succession, although it should have come to me on Uther's death. But even before then that fire was beyond control. We had problems with invaders, people from the north of us, who thought they could take our lands because the major part of our manpower was away from home. And then Carthac emerged from hiding, backed by a rabble of landless filth and worse, far worse than he had ever been. But he fought craftily and well. We fought a pitched battle against him, and he almost beat us. He's crazed, of course, but he fights like a devil. . . Anyway, Ironhair had arrived in our lands just before that. I disliked him from the outset, but many others didn't particularly since he mantained he had been a friend to both you and Uther. . .

"He was there the day we fought against Carthac and he found out that Carthac had a claim to being king. Shortly after that he disappeared and now he is Carthac's closest friend and trusted adviser. It must be sorcery of some kind, but he seems to be able to control the animal sufficiently to make him do whatever Ironhair wishes to have done, and what Ironhair wishes to have done has caused me endless grief for months now. The end is coming, for all that. We almost had them, day before yesterday, but caught only their rearguard. Carthac and Ironhair evaded us by hours. We questioned the few people left alive after our fight and one of them told us about this camp, with its stolen horses. We were close by, so we came down, and then you came."

"But you knew we were coming. How?"

He dipped his head. "You were seen."

"Not so! We took great pains to remain unseen."

"Aye, but insufficient, nonetheless. You passed a solitary shepherd, lying hid on a hill slope. He saw a thousand horsemen led by one whose standard was a silver-metal bear, on black. That night, he told the Druid Daffyd what he'd seen, and Daffyd made his way direct to me—or would have, had he not unexpectedly encountered Carthac and his band. Brought face to face with Ironhair, Daffyd confronted him and denounced him, knowing the truth of his perfidy, Mod says, accusing him of having tried to murder you. Carthac cut Daffyd down and threw him on a fire for his daring. Mod tried to pull the old man from the fire, and Carthac skewered him with a hunting spear. They left him lying there, thinking him dead, when they rode on, and as I told you, two of my men found him when they passed by the same way that afternoon."

I sat and stared into the fire, losing myself in the leaping transparency of the daylight-dimmed flames. Dergyll left me to my thoughts, content to dwell upon his own for the time being. Eventually, he leaned in front of me and thrust a horn cup full of mead into my grasp. I took it with a nod, and sipped at it, lost in thoughts that no longer primarily concerned Mod and Daffyd or even Carthac and Peter Ironhair. My thoughts at that point, in the main, had to do with Dergyll himself, and with the underlying reasons for my presence here in Cambria.

After my return from Cornwall, late the previous summer, I had been concerned about the attitude I might have provoked among the Pendragon by my own apparent lack of gratitude for the sacrifices made on my behalf by Uther's people, who were half my own people, too, through my mother's blood. As recently as my return from Eire, when I had been concerned about Liam's liberty to raise his breeding stock in safety on Pendragon land, these thoughts had plagued me, and then the raid on our outpost had almost crystallized the belief in my mind that we had forsworn the alliance between Camulod and Pendragon. Now, it appeared, an opportunity had come to hand to reassess the situation. Dergyll seemed to bear us no resentment over the matter of Lot's wars or the losses his people had sustained because of them. I knew, however, that I might be indulging in wishful thinking there. For all I knew, he might be deeply angered over the whole affair and merely be holding his peace for reasons of his own, as important to him as mine were to me.

I snapped back to attention when I heard my name being called from across the fire, and I looked up to see Dergyll approaching me from that direction. I had been unaware of his having moved from beside me, and now I made to rise to my feet, but he waved me back and came to join me, seating himself on the log beside me and resuming his attack upon the flask of mead.

"Your men are settled in," he grunted eventually, offering me the flask again. Seeing my headshake, he dropped it to the ground beside his foot. "Dedalus, your man in charge, says there is nothing for you to concern yourself over, and bids you take your ease."

I smiled. "Thank you for that," I said. "But take my ease?" I considered that, then laughed aloud. "Why not, indeed? There's little else for me to do right now. Ded's a good man. He really has no need of me at all, since it was he who taught me the knowledge of command."

"You say so? He doesn't look that old."

"Nor is he . . . perhaps four or five years my senior. . . but Ded is old in soldiering. He was a centurion when I was a raw recruit and my father named him shepherd to me on my first command patrol."

"What will you do now, Merlyn? Now that you have your horses back?"

I looked at him squarely. "Go home, I suppose. But one thing troubles me."

"Name it."

"My men, the ones killed in the raid last year. They were killed by Pendragon arrows, not by landless renegades like those you hanged back there among the oaks. From all I know of Pendragon, you guard your longbows closely."

"Hmm. That is true, we hold our bows close. True, too, that some of your men might have died that way, but not all of them. That's not possible. Others have bows, even these renegades we hanged." He turned away and shouted to one of his lieutenants close by, and when the fellow came over, sent him off to bring the bows they had confiscated from the renegades. The man returned a short time later, followed by another. The first carried an armload of bow staves, all shorter by an arm's length than the great Pendragon longbows, and the other bore several quivers of arrows, similarly short by the full span of a hand. Together they dropped the weapons by the fire with a clatter. Dergyll eyed them and then spoke to me. "There were two of our bows there as well. Two of our men took those. The arrows are useless to us." He leaned forward and picked up one of the quivers, containing a dozen arrows or more, and tossed it onto the fire.

I shook my head, unconvinced. "The arrows that we found were all Pendragon arrows. We had to cut them out of our men's flesh."

"Aye, you would have. And were all the dead men full of arrows?"

"No, but they all bore arrow wounds."

"There you are then! Only our arrows hit heavily enough to pierce and lodge and defy recovery. They'll cut right into bone, if they're launched hard enough or close enough. These things—" He waved a hand in disgust at the remaining, shorter arrows. "These things are useless. They'll kill you, but so will a pebble if it's thrown properly and you're unlucky." He paused, then continued. "You can thank your friend Ironhair for the deaths of your men. I told you he disappeared from our camp and went to join Carthac. He took two score bows with him, and arrows for them, pulling them in a hand cart. Walked right through the line of my guards and not a man questioned him."

I smiled, slightly incredulous. "What did you do to the guards?"

"Hanged one of them. He was drunk and probably asleep. Didn't see a thing. The tracks of the cart passed by within paces of him. Anyway, since that time, we have been trying to win back those bows. They have a value far beyond any other thing to us."

"And how many have you recovered?"

"Seventeen, of two score, including the two we took back last night."

I stooped now and picked up one of the lesser bow staves, examining it. It was rectangular in section, unlike the round longbow, and made of ash, I guessed, undoubtedly less than one tenth as powerful as my own compound bow. "So you are telling me that my men were probably killed by bows like this, in the hands of renegades assisted by a few Pendragon from Carthac's following?"

"No, I am not, for any who follow Carthac have forfeited their claims to be Pendragon, but you are something right. The matter of the horses should confirm it. Horses like yours are of no use to us, high in our hills. Our own are more sure-footed, bred to the mountainsides. Only Carthac, influenced by such as Ironhair, would be fool enough to see it otherwise."

"Hmm. To lose one's name, especially the right to call oneself Pendragon, would be a potent punishment, I think. Not to be entered into lightly . . . Unless Carthac emerges victor in your war," I suggested, one eyebrow raised. Dergyll saw no humour in my suggestion.

"Hah!" Dergyll scoffed at the mere idea. "He might win a few fights, but Carthac will never be the victor here, for victory will mean that all the true Pendragon have been slain."

"I would like the opportunity to take Ironhair," I mused. I had completely accepted his explanation of the raid upon our outpost.

"Forget Ironhair, Merlyn. Leave him to Pendragon. He has much to answer for and I will see to his answering." He stopped, gazing into the fire and evidently thinking deeply, then turned his face to me again, his mind made up.

"Are we still allies, Merlyn?"

I was unable to mask my sudden gladness and relief.

"Still allies? Pendragon and Camulod? You doubt that? It had never crossed my mind that it might not be so." I felt like a hypocrite, mouthing the lie, yet was deeply grateful for the great draughts of mead that had lowered his guard and permitted me to overreact so shamelessly.

He frowned at that, however, betraying that he was not yet far gone in drink. "You say so here, with all your thousand troops?"

"Of course," I assured him. "Think of it, Dergyll, the sense of it! What kind of fool would I be to ride against all Pendragon with a thousand men? And if Pendragon were at war with us, would they have stopped short at one petty raid against one outpost? No, my friend, I rode against one band of murderers and thieves, and brought a thousand men to teach a lesson. That lesson, undelivered now and unrequired, is yet swiftly stated: war among yourselves if you must, but remain clear of Camulod."

He was still gazing at me. "You marched against but a band, then, unaware of who commanded it?"

"Aye. A band, not a people. We knew your people are at war among themselves. We also knew the waging of that war is no concern of ours, although the preservation of our alliance did concern us. Not knowing whose claim stood against whose, we had no other choice but to remain apart, unless sought out, and let you solve your problems by yourselves. But sought out we were. We were attacked, by people who, unchecked and unreproved, might return to do the same again."

"Aye." Deep in thought again, Dergyll leaned forward and threw several more of the short bow staves on the fire. Then he coughed, deep in his throat, and when he spoke again his voice was clear-edged and full of resolve. "You and I had better talk more then, of alliance."

Within half an hour, we had resolved that I would leave four squadrons behind when I returned to Camulod, under the overall command of Dedalus, with Philip as his deputy. Four mounted squadrons amounted to one hundred and twenty-eight men, plus half as many extra mounts. These forces would police the lower parts of Dergyll's territories, under the titular command of Camulod. Dergyll had convinced me that only he and Carthac remained active in the kingship dispute, all other claims having fallen under his own by various treaties. The campaign against Carthac was destined to be short-lived, he swore, and conducted mainly in the high hills of the northernmost Pendragon territories. The presence on the lower hills of a band of swift-moving cavalry would aid in this, keeping the hunted renegades penned up in the highlands, where Dergyll's bowmen could deal with them effectively.

For their side of the bargain, six score Pendragon bowmen would return with us to Camulod, under the command of Huw Strongarm, who was a kinsman to Dergyll and whom Dergyll trusted more than some of his own subordinates, to train with Ambrose in conjunction with the armies of Camulod. Dergyll would fight his war and win in his own way. Camulodian horsemen would protect his flanks within his own boundaries, and Camulod itself would guard the outer zone. It was more than I would have dared hope for days earlier, and the thought of facing the Council and explaining my precipitate decision to leave my men here held no terrors for me. I was returning with six score of Pendragon bows.

Most satisfying of all, however, was the thought of the smile that would appear on Shelagh's face when I told her the news that Dergyll, soon to be King of the Pendragon, had ratified Huw's gift of residence and safekeeping to her father and herself within Pendragon lands.

XXVII

The quiet, undemonstrative joy that marked my reunion with Donuil and Shelagh and the peaceful establishment of Liam Twist- back's farm close by the western sea to the south of Glevum, after our safe return to Camulod, accompanied by the Pendragon bowmen, was crowned by the tidings of the renewed alliance with our friends in Cambria. So began a blessed, five-year period of peace within and without our Colony, a time of prosperity and renewal and rebuilding, of gathering and accumulating strength, aided by gentle winters followed by glorious summers and swelling, bountiful harvests.

It was a time of many events that enriched all our lives and only a few that impoverished any of us. My brother Ambrose wed his love Ludmilla on the Celtic feast of Beltane, amid the rites of Spring that first year, and Donuil and Shelagh joined with them to make a double celebration and to bind themselves more closely and more publicly to their new lives in Camulod. Within the ensuing ninety days, both wives grew quick with child, and their husbands walked with greater pride and more awareness in their gait. That awareness, in the case of Ambrose, brought him to a decision regarding his perceived duty to Vortigern in his northeastern kingdom, and his desire to return in person was supplanted by a more sedate determination to inform the king of his new life and marriage. Accordingly, he penned a lengthy letter, and dispatched it to Northumbria with several of his men who had expressed a desire to return to their families in Lindum. Thereafter, he made no more mention of riding eastward. Towards the year's end, however, in November, Ludmilla fell sick of a short-lived but virulent illness that was rife among our people for a spell. Thanks to the skills and ministrations of Lucanus, she survived the sickness, but her unborn child did not and Ludmilla miscarried. The entire Colony grieved with the young couple, for thanks to her healing skills and Lucanus's teaching, Ludmilla had become almost as beloved by the ordinary folk of Camulod as Ambrose was by his soldiers.

They bore their grief stoically, consoling each other privately and throwing themselves into their work thereafter, Ludmilla in the Infirmary with Luke and Ambrose in his self-appointed task of training a new army, cavalry, infantry and bowmen, to fight together as a whole in defence of our Colony. And their grief passed, so that by the time Shelagh birthed her first-born in late spring the following year, Ludmilla was with child again, three months into her term and blooming like a flower. Shelagh's baby was a lusty, strapping boy whom she named Gwin, first of her promised pair of sons.

Early that second summer, too, Connor of Eire came to Camulod to visit his brother and his nephew Arthur, now in his third year of rude and robust infancy, a bustling badger of a child incapable of walking, it appeared, since he must needs run everywhere, his densely muscled, solid little bulk rendering him an uncontrollable terror to his nurse Turga, who continued to regard him and to treat him as her own child. He was beautiful, as few male children can be beautiful. His hair had darkened since his birth, its yellow highlights muted to mere hints among the rich, brown chestnut of his curling locks. His eyes were lambent, startling in their tawny, yellowish golden irises, and when he laughed, which was most of the time, his laughter was a crowing gurgle of delight with overtones of the depth and sonority that were to come from his strong, broad chest in years ahead. Arthur, the child of Uther Pendragon, was a complete delight to all around him.

On the day before Connor's unexpected arrival, I had found Arthur in the stables, one of his favourite haunts, despite the fact that almost everyone did everything possible to keep him out of there. On this occasion, as I began to move towards him to pick him up and take him home to Turga, something in his attitude attracted my attention. He was standing in front of Germanicus's stall when I entered, and in the sudden dimness of the stable, blindingly dark after the bright sunshine outside, I had the distinct impression he was holding something up to my horse. Germanicus's head was high up in the air, as though straining away from the lad, and his great eye was rolling in his head. Frowning, I stepped towards them, aware of the tininess of the boy against the enormous size of my large horse, although the lad was outside the stall and therefore in no danger.

"Arthur, what are you doing?"

He turned to look at me, and his face broke into one of his great grins. "Mellin," he crowed, and came running towards me, his right hand outstretched. I crouched down and held out my own hand for whatever it was, and he deposited a large frog, bright green with yellow markings, into my open palm. I had seen what it was only moments before I found myself holding it, but it was already too late to withdraw my hand. I swallowed hard and reminded myself that I had held hundreds of the things before, in my own boyhood, and that none of them had ever bitten me or harmed me. Nevertheless, the sensation of the creature sitting there on my palm made my skin crawl.

"Big, Mellin," the boy said, smiling still, his eyes on the frog.

"Aye, it is, Arthur. Where did you catch it?" He blinked at me, plainly not understanding. I tried again.

"Where did it come from, Arthur?" He scratched himself with one fingertip, worrying at a spot below his ribs, his brows knit in fierce concentration, and I knew he was not going to answer me. "Arthur?" He continued to peer at the frog. So did I, and the frog peered back at me, it's great, liquid eyes bright and shiny. Arthur reached out a pointing finger.

"Beast," he said.

I grinned. "No . . . well, yes, I suppose it is a beast. But it's a frog, Arthur. A frog."

He frowned. "Fwog." His two-and-a-half-year-old tongue could still not fit around the letter R.

"Yes, a frog. Were you showing him to Germanicus?" He nodded solemnly, his eyes still on the frog. "Where did you find him?"

"I caught it, Commander Merlyn, and gave it to the lad." I had not heard the stableman enter, and his voice, directly behind my shoulder, startled me so that I jerked, and the frog took a mighty leap from my hand, landing at least two paces from where I crouched. It paused there for a heartbeat or two, collecting itself, and then leaped again and again, bounding this time into an empty stall. With a startled hiss of surprise and excitement, the boy threw himself after his escaping prisoner, dropping to his hands and knees to scuttle beneath the stall door in hot pursuit. I stood up, glancing ruefully at the stableman.

"His aunt Shelagh's going to be really grateful to you if he finds that thing again and takes it home with him." The stableman—his name had completely escaped me—shrugged philosophically.

"Boys catch frogs, Commander. It's part of being a boy."

"Aye, but not at two-and-a-half. He shouldn't be in here, you know. It's too dangerous. He could be kicked, or trampled."

The big man grinned, shaking his head and contradicted me without malice, chewing his words and slurring them until they were barely discernible as Latin. "Not that 'un, Commander. Every 'orse in the place knows 'im, and they all seem to know just 'ow little 'e is. They step very carefully around 'im, almost as if they're taking extra care not to damage 'im."

I looked sharply at him, thinking he was gulling me, but his face held no hint of raillery. "That is ridiculous." He shrugged again.

"I know that's 'ow it seems, but it's the truth, Commander. They all knows 'im, an' 'e knows all of them—by name, although 'e can't pronounce your mount's full name. Jemans, 'e calls 'im. An' Jemans comes to 'im and eats out of 'is 'and. Lad climbs right up the rails, alongside the 'orse's 'ead, there. I never seen the like, an' 'im so little."

At that moment the boy emerged from the empty stall, covered in ends of straw and clotted horse manure and clutching his prize triumphantly, holding it gently but firmly with both hands around its abdomen. Its hind legs, extended now, seemed longer than his arms. "Fwog!" he announced, holding the hapless creature high.

"Frog," I repeated, looking from him to the grinning stableman. "Let's take it home and show it to your aunt Shelagh." I waited until he changed his grip, frowning with concentration until he held the frog securely in one hand, and then I took his other hand in my own and led him out of the stable.

When his Uncle Connor arrived the following day, he had to meet Fwog formally and gain his acceptance before he was allowed to hug Fwog's patron . . .

I had met with Connor briefly on my return from Cambria the previous year, when he had brought the breeding cattle to Liam and delivered his brother Donuil to his wife as part of the endeavour. He had been prepared to leave to return to Eire the day we arrived, but had waited an extra day to spend some time with me and tell the true, unembellished tale of "Donuil's War," Connor's own name for the rebellion his young brother had forestalled. He had had little choice in thus remaining, Connor had explained to me that evening, since one of two alternatives was certain to occur and he had no way of knowing which: either his brother would be overcome with unwonted modesty and would play down his own heroics, thereby shaming his wife, or he would take the other route and grasp all of the credit to himself, thereby shaming his wife. Better that Connor should remain an extra day then, he reasoned with a wink at me, and see the median path of honesty and the dignity of Donuil's wife both well served.

fie had proceeded to relate the story of how Donuil, who had left home a mere boy in a man's frame, returned from the sea alone and stood as a man against treacherous brethren. Ignoring Mungo Rohan completely, since Donuil himself had executed the fat man the night he arrived home, Rohan's guilt in the death of their brother Kerry established by the dried blood-stains on the clothing he had not yet contrived to burn, Connor told me that Fingael had not been the only one of Athol's kin who had stooped to treachery, allying themselves with enemies in hopes of snatching up their king's fallen coronet of gold. Another brother, Kewn, whom I had heard of but not met, had treated with the MacNyalls of the west, and two of Athol's own brothers had been close with the enemy, one of them liaising with the depraved clan who called themselves the Children of Gam, the other dealing closely with the northeastern federation who called themselves the Sons of Condran and were commanded by Condran's sons, Brian on land and Liam at sea.

Donuil, sharing the leadership of the land armies with his father Athol, had led his forces to three great victories, while his brothers Connor and Brander, using their fleets in consort, had destroyed the shipping of the alliance, interdicting their supplies and inflicting a second, crushing defeat at sea on Liam, the younger son of Condran and the old king's admiral.

Much mead had flowed during the retelling of this tale, which lost nothing in the rivalry of the two brothers in the reporting of it, and the night had long grown dark before we went to sleep. Before we did, however, I invited Connor to visit Camulod next time he came to Britain, since he had said he would be returning regularly thenceforth, checking on the welfare and the needs of Liam and his stock, now that permission to be there had been clearly granted them by the Pendragon. He had mulled upon that in silence for some time, and then admitted he would think on it. I had said no more, other than to remind him of it the next morning before he left.

Now here he was, in Camulod itself, attempting to disguise the awe our fortress stirred in him. He had arrived in comfort, in a wagon, with an escort of three score of his "kerns," as these fierce Ersemen called themselves, marching behind and around him. And their coming had stirred chaos. Fortunately Donuil, aware that Connor might arrive one day, had discussed such an' unheralded arrival with me and Ambrose, and standing orders had been issued to our outposts to expect such a visit, and to supply an honour guard to bring our guests to Camulod itself. We had also left word with Liam Twistback that Connor, should he come, would be welcomed if he approached our outposts openly and named himself.

And so it had happened. Connor and his men had come to our outpost at Acorn Lake and announced themselves, and the officer in charge there, young Jacob Cato, had led them directly to the fortress, sending word on ahead that they were coming.

I was acutely aware, from the first, of Connor's gratification at the high esteem enjoyed in our Colony by his younger brother, since it echoed my own satisfaction with Donuil's progress among us.

From the first day of Donuil's return to duty, I had marked a change in him. He had asked me that day if I would object were he to find himself armour like mine. Delighted that he should wish to do so, I gave him leave to find whatever he could unearth to cover his huge frame, and within two weeks he appeared one morning dressed from head to toe in a completely uniform set of burnished-bronze armour made especially for him and worn over a new, white woollen tunic bordered with my own favourite Greek key pattern. Upon my asking how he had achieved all this so quickly, he merely smiled and quietly reminded me that, early in our relationship when I held doubts about his capabilities, I had told him that the single most distinguishing characteristic of a good adjutant was the ability to get things done, without fanfare, without upheaval, without apparent effort and without crowing about his methods. Chastened, and subtly rebuked, I resisted the temptation to question him further.

From that day forward, Donuil had been at my side constantly, immaculately turned out in Roman splendour and capable, it seemed, of anticipating every need not only of mine, but of Ambrose, too, with whom he had developed a deep friendship. And when he was not with me, on duty, he went riding with his wife, as long as she was able, learning from her the equestrian skills he and I both had sworn would be beyond his reach forever.

Relieved of his concerns over his brother's function here among Outlanders, Connor relaxed and the remaining six days of his visit sped by, enlivened by long evenings when he and I, in company with Donuil, Shelagh, Ambrose and Ludmilla and assorted others, enjoyed each other's company increasingly, so that there was no longer any need to issue invitations to return. Return became a simple matter of arrangements.

When he and his kerns marched off northwest again, they marched accompanied by sixty of our troopers who went north to relieve half of Ded's contingent, which was still involved in Cambria after more than a year. Twice in the year elapsed we had made such changes, and still the war in Cambria dragged on, although the cost to us and ours was nil. Our forces in the low Pendragon lands had met with no resistance or, at least, had remained unchallenged. Dergyll had managed to maintain his campaign as he wished, high in the upper reaches of their hills. Only twice in all the time spent there had Dedalus led his men forward into action, and on both occasions, after the merest skirmish, he had led them back whence they came, unblooded and unbloodied.

The effect of the alliance in Camulod, however, had been salutary. We had had, at the outset, a total of one hundred and thirty-eight longbows, and two hundred bowmen, including the men Huw and his people had begun to train. Now, after a year, we had close on two hundred bows, a full thirty of them made by our own bowyers from the few yew trees we had been able to find locally. The source of the remaining score and more remained a mystery to me, although Huw Strongarm and his Celts seldom returned from visiting their homes without at least one extra bow among them. Thanks to our adoption of the laws laid down by Ullic Pendragon regarding bows—no man could own one, but each must serve as guardian and custodian of one for an entire year, responsible for its care and maintenance—we had no lack of caretakers for the new weapons, and indeed we had a glut of would-be bowmen, never less than four trainees for every bow available. An entire area on one side of the great drilling ground at the base of the fortress hill had been set apart for practise, and permanent targets—"butts" the men called them— had been set up at either end. Nowadays, too, there was no longer anything noteworthy in the sight of ranks of bowmen, densely packed, lofting their arrows over and ahead of ranks of charging horsemen, changing their stance and aim so that each volley flew farther, landing ever ahead of the advancing cavalry. Surprisingly few of these arrows were destroyed by the advancing horses, but those that were were reckoned a small price to pay for the advantage gained. To this point, however, accuracy notwithstanding, all such arrows flew with weighted but unpointed heads.

Thus passed the second year, with one more, golden harvest. Ludmilla had a baby girl that autumn, a raven-haired beauty whom she named Luceiia, and by Yuletide Shelagh was with child again.

In May the following year, again at the feast of Beltane, a stranger showed up at our gates, escorted by a guard from our southernmost border. At first glance, I did not recognize the stranger as a priest, yet when he raised his hand to bless me, I was unsurprised. He had that air of sanctity about him. He also had a heavy, weatherproofed package containing a letter from Germanus, a response to my epistle of two years before. I left him in the care of Donuil and Ambrose, and took myself off to read what my friend had written:

Auxerre, Gaul 436 Anno Domini Caius Merlyn Britannicus

Dear Friend:

You can have no idea how pleasant was the surprise I felt when I received your letter. I have read it many times since then, smiling each time as I perceived your face, clear in my mind, reflecting the conviction of your words.

I grieved for you, in reading of your loss. The brutal winter that deprived you of your friends and of your much-beloved aunt afflicted even us, here in the warmth of Gaul, but nowhere near as painfully as it scourged your land of Britain.

Let me add, however, that I have never feared for the condition of your great-aunt's soul. I have heard her spoken of by many of my brethren, as you know, and all who knew her spoke of her as being among God's blessed and chosen servants. She has passed into a life, Caius, where winter is unknown. Convinced of that, my prayers have gone to God on your behalf, that you might come to know the peace of mind such certitude entails.

Your missive reached the Bishop, here in Gaul. The Legate whom you remember retired from life long since, and has not even mounted a horse since our return from Britain all those years ago. Despite that flight of time, nevertheless, and without negating or regretting or maligning any of the duties and concerns that fill my life today and keep me working long into each night, I will admit to you, between ourselves, that I experienced some pangs of yearning when I read your words and felt the tone of them.

I live in contemplation nowadays but not, alas, in quietude. All who address me now—and there are far too many such, each day and every day—do so with regard to my position and supposed sanctity, my position in and of itself alone, be it understood, entailing the supposed sanctity. How refreshing then, my friend, to be hailed simply as a man and a fellow-soldier by such as yourself! Humility, I find, becomes more difficult to attain from day to day when one is constantly besought by supplicants and must deal with abject entreaties and with the obsequious flattery of those who seek preferment.

I note your mention of the absence of monastics in your lands. They are there, my friend, nonetheless, and are proliferating here in Gaul. I find them, in the main, obedient, pious and devout—though quite culpable, I fear, in meriting your succinct revulsion over their personal habits of cleanliness. Thanks to my own early military training and a lifetime of assiduous ablutions, my feelings tend to lean towards yours in that aspect, I will admit to your eyes alone! And yet the Bishop that I am today must, and does, recognise the value of self-denial and of rededication and devotion to the principles of Our lard, after the Godless excesses of the Empire. We must take care, however—and I am at pains to teach this viewpoint—to observe the median of moderation and avoid the temptation to excessiveness in bringing change. Fastidiousness aside, however, I find myself approving of the spirit underlying the development of this monastic application. I see the zealots within the movement plainly—their presence is impossible to miss—and I do what I may to obviate their intemperance, hut the outcome lies with God, as it must in all things earthly, and in Him I am content to repose my trust.

And upon that thought, I took much heart from your report upon the spread of Our Lord's work in Britain. Others send such word to me, not least the British Bishops, but the ratification from you, unsolicited, is encouraging. It pleased me, too, to read that the name of Pelagius is no longer heard in Camulod, save in your own heart, loyal to its roots. Would that were true elsewhere! In many parts of Britain, it appears, his heresy is still being taught despite our Verulamium conclave, although my schools do prosper otherwhere. I sent word to Bishop Enos of my gratitude for his service in this matter of your letter and asked him to assure himself from time to time of the good of you and yours.

I must observe, my friend, that Enos is correct to censure you, albeit mildly, for your attitude towards these Christian souls who bear the name of Saxon. I have thought long and deeply on this matter since reading of your difficulty in accepting the mere thought of such. Your ancestors, and mine, were once regarded in the self-same light by those who live in amity beside you now. Think upon that, and upon this: I speak of Christian souls, not of pagan raiders; of families now settled and secure on holdings that they nurture, with children who will know no other home. Consider it, my friend, in Christian charity.

I have sat hours here, writing by myself, and now grow tired. My prayers include you frequently, along with the quite selfish wish that we might meet again someday. Take care.

Your brother in God and friendship,

Germanus

It was to be another entire year, and I would receive a second letter from Germanus, before I would sit down to write to him again. At the time of reading that first letter, I had no thought of failing to respond immediately, nor did I procrastinate to any great extent. The intervening year quite simply vanished, eaten alive by the endless minutiae of tending a thriving, healthy community.

The recent intake of new troopers we had absorbed, for example, necessitated housing arrangements, since our barracks, built in the earliest years of our growth, had long been overcrowded. That crowding, reinforced by the fact that many of our former soldiery had lived outside the barracks with their families, forced us to take prompt steps to deal with the incursion of more than a thousand fresh men, a number of whom had families of their own in train. All required permanent, solid, new housing, for we could not simply dispossess the widows and children of our dead and missing veterans.

That task alone took months, involving every artisan and every set of muscles in the Colony, but eventually we had new, bright, modern quarters for our troops among the woodlands cleared of trees to build the houses that now filled the open spaces thus created.

Aunt Luceiia's Council of Women, led and inspired anew by fresh, young blood in the form of Ludmilla, Shelagh and their friend Julia, was of major assistance in this task, bringing pragmatic feminine common sense to a project that would otherwise have fallen to the lot of simple, stolid, military men. The result, achieved in a consensus of goodwill, was a system of quasi hamlets, practical above all as they needs must be, yet built with a regard for simple aesthetics and for the realities of life—community, comfort and ease of access—beyond the barrack-room.

Our training program, needless to say, continued throughout this building phase, as did the daily life of Camulod itself. Children continued to be born in ever-growing numbers throughout our domain. Shelagh bore Donuil a second son, Ghilleadh, as she had sworn to do, and Ambrose and Ludmilla had another daughter, Octavia. Young Arthur, now aged four, began to disappear consistently, to be sought and found each time in one or other of the stables, among the horses of which he had not the slightest fear. He and young Bedwyr, the son of Hector and Julia and some six months his junior, had become inseparable, and that caused me more than once to think of Shelagh's gift of dreams and of my own. She had been adamant at one time, I recalled, that only her two sons would be important in Arthur's future, and had dismissed young Bedwyr completely. Now it was evident that she had been wrong, and that her gift was not infallible. Clearly, she could discern matters concerning her own life and family, but suffered from common human ignorance beyond such things. Prescient she might be, but her prescience had limits, and that gave me, perhaps unworthily, some comfort when examining the severe limitations of my own gift.

Dedalus returned that year, as well, with his entire contingent, having lost not one man in more than two whole years and having been finally released from duty by Dergyll, whose wars, it seemed, were over and who now bore the title King of the Pendragon. Carthac and Ironhair had eluded Dergyll's vengeance at the last, but their force was spent, eroded and worn out by the incessant hammering of Dergyll's ever-growing army. Abandoned by their followers, the two, putative king and would-be king-maker, had disappeared from the Pendragon world months earlier, and Dedalus brought warning from Dergyll that we should watch for them within our boundaries. We discussed that warning, Ambrose, Donuil, Dedalus and I, and while we were prepared to discount such an incursion as most improbable, we yet took steps to warn our outposts and patrols to be on the watch for Ironhair. Then, in the summertime again, a second letter came from Germanus.

Auxerre, Gaul 437 Anno Domini Caius Merlyn Britannicus

Greetings, my dear Friend:

It has but lately come to my attention that a condition of civil war exists among the race of Pendragon whence your mother came. The tidings disturbed me, for there is no worse disease than civil strife, and I thought immediately of you in the hope you might be uninvolved. The fact that you have not written since I last sent word to you, however, invites me to suppose that your own sense of duty might dictate that you defend yourself and those whom God has placed within your charge. I pray that need has not arisen, and so shall write as though it had not.

I thought of you some months ago, upon a day of pleasant duty, and recalled a tale you told me once about your uncle's saintly friend the bishop Alaric. The tale involved, for I recall it clearly, the sacred altar- stone he had prepared to grace your gathering place in Camulod. I know you are familiar with the stone, since stone can never perish and therefore must be there still, in Christian use. I wonder, however, if you recall the occasion when you told me of the stone? It was on the first day we met, in my camp there beneath the escarpment from which you loosed the arrows that delivered us from certain death. We spoke of many things that afternoon, you and I, but I recall with fondness how you spoke of Alaric, whose soul you feared for at my judgment, and your description, almost defiant, of his gift to Camulod.

"Concealed within its case," you said, "its sanctity intact, it lies inured against the profane speech of ordinary men. Revealed, however, and exposed to view, it sanctifies the premises it graces and makes an altar of the meanest table on which it may be laid." You had a point to make there, my friend, and I heard it clearly, enunciated in words other than your own, by Jesus Himself: "Render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's, and unto God those things which are God's."

Let me now enlighten you as to why I should be writing thus, for I have no doubt in my mind you must be wondering if age has overtaken me. Not so. Not sufficiently, at least, to debilitate my thinking.

The pleasant duty to which I referred earlier herein was the dedication of an ecclesia, a building erected solely to serve the Will of God and to enhance the spreading of His Word. A house of God, in fact; not a mere basilica or any similar place of commerce capable of housing a religious gathering and service, but a permanent house of worship that will never be profaned by worldly functions. Think of that, my friend. A Christian temple, unlike any built before our time, since it will house, permanently and for all time henceforth, the Holy Spirit and the Living Essence of our eternal

Saviour . . .

Of course, this was not the first such edifice to be built and consecrated to God's Truth. There are many such nowadays, throughout the world, and their use is spreading rapidly, for which we all give thanks. It was, however, the first such sacred place to be erected within my patrimony, and thus it prompted me to think of you.

How so? say you. Be patient yet awhile, for I have an answer, and it lies in this: The altar in our new ecclesia is built of hand-wrought stone, and in the upper slab, recessed and portable in case of sudden cataclysm, lies a holy, consecrated stone much like the one your Bishop Alaric bestowed on Camulod in gift. Now do you see my meaning?

When last I wrote to you, you were in mourning for your Aunt Luceiia who had been, throughout her life, a constant source of succour and a haven to those men of God who laboured in your land to spread His Word.

How fitting it would be, it seems to me, that you erect a small ecclesia within your lands in memory of her, and that it should contain, in permanent and public reverence, the very altar-stone bequeathed to you so long ago by one of God's great spirits on this earth. Picus Britannicus, your father, I know, would have had no objection to such a gesture of respect for loved ones and their God. What think you?

I shall await your response with patience and forbearance. But bear in mind, my friend, the man you know, who is less patient than the Bishop. Farewell, Merlyn. My thoughts and prayers are often filled with you and yours.

Your brother in God and friendship,

Germanus

A small ecclesia, built of stone. Two large horns on one dilemma, contained within a single phrase. With our current populace approaching the six thousand mark, four thousand and more of them Christian, smallness was not a fitting criterion for any place of worship we might use. Our communal religious ceremonies, few as they might be, were always held beneath the open skies and strongly attended. The very portability of Alaric's altar-stone was what made that possible. As for a stone edifice, the mere idea was ludicrous. Our fortress walls were made not of stone but of stones, painfully amassed, with great difficulty and single-minded obstinacy, over long years, by the combined and sustained efforts of an entire people inspired by visionary leaders. Stone walls, walls made of stone, suggested dressed and fitted blocks of quarried masonry in an edifice designed and constructed to withstand the ravages of time on the scale of centuries. Our walls were nowhere near so grand, for we had no quarries, no convenient source of stone.

Germanus's idea appealed to me, nevertheless, in its aspect of forming a useful and decorative memorial to the Founders of our Colony, and I brought the matter up in Council some time later. The result, however, was as I expected. After lengthy discussion of the matter, pro and contra, the decision of the Council, reluctant and regretful, was that here was an idea ahead of its time. Such an ecclesia might well be built some day and should be planned for, in the longer term, but the very grandeur of the notion dictated that the site should be elsewhere, close to a source of stone, where the labours of construction might be minimised. I wrote back to Germanus and explained, at length and with compassion, how and why we could not accede to his suggestion. Alaric's altar-stone, I assured him, would continue to be put to frequent and respectful use, and would suffer no erosion, safe within its carrying case. His response, received months later, was complacent, his enthusiasm undimmed by the prospect of "some day."

So time passed, and children grew, and Camulod prospered in peace, and the world outside paid us no attention. And then, one day, reviewing our parading troops on a special holiday created and deemed to mark the seventy- fifth anniversary of the founding of our Colony, I looked at the seven-year- old boy who rode between Ambrose and me, his head high and his wide-eyed young face flushed with pride and excitement at being part of such a grand occasion, and I realized that I had reached my fortieth year of life.

That night, in the celebration that followed the day's ceremonies, I mentioned the matter to our gathering at what had become our favourite spot, around the first firepit outside the fortress walls. For some reason, that night the women were not present, and I sat at ease among Lucanus, Ambrose, Donuil, Hector, Dedalus, Rufio, Quintus and Benedict. Huw Strongarm had been with us earlier, but had left to rejoin his own people whose voices we could hear, raised high in song, some distance from us on the dark hillside. Amid much raillery, I bewailed the fact that life had passed me by and soon I would be forty. Ded, closer to fifty, and Luke, now beyond sixty, gave short shrift to my complaint, and indeed it seemed, when we examined it, that I was among the youngest of our group. Only Donuil, Benedict and Ambrose were junior to me, and Ambrose by a matter of mere months. During a pause in the conversation shortly after we had abandoned the topic of my age, Lucanus changed the subject, addressing Ambrose.

"Do you ever regret, Ambrose, not having returned to visit Vortigern? I recall that when you first came here you were insistent that you should return to make your final severance with him face to face."

I found myself glowering fiercely at Lucanus, shaking my head urgently to warn him to desist. It had been years since Ambrose spoke of going east, and I had no wish to rekindle the ambition in his mind. Of course, I was far too late to forestall Luke's words. Ambrose made no response for a long time and when he did reply, his tone was musing.

"Yes, Luke," he said. "I do regret it. Not often, and for different reasons than you might suppose. The bonds that bind me here, to Camulod, are far more solid and enduring than those that once linked me to Vortigern, and yet I would like to return, some day, to see how things progress there in Northumbria without me."

"Then you should go, and soon."

I began to rise to my feet in protest, but Lucanus had my measure. He swung to face me.

"Both of you should go. Together, and immediately." He held up one hand to stop me from speaking. "Think of it, Merlyn, before you say you cannot. You talked of it before, planned it indeed, to happen after your return from Cambria. What has happened in the interim? We have had five years, almost six, of prosperity and peace. Our Colony is strong and secure, and no danger threatens anywhere. You have just been imposing on our collective goodwill as friends, weeping about how life has passed you by. Well, here is a chance to go out there and meet it, and arrest its too-swift progress. There is not one reason in this world why you may not go, not even if you were to leave tomorrow."

His eyes moved from me to Ambrose and back. No one else spoke.

"Is there?" He looked at each of us again. "Can you provide one? One solid reason why you should not take a furlough and enjoy yourselves away from home for a short space of months?" A pause generated no response from anyone present, and he continued speaking. "I thought not, for there is no good reason to the contrary, particularly when such a course would serve a useful purpose. By visiting Vortigern you could discuss alliance with him. There was a time you deemed that to be important, did you not? Nothing has changed in that, I think, save for the fact that you have done nothing to make it happen. Why don't you go now? Our affairs are in good hands and, though the hearing of it may surprise and dismay you, we can manage to live without you for at least a short time."

I looked at Ambrose, who returned my look and slowly began to smile.

"Brother," he said, "I think our friends have an eye to our welfare. I also think such an expedition would be fun. Why not do as Luke says, and simply up and go?"

I grinned back at him, already and quite suddenly convinced that we should, feeling excitement at the notion stirring in my breast.

"What about your wife? Will she allow you to leave? I have no such encumbrance."

"Hah! She will be glad to be rid of me for a spell, especially since I would be travelling with you, my saintly brother, and therefore likely to avoid temptation in the fleshpots of the world."

There are times when careful planning ensures success, and there are times when the most careful planning comes to naught. But there are also times when spontaneity brings benefits uncountable. This was one of those times.

XXVIII

On a morning more than two weeks after that, deep within the borderless, alien territory known as the Saxon Shore, I knelt in wet grass beside my brother, peering through a screen of bushes at a man who had almost fatally surprised us. He was evidently the owner of a hay- filled barn where we had spent the night, exhausted after a long day's travel in heavy rain, and he was a Saxon. We had come upon his barn without warning the previous evening, just as night was falling and, soaked and tired and lulled by the torrential rain, we had succumbed to the temptation to shelter there, uncaring whether the owner was Briton or Saxon. In the last half hour of fading light, thankful for the solid roof over our heads, we had unsaddled and tended our horses, then dried ourselves and changed our soaked clothing before crawling into the fragrant piles of loose hay that filled the building and on which our horses were feeding placidly. Sleep overcame us quickly. I can remember only feeling grateful for the softness of the hay and listening to the gentle crunching of the eating beasts, then nothing.

The extent of our exhaustion became apparent in the dawn of the new day, when Ambrose shook me awake, his hand clasped over my mouth. I looked where he was looking, and saw the form of a large man approaching through the trees. Motionless, we watched him come, each of us wondering what was to happen here. As he drew closer, he loomed larger, and I began to feel an insane urge to laugh aloud, because he still had not looked up to see our four horses among his hay, clearly outlined as they were to us, against the morning light. We ourselves lay hidden in the hay. Yet he did not look up, seemingly intent upon his feet, so deep was he in thought. And then, as my searching fingers closed about the handle of my sword, a cry came from behind him and he stopped and turned away, listening intently. The cry came again, a woman's voice, and he called back, the tongue he used discordant and alien to my ears. Again the woman called, and then with a muttered curse he walked away, back whence he had come, until the trees concealed him.

Within moments, we had saddled our mounts and packhorses and Ambrose led them from the barn while I concealed the signs of our stay. I ran to join him immediately, thankful the rain had stopped during the night, and found him waiting just beyond the barn, holding the reins of all four animals, but making no attempt to mount. He held up one hand, wrapped about with reins, bidding me be still as he cocked his head to listen. I listened too. There was nothing to hear.

"He's gone," I said, my voice still low.

"Aye, but he might come back. What would you have done, had he seen us?"

I glanced at him, surprised that he need ask. "He was a dead man. Why?"

"You would have killed him, not knowing who or what he was?"

"He was a Saxon; what more need I know? Even before I heard him speak, I knew that."

Ambrose shook his head, pouting his lips. "No, he's no Saxon. At least, the language he spoke was no Saxon tongue I've ever heard, and I've heard several. Probably an Angle."

"A what?" I felt the blankness in my face.

"An Angle . . . some people, Vortigern's Danes among them, call them Anglians. Another race altogether from the Saxons. They come from farther north."

"Farther north of where?"

His teeth flashed in a quick grin. "Of where the Saxons come from. They are different peoples. Like Donuil's Celts and your Pendragons. The same in many things, perhaps, but from different places and speaking different tongues."

I shook my head. "Nah!" I said. "That can't be right. The Pendragon are Celts, too. I speak the Pendragon language, and though it sounds different from Donuil's tongue I could yet understand what Donuil said the first time I met him. You said this fellow here spoke unintelligibly."

"Exactly, so he cannot be a Saxon. Therefore he must be an Angle, or perhaps a Jute—" He smiled again, seeing my face. "Another race entirely. There are many of them."

"Aye." I said no more, allowing my tone to convey my disgust in the single syllable and reaching to grasp my saddle horn, preparing to mount. His hand on my arm stopped me.

"No, wait, Cay. I want to see what kind of place this is, what kind of farm they have. That barn is large, larger than I would have expected to find in a place like this." He stopped, looking me in the eye. "Will you wait for me? Or will you join me?"

I looked up at the sky and sniffed loudly. It was already almost full daylight, and the man might be returning even now, but I had already learned not to argue with my brother when his curiosity was stirring.

"What if we meet him in the woods?"

"Then we nod and pass by, what else? We won't meet him, Cay! How stupid do you think I am? I'm not suggesting we ride boldly forward here. We'll harness our horses back there in the woods behind the barn and make our way forward on foot, clear of the path. If someone comes, we'll drop flat. Come on, I'm curious to see what we have here."

We did as he suggested and moved forward carefully, and less than a hundred paces from the barn we came upon the main holding, an extensive farm yard containing a long, low, central building made of stone, with a thickly thatched roof, surrounded by a collection of smaller huts and shelters, some of them strongly built, the others a ragtag variety of lean-to sheds in various stages of repair. The strongest-looking outhouses, all walled byres, were for cattle. We could hear the sounds of them from where we crouched behind the screen of bushes separating us from the yard. Smoke billowed from a vent in the roof of the main building, but we could see neither door nor windows from where we crouched; nothing but stone walls. Muttering that these people had obviously lived here for some time, since the buildings had been carefully and strongly built, requiring years of effort, Ambrose beckoned me to follow him and cautiously, ready to drop at any sound, we made our way laterally until the front of the longhouse came into view. It had one wide, central door divided laterally into two sections, top and bottom, much like those I had seen in Eire. The top section was open and we could hear voices from inside, but then a woman's face appeared and she reached over, raising the latch that held the bottom closed. She emerged as it swung open, a tall, well-made, wholesome-looking woman in her early twenties, I surmised, and was followed by a brood of brawling children, three of them, all boys, tugging and hauling at each other as they spilled into the light of day. She snapped some words at them and crossed directly to a solid-looking table close by the door, where she lowered the large wooden bowl she had been holding in her right arm. One of the boys, the smallest, hit by one of his brothers, ran to her in tears and clutched her skirts, burying his face against her leg. She dropped one hand protectively to his bowed head and gave his siblings the rough edge of her tongue, then raised her head and called out again. Her man, the one who had almost stumbled on us, came from the largest outhouse, evidently in answer to her summons. Seen thus, in full light, he appeared even larger than he had before, an enormous, broad-shouldered, blond-haired man with a handsome face almost completely covered by a dense beard. The little skin I could see around his bright blue eyes looked deeply tanned. The woman gestured to the wooden bowl, then knelt to soothe the little boy, while her man approached and looked into the deep- sided bowl. From it he took a jug, a wedge of bread and what appeared to be a handful of dried grain, and then he leaned against the table's edge, feeding from his closed fist and grinning as he watched his woman fussing with the child. She bussed the boy, then cleaned his tear-streaked face with her apron, just as a woman of our Colony would have, after which she straightened and moved to stand beside her man. He raised the hand in which he held the jug, and she came into the crook of his arm, leaning against him. He lowered his head and nuzzled his bearded face against her hair, then continued eating while she spoke to him.

I had no notion of what she was saying, but the domesticity of the scene surprised me, although had I been asked how I might have expected such people to behave towards each other I would have been unable to provide an answer. The man turned his head slightly and called out something, and a young girl appeared in the doorway. She was most evidently the daughter or the sister of the first woman, and my mind immediately chose the former, adjusting its estimate of the woman's age accordingly. The girl was laughing at something her father had said as she turned and disappeared again into the interior of the house.

I felt Ambrose's eyes upon my face and turned to look at him. He merely raised an eyebrow, a half-smile upon his face, but then he froze, head cocked to the side, and gestured urgently, a small, tight movement of one hand. The sounds he had heard reached my ears immediately, and then a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a horse and containing three more men, came creaking from the woods on the other side of the farm yard and approached the house. The driver was an older man, about equal in age to the farmer, and the other two were younger, beardless youths. It was evident that they had been expected, for the farmer, swigging a quick drink from the jug before setting it down, hugged his wife one-armed, pinching a buttock fondly, and they moved together to greet the newcomers. One of the younger men was already handing down tools, shovels and mattocks, to his companion who had jumped to the ground.

Ambrose tugged at my sleeve and we backed away cautiously until we were sure we were in no danger of being seen, and then we headed back towards our horses.

"Well," he asked me as he walked. "Don't you feel glad you didn't have to kill him?" I shook my head, impatient with his tone, but he would not let be. "Come, Brother. Would you rather have left him dead, simply for being here, and her a widow with a brood to feed?"

I looked at him, tight-lipped, but he merely grinned and swung himself up into his saddle. And so we rode in silence for a spell. I was deeply disturbed, however, by the scene we had just witnessed, although I would have been at a loss for words had Ambrose asked me why. The word that came back to me, and refused to leave my mind, was "domesticity." That family on whom we had spied so briefly was long settled and its members were happy in their home and with each other. They fitted ill with my own long- held and jealously cherished notion of the invaders who were despoiling Britain, and yet they tallied precisely with the kind of people Germanus had described to me in his first letter, bidding me to be charitable. I found myself going over, time and again, the various other comments I had heard and with which I had vociferously disagreed, regarding the peaceful intentions of many of the new settlers and even desirable aspects of having such people as neighbours. Equus's son Lars and his family, isolated in their rundown hostelry near the abandoned town of Isca in the south, had told me they would rather treat with the settled Saxons they had come to know, who were quiet, orderly neighbours, than they would with their own island people who had consistently brought them warfare and disruption. The thought had horrified me when I first heard it stated. And months later, it had been reinforced by both Ambrose and Donuil.

All of my training, all I had been taught throughout my life, told me that they were wrong; they must be wrong. Were that not so, I told myself now for the twentieth time, then all our training, and Camulod's very existence, was the result of an error in judgment. These people were invaders, alien to our ways and to our life, as much as to our land. What did it matter that some of them were now peaceful farmers and "good neighbours," as I had been assured by their apologists? They had landed here as raiders in the very recent past and had remained as local conquerors. My mind reeled with the conviction that accepting their pacific behaviour now must entail, in logic, nothing less than total capitulation to the tide they represented; the abandonment of all reservations towards them would amount to the complete welcome of an inevitability. Within a decade of that acceptance, it seemed to me, we would be outnumbered, our Romano-Celtic roots overwhelmed and buried, stamped out forever. Britain would cease to be Britain and would become a Saxon province.

Shaken and disturbed by my own logic, I could not believe my friends, for all their own strong-mindedness, had thought this matter through in its entirety, and I told myself that someone, most probably me, had to do just that: examine the entire problem judiciously and logically, and then convince all of them of their error. I could see no alternative, although I knew I faced a thankless task. Survival—our own survival—depended on their being wrong. And so I rode in silence, and I was deeply troubled.

We had ridden for about a mile when I became aware that Ambrose, slightly ahead of me, had stopped and now stood upright in his stirrups, head cocked to the side, listening. I stopped my own mount and listened, too, but I could hear nothing. I had had ample evidence on this journey, however, that my brother's hearing was far more acute than my own, so I was ready when he put his fingers to his lips and waved us off the path. I kicked Germanicus forward and kept close as Ambrose spurred his horse through the bushes and up a slight rise that was crowned by a clump of large trees, their boles concealed by heavy brush. I reined in beside him and looked in the direction he was watching.

"What did you hear?"

"People coming towards us. More than a few. Listen."

I strained my ears for long moments, then finally heard the noises that had alerted him: voices, now below us, approaching along the path.

"We're pretty exposed up here, don't you think?"

"Come, we'll tether the horses behind the hilltop, out of sight, and then go forward again and find a place to watch from." As we swung down from our saddles, the sounds were already much closer, individual voices audible in the buzz of quiet conversation.

"Ach, too late," he said. "They'll be past here by the time we come back." He was looking around as he spoke, and suddenly he pulled the Pendragon longbow he had "adopted" from the saddle of his pack-horse. "Leave the horses and bring your bow, but take off your helmet and carry it. We'll watch from over there!" He nodded towards a trio of large trees some distance to our left; then, pulling a bowstring from his scrip, he quickly strung his bow and snatched a quiver of arrows that hung by the pack saddle while I did the same, and within moments we were crouching side by side between the two largest trees. Below us, less than thirty paces from where we crouched, a long line of men emerged from the forest, all of them armed and armoured, wearing conical helmets, some of which had horns, walking in a double file along the path. Ambrose slipped back, keeping his head low, and crossed to where I crouched.

"Now those," he whispered, "are Saxons."

As he said the words, one of the men in the lead stopped abruptly, holding up one arm so that the line of men behind him came to a halt, their voices dying away rapidly. For a space of heartbeats I thought he must have heard Ambrose's whisper, but he immediately began to speak to his people, his voice urgent and minatory. I glanced at Ambrose, but he shook his head at me, frowning with concentration as he listened to what was being said below. Whatever it was, it was briefly stated. Two men immediately moved up ahead of the leader and vanished along the pathway. Moments later, the train moved forward again, proceeding now in silence. We watched them leave, and I counted twenty-four of them, including the two who had gone ahead of the main party. When the sounds of their passage had diminished, I turned to Ambrose, who was still frowning.

"What was that about? Did you understand him?"

"Aye, I did," he replied, his face grim. His eyes moved restlessly from side to side, looking from where the Saxons had disappeared along the track, to the point at which they had come into view. Finally, my impatience took over.

"Well? What did he say?"

Now his eyes moved to me. "He told them they must be quiet from here on, to achieve surprise. Then he sent two scouts on ahead to make sure no one on the road would be able to raise an alarm."

It took me several moments to absorb what he had said.

"You mean they're going to attack that farm? The Saxon farm?"

"Any time now," he answered. "The Anglian farm. I told you, they're a different people, a different race altogether; an enemy race."

"Good God!" I had a vision, immediate and stark, of that tall, fair young mother being raped, her husband and her young sons lying dead around her, and my mind went back to the sight of young Arthur's nurse, Turga, when I had first seen her, witless with despair, demented eyes gazing sightlessly at the dead baby in front of her.

"We have to raise an alarm!"

Ambrose glanced at me again. "How? It's too late now. We're behind them. To sound any kind of warning we would have to be ahead of them, between them and the farm."

"Damnation! There must be something we can do," I retorted, but he was right and I had seen the truth of it as soon as he had said the words. The forest grew too densely here on either side to allow us to make any kind of speedy progress away from the path, even on horseback.

"There may be." His voice was curt. "I have one idea and I think it may be insane. Come, quickly!" He had snatched up his helmet and now turned, running towards the horses. I was close behind him as he reached them, but he was already mounted by the time I began to unhitch my reins.

"Quick," he snapped. "Leave the pack animals. We have no time."

I swung myself up into the saddle and then saw that he was standing in his stirrups. He had unstrung his bow and was shrugging off his cloak and wrapping it around his bow stave and quiver.

"Do the same as I'm doing."

Mystified, but making no attempt to argue, I slipped down from my saddle again and quickly unstrung my bow, then used the string to tie the bundle made by my bow stave and quiver wrapped in my cloak as securely as I could before slinging it, as he had, from my saddle horn.

"Right," he said as I remounted. "Make sure your helmet's tight on your head. Fasten your chin strap. And you'll need that." He was pointing to my iron flail, which hung at its usual place by my right knee from the hook mounted on my saddle. I reached for it and gripped its leather-bound wooden handle tightly, feeling the weight of the heavy iron ball at the end of its chain. Ambrose had unslung his long cavalry sword and now he kicked his horse hard, angling it downhill to regain the path. I spurred Germanicus hard.

"What's the plan?" I called as I gained his side. Our horses were already stretching to a full gallop, their shod hooves making surprisingly little noise on the pathway, cushioned by a thick carpet of leaves sodden by the previous day's rain.

"The first part is straightforward," he called back. "Surprise backed up by impetus. We couldn't leave the path—they won't be able to, either. So we'll catch them from behind, if we're fast enough, and smash through them. The people at the farm should hear the commotion and be able to prepare themselves. At least they won't be taken completely unawares."

"What if we don't catch them on the path?" I was bent forward now, head down to avoid the twigs and branches flailing at my head and face.

"Then we charge at them wherever we do find them, but in either case we ride clear through them and out the other side. Don't stop."

"Why not?" We were making no attempt to be quiet.

"That's the second part—aha!"

We had caught up with the rear part of the Saxon column, and I saw the surprise and fright on the faces that turned towards us in consternation. One fellow had time to throw up his shield and raise his sword, but then Germanicus was upon him, smashing the shield with his great shoulder and hurling the fellow aside, into his nearest companion and directly into the path of Ambrose's charging horse.

I was standing upright in my stirrups, swinging my lethal flail with all my strength, and whatever the iron ball struck it crushed and maimed. Germanicus bore me forward, his pace unflagging, adding his own bulk and momentum to the havoc we wreaked on that narrow pathway. A horse will normally attempt to avoid trampling a man, but a trained war-horse has no such scruples. Side by side, our charging mounts constituted an implacable and irresistible force, and the men on the ground ahead of us were too surprised, too tightly packed and too terror-stricken to offer anything in the way of resistance. In the sudden chaos, many threw themselves bodily into the dense brush on either side of the path to save themselves, and we were unopposed. For a long count of moments we were in utter turmoil, and then we were through the press and clear, with the barn where we had spent the night directly ahead of us. Ambrose had fallen slightly behind me on my left, but as I turned to see if all was well with him he drew level with me, leaning in to shout into my ear.

"Did you hear? They took us for Romans." I shook my head, concentrating on the tunnel of trees ahead of us, which led into the farm yard. "Ride straight through," he yelled again. " There's a small knoll to the north, at the far end of the farm yard. Some big trees on it. Keep going until we're over the brow and out of sight."

Suddenly we were in the yard itself, galloping past the rear of the farmhouse, our horses' hooves clattering over the hard-packed surface. The place seemed deserted, showing no sign of the people we had watched earlier.

"They won't be far behind us," Ambrose shouted. "Once they find we're not coming back at them, they'll come on hard and they'll be angry. I think I killed three of them . . . What about you?"

"Two, perhaps three," I yelled back. "If I hit them with this thing, they're as good as dead."

We were beyond the farm yard now, the sound of our hoofbeats changing as we surged up the tree-clad hill on the far side of it. As soon as we had cleared the summit, however, and dropped out of sight of the farm on the other side, Ambrose hauled back on his reins so that his horse halted in a skidding stop, almost on its haunches. He dismounted easily, stepping out of his stirrups and taking the cloak-wrapped bundle from where it hung by his saddle. I did the same.

When he had restrung his bow, Ambrose slung the quiver of arrows around his waist and shook out his cloak, reversing it so that its snowy white lining of fine wool was uppermost. He grinned at me, moving quickly, his teeth bared.

"Now, Brother, this is the insane part I mentioned. Take off your helmet. Did you notice the boulders?"

"What boulders?"

"Two of them, one to each side of the summit of the knoll. Listen!" He cocked his head, pointing his right ear in the direction of the farm beyond the hilltop. I could hear nothing, but he relaxed, his face breaking into a smile again.

"There are two large piles of rocks, one over yonder to our left, the other that way, on the right. I noticed them this morning. They are similar in size, and almost equidistant from the largest oak tree on the summit there." He nodded towards the massive tree that crowned the knoll above and behind us. "About sixty, perhaps seventy-five paces between them. Now, please don't ask me where the idea came from." His grin grew wider. "You wear the silver bear on your black cloak. Mine has no emblem. But both cloaks are white inside, so that, reversed, they are identical. And so are we, especially when we remove our helms and let our hair hang free. And even more when we do this." He had been looking down at the ground by his feet and now he stooped quickly to a small puddle that had been churned into mud by animal hooves, goats and sheep. The surplus water had soaked into the ground, and the remaining mud gleamed black and viscous. He scooped up a handful of the stuff and smeared it diagonally down the left side of his face, coating it from forehead to chin, so that the stuff caked in the hollow of his eye. He dug out the surplus with a fingertip before continuing.

"If you do the same thing now, carefully, we will be identical and indistinguishable from far less than a hundred paces. After that, as each of us steps from hiding, from behind his own pile of rock, in sequence, Brother, and never both at the same time, it will seem as though one and the same man is shooting, moving from rock to rock at magical speed, without being seen to move at all. What say you?"

I found my tongue at last. "What can I say? You're right, it is insane. Completely insane."

He laughed. "Aye, but it will work. These Saxons are a superstitious breed and for them, white is the colour of death, dread and mourning."

I expelled my breath in a gust and bent to scoop up my own handful of mud, which I then applied to my own face, taking care to do it exactly as he had, caking it thickly on my own forehead and in the hollow of my eye, between brow and cheekbone, before scooping it out again with a fingertip. As I completed the task, the sound of shouting reached us from behind the hill.

"It has begun," Ambrose said. "We should take our places now, while their attention is centred on the farm buildings. The most difficult part for us will be getting from here to the rocks without being seen from below, but if we move quickly and carefully, we should be able to manage it. After that, it's simply a question of staying out of sight once we're in place and hidden. Which side do you want?"

I shrugged. "Makes no difference. You realise our bows are completely different? Mine curves one way, yours another. They don't look even faintly similar."

"From the distance at which we'll be shooting? All they will see is a yellow-haired man with a white cloak, a half-black face and a long bow, and when they see how magically he moves from side to side they'll be too afraid even to notice, let alone analyze, the difference in our bows.

"Let's go, and wait for me to shoot first. When I have loosed, give me a count of five to hide myself again, then you step out and fire. I'll do the same . . . a five count after you, I'll shoot again. I'm nowhere near as good a marksman as you are, but let's hope they don't notice that down there."

It took me some time to work my way into position on the left flank of the hill, and I had to crawl through high bracken for about a hundred paces in order to reach the rock pile. Once there, however, I was able to observe what was happening in the farm yard below, slightly more than a hundred paces from where I crouched.

The inhabitants had evidently taken shelter in the main house, for the shutters were closed over the windows, barred from the inside. At least one of them, I saw, had a bow, because two helmeted corpses sprawled in the open yard before the house, the arrows which had killed them clearly discernible from where I was.

A knot of eight or ten of the attackers—their positioning made it difficult to see clearly—huddled in the lee of the outhouse closest to me, and I saw smoke wisping up above them. The other attackers were scattered around the farmhouse, keeping low and out of sight from the shuttered windows. They must have been driven off by the defenders while I was making my way down through the bracken on the hillside. Even as I looked, however, several of them darted forward towards the house from different directions, one of them swinging a great, two-headed axe at the door of the building and two others battering at the shuttered windows. At the same time, under the cover of these diversions, one of the main group broke away and ran towards the house, whirling a smoking object round his head and plainly intent upon firing the thatch of the building. I sensed, rather than saw movement to my right, and then Ambrose loosed his first arrow.

His modest claim to poor marksmanship was set at naught immediately, as the running man below went flying sideways, knocked off his feet by the power of the missile that killed him. The swinging firebrand he had held arced briefly and uselessly, falling to the ground several paces short of the building. I began to count immediately.

For the first four of my counts, all movement was suspended below, and then I saw faces turned upward to where Ambrose yet stood in plain view, some seventy paces to my right. He allowed them to note him clearly, then stepped back into safety behind his rocks as the first retaliatory arrow came uphill, seeking him. I began my count again, and as I counted, the man at the front door dropped his great axe and ran to recover the burning firebrand, snatching it up and swinging it around his head as I stepped into view, an arrow already nocked and partway drawn. I sighted and loosed in one movement and he, too, went down as though smitten by his own great axe. This time, however, the firebrand landed on top of the dead man. A shout of surprise came up to me clearly and, knowing now that Ambrose could see me, I stood there a moment longer, then drew another arrow from my quiver, sighted, and brought down a second man. Five bodies now lay sprawled in the yard. Unhurriedly, I stepped back and out of sight.

"Yours," I called to Ambrose.

"Glutton," he called back, his voice pitched so that I only could hear him. "Can you see me when I shoot?"

"Yes."

"Good. I can see you, too, so take what targets are offered. I'm up now. Two arrows."

He stepped into view again and the cries of consternation from below were immediate. The tongue was alien to me, but the content was unmistakable. How did he do that? How did he get there so quickly?

His next arrow took a man in the leg. The one after that missed altogether, smacking into a wall as its intended target threw himself flat and scurried into shelter on all fours behind a wooden cattle trough, unknowing that he had left himself exposed to me.

When Ambrose stepped back and I exposed myself mere moments later, easily killing the man who had escaped my brother's arrow, the shouts of the surviving Saxons turned to wails. And then I found myself searching in vain for another target, since the farm yard suddenly appeared to be deserted, not a living body, a limb, or even a fraction of a protruding limb in sight. I held my second arrow, unwilling to waste it, and stepped back behind my rock, leaving Ambrose to shoot at anything he might see, but he, too, lacked a target and we had reached a stalemate, although that condition could not last. I resigned myself to waiting until someone should move below, and then all at once the shutters on the farmhouse windows swung open and bowmen, at least two of them, began shooting from inside the house, striking death and confusion into the attackers trapped between the outhouses fronting the house. Ambrose and I had already established a crossfire, driving the attackers into the only shelter available to them, the spaces between the outhouses, protected from us, but exposed to the farmhouse itself. Now, encouraged by our assistance, the farm's defenders took advantage of the targets exposed to them, adding a third, triangulated angle of attack.

Ambrose was still in place, looking down on the scene, and as the remaining survivors of what had been the central knot of attackers scattered, panic-stricken, from this new assault, he fired again and I saw his arrow strike sparks from a flint as it struck the ground between the feet of a fleeing man.

"Yours," he called, ducking quickly out of sight. "Take what you can, now!"

I emerged immediately, as soon as he was out of sight, and I had two clear targets, both of whom I shot, although neither shot was fatal. The move, however, completed the demoralization of the raiders and their attack was over as first one, then all who could, began to flee back the way they had come. I stood and watched them run, waiting until they began to converge, inevitably, at the entrance to the pathway leading back to the distant barn. I estimated a dozen of them, at least one of whom was wounded, and sent two final arrows hissing among them as added encouragement to speed them on their way. One arrow, at least, found a mark and then suddenly, there was silence.

I stepped back then to lean against my rock, scanning the ground below. Six dead men lay in clear view, and I guessed that at least a couple of others, shot from the windows of the house, must be concealed from my view by the intervening buildings, byres and storage sheds between which they had been trapped when seeking shelter from our arrows. We had counted twenty- four in the original party. A dozen had fled back along the path; six lay dead in view. I had wounded several and Ambrose at least one. The count seemed accurate enough and I suspected several injured men might still be lying in concealment down there. I heard sounds approaching from my right and Ambrose joined me, still crouching low among the bracken.

"What now?" I asked him as he crept up. "Do we show ourselves?"

"Not yet, and don't look at me. There are still at least ten of them out there and they might be watching from the safety of the trees. If they see that we are two, instead of one with magic powers, they might not be amused, and might not be so easy to discourage next time. Don't forget there were two who came ahead of the others. I don't know if they joined the main attack, but they may have remained outside, watching from concealment to guard against surprises."

"You mean like the one we gave them? They were not very effective if they were there."

"No, but who can guard against magic?" Ambrose was smiling again, his eyes watching the farm yard.

"Well, if they were there, watching, they know there are two of us. They must have seen us ride up here. They'll know there is no magic involved."

"Nonsense." He did not look at me but continued watching the farmhouse closely. "Not at all. Remember the tales of Merlyn and his magic powers, Brother. The eyewitness accounts of the crippled girl in the guarded room, who disappeared in the night. That's what put the thought into my head. Men believe what they want to believe. Two ghostly, mounted Romans attacked them on the path, and everyone knows the Romans have been gone from here for two score years, and then one white-robed Druid savaged them from afar with a mighty bow the likes of which none of them has ever seen. We're far from Pendragon territory here, don't forget that. Our longbows are unheard of in these parts. But I think you're right. The two scouts must have joined the others in the attack." He drew back suddenly, lowering himself to where there was no danger of being seen. "There's someone coming out of the house."

The big farmer emerged first, followed by the man we had seen arriving with the wagon. The farmer stopped in the yard, peering about him cautiously for signs of danger, then turned to gaze up to where I stood in plain view. I raised my hand to him, palm outwards, indicating my lack of hostility and after a long moment he returned the gesture, then beckoned me to come down. I told Ambrose what was happening. He said nothing, content to allow me to represent both of us.

Now the farmer turned away and, followed by his companion, strode purposefully towards the row of buildings opposite the house, both men disappearing among the huts. Moments later they reappeared, cleaning the blades of their weapons, and then they split up, one of them going around each end of the farmhouse itself. I watched the big man until he vanished around the back of the gable end facing me, maintaining a running report on the activities for the benefit of Ambrose who remained hidden from view.

The two men eventually re-emerged from behind the house, their weapons now sheathed, and in response to their call, which came up to us clearly, the other occupants of the house came out into the yard. The two youths emerged first, each moving towards the huddled bodies on the ground. At their backs, the farmer's wife appeared, clutching her brood against her skirts, and last of all came the half-grown girl, her daughter, peering timidly about her as she stepped beyond the threshold.

The farmer looked my way again and his gaze directed the eyes of his companions to where I stood. Then, extending a half-raised arm to the others in a clear command to remain where they were, the big man set off purposefully towards me.

"He's coming up here," I said. "The farmer, alone."

"Aye, well, he must, mustn't he? What other choice does he have? Can't ignore you. Go to meet him. I'll stay here, out of sight for a while longer."

"Then what? Won't you come down with me? You can talk to them. I can't".

"No, I can't either, remember? I didn't understand a word of what they said, any more than you did. Go down to him, before he sees me. When you have their attention, and when I'm quite sure you're safe and they mean you no harm, I'll slip away unseen and collect the other horses. I'll bring them back and wait for you by the barn."

I was feeling increasingly foolish, having to speak without looking at him, and trying to do so without moving my lips, lest the approaching farmer thought me a madman, talking to myself.

"What will I say to them?"

"Tell them your name. Then collect our arrows, accept some food from them, enough for both of us, since they'll be grateful, and bid them farewell. They won't attempt to stop you. They'll think you're magic, too. Go down now, before he has a chance to see the two of us. You'll have no need of speech. A friendly smile will suffice, you'll see. You did save their lives, after all. Besides, you need to meet them, to see for yourself that they are ordinary people, just like our own in Camulod. Being Angles does not make them any less than human. Go, now, but don't stay long. I'll see you later."

Resigned to the strangeness of the situation, I set off down the slope towards the farmer, who stopped as soon as I began to move. He remained motionless, giving me ample opportunity to examine him as I drew near. He wore the same half-sleeved tunic he had worn earlier, but now it was covered by a one-piece, knee-length overcoat of heavy, toughened leather, embossed with bronze, rectangular lozenges of armour. His head was thrust through the single yoke-hole and the garment was cinched at his waist, protecting his sides with an overlapping, double thickness, by a thick leather belt with a silver, ornately carved buckle in the shape of a writhing serpent. He wore heavy, leather brogans on his feet, fastened by long ties that criss-crossed up his calves to his knees, binding his leggings in place. He wore neither cloak nor helmet, nor did he carry a shield. His entire weaponry consisted of a longish, heavy-looking sword in a sheath by his side, and a broad-bladed dagger thrust into his belt.

I halted when a distance of four paces separated us and he stood gazing at me for several moments more, his eyes narrowed almost to slits, wary and speculative. Somehow, I summoned up a smile and nodded to him, and he relaxed at once, although the slight sagging at his shoulders was the only sign he gave that he had been under any kind of tension.

The act of crinkling my face in a smile had reminded me of the mud that coated one side of my face, and now I reached up to pick at the tight coating beneath my left eye. A large flake came free and I rubbed at it, feeling it crumble between my fingers. It may have been the simple humanity of the gesture that finally convinced him that he was dealing with a man and not some alien woodland deity, for he suddenly spoke, in a deep, grave voice, laying the spread fingers of one hand upon his breast.

"Gethelrud," he rumbled, and I guessed he had named himself.

I repeated the sound as closely as I could, adding my own interrogative note. "Gethelrud?"

He nodded, apparently pleased, and repeated it. I touched my own breast in the same manner.

"Merlyn."

"Merlyn." Grave-faced, he repeated my name yet again and then broke into a flood of speech, of which I recognized no single sound. When he fell silent again, I shook my head, then spoke to him in Latin, asking him if he understood that tongue. His incomprehension was as complete as mine had been. I spoke then in our native Celtic tongue of the West, and then in Donuil's Erse tongue, and again made no impression.

Finally he grunted and shrugged eloquently, a gesture that required no translation, before following that with another movement, this one an obvious invitation to accompany him to his home. We walked side by side, and I was as conscious of his fascination with my huge African bow as I was of the awe with which his people watched my approach.

Face to face with all of them finally, in the farm yard, I was overwhelmed by the impossibility of communicating with them. The farmer had spoken to them as we approached, naming my name and evidently telling them I did not know their tongue, and now no one made any attempt to speak, all of them simply staring at me in silence. I could read gratitude and uncertainty in the eyes of the adults and sheer awe in the faces of the youngsters. It was the woman, however, who took the initiative to break the awkwardness of the moment. With a glance at her husband, she stepped towards me, reaching for my right hand. Taking it between her own, a tremulous half- smile on her handsome face, she raised it towards her forehead, bringing it eventually, palm downward, to touch the top of her head, which she lowered towards me in an unmistakable gesture of gratitude, friendship and submission. I saw, before she lowered her eyes, that they were grey and large. I now guessed her age to be somewhere in her mid to late twenties, but the smooth skin of her face was yet unmarked by the lines of hardship and age.

As I stood there feeling slightly foolish, the woman transferred her right hand gently to my wrist and turned slightly, waving her left hand towards the open door behind her. Removing my hand equally gently from her head, I smiled and nodded, first to her and then to her husband, and thereafter to each of the others in turn. Satisfied that she had succeeded in communicating her message, the woman turned away and moved quickly into the house, followed by her daughter. Gethelrud gestured with his hand, indicating that I should follow them, but as I nodded and began to turn that way, my eye fell upon one of our arrows—the one that had struck sparks from the stony ground—lying close by my feet. I bent and recovered it, checking its point, which seemed undamaged, before slipping it into my quiver and looking around for more. Three I could see protruding from the bodies of the men they had killed. Seeing my gaze and correctly guessing my intent, Gethelrud laid a detaining hand on my arm and began issuing instructions to the others who immediately moved away and set to work cleaning up the carnage in the farm yard. One of them, the other man of Gethelrud's age, whom I now took to be his brother, ripped an arrow audibly from the nearest corpse and held it out towards me, nodding plainly towards the nearby trough, mutely inquiring if I would like him to clean the missile and return it to me. I nodded and he moved to place the arrow point-downward in the water, leaving it to steep as he moved to collect another. The two youths had gone off somewhere, dispatched by Gethelrud, presumably to warn their neighbours of the threat posed by the raiders.

A movement at the door caught my attention and the daughter came out again, carrying three pottery mugs with thick foam bubbling over their rims. My mouth immediately went dry with thirst and, on an impulse, I winked an eye at the one of the trio of small boys who still stood gaping at me. None of them had uttered a word since I appeared. Now, however, as I accepted a cool mug from their sister, this urchin, emboldened by my wink, stepped forward, his eyes on mine, and pointed to the bow I still held in my left hand. I have no idea what he asked me, but I realized immediately that what had held them silent all this time was mere shyness, and not superstitious dread and with that realisation it became suddenly apparent to me that none of the people in the farmhouse could have seen the effect engineered by Ambrose to astound and terrify their attackers. The shuttered windows of the house all faced the yard. These people all believed, quite clearly, that I had been alone upon the hill, shooting from one position. Amused now, and relieved, I decided to call Ambrose into view. Signalling open-handed to Gethelrud to alert him, I put down my mug, placed two fingers between my teeth, and whistled loudly.

Nothing happened. Ambrose had departed. Aware of the astonished looks on the faces of my hosts, I grinned sheepishly and shrugged, then picked up my mug again and moved towards the house.

The next hour or so passed pleasantly, despite the fact that we had to communicate by gestures. They fed me well, with roasted venison and fresh- baked bread, and their ale was excellent, foamier and more yeasty yet paler than our own beer, and when I indicated to them at last that I must leave, they packed more food and a large earthen jug of ale for me to take with me. I bade them farewell in the early afternoon and made my way back alone towards the barn where Ambrose and I had spent the previous night, waving back to all of them before I entered the long, tunnelled road that masked them finally from view.

Ambrose had found the pack-horses where we had left them, although both of us had privately suspected that they might have been found and either stolen or killed by the fleeing raiders. By the time I reached the barn he had unsaddled the poor brutes and was in the process of rubbing them down. I gave him the bag of food and the jug of beer I had brought with me, and while he was eating I completed the horses' grooming, then led them to a nearby brook to drink, after which I fed each of them a small amount of grain in their nosebags. As we waited for the beasts to finish eating, I asked Ambrose whether he thought the raiders might have been part of the mercenary force maintained by Vortigern. He shook his head emphatically.

"No," he grunted. "All Vortigern's men, locals and mercenaries, wear his colours—a square of red cloth bearing a yellow trefoil flower—sewn on their left shoulders." He reached into his saddlebag and produced one of the squares, handing it to me, and as soon as I saw it I recalled having seen the device in Verulamium years earlier. "Besides," he went on, "we're still too far south."

"How do you know that?" I handed the emblem back to him and he replaced it in his saddlebag before standing up and stretching.

"I know it because Vortigern's Danes, under Hengist, are too efficient. No raiders would dare intrude into their territories. They've been there for years, remember, and Vortigern relies on their savagery to keep his borders safe. The word went out long years ago: Stay clear of Northumbria! The raiders do, all of them."

"Do you think, then, those people will come back this way again, in force?"

"They might, but I doubt it." He began removing the nosebags, and I stepped to help him as he continued speaking. "The whole countryside knows they're about by this time, I should think. I imagine those two young lads we saw at the farm would have been sent out to spread the word quickly enough to the neighbouring farms. Now they're forewarned, our Saxon visitors will take little pleasure in seeking further adventure around here. We bloodied them to good effect, don't forget. One man in two or three is a high price to pay for an aborted raid. My guess is they'll move on and try somewhere else."

I glanced up at the sky above the clearing. "How long till darkness falls, do you think? Five hours? Six?"

"At least. Probably more. It's June. We've light enough to make ten miles and more before we need to look for a place to camp. Finish this beer and we'll leave the jug here in the barn."

We busied ourselves replacing our saddles and pack gear, and as he pulled himself up into his stirrups Ambrose opined that we were still at least two days south of Vortigern's borders. Nevertheless, by the campfire later that evening, he took the precaution of attaching Vortigern's colours to his left shoulder, sewing the patch of cloth securely to his cloak with large, looping stitches of coarse yarn.

He had been exactly correct. In the middle of the morning of the third day after his prediction, we were challenged as we emerged from a thicket and entered a short-grassed clearing, and moments later we found ourselves surrounded by a ring of hard-faced men, all heavily armed and helmed, most of them holding short, heavy-looking bows, drawn arrows pointing towards us.

The obvious leader of the group, a medium-sized fellow in a massively horned helmet and a long tunic of heavy ring mail, did not know quite what to make of us. His leader's colours were bright on my brother's shoulder, but our Roman-style armour and our armoured cavalry mounts marked us as aliens. The man clearly did not know whether to kill us out of hand, or to accept the evidence of amity on Ambrose's shoulder. Ambrose relieved him of the need to decide.

"Ambrose of Lindum," he shouted. "Seeking Vortigern." I recognised only the names.

The leader scowled. "Ambrose of Lindum is dead, years ago," he growled. Again, I recognised only the name but guessed at the rest from the tone of voice.

Ambrose reached up and removed his Roman helmet with its obscuring, protective flaps.

"Ranulf," he said, using Latin for my benefit. "Don't you know me?"

It was a pleasure to meet Vortigern once again, especially since he recalled me clearly despite the lapse of years since he and I had met. Moreover, his delight in Ambrose's return was total, spontaneous and unfeigned, although it faded slightly, to be sure, when he discovered that Ambrose had returned only to bid him hail and farewell again.

I found the king greatly changed since our first meeting. Still handsome and regal in his bearing, he had matured well during the years since Verulamium and the Great Debate convened by Germanus. His hair had turned from iron grey to silver, but he had retained all of it, so that it hung thickly to frame his noble face, and he now wore a full beard, carefully trimmed and groomed. His shoulders were unbowed by advancing years and he stood almost as tall as my brother and I, holding himself at all times in an erect, military posture, shoulders squared, so that he appeared to dominate every gathering. But it was in his manner that I thought to detect a change. When first we had met, I had been favourably impressed by the ease, the appearance of casual repose, that he had shown to everyone with whom he dealt, treating each man, bishop or man-at-arms, with an easygoing goodwill that spoke of confidence and boundless self-assurance. My admiration of his dignity and self-possession had been unstinting then, causing me to think of him as "regal," a word I would have applied to no man before that time. Outwardly, Vortigern the King seemed at first glance to be as he had been in Verulamium, urbane and gracious, good-humoured and at ease with all around him, yet I sensed undertones of something new in his demeanour, a reticence I had not marked before; a tendency to veer away from certain topics so effectively that they were never raised to prominence. I said nothing of these vague misgivings to my brother. I merely watched, and listened closely, and felt somehow disturbed.

We remained with Vortigern and his people for the first two weeks of June and he entertained us lavishly, demonstrating himself to be a gracious and noble host. As we talked, he came to appreciate the advantages of having Ambrose, a trusted friend, in charge of friendly forces, cavalry in particular, guarding the western and southwestern approaches to his lands. He had troubles enough to occupy him to the north and east and south, he told us, keeping his borders, sea and land, free from trespass by Picts, Anglians, Jutes and the ubiquitous Saxons.

He had seen our cavalry in Verulamium, of course, but like Ambrose, he had failed entirely to understand the power it represented. Now, impressed by Ambrose's radiant enthusiasm in speaking of our strength, Vortigern examined our horses and our equipment and accessories minutely, paying close heed to our stirrups and how they were adjustable to each man's leg length on our saddles. I showed him everything ungrudgingly, secure in the knowledge that he lacked the resources, if not the will, to develop similar powers of his own.

On the seventh day of our visit, while Ambrose was elsewhere greeting friends and renewing old acquaintances, I met Vortigern's friend and ally Hengist the Dane. "Dane" was a term I had not heard before Ambrose used it mere days earlier, but Hengist was insistent that such was his race. I, who had but recently thought of all the invaders of our land generically as Saxons, took note of this additional distinction and said nothing.

Hengist was an enormous man, more in the sense of bulk, be it said, than mere height. He was tall enough, a handsbreadth taller than any of his fellows, but Vortigern stood taller than he did, as indeed did Ambrose and I. In terms of sheer size, girth and physical power, however, Hengist stood alone. Only two men I could recall rivalled him in sheer massiveness, one of those being Huw Strongarm's factotum Powys, and the other Cullum, the giant Hibernian Scot whose boar spear I had seized to fight the bear that day in front of Athol's stronghold.

On that first occasion we met, Hengist had walked unannounced into the private chamber Vortigern reserved for his personal use in his own Hall, pausing on the threshold as he realised that the king was not alone. Standing there in the doorway, stooped over slightly to avoid scraping the lintel with the massive helmet he had not removed, he appeared to fill the space completely, blocking the light from beyond.

"Oh," he growled, peering into the dark interior. "Your pardon, Vortigern. I was unaware you had company. I'll come back." I realised that lie had spoken in Latin and sat straighter, showing my surprise, so that he cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes, looking at me more closely now. "Ambrose? Is that you?"

"No, Hengist, it is not. Come in." Vortigern rose to his feet quickly and stepped to where the big man stood hesitating. The king took him by the arm and drew him forward to where I now stood, having risen to my feet with my host. "This is Merlyn Britannicus, Ambrose's brother. Remarkable resemblance, is it not?"

Hengist stepped forward and his eyes grew wide as he scanned my face, so that it occurred to me again that I might never grow accustomed to the shock people betrayed on seeing the similarity between us two. Hengist recovered quickly, however, and greeted me affably, removing his helmet and shaking out his thick, iron-grey hair as he explained that he had just returned from an inspection tour of their coastal garrisons. I noted that word "garrisons" in silence, reflecting that I yet had much to learn of Vortigern's allies and the extent of their duties and activities, as well as their strength. He seated himself across the table from Vortigern and me and took the large mug of ale proffered by a silent servant, drinking deeply before setting it down and turning the full force of his personality upon me.

Reassured by his fluent mastery of my own Latin tongue, I allowed myself to relax and enjoy his company, asking him openly after a time about his evidently deep friendship with the king, who slouched easily in his high- backed, armed chair and waved an open palm at the big man, giving him leave to tell me all he could.

It transpired that their fathers had been friends when both of them were very young, in the closing days of Rome's dominion here in Britain and elsewhere in the Western Empire. Vortigern's father, a powerful magistrate under Roman rule, although a king in name alone, had travelled into the Dane Merk, as Hengist called his homeland, on a diplomatic mission of some kind to Hengist's grandfather, and had remained there, with his family, for seven years. The two boys had become close friends at the outset of that mission, and by the end of the seven years each had been fluent in the other's tongue. During that time, Vortigern had formed a deep liking for the Danish folk among whom he lived, and a great admiration for their prowess in war. Theirs was an infertile land, its soil thin and sour and suited only to the conifers that covered it. In consequence, the Danes for centuries had sought a great part of their sustenance abroad, sailing in galley-style craft crewed by fighting men since, in addition to having to fight to obtain their plundered cargoes, they frequently had to fight to retain and defend them on the journey home.

In later years, after the Roman presence had been withdrawn from Britain, Vortigern had attained the titular kingship held by his father. By that time, however, with the Romans gone never to return, his people had looked to Vortigern himself for real leadership and protection. Soft and weakened by four hundred years of largely peaceful occupation by the Roman legions, they were incapable of defending themselves against the escalating depredations of the raiders who swarmed across the seas from the western coasts of the Germanic and northern lands in ever-growing numbers.

Faced with disaster sweeping in from the seas on great banks of oars, Vortigern remembered his boyhood friend and his warlike people, and travelled across the sea himself to seek out Hengist in the Dane Merk. He found him without difficulty, for Hengist himself had become a king of sorts in his own right: paramount war chief among his folk. Vortigern had then offered his friend a proposition: in return for their military support and active assistance in the defence of his lands, he offered Hengist and his people land in his own domain in Britain—sweet, rich farmland to replace their own thin, unprofitable fields in the Merk. Hengist had required little time for deliberation. He had put Vortigern's proposal to his people in their moot council and it had been accepted. Preparations for departure had begun immediately; five years had been required to effect their exodus completely.

At that time, Vortigern and Hengist had both been young men, not yet twenty years old and full of restless visions. Since then, more than thirty years had elapsed. Now Vortigern's territories were secure and unthreatened, and he and his Danish allies had begun to push their borders outward, embracing the lands to the south and west abandoned by their former inhabitants, who had either fled or been killed by the swarming raiders from the sea.

I had sat silent through Hengist's recital of this tale, but now he stopped, his gaze fixed on me.

"I can see from your face that something troubles you, my friend. Do you have a question to ask me?"

I glanced towards Vortigern, then cleared my throat.

"Well, yes, I do, but I fear it will merely show my ignorance of how things truly stand in this region. As you know, our lands of Camulod lie in the far west and we have problems of our own with raiders from the seas. But we have only Celts to deal with, mainly from Hibernia. The Picts from the far north come down our way but seldom, and we have had a few visitations, though none recently, from Gaul. Most recently, we have had incursions by African pirates, seeking marble stone." Both men watched me closely, nodding politely. I paused, collecting myself, then blurted my question straight out.

"If you and yours are the Danes, and the people we encountered some days ago to the south of here are Angles or Anglians as Ambrose says, then who, exactly, are the Saxons?"

Hengist let out a great, booming laugh.

"Who indeed?" He laughed again, then sobered abruptly. "The Saxons, my friend Merlyn, are similar to many other races in that they are a fiction: a creation of the arrogant Romans, who called themselves Masters of the World. There are Saxons out there, be sure of that, but they all come from one territory, in what Rome termed the Germanic lands. They are a blond people, warlike and not easily subdued, and they fought long and hard against the Roman Eagles. But in the end they were absorbed, as were we all. In the interim, however, so well had they defied the Roman conquest that their name became an eponym for savagery, so that all the Germanic peoples and their northern neighbours became known to Rome as Saxons. To us, however, the differences are clear. There are the Angles, or the Anglians, whichever you prefer, and the Jutes; there are the Friesians, who call themselves the Goths—the Romans, bureaucratic to the last, called them Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Then there are the Norsemen, from the lands abutting ours. North of those are the Sverigen, and to the east of them the Letts. And there are also Saxons. But even we, the Danes, the folk of the Dane Merk, were Saxons in the eyes of Rome."

When he fell silent I sat nodding, absorbing what he had said.

"So then," I observed eventually, "what you are telling me is that these other peoples, these 'Saxons,' are a mixture of many tribes and all of them are as alien to you, the Danes, as they are to us, the people of this land?"

He nodded slowly, a peculiar expression on his face, which might have been ironic amusement. "Precisely, Master Merlyn. Save for the minor point that we, my own people, now count ourselves among 'the people of this land.' But you are essentially correct. The Anglians are among the most prolific of these aliens, but the true Germanic tribes, the Saxons, are the most savage, and all of them seek a foothold here in Britain. They are determined, too— more so, perhaps, than we are. We can control our borders at this time, but they swarm everywhere around us like wasps. We fight them off, but like the wasps they resemble they are difficult to kill in sufficient numbers and they die hard, stinging even in death. And the survivors build new nests, far from the eyes of seekers."

I sat mute after that. Hengist's analogy was apt, and chilling.

XXIX

Later that day, towards evening, we were summoned to a festive meal prepared to welcome Hengist home after his long absence. Vortigern's formal hospitality proved to be no less impressive than the informal welcome we had received. The meal was sumptuous and the courses startlingly varied, and tumblers, acrobats, musicians and mummers regaled the gathering throughout the event. The assembly broke up suddenly, however, in the wake of an incident of violence caused by some slight, real or imagined, offered by one drunken young man to an older, more sober warrior. It flared up quickly and was soon over, and it occurred at sufficient distance from where we sat at the dais table to ensure that we were unaware of it while it was going on. The first warning that anything was amiss was a sudden increase in the volume of men's voices, and then Hengist was on his feet, moving quickly, pushing his way determinedly and with great purpose through the crowd of men who suddenly thronged together, craning their necks to see what was going on.

Vortigern, who had sprung to his feet with the rest of us, sat down again and leaned sideways to speak to Ambrose, and I bent close to hear what he was saying. It was something about bad blood, but before I could ask for an explanation, the crowd parted and four men approached the dais from the far end of the Hall, carrying a fifth, his tunic drenched in blood. They carried him face upward and his head hung facing us, his eyes wide and sightless, already glazed in death.

Vortigern rose slowly to his feet again, his body tense, his face stony with rage. In a choking voice he asked who had done this and a man was named. Moving stiffly then, his limbs jerking almost like those of an automaton, the king stepped forward and reached out a rigid hand to the dead man's face, closing the sightless eyes with a gentleness that belied the tension in his stance. Then he closed his own eyes and flicked his hand sideways, indicating that they should take the dead man away. Over the heads of the others, thanks to my elevation on the king's dais, I saw a knot of grim-faced men hustling a prisoner—evidently the killer—from the Hall.

Order was quickly restored, and the din subsided as people resumed their seats and their interrupted activities. Hengist did not return to the dais, and shortly afterwards, muttering apologies to Ambrose and me, the king quit the table, too, and did not return. For the remainder of the time spent in the Hall, Ambrose spoke constantly with others, slipping easily from the local dialect into Danish, depending upon whom he was talking to. For my part, I sat silent, watching and listening, although most of the babble of voices was unintelligible to my ears, a mixture of the alien language of the Danes and the curiously broadened vowels and slurred consonants of the local Britons.

Not until long after the incident, when Ambrose and I were finally alone, did I have an opportunity to question him on what had happened. He thought for a while, and his eventual response seemed strangely elliptical at first.

"How much did you understand?"

"Nothing, or very little," I responded. "I saw the dead man, as you did, and I know the thing had flared up suddenly. But I don't understand why Hengist disappeared, or why the king went, too. I should have thought they would return, once assured that the culprit had been taken. This kind of thing must happen occasionally. It seems strange to me that it should require the attentions of the two most prominent men in the land, unless the dead man himself was also prominent, in which case he should have been on the dais and not out there among the general throng."

"Aye. Tell me, now that you have seen for yourself, what think you of Vortigern's allies? You still believe he courts disaster, nursing an adder in his bed?"

"Aye, I do," I said, speaking slowly. "But not quite as strongly as I did before. Not since meeting Hengist. I liked him far more than I expected to, and I can see now why Vortigern has placed such trust in him. Hengist is a man of honour. He would never betray that trust."

"Aye." Ambrose nodded his head deeply. "Hengist is an honourable man. But Hengist is growing old. When I left here to ride to Camulod his hair was black as night."

"So? All men grow old, Ambrose. Vortigern himself has aged greatly since I first saw him in Verulamium. So have we. What has that to do with what happened tonight?"

"Nothing, and everything. Your assessment of Hengist is completely accurate. He is honest, dependable, completely trustworthy and capable, and his friendship for Vortigern is unimpeachable. But he has a son who is not half the man his father is in such respects."

"Horsa? How is he different? I have not seen him since we arrived."

"Nor will you, for he is not here and will not come here. He is somewhere on the coast with his army—his own army. It was one of his captains who did the butchery tonight. That's why Hengist did not return to the dais. His son, or his son's supporters, have made sure that Hengist will be busy now for days, seeking to keep the peace."

"Among whom, his own people?"

"Aye, some of his own, but mainly Vortigern's folk. The dead man was a Briton."

"Bad blood," I said, feeling my own concerns about Vortigern grow stronger. "That's what Vortigern was talking about, isn't it?"

Ambrose nodded, his face solemn. "That's it. For thirty years the folk of both these races have existed peacefully, side by side, but all of that has changed since I've been away." He paused, considering that, then resumed. "It had started prior to that, now that I think of it, and all of it—or most of it—is Horsa's doing. He's an arrogant and overbearing young lout, intolerant and unbiddable, save to his father, Hengist. He was still a lad when I left here, well-nigh as big as his father, but yet young enough to be controlled by him. Now all of that has changed, it seems. Horsa has grown to manhood, and he controls the younger hotheads among the Danes.

"He is still in awe of his father, and to a lesser extent of Vortigern himself, but the day is coining when Hengist's age will permit Horsa to dominate him, or at least to flout his authority more openly than he dares attempt today."

"And his followers, Horsa's, I mean—are they from both camps?"

"No. His followers are Danes to a man. None of Vortigern's folk at all. That is Hengist's problem, and it will soon be Vortigern's. The older people, the established leaders, have complete faith in Hengist, but his son's behaviour is worrisome to everyone, and insupportable to some. Yet what can Hengist do? Horsa is his son and, to this point at least, he has done nothing overtly culpable, and nothing openly deserving of chastisement. His people, his supporters, are outrageous and insufferable in their behaviour from time to time, but that cannot, in conscience, be laid at Horsa's door." He sighed, a sudden, gusty sound of impatience. "But Horsa will assume his father's leadership in the course of time. As things stand, despite his grave concerns, Hengist cannot simply dispossess him, short of causing civil war, and things are too far gone already, even for that. Horsa is too strong and now he stays away from here, secure among an army of his own."

"And yet his people, his supporters, like this captain of his, move among the people here quite openly?"

"Oh aye, it has not come to open hostility. Not yet."

"But it's inevitable, you believe?"

Ambrose nodded. "It would seem so."

I sighed. "So it appears our father was correct, when all is said and done. Even despite the integrity of a friend such as Hengist, Vortigern courted death when first he brought the Danes into his land."

"Aye. I have no doubt of it now, although I've argued long and hard with you about it in the past. I've changed my mind within the past few days, after the conversations I have had with people whose opinions and judgment I long since learned to trust. Vortigern himself may not live to see it happen, and Hengist certainly will not, since he would and must die rather than permit it, but the day is coming when the Dane will rule alone in Northumbria and Vortigern's folk will be dispossessed and reduced to the status of servitors."

"Slaves."

He frowned quickly. "No, not slaves. I doubt it will come to that. But they will be reduced to servitude."

"Hmm. So what will happen to the man who killed tonight?"

Ambrose raised one eyebrow. "It already has, I should think. You'll see him hanging from a tree somewhere tomorrow, in plain view. I said Hengist is growing old. He's far from toothless yet. The first step towards placating those offended by the killing here tonight must be the public and immediate punishment of the offender. He was probably hanged as soon as they took him out of the gathering. What he did was indefensible. It was also political, and probably deliberately planned."

"What, for effect? Are you suggesting the man made a deliberate sacrifice of his own life for Horsa?"