Uther

BOOK TWO

Greetings, Daughter, from your father and myself, both of us are well, our health better than it might he, considering how ancient we are grown, and for that we give thanks to God.

My grandson came to visit me this morning, to say his farewells and tell us that he is to leave for home tomorrow. It was the size of him, and the speed of his growth from infant to man, that made your father and me face up to the fact that we are, too rapidly, growing old. His visit reminded me, too, that the seasons have flown by again and that if I am to write to you this year, it must be done today.

I hope that all is well with you in Tir Manha. Uther says the mountains are very lovely there at this time of the year, but I felt, when he said it, that he was merely making conversation, being polite to his elders. Your father agreed with me, too, and we have both formed the distinct impression that our grandson is reluctant to leave us this year.

The explanation for that is easy to provide, and it has little to do with a reluctance to return to Cambria. This year, for the first time, I believe, Uther is loath to leave the girls of Camulod, and one girl in particular. Her name is Jessica, and she has been visiting here with her father, an old friend to Picus, who now lives in Gaul. She is a pretty little thing, sufficiently so to have turned the heads of Uther and Cay both, stirring a form of rivalry between them that is new. I suspect that my dear grandson fears he is leaving the field to his beloved cousin uncontested, and he seems completely unaware that his fears are groundless. Jessica will be returning to her home in Gaul within the week, and I doubt that she will ever return here, since her father is in failing health. Alas, love appears immortal to the young.

I wanted to tell you about that so that you will not be too concerned should you notice any listlessness or unease in your beloved son on his return. He may simply be pining, and if he is, it will pass. He has had no physical knowledge of love yet, to the extent of my knowledge. The child, Jessica, is an innocent, and I know she is at least as well guarded by her parents in such matters as Uther and Cay have been guarded recently by each other in that respect.

Both boys have grown this year, nevertheless, as I said, from infancy to young manhood almost overnight. It is hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since they were newborn babes.

Farewell, my dear Veronica, and I hope we will be able to see each other again soon. Know that you are in our minds and in our prayers every day, and that your father and I are proud of the grandson with whom you have blessed us.

LV

Chapter SEVEN

Mairidh was dreaming of the boy when the horse woke her with its snorting and stamping, and the moment reality began forcing itself upon her, she moaned and fought against it, refusing to open her eyes. The weight and warmth and smell of the man lying against her side, the feel of his heavy arm across her waist, gave her no pleasure, and she refused to open her eyes to look at him, knowing that when she did she would start an entire new day filled with pain and fear and brutality. He was snoring slightly, his face thrust into her armpit, his breath fluttering against her breast, and the rancid stink of his body made her want to vomit. The Pig. The name had sprung into her mind when she first saw him, and she had heard no other name to gainsay it. She had lost count of the number of times he and his companion had taken her the previous day and night, both of them seemingly insatiable. Now the thrust of his morning hardness pressing against her flank warned her that as soon as he awoke he would be back at her again.

Mairidh was no maiden. She had known her share of men— some said far more than her share—and she exulted in her body and the pleasures it gave her. These two, however, had abducted her after killing the boy. They had brutalized her and dragged her off with them, forcing her to run at the back of her own horse while they both rode the poor beast. They had tethered her by a too-short length of rope, so that as she ran she was in constant danger of being kicked by a flying hoof. Time and again she had fallen and been dragged, but even the beatings she endured for slowing them down had become preferable to the agony of stumbling and staggering behind the horse, hands bound in front of her. Eventually she had fallen into a stupor of exhaustion in which her body ran mechanically while her mind lost all awareness of what was happening.

They had killed the boy, and she had made it possible. Her reward—abduction and violation—had been immediate and inevitable. And even though her complicity in the killing had been unwitting, for a time she had felt that there must be some kind of arcane justice in what was happening to her. Such a beautiful boy, and she had lured him to his death.

Eventually, when they had decided they were far enough removed from the scene of the murder, they had made a rough camp and built a tiny fire, tying Mairidh to a nearby tree while the taller one went off to look around and check that they were where they ought to be and that they were in no danger. He had returned quickly, grinning and nodding to his companion that all was as it should be, and then the two of them had finally let down their guard and relaxed. They had relieved themselves, squatting within sight of her, and then they had eaten, giving her nothing. After that, the evening's entertainment had begun.

They had thrown dice to see which one would have her first, and the shorter of the two, the Pig, who lay beside her now on her right side, had won. The other had held her down, kneeling on her arms. She had fought them at first, but they had beaten her bloody, splitting her nose and lips, and eventually she had submitted and lain still, emptying her mind of everything but her husband's compassionate face while they took her, one after the other, time and again, arousing each other by example long after she would have believed they could sustain such lust.

On countless occasions over the past ten years, Mairidh and her husband Balin had discussed the ramifications of what she was now enduring, facing it as a distinct possibility because of the great amount of travelling they did together. The roads were unsafe everywhere in Britain nowadays, the entire countryside swarming with wandering bands of homeless and desperate men and women, and anyone faced with the prospect of travelling any distance from home had to give serious consideration to the possibility of robbery, abduction and violation in the course of their journey. In consequence, few people travelled nowadays in small groups, preferring to wait for company upon the road in order to enjoy the relative safety offered by larger numbers. Women, as always, were especially vulnerable.

Balin had been endlessly, and at times tediously, insistent upon the need for Mairidh to consider, realistically and ahead of the fact, all that might be and could be involved and entailed in such a misadventure. Her life was the first and most obviously endangered thing: she could be killed attempting to defend herself, or she could be killed from sheer brutality or by accident in the commission of a robbery. Whichever way the death occurred, it would end everything. Next came her health: they might break her bones and rupture her internal organs; they might scar her or mutilate her beyond recognition; or, even less pleasant to consider, they might infect her with some dreadful, incurable disease. Once, when she was a mere child, Mairidh had come face to face unexpectedly with a leper whose facial deterioration was far advanced and horrible to see. She had thought the incident forgotten, but for a term of months following Balin's initiation of these discussions, Mairidh had had terrifying dreams about being ravished by a progression of lepers, all of them as disfigured as the poor creature with whom she had come face to face.

She had railed at her husband then for what she saw as his obsession with her eventual defilement, but she knew now why he had been so concerned, and she blessed him for it.

Balin had known one young woman years before he met Mairidh who had been a clean-living and devoutly religious Christian. This young woman had fallen into the hands of brigands and been repeatedly beaten and violated before being abandoned, naked and alone, by the side of a road far from her home. Her dubious good fortune at being left alive by her abductors was set at naught, however, by the fact that the next group of travellers to come her way was a squad of Roman legionaries who had deserted their post and were fleeing into the mountains—this had been in the north country, almost twenty years earlier, during the final days of Rome's occupation of Britain. These ruffians used the woman even more brutally than had her original captors, but they, too, left her alive when they went on their way.

She was eventually found, close to death, by Balin himself, who was passing that way with his usual large armed escort. He took her into his care, directing his people to make camp right away and then see to the young woman's needs and nurse her back to health. For more than a week—an insignificant amount of time to Balin, who was in no hurry to arrive anywhere by any particular date—they remained in the same spot while the woman recovered her health and faculties, and when she was sufficiently recovered, Balin went to her tent to visit her and asked her to tell him about what had happened to her. She told him all he needed to know, including the details of who she was and where she lived, but he was most concerned by the fact that she seemed to be consumed with guilt, as though all the misfortunes that had happened to her had somehow been her own doing.

Balin tried to comfort her then, to put her mind at ease, for he could see that it was her mind that had been most affected—far more than her body—by what had happened to her. Her body was already beginning to heal, her bruises showing the colours that meant they were fading and improving. Her mind, however, in Balin's judgment, was making no such progress. He talked to her for long hours on each of the three nights she stayed in his camp during her recovery, and on each of those occasions he took the greatest care to stay far removed from her, well beyond the range of any accidental touch, because he had seen the terror that overtook her face whenever he approached her too closely. On each of those three nights, he talked to her quietly, purposely keeping his tone soft and soothing. None of the fault for what had transpired was hers, he told her time and again, but he never began to believe that she paid any heed to his assurances.

On the morning of the fourth day, he awakened to find that she had killed herself during the night, evidently unable to bear the feelings of guilt and uncleanliness that had filled her with despair.

Balin never recovered from the shock of that incident, Mairidh knew. And when he found himself, years later, all unexpectedly blessed with a brilliant and beautiful wife decades younger than himself, he became increasingly concerned about taking steps to ensure that she would never be infected with that kind of crippling, despair- filled guilt, a concern that eventually matured into a mild obsession.

Travel is the function of ambassadors and messengers: they carry tidings over long distances. Balin had to travel, and Mairidh insisted upon going with him. And so Balin had turned his mind towards the instruction of his wife, teaching her to believe that she should feel no guilt if she should ever be forced or violated sexually by anyone.

Her body, Balin had convinced her, was merely the vessel that contained what the Romans called the animus, her soul. As such, her body might be destroyed or mutilated, but her soul, being immortal and immutable, could not be affected by anything earthly. Mairidh now knew, and her mind accepted, that nothing these two men could do to her would change the truth of who she was. They might kill her, and they probably would, but at the moment of her death all power to harm her would be lost to them. Alternatively, they might leave her nurturing a fertile seed. If that were so, she had a score of ways to deal with it, the last of which would be to have the child and pass it on to someone else to rear. They could injure her physically, too, but the pain would heal. What they could not do was hurt her mentally, unless she herself permitted them to do so, and that she never would. The indignity of suffering their animal lusts and brutality was an inconvenience, no more. The filth of their unwashed bodies could be laved away. The marks of their beatings would diminish, and the memory of their foulness would fade.

Her only lasting regret over this incident, she realized, would be for the beautiful boy.

Now Mairidh lay naked on the ground, her arms stretched above her head because they had tied her wrists again and attached the rope to the tree behind her, leaving no slack. It was difficult to breathe lying there, and more difficult still to move at all. The sparse grass on which she lay did nothing to soften the stony ground beneath her, and Mairidh had never known such pain. Her arms were the least troublesome—they soon grew numb, and her awareness of them dwindled to a constant, throbbing ache in her shoulders that flared into white-hot pain only when she attempted to move. The rest of her body was a mass of individual aches and agonies—rope burns on her wrists and a seemingly endless progression of bruises, abrasions and contusions, lumps and welts, and cuts and scratches. There were whole areas where the skin had been torn from knees, ankles, hips, thighs and buttocks when she had fallen and been dragged behind the trotting horse. Her cheeks and brows throbbed dully from the fists that had battered her when she tried to tight them, and her ribs and flanks were sore from the kicks they had used to urge her to her feet whenever she had fallen behind the horse.

For a long time she had thought she might die of cold during the night, but the shorter man had risen to piss and to throw more wood on the fire, and had noticed her lying shivering on the grass. He had stood gaping at her for a while, scratching himself, before dragging his smelly blanket over to where she lay and throwing himself on her again. He had then fallen asleep on top of her, and eventually he slid off to lie huddled against her side, one leg and one arm across her, holding her down. She had not dared to move for fear of wakening him again, and eventually she had slept.

Now she could sleep no more, and the pain in her arms made her want to whimper. Her bladder was full, too, and had been for hours. She knew she could not hold it much longer; the agony was too intense. But if she moved, she would waken the Pig, and then she would have to squat in front of him, naked, and the thrust of his manhood against her hip left her no doubt what that would bring. And that would waken the other one, the big one, who if anything, had been worse than his companion.

The Pig stirred and snuffled, hitching closer, thrusting himself against her and then sliding one heavy leg up along her thigh and onto her belly so that the full weight of it bore down on her swollen bladder. She could no longer fight against the pain or the pressure, and so she gave in and voided where she lay, feeling the scalding heat flooding her thighs, the relief of it almost approaching sexual pleasure. She made no sound, and as the warm reek of her urine rose to her nostrils, it seemed sweeter to her than the goatish stink of her abductor. The heat went quickly from the wetness, however, and she felt it turn icy against her skin. Don't let him feel it! she prayed. Don't let it wake him up!

She knew there were others close by. She had learned that much the previous day, listening to the two of them. They had not talked much, and when they had it was in a dialect she had never heard before, but she had been able to decipher enough to gather that they belonged to a party of twelve who had landed their boat here on the coast and then split up and travelled inland in twos and threes in search of whatever plunder they might find. They were to meet again and disembark for home this morning, and anyone who failed to reach the meeting place by then would be abandoned, presumed dead. These two could have joined their friends the previous night—the short foray made by the tall one on their arrival here had verified that—but they had been unwilling to share her with the others and so had stayed here to keep her for themselves.

Mairidh had no illusions. She knew these two would leave her dead behind them. Her body, she thought. That they could take and destroy, but not her mind, not her spirit—not the animus that was herself.

The man beside her stirred again and grunted, and she froze. For several heartbeats nothing happened, and then she felt his hand move to her hip and push her away, rolling her over onto her side. The hand moved then to her belly, grasping her and pulling her backward, hard, against his loins. But as she tensed against the thrust of him she heard a scuffling noise, and then the sound of a meaty, concussive, crunching blow directly behind her head. The man convulsed, flinging her away from him and filling her ears with a gasping, gurgling, outraged noise that sent her scrabbling, legs scissoring in panic, all thoughts of her philosophy forgotten as she rolled wildly in search of survival, her eyes wide-stretched in terror, her tethered arms preventing her from making any attempt to gather or protect herself.

It was still dark, just before dawn, and she saw the blackness of a hunched figure stooping over the body of the Pig, then straightening, wrenching something free. Whatever he was pulling broke away suddenly, with a grating, sucking sound, springing high and stopping at the level of the crouching figure's head. Mairidh recognized it as a small axe and rolled away again, face down this time, waiting for death. But the noises moved away, leaving her, and she rolled back, fighting for leverage to sit up, knowing it to be impossible. She twisted sideways instead, struggling to see, and in the murky half-light she saw one leaping figure with an upraised arm confront another surging up from the ground. The axe swung down, and again she heard an awful bone-splintering impact, altered by distance this time and followed immediately by a scuffle of falling bodies. She felt vomit surge in her throat, and then she remembered what these animals had done the day before, and the nausea was gone. She looked to where the Pig lay, stiff-legged, his head a featureless black mass.

Her rescuer—could he be that?—was back now, looming over her, and she closed her eyes again, afraid to look. She felt his hand touch her right breast, and some part of her mind was acute enough to register the contact immediately as being a touch—an accidental touch, not a caress or a squeeze—and she began to hope. The hand—both hands now—moved swiftly upward, following the line of her stretched arms to the wrists. She heard an intake of breath and then a fumbling, followed by a grunt of effort and the sound of the axehead biting into the tree behind her, twice, and then a third time. The pressure on her arms lessened, and she knew he had chopped through the rope. He was already pulling and tugging at her, forcing her to rise.

Her arms were on fire, as though they had been torn from their sockets, and she floundered uselessly, unable to use them either to push or to support herself. She felt the smoothness of bare skin as both of his arms slipped about her waist, encircling her and attempting to lift her. He hissed in her ear.

"Move!"

She was too weak. She knew this man would save her, and the knowledge robbed her of any strength she had left. Yet somehow, supported by his arms around her middle, she managed to pull her legs beneath her and then hobble forward like an ancient crone, exhausted and incapable of straightening her back. He took her through a screen of leaves between two trees, and the ground fell away in front of them into a shallow depression. She lost what remained of her balance on the slope and fell forward heavily, so that only the restraint of his arms stopped her from crashing face down. She heard him grunt with the effort of holding her, and then he was turning her, lowering her to the ground, shifting his grip to pull and haul at her until her back was against the sloping bank. Mairidh's mind was spinning, incapable of fully understanding what was happening. She became aware of a sharp, intrusive pain in her left leg, and then she felt a hand behind her knee, lifting and pulling, and another on the inside of her right thigh, doing the same. Stuporous, knowing what he wanted, she spread her legs wide, but he grunted and pulled her knees together again, so that she sat straight-legged. Her head sagged and then snapped up again as he slapped her lightly on the cheek, but her eyes refused to open.

"Mairidh! Mairidh, it's me! Come on now! We have to be away from here."

The voice was coming from very far away, but it sounded like the boy, and that could not be. The boy was dead. Mairidh knew he was dead, because she had watched him go spinning off the cliff. She knew she must be dreaming again. Then she felt someone hauling at her hands, pulling them forward, and the pressure on the ropes that bound them increased. She opened her eyes, feeling the puffiness of them, and peered down to where a knife blade sawed at the knots between her wrists. The ropes fell away, and then two hands began chafing at her wrists, the thumbs digging deeply. The pain overwhelmed her, and she heard herself moaning in protest. A blackness arose within her own mind then, and she felt herself falling into a whirlwind of chaos where she was battered and assaulted by wildly spinning impressions and images.

A short time later, when her eyes snapped open again, she found herself alone. The sky was still grey—lighter than it had been, but the sun still had not risen. Her wrists burned—she raised them and looked down, feeling, but unable to see, the angry rawness where the skin had been lacerated and rubbed away completely. She was filthy, her naked body covered with dirt, some of it dried mud and crusted with scabbed scrapes and cuts. Remembering then, she struggled to sit up, grunting with pain from the effort, and as she did so, she saw a shape running towards her, stooped over as though to avoid being seen. It was the boy. The boy she had believed dead.

He came to a stop in front of her, kneeling and holding out a double handful of clothes—the single filthy, tunic-like garment in which she had been abducted and the long, saffron-coloured gown she had worn at the start of the previous afternoon before the attackers had found them. Mairidh ignored the offering. She merely blinked at him, devouring every detail of his appearance. He was as naked as she was and almost as dirty, but she was mainly aware of his face, remembering how it had looked gazing down on her from above in the sunlight the previous day, the way the thick, black curls had fallen onto his forehead above startling, bright blue eyes and the solid, tanned column of the strong young neck. A beautiful boy.

"You died."

The boy shook his head, smiling quickly. "No, I didn't. I'm here."

"They killed you."

"No, but they will if they find us here now. There's more of them close by. Can you stand up? I'll help you. Here, put these on." He thrust the clothing at her again, but she still frowned at him, ignoring the clothes, dimly aware of how stupid she must seem, sitting there, naked and filthy, gazing up at him. But her last sight of him filled her mind again, his face screwed up in agony as the larger of her two abductors swung him by one leg and the hair of his head and hurled him, screaming, from the edge of a high cliff.

"I saw you die. They killed you."

He shook his head again, his face now betraying impatience. "No, you saw me fly, not die. They threw me off the cliff, and you thought I must be dead. So did they. But the fool threw me too well-—too hard and too far. I flew out and missed hitting the stones of the riverbank. Instead, I fell into deep water and landed on my belly. It drove all the wind out of me, but I swim like a fish, and I made it to shallow water. When I finally was able to walk again, I climbed back up, but you were gone. Here, take my hand, and put these clothes on."

Mairidh took his hand and forced herself to rise, leaning heavily on his supporting arm and weaving gently backwards and forwards until she felt confident enough to release her grip. He was staring at her, his eyes wide and concerned, and she forced herself to look away, back to the clothes he held.

"You brought my robe."

"I knew you'd need it."

She held up the other garment and saw that it was ruined, torn and stained with earth and blood, and she looked down again at her battered body.

"Why did you follow us? You didn't have to . . . You didn't even have a weapon, did you? I know, because the Pig took your dagger."

The boy shrugged. "No, no weapon. But I knew I could steal one from them if they gave me the chance."

She shook her head slightly, as though dismissing some minor confusion, then looked back at the torn tunic and began pulling it over her head. The boy straightened up while she did so and stood gazing back the way he had come, his entire body radiating tension. She spent a moment trying to get the torn shoulder of the tunic to hang properly, then dismissed it and wrapped the long robe about her. It was clean, and it was soft, and it covered her completely.

When she looked up from tying the sash about her waist, he had vanished again. For a flashing moment, filled with fear, she thought she must have imagined his being there, but she was free and alone, and the clothes she had put on were real—her own clothing. Weaving on her feet again, she looked around, but there was no sign of him, and she sat back down against the bank to wait, convinced that he would return for her. Moments later, he did, reappearing silently from the fringe of bushes on her left.

"Can you walk?"

Mairidh nodded meekly. "I think so, but I don't know how far I can go."

"Far enough to stay alive?" He smiled again, a small, very tentative smile, but she was amazed that he could. "We need to put some space between us and the shore over there, and between us and those two dead men."

She looked at him and nodded her head again, still uncertainly. He was wearing his own clothes again—the rich, white woollen tunic and the leather overshirt that had first caught her eye and which the Pig had stuffed into a sack before fleeing the scene of what she had thought to be the boy's murder. The sack itself now lay at his feet, stuffed with whatever contents the Pig had found to cram into it. The boy had also cleaned the axe and thrust it into his belt, and he had recovered his own long dagger from the Pig's belongings and his bow and arrows from where they had lain beside the other dead man. The dagger now hung at the boy's left hip, opposite the axe, and he had slipped the strung bow and the full quiver of arrows over his shoulders with the taut bowstring and the strap of the quiver crossing in the centre of his breast. The right side of his tunic was thick with blood, and he glanced down as he saw her notice it, touching the clotting mass with the pad of one fingertip.

"It's not mine," he said. "I'm not hurt at all. Ready?"

She drew a deep breath and nodded firmly, and he reached out to take her hand and pull her to her feet before leading her away from the clearing, deep into the undergrowth. There they found a wide and well-used game path that led them through the densest thickets of the forest. They made good time then, and the urgency of their progress diminished as the sea coast fell steadily behind them, so that the boy eventually stopped pulling her along and fell back to walk behind her, allowing Mairidh to choose her own pace.

Mairidh's exhaustion waxed and waned as she moved forward, sometimes threatening to overwhelm her completely and at other times fading into the background of her awareness. As long as their route was level and straightforward, she could function with an appearance of ease, but whenever the going became heavy, when they had to force their way uphill or through brush looking for another trail, the weight of her legs and feet seemed to increase dramatically, and the sound of her heartbeat grew loud in her ears.

At those times, she wanted merely to fall down on the grass and sleep, and invariably, when she was close to yielding to the temptation, she found herself wanting to weep. Yet it was that very awareness of her own weakness that forced her to keep forging ahead each time she had determined to give up.

At one point, on the summit of a low hill that had seemed far higher when they were climbing it, she stopped and turned to the boy.

"How long have we been walking?"

He glanced around him and shrugged. "Three hours . . . something like that. It's mid-morning."

"Then we must be almost there."

"Almost where?" He was gazing at her quizzically.

"Back. Where they found us. I gauged we had travelled for about four hours yesterday before they made camp."

He shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "Hmm, but we're on a different route, and we've been moving at about half the speed they maintained yesterday. Remember, they had a horse."

"Remember? I had to run behind the thing. But why are we not riding it now? Why did you leave it behind?"

"Think about that for a moment, and you'll know the answer. If we had taken the horse, we would be tied to the road or to pathways that the horse could use. Once those raiders find their dead companions, they'll turn the place upside down looking to discover who killed them. We have left no tracks behind us, but had we taken the horse, we would have, and they would have come running after us."

He stopped talking and stood squinting at her. Mairidh could barely keep her eyes open. He nodded. "Hmm. You need rest."

"No, rest is not enough. I have to sleep, even if it be for no more than an hour. I barely slept at all last night and had no real rest. Now my body is screaming for sleep. Please?"

Again he looked around him, as though checking for signs of pursuit, and then he grunted and nodded, looking down into the valley ahead of them, then up to the sky, where the rain clouds that had threatened them all morning were beginning to scatter, showing broad tracts of blue.

"Aye. We'll be safe enough now. I know where we are, but we're still half a score of miles and probably more from where we want to be. There's a pool down in the valley there that you will love, I promise you, and you can sleep there for a few hours. While you are doing that, I'll find us something to eat."

Chapter EIGHT

It was the smell of food that finally awakened her. Mairidh lay for a long time, watching the boy as he crouched over the fire he had built. Above it, on a framework of green twigs, he had skewered a hare. As she watched, he reached out and carefully turned the spitted meat above the flames, and she heard the hissing sound of fat dripping into the coals. Her mouth filled with saliva, and she swallowed, but she took care to make no move that would alert him to the fact that she had finally awakened.

The boy had stayed with her while she bathed in the miraculous pool of naturally hot water that he had promised, which welled from an underground spring like the famous one she had visited in Aquae Sulis many years earlier. She had been incredulous, at first, watching the wisps of steam that rose from the gently roiling surface of the water, and the boy had told her then how he had sat in it one day, warm and wonder-struck as snowflakes drifted down from above and chilled his skin with tiny icy pinpricks.

Later, reclining in the hot water, beginning to feel clean again, Mairidh had wept silently, tears of thanksgiving for her rescuer and for the fact that his life, too, had been spared. By the time she had climbed out of the pool, he had built up a roaring fire in a sheltered angle between two large, flat stones that someone had set on end in the past. She had dried herself in front of it using a large, soft woollen cloak from the Pig's sack as a towel. Then, with a solicitude that had seemed more suitable to a father or an older brother than a young lover, he had helped her tend to the worst of her cuts and bruises, gently wiping those she could not reach herself. Afterwards he had lowered her gently down onto a thick bed of newly gathered moss, wrapped her in her saffron robe and covered her with his leather overshirt, and over that with the woollen cloak. She had fallen asleep almost immediately, overcome with feelings of peace and well-being and the release from danger.

Now, judging by the westering sun, she knew it must be late in the afternoon. Knowing that he thought her still asleep, Mairidh allowed herself the luxury of simply looking at the boy and wondering.

He was tall and strongly built—as big as any full-grown man, in fact—and yet she judged him to be no more than fifteen years old, perhaps sixteen. More than that, however, he was beautiful, in a time and a place where male beauty, in the classic Roman sense of the word, was something seldom seen. It was his . . . what was it? She sought the word . . . his wholesomeness, the cleanly proportioned, hairless Roman look of him. Of course, she knew he was no Roman. There had been no Romans left in Britain for more than a decade and a half since the legions left. Moreover, this boy was clearly a local Celt, with his black hair, fair skin and bright blue eyes. But he was tall for his people and strong, with wide shoulders, long arms and a narrow waist. He was also clean in the fastidious way of the Romans, with a glowing, healthy, well-scrubbed look to him. The combination of that cleanliness with the clearly muscled shape of his lithe young body had caught her eye and her fancy in a way that seldom happened to her nowadays.

She had first seen him swimming in the river with several friends of his own age, and he had glittered among them like a jewel among broken glass. So she had watched him from afar, perched high on a cliff and concealed from their view by a screen of low-growing shrubbery. She remembered her surprise when he had finally emerged from the water and dried himself with a thick towel produced from a leather satchel, then dressed in what she could see was rich and well-made clothing. The knowledge that he was thus obviously the son of a wealthy and powerful man had intrigued her and enabled her to pretend she had another reason altogether for returning the following day to watch the boy again, this time without the young woman who, acting as her companion, had first led her that way.

She could not have given a coherent reason, even to herself, to explain why she might be content to crouch alone for the better part of a day, spying on a boy who must have been at least ten years her junior, but she had felt no desire to justify anything she did, least of all to herself. The watching gave her intense pleasure, and she had long since learned never to spurn such gifts.

Her husband, Balin, was no longer a young man, and his interest in sex for its own sake had begun to wane. A few years earlier, when he and Mairidh first wed, he had been more than able to acquit himself handsomely and had taken lustful and glorious pleasure in the voluptuous blandishments of his lovely young wife. He no longer had the potency with which to express his feelings, but his wife had, and he would never have denied her the right to express and enjoy her sexuality. Balin's beliefs were his own, gathered and assimilated throughout a lifetime of travel, observation and discussion of various religions, including Druidism and Christianity. Sex, he believed, was an elemental part of religion and religious fervour. Men and women were born of sex, he maintained, and therefore owed the gods their gratitude, which they could express through sex, irrespective of age or gender. He believed implicitly that Mairidh's love for him would be unaffected by her enjoyment of casual, normal sex with others. Love was ineffable, Balin believed, and sex was nothing more than private prayer.

Bolstered by that knowledge and having come to share her husband's beliefs over the years, Mairidh now felt no fears at all about the way Balin perceived her. She knew that his love for her was secure.

Even when she returned the third day and the boy had not appeared, Mairidh had smiled wryly to herself before admitting that she was more disappointed than she might have thought possible mere days before. But she had had nothing better to do, and the boy was beautiful enough to justify her efforts, so she had resolved to return on the fourth day.

The boy came swimming once again, accompanied this time by only a few companions. Once again she watched from the concealment of her high ledge, this time hoping against all logic that his friends would go away and leave him alone, since it was inconceivable that she might make any approach to him while they were present. They were mere boys, younger-looking and far less mature than he appeared to be, loud, boisterous and irreverent, with the bruising noisiness that all boys of their age possessed. Mairidh had no difficulty imagining their prurient reactions should they discover her spying on them, and she smiled grimly to herself and remained in hiding.

And then, quite suddenly, between one moment and the next, they vanished without warning, their presence and their noise dwindling until finally engulfed by the surrounding forest. For whatever reason, the boy had remained behind, alone, floating tranquilly on his back in their waist-deep swimming hole. She waited for a long time, her heart pounding, before she was able to accept that the others had really gone away and were not sneaking about through the undergrowth, playing some boyish game of raiders. Once she did accept it, however, she moved quickly, wasting no more time.

She descended quickly to the riverbank, careful to move quietly lest she betray her presence, and then she paused to collect herself, drawing several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her suddenly racing heart. When she was sure that no sign of any kind could betray her appearance of unsuspecting innocence, she began humming to herself very quietly and stepped forward, allowing her long-skirted clothing to brush audibly against the bushes lining the narrow riverside path.

The boy was taken completely by surprise, a picture of wide- eyed confusion as he realized that he was floating on his back, utterly naked and exposed to the eyes of a beautiful woman smiling at him from the waterside. He almost drowned himself with the sudden violence of his reaction, spinning in the water and attempting to dive out of sight, yet trying to cover his nakedness with both hands as he did so. Of course, he failed to disappear and instead merely exposed his white, vulnerable buttocks while inhaling vast quantities of water.

Watching him sputtering and flailing around with his eyes closed against the indignity of what was happening to him, Mairidh stood with her hand across her mouth, her eyes alight with laughter that she knew she must put down completely. By the time he regained his composure, she had mastered herself, and her eyes showed only concern for his welfare. He stood facing her eventually, his eyes wide and his whole body trembling slightly with tension and perhaps embarrassment, both hands held low in front of him under the water, covering his maleness.

Mairidh stepped closer to the bank, looking directly down at him.

"Are you . . . ?" She stopped herself, aware that the question would seem either foolish or patronizing. The boy simply stared, and she paused for the length of three heartbeats before continuing. "I startled you, forgive me. It was inconsiderate of me to approach so close without giving some kind of warning . . ."

"You knew I was here?" His voice, this close, was conversational and deeper, huskier than she had expected from the few shouts she had heard from a distance.

"No, of course not. How could I know that?"

His frown pressed a tiny crease between his brows. "Then why would you think to give warning of your coming?"

Mairidh smiled. "You are right, that was silly of me. I will leave you. Forgive me."

"Wait!"

She had drawn a deep breath and turned to go, moving slowly and giving him time to note the depth and shape of her bosom. Now she paused, half-turned and looked back over her shoulder towards him.

"Yes? What is it?"

He glanced about him frantically, looking for she knew not what, and then he looked at her again, perplexed. "Are you alone, Lady?"

"I am."

"But—" He stopped short, and she waited for three more beats before responding.

"But? It seemed to me you had much more to say than that when you began to speak." She smiled to take any edge of criticism from her words.

"You . . . you should not be alone out here. It is dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Still smiling, she looked about her. "How so, dangerous? I sense no danger here, and my senses are acute."

There was a log lying close by, its upper surface smoothed by years of long use by the boys who came to this spot to swim. Mairidh moved casually to it and sat down, gathering her skirts about her, and from that moment on, inexplicably, the tension departed, and the two of them began to converse easily. The boy began an attempt to explain the dangers that could lie in wait for an attractive woman travelling the woods with no one nearby to protect her, but since he himself was utterly innocent, he had no real idea of what those dangers might be, and he was soon floundering. Seeing his dilemma, Mairidh immediately and gently put him at his ease, provoking his embarrassment by appointing him her extempore guardian.

Thereafter, matters progressed smoothly, from Mairidh's viewpoint. She enjoyed his uncomplicated, admiring reaction to the sight of her every time she moved and took even greater pleasure from his blushes whenever she smiled at him or teased him gently. She had decided that she would have this boy, convinced that he was virginal. That conviction excited her almost unbearably, and now, knowing that she had his complete attention, she set about her seduction of the lad with great care, feeling the excitement flare and flicker in her in a way she had not known in years. She flirted with him blatantly there on the riverbank, taunting him gently and subtly, knowing intuitively that his modesty would not permit him to come out of the water, naked as he was. Drawn like a moth to a flame, however, and emboldened by her warmth despite his evident nervousness, the boy finally waded closer to where she sat, moving on his knees when he found it necessary to protect his modesty, and seated himself precariously on a stone in the river bottom where the silt-laden water was deep enough to cover his nakedness. He sat staring at her, his eyes fixed on her face, his arms floating on the surface of the water, which came up almost to his chin.

She told him much of the truth about who she was and why she was there. She had come to the region accompanying her husband, who was elderly—she had made that sound like ancient—and had weighty affairs to conduct in this part of the country. Those affairs, involving much talk and protracted dealings with local dignitaries and leaders, left his young wife with much free time by herself. She could have accompanied him in all things that he did, but she admitted that she found the endless talking and discussions of his errands wearisome and boring. And so she spent much time alone and in need of pleasant and amusing company.

By the time Mairidh rose to leave that afternoon, she knew that the boy's name was Merlyn—he pronounced it the old way, Myrrdin, in his lilting, lisping Cambrian tongue—and she knew he would be there the following day. For the entire length of that first afternoon she had exulted in the unguarded, wide-eyed way he looked at her; she had revelled in the awe with which he watched her every move and expression. And she had smiled at him often with her wide mouth and mobile lips, loving the knowledge that he was utterly unaware of his own beauty.

She rode out the following day in a light cart pulled by a single horse and found him awaiting her alone by the swimming hole, his face radiant with longing as he reached out his hand to help her down. His obvious delight and undisguised excitement at her arrival made it clear that he had not really expected her to come, and she had to breathe deeply at first to maintain her own composure. Her heart beat even faster as he gripped her hand tightly and then released it with great and evident reluctance. She looked about her then, pretending surprise that he had brought no friends with him, and he flushed with embarrassment, too unsure of himself to be confident that she had come to see him alone.

Sometime later she pointed upward to the place from where she had first seen him and asked him what was up there. When he told her it was no more than a flat, grassy spot high above the river, she asked if it was accessible, and then suggested that they climb up there to eat the food she had brought with her in the cart. He was quite startled to discover that she might actually want to make the effort to climb all the way up there, but when she insisted, he was happy to assist her in making the climb, holding her hand tightly every step of the way and bracing her manfully whenever she had to lean on him for support. Only once did she slip on the way up to the heights, and it was close to the top. She went ahead of him on the last stretch, lost her balance, teetered precariously and then began to fall, twisting towards him and throwing her arms about him, clutching the back of his head in apparent terror as she pressed her face into the sweet-scented softness of his neck.

Once she had assured herself that she was safe again, she showered him with gratitude for his rescue, flattering him outrageously and squeezing his arm, pulling him close to her as they made their way up onto the thick, mossy carpet that covered the flat ground at the top of the cliff. And there, three full hours later, on the lush green grass overlooking the river far below, she took him to herself after a long drawn-out seduction, savouring the delicious first fruits of his young manhood, glorying in her power to shape him, all unknowing, to her desires, rendering him speechless and awkward, and thrilling to the hard, clean strength of him and the growing confidence with which he rose over her eventually, once the first gushing outpourings of his initial fear and tension had abated.

And then, in the midst of their idyll, while they were lost in the exploration of each other, the brutal savagery of the attack had come—the succession of kicks and heavy blows raining on the boy from every direction and his helpless efforts to avoid them and protect himself; the bestial panting and the mindless, grunting, gleeful violence of their two assailants; and the sickening sight of the boy being whirled around by one of them, free of the ground, and then hurled off the clifftop down into the river far below . . .

Now, in her safe haven, as she watched the boy preparing their food, she flinched, recalling the horrible scene. The boy noticed the sudden movement and looked over. He stiffened, and a small frown appeared between his brows.

"What? What's wrong? What is it?"

Mairidh shook her head. "Nothing. I was remembering what happened." She sat up, holding her robe tightly at the throat so that it covered her completely. "You killed both of them."

An expression of surprise made his face go tight, and then he shrugged. "Aye. But you sound disappointed. Should I have let them live and left you with them?"

"No, of course not. That's not what I meant."

He half turned towards her, squatting back on his haunches, watching her eyes. "What did you mean, then?"

"I don't know, Merlyn. It's simply that until I saw you there, until you did it . . . I would never have considered that you might . . ." Her voice tailed away.

"Might what? Might have been capable?"

"I suppose so, yes. You seemed too young . . ."

He lifted the spitted hare away from the fire, and his muttered response drifted back to her over his shoulder. "Well you were wrong. I'm not too young. I'm almost sixteen."

She knew, intuitively, that he had misconstrued her words. "I meant too young to kill—not too young to be a man . . ." she explained.

"Is there a difference?"

Now she knew she had offended him, but she had no idea how to undo the damage, and her voice was uncertain. "Merlyn?"

"That's not my name."

"What?"

"I said that's not my name!" He looked back at her, his face flushed and guilty-looking. "When I said my name was Merlyn, I lied. Merlyn is my cousin. My name is Uther."

Mairidh merely blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Why? Why would you lie about a thing like that?"

"Because I knew who you were, and I thought you might recognize my real name."

"You knew who I was? How could you? And how would I know you as—what is it? Uther? I have never heard that name before. Why should I recognize it?"

"It's Uther Pendragon. My father is Uric, King of our people." As understanding began to come to her, he pressed on. "You told me about your husband, and I knew his business was with my father. His name is Balin. You told me that, too, but I already knew it. I have seen him, although I have never met him, and I felt. . . strange learning who you were. I knew even then, the first time I saw you, that I loved you . . . and although I would not have dared to think that I might ever touch you, I feared that if you knew I was my father's son, you might not wish to talk with me."

Now Mairidh smiled at him, savouring that admission of love—the all-consuming first love of adolescence. "Well, now you know it was a foolish fear, don't you?" she said.

"Do I? Would you have lain like that with me had you known who I truly was at the outset?"

"Of course I would! I did know who you truly were, Uther, and in the most important way of all for any woman: you were the one person in the world I most wanted to lie with me and take me as you did. Your name was the least significant thing in my mind."

He stood staring at her now, his hand lowering the peeled stick that spitted the hare so that the cooked carcass was in danger of sliding off the end of it. She nodded towards it.

"You're going to drop that into the fire, you know. Much better if you simply set it down, and we'll eat it. I'm starved."

The boy glanced towards the roasted hare, then moved it away from the flames, lowering the end of the spit to the grass as he looked back at her, his eyes searching hers for any sign of mockery.

"Do you mean that? You enjoyed . . . what we did?"

"Well, of course I enjoyed it! Come here, closer, over here . . ." She waited until he approached close enough for her to be able to reach out and touch his cheek. "Now look at me, look close into my eyes! I want you to read the truth there. Look at me and hear me . . . I loved every moment of it, and I have no regrets . . . none at all. Do you?"

His denial was immediate and emphatic, a wordless, negative head shake.

She smiled again and spoke more softly, caressing him with her tone. "Well, in truth, I do have one regret . . . I regret that we were interrupted so brutally, but that is the only regret I have. No, that's untrue, too . . . I also regret not knowing you would follow me and save me from those creatures. It would have been far easier had I known you would come for me." She paused, eyeing the hare again. "Are we going to eat that?"

He raised the stick again and withdrew it from the carcass, bracing the hot, smoking meat with a smaller stick until the main skewer came free and then laying the cooked meat on a large burdock leaf beside the fire. "I've no salt, though."

Mairidh laughed and allowed the robe to slip from her shoulders. "Let's eat it then, because I'm famished. If I need salt, I'll lick some sweat from your chest."

Later, when they lay temporarily sated with eating before the sun went down, Uther wanted to make love to her, but Mairidh demurred gently, pleading soreness and exhaustion and reminding him of all she had gone through the night before. Instantly abashed and embarrassed by his own thoughtlessness, he was profuse in his apologies, but she soothed him then and made him lie down beside her, and for a space they were quiet. But soon his awareness of her closeness stirred him afresh, and she took pity on him, relieving him with her hand in the space of a few heartbeats.

After that he slept for a short time, for he had had even less sleep than she the night before.

Later still, when his breathing changed sufficiently to tell her he was no longer asleep, she smoothed her hand up his flank as far as his hip bone, and felt him grow tense, anticipating more intimacy.

"How long will we stay here, Uther?"

"Hmm?" He was almost asleep, but he roused himself and looked around at the willow trees that stood silhouetted against the late-evening sky and screened their refuge from the rest of the world. "Tonight. We'll sleep here and head homeward in the morning. We'll be there by noon. They'll be looking for us by now, though. My father will be angry . . . Your husband will be too, I should think."

"Worried, certainly, and fretful. But not angry. He knows I would not simply run off. Had I wished to do that, I would have done it long since, and had I not wished to be here with him, I would not have come to Cambria. So he will be afraid I've come to harm, and hence he will be happy to see me returned safely by my rescuer. He will be very grateful . . . particularly when I have told him how heroic you were following me, alone and unarmed." She felt him go tense beside her. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"What will you tell him? He'll know we were—"

She silenced him by laying her hand flat against his chest, gentling him with its steady pressure.

"Hush you! He will know only what I tell him. You were swimming and came running when you heard me scream. My attackers turned on you and beat you, then threw you into the river and stole all your possessions. But instead of drowning, you climbed back and followed them, killed them both and set me free. And then you brought me back with you. Most of that is true, save for the opening . . ."

He said nothing, and she lay silent for a spell. Then, "Was that the first time you ever killed someone?"

He turned his head away, and for a long time she thought he would not respond, but then he drew a deep breath. "It won't be the last." He kept his face averted, and she stroked the soft hairs at the nape of his neck.

"You sound very sure of that."

"I am. I am the King's son, and I'm of age. I'll be a warrior soon, and I must be a champion." His voice was very quiet.

"What do you mean by that, a champion?"

He turned back to her, wordlessly, his right hand moving in utter confidence now to her breast, the thumb brushing her nipple, stirring the smouldering fires in the depth of her so that her breath caught in her throat and she shuddered, reaching for him, yet turning her body so that his maleness thrust against her hip.

"Wait! Wait, not yet—"

He stopped, raising himself over her to peer down into her eyes, and she could see no sign of the callow, hesitant boy of the day before.

"Forgive me," he said. "I forgot, again. It shouldn't be possible for me to forget, I know, but when I am near to you like this, beside you—"

She silenced him by placing her fingertips against his lips. "Hush," she whispered, "you have done nothing wrong, and what you feel is only natural. I am the one who should feel regrets, and believe me, I do, for I want you as much as you want me . . . In fact . . . wait . . ." She moved her lower body, twisting sinuously yet carefully against him. "There now, see what you can achieve. But gently, gently . . ."

He moved delicately and with great gentleness, fitting himself to the contours of her body and lifting her cautiously with one supporting arm until he could sheathe himself, and they made love in silence, slowly and almost without moving.

When it was over, and they lay entwined, she turned her head and smiled at him. "That will improve," she whispered, "now that we have discovered how to do it without hurting any of my bruises." She moved her bottom, pushing it into the hollow of his lap. "Now, tell me what you meant earlier when you talked of being a champion rather than a warrior."

He pushed himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. "You don't know the difference?" She shook her head, gazing back at him, and he reached down beneath the coverings and hooked his other elbow gently beneath her knee, raising it and pulling it towards him, then insinuating himself into the space he had formed. For a long moment he remained there, staring into her eyes, and then, his voice thick with desire, he whispered, "Later . . . I'll tell you afterwards."

She shuddered and smiled, closing her eyes.

"Being a warrior means fighting at any time . . . But being a champion means winning all the time. It means defeating every enemy who challenges your championship, and doing it so thoroughly and so completely that he will never think to challenge you again . . . Being a warrior means fighting on command and lighting to survive. Being a champion means killing constantly in response to challenge and being challenged constantly."

Mairidh had no idea how much time had passed since Uther had last spoken. She had had other things to occupy her since then.

Listening to the sound of his voice now, however, and feeling the sweat cooling between her breasts, she became aware that he was repeating something learned by rote, not expressing his own opinion. She twisted her body in order to squint at him where he lay so close beside her.

"Being challenged constantly by whom?"

"What?" He sounded now as though he had been on the verge of sleep when she spoke.

"You said something about killing in response to challenge and being challenged constantly. Who are these challengers?"

He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Anyone who wishes to challenge you," he muttered sleepily. "When you are champion, everyone wants to best you."

"So every man is your enemy, is that what you are saying?" She waited, but he did not respond. "Uther!"

"What?"

"Don't go to sleep now. I'm talking to you. Are you saying that all men are your enemies?"

He grunted again, then sat up, stretching his arms above his head and then bending over her to brush his fingertips through her pubic hair, setting her skin tingling.

"No," he said quietly, his eyes intent upon her body. "Not enemies, but rivals . . . challengers. You're all shivery . . . A champion has no enemies . . . not living ones, at least."

She reached down and caught his hand in hers, holding it gently but firmly to rid herself of the distractions it was causing. "Who taught you that?"

He glanced up at her and smiled, tugging gently to free his hand. She held it fast.

"Garreth."

"And who is Garreth?"

"Garreth Whistler. He's my . . . teacher. Cay . . . Merlyn . . . calls him my mentor, but he's really my personal guard, appointed by my father and grandfather for my protection when I was a child. I grew up, but Garreth remained with me. Now he teaches me to fight the Pendragon way."

"Why do you call him Garreth Whistler?"

"Because he whistles all the time, and better than anyone else."

"Of course, why else such a name?" She was smiling gently now. "But if he is your personal guard, where is he now? Should he not be with you, protecting you at all times? Or is he merely lazy, guarding you only when he feels like it?"

The boy was outraged. "Garreth is not lazy! He is not here in Cambria, that's all. My father sent him away on the King's business three weeks ago, and he is not expected back until next month."

"Ah, I see. Forgive me, for I had no way of knowing that, and so I must ask you to convey my apologies to Garreth Whistler for the slight. Tell me about this Merlyn . . . or is his name really Merlyn? Did you not call him Cay a moment ago? Where does he live?"

Seeing her smile, his own smile grew wider, the pull of his hand increasing slightly. She closed her other hand about his wrist. He pressed downward, one wiggling fingertip brushing her belly.

"Aye," he said. "Both names are right. He is Caius Merlyn Britannicus. The family and his close friends all call him Cay. He's in Camulod."

"Camulod? I've heard of Camulod, but I've never been there." Mairidh paused, thinking. "Nor have I ever met anyone who has, now that I come to think of it. It's somewhere to the east of here, is it not, inland?"

The boy nodded. "Aye, southeast."

"And is it far from here to there?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Far enough, depending upon how quickly you want to travel."

"Is it a Roman town with walls?"

"No, it is not a town at all . . ." His hand went limp, and he fell back to lie beside her. She did not release his hand, in case his surrender might be no more than a ruse, but he was looking up again now to where the sun was disappearing behind a cloud. "It's going to rain," he said, then looked at her again.

"Camulod is a place built by my grandfather and my great-uncle, about four days' travel from here. I've lived there half my life, half of all my time. The other half of the time I'm here with my father's people. Cay and I are usually together all the time."

"You like him, this Caius Merlyn, don't you?"

"Of course. He is my cousin and my closest friend. We were born on the same day, four hours and four days' travel apart. Him in Camulod, me here in Cambria. But Cay loves to read and write and learn things out of books. I don't. I prefer to learn things otherwise, by training and example, as Cay says. He thinks I'm mad not to love books."

Now it was Mairidh who smiled. "And you disagree?"

"Well, I think he's mad to waste so much time reading. I prefer to spend my time with Garreth. That's why I'm here this summer while Cay stays in Camulod. Garreth is training me to use the longbow properly and to fight with an axe and shield. The truth of the champion was the first thing he ever taught me, and I've never forgotten it. He taught me about fear."

"Tell me," she said.

His arm tightened very gently around her shoulders.

"You have to understand about Garreth if you're to understand what I'm going to tell you next. And you're a woman, so you might not be able to understand it. Garreth was my father's greatest warrior, the King's Champion. He would fight any and every man who sought or thought to undermine the King's authority. He was, and he still is, unconquered and unbeatable. But that day, he told me that he had always been afraid of going into battle—of fighting and of being hurt or killed."

His voice died away, and for a long time Mairidh wondered if he had forgotten that she was listening and would say no more. Finally she stirred against him, prompting him to continue.

"The only time you need be ashamed of fear, he told me, the only time, is when you allow your fear to rule you, for then it changes and becomes cowardice. So what you have to do is recognize your fear and then ride over it. It sounds easy enough, but it's really very difficult at first, because most men don't know what's involved. They know only that they're afraid and that they don't want to be hurt. No one has ever told them that they can face fear and overcome it simply by not allowing it to beat them. I've overcome it many times now, and it grows easier every time . . . not because your fear grows smaller, but only because you become more aware of the need to do it and get it over with. And if you do it well enough, knowing that everyone else is just as fearful as you are, then you can reach a state of mind where you can out-think your enemies and beat them by doing what they least expect. You seize the moment and make it yours. You hit first with all the strength you have and with the biggest, heaviest, sharpest weapon you possess, when he is least expecting it."

It was a long speech, the longest she had heard him make, and when he reached the end of it, she sat silent, waiting, unsure how to respond, doubting that there was anything to say that would not sound foolish or patronizing. But then he spoke again, almost inaudibly, as if he were speaking to his own inner ear.

"The rules for being a champion are simple. Conquer your own fear first."

"Really? Is it that easy?"

He turned his face towards her, half smiling, half frowning. "There's not much more than that, whether your name is Hercules, Julius Caesar or Uther Pendragon. You have to identify your enemy, face him as soon as you can and cut him down before he can tell you. No half measures, no compromises. You hit him as hard as you can, as soon as you can, and while he's reeling, you hit him again until he goes down and doesn't get back up. Do that once, and men begin to respect you; do it often enough, and they begin to fear you; do it ruthlessly enough, and eventually no others will challenge you."

"And what about you now? Have you begun to change, to become a champion, by killing those men this morning? Is that what you are trying to tell me?"

"No, it's not. I killed those men this morning because there was nothing else I could do, other than run away and leave you with them. That's part of overcoming your fear, you see . . . knowing what you have to do and then doing it before the fear of it can undo you."

"I see. But those were the first men you have ever killed . . . am I correct in that?"

"Aye, although I tried as hard as I could to kill another boy when I was twelve."

Mairidh had no adequate response to that, and so she subsided into silence and squirmed closer to his lean, hard body. She lay still for a time, cradled in the crook of his arm. feeling the warmth of his breath and the rise and fall of his chest until something—perhaps the depth and regularity of his breathing—told her he was asleep. She moved one hand along his forearm, feeling the solid bulk of muscle there, and she smiled to herself, enjoying the thought of how the man in him was so often usurped by the earnest, innocent boy. For now, the boy was hers to enjoy, and she was grateful. She was not tempted to consider that the man in him might someday be hers too; Mairidh was too wise for that. She smiled again and turned her face to smell the scent of him, and some time later she, too, drifted off to sleep.

When they woke up again, the first hints of dawn were beginning to lighten the sky, and they busied themselves in cleaning up, bathing in the hot pool and ransacking the Pig's sack for useful items. They found some cloths that they could use to dry themselves, but nothing else really useful, and so Uther ended up dressing himself in a loincloth made from Mairidh's sadly damaged shift and insisting that Mairidh cover her nakedness with his quilted tunic, over which she wore her own long, loose robe, effectively concealing herself from neck to knees. Then, their toilet completed to the best of their resources, they struck out for Tir Manha again.

Chapter NINE

Their homecoming occasioned a celebration even greater than they could have anticipated, for no one had connected their absences prior to the moment they reappeared together. Uther's friends had simply returned home without him on the day of his disappearance, and even when he failed to follow them by nightfall, no one was alarmed, for he was within a month of undergoing the manhood rituals, after which he would be a warrior, beholden to no man for permission to do whatever he might wish to do. Uther had been in intensive training for two years now, living in accordance with a strict regimen under the close and critical scrutiny of his tutors, studying the rituals and their forms, and preparing himself for the rigorous initiation rites and ceremonies that would mark his graduation from boy to warrior. As a natural part of that training discipline, he had long since established a pattern of spending days and weeks alone in the forest in all kinds of weather, surviving by his wits only, sometimes armed with nothing more than a knife or a sling, killing his own food and finding his own shelter. Some minor concerns began to be voiced, however, when one night became two. There were procedures and responsibilities involved in preparing for absences of two days or more—especially for the King's son—and had the young man not returned by noon the following day, his continuing absence might have caused greater excitement even than Mairidh's.

The case of the woman Mairidh was sufficiently different, however, to cause something of an uproar. This was a married woman, the wife of one of the King's honoured guests, and her disappearance was a matter that could not be taken lightly. A search had been launched by sunset on the first day of her disappearance when she had failed to return for the evening meal, and everyone who might have guessed at her whereabouts had been closely questioned. But neither search nor questioning had yielded any positive result. Even Brenna, the young woman who had accompanied Mairidh on the day of her first visit to Uther's swimming hole, had shaken her head in wide-eyed innocence when asked if she knew where the Lady Mairidh might have gone.

When the two missing persons appeared together, then, late in the morning of the third day following their "separate" disappearances, the effect on the entire populace of Tir Manha was joyous. They were seen from the walls the moment they emerged from the forest to approach the settlement surrounding the main gates of the stronghold, and by the time they had crossed the cleared fighting space, two hundred paces wide, to reach the first huts, the entire community, including Uther's parents, Uric and Veronica, had come pouring out to see and welcome them. And they were worth beholding. Both of them looked severely abused, barefoot and covered from head to foot with dried mud and dirt, bruises, cuts and abrasions. But it was Uther who drew the most attention at first, because he walked almost naked, holding himself rigidly upright, his loins covered by a length of material that very few there could have been expected to recognize: the last tattered remnants of the clothing Mairidh had worn beneath her long, loose robe on leaving the King's encampment.

Veronica Varrus stood still, slightly behind her husband and one of his advisers, frowning slightly as she looked closely at the pair. She assessed the appearance of each of them separately, noting and setting aside her observations on the small, unobtrusive ways in which they reflected an awareness of each other. When she was satisfied that she could learn no more from looking, her face cleared, and she stepped forward, smiling, to embrace her son and to welcome back her errant guest.

As Veronica embraced her son, Mairidh's husband, Balin, moved forward from the crowd surrounding the King, holding out his hands, and Mairidh moved quickly to him, bowing her head slightly as though in submission. He grasped her lightly by the upper arms and then laid one hand on the crown of her head before drawing her gently into his arms and hugging her to his chest. At length her husband pushed her back from his embrace, still holding her gently by the arms and gazing at her questioningly, his glance flicking from time to time towards Uther, who stood with his mother's arm about his shoulders, watching them, his chin held high.

Uther kept his gaze fastened on Balin and watched as he examined his wife, taking her chin softly in his right hand and tilting her face up until her eyes met his. Uther could see no trace of anger or resentment or concern in the man's face, other than that of a fond parent regarding a beloved child.

"Are you well, Mairidh? Have you been hurt?"

The woman nodded her head in a tiny gesture of acknowledgment. "Both, Husband, yes and yes. I have been hurt, but I am well. I was abducted close by here while I was walking alone by the river. The men who captured me were strangers, speaking an alien tongue. They must have landed on the coast some way from here in a boat from only the gods know where. But I was rescued by this young man here, whom I have found to be the son of King Uric, and who risked his life in saving mine."

Mairidh turned her head and smiled at Veronica before addressing the King. "Your son does you and your lady wife great credit. King Uric. If he should follow you in years to come, he will be a mighty king. He is already a great warrior. Unaided, he slew the men who took me captive, even after I thought they had killed him." She stopped and swayed slightly, speaking now to Balin. "Husband, I am sore, and I am soiled, and I am hungry beyond belief. Will you welcome me back and wait until later to hear my tale?"

Hours later, washed and bathed and dressed again in rich, soft clothing, having eaten and drunk her till, Mairidh regaled her husband and Uther's parents, together with the King's entire retinue, with the tale of Uther's heroism. Uther himself was not present, since his father had expressly banned him from the gathering.

confining the young man to his own quarters until Uric himself was satisfied that no harm had been done to his regal reputation and that his son had, in fact, behaved appropriately throughout this strange episode. So, while Mairidh told her tale of his exploits, Uther waited in suspense elsewhere, fretting over what she might let slip to his father.

He worried needlessly, for Mairidh's tale was as she had promised it would be: no more than the truth, save for a minor alteration of the opening details of the events and the omission of the personal intimacies that occurred between them afterward.

She had been taken unawares, she told them all, surprised completely while resting on a high cliff, a moss-covered promontory in the woods above the riverside, where she had chosen to rest for a time, daydreaming, with never a thought of danger in such a lovely spot so close to the King's stronghold. Her attackers had leaped out at her from nowhere, it seemed to her, giving her no opportunity to resist or to defend herself as they bundled her up in her own robe and dragged her away. One single scream was all she had time to voice, and that was cut short by a clenched fist that knocked her half senseless.

That single cry had been heard, however, by young Uther Pendragon, who came quickly to her rescue. Unfortunately, he had been swimming in the river below when he heard her cry, and so he came running and scrambling precipitately and unprepared, climbing the cliff naked and weaponless.

Uther was then swiftly and brutally dealt with by the larger of her two assailants. The fellow had waited for the boy to reach the top and then pounced on him and beat him savagely, after which he hoisted the senseless youth into the air, holding him by one ankle and the hair of his head, spun him around several times and threw the boy high into the air from the cliff down into death on the river stones beneath.

From that point onward, aware of her wide-eyed audience and satisfied that she had convinced every one of them that what she had said at the outset was the literal truth, Mairidh kept herself strictly to accuracy in her tale, merely omitting any mention of how she and Uther had kept themselves warm during the long, chilly nights and cool during the long, warm days. And when she had finished, no one, including the boy's mother, thought to doubt a word of what she had said.

Uther knew things had gone well with Mairidh's reporting when the door to his chambers swung open later that afternoon and his father, King Uric, entered smiling. Drawing himself up to his full height, Uther masked his relief and fought to keep his nervousness from showing, for he had been more than mildly apprehensive of being discovered as the Lady Mairidh's lover. The glaring fact of her status as the spouse of one of his father's most exalted guests meant that in coupling with her, irrespective of her willingness and eager participation or even of her initiation of the process, Uther had broken one of the King's most sacred rules of hospitality. It mattered not that it was a personal and unique rule, designed and implemented by the monogamous king in deference to his Christian wife, Veronica. Nor did it matter that the rule caused outrage and sniggering among Uric's own chiefs and chieftains, who considered their King to be too soft by half in such matters. What was important was that the rule was enforced with a grim lack of magnanimity that was unusual coming from his otherwise tolerant father.

From that perspective, Uther was grossly at fault, both culpable and vulnerable, and his greatest fear had been that Mairidh might betray him inadvertently, thereby exposing him to the King's anger, which was legendary in both its rarity and its ferocity. Now, seeing the King's demeanour, the boy knew immediately that his secret had been kept safe. He moved to meet his father, extending his hand while carefully keeping his face empty of expression, but Uric came straight to him and threw his arms about his son's shoulders, hugging him tightly, saying nothing. Then, after a short time, he spoke over Uther's shoulder, as though he were addressing the wall behind them.

"There was a time there, you know, when you first arrived this morning, when I had the thought—but only for a moment—that you might have failed me and done something . . . regrettable . . ." He let that hover in the air briefly. "Then I recalled who you were and what you are, and my own reason told me I was being stupid and unworthily suspicious. And yet, you had been gone, and the Lady Mairidh had been gone, and so the thought occurred to me—and to more than just me, I'll wager—that it might. . . that you might have been together, man and woman, I mean, on an assignation."

Uther tried not to stiffen in his father's grasp, but the King had not finished saying what he wished to say.

"As soon as the Lady Mairidh began to speak, of course, she gave the lie to that," he went on. "Then again, I thought, beautiful women have been known to lie with great fluency when putting horns upon their husbands." He stepped back then and grasped his son by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "And now we have all heard it, and I am proud of you, my son. You have done well. But I would like to hear your version of the tale. I'll wager it will be more bloody than the Lady Mairidh's."

Uther shook his head and tried to smile, hoping that his father might think the flush that stained his face was caused by modesty and not by shame at having to pretend heroic nobility when all he had achieved was deceit. He tried to demur and avoid the telling, but his father would have none of it, and so the tale was told again, mindful of Mairidh's changes to the start of it, but faithful thereafter to chronology and details, ending with the killing of the two raiders, the escape from their encampment and the decision to leave the horse and make their way on foot back to where they had set out.

The King nodded slowly, visualizing the situation and agreeing with the logic of his son's choices. "Good. Good for you, lad. You've a sensible head on your shoulders. And that reminds me, the lady's husband, Balin, wishes to receive you as soon as you may go to him. He is extremely grateful, and I believe you will find him more than generous in rewarding you for saving his wife's life." The King smiled again, this time at the new flush that swept over his son's face. "Come, now," he said. "You have earned the praise and the rewards, now accept them as your right. But if the thought appalls your modesty, you should go and get it over with now, as soon as you can."

On the point of dismissing that suggestion out of hand, Uther bethought himself and stood silent for several moments longer, musing on the pros and contras of an immediate meeting with the man with whose wife he had lain with so recently. Postponed, the meeting would grow no easier, he knew. Better perhaps to get it over and done with quickly, before the aggrieved husband would have time to dwell upon what might have taken place while his wife was absent—before she had been covered with her rescuer's tunic . . . Besides, Uther knew that his father would soon come to wonder why his son should be so reluctant to meet with a man who must be deeply in his debt. The King of the Pendragon was no man's fool and had not achieved his high station because he was short-sighted or stupid. Finally he nodded his head.

"You are right, Father. Best get it over with, although I did nothing heroic, so I would rather not be thanked. There is nothing commendable about sneaking up on two sleeping men and braining them in the darkness. All I had to do afterwards was cut the woman loose and bring her home . . . So I suppose I'll go and meet her husband now. Will you come with me?"

His father smiled and shook his head. "No, Uther, and if you think about it, you'll see why: the man will wish to show his gratitude and obligation to you. I am the King, and I'm your father. That alone obliges him to show impressive gratitude. My presence would place an intolerable burden upon him, adding to that obligation. I cannot do that to him."

Uther nodded, then looked about him, sucking in a great breath. "Well, I ought to go and see him now, d'you think?"

"Yes. He'll be waiting for you."

"Very well, then . . . I'll go . . ."

Thinking back on it years later, Uther would remark to his friend Huw Strongarm that he came very close to leaving his father's stronghold that afternoon and fleeing to Camulod to avoid the confrontation that his guilty conscience had assured him must take place between him and his father's honoured guest. It was only the awareness that in so doing he would be acknowledging a guilt of which no one had yet accused him that kept him from going. And had he left that day, he mused to Huw, then the entire development and course of the wars with Cornwall and its self-styled King, Gulrhys Lot, might have turned out very differently.

As it was, he approached the quarters that housed Balin and his wife with great reluctance and trepidation, and when he saw a smiling Mairidh waiting in the doorway to greet him, his guilt and fear grew to confusion and near-panic. Nothing in Uther's experience had prepared him for the sight of a carefree, smiling Mairidh, and although he knew with one part of his mind that he should be glad, he was not yet mentally spry enough, or perhaps not yet cynical enough, to adapt instantly to the unexpected sight of her unworried smile.

Unaware of his confusion, Mairidh grasped him gently by the wrist and turned away, pulling him with her as she moved directly to the closed door at her back, and Uther, his heart hammering in his chest, the softness of her hand burning the skin where she touched him, thought for one mad moment that she was abducting him somehow, pulling him into a private room to make love to him beneath her husband's very nose. In a complete panic, he began to pull back, tugging against her, but she had already knocked on the door and turned to face him, still smiling widely.

"Balin?" she called. "My rescuer is here. Shall I send him in?"

The door opened almost before she had finished saying the words, and Balin, a tall, elderly man with long, silver hair, stepped forward into the light of the doorway and inclined his upper torso in something approaching a bow, a courteous gesture conveying respect that included both Mairidh and Uther. "No need for that, my love," he said in a deep, quiet voice. "I am here to welcome our benefactor myself."

He extended a hand, waving it gently to usher Uther into his sanctum. "If it pleases you, Uther Pendragon, come into my world. You have already entered into it, and into my life, with your rescue of my beloved consort, so now it will please me greatly if you will accept my gratitude and my freely granted access to the remainder, which is but little when compared to all I might have lost. Come in, come in, and sit with me, talk with me."

Disarmed, flattered and thrown decidedly off balance by the charming manner and the unmistakable sincerity of the man who greeted him so amiably, Uther allowed himself to be ushered forward into Balin's chamber, and presently he found himself seated in front of a glowing brazier, holding a cup which his host was busy filling with yellow sparkling wine.

Mairidh had vanished silently into another part of the square- built house, which, though small in area, was rich in its amenities as befitted the dwelling reserved for the King's most important guests, and so bemused was Uther by the attention lavished upon him by her husband that he had not even been aware that she had not followed him into the room. What he could not have known, however, was that she now sat close by, on the other side of the wall closest to him and within two paces of where he sat facing her husband. There, secure in her own privacy, she sat in comfort in a thickly padded armchair, sipping a cup of the same wine the men were drinking and listening to the voices that came directly to her over the top of the wall-like partition that divided the large room into two equal halves. She heard every word of the conversation taking place in Balin's room as clearly as though she were sitting there herself.

Rapt now, Uther sat watching as the bubbling liquid reached the rim of his cup, and his host pulled the ewer away without allowing a single drop to spill. Balin's face was tense with delight as he peered at Uther, waiting for him to taste the wine, but Uther made no move to do so. He had tasted wine before, but never yellow wine, just vinum, the rank, sour red wine mixed with water of the Camulodian cavalry troopers. In his father's mountainous country of south Cambria, wine was seldom drunk, simply because it was seldom, if ever, available.

"Drink, taste the nectar of the gods." Balin filled his own cup and hoisted it to his lips, holding the ewer high in his other hand as he drank. Watching him, Uther drank too, but cautiously, sipping carefully and apprehensive of what he would find in his mouth, mindful of the gut-wrenching sourness that had almost sickened him on first tasting vinum. Instead of bitterness, however, he found his mouth filled with liquid sunshine, with a delicious, almost syrupy-sweet explosion of rich flavours that set his entire mouth tingling and his mind reeling as he sought to identify the tastes that blended and melded together on his tongue.

"Is it not wonderful? Have you ever tasted it’s like?"

Uther could only shake his head in wonder as he took another mouthful.

"It is from the very central regions of the lands of the wild Germanic tribes the Romans could never conquer, and the grapes from which it is made are grown on the slopes along the shores of the vast river they called the Rhenus, which marked the northeastern borders of Rome's Empire. This nectar that we drink is the greatest contradiction in the world, for the people who perfected the making of it are so savage, so ferocious, that they stopped Rome's legions and defied them entry to the farthest regions of their lands—the only people in all the world who ever did so, save only for the northernmost Caledonians, whose land is so unwholesome and infertile that the Romans felt no desire for it. And yet, in all their fury, these untamable Germanic tribes have the ability to make this magnificent wine. The grapes they grow on their hillside terraces are pale green, I am told, and very sweet, rich in sugars and perfect for the making of this nectar, which is found nowhere else." He stopped speaking and sipped delicately at the liquid in his cup, rolling it on his tongue and savouring it lingeringly before taking a second taste.

"It is difficult to come by this, as you might imagine, now that there is little commerce between Britain and Gaul. I have a . . . a supplier, however, whose connections extend far and wide and who relies upon the truth that people everywhere have need of his trading skills. The last time I saw him, thanks be to all the gods, when I revisited my home in Cornwall, he had a good amount, but even he cannot guarantee a constant supply—" Balin stopped short, startled by the way Uther had suddenly scowled and sat up straight and stiff-backed. "What is wrong? Do you not like the wine?"

Uther's scowl deepened. "I did not know you are from Cornwall."

Balin held his head slightly higher, his face reflecting surprise and amusement. "Of course I am from Cornwall! Where did you think I hailed from, and why should it seem so unpleasant to you?"

Uther realized belatedly that his reaction had been truculent and ill-mannered. "I . . . I knew only that you were here on some kind of diplomatic business with my father. I assumed you were from . . . it shames me that I was not interested enough to find out."

Balin now offered a small half-smile. "No need for shame, but you do sound disappointed."

"I am, sir. Disappointed at myself. I am the King's son, after all."

Balin inclined his head in a gesture that signified both agreement and respect. "It is true you are the King's son, but you are not yet a warrior in the formal sense. You face the Manhood Rites within the month, is that not so?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Well, then, since you are legally a boy and not yet a warrior with a warrior's responsibilities and duties, why should you feel shame over not having identified my origins? Even had you been curious about me, your curiosity would have gone unsatisfied. Forgive my mentioning it, but you are yet too young to participate in men's affairs."

"But not too young to ask questions. Not being a warrior is no excuse for being unready, Lord Balin. Had I been unready a few days ago, your wife might not be here now."

Balin inclined his head in acknowledgment of that truth. "But why would you even think to ask where I was from? You make it sound highly important that you should know such a thing."

Uther stood up and placed his cup carefully on a small table near his chair. "It is, sir, when the answer to the question is Cornwall. Now I must leave you. Thank you for the wine."

"Great Dagda!" Balin subsided into a chair as quickly as Uther had sprung to his feet, but he was smiling in disbelief. "You intend to leave me, just like that, for being from Cornwall? Are we then mortal enemies, and have you found yourself in here with me by misadventure? Do you fear, then—tell me quickly— for your life?"

Uther felt a flush steal over his face. "Well . . . no."

"Aha! Then sit, if it please you, and finish your wine, and while you are doing so, inform me, if you will, why it should surprise you so unpleasantly to discover where I make my home. Have you enemies in Cornwall?"

"Yes, I have. A mortal enemy." Uther sat down again, but made no move to pick up the wine cup.

Balin, whose question had been facetious, now sat staring blankly at him for a space of moments before he spoke again. When he did, the entire tone of his voice was different, cautious and faintly speculative.

"Your father made no mention of this."

"My father knows nothing about it."

"But how can that be? You have a mortal enemy, but unknown to your father? Not that I doubt you, of course, but it seems . . . strange. You have never visited Cornwall, have you? So whence comes this enmity? Is it recent"

"No, it began three years ago."

"Three years ago? Then you were but a boy indeed, a child! What happened, and with whom were you at odds?"

"Do you know Duke Emrys?"

"Of course I know Duke Emrys. He is my lord."

"And his son, Gulrhys Lot?"

"Lot? Great gods! Were you the one, then, the boy who attacked Lot in Camulod and almost killed him?"

Uther shrugged. "I suppose I was. But he attacked me, too . . . Look, see where he chopped me." He extended his right leg and pulled up the hem of his tunic to expose a long, deep scar on the outside of his thigh, a hand's breadth above the knee.

"Indeed! That is a man's wound, a battle wound. But you were mere children, boys."

"No, Lord Balin, I was twelve years old, and Gulrhys Lot was as old as I am now, and he insulted my mother beyond credence or bearing. Had my uncle, Picus Britannicus, not stopped us, Gulrhys Lot would not be alive today. I would have killed him."

Balin sat silent for a spell digesting that, then nodded, his face blank. "I see this struck far deeper and was of greater moment than I was given to believe. You say Lot insulted your mother . . . sufficiently to provoke you to the point of killing? I find it hard to believe that Duke Emrys would have permitted such gross behaviour from his son."

Uther merely blinked, his own face betraying nothing of his thoughts. "Duke Emrys was not there at the time. There were but the three of us—Lot, my cousin Cay and me. The Duke knew nothing of what happened until it was all over. And Uncle Picus found us only by accident. He was passing by and heard the sound of our swords."

"May I ask what you were doing in Camulod? I have never been there, and I am curious about the place. Some of the tales I hear of it seem too wondrous to be true. This uncle of yours is an important man there, is he not?"

Uther hesitated, then picked up his wine again and sipped at it. It was clear that the anger he had expected to inspire with his revelation about Gulrhys Lot would not be forthcoming. Either this Balin was indeed a more skilful diplomat than he betrayed, or he was genuinely uncaring of what might have befallen his lord's son. Uther rolled the delicious wine around on his tongue and then look a larger gulp, filling his mouth and holding the beverage captive, feeling the tiny prickles of the sparkling bubbles. Then finally he swallowed, conscious that his father would be displeased to see him drinking unwatered wine of any kind and would be even less pleased by the overt pleasure he was showing in the drinking of it. He replaced the cup carefully on the small table, then smiled at Balin, who sat watching him.

"My uncle, Picus Britannicus, is Legate and Supreme Commander of the Forces of Camulod."

"A very grand title."

Uther nodded soberly. "Aye, sir, and a powerful one. He assumed command from my grandfather, Gaius Publius Varrus, who had inherited the title from his friend and brother by marriage, Caius Cornelius Britannicus, who was Uncle Picus's father. Great-uncle Caius and Grandfather Varrus were the founders of Camulod, which was originally a collection of large and prosperous farms."

Balin sat blinking, fingering his beard abstractedly and frowning slightly in perplexity. "Farms? Explain that, please. I don't quite understand. Camulod is a fortress, from what I have heard. No one has ever spoken of the place in terms of farms or farming."

Uther fought to keep his face expressionless, because he was surprised and fascinated by how much he was learning here. Before his discovery of Balin's Cornish identity, he had assumed that this man, as an honoured guest of his father and an ambassador from some distant king or chief, would know everything there was to know about Camulod, Pendragon's closest and strongest ally. It now appeared, however, that the man knew almost nothing, and that made it instantly obvious to the boy that his father had been unresponsive to the questions Balin must have asked him.

Uther's mind was churning, his thoughts chaotic. Why should his father have been so secretive? It must have stemmed from distrust, he decided—if not of Balin himself, then certainly of his master, the Cornish Duke Emrys. Although he had often been glad in the past that he was not expected or permitted to sit in on the frequent and all too often tedious gatherings of his father's Council, Uther now found himself wishing heartily that he knew more about these things. Then, remembering Garreth Whistler's warning that it was most often better to say little and listen closely, he shook his head and smiled, allowing himself to look slightly perplexed.

"Have you never been in that part of the world at all. Lord Balin, the lands around Aquae Sulis to the east of here?"

"Yes, I have, but not for many years, and I never gained any great knowledge of the region. I understand that Camulod itself is not far from there, a matter of a few days' ride . . ." Balin paused for a long time, evidently musing on other things, before continuing. "It is a strange thing, because I have travelled widely over the years in my role as adviser to Chief Emrys, long before he took upon himself the Roman title of dux, or Duke. I began as his factotum, to use the Roman word for it, standing in his place to assist and mediate in his early trading ventures, and my responsibilities in the service of the Duke have gradually increased as time has passed. In each of my several capacities I have seen the entire length of this island—along the coastlines of both Britain and Caledonia, on both sides, east and west—on several occasions, and I have even crossed the western sea to Eire three times.

"Before the Romans left, in the first great exodus when Stilicho recalled the British legions, I wandered over the entire country, looking after the commercial interests of my master—" He broke off suddenly, and his face lit up in a smile. "Strange, is it not, how all things change, even our ways of thinking of ourselves? You are too young now to see the truth of that, but some day you will. I spoke about myself and Emrys. Now he is Duke Emrys, and I refer to him as my lord. Formerly, however, he was Chief Emrys, and before that merely Emrys, an able and gifted trader and a formidable fighter." Balin paused again, staring into his cup, and then resumed, still gazing pensively into his wine.

"Beyond Britain, I am also familiar with most parts of Gaul, and I would have trouble, I suspect, deciding with any accuracy on how many times I have been to that land, both north and south. That is where I formed my taste for fine wines like this one we are drinking now. I have friends and acquaintances and contacts and go-betweens among the Burgundian peoples and the Frankish clans who are settling into those territories where the Burgundians have not yet gone. So it seems strange that, with all that travelling spread over all too many years, I should have missed some areas so close to home. Nevertheless, I suspect that much of life is like that. We seldom see what is closest to our eyes. So, if it please you, tell me about Camulod and how it came to be."

Uther smiled and shrugged and shook his head in self-deprecation. "Well, as you yourself have said, I am not a warrior yet, so there is much I don't know . . . much to which I am not privy. I cannot tell you much about Camulod today, Lord Balin—about its strengths or weaknesses or how it is organized or governed. But I can tell you about how it came to be what it is today. I have been well taught regarding that story."

Balin inclined his head. "Do so, if you would. You mentioned it was founded by two men, relatives of yours."

"Aye, that's right. The story of Camulod began when my grandfather, Publius Varrus, first came to this region to visit my great-uncle, Caius Britannicus, then remained here to marry my grandmother, Luceiia Britannicus. Before that, there was no Camulod. Publius Varrus married my grandmother Luceiia almost fifty years ago, and it was after their marriage that the territories of the place they called the Colony were assembled and drawn together, in preparation to defend themselves after the Romans left Britain.

"They chose the old hill fort we now call Camulod as being the best place from which to organize the defence of all their farms. It was centrally located among their Colony's holdings, and it had served as a defensive fort in ancient times, long before the Romans ever came to Britain. Publius Varrus's only use for it in the beginning was as a rallying point, a base from which to launch his forces, who were all infantry in those days.

"Somewhere around that same time, my other grandfather, Ullic Pendragon, befriended Varrus and Britannicus, and they made alliance between them, Pendragon Cambria and what Caius Britannicus called the Britannic Colony, each to defend the other's back in time of war and peril. The towers of Camulod began to grow then, too, first as wooden palisades and then as walls of stone, and they began to breed and rear horses, because of the speed they offered—the best and fastest means of moving men to defend the Colony's borders.

"Then when the Romans left Britain for good, about the time I was born, my Uncle Picus, who rode with the Roman Regent Stilicho, arranged for his father, my Great-uncle Caius, to take possession of more than six hundred head of prime Roman cavalry stock, and since that time the place has thrived."

"Hmm." Balin sat relaxed, enjoying his young guest and making no attempt to hide his amusement. "So, given that Camulod was founded by your family, will you rule there one day?"

"Gods, no, that's not for me! My cousin Cay will undertake the governing of Camulod, and he will be magnificent at doing it. My rightful place is here in Cambria, among my father's mountains and his warriors. But I am grateful to my friends and kin in Camulod for the gift of horsemanship. Because horses are weapons, the greatest and most powerful weapons this world has ever seen."

"Horses?" Balin's smile had vanished, and it was evident that he was now quite bewildered. "But . . . but horses have been here for as long as men have . . ."

"Of course, Lord Balin. What is new is the use that Camulod makes of horses. Cavalry such as theirs is in—" Uther broke off in mid-word, aware that he had been on the point of saying "invincible," and something, some unexpected prompting, had forbidden him to say the word. He snorted, as though choking back a self- deprecating laugh, aware that Balin was still waiting for him to finish what he had started to say, then shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head slightly, as though in dismissal of his own silliness.

"Anyway," he resumed, "weapon or no, I am grateful that I have a horse of my own and can roam free where and when it pleases me."

"Aye, there's nothing finer than being free and untramelled, but few of us after we reach manhood are able to enjoy that feeling. Had it not been for this drive of yours to go wherever you wish, whenever you wish, I would have lost my wife. She has told me in great detail about all that you did for her, and I am in your debt forever. I will not insult you by offering you gold or jewels, although I have both in plenty and they are yours for the asking, should you so desire, but I feel that my debt to you involves a price far higher than any that can be paid in jewels or specie. I do not know, at this time, how I will repay you, but a means will come to me. Or it might come to you—some form of recompense that you would value greatly but which I might never consider. Bend your mind to that, young man. Think of me as a friend, and do not let yourself be bound by any other considerations in this. Who knows what you might require? And who knows what I might be able to do for you?"

Unable to think of anything to say in response to that, Uther rose to his feet and looked around the room. Normally this chamber, and the others that served with it as guest quarters, sat vacant, but always clean and well aired, ready to be used at a moment's notice. And while it was true that the room generally reflected very little of the people who passed through and used it, there were visitors from time to time who imprinted their personalities and moods visibly upon the room and its furnishings during their stay.

There was a stringed instrument of some kind leaning against a chair by the room's main table, and Uther placed his wine cup down gently and crossed to examine it more closely. Although he knew the instrument was a harp, it was unlike any harp he had seen before—larger and more solid-looking in the main pillar of the frame. Careful not to upset it, for it looked carefully balanced, he stretched out a questing hand to touch the strings and run the pad of one finger up and down one of them, feeling its rough texture.

"Gut," Balin said. "Dried animal gut. Swine, I believe, or perhaps it is sheep gut. It is an Erse harp. I found it last time I was over in Eire and bought it from the man who owned it. The fellow couldn't play it at all. He kept it because it had belonged to his first wife, who had died while yet young enough to be lovable. And you are barely listening to what I am saying. What is it that distracts you?"

Uther looked up and smiled. "I was thinking about how surprised I am that you are not angry. I thought you would be."

"Angry? And why should I be angry?"

"Because of what I told you . . . about Lot."

Balin shook his head and flapped his hand in dismissal of that. "What happened between you and Gulrhys Lot was personal, and it happened long ago. I see no reason in that for me to grow angry thinking about it. . . do you, really?"

"No, Lord Balin, I do not, now that I think about it in that light. It—"

"But I could grow angry, I believe, were I to allow myself to dwell upon the ideas you formed and the conclusions you drew from that long-ago confrontation."

Frowning, Uther started to say something else, but Balin cut him off again, raising one hand swiftly, palm outward. "No, it is true. You emerged from that encounter with Gulrhys Lot fully convinced that everyone from Cornwall is as he is and behaves as he behaves, and you have not changed your thinking on that in—how long ago was it, three years? For three years you have walked around with poisonous nonsense flowing through your mind, and it sprang out of you the moment I mentioned that I am from Cornwall. You looked at me as though I had become a writhing serpent. Do you deny that?"

Uther shrugged his shoulders, feeling his face flush with discomfort. "No, I cannot."

"But why would you even think such a thing? Lot may be as evil and pernicious as you think him to be. But why should I and every other person from Cornwall be so vilely tainted by your memories of that one man?"

"Because my memories of him are vile and bitter."

"I have no doubt of that, Uther Pendragon, and you are not alone in feeling as you do. My loyalty is to his father, the Duke Emrys, and there it ends. I bear no allegiance at all, of any kind, to Gulrhys Lot, and I swear there have been times when I would have happily wagered that Emrys himself cannot stomach the boy he fathered . . ." He paused, gazing at the boy who stood watching him, his face troubled. "I think I am going to have to teach you a little about Cornwall, Master Uther. Sit down now and drink your wine while I tell you about my nephew, who is older than you— three years older, in fact, since he is of an age with Gulrhys Lot. His given name is Lagan, and Mairidh tells me that in recent months he has won the name Longhead, by virtue of his intellect and his far-sightedness. By some strange coincidence that I have never quite understood, he and I ended up married to sisters. His wife, Lydda, a beautiful young creature no more than a year or so older than you are, is Mairidh's youngest sister, so Lagan is not only my nephew by blood, the son of my elder brother, but he is also a relative of some other kind by marriage."

In the course of the half hour that followed, Uther learned much about the young man known as Lagan Longhead, and in listening learned much, too, about the customs and rituals that governed the passing of boys into manhood in Cornwall.

On the other side of the wall, Mairidh smiled and closed her eyes, listening with pleasure as her husband spoke of home and family.

Chapter TEN

Nemo saw Uther as her personal champion, and so she was unsurprised when, in the time of her greatest need, he appeared. She would have expected nothing less.

It happened early in the autumn of the year she passed seventeen, when she walked blithely into peril in a way that her younger self would never have permitted. Three men, travellers passing through Tir Manha, had noticed her shortly after the midday meal when she walked by them heedlessly, daydreaming of Uther, who was due to return home from Camulod that day or the next. Nemo had long since learned to keep herself clean, acutely aware that Uther set great store by cleanliness, thanks to his long Roman- influenced periods in Camulod, but she had never come to realize that her cleanliness now gave her a distinctive scent that could be alluring and arousing to rough men passing by in a condition of enforced abstinence. Watching her, the three paid no attention to her heavy facial features or the rough texture of her hair. Instead, they smelled sexual challenge in the clean, alluring scent of her and saw it in the firm young strength of her limbs and buttocks and in the thrust of her seventeen-year-old breasts.

Having noticed her, they followed, watching her closely, wailing for a suitable time and place. Then, when circumstances seemed right, they attacked her like wolves, leaping from behind and bundling her into the long grass by the roadside, pulling her quickly and quietly down out of sight into concealment among rank growth and thick shrubs.

It was not the first time Nemo had been waylaid by sexual predators, however, and her ferocious, silent and deadly response took her three attackers unawares. Extremely strong and implacably savage by nature. Nemo was a burly badger of an opponent, and she fought them as any wild thing fights confinement, single-mindedly seeking to save her own life and to inflict maximum damage on her tormentors in the process. Hunched over and battling grimly, making the most of her solid bulk and her low centre of gravity, she refused to yield or submit in any degree, so that even outnumbering her, her opponents had great difficulty in subduing her. So great was their difficulty, in fact, and so total their concentration upon immobilizing and holding her down for their gratification that all of them failed to notice the approach of the fast-moving horseman who came charging down at them from the hillside above.

Nemo was on her back, fighting for her life, hemmed in and confined, it seemed to her, by an entire forest of men's legs. She kicked and chopped and gouged fiercely, catching one man in the groin with a hard-swung but glancing blow and dropping him to his knees. One of his two companions who had stepped back from the fray, pulling at his breeches to free himself in preparation for claiming the first fruits of her, saw the man drop and looked towards him, grunting and starting to laugh barely a moment before Nemo lunged at him and snatched at his rigid phallus with rending, long-nailed fingers. His laughter turned to a scream as those fingernails dug deep, drawing blood, and Nemo's thick, muscular fist closed around his hardness, wrenching violently, twisting downward and inward hard, pulling him towards her as her other fist smashed brutally upward into his exposed and unprotected scrotum. His knees, too, gave way, and he collapsed on top of her, barely conscious, just as young Uther Pendragon, screaming a war cry of some kind, threw himself from his horse's back directly into the middle of the struggling knot of bodies.

He landed on the shoulders of the only one of the trio who had been able to grasp a firm hold of Nemo. With his arms around her waist from behind and his crashing weight, Uther took the hunched figure of the man and the woman beneath him face downward into the grassy bottom of the ditch. Then, before anyone else had a chance to react or move, the long, single-edged dirk in Uther's hand rose up and plunged down again to bury itself between the fellow's shoulders. The stabbed man reared up violently, almost throwing Uther completely off his back, and then he stiffened and gave out a wet, gurgling sound before falling forward, dead, covering Nemo completely so that she had to fight to crawl out from beneath the weight of him.

Before the corpse had even toppled, however, Uther was moving, ripping his dagger free and stabbing out hard again, sideways this time and to his right, at the man Nemo had savaged. This fellow was hunched over in agony, his spindly, bare thighs ludicrously pale and hairless above the trousers that were pushed down about his knees, and his entire attention was concentrated upon finding respite from the excruciating pain of his damaged testicles. He had not seen his companion die, and he did not see the blow that took his own life. The point of Uther's blade penetrated the unprotected base of his throat and then sliced down and across as Uther slashed deep.

The remaining attacker, the one whom Nemo had kicked first, had seen all of this, and now he leaped to his feet and began to run. He had barely taken two strides, however, when he found his way blocked by another horseman, and before he could even think to dodge, the rider's armoured boot, lodged in its heavy, wooden stirrup, rose up and smashed down again, hitting him full in the face and sending him reeling and falling backwards to where young Uther Pendragon was already lurching forward, bloodied dirk raised high.

"Uther, no!"

The call from the armoured rider came too late. Uther's arm was already encircling the other man's neck, and the long-bladed dirk was digging deep, probing upwards between the ribs for his heart. Uther Pendragon, grim-faced, held the dying man close against his chest, straining against the convulsions of the body until they ceased, and then he released his grip and allowed the man to fall, retaining his tight grasp on the dagger's hilt so that the dead weight of the corpse pulled it free of the blade. When the body lay at his feet, he stood gazing down at it for long moments. Then he bent slowly and pulled the head covering, a length of plain brown cloth, from the corpse.

His mounted companion watched closely as Uther cleaned his blade with the cloth, his face expressionless and calm, his eyes unfocused. Then, when the blade was clean, fastidiously wiped free of any lingering trace of blood, Uther Pendragon replaced it carefully in the sheath that hung from his belt and turned his head to look at the young woman who sat on the grass, staring up at him in silent worship with her bent knees spread, her skirts somewhere up around her waist, her entire lower body uncaringly exposed. Gazing at her, narrow-eyed, he shook his head. Nemo had no idea why he did that or what he was thinking. Before she could think any further about it, however, he stepped towards her, holding out his hand, and she reached out and took it, using it as an anchor as she pulled herself smoothly up from the ground. Neither she nor he spared as much as a glance for the three dead men at their feet.

"Are you hurt at all?"

Nemo shook her head, overcome with shyness as she always was when he spoke directly to her. She was forever unable to trust her voice around him, afraid that it would tremble and break. Uther, however, paid no attention to her silence, reacting instead as if she had spoken and nodding now towards the three dead men.

"What happened here? Do you know these people?"

She shook her head again, and he sniffed, looking down at the closest corpse.

"Well, even if you did, it would make no difference now. Good thing we came along, though. Have you had a man before?" Nemo's eyes widened slightly, but she took no offence, and he assumed from her expression that the answer to his question was negative. He pursed his lips. "Best think about it, then, and get the painful part over with. Find yourself a decent fellow and pleasure both of you. Once you've done it once or twice, there's no pain to it thereafter, no matter how they violate you. First time, though, against your will, can be brutal, I'm told. Go home now. There's no danger left here."

She nodded her head and bobbed in what might have been a subservient bow, and then she turned and was gone, disappearing quickly into the bushes that lined the road.

The two men watched her go, then Uther sucked pensively at his teeth, producing a speculative, squeaking noise. The man on the horse cleared his throat.

"Are you going to puke?"

Uther looked up at Garreth Whistler. "No, I am not. Why should I puke?"

"I thought you might. Most people do when they kill a man, it being an unusual event. You just slaughtered three men with your bare hands, so I thought you might want at least one heave."

"I used my blade, not my bare hands. But no, I don't feel sick."

"You should, boy. Sick over your own stupidity, if nothing else."

The younger man's head jerked up as though he had been slapped. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means what it said. That was stupid . . . needless."

"Needless? They were about to violate her—and then they'd probably have killed her."

"But they were already caught, Uther. We arrived, and that would have been the end of it then and there, if you hadn't gone insane."

"I didn't go insane!"

"Oh, is that so? If your father had seen you, he would account himself justified in having me hanged or disembowelled for having permitted you to reach such a degenerate condition."

Uther's eyes narrowed, so that he was almost squinting up at his friend and guardian. "You permitted nothing. I did what had to be done."

"Oh, please! Come now. 'Had to be done?' Had to be? How so? Those fellows should have been taken and hanged, Uther. I'm not disputing they deserved to die for what they were attempting almost within sight of the King's own Hall. But to tackle them the way you did was nothing short of plain, black-faced stupidity. You're what, fifteen now? Fifteen. Ten years ago, you had barely learned to talk! And now you think you're a man."

Garreth Whistler swung himself down from his tall Camulodian horse and kept his back to the younger man, ignoring him. His physical demeanour radiated disgust as he began dragging the bodies of the three dead men to where he could lay them side by side. But as he worked, even though refusing to look at his companion, Garreth talked, betraying not the slightest sign or sound of effort as he manhandled the dead weight of the corpses.

"You're big for your age, I'll grant that. Could be seventeen easily. And you're stronger than most other fifteen-year-olds." He laid the last body in line with the others and straightened up, wiping his palms against his hips where the material of his tunic was not covered by armour and finally turned to look at his pupil.

"But by all the gods you're unutterably stupid sometimes, and that comes of being fifteen. Y'see, a seventeen-year-old is legally a man, and a man would have stopped these animals, just as surely as you did. But he'd have done it from horseback, sitting up high and mighty and looking down at them, threatening them with a drawn sword. And then when they were properly chastened, he'd have had them chained up and taken into custody by other armed people on foot. He would never have dismounted. That's all you need, you see . . . to be on horseback. Scares the dung out of people on foot to see a big man on a horse, towering over them, especially if he's wearing armour and carrying a sword, and even more especially when they're in the wrong.

"But you're fifteen, too young to know any better . . . too young to show any sense, I suppose . . . You're still a bit of a baby, really, and so you go leaping off the horse and throw yourself right down there to roll in the cow dung with the commoners."

The boy was bridling, clearly resentful of the way he was being treated, and yet equally clearly aware that he had been foolish. He glowered at his teacher.

"Very well, so I'm young. You're always telling me that. But that doesn't make me stupid."

"Yes it does, boy! Oh yes it does. You know better than to do what you did there! I've taught you better than that. You had a dirk in your hand going in, and you dived off your horse without taking a heartbeat's space to check for danger. What if one or two of those three had had knives of their own? You could have been dead from the moment you hit the first man. And where would I be now if that had happened? I'll tell you where I'd be. I'd be on my way to my own death, facing your father. Uric Pendragon wouldn't believe his own son could be stupid enough to do what you have just done, so he would blame me for endangering you. And he would be right. Then I'd be dead as well as you. And for what? Because you needed to satisfy an urge to impress an ugly girl? Grow up, Uther. Men don't behave that way."

For a long space of moments those words hung in the air, unanswered, unchallenged and undisputed. Then the younger man grunted, nodding in agreement.

"She is ugly, isn't she?"

Garreth Whistler nodded, his face solemn and judicious. "Well, she's not beautiful, your Nemo . . . no more so than vomit frozen to a cold road."

They both broke into giggles, but Uther sobered quickly, waving his laughter away with a sharp pass of his hand. "We shouldn't laugh at her. She can't help the way she was born. You're the one who told me to be considerate of young unfortunates. I like her, Garreth, though I don't know why."

"Well, why not? You've known her long enough by now. No reason at all for not liking the girl simply because she's not comely." Garreth Whistler's face broke into a grin again, and Uther's own smile reappeared as his friend and mentor continued. "Just so long as you don't rut with her . . . or if you do, don't look at her in the middle of it. I saw you looking at her hairy belly there, but her face—a face like that could turn you to stone if you looked at it close up."

Uther shook his head, his smile fading. "I don't know, Garreth." He nodded his head in the direction of the three bodies at their feet. "Something attracted these three to her, despite what you may say."

"Aye, desperation probably. Aided by the fact that at least she doesn't stink like a sour sow, the way most of her neighbours do." Garreth Whistler, too, had been seduced by the Roman ways of cleanliness and hygiene, and taught thus, through his nose, he had learned to be fastidious in his womanizing, which meant that he went virtually celibate during the six months that he spent each year among Ullic's people, few of whom were even familiar with the concept of bathing. Now he glanced again casually at the three corpses, then swung himself up into the saddle.

"Come on, let's get going. We'll send a wagon out for these later."

"Why? Why bother? This is human refuse. Let it lie here and stink."

Garreth Whistler tilted his head to one side and eyed his young charge quizzically. "My word, we are ill disposed today, aren't we? Stop for a moment and think about what you are saying. If we leave these characters to rot here, we'll be doing no kindness to our own people who pass this way every day. You may have killed more than your share of men already, but it's clear you still have to sniff your first rotting corpse up close, for if you had ever smelled one, you'd never think of leaving one unburied. Three dead men will make an unholy amount of stink and breed a heaving mountain of maggots. By rights, I ought to make you dig a grave for them all by yourself. Now mount up, and let's get out of here."

He sat watching sternly as Uther walked to his own mount and pulled himself up into the saddle, but then his gaze sharpened as the boy sat stiffly, staring down at the ground to his left. Garreth looked in the direction of his gaze, but there was nothing there that he could see.

"What are you staring at?"

"Nothing." Uther kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

"And what colour of nothing might that be? Look at me, boy! Don't just sit there scowling and pouting like a spoiled little girl. If there's something in your nose, hawk it out of there, get it out in the open. Tell me what's wrong with you—and don't say it's nothing."

The boy's eyes flickered towards the three dead men. "I didn't do anything wrong killing those men. If my father had found them doing what they were doing, they would be just as dead. But you're angry at me. Why are you angry at me?"

"By the Christian Christ . . . You still don't know, do you?"

Garreth Whistler pulled his horse up on its hind legs into a rearing turn, then spurred it into movement. Behind him he heard the thumping of hooves as Uther's mount followed him, moving up gradually until the lad was less than half a length behind. Then, knowing that Uther would stay with him. Whistler kicked his mount to a canter and turned his head to shout back over his shoulder, pitching his voice to overcome the thudding of heavy hooves.

"Hear me now, boy, and this time pay heed, for I'll only say this one more time. You fought well enough . . . proved that I have taught you well how to fight with a dirk."

Uther kicked his horse harder, edging it forward until the two men were riding side by side, but Garreth Whistler did not moderate his tone.

"But you are too damn hotheaded—far too impetuous. Isn't that the word your Grandfather Varrus used? He told me it means impulsive, ungovernable, lacking in control. And I thought. Yes, that's the word for our boy Uther. . . lacking in control."

Their horses swung apart, one right and the other left, to pass on either side of a huge elm tree that had somehow been permitted to grow up right in the centre of the ancient causeway, and Garreth waited until they came together again before he continued.

"Control . . . it's very important, Uther. Crucial, in fact. It's all- important in a leader of men, whether he be a soldier, a king or the leader of a gang of cattle thieves. If he can't control himself—his emotions, his temper, his rages—then he'll never be able to control others, because he'll never be able to hold their respect. No man will willingly follow someone he doesn't trust implicitly, someone he doesn't believe he can rely upon to stay in control at all times . . . in control of himself and in control of all the conditions he might encounter. Doesn't matter that his control might send his followers to their deaths in battle. That's why he's in command, and they'll forgive him that and anything else as long as they believe he's in control. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I am saying? Shout out, lad, so I can hear."

"Yes, I hear you."

"Aye, and you've heard me before, and yet still you wallow in your boneheaded stupidity. Stop! Stop your horse and listen to me, one more time." As he said the words he hauled back on his own reins, bringing his big horse to a plunging halt, and Uther's mount stopped in the same distance, so that the two remained side by side, almost touching. Before he spoke, Garreth sat staring, wild-eyed, into the face of his student.

"You could have been killed back there, boy! Stupidly, pointlessly, needlessly. Now I know you think you're immortal, but you are not. If you think about it, you might remember that you bleed when you cut yourself, and you break bones when you fall badly. D'you remember doing that last year? Well, spilled blood and broken bones are indications that you are mortal like the rest of us. You leaped off your horse back there, and you sacrificed control. Not merely your self-control, although the gods know how important that is, but control of the situation and the circumstances governing it. Any one of those three fools could have had a weapon and used it against you while you were grappling with the others. A small knife can cut your throat as easily as a dirk. Even a small club, hard swung, can crack a skull. You might have been dead, Uther, before you ever had a chance to know about it."

"But none of them had weapons, Garreth!"

"No, none of them did, but that was sheer good fortune. You leaped in there with no thought of anything other than your anger. You looked, you saw, and you reacted without thought, overwhelmed by anger and outrage."

"There's nothing wrong with anger and outrage. I've heard you—"

"Dia! Will you stop interrupting me, telling me what you think I'm saying! Just be quiet and listen! You've heard me say so, isn't that what you were going to say? Well, your main trouble is that you hear only what you want to hear, Uther. Yes, you have heard me say that there's nothing wrong with anger and outrage, but you have also heard me say a hundred times that anger and outrage call for clear thinking and sober analysis before you make any move that might endanger you or any of your people. Isn't that so? Isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Yes, and if you sigh like that again when I ask you a question, I'll knock you arse over head out of that saddle. Big for your age you might be, but you're not big enough yet to challenge me, and don't you lose sight of that. Now, let's get moving, because there are people waiting for us, and one of them at least, your father, likes not to be kept waiting by any man."

After Uther had saved her life that day and sent her back to the village, Nemo wanted to slip away to the Place of the Bows immediately to relive in her own mind what had happened. But more work than usual seemed to fall to her lot that day, with most of her regular dependants calling upon her services, and it was late in the afternoon by the time she managed to get away and slip unseen into the sacred grove. There she quickly climbed up into the branches and settled herself in her favourite cradle of limbs. She lay back against her springy cushion of mistletoe, closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift, recalling what it would.

The attack itself, the attempted violation by the three unknown men, had been in the forefront of her mind all afternoon, filling her awareness and shaking her, from time to time, with strange, unfamiliar and unwelcome sensations. She had felt hard, invading fingers probing into the centre of her, thrusting up hungrily into her body, digging for her innermost parts, seeking her very soul, it seemed to her, and violating her inner sense of wholeness. And each time that image came flashing into her mind—and it was always unexpected—it jarred her and brought anger flooding up into her throat in hot, salty waves of fury. The memory of the grasping violence of brutal, calloused hands and the scraping of thick, hard nails on the soft flesh of her inner thighs made her shudder and squirm with loathing, and rippling wavelets of disgust and horror writhed up the muscles of her back like human fingertips.

Nemo had known about such things for years before that day. She had seen many of her female companions taken and used thus by single boys, by entire groups and sometimes by fully grown men. Some of the girls had been taken against their will, but many others had complied gleefully and diligently, evidently gaining and enjoying great pleasure in the exercises. Nemo had seen girls struggling and fighting uselessly on the muddy, dung-strewn floors of stables and byres, screaming and weeping in the vain hope of attracting help, but she had seen others, too, who smiled and pulled up their skirts before lying down or bending forward or backwards over fences, tables or sacks of grain to welcome their invaders.

At all such times, however. Nemo had been but an observer, unnoticed or ignored, and she had remarked that none of the girls, even the most ill-used, had died of such abuse or had wept for more than an hour or two. Occasionally, one would swell up with child as the result, but no one paid much attention, and the child would be duly born and absorbed into the life of the community.

It had never occurred to Nemo that she herself might be treated as the other females were, and the truth had caught her unawares. The only male she had ever thought of as a rutting mate—for Nemo had no notion of romantic, spousal love—was Uther himself.

She thought now of Uther, pausing to dwell on his strength, his long, hard limbs and his kind face. The recollections rapidly grew warmer and more enjoyable as she remembered, so that flickering lines of light pulsed and seemed to swell and grow within her. As so often happened when she thought of Uther in this mood, she soon found herself breathless and physically awash in surges of sheer pleasure, so that her hand sought their source, involuntarily, increasing the pleasure of the surging, purging waves until she could absorb no more and had to stop, shivering and convulsed.

On this occasion, however, as the waves retreated, leaving her exhausted and gasping for air, thighs quivering with the intensity of her release. Nemo's reverie was broken by the deep sound of distant male voices raised in argument. Uncaring at first, and indolent in the aftermath of what she had just achieved, she dismissed the noise initially as a quarrel among the bowmen at the distant butts, but as the sounds continued to grow closer, she realized that the men were approaching the oak in which she lay concealed. Whoever they were—and there seemed to be no more than two voices—they suddenly became a threat, and a very real one, reminding her that she was in a forbidden place, profaning a sacred oak tree with her presence. If she were found there, the consequences would be unpleasant, and they would certainly involve Druids.

Her immediate reaction was to draw into herself, seeking to make herself smaller, catching her breath and willing her pounding heart to be still while she thrust her skirts down and tucked them about her to cover her nakedness from her own eyes and all others. Then, once she had made herself as small and inconspicuous as she could, she sat huddled and motionless, scarcely daring to breathe, waiting to be discovered.

The two men below were speaking very quickly and were keeping their voices low, but Nemo recognized one of them, and soon her curiosity overcame her fear completely. Slowly, being careful to make no noise, she sat up straight and leaned cautiously outward, bracing herself against one of the limbs that formed her seat as she scanned the space below. Sure enough, directly beneath her so that she could see him but not his companion. King Uric Pendragon stood, silent now, supporting his jaw with the ball of one thumb as he smoothed the tip of his right index finger down the length of his thick moustache to his chin.

Uric jerked his head and released a tightly suppressed sigh, expelling it so loudly that the sound carried to Nemo's perch far above him, and when he spoke, his voice held that indescribable tightness that betrayed reluctant acceptance of the inevitable.

"Very well, then, I'll grant that you're right. What's done is done, and there's nothing we can do to undo it. He might have been killed, but he wasn't. He came to no harm, and for that we should be grateful. Well, I am, and may the gods take note of it. But I would still like to take my boot to his arse and to Whistler's, too—" He held up his hand, palm outward, to forestall his companion's response.

"I know, I know, I've heard your arguments on Whistler's side of it. But if I've learned one thing as a King, it's this: responsibility defines itself and always rests most heavily on those who earn and hold it. You know that too, because it's part and parcel of your priestly code, hammered into you since you were old enough to understand what you were hearing. And if you believe in that, then you must also believe that in every man's life there must come a time when he is seen and acknowledged to accept responsibility for those things, those duties, that are his alone. Garreth Whistler has failed me, at least in this. I had thought better of him."

"Uric, that is untrue and unjust, and you know it."

Nemo guessed that the other speaker must be the Chief Druid, Daris, one of the King's most trusted Councillors. Now she leaned forward even farther, risking her balance in the attempt to see. As she did so, however, Daris saved her from further danger and discomfort by stepping out towards Uric, into the light. Uther's father, in the meantime, had folded his arms upon his breast, cocking his head at the priest's protest.

"Garreth Whistler has no control over Uther, Uric. He cannot jerk him to heel like a half-trained dog, and you would not have it otherwise. What would you? How could he control him? How could anyone? The boy is your son and Ullic's grandson! He's a Pendragon, and since when has a Pendragon firstborn been answerable to anyone in Cambria? By the gods, Uric, be honest! If Uther were weak enough to permit anyone to control him, you would have been casting about long before now to father a replacement for him. Look me in the eye and deny it."

Uric Pendragon made no attempt to deny it. He merely turned his head and gazed into the distance.

"Whistler has done wonders for the boy, Uric, and I know it better than anyone. Uther will be Chief one day, perhaps even King, and so I watch him closely. Garreth was charged—-your own father charged him personally—with teaching the boy to be a warrior worthy of his name, and by the blood of every Druid ever killed in Britain, I say he has done that superlatively well. Your son, at fifteen, is a warrior, superb in all respects, and now he can boast three more dead men to adorn his name even before he assumes his formal manhood."

"Unarmed men." King Uric's voice was a growl.

"Unarmed or not, the men are dead, and that's done with. Besides, I was talking of Garreth Whistler, not of Uther's escapade.

"It was no part of Garreth's duty that he himself should become a horse warrior. He is the King's Champion, the flower of his people—our people. But Uther spends much time in Camulod and so, therefore, does Garreth Whistler. Uther is besotted with the Camulodian cavalry and must, perforce, become a mounted Camulodian trooper. Whistler, much as he might dislike that thought, sees nonetheless that the young Uther can never be a mere trooper. As your son he must command, and so he must be taught to be a commander of cavalry. It follows, therefore, to Garreth Whistler's logic and loyalty, that he, himself, must become a mounted trooper in order to learn those things that he must teach, in turn, to the boy who is his charge."

Daris paused again, and the King stood silent, waiting for him to resume. Far above their heads, Nemo sat back down again and made herself more comfortable.

"So—" Daris's voice was quiet now, but every syllable carried clearly up to Nemo "—we may not speak ill, or even think ill, of Garreth Whistler, you and I. He has given up more than either of us in the service of our young heir, for in relinquishing the honour of being King's Champion he has forfeited much. He has almost become a foreigner, mounted upon a foreign horse and carrying foreign weapons. He has learned to speak a foreign tongue. He is still greatly loved, and rightly so, but there are some, envious and disgruntled, who yet whisper that he has become an alien among his own family and people . . . and all for his selfless and total dedication to the duty we have put upon him."

"What are you saying, priest?"

"I am saying that Garreth Whistler deserves your full gratitude and no trace of anger or dissatisfaction. And I am saying that he could no more control young Uther's impulsiveness in the grip of angry emotions than you could. Uther is a hothead, sudden and volatile and violent—always has been—and you and I have quarrelled over that before, when it was you who said it and I who disagreed with you out of too much fondness for the boy. Uther has always had that tendency to be headstrong and sudden. I believe that there is simply a well of violence simmering in the boy and likely to break surface at any moment when he is crossed severely enough to stir up his passions."

"Hmm." The King was silent for a time, and then he grunted again and nodded his head. "I agree with you. The boy is far too hot-tempered for his own good. But would you agree with me if I told you that I have noticed—and Garreth Whistler backs me in this—that he seems to respond well to responsibility that extends beyond himself?"

"I don't know if I would or not. What are you saying?"

"The boy does well when he is put in command of a situation. Set him to a task and explain to him what's involved and what depends on the outcome, and he'll do it conscientiously and well, without allowing himself to be distracted until the job is completed. Would you agree?"

There was a long pause, and then Daris responded, nodding his head. "You're right. He sticks with his task until he has acquitted himself completely of all responsibilities, and only then will he allow himself to be lured into other, more pleasurable things. At times like that he never allows himself to be distracted or seduced away from what he has to do and never allows his emotions to take control of him."

"Good. Then I think I might have the answer to his hotheadedness. An ongoing task, a large responsibility. One that only he can handle."

"At fifteen?" There was heavy skepticism in the Druid's tone, but the King ignored it completely.

"There could be no better age. Do you remember the story Publius Varrus told you the last time you and he were here at the same time of how it fell to Uther and Cay to teach the troops of Camulod how to sit in a saddle and control a horse with stirrups? And the boys were, what, eight years old at the time?"

"Yes, but they—"

"But nothing, Daris! They did it because they were the only two in the entire place who could use the single saddle that Camulod possessed. The thing had been sitting there in plain view for years before the boys were born, and no one had even suspected what it was. Varrus had captured it from some Franks taken in a raid years earlier and kept it as a keepsake, thinking it to be some kind of chair fashioned for a crippled boy. But it was a new form of weapon, a saddle with stirrups, made to fit a boy's legs. They never thought to see it as a thing a full-grown man might use, and so they saw nothing until young Cay grew into it and showed them how it should be used."

The High Priest nodded. "I remember that. I was impressed, but I fail to see—"

"Cay taught Uther how to ride in that saddle, Daris, immediately after he himself had learned to, because the two of them were of a size. And they became, in very fact, the first of Camulod's cavalry troopers. But they achieved it simply because their youth, their size, gave them the ability to do so. They had the equipment, while the others, fully grown men, had to wait until their saddles could be developed and manufactured. That was less than eight years ago, Daris, but Camulod is strong with cavalry today. So here is my idea. And hear me out, if you will, before you seek to undermine my logic with any argument. . .

"Camulod is hungry for our new Pendragon longbows. We now have more than a hundred, with several hundred more in various stages of completion. Camulod has uses for our bows, and to give our friends their due, they have never tried to buy the bows alone. They know the value of the weapons to us and the difficulties involved in not only producing them—growing the wood and then curing and shaping it before each weapon can be made—but also in the training of men to use them. So they are prepared to use our people and their bows, and to reward us handsomely for the use of our superior weaponry. Do you agree with what I have said so far?"

"Of course."

"Good. Now I propose that it is time for what the Romans called a quid pro quo, a giving in return for a gift."

"And what might that be?" Daris was smiling.

"A benefit to us in Cambria from their superior weaponry."

"Their—you mean their cavalry?"

"No . . . ours."

The Chief Druid pushed back his high cowl and scratched his head. "Forgive me, Uric, I must be misunderstanding something very simple. What do you mean?"

Uric let out a single, booming grunt of laughter. "I mean the answer to our problem with young Uther's hotheadedness: responsibility. Look, he travels every year between here and Camulod, there and back, no? Always with Garreth Whistler, but sometimes they travel with young Cay in tow, too, and when that happens there is usually an escort of some kind to ride with them from Camulod. Sometimes—most times, in fact—the escort is not really an escort but a military expedition of one kind or another, perhaps a patrol that would be travelling this way even if the boys were not.

"But now we find ourselves approaching a new kind of difficulty. In the past, the boys were merely boys, and they were travelling through our own lands, so they were in little danger—certainly no danger that Garreth Whistler could not handle with or without a military escort. Today, however, everything has changed. My son rides over a rise, finds an assault in progress and reacts predictably. He flies out of control and leaps into the middle of what might have been a disaster. I believe, nevertheless, that had he been in command of a body of troops, responsible for them, he would have reacted differently. I believe he would not have risked his life under those circumstances."

Daris said nothing and Uric continued. "Besides, the men he attacked today were vermin, but they were our own vermin and harmless enough, overall. It might not always be so. We no longer have the control that we used to have over our territories. There are invaders everywhere nowadays, and the risks of travel, any kind of travel, are far higher than they were even a few years ago."

The silence that followed this statement was so prolonged that Uric himself was forced to break it.

"Well? You disagree?"

"No, not at all." Daris's response came from a deep well of thought. "No, I'm merely trying to think through and beyond what you said. Are you suggesting that we approach Camulod to give Uther command of a cavalry troop?"

"No, I am saying that Uther should have a guard of his own."

"Of Camulodians?"

"No, Daris. Of Cambrians—Pendragon volunteers, trained and fully equipped with arms and horses—in Camulod. A King's Guard, my Guard, commanded by Uther as my appointee, with Garreth Whistler as his right arm. Camulod will be happy to accede to our wishes, for it will be to their ultimate advantage to have allied cavalry in place here, and besides, in return we'll increase our commitment to them in terms of men and bows."

Daris gazed at the King, and his entire face lit up slowly with admiration and approval as the various benefits of such a move occurred to him one after the other.

"Uric," he murmured eventually, "I have always been a dutiful and admiring Councillor . . . most of the time, anyway . . . and I have always marvelled, since I grew old enough to see and appreciate such subtleties, at the foresight and capacity for long-range planning that you and your father share, but this . . . this is incomparable! This is magnificent! We have no need for heavy horses in our mountains, but their presence—disciplined cavalry here in the lowlands—would be a great asset. It would make a massive difference to everything we do. No invader is insane enough, I think, to attack us in our hills, but anyone thinking of attacking us down here would have to think twice, knowing that we have fast-moving cavalry. Were I not a priest, I would be prepared to split a skin of wine with you in simple admiration and celebration of the brilliance of this sole idea."

Uric the King stood back and looked at him. then nodded. "Excellent. That's as it should be . . . but we'll be drinking mead, for you know damned well we have had no wine to speak of since the Romans left, other than what we've scrounged from Camulod."

Nemo sat silent in her perch, watching the two men as they left the confines of the sacred grove. She had not understood everything they said, but she had understood enough to know that they would soon begin recruiting volunteers for Uther's new Guard of Camulodian-style troopers. And she knew enough, too, to understand that if she moved quickly, presenting her case carefully and clearly to Garreth Whistler, she might win access to this new corps. She was a woman, certainly, but women had always borne weapons in Celtic society, and no woman had ever been denied the right to fight beside her friends and loved ones. No competent woman, indeed, had ever been denied the rank of warrior.

The following morning, shortly after sunrise. Nemo was waiting on Garreth Whistler's doorstep to catch him as he emerged. When he did, she faced him squarely, knowing that he was unlikely to have heard already about Uric's plan. She was blunt and straightforward as always, incapable of making any attempt to be obscure or to appear mysterious. She simply told Garreth Whistler that she wanted to ride with Uther as a mounted trooper. If ever there should be a call to arms for volunteers among the warriors of Cambria, she said, to form a corps of cavalry about the King under the command of the Prince Uther, Garreth Whistler should remember that her name had been presented first and foremost.

Whistler listened to her, his eyebrows raised in good-humoured puzzlement, but then he smiled and promised her that he would bear her request in mind from that day forth. Satisfied, she grunted her thanks and then disappeared into one of the narrow lanes that surrounded Whistler's residence.

By that afternoon, Whistler had received direct instructions from King Uric to call for a muster of volunteers to ride with Uther Pendragon and form a King's Guard of cavalry. Uric had no doubt that Camulod would concur with his wishes in this—he knew how badly they wanted access to his bowmen and their weaponry—and he already considered his new cavalry force to be a reality.

Whistler nodded and accepted his instructions with a slightly bemused look on his face, but Nemo's was the first name he inscribed on his mental list of personnel. It never occurred to him to question the young woman's fitness for the task, for he had long since come to admire her solid strength and her unquestioning loyalty to Uther in all the young man did, and he knew he would find many others among the volunteers, all of them men, who would pose him far greater problems than Nemo ever would. He merely wondered in passing how Nemo had gained her foreknowledge of what was happening.

The new Guard was formed quickly, with more volunteers than there were posts available, and shortly thereafter Nemo and her new companions were plunged into a period of frantic and intensive training that culminated six long weeks later in a series of tests involving both disciplined drills and skills, as well as hard demonstrations of physical achievement and prowess.

Nemo was unsurprised that she won her place among the men, but she held it jealously, competing chin to chin with males of her own age and older, defying all of them and drilling, training, working overtime to deny them the opportunity and the pleasure of besting her in anything she tried. She graduated from training ahead of all of them, winning from Uther's own hand the Roman rank of decurion, or squadron leader, before they ever left to travel to Camulod.

By the end of the first month of harsh competition. Nemo's squadron mates had stopped resenting the fact that she was female. Around the same time, after several bruising fights in which Nemo had inflicted much pain and grief in sudden, violent shows of disinclination, they had also stopped trying to bed her. By the time they left for Camulod to begin their real training, however. Nemo had achieved her greatest triumph over her messmates: they had come to regard her as an absolute equal and had forgotten, by and large, that she was a woman. They called her Hard-Nose, saying it with respect, and Nemo found it infinitely preferable to the Toad. She marched out of camp proudly, her mind filled with the vision of King Uric himself saluting her and her mates. Ahead of her, filling her vision with the splendour of his gold-embroidered military cloak and his great Roman helmet with its high, crimson crest, Uther Pendragon rode proudly on his enormous chestnut horse, accompanied by Garreth Whistler. Behind him marched all his new King's Guard.

When they returned from Camulod, Nemo knew, they would not be marching as they were now. By then the Guard would all be mounted on horses as fine as those their commanders rode, and people would automatically accord them the respect and admiration they had earned and deserved, awed and impressed by their equipment and their magnificence, their training and their discipline. By then, too, she knew with certainty, everyone seeing them would recognize and know the squadron leader, Nemo Hard-Nose, riding at their head. "Everyone," however, was unimportant to her. The only one who mattered in her eyes, the only man in all her world, was her Commander, Uther Pendragon. She knew, beyond any vestige of doubt, that her reason for existence was to protect him against any and all threats to his destiny, whatsoever those threats might be and whomsoever they might involve.