The Saxon Shore

"Aye, to make a point, stir up the other men, increase the tension. It's highly probable, and according to what I have heard today he's not the first to have done so."

"But why? What possible inducement could bring a man to give up his life merely to achieve a political effect? How could he think to benefit from such a course?"

Ambrose was regarding me with what I took to be wry amusement.

"There could be many reasons, Cay. These men are Danes. Their ways and customs, even their beliefs, are vastly different from ours. Perhaps he thought his sacrifice might be rewarded in some afterlife Elysium. Or he might have purchased some preferment for his family. Perhaps he died willingly in return for an extended time of pleasure with a group of courtesans. Who knows? Men have differing values, and to men like these Danes death is of little import. All we may be sure of is that he knew well before he did the deed that he would die for it."

My mind was racing, reviewing and reassessing my earlier conclusions about the stability of Vortigern and Hengist's situation. Ambrose sat watching me.

"What is it?" he asked eventually. "You look as though every gear in your mind is threatening to lock up."

"Camulod," I said. "I'm trying to assess the threat to Camulod; the timing of it."

"What threat? Horsa is no threat to us in Camulod. When Hengist dies, before or after Vortigern—it makes no difference—Horsa will have his hands full here. He will have no easy task imposing himself upon the structure left here by his father, and not all the Danes will follow him. Hengist and Vortigern, between them, have taken care of that with land grants and careful planning these past few years. The prime Danish lands, the most arable, are held by Hengist's most loyal veterans and are carefully distributed among the lands held by Vortigern's own people. The holdings are set out like a gaming board, in blocks, so that each Dane has a Briton north, south, east and west of his holdings and each Briton has Danes in the same positions. None of them will bend the knee or meekly give away his lands to Horsa and his people, so Horsa must accept the status quo and win new lands of his own for his people, or he must go to war against his own."

"How likely is he to do that, to go to war?"

Ambrose shrugged. "I have no idea, nor does anyone to whom I have spoken. There is great hope, naturally enough, that he will opt for the former course and settle his levies on outlying lands, keeping his father's holdings for himself as he's entitled to, but the final answer to that lies with Horsa, and he appears to like it that way. Hence his absence. He has not set foot here in Vortigern's enclosure for more than a year, ignoring his father's summonses. Hengist stopped sending them as soon as he discerned that Horsa would not obey them. Anyway, everyone is waiting now to see what happens at this summer's end. If the incoming raiders winter in Britain again this year, as they seem to do now every year, Horsa will stay out in the marshes, fighting through the winter."

"What about Vortigern's own sons? They are not here, either. There are two of them, you told me."

"Were. One of them is dead. Areltane, the younger of the brothers. He was killed in a raid, two years ago. The other, Cuthbert, is campaigning in the north, against the Picts and Anglians up there. He is expected daily, and he is, of course, the other element in this volatile mix—flint against Horsa's steel. Each time they meet, sparks fly, although they once were friends."

"Did you not tell me Areltane was the more able of the two?"

"That's right, I did, and he was. Had Areltane survived, no one would have concerns about Horsa. Areltane had his measure. But Areltane is dead."

"And Cuthbert is not strong enough?"

"No, he is not. Not that he lacks in strength per se, but he lacks wisdom and discretion. He's a hothead, and none too bright; brave to a fault, but headstrong, as I said, and as unbiddable as Horsa. In a confrontation between the two, I would wager on Horsa."

"Unfortunate. Have you talked to Vortigern about these things?"

Ambrose shook his head. "No. He's made no mention of it and it's not my place to bring it up without some indication that he is willing to discuss it."

"How can you say that? You are his friend."

"Because he is the king. Besides, your tense is wrong. I used to be one of his captains, but I'm no longer bound to him in any way. That makes me a mere guest here, just like you. No more than that, save that Vortigern has known me longer and once trusted me. Now he can no longer do that—trust me, I mean. As king, he can afford few friends, and friends may turn suddenly to enemies when kingdoms are at stake."

"Hmm. How long, then, must we remain here? We should return home, don't you agree? Vortigern has no need of guests, it seems to me, distracting him from his legitimate concerns."

My brother sat gazing at me for long moments then, gnawing the inside of his cheek, but then he nodded in agreement. On the fourth day after that, having made our farewells to Vortigern and Hengist and obtained their goodwill and permission to travel once more across their lands, we set out again for Camulod.

We experienced no trouble on the road that was not caused by weather. Perhaps the sight of us, armoured as we were on our large horses, riding side by side with long, strung bows, was sufficient to discourage anyone who might have sought to hinder us, but we rode unmolested across the breast of Britain.

The weather through which we rode, however, was atrocious. It was the month of June and approaching July, and our expectation had been of high summer weather. That year, however, June was unique in its malevolence. We had had fine weather on our outward journey, in late May, with heavy rain at times, certainly, but for the most part we had ridden beneath sunny skies, enjoying the green lushness of the forest and the cleared farmlands we passed, and the singing of the birds that filled the air of Britain: skylark and blackbird, thrush and linnet and a hundred others.

As soon as we left Vortigern, turning our faces homeward, that changed. The days grew cold and the nights glacial, and the rain came down in torrents, driven by evil and malevolent winds that made a mockery of our woven travelling cloaks of thick, waxed wool. Our armour grew cold and heavy and began to chafe, and even our horses grew dispirited, walking head down and hunched against the bitter fury of what appeared to be a single, endless storm.

There were entire days when we found it impossible to light a fire, no matter how secure the shelter we had found. Everything that might conceivably have been induced to burn was soggy and waterlogged, and the feral wind howled about us incessantly, changing direction from gust to gust, whipping away the tinder that we tried to use and extinguishing each tiny flame we coaxed into life.

For eight consecutive days that storm held sway without abating, and we spent four of those days huddled in a cave, trying to keep ourselves warm. For the last two we had no food at all, although we had no lack of water. We sat or lay, huddled together for warmth, wrapped about with the blankets we had taken from our horses, who shared the cave with us at night. Ambrose made light of the conditions for the first few days, and I sought at first to match him, but I fell sick on the fourth day, overcome with chills and fever, and Ambrose became my nursemaid.

I have no recollections of that time beyond the point at which the end of my nose grew red and sore from sniffling and my ineffectual attempts to wipe away the constant streams of mucus that ran down from my nostrils to coat my lower face. I can recall feeling my teeth chattering painfully, and an ache in my bones from the jolting of my saddle, and then nothing. All knowledge of what passed thereafter came to me from Ambrose, upon whom I was as dependent as a babe in arms.

He it was who found the cave that sheltered us, coming upon it by sheer chance because, in his efforts to support me in my saddle, he allowed his horse to wander from the path and into a tiny clearing for some thirty paces beyond where he should have been. By the time he became aware of what had happened, the cave was directly in front of him—a cavern hollowed out by the stream of water that had poured through it for ages unimaginable. Above his head, the cliff from which the cavern had been carved reared high enough to block the screaming wind, and the floor of the sheltered clearing before the entrance to the cave was bare, thick-coated with the needles of the great evergreens that grew there.

Ambrose had lowered me to the sodden pine needles and gone into the cave. It was large, he found, and almost dry, though open to the sky in places. Its vaulted roof was formed by two great slabs of slanted stone that he suspected might once have been a single piece, sundered by some cataclysmic force in ages past. Rainwater trickled down each side of the cleft, and from time to time great gusts of wind would whistle down the narrow flue they formed, creating wondrous and frightening noises that set the horses stirring at night in fear. All in all, nevertheless, almost dry and almost warm and almost sheltered from the howling gales, the cavern was our salvation. There Ambrose had finally been able to make a fire from pine needles that he first spread out to dry for several hours, then slowly kindled and fed lovingly with tiny twigs and moss and small pine cones. He had fed his fire cautiously and with great skill, huddled over it to guard it from errant gusts of wind and adding strips of his own undertunic to augment its heat whenever it began to fail against the wetness of the other fuel. Eventually, after a long, long time, throughout which I lay shivering beneath a damp horse blanket, he had nurtured his tiny blaze to the point at which its own embers could generate sufficient heat to dry and then ignite each new piece of fuel. For the next four days, he kept a blazing pyre alight, feeding it constantly to keep up its heat, hoping to drive the fever from my bones in running sweat.

I found out, once I had regained consciousness and begun to rally, that he had spent the entire afternoon and evening of that first day gathering fuel, which he piled inside the entrance to the cave, taking no time to rest between trips and entering the cavern after each excursion only to check on me and throw more fuel on the fire.

He abandoned his search for firewood only when darkness fell, and by that time he had amassed enough to the keep the fire ablaze throughout the night, providing he awoke often enough to replenish it. I was of absolutely no assistance to him in any of that. I was, in fact, a grievous source of concern, for my breathing became heavy, laborious and irregular so that there were times, he told me later, when he lay straining to listen, holding his own breath while he waited for me to breathe again, all the time fearing I might not.

In the end, in the deepest part of the night, he abandoned his attempts to sleep and set to work to make me as dry, warm and comfortable as he could. Our heavy woollen cloaks, which he had hung stretched behind the fire, had dried by that time, as had our extra tunics and the other articles of clothing from our packs. Somehow, handling the solid deadweight of me, he had undressed me completely and then washed me with water heated on the fire, drying me afterward with a rough, dry cloth, chafing both heat and energy into my chilled limbs. That done, he had dressed me again in a dry tunic and wrapped me in my warm cloak before dragging me closer to the fire.

When he was sure there was no more he could do to increase my immediate, external comfort, he used the last of our provisions—dry, salted venison, dried fruit and roasted grain—to concoct a hot soup, which he fed to me with a bone spoon, until he could coax no more flavour or substance from what remained. The soup lasted for two days and he ate none of it. On the third day, by which time my poor brother was growing frantic, I recovered my senses, my fever dropped away and the wind subsided, although the rain continued to pour down.

All that day, too, driven by his relief that I had not yet died under his care, he hovered about me like a solicitous hen with a single, ailing chick, and even though neither of us ate that day, I had improved sufficiently by nightfall to convince him that I could survive now on my own and tend the fire for the length of time it might take him to go out into the woods and find us something more to eat. That night, he slept at last while I remained awake and fed the fire.

The following morning, satisfied that I was on the mend, Ambrose departed shortly after dawn and was back by mid-morning with the fruits of his hunt: a large hare, a small rabbit, wild garlic, onions, tender young nettles and a scrip full of fresh mushrooms. Within an hour of his return, the aroma from the leather boiling bag above the fire had set our saliva flowing and we were hard pressed to keep our hunger in abeyance until the meat was cooked sufficiently to eat. My contribution to the feast my brother set before us was a single twist of salt, the last I had, which had lain hidden in my saddlebag for weeks, but it was the crowning touch for an Epicurean stew.

My sickness, the debilitating fever and the ague in its train, had passed, but with its passing I inherited another malady, a maddening itch that consumed my entire body from my waist to the top of my crown. I quickly learned that I could not, or should not, scratch to relieve the discomfort it caused, for the mere act of scratching, while producing some slight relief, at the same time increased the burning itch surrounding the scratch marks. My skin bled in places, yet still I could not desist from clawing at myself.

I sought relief, eventually, by plunging my body into the cold stream in front of the cave—the rain had stopped some time that day—but then, chilled to the bone, I had to rub myself briskly to bring the warmth back to my skin, and with the friction and the returning warmth, the agony came back. I tried to dress myself, thinking that fully dressed I might feel better and we might be able to resume our interrupted journey, but the merest sensation of the clothes upon my skin was unbearable.

Two further days of that torment I bore before the itch abated, leaving me weak again and filled with nausea, and it was to be another three whole days before I felt strong enough to mount my horse and travel. From that day on, however, my recovery was swift and total, and we passed the intervening miles to Camulod without further hindrance or mishap.

We had been gone for almost three months and our eventual return was almost an anticlimax. Although our friends were glad to see us safely home again, and to make us welcome, none of them seemed to think we had been gone for any length of time. What had seemed an age to Ambrose and to me had passed in Camulod almost without notice.

Nothing of note had occurred during our absence. The weather had been fine, with no sign of the awful storms that had beset us on the road. The crops were ripening; children had been born; the Colony's cooperage had been expanded into a new building where more barrels could be fabricated at one time; our stonemasons had set themselves to building battlements upon the fortress walls, adding new crenellations to protect the sentries on the parapet walk; the last cantonment of new barrack-blocks had been completed; and a large new workshop had been built upon the hilltop to house the Colony's most hard-worked artisans, the weapons smiths, cobblers and carpenters who kept our soldiers and citizens dry-footed, well-equipped and adequately housed. Life had simply progressed in our absence, without alarums, and because of that our absence, while widely noted, had not been a matter of concern.

On our first night home, we dined with family and friends. Lucanus came to dinner, as did Donuil and Shelagh, and Hector and Julia. Ludmilla played hostess to us all. They made much of us then, so that we soon forgot the slight chagrin we had felt on our unheralded return. I had made Ambrose promise to say nothing of the strange sickness that had laid me low, and he kept his promise.

One change that had taken place during our absence was the remarkable growth that had occurred, in such a short space of time, in my young ward Arthur. In the space of one brief season, he appeared to have shot upward, so that the man he would become was suddenly quite startlingly apparent in the boy. I had left a child behind me in the month of May when we set out, but had returned in July to find a young man waiting to welcome me home.

-

I had made much of the boy at the time of our return, aware of the pleasure that had filled his face as he watched us arrive, although he had hung back on the fringes of the crowd gathered to welcome us, his expression radiant and his cheeks flushed with excitement as his eyes moved constantly from Ambrose to me and back again. As soon as he had seen me watching him, however, he had drawn back out of my sight, taking refuge behind the man in front of him. The gesture touched me, and I suddenly recalled the thrilling pleasure I had felt at his age, watching my father and his men returning from patrol. Then I had been desperately anxious not to miss a single word of what they would report, and frantic with fear that I might not be allowed to listen to the tales of their adventures, so I had always sought to hide, to obscure myself and become invisible, believing that only then would I be able to insinuate myself into their presence and listen from concealment in whatever hiding-place I could find.

Recalling that fevered anticipation with a poignant clarity, I made my way through the crowd and moved directly to the boy, where I squatted on one knee and greeted him as an equal, asking him how he had fared in our absence and then holding out my hand to him, inviting him to come with me. He had faced me squarely and with gravity, his gold-flecked eyes reflecting his amazement that I should seek him out directly. Then he had smiled his wonderful, open smile and placed his hand in mine before walking back with me, his shoulders proudly squared, to join the others.

Ambrose had watched this and now he stepped forward, too, grinning a welcome and winking fondly at the boy before ruffling his thick, brown, gold- streaked hair and drawing him into a quick embrace against his waist. Enjoying the boy's shy, embarrassed delight, I also saw the furtive glance he threw towards the crowd, and following the direction of his look, I saw his young companions Bedwyr and Gwin watching him with awe stamped plain upon their faces. Young Bedwyr, I noticed, was of a size with Arthur, a sturdy, strapping lad. The other boy, Gwin, Donuil and Shelagh's eldest, was smaller and younger, six years old to their seven.

As we filed in a small, informal procession from the main courtyard towards the quarters that had once accommodated the Varrus household and now were home to Ambrose and to me, we replied to the greetings of passing well-wishers, and young Arthur Pendragon walked between us, each of his hands in one of ours. Thereafter, ensconced comfortably against a wall in the family room, he listened closely, and no one sought, or thought, to question his presence.

Oddly enough, it was not until the arrival of Connor the following day, on what had become his annual visit, that I became aware of another, more important difference in the boy. Connor's arrival always stirred up a commotion, for he was a flamboyant figure who did nothing by halves, and the ease with which he coped with his infirmity invariably added to the wonder and excitement of his presence. This year, he came in grand style, quite different and more impressive than he had ever been before.

At sea, Connor was the master of his own movement, conning his galley confidently from the swinging chair built into the ship's structure to meet his needs. Ashore, he was scarcely less competent, covering the ground easily in his curious rolling gait, which took little notice of the eccentricities of the terrain. Only over long distances, like those that lay between Camulod and the distant shore, was he at a disadvantage, hampered by the sheer impossibility of crossing miles of rough country afoot, and so we had grown used to the sight of him arriving in a wagon, reclining like a Roman emperor surrounded by his bodyguard. This year, however, he arrived upright, driving a brightly painted, two-wheeled chariot in the ancient style drawn by a matched pair of sturdy Eirish garrons. From the first year of Liam Twistback's coming, since which time his original three-year tenure had been indefinitely extended, the transportation of animals from Eire in specially built galleys had become almost commonplace, but the effect this gaudy chariot had upon everyone was quite spectacular, and Ambrose and I had to push and elbow our way through the dense crowd that gathered around the vehicle, exclaiming in wonder at the cunningness of its construction. While Ambrose and Connor were embracing each other, exchanging the usual friendly banter, I examined the device and smiled in admiration, acknowledging the craftsmanship and insight, and the good memory, that had gone into the building of it.

On his previous visit, I had shown Connor the unique vehicle built years before by Publius Varrus, a high-wheeled, single-axle cart, mounted on springs of bowed iron. Varrus had called it his racing cart, and had used it for travelling about the Colony's farm lands. Connor's new chariot had a leather-covered iron seat, mounted upon a similar set of springs, more solidly fashioned than the high cart's springs and evidently designed to be less resilient, yet far more comfortable than a solid wooden bar or bench. Connor saw me looking at it as he turned to embrace me, and he matched my smile with his own as he threw his arms about me.

"Yellow Head, good to see you, Brother," he said into my ear. "You like my new chariot?"

"Aye," I said, returning his embrace. "It has some interesting features."

"It does, it does." He released me and leant sideways to slap the seat. "Good ideas should be put to work, Merlyn. I told you that the first time I saw your uncle's cart last year. A few adaptations along the lines of my galley chair, and even a one-legged wreck like me may ride in comfort. Where's my nephew?" He turned to look about him, ostentatiously pretending not to see the boy who stood within arm's reach of him, peering up at him in worship.

"Arthur!" he roared. "Where's Arthur?"

"I'm here, Uncle Connor." The boy's voice was almost squeaking with anxiety. Connor looked down towards the sound of it and pretended a great leap of fright.

"By the light of Lud! Are you my nephew Arthur? No, you can't be! You're much too big. Arthur Pendragon's just a little tad. I saw him but last summer and he wasn't half the size of you."

The boy was bright pink with pleasure. "I grew up," he said shyly.

"Grew up? Grew up! You soared, lad, you exploded! Let's have a look at you!" Connor bent quickly and picked him up, holding him effortlessly beneath the arms and swinging him with ease to the level of his eyes. "By the gods," he said, holding him at arm's length, "I soon won't be able to lift you at all if you keep growing this way. You're huge, boyo! Come here to me."

He clasped the lad to his breast, hugging him gently, his eyes closed, and then he opened them again and winked at me before transferring his grip and holding the boy out at arm's length again, his expression changing to dismay.

"Ach, fool that I am, I never thought you would have grown so big so quickly, and I brought you a wee, small gift, never thinking of the size of you today."

Behind young Arthur's back, from the rear of Connor's train, two warriors came forward through the crowd, each leading a brace of ponies, all four animals virtually identical, piebald beauties with a grace and delicacy the like of which I had never seen, They were miniatures of our great war-horses, between one third and one half the size and perfectly proportioned, and they had been groomed until their black and white coats shone like burnished metal. Arthur's eyes were fixed on his uncle's, mirroring the dismay he saw there.

"What, Uncle?" he said, his voice almost quavering. "What is it?"

"Ach," Connor said, savouring the moment and drawing it out. "It's just a wee horse and three of its friends. You might not like it, now that you're so big. Look!"

He transferred the boy smoothly into the crook of his right arm and turned him to where he could see the animals. I moved, too, keeping my eyes on Arthur's. For several moments the boy stared at the four perfect little horses, failing to absorb what Connor had said, but then comprehension dawned and his face became suffused with joy and incredulity and a stillness fell upon the watching crowd.

The boy was unaware of it. His entire world was taken up with the entrancing little horses he was beginning to perceive as his. He turned from them to Connor, his mouth forming a question that his voice was incapable of generating. Connor grinned at him, squeezed him close again and then released him to slip smoothly to the ground.

"Aye, lad," he growled, his voice gruff with emotion at the boy's delight. " They're for you. Go now and look to them."

The crowd fell back, parting to clear the way for the boy, but he stood hesitant, not yet quite able to believe. He took one slow step, and then another, gazing at the sight before him, then turned back to face Connor.

"Four of them? For me?" Connor nodded, and the boy looked back at them and then again at Connor, his face betraying swift-moving thoughts and varying emotions. "Can I . . . ?" His voice trailed away.

"Can you what?"

The boy swallowed hard. "Give some away? I have friends." He stopped short, looking appalled, afraid his uncle might grow angry. But then his young face settled and he plunged on. "Can I give Bedwyr one? And Gwin?"

Connor laughed aloud. "Aye, you can, and Ghilleadh, too, if he's big enough to mount one. But pick out your own first. That's why there's four of them."

It was then, in that moment of courage, determination and unselfishness, that I marked the change in my young ward, and saw the future man within the boy.

XXX

"Merlyn, what's an interregnum?"

It was an evening in early summer, and I was writing in my journal while Arthur, seated across from me, was reading one of his great grandfather's large, parchment books. I put down my pen and stretched, glad of the distraction.

"It's the name given to the time between the death of one ruler and the ascension of another. Where did you find that?"

"In here. Great grandfather Varrus was writing about something your grandfather said . . . That there had been so many emperors in power at one time for so long that there had been no interregnum in living memory." The boy's Latin was smooth and fluent, utterly colloquial, considering that he spoke the Celtic tongue most of the time.

"And how long d'you think that might have been?"

"Living memory? Simply what it says. . . No one alive could remember such a thing." He frowned slightly, watching my eyes. "Isn't that what it means?"

"So how long would it be?"

"Fifty years . . . sixty?"

I leaned back and locked my hands behind my head. "I think it's longer than that, if you consider the implications. Think about it."

He did, tilting his head slightly to one side, then dropping his eyes again to the page in front of him, a tiny frown of concentration between his brows. Finally he looked up, shaking his head in annoyance at himself. "I don't understand. Living memory is the memory of someone who is alive. Logic says it can't be anything else."

I smiled at his use of logic. "Perhaps so, but would you not expect a source of living memory to be someone very old, and might not his memories include the recollections of others who were old when he was young, and of their similar, stated memories of what others older than they had said?"

The boy's face cleared, and he nodded, beginning to smile. I prompted him gently.

"So, therefore, living memory means . . . ?"

". . . That the last time something like that happened was so long ago that no one can even recall hearing of such a thing."

"Precisely."

"So it really means for generations, or for ages unknown. But. . ."

"But what?"

"Interregnum. Isn't a regnum a king's lifetime? Rome had emperors, not kings. Shouldn't the word be interimperium?"

I grunted a laugh. "It should I suppose, but it's an ancient word, dating from the time when Rome had kings, before the Republic was founded. It means what it means—the time between rulers—I suppose no one ever thought it worth the effort to change it."

"What's the difference, the real difference I mean, between a king and an emperor?"

I pursed my lips and fingered the end of my nose, scratching at an itch. "You know the rules, Arthur. You tell me what you think the difference is . . . I correct you if I think you're wrong, and if we disagree, we find an arbitrator. So, tell me."

"Territory . . ." He was thinking deeply. "And power."

"How so?"

"Emperors have power over kings."

"Not always. Not if the kings wish to deny that power."

"Then there is war, and the Emperor always wins, because he has the power of Empire behind him."

"Always? Then where is the Empire today? Alaric and his Goths sacked Rome before you were born, and Alaric wasn't even a king, he was a warrior— a warlord. So what does that imply?"

The boy sat silent for a long time, and then raised his head to answer me, and I knew from the expression in his eyes that he was far from confident about what he would say.

"I thought Alaric was king of the Goths, but even so, his victory means that the Empire was weak, too weak to withstand his strength . . . and that implies. . . that the man, the leader. . . the man himself. . . contains the greatness or the weakness. . . the success or failure of. . . of. . ."

"Of his enterprise, Arthur, whether it be an empire, a kingdom, or a chieftain's sway over his people. Bravo! It is the leader who commands the times in which he lives. Alexander, Scipio Africanus, Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Theodosius, Flavius Stilicho, and Alaric the Goth. Each stood against towering odds and fearsome enemies; enemies the likes of Pompey the Great, Darius and Xerxes and Hannibal— and Stilicho and Alaric were ranged against each other, until the emperor Honorius had Stilicho murdered and opened his own empire to defeat by Alaric."

"Hmm . . ." A long, contemplative silence followed that musing sound, and I made no attempt to break it. The boy was deep in thought. Finally he nodded his head gently. "So it's the leader who's important. It doesn't matter what he rules; empire, kingdom, town or fort. It's him, and the example that he sets, that inspires other men to fight for him and win."

"Aye, that's right, and the winning is very important. Never forget, Arthur, that in order to win, men must want to fight. . . And bear in mind, that doesn't necessarily hold true when you reverse it. It's not the same to say that to fight, men must want to win. Not at all the same. But to win, men must want to fight, they must be inspired, willing to follow their leader to the death. That willingness to die achieving victory for another man's purposes only results from great and inspiring leadership. No sane man will willingly follow someone he detests or disrespects. He might be constrained to do it, forced to fight, but then he'll never fight for any other purpose than to save his own life, and that means he'll never fight enthusiastically, to win a great victory for his leader. The lesson is ended. Out with you, now! I have work to finish here . . ." I paused, suddenly seeing the troubled expression on his face. "What? What is it?"

He shook his head, as though to dislodge an annoying thought. "Can't a bad man be a good leader, though? Not all victories have been won by great leaders, and some great leaders have been defeated. Isn't that true?"

"Yes, it is." His face remained clouded. "You seem perplexed. What's troubling you, Arthur?" There was a long silence.

"Was. . . was my father a good leader, Merlyn?"

The unexpectedness of the question, and the tremulous tone in which it was posed almost overwhelmed me, and I was suddenly and fully aware that this was an eight-year-old boy who spoke to me. Even as I write the words now, they appear fatuous in their presumption that I could have been unaware of such a thing, but in dealing with Arthur Pendragon, even in his extreme youth, it was impossible not to treat him as a perceptive and intuitive intellect, far older than his years. Now, with one question, he had reestablished his youthfulness and insecurity. The logical, analytical thinker was banished, and the tentative, unformed boy revealed. He had never known his father, Uther Pendragon, and we seldom spoke of him, simply, I believed, because he had never directly influenced the boy's life. Because of that, until this moment, had anyone asked me I would have opined that the boy seldom thought of the father he had never known. Now, with that one question, I knew otherwise, and I knew also that it was time to deal with my neglect. I leaned back and crossed my arms on my chest, considering my next words carefully. Arthur sat watching me tensely.

"Your father was not simply a good leader, Arthur, he was a superb leader. His men would have followed him anywhere—and they did. He was the best we had."

"Better than you, Merlyn?"

I smiled. "Aye, lad, far better me than me in many, many ways. He was bolder, more ferocious, more high-spirited and valorous. Uther Pendragon was a truly mighty warrior."

A beat of silence, then: "But was he a good man?"

"None finer. He might not have been good in the way bishops and other churchmen would like us to be good—always at prayer and full of piety— but your father was good in the way of simple nobility, justice and kindness. Some might have thought him wild and undisciplined, but he had a gentleness in him to match the wild rages that could sometimes sweep him, and his self-discipline was absolute, in its own fashion . . . And he harmed none who did not harm him." A very large portion of my mind was writhing in discomfort with my own memories of what I had once believed of Uther, but I dared show no discomfort here, and I knew well that the guilt causing these feelings was mine alone and had nothing to do with Uther as he was and had been.

"He was defeated and killed."

"He was killed in a skirmish, Arthur; struck down from behind in a wild scuffle in dense woods, and the man who killed him didn't know who he was. It was an accident of war, not a death in formal battle, defeated in the field."

"But he was defeated in battle, was he not? His armies were destroyed." This was growing difficult. I nodded to emphasize my words.

"Yes, he was defeated in a battle. His army was defeated on one occasion. But it was one army, and it was not large, and he had been in the field for long months without respite, and Lot of Cornwall caught him between three armies, two of those fresh and unblooded. There was no grand strategy involved, no contest between generals. Lot had more men, and they were fresh; your father had fewer and they were tired."

He sat staring at me, his face unreadable. To fill the silence, I began counting to myself. I had reached twenty before the boy spoke again.

"If he was a good leader, he should have known Lot was trying to entrap him. A leader's first responsibility is to the men under his command. You always say that."

"Well, yes, I do, and that's true . . ." I found myself trapped by my own lessons. "But—"

"There can be no buts, Merlyn. I've heard you say, many times, that command responsibility has no buts in it."

I silently cursed the exactness of his memory, but could not deny what he had said. I tried prevarication, not expecting it to be successful. "That is true, too, Arthur, but there are always exceptions to any rule. This occasion was one of those exceptions. Your father was concerned for you and your mother at the time. You were but new born and she was barely recovered from your birth, and still unfit to travel."

"Then he should have sent us away to safety with some of his men. He should have remained to command his army."

"No, Arthur, I cannot allow you to condemn your father this way. You were not there. I was, although I was too far away to be of assistance to him. Your father was dealing with Lot of Cornwall—a liar, a treacherous coward and a weakling. Lot hired alien mercenaries from beyond the seas to do his fighting for him. He won by deviousness and perfidy, and he made sure that he himself was never in the slightest danger. Someone killed him on the day your father died, for I found his body hanging from a tree, but I don't believe it was any of ours who brought about his death. I believe one of Lot's own killed him, perhaps for vengeance, since Lot was open-handed with his treachery, abusing friend and foe alike. Your father, had he not been killed the way he was, stabbed in the back in a petty woodland brawl, would have emerged the victor in Cornwall that very day. He had fought for that victory, and he had earned it. His untimely death in that woods was a tragedy."

"A tragedy that might have been avoided, had he not permitted my mother and me to divert him from his duty."

I blinked at the boy in disbelief, seeing the rigid, unyielding lines of pain in his young face. "Arthur, how can you even think such a thing? That is simply not true!"

He glared at me, pale faced. "Women and war do not mix. You told me that yourself, only last week. If Mark Antony had not become involved with Cleopatra of Egypt, you said, all history would have been different. That involvement was Antony's tragedy."

I had said exactly that, but now I denied it without the slightest hesitation. "Nothing of the kind," I snapped. "The Queen was the means of Antony's downfall, but Antony's true tragedy was that he was pitted against an even greater leader than himself, Octavius Caesar, who was destined to become Caesar Augustus, Caesar the Great, first Emperor of Rome."

The boy sat blinking at me now, his face less bleak looking, and I watched him review what I had said, absorbing the possibility that the tragedy I had mentioned might not be the tragedy he had understood. I spoke on, making my own point now, attempting to ameliorate his.

"It's the greatness that counts, Arthur. Pompey the Great, Caesar the Great, Alexander the Great, Xerxes the Great. There are hundreds of such names, and some of them will be remembered forever. Bad leaders may win battles, from time to time, through sheer numerical superiority, the way Lot did in his encounter with your father. They may even win wars, from time to time. But they never achieve true greatness, Arthur. Your father might have, had he lived. Greatness is an attribute bestowed upon a leader by those he leads, and those, being men, are loath to ascribe greatness to a man who has not earned it. But your father's men believed in Uther's greatness, and so must you. Believe me, a man may have the gift of leadership inborn in him, but greatness is something that he has to learn, and to earn, beneath the eyes of those who trust him and believe in what he represents. He must earn that faith through a lifetime of being trustworthy—no easy task, for there can be no lapses in his record—and if he ever should betray that trust, for one moment, and be discovered, as he must—then it is lost forever. Uther Pendragon was never false to any man. He was a terrible enemy, once angered, but he was never false and his integrity was never questioned, even by his enemies—with the sole exception of Lot of Cornwall, who was more of a mad dog than a man. I promise you, no man who deals in slyness or in treachery or duplicity can ever gain that pinnacle of greatness. He may succeed in some things, for a time, but he will fail and fall eventually.

"Integrity, on the other hand, was an attribute your father possessed in abundance, and integrity, entailing honesty and forthrightness, courage, bravery, honour and strict justice in dealing with all men—and women, too— contains the beginnings of greatness. You do know the difference between bravery and courage, don't you?"

As I had spoken my encomium to his father, the boy's face had changed, the tension and the harried look receding visibly as he evaluated and accepted what he heard me say. I had never lied to him and now I could see he believed my words completely, true as they were, and his resilient good nature was reasserting itself visibly. Now my last question, the tone of it, and my ironic look, had the effect I hoped to achieve. He smiled and stood up, closing the large, leather bound book he had been reading.

"Bravery is something you can experience on the spur of the moment, faced with danger. To have courage, you must think about the dangers in advance, then weigh the risks, and then do what you have to do, despite your fears." His face grew serious again. "Uncle Connor is that kind of leader, too, isn't he? With integrity, I mean. His men would follow him anywhere, and they don't care that he has a wooden leg."

"No, they don't, because it's not important. They follow what they love in him. The integrity. The fierceness and the courage, loyalty and honesty that make him who and what he is. That's what I mean when I talk to you of leadership—your Uncle Connor is another great leader. Observe him closely, and see if you can discern what it is about him that endears him most to his men. Then, when you have followers of your own, remember what you saw."

"I wonder when he'll come?"

"He'll come when he arrives, and not before. Now away with you before it grows too dark for me to see what I'm writing."

I didn't see him leave, and he closed the door silently behind him, but I could not return to my writing after that. I had too much on my mind, and none of it had to do with my diurnal notes. The lad had managed to surprise me yet again with the depth and scope of his thinking, and I allowed myself now to think about the progress he had made in everything we sought to teach him.

More than a year had passed since the day Connor delivered the four matched ponies, and he was now overdue to return again from Eire. In the intervening months, Arthur and his young friends had grown to be a familiar sight throughout the length and breadth of our estates, riding their startlingly coloured ponies everywhere in perfect freedom, thanks to the absence of any kind of threat to our well-being, and all four boys including Ghilleadh, the youngest, at barely six years old now rode like young centaurs.

Arthur, their uncontested leader in all things, was growing like a sapling starved for light, shooting upwards with a speed and vigour that, at times, made him appear to be too thin. Lucanus, however, dismissed my fears on that each time I mentioned it, which was quite frequently. The boy, he said, was healthy as a horse. His bones were good, his shoulders broad and likely to be massive, and his chest, though seeming to be frail, was deep and well- formed, with solid ribs. First, the boy must grow to his ordained height, Luke said, pointing out that we Britannici had never been a stunted family. Once his upward growth had been achieved, a matter of another count of years to match the eight he had attained so far, the rest would grow to match. In the meantime, he maintained, filling the lad's quick mind held more importance than the simple and self-sustaining development of his body.

That much I knew was true, and we were working hard in concert, and much to Arthur's dismay at times, on educating him for the task he would assume in time to come. Like all boys, Arthur himself would have preferred his schooling to be different. Given the choice, which I was careful to prevent, he would have opted for the parts he loved instinctively and consigned the other, less enthralling aspects of his training to some unspecified period called "later." But then, he had no notion he was being trained for anything more demanding than the life he knew today. He was aware that, as the ward of Ambrose and me, he would assume our tasks some day and work for the welfare and safety of the Colony that was his home, but he was eight years old and time meant nothing to him. We were immortal in his eyes, and boyhood was eternal, and so he lived a boy's life of constant challenge and adventure, taking it hard sometimes when there were days of brilliant sunshine that were lost to him because his lessons kept him within walls. All in all, however, he seemed well content to learn, no matter what the topic, and his mind was like a sponge, absorbing and retaining all we poured into it.

To make the process seem less personal and more palatable to the lad, we had decided, years before, that his close friends and cousins should be educated with Arthur, so that on days when he was made to fret indoors, he had at least the companionship of misery shared; Bedwyr and Gwin, and latterly Ghilleadh, suffered along with him, as did Ambrose and Ludmilla's daughters Luceiia and Octavia.

Their teaching was divided among six of us, with additional input from many others. Primarily, however, Ambrose, Lucanus, Donuil, Shelagh, Ludmilla and I myself had thought long and with gravity to devise a program that would meet the needs we had been able to define, all of us aware of the importance of the task we were delineating. The training must embrace two major elements, military and civil. Of that there was no doubt. Beyond that division, however, lay a country of bewildering diversities made the more difficult to traverse by the simple fact that none of us save Luke had any experience as teachers. Each of us had skills and knowledge to pass on, nevertheless, and some of those we shared with others of the group, so we had devised a program of instruction, hesitant and tentative at first, when Arthur was but four years old. That program had matured steadily since then, as we gained confidence and came to realize the nature, and the hunger, of the bright young minds with which we dealt.

In the range of what we termed "the civil studies" I was in charge of languages, although the task was shared by everyone. We taught the children patiently to read and then to write in Latin, eschewing Greek because it was not spoken in our land by then and we had few Greek texts. In spoken languages, the children worked in Latin but naturally spoke the local tongue, a liquid mixture born of Celtic and of Latin roots that had no name but flourished as a common, daily language known to all the people in our region. To keep the children's interest lively and alert, I also spoke with them much of the time in the Pendragon tongue, unsullied by Latin contaminations, and Donuil soon accustomed himself to speaking to them at all times in Erse, in which all six children could soon converse. Ambrose even attempted, at one point, to teach them the language used by Hengist's Danes, but that was a fruitless task, since his own knowledge of the tongue was rudimentary and there was no one near our lands who could assist him, and in any case young Bedwyr was the only one who showed the slightest interest in the alien sounds of that harsh language.

Lucanus soon emerged as the magister of the small room in his Infirmary that we converted to a schoolroom, and he throve on the responsibility. He it was who taught them basic logic and philosophy, and his keen mind was stretched further than it had ever been, he often said, when he approached the matter of how to interest such young people in simple debate and elementary polemics. He also taught them mathematics—principally the boys, although little Octavia was smartest of them all in this—and the principles of engineering based upon the geometry of Euclid, which he himself had mastered as a boy. And he recruited his own outstanding pupil Ludmilla to teach them the basics of skeletal anatomy and simple medicine.

Hector, Julia's husband and the father of Bedwyr, a councillor and an able administrator, worked with them one morning each alternate week to explain the elements of government, instructing them patiently, and with great success, on the way in which each of the various units and elements within our Colony—a working microcosm of all organised society—fed, and was in its turn dependent upon, the function of the others.

On reading what I have just written, it appears to me I might have conveyed the impression that the children were subjected to an endless litany of disciplines, but that was not the case at all. Their lives were open and enjoyable and the knowledge they acquired was gathered across the span of years. Few of the subjects they studied were ever covered simultaneously and they had ample time for laughter and for simply being children. The lessons I had learned in that regard from Aunt Luceiia and from the writings and example of Publius Varrus were yet vibrant memories.

Afternoons were for military studies and were the province of my brother Ambrose, assisted by me and by a wide range of willing volunteers. None of the boys was ever known to bewail that aspect of his learning and they learned all that we could teach them, which was much indeed.

They learned first to ride, of course, and part of that instruction was the care and maintenance of all on which their horsemanship relied: their animals, their saddlery and their equipment. They learned to groom and feed their horses, in that order, and how to mend, repair and even fashion saddlery. And as their bodies grew and strengthened, they learned weaponry, from the care and use of swords, daggers and shields to the techniques of spear handling and bow craft. They learned tracking; how to read the signs of passage left by men and animals. They learned to hunt and fish and forage, and to find dry kindling in the worst of weathers, even under snow. They learned, too, the basic elements of drill and discipline for infantry and cavalry, marching and counter-marching, forming up and deploying alongside our regular troops, both infantry and cavalry.

In years to come, Ambrose and I would teach them strategy and tactics, but in the meantime we fed their questing, eager minds with stories of adventure and of feats of arms and mighty victories. Arthur in particular was entranced by the tales of Alexander, whom men called The Great, and of his famed Companions, the noble warriors who campaigned, at their own expense, as bodyguards to the young Emperor from Macedonia seven hundred years ago and more. One day, enthralled by an account unheard before, he asked me how I came to know all this, and I told him of Uncle Varrus and his books. From that time on I would often find the boy, on rainy days, perched on a stool in the great Armoury where I had spent so much time in my youth, engrossed as I had been in Publius Varrus's accounts of days long past. And at such times I thought invariably about the gleaming sword that lay, its existence unsuspected, beneath the floor-boards at his feet. I was pleased, and more than pleased, with the boy's growth in every way. He was hungry, ravenous for knowledge, and he had the time to pursue it without disruption in his bright young life.

That thought by itself should have stirred me towards caution, but I was blind to its implications, allowing myself to be lulled by uneventful days and balmy summer evenings. I had completely lost sight of the fact that anyone familiar with the ways of hunting birds, the eagle or the hawk, should always be aware that death and destruction can come swooping from a cloudless sky with the speed and impact of a falling stone.

Never in my life, before or since that summer month of June in 440, have I been so unthinkingly careless of my duties for so long a time, and I have no excuse to offer for my dereliction other than that I was distracted by a haunting fear that peaked on the very day disaster struck. It was the most awful fear I have ever known, a crippling, dreadful burden of uncertainty and creeping terror against which I had fought so well and for so long that it was almost concealed from me in daylight, and I allowed myself to hide from it by the mere act of denying its existence. By night, however, the debilitating terror took on a life of its own that left me powerless to sleep or even to think with anything resembling clarity.

Lucanus had grown concerned for me, I know, for he had asked me several times what ailed me, and upon my protest that I felt quite well he had held up a bronze mirror to my eyes, bidding me see how haggard I had grown. My other friends knew, too, that something was amiss, but I temporized by claiming that I could not sleep at night owing to an injury, a twisted back I had sustained mounting a skittish horse. They accepted that, but I know they all watched me closely.

Then, on that terrible day, Lucanus held up another mirror to me, this time an abstract mirror of words, and all unknowing, forced me to confront my fears and make admission to myself.

It was a hot afternoon of blazing sunshine, unseasonably so for June, and he and I were seated in the shady courtyard of the Infirmary, sipping cool wine and talking about the children and how much Arthur was growing to resemble Uther, the father whom the boy had never known. That led to a discussion of men and their physiology, and how resemblances were passed from parents to their offspring, the most startling example being my own resemblance to my half-brother Ambrose; two different mothers, yet two sons like beans from the same pod.

"No." Lucanus shook his head then. "No," he repeated, quite clearly recalling something. "It's more than that, Caius, more than mere parentage, father to son. The most amazing likeness I have ever seen, apart from you and Ambrose, and one I had forgotten for many years until now, was between a young man and his mother's brother, who was much younger than she." He paused, remembering. "I said it was amazing, and it was. The son bore not the slightest resemblance to his father, for I met him, too, one time when he came visiting. It really was extraordinary, and I can hardly believe I had forgotten it. Phideas Arripas was the wife's brother's name, and he and I were students together in Alexandria, as was his nephew, who was no more than two years his junior. The two were as alike as you and Ambrose, and yet the resemblance sprang from Phideas's sister to her son. The son, by the way, was Mordechai Emancipatus."

When Lucanus spoke that name it was as though the air about me darkened. My breath caught in my throat and my heart began to hammer loudly, as though it beat against my eardrums. Abruptly, I found myself on my feet, gazing about me wildly, aware of Lucanus's expression as he stared at me in astonishment. Blindly, gasping to control the sudden nausea that racked me, I lurched away, gesturing savagely to Luke to stay where he was.

Somehow, probably because of the heat that kept most people in the coolness of their homes that afternoon, I made my way across the entire fort without attracting any more attention to myself, although I knew that I was reeling like a drunken man, and then I found myself inside the stables, where I sagged against a wall and removed my helmet. I felt better after that, but my guts were awash with churning fear. I sensed someone approaching, one of the duty troopers, and bent quickly to a trough, plunging my head beneath the cold water. The man, whoever he was, had passed on when I straightened again to gulp a breath, drenching my upper body with the water from my head. The single certainty within me was that I must leave this place at once and make my way to where I could be alone to scream aloud my grief and guilt and crawling horror. No thought was in my mind that I might fight, or ever overcome, the brutal, soul-destroying terror I could feel bludgeoning the crumbling edges of my sanity.

I have no memory of saddling my horse, but as I drew myself into the saddle, the training of years somehow took precedence even over my consuming panic, preventing me from setting out defenceless. I rode directly to my day quarters in the Praetorium, our headquarters, and collected my bow and quiver. Then, as I mounted my horse again, I heard Lucanus call my name and felt his hand grasping at my ankle. Blinking my eyes clear and swallowing hard, I made myself turn and look down at him. He was distraught, his face taut with anxiety, and I knew, even in my despair, that I must say something to him.

"Forgive me, old friend." One small, quite lucid part of me was amazed to hear how calm my voice sounded. "I am not myself. A sudden nausea. I thought a ride might clear my head. A long, hard ride. Don't be concerned for me. I'll come back soon, when I feel better, and you can try your magic arts on me."

I wheeled my mount away and left him standing there in front of the headquarters building as I made my way out of the fort and down the hill and thence across the great campus that lay beneath, riding without awareness or volition, yet guiding my horse surely on the shortest route to the hidden valley that had been mine alone since childhood. It had been months since I had last been there, but Germanicus knew the way and brought me safely down the narrow, winding, bush-lined track among the enfolding hills to where my dead wife waited by the tiny lake, and there, by her graveside, I fell face down and wept, allowing all the horror I felt to engulf me.

I had suspected my true condition for months, even while denying every sign of it and concealing it inside me from my very self. As soon as I had heard the name of Mordechai upon Lucanus's lips, however, all of my pretences and self-delusion had fallen away in the appalling recognition of what I had become. I was a leper! The certain knowledge filled me, making me want to scream my terror and revulsion and disgust to all the world. Leper! Unclean, condemned to banishment from all the world of men. Merlyn Britannicus, Leper!

My sickness of the previous June, the weakness and the dreadful, scourging itch, had come again that winter, and even then I had denied the fear in me, fleeing into isolation in order to avoid the analytical, physician's eyes of Lucanus. He had tended me throughout the first phase of the sickness, to be sure, the fever and the draining weakness it entailed, but as soon as the fever had passed I had removed myself to here, in secrecy made possible only by the fact that Ambrose and Donuil, the only two who knew this place, were both away from Camulod at that time. Here, alone in my Avalon, I had borne the itchy, scaling ugliness of red and angry skin for eight whole days. This time, however, when the itch abated, the scaliness it caused remained, in patches, clear upon the skin above my waist, and lasted for weeks. Even after it had faded, however, I found flakes and patches of discomfort, not painful, and with no itch, but persistent.

Now, as my tears dried, I sat erect and, talking distractedly all the time of slight, inconsequential things to my dead wife Cassandra, who lay beneath the ground close by my side, I unfastened and removed my armour and shrugged out of my tunic, stripping until I wore only my boots, and gazing down at myself almost abstractedly, searching my body for deliverance from the horror in my soul, hearing some tiny voice of sanity within my mind urging me to be calm and search with care, and to draw strength from what my eyes told me: my skin was clean and sound, my body whole, and the contagion that so threatened me lay in my mind alone, huddled among my other, twisted and obscene night fantasies. But my eyes went directly to the site of all my fears.

The hair on my chest was blond and soft, approaching whiteness in its downy goldenness, but there was one patch, slightly larger than the first joint of my thumb and roughly circular in shape, that was pure white. Beneath it, faint yet noticeable, the skin around the edges of the area was pink, approaching redness, and the central area of skin was as white as the hair it bore. It seemed hardly significant, a small anomaly, but I had seen such marks before, on Mordechai's own chest. They were the early lesions of the foulest sickness known to man, the awful, lingering death-in-life called leprosy.

I noticed some time later that my blood was still bright red and clean- looking as it oozed from the skin around my knife point, and only then did I realise what I had done. The wound in my breast was a fingersbreadth deep, the knife blade sharply angled to cut beneath the lesion and slip on between my ribs into my heart. And then I was on my feet again, throwing the dagger from me so that it splashed into the shallows of the lake, and I was drenched in chilling, icy sweat. So close had I come to ultimate despair! Terrified now with a different kind of fear, I sprang to my feet and shrugged into my tunic again, pulling it quickly over my head to cover my nakedness and ignoring the blood streaming from my chest. I then seized my bow and quiver without thought, and leapt up onto Germanicus. My feet found the stirrups by habit, and I sank my spurs cruelly into the horse, sending him surging forward in a bounding leap so that he took the pathway at the gallop, branches whipping wildly at my face and arms as we crashed up the hill. Once on the top, I rowelled him again, spurring him viciously as he thundered across the hillside, avoiding trees, bushes and scattered rocks at breakneck speed and keeping his feet beneath him only by the grace of God. For miles we rode that way, our pace unflagging, until I felt the great horse falter as he gained a crest and I knew that he would soon fall dead.

Ashamed, and panting with exhaustion myself, I reined him to a halt and stripped the saddle from him, making a penance of the strength I used to groom him and to wipe him down, and hugging his great neck against my face until his laboured breathing and the trembling in his limbs had subsided. Then, after an age, when he was calm and breathing normally again, I led him down to water at a brook, after which I turned him free to graze, seating myself upon a fallen log and watching him with an ache inside my breast.

Within the space of one short hour, I had come close to killing both myself and my horse. Self-loathing roiled inside me and I found myself despising my own weakness, for what was sickness, if not weakness?

The blood on my chest had dried. I pulled my tunic off again and examined the wound. It had scabbed over, but when I probed it with a fingertip I felt nothing, and I recalled what Lucanus had said about the lesions. They were numb, incapable of registering sensations. I sighed and replaced my tunic, feeling dead inside, then led Germanicus back to where his saddle lay and harnessed him again.

As I swung myself up to his back again, I heard the sound of distant hoofbeats, clear in the still air of the afternoon, drumming hard against the hillside far below, on the other side of the crest of the small hill on which I sat. I realised then that I had no idea where I was. I had paid no attention to the path we followed when we left the valley, riding blindly over hill and dale in my despair. Now, although I had no real interest other than dulled curiosity, and simply because it seemed the natural thing to do, I kicked Germanicus forward to the crest to see who had intruded upon my solitude.

I recognised Shelagh immediately, though she was far distant and riding towards me through a screen of low bushes and small saplings. All riders have a personal style that makes them instantly recognisable to those who know them, and there was no mistaking Shelagh's. She was flat out, bent forward almost over her mount's ears, her long hair flying free behind her. My first reaction was pleasant surprise, but that was quickly followed by alarm. She was alone, and she should not have been. She had set out much earlier that day with Julia and Ludmilla and the children to go swimming in the wide and shallow river hole that was a favourite spot with all the youth of Camulod.

The thought was not complete before I had put Germanicus to the slope, flying to intersect Shelagh's path. Then I saw her pursuers and reined him back again. There were two of them, on foot, bounding downwards towards her on an intersecting course from the crest of another hill, across from me. They had not yet seen me. My mind drew imaginary intersecting lines from them to her, and I realised that they would intercept her soon, before I could. Now I knew where I was, and how they could pursue her on foot, when she was mounted. The path on which she rode was almost circular, making its way almost entirely around a low but steep-sided and densely treed hill between Camulod and the river. If they had seen her from the top of it, they would have had time to cut across in front of her, even on foot.

As that thought occurred to me, one of the two stopped running and brought up a bow, and with a thrill of fright I recognised it as a Pendragon longbow. Even as I flung myself down from the saddle he loosed his shot and I watched it helplessly as it sped across the intervening distance and zipped between Shelagh's body and her horse's neck. Then, filled with flaring rage, I launched an arrow of my own and watched with satisfaction as it took the fellow squarely in the chest, sending him crashing on his back. His companion had seen none of this, intent upon reaching Shelagh's path and unaware that he was approaching me as well with every leaping step. I sighted on his chest and then, for no clear reason that I could define, shifted my aim and shot him in the groin, above and to the right of his genitals, piercing the socket where his thigh bone met his pelvis. He doubled over violently, crashing headlong downhill to land on his face, screaming in shock and pain. I shouted to Shelagh, calling her by name and jumping back up into my saddle. She reined in brutally, bringing her horse down onto his hindquarters and gaping at me in disbelief.

Our meeting was constrained by shock on her part and bewildered incomprehension on mine, for now I saw that Shelagh wore no clothes other than a long, light cloak that failed utterly to conceal her body. She seemed completely unaware of her nakedness, however, and sat gazing at me wide- eyed until I reined in my horse beside her.

"Merlyn," she said, her voice sounding very strange. "Where did you come from?"

I barely heard her words, my mind and eyes full of the bareness of her body beneath the long, light mantle. The white smoothness of her belly and the skin between her breasts was slashed diagonally by the broad, black band of her knife belt, its five sheathed knives forming a line of overlapping crosses on her flesh. I raised my eyes to hers and saw the blankness there, the emptiness, and all at once I felt my guts contract in fear, so that I had to struggle to find the words I needed to say.

"Shelagh, where are the others, the children? What has happened? Why are you here like this and who were these people?"

The harsh tone of my voice must have penetrated her dazed mind, for her eyes widened and grew more alert and she turned her head quickly towards the man I had crippled, who now squirmed, screaming, on the hillside just above her and to her left. She looked at him and shuddered, then dropped her reins, crossing her arms over her bare breasts.

"Safe," she whispered. Then her eyes quit the writhing wretch and turned back to me as her voice grew stronger. "The children are safe. I left them with Ludmilla and rode for help."

"Like that?" I nodded towards her nakedness.

She looked down at herself without interest or concern, then her hands moved again, drawing the edges of her mantle together so that they covered her thighs. "Aye, like this. There was no time."

"No time? In God's name, Shelagh, what happened?"

She shook her head, a terse, violent motion like a shudder.

"We were attacked. By strangers, like these." She indicated the two men I had shot. "Julia and the children were attacked. Ludmilla and I weren't there. We had moved away, out of sight, but we heard their screams. Arthur and Bedwyr were both hurt, but not killed. Julia is dead."

Julia's face flashed before my eyes and vanished, banished by the news that Arthur had been hurt. Shelagh's tone rang in my ears like a death knell. A thousand questions sprang into my mind, but I rejected all of them as they clamoured for my attention. There was no point in asking questions other than the most important one.

"Where are they now?"

Shelagh twisted around in her saddle to look back the way she had come, then faced me again, raising her hands to her face, which she squeezed and rubbed as though washing it. When she spoke again, I knew she had regained possession of herself.

"Not far. I had thought them safe, but now I see I could be wrong. If there were these two, whom I had not seen, there might easily be others." She stopped, eyeing my bow and the quiver of arrows that hung from my shoulders. "You only have your bow? Where is your sword?"

I jerked my head impatiently, hefting the bow. "This is enough to kill with."

She thrust her hands through the front of the mantle, seizing her reins again and pulling her horse around, kicking him into motion. "Come quickly. It's not far."

As I galloped behind her back along the narrow path, the light cloak fluttered high around her, fanned by the speed of our passage, but I saw nothing erotic in her naked loveliness. I was aware only of the vulnerability of her bare flesh and of my own unarmoured body, clad in a light tunic. And I wondered why she was unclothed and why the belt of knives that hung, as always, from her right shoulder did so beneath her cloak, rather than over it.

It was less than a curving mile from where our paths had crossed to where the river ran, slow and somnolent, through the grassy glade that had been a favourite summer spot in Camulod for generations. We reached it in a far shorter time than I would have expected, and as we broke from the screen of trees surrounding the meadow I was already looking around for signs of life. There were signs of death everywhere. I saw four or five men's bodies scattered on the grass and noted that the only blood in sight lay spilled around them. Shelagh ignored the bodies, standing in her stirrups, looking about her. As she saw me look at her, she wrenched her horse to the left and sent him bounding down the gently sloping gradient towards the water, to where a giant elm hung outward over the wide swimming pool. I pulled up when she did, and saw a flash of immobile whiteness against the bank. I swung down from my saddle and ran forward.

It was Julia. She lay face down in the water, bereft of all humanity and grace, her long hair drifting slowly about her head, one ankle caught in a snag of tree root on the bank. Her bare, white buttocks thrust obscenely upward above the surface of the water, stained with blood in the crease, and a great diagonal slash high on her back gaped open, ragged-edged, washed clean by its immersion and eloquently fatal. My chest ached with the pain of my discovery and I moved instinctively to rescue her, but I knew she was dead and that my first task must be to find the others. Grimly, I spun on my heel and ran back to remount.

Before I was upright, Shelagh had kicked her horse forward again, pulling it round to the right and heading uphill, back towards the fringe of the forest that surrounded the clearing. I stayed close behind her, urging Germanicus to greater speed as we bounded up the steepening slope and into the undergrowth, climbing steadily until we breasted the first hill and Shelagh stopped, holding up her hand. As I drew level with her she stood in her stirrups again, calling Ludmilla's name, and was answered immediately by a cry from farther down the hill, deep within a dense thicket. We rode forward slowly, picking our way among trees and saplings, and as we went, the three oldest boys, Arthur, Gwin and Bedwyr, came running to meet us, calling at the tops of their voices. They were all safe, although Arthur had a blood- filled lump the size of a goose egg on his right temple and Bedwyr's left arm was heavily bandaged in a blood-stained cloth. Gwin seemed to be unharmed. Ludmilla emerged from the brush behind them, holding little Luceiia and Octavia by the hands. Behind her came the youngest boy, Ghilleadh, his eyes wide and staring, his face streaked with dirt and tear tracks.

Once the initial storm of greetings had passed and I had ascertained that they had been in no other danger since Shelagh's departure, I turned to Shelagh herself. In deference to the children's presence, she had closed her cloak modestly, holding it tight around her, its edges twisted in one hand.

"Your clothes," I said. "Where are they?"

She tossed her head, indicating the slope behind us. "Up there somewhere."

"Find them, and dress. I'm going to see to Julia."

As soon as I said his mother's name, young Bedwyr's face crumpled and he began to weep, moaning deep in his throat, and Ludmilla swept him into her arms, comforting him and making crooning sounds of grief and sympathy. Arthur stiffened, his shoulders hunched, then raised his hand to the huge lump on his forehead, covering it with his palm, and turned away from all of us.

"Arthur." He turned towards me. "Where are your horses?"

The boy swallowed hard, visibly fighting to keep from breaking into tears as had his friend. He shook his head. "I don't know, Merlyn. We tethered them where we always do, at the top of the meadow, but I don't know if they're still there. I didn't see them after the men came. They might have stolen them." His lip trembled.

"No," I said. "I doubt that. They're probably where you left them. Come back with me. You can collect them while I do what I have to do."

His crumpled features straightened when his body did and he stepped towards me, his hand falling away from the swelling on his brow now that he had something to do, but before he reached my side he stopped and turned back towards the others. "Bedwyr," he called, his voice firm now. "I'm going to get the horses, do you want to come?"

Bedwyr, who had been weeping inconsolably on Ludmilla's breast, raised his tear-streaked face and turned around but made no attempt to move away from his source of comfort.

"We're going to need some help," Arthur continued. "They may be scattered."

Gwin had not moved since I had spoken first to Arthur. Now he turned his head towards Bedwyr, saying nothing. Bedwyr looked from Arthur to him, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve, then knuckled his eyes and looked back at Arthur.

"You want me to?" he asked.

Arthur smiled, and I realised that I was watching him with awe, seeing an eight-year-old boy behaving like a seasoned commander. "Are you coming?" was all he said.

Bedwyr nodded and snuffled again, blinking his eyes clear of the last tears, then stepped away from Ludmilla and began to make his way up to where we waited. Arthur glanced at Gwin. "Good," he said. "Let's go."

As we re-entered the meadow, I took care to turn left and uphill, leading the boys up to the spot where they had tethered the horses and away from where the body of Bedwyr's mother floated in the sluggish stream. I spotted a flash of whiteness back among the trees and Arthur saw it, too, as soon as I did.

"There's one of them," he said, and I heard relief in his young voice.

"Aye, and the others will be close by," I answered. "Go you now and collect them, but be cautious. They were cut loose, perhaps injured, and may still be panicky. Take your time. I'll join you in a little while."

I sat and watched them until the woods swallowed them, then turned my horse around and went down to the river.

Julia was already cold with death, and with the chill of the water. I dragged her body gently to the bank and laid her on her back, concealing the huge wound that had killed her and the bloodied evidence of her violation. She bore no visible signs of violence in front, save for a split lower lip and single large bruise high up on her face. Any other evidence had been washed away by the river. I found her clothing scattered nearby and covered her decently, fighting the urge to scream aloud in rage and grief as I closed the glazed, empty eyes that once had been so warm and lively, full of love and life and joy. Lucanus, I knew, would be as griefstricken as her husband Hector. Kneeling beside her, I bowed my head in a prayer, then stooped to kiss her cheek, after which I covered her face and made my way up to collect the boys, who had found all the horses.

Moments later, we were on our way back to Camulod, riding in silence, for the most part, since there was little merit in discussing what had happened at that time. The attackers had been strangers. The younger children were too young to know what had occurred, and the older boys, I believed, too fragile to listen to a discussion of death and rapine that had taken one of their mothers. Shelagh and Ludmilla had their own thoughts to occupy them and I, God knew, had mine.

Two hours had passed since our return to the fortress and I had done everything I could think to do. The frantic activity stirred up by our arrival and the news we carried had finally died down, to be replaced by a strained atmosphere of expectation as we waited for the first reports to begin corning in. The children, all six of them, were under the care of Lucanus and Ludmilla, safe in the Infirmary and confined to bed for observation, as Luke termed their quarantine. In fact, they were being isolated for their own protection from the rumours and speculation, now being embroidered upon and argued over by everyone who still remained in Camulod.

The garrison was out already, scouring the countryside for strangers, only a holding force remaining in the fortress. Ambrose had taken overall command of that operation, coordinating the search from the Praesidium. Dedalus, Quintus, Benedict and Rufio had each been assigned a quadrant of our lands to search, radiating outward from the fort, and their cavalry was supported by eight infantry contingents, two under the nominal command of each of these four but controlled by their own officers. Fast riders had also been dispatched to each of our perimeter outposts to spread the word to seal our borders, permitting no one to exit from our lands. If there were interlopers still alive in Camulod, they would be found.

Hector, the one most intimately injured by this day's events, had ridden out with Dedalus to the scene of the attack, to bring his wife's remains home, under guard. No one had been able to dissuade him from going. Dedalus, on the same sweep, would also seek the man whom I had wounded in the groin and if the wretch was still alive he, too, would be sent to Camulod for questioning.

Now there remained only the matter of Shelagh's account of the day's events. Two separate matters had vied within my mind for attention throughout all that I had done that afternoon, and I had kept them in check successfully only by a single-minded effort of sheer will. The first of these, by far the more pernicious, was that I might even now be passing on my sickness to my friends; the other was occasioned by the fact that there had been four, perhaps five slain men there in the glade by the river, and no explanation of their deaths.

I drew a deep breath before knocking on the door to the quarters occupied by Donuil and Shelagh, and moments later it swung open and Donuil stood looking at me, his face unreadable. He had taken Shelagh away shortly after the chaos of our arrival began to die down, both of them white-faced and badly shaken by the narrowness of her escape from death. Now there was silence in the room behind him.

"How is she, Donuil?"

He shrugged and stepped aside to allow me to enter. Behind him, his wife sprawled in a stuffed armchair, her legs spread and her head tilted back, eyes closed. There was colour in her cheeks now, nevertheless, and in one hand she held a cup containing what I had no doubt was her own fiery, homemade mead. Her belt of knives lay on a nearby table, dropped in a careless heap. I glanced at Donuil, who merely shook his head, then I moved closer to her.

"Shelagh?"

She opened her eyes and looked up at me, heaving a great, deep sigh before straightening up, blinking her eyes as though to clear them of sleep.

"Merlyn," she said, showing no surprise. "Is everything in hand?"

"Aye, for the time being."

She indicated the deep couch across from her, and I sat down. Donuil remained on his feet, merely resting his buttocks against the edge of the heavy table.

"You want to know what happened," she said, a statement rather than a question. I nodded, and she squeezed her temples between the thumb and fingers of her free hand.

"So do I, Merlyn, so do I . . . I knew you'd come, so I've said nothing yet to Donuil, for I knew I could only go through this once . . ." She shook her head, frowning slightly. "It was sudden, unexpected, and I had no time to think or plan; none of us did . . ." She glanced towards her husband. "Donuil, please sit down. I won't be able to think clearly with you looming over me like that."

Expressionless, Donuil moved quietly to sit beside me on the couch. Shelagh waited until he was settled, then spoke in a voice that made it seem as though she were talking to herself.

"From the beginning, then . . ." We sat in silence while she evidently marshalled her thoughts. Then, snatching another deep-drawn breath, she launched into her tale.

"We should all have been taken in the first attack. The only thing that saved us was the lazy indolence of a hot summer afternoon. It was peaceful, hot and beautiful, the slightest breeze imaginable coming once in a while to fan us. The boys were fishing and Julia was showing the girls how to knit, using straight twigs that I had cut for them. They had all been playing in the water earlier, but had grown tired of it. . .

"I was sitting against a tree, a little way from Julia and the girls, peeling a willow branch with a knife, and Ludmilla was lying beside me. I thought she was asleep, but she had been watching me, and suddenly she suggested that I might like to practise with my knives. She can never see enough of that. She has been fascinated by how I can throw them ever since the first time she saw me do it.

"The thought was already in my mind when she spoke, so I was willing, but I knew that as soon as I produced the knives the boys would be all over me, wanting to be allowed to throw them, too, and I had no patience to put up with all the fuss of that. It was too hot. And so I told Ludmilla that if she wanted a throwing lesson I would give her one, but we would have to slip away together to where we could have peace and quiet, safe from the boys. I strolled over to Julia and told her where we were going, and then Ludmilla and I simply wandered off, betraying no purpose until we were out of sight.

"There's a place I know of, where I've been before; a big, dead tree stump with heavy bark, about the height of a man and a perfect target. We went there. It's about a hundred and fifty paces from the riverbank, just over the brow of the hill. . .

"Anyway, once we were there, I showed Ludmilla how to hold a knife and throw it, but she found it more difficult to grasp the trick of it than either of us expected—some people simply aren't attuned to things like that, I suppose. Anyway, she ended up sitting close by, watching me as I practised, and an hour or so went by. And then we heard the screams."

She stopped, and her eyes changed colour, or intensity; I did not know which, only that they had changed. Donuil and I sat motionless. She sighed again, a ragged, uneven sound this time, then swallowed audibly.

"There were five of them, big, dirty-looking men. By the time we reached the edge of the meadow, still among the trees, there was nothing we could do without endangering ourselves and making matters worse. Arthur was lying on the ground, unmoving, and young Bedwyr knelt on the grass beside him, holding his own arm, blood streaming through his fingers. Two men were each holding two of the other children, one in each hand. The two little girls were screaming, and so was Ghilleadh. Gwin, the only one of the three older boys uninjured, was fighting to break free and as I looked, the man who held him let him go, then smashed him with his fist, behind the head. The boy went down and lay there as though dead."

I interrupted, unable to contain myself, since I knew the boys were well. "What about Julia?"

Shelagh looked at me, her face as cold as stone.

"She was fighting, down on her knees, her skirts over her head, muffling her cries. A naked man stood over her, his feet on either side of her head, holding her hands together by the wrists, behind her back, forcing her face against the ground. Another knelt behind her, gripping her by the waist, pulling her against him, violating her. A third was tearing off the remainder of his clothing, laughing like a demented thing, preparing to take over when his friend had done—"

"Dia!" Donuil leapt to his feet and stalked away, slamming one fist into his open hand, unable to endure such words without reaction. For my part, I grew cold, recalling another, similar account of death and rapine told to me by Shelagh in explanation of her skill with knives. I stared at her now, knowing what she had achieved, but at a loss over how she had been able to achieve it. She was looking at me directly, both of us aware that Donuil knew nothing of that first story or its consequences. She shrugged her shoulders.

"I killed all of them," she said, her voice expressionless.

Her words stopped Donuil in his agitated pacing. He turned to face her, his eyes wide with shock. "You killed them? Five men? All of them?"

Shelagh's eyes had not wavered from mine, and now I nodded.

"I know, but how?"

"With ease," she said, her face wooden. "I played the foolish, silly woman." She waited for me to respond, and when I said nothing she continued.

"My first concern was to ensure Ludmilla kept her mouth shut, for I knew what I must do and if she screamed, or panicked, we would both have been in the same cauldron with Julia. Fortunately, Ludmilla is nobody's fool. I told her what I meant to do—the only thing I could do—and sent her to hide and wait for whatever might pass. Then, as soon as she was on her way, I ran up the hill as far as I could without endangering my plan, for it had come into my mind full-born and I knew it would work.

"Once there, high above them, I threw off my clothes, then put my mantle on again, over my belt. I had to keep that hidden, so I tucked the fabric of the mantle up beneath the strap, concealing my knives and their scabbards but exposing myself. Then I began to scream and run downhill towards them, begging them to stop what they were doing and let the children go. They stopped, sure enough, thinking themselves attacked. Then, when they saw that I was all alone, and naked, they came after me, leaving poor Julia where she lay. She must have been already dead, for I saw no one stab her. . ."

Once again her voice died away and she sat silent for a time, before continuing in the same placid, unemphatic tone.

"I knew I had to make them run to me, and I knew they knew whoever caught me first would have me first, and so I ran to meet them, squealing in panic but swerving as I ran, keeping the distance I required from each of them. The fools saw only my skin beneath the mantle . . . white flesh and female hair. None of them thought to see a weapon, and they made a game of hunting me, forming a ring about me, just like sheep herding a dog, never seeing the foolishness of such a thing.

"At length, when they had me surrounded, closing in, I stopped and waited for them, whining and whimpering. Three of them wore nothing at all, and none of them had a weapon drawn. The two who carried knives sheathed them, to leave their hands free for the game to come. The fools were laughing, making great sport of it. When they came close enough, I killed all five of them. Even the last of them to die had not begun to understand what had happened by the time my knife took him beneath his ugly chin."

Donuil was staring at his wife in awe. I gazed at her in total admiration, envisioning the scene she had described and remembering the awe-inspiring speed with which she had planted her blades so close together in the block of wood that day in the Armoury.

"So," I said, eventually. "You finally took vengeance for your friend Rhona."

"Aye, I did, but it gave me little satisfaction." She sipped again now at her drink, draining the cup. "Ludmilla had been watching from the trees, and she came running, calling to the children. I went with her to check them, and as soon as I had seen that Arthur and the other boys were alive and all were well enough, I bade her look to Julia and then ran to summon help, in case there should be more of these people about. I thought I could make better time alone, rather than taking everyone with me, all of us virtually unarmed. I retrieved my knives, then caught my horse and left immediately. The rest you know."

I rose from the couch and crossed to fill her cup again with mead. Donuil moved, too, to sit on the arm of her chair, his hand touching her hair. He had barely spoken a word since my arrival, but I knew that he was fiercely proud of the tale his wife had told.

"Donuil," I said, raising my own cup in a salute to Shelagh, "I think your wife has earned a debt of gratitude today that all of Camulod will be forever helpless to repay." He nodded, still wordless, and I addressed myself to Shelagh.

"Shelagh," I said, "you are a warrior like no other I have known. Men flatter themselves, calling themselves warriors and boasting of their prowess under arms, and some have performed great feats. Few men, for all of that, have sought, or fought, such odds, five against one, naked and unafraid. And so I pay tribute, one soldier to another. Honour and fortitude and skills like those you showed today are truly rare, and I feel privileged to call you friend. There is none like you anywhere, I swear."

She gazed at me, half smiling, as I drank my mead, and when I had finished she spoke again.

"Fortitude, Merlyn? Naked and unafraid? I think not. Panic, certainly. I knew no other way to tempt those animals away from Julia. Had I known she was already dead, I never could have done it. Naked I was, of desperate necessity, but I was far from unafraid. I have never been more terrified in all my life."

I nodded and put down my cup. "I believe you. But fear is healthy and keeps warriors alive. The facing of it, however, and the conquest of it, is what men call courage. Now, if you will pardon me, I shall leave you two in peace. Good night."

XXXI

My definition of courage, intended as it was for Shelagh, became a goad for me, for I could not put it from my mind thereafter, and my mental anguish grew like a mushroom over the course of the days that followed, heightened by the terror writhing in my soul. I had no sound sleep during all that time, although I spent too much time lying in my bed, avoiding daylight and people. Cowardice was alien to me, and yet I knew myself to be a coward, not merely unwilling to face my fears and conquer them, but totally incapable of even contemplating the attempt.

On the morning of the fourth day following my meeting with Shelagh and Donuil, Lucanus entered my sleeping chamber uninvited and was pulling down the heavy curtains from the narrow window high up on the wall before I had time to absorb the fact that he was there. By the time I had risen to one elbow, squinting against the glare of the harsh morning light, he was standing above my cot, glowering down at me, ignoring my pathetic noises of complaint.

"Growing a beard, are you?" His voice was deep and angry. "And evidently making some attempt to discover just how badly one man can come to smell, to boot. . ."

I cringed beneath his merciless stare, only too well aware how poorly I must look. He spun away on one heel and walked out, leaving me alone to sit up and rub at my eyes. Moments later, I heard him return with someone else.

"Leave it there." I heard scuffling sounds beyond the curtain of my sleeping alcove, and then someone withdrew. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, feeling the floor tiles cold against my feet as the curtain was thrown open, admitting yet more light. Lucanus stepped inside the room and stopped.

"There's hot water here, and towels. I presume you have fresh clothes. You have an hour before the meeting I have urged Ambrose to call in your default. It will be a small gathering. Ambrose, myself and Dedalus, Rufio, Donuil and you. We need you there, so please be there. You might not suffer from a visit to the bath house between now and then. One hour."

The wind of his exit ruffled the curtain in the doorway and I quaked with shame, but then I bestirred myself and did as he suggested.

An hour later I walked into the Praesidium fully dressed, clean-shaven and armoured for the first time in almost a week. The guard on duty evidently expected me and told me that I was awaited in my own day room. As I entered, everyone stopped talking and looked at me, and I scanned their faces quickly, looking for scorn, or disdain, or anything from which I might infer a hint of disapproval. I saw nothing of the kind. Ambrose leapt to his feet and came to meet me with a smile of welcome, throwing an arm about my shoulders and asking after my health. Lucanus had informed them I was sick of something, and they were all glad to see me up and about again.

I glanced towards Lucanus and his eyes met mine without the slightest sign of anything but pleasure. Unsure of what to say, I said nothing and merely greeted each of them in turn, after which I sat down in the place reserved for me, with my back to the door. Ambrose faced me at the other end of the rectangular table and he proceeded to the matters in hand immediately, addressing himself to me and bringing me up to date on all that had transpired since the day of the attack. I listened closely, the seriousness of this affair enabling me to forget my own problem for the first time in many days.

"I'm glad you're back, Merlyn," Ambrose began. "There's much to talk about. All the reports are in now, our troops are all back in garrison, and I think we have been able to reconstruct the why and all the wherefores of what happened. What I do not know is how much you recall of what had been discovered before you fell sick."

Faced with his openness, I spoke the truth. "I don't know anything, and if I did, I have forgotten. Start at the beginning."

"Right." Ambrose glanced around the table, his gaze settling on Dedalus. "Ded. Tell us about the hunt."

Dedalus cleared his throat. "The hunt, aye." He spoke to me directly. "We found the man you shot, still alive but out of his mind with pain. Sent him back here right away, for Lucanus to see what he could do with him before we began to question him."

"You were able to question him?" I had not expected the man to live.

"Oh, aye, we were able to question him, and he was able to answer, too, with a little persuasion." I merely nodded, unwilling to pursue that any further, and he went on. "What he had to tell us will come later. It was Rufio he spoke to. For now, there's this: we recovered Julia's body and those of the slain men, five in the river meadow and another on the hillside by the wounded fellow. You said one of them had used a Pendragon bow. They were all Pendragon. We found five more longbows, with arrows, where they had been left before the attack, on the other side of the river, and then we found another by the dead man on the hill—that was the one you saw—and after that we found another on the hilltop, where it had been dropped by your wounded man when he went running down the hill. Seven men, seven bows, seven Pendragon corpses, but none of our Pendragon people knew any of them."

"Six," I said. "Six corpses."

"Seven. The wounded man died, too."

I glanced around the table. No one betrayed any concern.

"I see. Go on."

"We had alerted all the outposts, as you know. No one passed by them, at least no one was seen. We turned the territories upside down, apart from that, and found a total of twenty-seven people unknown to us, mainly in the southern quadrant, where Rufio was in charge. They were all harmless enough, but they were trespassers. We questioned them and found the same thing in all cases: they knew they were there unlawfully, and all of them had crossed our boundaries at night, evading our patrols in the darkness. Some of them had been there for months. We have to do something about that— about our night defences. If ordinary folk can walk across our lines in the dark with ease, so can our enemies." He broke off for a moment, then resumed. "We now know that young Arthur was the target of the attack, and that there were twelve attackers. Seven died, so five escaped, most probably at night."

"Who were they, and how do you know that?"

Dedalus flicked a hand at me, in a clear, yet unconscious signal to me not to interrupt his train of thought. "The prisoner," was all he said. Then, taking up where he left off, he spoke again. "The most disturbing piece of information we received came from one of the boys, young Bedwyr. He heard one of the men who held the children mention Peter Ironhair—not the first name, just Ironhair. There's no possibility of error, for the boy had never heard the name before and didn't know who Ironhair was, but the name stuck in his mind and he remembered it when Donuil here was questioning him about what happened. He hadn't heard much, distracted by his mother's screaming, but it appears that early on in the proceedings, after Arthur had been laid low, the men were arguing over what they ought to do. They didn't know which boy was Arthur. "The Pendragon brat,' they called him. They asked the boys, but by then they were too late, and Bedwyr spat at them. One of them thought they should abduct all three of the oldest boys. Another was in favour of simply killing them all. A third remembered Ironhair had given exact instructions: 'Bring the Pendragon brat back if you can' had been his words, this fellow said. 'And if you can't bring him, then kill him. Just be sure you don't come back and leave the little swine alive.' "

My mind was seething now with a hundred questions, but I made myself sit still and listen. Dedalus had not finished.

"Anyway," he continued. "All of that arguing gave way to lust as soon as the others had started humping—" He broke off and glanced around guiltily. "I mean the business with the boy's mother, Julia. Young Arthur had been felled in the opening rush, struck down by a sword hilt. Now Bedwyr tried to help his mother, and broke free, but one of them caught him, backhanded, with his blade, below the elbow, and that put the boy out of things. A moment later, the other lad, Gwin, was knocked down, too, and the two remaining men left the other children there, the youngest ones, threatening to come back and kill them if they moved or tried to run away. They ran to join the others at their sport with Julia, but before they could get there they were interrupted by the sight of fresher game, when Shelagh arrived. All five then went for Shelagh, as you know. The last to leave poor Julia must have killed her, or perhaps they had killed her earlier. We'll never know." Dedalus looked from me to Ambrose then. "That's my end of it. Someone else can go on from there."

Ambrose looked at Rufio, who sat up straighter and took over immediately.

"I was responsible for questioning the prisoner, Commander," he told me. "And knowing what the boy had told us made the whole thing easier. The prisoner had been under the care of Master Lucanus for two whole days before we turned to him, and he was well enough to speak. He was. . ." Rufio paused, searching for a word. "He was surprised, to say the very least, when he discovered that we knew why he was there and who had sent him. That knowledge made him talkative . . .

"Ironhair, it appears, made his way to Cornwall after leaving Cambria ahead of Dergyll's vengeance."

I interrupted him. "What about Carthac, was he with Ironhair?"

Rufio shook his head. "I know nothing of that. No Carthac was mentioned."

"Very well, continue, please."

"Aye. Well, once in Cornwall, Ironhair made alliance with a fellow called Dumnoric, the war chief who came out on top of the dungheap of petty wars that sprang up after Lot was safely dead. This Dumnoric is now supreme in Cornwall, it seems, calling himself king there. Ironhair is no fool, we all know that, and he has no love in his heart for Camulod. He could not enlist support for his hatred of you, for your name means nothing in Cornwall, but he blamed all of the ills that had befallen Cornwall on Camulod and on Uther Pendragon, who waged war there and brought fire and sword to the whole region. 'Uther of Camulod' was the name he used most often, it appears, and he was successful. He forged some kind of treaty with this Dumnoric. In return for Cornish aid to conquer Cambria and 'win back' Ironhair's 'kingdom,' he would undertake to storm Camulod and kill the spawn of Uther, or of Lot, whichever Dumnoric preferred to think, thereby removing all threats, both to the Cornish king, since Arthur holds the seal of Gulrhys Lot, and to the Cambrian kingship he might seek to claim as Uther's alleged son.

"To hear this fellow tell it, it was very complicated, but the upshot was that Ironhair obtained a promise of this Dumnoric's support in Cambria, provided he could prove that 'the Pendragon brat' was dead. He returned to these parts, selected twelve specialists in murder, and promised them the world if they could do what he required of them. They failed, thanks to Julia and to Shelagh's knives. That's all."

For long moments, no one moved or spoke, and I gazed around the table. Donuil and Lucanus had sat silent through all that had been said. Now Donuil spoke.

"Everything we have learned, Commander, boils down to three questions. How did the word get out about Arthur's identity? I thought that was a secret. Then how did Ironhair learn of it? And what steps must we now take to protect the boy?"

At that moment, overwhelmed as I was by all I had heard, I was unprepared to answer any of those questions. Not so Ambrose.

"Well," he asserted, speaking forcefully. "One thing is certain. The boy will have to be placed under close guard from this time on."

"Close guard?" Lucanus sounded outraged. "What kind of solution is that? The boy is eight years old, Ambrose. Would you make him a prisoner for life? He is a boy, not a criminal!"

Ambrose drew back as though he had been slapped. "I meant no such thing. I merely said—"

"I heard what you said. There has to be some other way."

Dedalus intervened, cutting both of them off. "This of the secret, your first question, Donuil. It's ridiculous. There is no secret. I myself heard Connor call the boy Pendragon openly, last summer, before a throng of people when he brought the lad the ponies. It surprised me at the time, because I hadn't known and hadn't thought about it, but when I looked, I saw it. The boy's the image of his father Uther. If I could see that, anyone could. What concerns me is, who told Ironhair?"

"Aye, Ded, and you should be concerned, although the answer's partly obvious." I had not spoken for some time, and all eyes moved to me again. "It was one of our own, someone in Camulod. But the worst part is that Ironhair, from this same source, knew of the seal of Gulrhys Lot being here. That is truly disturbing, for that is a secret known, I thought, to me alone. Only my aunt knew of it, next to me, and she would never have mentioned it." I glanced around the faces watching me. "Were any of you aware of it?" It was plain that no one was. I nodded. "That is as I expected. I have the seal in my own quarters, in a leather bag with Uther's seal. I have never shown it to anyone else since that first day."

The silence that ensued was long and troubled. I sat slumped in my chair and completed my thoughts.

"That means, my friends, that someone close to us—close enough to enjoy access of some kind to my quarters—is in Ironhair's employ, and our chances of finding who it is are slight, at best. While Luceiia Britannicus was alive, visitors there were few and all close friends. Since then, things have changed. Ambrose and Ludmilla and their daughters live there now, with me, and Shelagh and Donuil and their boys share a portion of the rooms, so many people come and go every day. Peter Ironhair has an active sympathizer here, in Camulod, today." I looked at Ambrose. "And that, Brother, makes nonsense of your plan to guard young Arthur closely. How close could that guard be, when we do not know against whom we are guarding? Against outside attack, well, that's one thing, but what we have discovered here is something else entirely."

I stood up, feeling older than I ever had before. "I have heard enough," I said, "and now I have to think this through. I thank you for your time, but I would ask, if I may, for more assistance from each of you. Please think upon these matters, too, for all of you know what we have to solve, and meet me here tomorrow at the same time."

They all rose to leave, nodding in agreement and talking among themselves as they filed out. Ambrose was the last to go and he hesitated at the door, plainly on the point of asking me something, but then he shrugged and merely said, "Tomorrow," before leaving me alone.

My solitude was brief. The door had barely closed behind Ambrose before it swung open again and Lucanus re-entered, moving directly to the head of the table, where he stood eyeing me closely.

"You know the answer, don't you? It's as plain as your nose. You have to take the boy away somewhere far from here where he can be a boy for five more years. As long as he stays here in Camulod, his life will be at risk.'

I lowered myself carefully into my chair again, feeling as though I bore the weight of the world.

"I can't do that, Luke."

His eyes went wide. "What do you mean, you can't do that? It's all you can do, Merlyn."

"No, it is not. I cannot do it. Don't ask me why, because I can't explain, but I can't take him with me."

"Take—?" Lucanus cut himself short, then looked around the room as though it were a strange place in which he had suddenly found himself. He moved directly then to the chest in which I always kept a flask of Shelagh's mead. Without looking at me, he produced two cups and poured an ample measure into each of them, measuring them carefully. When he was satisfied they held equal amounts, he reinserted the stopper and replaced the flask within the chest, then approached me, holding out one cup and tilting the other unmistakably in the ancient gesture which invited me to join him in a libation to the gods. Wondering what was in his mind, I tipped my cup and spilled the few obligatory drops. He did the same.

"To Aesculapius and Hippocrates," he said, with a smile. "The patrons of medicine: a manlike god and a godlike man." He sipped his drink and sat down in the chair Ambrose had occupied, at the opposite end of the table from me. I felt the honeyed fire of the mead at the roots of my tongue and fatigue swept over me again.

"When did you learn of it?"

I blinked at him, confused, unwilling to acknowledge what I had heard in his tone.

"What? When did I learn of what?" He gazed at me, then tilted his head slightly backward, jerking his chin towards me in a gesture similar to pointing a finger.

" The sickness."

My stomach turned over. "Sickness? What sickness do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about." I could hear my own bluster.

"The leprosy."

The whole room seemed to sway and the cup fell from my hand and rolled on the wooden floor. I moved my lips to speak, but no sound emerged. Lucanus was smiling at me, a smile filled with goodwill and friendship.

"Oh, come, Merlyn, do you really think me such a fool? You believe you have contracted leprosy, though how you could even think so baffles me. You grew distraught the other day, and at first I could find no reason, although I was much alarmed. But then, when I observed some other things, I recalled that you had leapt up and fled at the mention of Mordechai's name. Since then, in spite of all that has been going on about you, you have shunned us all. And now you say you cannot take young Arthur with you when you go . . . to wherever you are fleeing. You, who have been telling me for years that you believe your destiny is to instruct this child and bring him into manhood whole, and fit to rule this land in law and justice. What else but the fear of leprosy could bring about such change so quickly and so devastatingly in Merlyn Britannicus? I know how the very name of it appalls you. The fear of thinking you may have it must be driving you to despair."

Slowly, my mind spinning in search for some means of denying what he said, I reached down and retrieved the fallen cup, which had remained intact on striking the floor. I placed it gently on the tabletop and looked directly into his eyes.

"It is not fear," I said, my voice a mere whisper. "It's certain knowledge, Luke. I have the lesions."

Lucanus straightened up in shock and it was clear to me that, of all the things I might have said to him, this was the one he could least have expected. I watched him take his lower lip between his teeth and bite down hard enough to whiten it.

"What lesions are these?" he asked me, finally, speaking slowly and quietly. "Show me."

I held up my hand. "Later." I closed my eyes then, and a great, explosive sigh shook me. The truth was out! And Lucanus had not yet fled the room. "Tell me about leprosy, Luke."

He was frowning now. "What, everything I have learned in a lifetime of study, here and now?" He shook his head, but when he spoke again, moments later, his voice was gentle. "It is a strange illness and little understood, even today. But some things we do know. It is extremely slow to propagate and progress and, with proper care and cleanliness it can be held at bay for years, almost indefinitely in some cases." His voice strengthened, becoming more hard-edged. "It is also extremely slow to spread, and infection only occurs after prolonged—and careless—exposure to contamination. You have not had such exposure, Merlyn. Your sickness is in your mind, born of your fear."

"What causes it—in new cases, I mean, lacking infection from another person?"

He shook his head, frowning anew. "We don't know, but it is probably bred of filth and squalor in some way. Most dire sickness is."

"And the lesions? Let me see if I can recall . . ." I felt almost light-headed, in being able thus to voice my fears. "White blemishes appear on the skin— or they may be sometimes yellowish, or pink, brownish, or even red—and are surrounded by a slight, reddish, rough-textured discoloration. The blemishes take on a circular appearance and the body hair within such spots turns white as well. The area grows numb, immune to pain or feeling. Am I not correct?"

"You are, and you know it, so you are using sophistry to make your point. You saw such lesions once, on Mordechai's chest, and you discussed them with him. I was there, you may recall."

"I recall clearly. But I've seen them twice, Luke. I have seen them twice . . . Once upon Mordechai's chest and once on my own."

Lucanus was smiling still, shaking his head. "That is not possible, Merlyn. You are mistaken. You were not exposed to Mordechai's disease. His sickness was not virulent."

"Perhaps, perhaps not, but I was exposed to him, the night he died."

He froze, frowning, and I realised he knew nothing of the details of that episode. I had omitted them at the time, merely reporting Mordechai's death with the end of his colony, not wishing to cause Luke unnecessary pain. I told him now, and as he listened to my account his face grew pale and he put down his cup. When I had finished he sat staring, groping for words.

"You say . . . You said his blood mixed with your own?"

"Aye, some of it. Both of us were bleeding freely, me from my arms and head, Mordechai from various places. Why? Is that important?"

He ignored my question, leaning forward. " These lesions you speak of, where are they sited?"

"On my chest, but there's only one of them."

"May I see it? You could be wrong . . ." I noticed he had lost the emphasis of his denial.

"I doubt I am, but I can't show you here. I'll have to strip, and there are too many people about."

He nodded and stood up and I led the way back to my own quarters, where I disrobed and showed him my breast. His face tightened and he touched one fingertip to the scab beside the whitened patch of hair and skin.

"What's that?"

"A cut. . . A stab wound, I stopped short, but I came close to ending it that first day."

He looked at me levelly. "I hope that phase is over?" "It is."

"Good." He returned his inspection to the infected area of my chest, then turned away. "You may put your tunic on again."

"Well? Am I correct? Is it a leprous lesion?"

Lucanus faced me squarely. "It could be. It looks like one, but it is only one and I see no sign of others. It could also be another thousand, harmless things. I don't know, Merlyn. I simply do not know. My strongest inclination is to scepticism, but I confess this thing about the mingling of your blood with Mordechai's is worrisome. I have some texts I want to read before I reach any conclusions." He paused, continuing to look directly into my eyes, his own shifting slightly as his gaze switched from my right eye back to my left. "Bear this in mind, nevertheless: even should you be right, and I am wrong, this is no death sentence. I cannot tell you not to be concerned, for that would be sheer foolishness, but I can urge you to remember this: it is a sickness, a progressive, but very slow-moving, combatable sickness. Mordechai himself was sick with it for more than twelve years, as you know, and yet the signs of it were barely noticeable, and he worked hard and diligently throughout all that time. And he died of injuries, not leprosy. Above all, I believe implicitly that it is not communicable through casual, normal contact. You constitute no threat to anyone else's health, even if your fears have a solid foundation, which I doubt. Do you understand what I am telling you, Merlyn?" I nodded, and he nodded back. "Good. I would be even more emphatic were it not for this matter of the mixing of your blood with Mordechai's. That is the only matter that concerns me and, as I have said, I have some texts I wish to read on that subject before I make a judgment. I know I've read something about this somewhere, and I know I have the source in my possession. Now, when did you last sleep?"

I smiled, amazed at the ease with which I could do so now. "You woke me up a few hours ago. Don't you remember?"

"I remember that, but I meant when did you last enjoy an untroubled, restful sleep?"

I sobered. "A long time ago. The night before you mentioned Mordechai, I think."

"Hmm. I'm going to bring you back a sleeping draught, as quickly as I can go and return. You will drink it immediately, and you will sleep."

"But it's only a short time after noon!"

"It is bedtime for you, my friend. Lack of sleep is the better part of your problem. Wait here."

I said nothing as he left, merely staring at the swinging curtain after he passed through, and I had not moved when he returned a short time later. My mind was calm and the panic gone. I drank the draught he gave me, then I slept. And as I slept, I dreamed.

· · ·

I slept for almost an entire day, awakening gently the following morning as from a normal night of restful sleep, to find my sleeping chamber brightly lit by the mid-morning sun because I had not replaced the curtains Luke had pulled down the previous day.

Wonderingly aware of the lightness of spirit that filled my mind and body, I made my way first to the bath house, where I found the steam room empty. Much relieved, for had it been occupied I would not have entered, I steamed luxuriously for a time, sweating the residual tiredness from my body, then dried myself with a thick towel, which I took with me when I left.

From there, I went to the kitchens to eat, returning the greetings of those who spoke to me and examining my thoughts and feelings with astonishment as I walked. I still believed that I had leprosy—no doubt of that existed in my mind—but the mere act of sharing my grim knowledge with Lucanus seemed to have released my soul, somehow, from the chains in which it had been bound up for so long. Lucanus's concern, upon hearing of this mixing of Mordechai's blood with mine, had been the final confirmation I required, although the reason for his fear escaped me. His first reaction to that information, however spontaneous as it had been, had quite convinced me that I was right. Why then, I wondered, did I feel so light, and so relieved? I had, within my body, the foulest sickness known to man, so when and how had my despair withdrawn into peace of mind? I decided that these questions had no answers, and resolved to continue as I always had, until the day my fears returned again, and I ate heartily at a table in the corner of the kitchens, exchanging normal, carefree banter with the bustling cooks.

When I arrived back in my day room in the Praetorium for the meeting with the others, Lucanus was absent. Ambrose noted my glance at the empty chair and explained that Luke had been detained and would come when he could. I found it easy to grin at Ambrose as I took my own seat opposite him as before, at the end of the table closest to the door.

"You look like death, Brother," I told him. "What's wrong? Too much to drink last night?" He flushed and looked away, and I heard him say something inaudible about not having slept all night. I assumed one of the children must have been sick and thought no more of it as Donuil approached me, holding out a large, earthen mug, its outside dewy with moisture.

"Here, Commander, a little luxury. Connor arrived late yesterday, and he brought ice down from the northern mountains, packed in straw." For the first time, I noticed similar mugs in front of every seat. I thanked him and gulped at the drink it contained, water, flavoured with the astringent juice of some strange, delicious fruit. It was cold and marvellous, making my throat ache with the chill of it.

Ambrose cut me off before I could inquire after Connor.

"Gentlemen, shall we begin? We have much to discuss."

Once again, as on the previous day, I found myself in audience, listening as one by one my friends laid out the possible solutions they had all devised to meet the problems and the questions we had taken from the table at the end of that meeting. I alone had failed to do what I had asked of them. As they spoke, however, I became aware of a formless tension within the room, although I remained unable to define it. I could sense, nevertheless, that something had changed here since the previous day. Rufio was the last to speak again, and when he finished everyone turned to Ambrose, who had been sitting rapt, his fingers clasped together, supporting his chin, his eyes fixed on the table-top as he digested every word.

"Our thanks, Rufio," he said, then turned to look at me. "Now, to sum up." Everyone sat straighter, and again I could discern the curious air of tension I had noted earlier. The thought occurred to me that this had all been said before, agreed upon, and was now being repeated for my benefit alone. I stirred and uncrossed my ankles, telling myself that the thought was ludicrous as Ambrose began to speak, counting his points off on the fingers of one hand.

He began by emphasising, for my benefit, that everything that had been done in this matter was predicated upon my own belief, which was fully shared by every person there, in the vital importance of the boy Arthur, not simply because of who he was, although that was significant enough, but even more because of what he stood for. Arthur Pendragon was the embodiment of a cherished vision; a dream first visualized by Camulod's founders, but shared since then by everyone in Camulod who dared to dream at all. The boy, and the Dream he embodied, represented freedom and survival in the face of chaos. Arthur Pendragon symbolized the future and the continuance of the way of life Camulod had been intended to preserve from its inception. He personified the hopes for the future for all, and the rule of law and reason; the simple dignities all free people required to remain free. No one around this table doubted that, Ambrose said, nor did anyone doubt that, lacking the hope symbolised by Arthur's presence and the promise he represented, the entire world of Britain, not merely Camulod, would dissolve into anarchy and ruin.

I listened, greatly moved by my brother's eloquence and the evident conviction radiating from his face, and my throat grew tight with emotion as I thought of the men and women who had made possible all that he spoke of, among them his and my own forebears Caius Britannicus, Publius and Luceiia Varrus, Ullic and Uric and Enid Pendragon and Picus Britannicus.

Ambrose was still speaking. "We have come to agree, generally, all voices except yours concurring, that the constant guarding of young Arthur is not a viable option, under the current circumstances. It might have been so, had we been able to guarantee that only outside forces would conspire against him, but we cannot do that. Camulod itself has been infiltrated and defiled by Ironhair's adherents. Apart from that, however, the lad could not develop normally, living under constant guard and scrutiny, and we have all agreed that if he is to grow to be the man this Colony and this land will need tomorrow, then he must be permitted to grow naturally, continuing exactly as he has begun already. So . . ." I waited.

"The remaining option facing us is to remove him to some other place where he will be safe and may grow into manhood properly, living a life of freedom and continuing to receive the same instruction and tuition he has known until this time."

I nodded in agreement, accepting what he said completely. All the people gathered here were Arthur's teachers, and they ratified the truth of what Ambrose was saying.

"I agree," I said, speaking for the first time. "But where can we send him?"

Ambrose grunted. "Well, as you have heard, we have identified the places where he can't go. He can't stay here, or anywhere close to our domain. Too many people know him and us.

"He can't go east, either, for along the Saxon Shore, by our own reports, the invaders spread farther inland every year, and the whole land is war-torn. Nor can he go to Vortigern's kingdom, up in Northumbria. The problem with the Danes there is too perilous. South and southeast of us, the situation is the same as on the Saxon Shore, heavily invested with aliens. Southwest and west are Cornwall and Cambria, Ironhair's domain, and in the north, below the Wall, the Picts swarm everywhere." He paused, looking around, and then continued in the same tone.

"That leaves two, or three, alternatives. We could send him to Gaul, to live with your friend Bishop Germanus in Auxerre, or we could send him to his mother's people in Eire, or even to their new holdings among the isles off Caledonia. All of those possibilities, however, safe as they may be, remove the boy from Britain, and that seems wrong. We all believe that if he is to be of any use to Britain as a man, he should remain in Britain as a boy." He stopped. "Your turn, Brother. What must we do?"

I sat for long moments, looking at no one as I sought to digest all I had heard, and then I spoke my mind, saying the words that had been forming there since the first man had spoken.

"Deadlock," I said. "There's nothing to be done. Your analysis is accurate and nothing can be gained by sending Arthur out of Britain. We will have to keep him here, in Camulod, and make the best of it. There's no alternative."

"Ah, but there is, one other, and we have agreed to adopt it." I looked at Ambrose now in surprise.

"I've missed it then. What is it?"

"We've been discussing regions, Merlyn; north, south, east and west. We don't require a region for this undertaking, simply a place to live, an isolated area; a place that's far enough from here to be secure, yet close enough to give us ease of access."

"That is a contradiction in terms."

Ambrose shook his head. "No, it is not; not if you have Connor's galleys at your command, and if the place you choose lies close to his waters and under his protection."

My mind gave a great leap, and fragmentary images of a fleet of galleys flashed behind my eyes.

"We believe you must take the boy, Merlyn, and go with him, under Connor's protection. Arthur is your ward, and you have jurisdiction over his upbringing. Go then, and raise him in peace and safety. Wait!" He held up a hand to stop me from interrupting him. "No one suggests you should do this alone. Some of us will go with you. Donuil and Shelagh and their boys, who are young Arthur's friends. Ded and Rufio will go, and Turga. I shall stay here and govern Camulod, for someone must, but I shall visit with you every year."

They were all staring at me. I blinked and shook my head. My tongue was dry. I swallowed thickly.

"I cannot do that, but someone must. Send someone else."

I had not heard the door open behind me, but now Lucanus spoke over my head.

"You can do it, Merlyn, and you must, for no one else is suited to the task as you are."

I swung in my seat to face him, but he was already passing me, followed by Connor, who grinned at me and nodded before taking a stool from its place against the wall and placing it beside the chair in which Lucanus now sat. I gazed from one to the other of them, my heart hammering, and suddenly identified the tension I had felt since entering the room. They knew! All of them knew.

"You told them."

Lucanus merely shrugged and raised a hand. "I told them you are troubled, yes. I told them of your skin condition and your groundless fears, and I assured them that the best thing you could do is leave here for a while until you are satisfied that you are well again. I told them also that I would go with you as your friend, since I am not really needed here at present. Camulod, I am pleased to say, has no lack of medical skills or personnel. Besides, by being with you, as your physician, I could ensure that, with the proper care and attention, we can clear up this condition of yours. It interests me. Skin ailments always have."

I listened in disbelief, hearing no mention of the dreaded name of my "condition" as he continued.

"So, it seemed reasonable to us all that since we two are the boy's principal instructors, we should take him with us, thus solving several problems at one time. Connor here offered us his galley for our journey, and then Donuil and Shelagh volunteered to come with us, and others followed their lead. We were here all night discussing the matter."

I licked my lips, moistening them before I spoke. "Come with us to where, and for how long?"

Lucanus smiled at me with open candour. "To Cumbria, not Cambria. It is far in the northwest, below Hadrian's Wall and sheltered by mountains. The Roman influence was strong up there, I recall, and the region was garrisoned until the final days of the withdrawals. There is a port there, Connor tells me, where he sometimes stops to buy fresh meat. It is called Glan, something. . ." His eyes crinkled as he sought the name.

"Ravenglass," I said and saw his eyes go wide in surprise. "The Romans called it Glannaventa, but to the local Celts it has always been Ravenglass, Yr-afon-glas, The Green Harbour."

I was conscious of a great and solemn stillness, somewhere deep inside my breast, and my dream of the previous night came flooding back. Arthur had been there in that dream, standing upon a headland with his back to me as he gazed out upon a sea dotted with Connor's galleys. The wind had stirred his cloak and he had turned to me, laughing a strong man's laugh, and I had seen his adult face before I saw the crimson dragon blazoned on his chest and was amazed to see he wore his father's armour. I had reached out to touch it, feeling the coldness of the metal plate beneath my outspread fingers.

"Arthur," I had asked him. "Where did you find this armour?"

He had laughed again, the same loud, rolling laugh, and I had looked up into the enigmatic, shrewd, but not unfriendly eyes of the man who had slain Uther: Derek, who called himself the King of Ravenglass.

EPILOGUE

Some memories remain forever in our consciousness, branded upon our minds in the moment of their creation without awareness on our part of how or why that moment should be momentous. I will never forget my first view of the former Roman port of Glannaventa.

I stood on the stern deck beside Connor's swinging chair, my right hand resting on Arthur's shoulder. The other boys, Bedwyr, Gwin and Ghilleadh, were on the fore-platform with the remainder of our group, peering landward into the low-lying morning fog that clung to the calm surface of the water. I felt Arthur stir uneasily, itching to join his friends, and tightened my grip to hold him still. Connor had been speaking to him moments before, describing the land we were approaching, but now sat silent, his eyes seeking to pierce the fog.

Somewhere ahead of us and above, a gull began to cry and soon was joined by others in a screeching cacophony of noise. To my left, Tearlach, Connor's Captain, stood with Sean the navigator, both men equally attentive.

We had dropped anchor in the pre-dawn of a crystal, starry night, to await the coming of day, in order not to cause alarm by approaching the harbour without being recognised. At dawn, after the calm of the night, Sean had told us, a sea fog would spring up, but would soon dissipate in the fresh day's offshore breeze and the heat of the sun. The sun had risen an hour before, the anchor had been raised, and now we waited, held in place by occasional gentle oar strokes on one side or the other, for the breeze to come from the shore.

"Wind," Sean said softly. As he spoke, I sensed a difference, saw an eddy in the wall of fog ahead of us, and then the clouds parted and seemed to roll away and an offshore wind revealed what lay ahead of us, gilded in the bright sunshine of an early autumn morning.

The first thing I saw was a hillside; a low, swelling bank of land rising directly from the waters ahead and to our left, and the unworthy thought occurred to me that Sean had been mistaken and there was no harbour here. But then the fog bank rolled farther off and showed the bank to be an island, low and wide, around which the water stretched into a shallow bay.

"Half oars," Connor murmured, and Tearlach leaned towards the well of the ship to bellow the order to the men below. Slowly, gathering way only gradually, Connor's long galley began to move towards shore, propelled gently by only half the oarsmen, the others holding their sweeps inboard, standing up vertically so that they formed a row of palisades along each side of the vessel. The great sail, with its black galley device, hung empty from the enormous spar that supported it; its purpose was identification this morning, not propulsion. Ahead of us, the entire western shoreline of the port was revealed to be the exterior wall of a Roman fort, built of stone, from which long wooden piers reached out on either side of the central western gate, into the deep water channel. Above our heads, the watchman at the masthead called out instructions to the pilot below, guiding him along the channel. Someone on the walls began to blow a horn, and within moments we could see figures running along the parapet walk behind the walls.

Arthur squirmed and looked up at me.

"Please, Merlyn, can I go to the prow?"

I released him and watched as he ran along the central spine of the galley like a cat, never once looking where he placed his feet, and then I turned my eyes beyond the fort, looking to either side. Low, densely treed hills stretched away, rising steeply as they receded from the sea. I received simultaneous impressions of peace, strength, wealth and stability, although I had little on which to base such responses and all might have been merely wishful thinking.

"They know us now. Take us in, 'Tearlach." Connor swung himself to face me, a half grin twisting the corner of his mouth. "Well, Yellow Head, so far I think everything is as planned. Our welcome is assured; are you quite sure of yours?"

I glanced at him, then back towards the prow, where my party stood, their excitement evident from their attitudes. Donuil and Shelagh were there, holding their two boys Gwin and Ghilleadh by the hand, restraining them, and Dedalus and Rufio stood one on either side of Lucanus. In front of them stood Turga, Arthur's nurse, and the recently bereaved Hector, who had insisted on accompanying us, unwilling to remain in Camulod when his son Bedwyr's only friends were leaving him. Bedwyr and Arthur, the two oldest boys, were screened from sight by the adults. Hearing the creak of Connor's chair, I turned back to follow his gaze and was in time to see Feargus's galley slipping into place beside Logan's, both of them waiting safely out of range of any danger from the shore.

Looking away again, I wondered what form, indeed, our welcome might take. For all I knew, Derek of Ravenglass might even refuse us right to land in his domain. We had been enemies, he and I, thrown together only twice in the past, by merest chance, although we had never fought and had maintained a wary truce between us. I felt myself smiling and Connor noticed it.

"What are you grinning at?"

"I am about to approach a man who knows me only as an enemy, seeking sanctuary, and I have no idea how he will react. Both times we have met, it has been as enemies. And now I come to him as a supplicant, seeking a life for the son of a man he killed, for which I should have killed him. And yet, outside of my own kin and closest friends, and without any sane reason, I believe I would trust him over any man I know. I can't explain it any better than that."

He smiled back. "Well," he said, his voice strangely gentle. "If he refuses you, you can come north with us. Up there, since it's isolation you are seeking, you should find much to please you. But we'll soon find out if you're sane or not, for I think that's him coming out onto the pier."

A group of people were hurrying to meet us, some of them taking positions to receive thrown ropes, and among them, in the very centre of them, I saw the enormous figure of Derek, their king. I felt a stirring in my gut and, wishing to hide my own uncertainty, quickly looked away, down into the body of the boat, to where a pile of wooden crates lay bound. Within them were the treasures I had brought with me, to sustain us in whatever kind of life might lie ahead: cases of books and parchments, written by my grandfather, my father and my Uncle Varrus; my own favourite selections from the ancient weaponry in Publius Varrus's Armoury; Lucanus's medicinal supplies; a stock of arms and armour for the horses and men now confined in the two galleys that rode behind us; and, in one large crate, the most sacred and the most mysterious things I owned—the oaken case containing Excalibur, and the two menace-filled, iron-bound boxes that had belonged to my father's murderers, the Egyptian sorcerers Caspar and Memnon. In the time ahead, I estimated, I would have ample time to explore those chests and catalogue their contents.

Camulod and Cornwall and Cambria and their dangers lay behind us for a spell. Ahead of us lay Cumbria.

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK