For King & Country (17 page)

Banning chuckled. Leave that to me. Britons enjoy gambling, don't they?

We're Britons, are we not? Lailoken responded with stung pride. Throwing the dice is a most popular sport, has been ever since the legions brought the game from Rome. Lailoken's frown faded as he saw the possibilities. A pair of dice and a board on which to properly toss them shouldn't cost too much, unless you've set your heart on some fancy thing inlaid with silver and fashioned from imported ivory from Africa or jade from Constantinople.

A humble board will do, Banning mused, but we must secure a good set of dice. Ivory would be best, as it's easier to make alterations that are less readily detected than with sets made of stone or wood.

Alterations? Lailoken blinked. What do you mean, alterations? Do you plan to cheat?

Banning roared with laughter. Oh, that is priceless, and you a man who's stolen three horses in as many days! You didn't think I would walk into a game and play fairly? Not when we require a large stockpile of money, as quickly as we can lay hands on it? Bah, what do I care if some wealthy Briton nobleman loses a portion of his fortune to us? Or a soldier, for that matter, when his gold is destined to help you and me destroy enemies he will therefore never have to fight with sword and spear? Think of it as a tax they don't know they're paying, to levy troops they don't realize they're supporting. Believe me, when the blow is struck, all of Britain will be in awe of what you and I accomplish.

Lailoken couldn't imagine how cheating a few rich men at dice would enable him to destroy the Irish, but he had absolute faith in his personal god. Banning was a being of fire and awesome knowledge and knew so many secrets of power, the memories they shared left him dizzy and shaking with wondrous terror. If Banning said he needed ivory dice to destroy their enemies, then Lailoken would get them, whatever the cost.

Vengeance, after all, was worth no less.

Dragging himself into the saddle was harder than it had been the first time. They set out in total darkness, a clattering mass of heavy cavalry, and rode without stop through the night. It was well past sunup when a landmark Stirling would've known anywhere rose out of the smothering downpour: a long, cat's-claw glint of silvery-grey water and rising high above that, the immense volcanic plug known in his day as Dumbarton Rock. Mary Queen of Scots had taken refuge there as a child, before being smuggled to France at the age of five. He had no idea how many successive fortresses had been built atop that craggy high ground, but there was no question about where Artorius was headed: Caer-Brithon, home of the kings of Strathclyde, the latest of whom rode strapped to a pack horse, colder and stiffer than Stirling's aching body.

He would have given a great deal to bypass Caer-Brithon and the queen who did not know, yet, that she was a widow. Morgana caught his glance, her own pale and grim, and shame for his own cowardice touched his heart. Prince Clinoch, lips thinned, back ramrod straight, led the entire thundering cavalcade of Briton
cataphracti
up the muddied road toward the fortress atop Dumbarton Rock. The horses slipped and snorted protests at the steep, choppy climb, which Stirling would have dreaded making when snow and ice lay on the ground. Sentries saluted as they passed the outer walls, which did not look to Stirling like Roman construction, but which would certainly have sufficed to stand off most invaders for a good, long while.

Once past the wall, Stirling could see the royal hall of the kings of Strathclyde. The design echoed Roman construction, with outer walls of heartlessly plain stone and roof of overlapped stone shingles, but it was rougher than Roman buildings, the stone not as finely dressed, although certainly solid enough to withstand siege. It occupied the place where a Roman camp's
principium
would ordinarily stand, but the barracks buildings and workshops surrounding it were scattered haphazardly, taking advantage of the existing terrain features rather than altering that terrain to fit human notions of organization.

Lacking the neat, ruler-precise order of a Roman fortress, the settlement was a startling visual symbol of the Britons' slow slide toward darkness, a darkness settling rapidly across all of Europe. These people were clearly desperate to keep their Roman civilization running, without the highly skilled engineers, stonemasons, and architects to carry it off properly. Still, they'd done a good job building this fortress, large enough to shelter everyone in the town below, if necessary. A colonnaded entrance, its sandstone pillars drenched by the cold rain, was a suitably impressive entryway for visitors coming to call on Strathclyde's royalty. The doors opened as they clattered into the courtyard, a sea of mud with a border of chipped and shivering Romanesque sculpture, graceful nymphs and proud heroes half drowned in the stinging downpour, looking half frozen with filmy gowns and nude male torsos bare to the wind and rain.

A woman in her late thirties rushed into the muddy yard, taking in their grim faces and silence with a look of fright. Clinoch sat swallowing repeatedly, apparently unable to stir from the saddle. Morgana was the first to break out of the awkward paralysis that held them all as frozen and cold as the statuary watching from the fringes. She slid fluidly out of the saddle and crossed the muddy courtyard to grip the other woman's hands. "Braithna..." she said inadequately, voice breaking.

"He's dead, isn't he?" the queen of Strathclyde cried, voice shrill with terror. Her hair, streaming wild and wet down her face, lay in limp copper ribbons and her skin had run ashen beneath a dusting of freckles. Clinoch, deathly pale beneath his own scattering of freckles, sat watching in numbed silence from his saddle. The boy obviously had no idea how to comfort his grieving mother. Morgana lifted the wet hair back from the woman's trembling lips and brow so she could meet streaming blue eyes that did not want the worst confirmed.

"Braithna, I grieve with you, for my own husband is not yet in the ground, and my sons too young to safeguard the throne he has left empty. Your Clinoch fought as bravely as any man I have ever seen, Braithna. He will rule Strathclyde wisely and will take care that no harm comes to you or to any more of your family."

The other woman began to sob uncontrollably, collapsing into Morgana's arms. The two queens clung together, their grief as raw as the rain pelting down with such pitiless fury. Stirling found himself on the ground without realizing he'd intended to move, and guided the women out of the rain, all but carrying Braithna. "See to the horses," he called over his shoulder, then they were inside and Clinoch was right behind them, paralysis broken, shouting for servants to see to his mother.

The royal reception hall was several degrees warmer than the raw outer air, clearly having been constructed by someone at least passingly familiar with Roman central heating, but all resemblance to Roman architecture ended there. Bare stone walls lacked plaster or murals, although someone had fastened animal skins as decorative insulation along most of the open wall space. Oil lamps rested in iron brackets riveted to the stones. One long wall boasted an open hearth, the most strikingly un-Roman feature of the large room, where a large fire blazed cheerfully. A bed of coals two meters long spilled additional heat into the room, while smoke escaped through a narrow opening in the roof.

A wide-eyed, red-haired boy of perhaps five stared at them from beside the hearth, sitting in the midst of toys he had clearly been playing with just a moment previously. He hung back, frightened and beginning to cry. A girl of perhaps ten, a slender, freckled version of her brothers, gathered the boy in, hushing and rocking him as Ancelotis guided their mother to the hearth.

Morgana retrieved her satchel of medicines, crushing a handful of leaves into a steaming kettle hanging over the fire and steeping them until the water turned a dark, mysterious shade that satisfied her. Someone brought blankets and wrapped them around the shuddering Braithna. Morgana dipped up her brew into a simple, wooden cup and got the entire cupful down Braithna's throat, coaxing her with apologies for the strong and bitter taste.

"Just a bit more, that's good, I've made it strong, to fight off the shock you've had."

Artorius, Stirling noticed, was quietly and efficiently giving orders to summon the council of Strathclyde while Clinoch sent riders to bear his father's body to the chapel. The boy retained enough presence of mind to order servants to bring food and hot, mulled wine for the weary and chilled soldiers who still waited in the rain outside. "Quarter the men of Gododdin with our own," Clinoch told an older man who clearly filled the role of that ageless and ever-present type of official who appears wherever courts of power come into existence, calm and colorless and competent. "Then send hot food for the men, hot bran mash for the horses, we've come a wicked long way and have a worse ride ahead. Artorius is calling for a full high council of the Briton kings at Caerleul. Bid the council of Strathclyde meet in this hall no later than one hour from now. Decisions cannot wait for time nor tide when the Saxons are on the march."

The colorless official bowed and departed in considerable haste.

Meanwhile, whatever Morgana had persuaded Braithna to swallow, it seemed to be helping. The harsh, uncontrollable weeping had tapered off to a few sodden hiccoughs now and again as she struggled to bring her wild grief into some manageable form of containment. More blankets put in a welcome appearance and Stirling wrapped himself in thick, woolen warmth, grateful as well for the mulled wine and fresh-baked, hot-from-the-oven barley cakes beginning to make the rounds.

Servants were bringing piles of dry clothing, as well, and set up a heavy wooden screen near the fire, which allowed Morgana, Covianna Nim, and Ganhumara to doff heavy, wet gowns and capes that held the rainwater against the skin and added to the chill. The women soaked up the heat of the hearth on their side of the screen, even as the men changed clothing on the other side of the screen, equally grateful for the warmth. Servants took their wet garments away, presumably to hang near other hearth fires to dry them. The women emerged at length and began working on their drenched hair, while Queen Braithna had calmed enough to call her children to her and hold them close while
they
wept.

Grey-haired councillors began to arrive, full of apologetic horror at the news, hardly knowing whether to address their own grieving queen, their dead king's heir, Artorius the Dux Bellorum, Morgana who was also recently widowed, or Ancelotis, because he now sat on the throne Morgana had declined. They reminded Stirling of a flock of fluttering, uncertain pigeons, trying to decide which cat to placate first.

Artorius put them at their ease with few enough words, outlining the entire series of disasters in a handful of terse, to-the-point sentences, making it quite clear that he supported Clinoch ap Dumgual Hen. Morgana added her support, as did Ancelotis. Within a quarter of an hour, the decision was made and Clinoch was officially King of Strathclyde. His younger brothers and sisters looked on in confused awe as he was invested with the full power of the crown by the church, in a ceremony only slightly more formal and ornate that Ancelotis' own.

It was, however, just as brief.

The new king's first order was to see to his father's funeral arrangements in his absence, "for the Saxons are massing to the south," he explained to his councillors, "and maneuvering in the midlands, and if successful in both places, they could punch through to demolish the northern kingdoms within the year."

Braithna kissed her son's cheeks and murmured, "We will see to all proper ceremony. Ride like a sudden summer gale and do your part to keep the Saxons guessing and off guard."

They waited only long enough to shovel down hot stew and bread and stow more trail rations in their kit bags, then they were under way again, amidst a great flurry of trumpet calls. The brassy voices of the signal trumpets pursued them down the twisting, muddy road from the fortified heights down to the Clyde estuary. Narrow, cobbled streets echoed with the sound of unshod hooves on uneven stone. Then they were through the town's southern gate, clattering onto a well-paved stretch of Roman road leading south. Once past the cat's-claw hook of water that formed the very tip of the Firth of Clyde, they drove straight down through the Southern Uplands and the Tweedsmuir Hills toward the distant and meaningless—to anyone from the sixth century—border between modern Scotland and modern England.

After a grueling day Stirling hoped never to repeat in his life, the rain clouds finally broke up and let the sky show through, pale as ice and just as cold. The chilly sun dropped gradually behind the hills and left them riding into the faces of long, purple shadows. The sky blazed with the colors of blood and flame and faerie gold. Night slipped over them on silent cat's feet once more, toying with the vanishing sun until the fiery plaything fell over the edge of the world and left them riding by starlight. The heavens were far from dark, however. Stirling's first glance up left his mouth hanging open in astonishment. Stars blazed in such brilliant profusion, scattered like a carelessly overturned saltshaker on a velvet tablecloth, Stirling's breath caught.

He had never, not even during desert training, seen a night sky to equal it. The heavens were so thickly populated, it took him long moments just to spot familiar constellations and several moments more to understand why they were slightly skewed from true in their not-quite-changeless march across the night skies. Gooseflesh prickled beneath armor and sodden wool. Little wonder the ancients had revered the night sky as sacred, filled with the shining souls of departed heroes. Every man, woman, and child on Earth ought to see a sky like this at least once. The experience might instill perspective on the insignificance of squabbles like Belfast's, when weighed against the infinite reaches of the heavens.

Stirling held back a tired sigh.

The column entered the upper reaches of a land Stirling heard referred to as Caer-Guendoleu, passing a stone post which marked the border. Ganhumara, having ridden in silence for hours, beckoned to the nearest of Artorius'
cataphracti,
an officer if Stirling judged correctly the quality of his arms and the deference of the men who rode with him. The man reined closer to the queen's lighter mount.

"My lady?"

"Bear a message to my legate at fortress Caer-Guendoleu. Bid him sharpen my late father's sword."

The ominous words chilled Stirling, heavy reminder of the dead they'd already left behind, who were themselves mere tokens—or so Ancelotis feared—compared with those slated to die if this challenge weren't stopped in some bloodless and apparently impossible fashion. The officer bowed stiffly at the waist and reined around—but not to depart, as Stirling expected. He requested permission to leave the column from
his
commanding officer. A moment later, he vanished into the darkness with a muted drumming of hooves against wet earth.

Stirling watched him go, brows twitching in impressed surprise. Clearly, not even a royal command superseded military discipline. Artorius commanded well. Of course, he
must
command well, given the odds he fought against and his track record of victories. It occurred to Stirling for the first time that he could learn a thing or two about soldiering from the Dux Bellorum. The observation wrung another derisive snort from Ancelotis. Stirling sighed. He was not making a particularly good impression on his host.

It was well past midnight, with the constellations wheeling silently overhead in a bitterly cold sky and Stirling reeling in the saddle, when the bulky shadow of the Sixth Legion's stronghold appeared at last. An immense fortress of classic Roman design, it towered above the final stretch of road. The grey shadow of Hadrian's Wall, shocking Stirling with its height—a good five meters of it, when the only surviving remnants in the twenty-first century stood barely a meter high—vanished into the darkness on either side of the fortress, marching toward the sea in both directions. The moonlit waters of Solway Firth glittered in the distance, silver where an onshore wind pushed ripples across the black stretch of water. The estuary's farthest reaches vanished into the blackness of sky at the horizon line.