Then, up ahead through the dust, he saw the riders of the first line twist in their saddles in an odd way, then reverse the motion, flinging their javelins. Then they wheeled away, peeling off to left and right . . . and there was the shield wall, showing rents and confusion from the javelin shower it had just weathered—and maybe also from the sight of the blood-red dragon. And then, before the Saxons could restore their formation, the charge reached it.
Sarnac, existing in an odd state of distended time, felt his lance head slide along a skewed shield and punch into a Saxon's gut, then tear loose as he rode past the disintegrating Saxon battle-mass. Then he was through, suddenly conscious of the hellish din his mind had shut out, and spared a split second to glance backward at the red ruin where the shield wall had been. Then he was riding with the Artoriani through what was no longer a monolithic formation, just a mob of panic-shrieking individuals, caught up in a battle that had ceased to be a battle, and had become a trampling, hacking slaughter.
All at once, he understood the Middle Ages.
It was very straightforward, really. You could even express it in terms of physics. Take the mass of a man, and a large horse, both armored. Multiply it by the velocity of a good gallop. Then, by bracing your feet in stirrups, and holding a lance couched underarm, concentrate all that kinetic energy behind the point of that lance. It might not seem like much to Sarnac's civilization, which incinerated life wholesale with nukes, whiffed it out of existence with lasers, and shredded it with streams of hypervelocity metal slivers. But here and now, it was enough to change the face of Eurasia from the Loire to China, where the Turkish Toba were lording it over the north, having stopped at the Yangtze only because rice paddies make poor cavalry terrain.
Oh, heavy shock cavalry could be stopped. All it took was an unshakable formation of pikemen—horses, unlike men, have better sense than to crash at full tilt into an apparently solid barrier. But it took generations to create that kind of infantry, who would die in formation before they would break ranks in the sight of their comrades and the regiment's ghosts. The Swiss would do it, a thousand years hence. But until then, the battlefield belonged to the
cataphract
—the knight.
Everything else flowed from that. The feudal system, for instance. The only way the peasantry could survive was by turning themselves into serfs, tying hundreds of near-subsistence farmers to one
cataphract
, whom they supported with their individually paltry surplus, so that he might devote his life to perfecting himself in this very specialized martial art.
But feudalism still lay in the future. How did Riothamus support this kind of outfit?
The answer could only be that he was still living off what was left of Rome's capital. The money economy wasn't quite dead yet in Western Europe. Revenue could still be collected in the form of coinage. A generation from now, they'd be back to barter and nobody in Britain would be able to operate in Riothamus' style. Even now he must live very close to the bone. To survive, he couldn't let his economic base contract an iota.
That's what he's doing here in Gaul. He can't let his Breton holdings go. And he thinks he can use the leverage he's developing with Syagrius & Co., and what's left of the Western Empire, to expand his base—while it's still worth expanding. He's never heard the expression "window of opportunity," but he sure as hell knows what it means.
All this ran through Sarnac's head in the time it took him to notice that his lance had been broken. He dropped it and pulled out his
spatha
, spurring his horse forward through the thinning melee. He reached the crest of the hill, then paused and looked around.
Ahead of him was Angers, whose defenders had taken advantage of the spreading Saxon rout to sally from the gate. Now a mob of lightly armed citizens was pouring down the slope to his left, catching the Saxons who were beginning to fall back from Syagrius' advance. To left and right the mounted javelin men, having thrown away their missiles, were closing in on the Saxon flanks with drawn swords, herding them inward to the killing ground.
He contacted Tylar and described it all. The latter was close to academic ecstasy. "Yes! Yes! This is absolutely extraordinary! I would never have believed that an army in Dark Ages Western Europe could be capable of this kind of tactical finesse. Most battles in this milieu are nothing but drunken brawls, you know. And . . . are you all right, my dear fellow? You don't sound altogether yourself."
You wouldn't either, if you'd been here
, Sarnac didn't say. He had let combat reaction catch up with him as the killing had swirled on past, coming down from a high whose origins he had difficulty defining. He was trying to describe the sensations to Tylar when Kai rode up.
Instead of the euphoria Sarnac expected, the Briton's face wore annoyance. "Well, I'll have words for my squadron after
that
, you can be sure! Of course, you can only expect so much, charging uphill . . . but we might as well have been riding pigs! Bedwyr, I'm overcome with embarrassment!"
By God, he's not faking it! He really thinks what just happened was a pitiful display of ineptitude! You'd think we'd lost! What must it be like when these characters get to charge downhill, or even on level ground?
Then he followed Kai's gaze toward the gates of Angers. Riothamus and a group that included a courier and several of his officers were talking animatedly. "Wait here," Kai said, and trotted off to join the colloquy. Sarnac took advantage of his sudden privacy to report Kai's reaction to Tylar. There was a long pause before the time traveller replied.
"Yes. Yes. I'm very glad we have this opportunity to observe Riothamus' operations at first hand. Clearly, there's more here than we had imagined. Oh, we've always realized that his army isn't the typical European Dark Ages rabble. But we hadn't fully appreciated the degree to which he is in a class by himself." Another long pause. "Yes, this must be thought on."
Sarnac was about to ask him what he meant when Kai returned. If he had looked irritated before, then he looked infuriated now.
"Kai! What is it?"
"God damn all the Gauls who ever lived to eternal hell!" Kai took a deep breath and continued more calmly. "It seems Odovacar was with the force facing the southwest slope. He's surrendered to Syagrius."
"This is bad news?"
"That blowhard Childeric must have been in contact with Odovacar. He's worked a deal by which he'll take the surviving Saxons into his own service. And Syagrius is going along with it." Kai's habitual good nature was slowly reasserting itself. "Ah, well, at least they'll be moved to the Frankish lands. We won't get to make a clean sweep of them, but our people in Armorica will be free of them."
Well, well,
Sarnac mused.
Underneath all of Childeric's noise lies one shrewd son of a bitch. He's probably had a bellyful of being Syagrius' vassal, and he's positioning himself to make a bid for more independence. And Syagrius is trying to mollify him.
Then Riothamus was riding past, waving to the men who cheered him. But he got close enough for Sarnac to see that his face was clouded.
"Are you
sure
I can't ride?" Tiraena looked beseechingly at Koreel. "Maybe if I did it sidesaddle, or whatever they call it . . . ?"
Koreel smiled down at her as he rode along beside the litter. "They haven't started doing that yet. And no, I'm afraid it would be inappropriate for a woman of your background. You'll just have to do it this way."
As if to rub it in, the litter lurched as one of the hired bearers stumbled. Tiraena cursed fervently in Raehaniv—it didn't matter if people occasionally heard the language on the lips of such an exotic-looking lady, they simply assumed it to be some Eastern tongue or other—and resigned herself to watching the scenery as they proceeded west on the old Roman road.
The rolling Somerset countryside was touched with autumn. There had actually been some sun this morning—she had begun to wonder if this country
had
sun—but now the clouds scudding in off the Bristol Channel promised more rain. The "Summer Country" to the northwest had begun to turn back into marsh and water, beyond which she could see Glastonbury Tor rising in the distance. Its seasonal change back into a virtual island left the monks who were its inhabitants isolated for three quarters of the year—which was as they liked it. Her implanted historical knowledge told her that the fully developed monasticism of Europe's Middle Ages still lay in the future. But communities of reclusive holy men did exist. This one dated back at least to the time of Magnus Maximus, and the monks claimed to have a number of notable relics, including some relating to Joseph of Arimathea, who was already reputed to have brought a certain cup to Britain.
Her thoughts were interrupted as they took a left turn, and Cadbury rose ahead of them.
She observed her surroundings in silence until they had passed through the first two lines of earthworks on the lower levels of the hill. "Do these extend all the way around, Ventidius?" she asked, remembering to use Koreel's cover name.
"Oh, yes. So do the other two lines. This was a center of the old Celtic people's resistance after the Romans came. And it had been a hill fort of their tribes long before that. And before
that
, it had been a stronghold of peoples who had spoken earlier forms of Celtic—or, more correctly, Celto-Ligurian. It was close to the Great Temple they raised over yonder on the foundations laid by their own predecessors." He gestured eastward, toward Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge.
She was silent again as they climbed the hill and passed through the next two lines of earthworks, trying to analyze the sense of awe she felt. Ancient sites were nothing novel to her, for the Raehaniv had been civilized long before the Sumerians had built this world's first cities. But she had always been accustomed to thinking of her Terran ancestors as brash newcomers who had burst on the galaxy in the time of Varien hle'Morna, emerging from a darkness illuminated only by the disjointed legends she had heard. She had never even seen an accurate map of this world; all such maps had been destroyed by her Terran ancestors when they had fled the Solar System. Now she was here amid a past that reached back in an unbroken line to the origins, not only of Robert's people, but of the Raehaniv themselves. So in a sense,
nothing
on Raehan could ever seem as ancient as things rooted in the soil from which the human species had sprung.
Then they were through the final earthwork and approaching the citadel at the southwesternmost and highest point of the hill. Koreel trotted his horse forward and called upward to a guard standing behind the timber breastwork that topped the unmortared sixteen-foot stone wall. After a brief colloquy, the guard waved them forward, and they passed through a square gatehouse and emerged into a surprisingly spacious enclosure that held a cruciform church, as well as Riothamus' timber hall.
"Most of this must be new, Ventidius," Tiraena said, a statement rather than a question. "That gatehouse, for example. It's Roman in design, and incorporates secondhand Roman materials."
"You are correct. Riothamus has extensively refortified this old site since making it his headquarters. The decision to base himself here was as much political as military, for this place is a symbol of Celtic resistance to the Romans. So it was a way of reassuring those who felt he was coming too much under Roman influence. 'Roman,' you must understand, is in this place and time the label not of a national or ethnic identity, but of a political orientation—a resolve to keep alive what Rome once represented." Koreel smiled wryly. "Of course, it was just a sop to the Celtic diehards. Riothamus is, in the contemporary sense, a thoroughgoing 'Roman.' And his chief henchman, Ambrosius Aurelianus, is even more so. The Roman influence you noted in the architecture of the refortification is largely his work."
"Oh? I thought he was a general, not an architect."
"He is, primarily. But in a social setting like this one, roles are not as structured as they are in the kind of society to which you are accustomed."
Tiraena smiled. "No professional credentialism?"
"Precisely. This has good and bad implications. Ambrosius is one of the good ones. He has had to turn himself into something of a polymath in his efforts to preserve or restore as much of what existed before as possible."
Tiraena was silent for a moment, as they approached the great hall. Then she remembered something. "Ventidius, I seem to recall hearing what the stronghold Riothamus has reconstructed here, at the southwest summit of Cadbury, is called. Doesn't it have a particular name?"
Koreel hesitated for the barest instant before stating what was, after all, common knowledge. "Yes," he answered. "Camalat."
"My dear! Your hair!"
Tiraena cursed silently to herself. She had forgotten. Her dark reddish hair had had time to grow beyond its usual length. But as soon as she and the others had followed the Queen into her chambers and they all removed their headdresses, its shortness stood revealed, in contrast to the almost waist-length hair of the other women. That was the fashion of this day, even though all the luxuriant growth was generally kept pinned up in public.
"I suffered from a malady last year, Lady," Tiraena addressed the Queen. "The physician ordered that my head be shaved, as part of his cure. By God's mercy, the treatment succeeded."
"Ah." Gwenhwyvaer nodded, evidently satisfied by the cover story. There were so many schools of "medicine" running around loose that no prescribed cure, however bizarre, surprised anyone very much. The only surprising thing was when the patient survived.
"Well, Lucasta," continued Riothamus' consort, "we must all join with Ventidius in thanking God for your recovery. Otherwise, you would never have come here. You must have so many stories to tell. After all, you're from Rome itself!"
"Yes!" One of the other ladies-in-waiting broke in, obviously eager to show off her Latin. "Is it like everyone says it is? Are the streets really paved with gold?"