If they were
, Tiraena thought,
the Vandals would have stripped it off in 455!
But she looked into the eyes of the women, shining with wonder, and could not be flippant. "Actually, Lady, I'm from Milan, where my family has been settled for generations. I haven't been to Rome since I was a child."
But the ladies-in-waiting were having none of it, and bombarded her with questions until Gwenhwyvaer raised a peremptory hand.
"Enough! Lucasta has only just arrived, and she must be weary enough from her journey without you honking at her like a flock of silly geese! Besides, I need to speak to her in private. All of you, get about your work!" The ladies-in-waiting subsided with no good grace as Gwenhwyvaer led Tiraena into her inner bedchamber. There, she gave the newcomer a grave regard that Tiraena returned.
Gwenhwyvaer was very tall for a woman of this age, but not much shorter than Tiraena herself. She must have inherited it from her great-grandfather Magnus Maximus, whose tallness was still proverbial. Otherwise, there was little about her that could have come from that Spanish usurper. Rather, her reddish-gold locks must have been those of his British wife, or of other Britons who had joined the bloodline since. That hair, obviously once stunning, had begun to fade as she entered the premature old age that overtook all these women in their thirties. But, unlike most, she hadn't thickened out from repeated childbearing.
Finally, the Queen spoke. "I was glad when Ventidius requested that I make a place for you in my household, Lucasta. He said that on your journey from Italy you would meet my husband's army in Gaul. You must have seen him there."
"I was never actually presented to the High King, Lady. It was only from a distance that I glimpsed Riothamus—"
"I say, you
have
been in Gaul! We almost never use that honorific here, except when we're being dreadfully formal and stuffy. He's 'the High King' or, among ourselves, 'Artorius.' Did he look well?"
"Very well, Lady, as far as I could see. But I bear no new tidings. It is only since arriving in Britain that I have learned, like everyone else, of his triumph at Angers." In fact, she knew from Koreel that the Britons, along with Tylar and Robert, had subsequently proceeded westward along the north bank of the Loire, as planned. They had now crossed the Loire into Berry and occupied Bourges, where they would go into winter quarters. But she had to be careful not to reveal more up-to-date knowledge than she could plausibly possess, in this age when Britain and Gaul were like two separate planets.
"Ah, yes!" Gwenhwyvaer's eyes were alight. "What stories we have heard about that battle! Naturally, such stories always gain with the retelling, when every courier from Gaul knows that the free drinks will last as long as his tales do! Besides the tidings of everyone's relatives and sweethearts, we've heard some new names—like a certain Bedwyr, who evidently saved the High King's life, and slew a hundred Saxons. . . . My dear, are you quite well?"
Once Tiraena's coughing spell was under control, she gasped, "Forgive me, Lady, but I met this Bedwyr in the camp outside Nantes. He was a mercenary who had been hired as a bodyguard for my uncle Tertullian, secretary to the Bishop of Clermont, who is accompanying the High King." All at once, some imp seemed to take control of her. "I must say, Lady, I'm surprised to hear that this wandering rogue has made a name for himself! Frankly, he impressed me as a braggart and an impudent rascal. In fact . . ." She gave her best attempt at a demure look. "I must ask you not to tell Ventidius, for he would be terribly angry, but before I left the camp this Bedwyr made highly improper advances to me. Indeed, some of his suggestions are quite unfit for your ears!"
Gwenhwyvaer had clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle her splutters. Now she took a breath and spoke with mock-imperiousness. "In that case, I
command
you to relate them!"
Tiraena went on, inventing freely, until she and Gwenhwyvaer were both breathless from laughter. "Well," the Queen uttered, "you're right: Bedwyr is a dubious character indeed! And
certainly
a braggart!" They both dissolved in mirth again. Finally, Gwenhwyvaer spoke seriously.
"Ah, Lucasta, I'm glad you've joined the household. It's so good to have someone new and stimulating—and who speaks educated Latin! Time hangs heavy for me."
Tiraena looked at her face again, and saw more clearly the lines, the encroaching gauntness. When she had laughed, revealing her teeth, it had been necessary to remember that they were unusually good ones for a woman in her middle thirties, in this era.
I'm older than she is, and she thinks I'm in my early twenties
, Tiraena realized. And she saw, stretching away behind that face, a long, long line of other worn faces: women, countless generations of them—throughout nearly all of history—martyrs to the perpetuation of the species.
"Surely, Lady," she ventured, "your lord's absence is made more bearable by the glory he has won. Why, the Emperor of the West himself has had to seek his aid to save Gaul from the barbarians!"
"Oh, yes. Artorious is a great warrior, no doubt of it." Gwenhwyvaer smiled, and for an instant she seemed almost a girl. "I remember my first sight of him, when he led the Artoriani south to join Ambrosius. Not at Thebes, nor at Troy, was there such a hero! I was a young girl then, and in love. And," she continued, almost inaudibly, "I believe he loved me."
There was a long silence, while Gwenhwyvaer wandered, lost in memory, and Tiraena felt uncomfortable to the point of desperation. Then the Queen looked up and smiled at her.
"I'm sorry, Lucasta. I shouldn't burden you with these matters. But you must have heard the gossip since arriving in Britain."
Tiraena
had
heard, as part of her orientation. "It is hardly my place, Lady, to . . ."
"Oh, tosh! Everyone knows. Everyone talks. Let them!" Again, Gwenhwyvaer's voice sank to little more than a whisper. "I know he loved me then. And I gave him my love. . . ."
You also gave him the High Kingship
, Tiraena thought, drawing on her implanted knowledge.
The old Celtic custom of matrilinear succession has never died out. Vortigern acquired legitimacy for his High Kingship by marrying Sevira, and Artorius did it by marrying you. No doubt about it, the female descendants of Magnus Maximus are prime breeding stock!
Except, of course, for one little thing. . . .
". . . Then came the years of waiting and praying while no child came," Gwenhwyvaer was saying. "Oh, Artorius was never actually unkind. But the distance grew and grew."
Who knows which side the deficiency lay on
, Tiraena reflected.
In this world, it's automatically the woman's "fault," and "barren" isn't a nice word. Little by little, Artorius must have lost whatever nonpolitical feelings he may have had.
"Perhaps, Lady," she offered, "it was only the long absences. The High King must have been away on campaign much of the time."
"Indeed he was! Fighting Picts and Saxons while I played the woman's part and wondered if I'd ever see him again. And when I did . . . one thing that never changed was what I felt on my first sight of him whenever he returned from the wars."
Suddenly, a commotion arose in the outer chamber. Gwenhwyvaer nodded to Tiraena, who opened the door to reveal a frightened-looking lady-in-waiting.
"Your pardon, Lady, but the Count of the Saxon Shore has returned, and demands to see you."
" 'Demands!' " Gwenhwyvaer's sky-blue eyes flashed. "How typical! Well, let's get this over with. Come, Lucasta." She rose to her feet in a way for which there was no possible word but "regal," and swept out of the bedchamber and through the outer room. Tiraena hurried to keep up, and the other women followed in a frightened gaggle—all but two, who opened the apartment's outer door to reveal the entrance hall and a small group of travel-dusty soldiers. One of them had his back—covered by an unusually rich cloak—to them. He whirled around and greeted Gwenhwyvaer with the most perfunctory of bows.
"Record,"
Tiraena mentally commanded an implant, and everything she saw and heard began to go onto an almost microscopic disc for later retrieval.
Tylar's going to love this!
Ambrosius Aurelianus was a late middle-aged man of average height for these times, his iron-grey hair and beard closely cropped. Everything about him suggested lean, wiry toughness, as though decades of war had sandblasted him down to the indestructible essentials. He had been in the forefront of the Britons' initially disorganized resistance to the Saxon
foederates'
revolt in the 440s, gradually becoming its leader. In 454 he had supported Artorius' claim to the High Kingship (left vacant by the discredited Vortigern), and was rewarded with the military high command of the ongoing effort to hem the barbarians into their coastal settlements. It had been touch-and-go throughout the 450s, but by the 460s, the worst of the devastation was over. Artorius had turned his attention more and more to his Armorican possessions, leaving the island to Ambrosius' regency during his frequent absences.
It was fitting that his title was a revived Roman one, for his life had become totally consecrated to the ideal of Rome—the only imaginable alternative to barbarism from without and squalor from below. His concept of Rome was his shield, and he loathed anything that he saw as an impurity in its gleaming alloy—such as the woman at whom he now glared.
"Welcome, Count," Gwenhwyvaer said with frosty politeness. "We were told that you requested"—a slight stress—"to speak to us. We trust that your tour of the Saxon settlements revealed no disturbances."
"It did, Lady." Ambrosius' voice was as harsh as his features. "The Saxons are quiet. Artorius has no cause for worry—from
them
."
His emphasis was too blatant to be overlooked with dignity. Gwenhwyvaer's voice dropped a few more degrees. "Whatever do you mean, Count?"
The brittle shell of bogus politeness dropped from Anbrosius and seemed to shatter on the floor. "I have been back long enough to hear the rumors, Gwenhwyvaer. It is being said that even as your lord is striving against the barbarians in Gaul, you are disgracing his marriage bed here in Britain!"
The silence was a palpable physical presence, not merely an absence of sound. When Gwenhwyvaer finally spoke, her near-whisper seemed deafening.
"How
dare
you repeat this slander before witnesses? By God, Ambrosius, when Artorius returns—"
"You deny the accusations, then?" Even Ambrosius' officers shuffled nervously at his rudeness in interrupting her.
Gwenhwyvaer's features remained frozen, but her voice gained steadily in volume. "Accusations? What accusations? I have heard nothing but camp gossip, repeated by a prig with the soul of a village busybody! And as for denials, I am not answerable to you in any way, Ambrosius!"
"But you are, Lady. Everyone in Britain is, for I am the High King's regent in his absence. Your personal life is of no concern in itself—you can rut with whomever you please for all of me. But when you cuckold the High King, you diminish the High Kingship, which is all that stands between us and chaos."
Gwenhwyvaer's lips curved slightly upward into a bitter smile. "You never give up, do you, Ambrosius? After your failure to uncover any proof of infidelity two years ago . . ."
"No
proof
, no—but we both know it was true, don't we, Lady? And . . . why shouldn't you? Those old Celtic queens before the coming of Rome, from whom you like to boast of your descent, took lovers freely."
Gwenhwyvaer's smile grew even tighter, and more ironic. "Now we come to it, don't we? You
need
to believe I'm an adultress, and probably worse besides, because to you I stand for what we were before Rome, what you fear we may become after Rome. Yes, Count,
we
—
you
are more British than Roman in blood! As for me, it's true that I'm descended from Maximus, but I'm equally descended from the British wife he took." It was clear she was speaking to
all
the audience now. "And after he was shortened by a head, his daughters became wards of the Emperor and were married off to British chieftains who wanted cultivating. So perhaps I understand better than you that the Empire is
dead
, Ambrosius—at least in the West. It was always an imported hothouse plant that never really took root, or smothered the native life beneath. And now, as its dead husk falls away, that life is feeling the sunlight again!"
For an instant, no one could speak—even the terrified whimpering of the ladies-in-waiting was momentarily stilled. Tiraena was amazed to discover that she herself had forgotten to breathe. She was even more amazed when Ambrosius broke the silence—not with a roar of outrage, but in an almost conversational tone.
"You're quite right about the Western Empire, Lady—but not about
Rome
! Rome will exist as long as there's a civilized man alive. It will exist as long as the Latin in which we're now speaking to each other! So your husband has always believed, and he's always striven to keep its light from guttering out."
"Oh, Artorius and I aren't as far apart as you suppose, Ambrosius. He wants to preserve what was good in Rome. But he knows that it can only be preserved in ways that will work for the Britain that now is. Haven't you noticed that while people called Vortigern High King of
Britain
, they call Artorius High King of
the Britons
? Have you considered what that means for the direction our world is going?"
"A mere form of words," Ambrosius said, a little too emphatically.
"You may convince yourself of that, Ambrosius. But the future will take no notice." Gwenhwyvaer drew herself up. "You have every right to communicate your suspicions to the High King. On his return, I will submit willingly to his justice, and we will see which of us is vindicated. And now . . . you have our leave to go!"
Ambrosius gave her a quick nod and turned on his heel. After the last of the soldiers had clanked out, Gwenhwyvaer turned to the ladies-in-waiting.
"All right, everyone, return to your tasks. Julia, stop snuffling and wipe your nose!" As she led the way back into her apartments, she turned to Tiraena. "Lucasta, I'm sorry you had to see that just after your arrival."