Bedivere grunted.““None of them do.”

Geraint’s brow went up. “Well now, perhaps more of us would if some legions we know would be about the decent paying of the squadrons, and if we could leave home with a reasonable—a reasonable hope, look you, of finding it whole and unburned when we got back. I’ve three months’ service and have been told to provide my own gear and mounts, so I found what was available, and that’s not much, and here I’m come on the simplest mission to your tribune, and he said to come straight to you, sir, and here I am.”

“I am Centurion Pendragon. My aide, Bedivere ap Gryffyn. Bedivere, tell the kitchen we’ll dine here tonight, the three of us.”

He saluted with familiar ease and left the tent.

Geraint folded down onto the stool with a weary exhalation. “Ah, God, was I supposed to salute? Mother of Jesus, I’ll never learn it all.”

“I suggest you do, Geraint,”

He clawed at his long, tousled brown hair and thin beard. A first beard by the look of it. I made him a year or two younger than me. He appraised my uniform; this was my first official visit from a subordinate officer, and I gave thanks to the god of vanities that my tunic was fresh from washing and the phalerae of my breastplate was shined. Geraint took it in with a sigh before turning to business.

“Do you know what the Saxons call us? Welshmen.”

“What does it mean?”

“A horrible word in their horrible dog-bark of a tongue, sir. It means foreigners. Foreigners in our own country, look you. That’s how Mother of God sure they are it will all be theirs someday. I’ve seen them come, I’ve seen what they leave behind. And here’s myself with only a few good men to guard poor Neth and unpaid at that, so—with one coil and another to make life hard, and since I’ll never remember the ranks and titles—do you suppose I might clepe you by your Christian name?”

18

Firelord

There was no slyness or craft in Geraint and absolutely no sense of respect due to rank. He was a king’s son, voluble, serious, passionate, his acquaintance with table manners as vague as his notion of military courtesy. The food was slung rapidly in the approximate direction of his mouth, bones and scraps more or less toward his plate. But he had ideas and opinions akin to mine. We believed in the future of cavalry and wanned to each other through the bond of arrogant youth. We would overhaul the army, bring the cavalry to the fore. We would change the world and even dazzle it, given the chance.

The wine went round and round between us. We agreed with Geraint’s basic complaint: he wanted his cavalry attached to no legion, free to move on their own. As he spoke of this, pounding the table for emphasis, I heard again the ghost of shrewd old Vortigern, saw behind my eyes the fleeting glimpse of the golden king coming out of the west. A force to move swiftly when they must. We shouted at each other, proposing, counterproposing, opinions breaking across one another like waves in a crosscurrent, but we knew one truth for sure. The Saxon would meet his match one day when Britain could field a force to match their swift-raiding keels.

“You’re a good man, Arthur Pendragon,” Geraint toasted me a bit unsteadily. “And no less Bedivere ap Gryffyn. When you command for the king, when you become Count of Britain, put Geraint at the head of your horse—ah dear, yes, let me do it, and I’ll give you deeds to sing about!”

No … no, I wasn’t dozing. Brother Coel. Just thinking, dreaming, an old man’s privilege. Those were the good times, so young, so long ago. They did come to sing about him, you know. Oh, yes. “At Llongborth where Geraint’s sword ran red …” Aye, it was that Geraint. And he never did learn to salute.

We three were so unimportant the quartermaster stowed us on a merchant vessel bound out of the Severn for Irish ports. The master took half an hour to put us ashore at the mouth of the Lyn. From there it was an easy two days to Neth Dun More, keeping the sea in view all the way.

I’d never seen the country of the far Dumnonii: wild, stark cliffs clawed out by the restless sea, occasional monks’ cells

Merlin and a Sword

19

perched like lone gulls on bare promontories. Geraint’s stronghold was a monastery far in decline when he commandeered it for service. Some of the younger monks took off their habits and joined him, but {he owned proudly) they were still Christian men and heard mass every day. As we rode, he talked of his squadron, his family and his hopes. They were too far from Caerleon to expect timely help in the event of a sea raid, hence this clumsy start of a home force. His father, Caradoc, signed himself King of Dyfneint though the emperor insisted on referring to him as magistrate. Things were changing a crumb at a time. Even Kay was called prince by our own people now.

Geraint chattered on, a simple man displaying his accomplishments without false modesty, but I noticed his eyes were never long off the sea: all his life the Saxon had come from there.

He learned of us, too. Unfortunately, the wrong things first. It led to a misunderstanding that might have become ugly. Bedivere and I were soldiers of some service by this time, shuttling from camp to camp as couriers, barracks-rowdy, familiar with every army brothel between Bath and Eburacum, They were few now, but how often had we awakened groaning with full heads and empty purses next to two beasts whose names we couldn’t remember. And laughed and gotten up to ride all day, knowing we would feel fit as ever by noon. You have to be very young for that. Young enough to stand it, green enough to call it pleasure.

I grew up among men, without a sister. Woman’s honor was something vaguely connected with Flavia. All others were fair game. Sometimes in wine or a woman’s bed I caught a ghost-glimpse of the dark Faerie girt, her face near mine, the musk of her brown skin heady in my nostrils. Then she was gone, and the woman would see the drunken puzzlement in my eyes and laugh: “You’re stone mad, Artos.”

Aye, mad. My soul was never my own. The girl and all of them were part of the tomorrows Merlin put in my head.

Bedivere and 1 knew few such shadows in our morning sun. We sang more than we thought. No sweeter voice than Bediyere’s was raised in the west of Britain, nor was my own so bad, a little deeper, though not as pure. We tossed the songs between us like Merlin’s juggling balls, army songs that jingled like saddle gear and shortened the miles. You wouldn’t trot them out before a well-bom woman, but we hardly expected Geraint to take offense.

Our favorite ditty was “Good-bye to the Ninth,” about a

20

Firelord

pliant lass who loved the whole outbound legion and undertook to say a bedridden farewell to the lot of them from legate to the last stone-slinger, with a verse for each. We’d worked our way down to the centurions when Geraint suddenly pulled his horse aside and trotted a few paces to the cliff edge. When we joined him, he was red and rigid, staring out to sea. I thought he’d spied longships.

“What do you see, Geraint?”

His mouth disappeared in a tight line. “Do you have a sister,

Pendragon?”

“No, why?”

“I do, and I’m sick to think of you in the same room with her. You would sing such a song about her if you could. My father said it would be tike this. The army comes with its orders and money and whores, and will it not dirty us as it has all else?”

“It was a song, that’s all. No one said a word about your

sister.”

Geraint turned toward me, hot, angry tears in his eyes. He drew the longsword. “If you are fortunate enough to meet Eieyne, you will treat her as a saint.”

Bedivere reined up on Geraint’s off side, drawing his own blade. “The centurion outranks you,” he said carefully. “Put it

up.”

Geraint flashed at him. “I deal with lords, not grooms.” “So do I,” said Bedivere. “Put it up or lose an arm.” “We are not boys!” I turned my voice hard as I’d heard

Ambrosias do when he was crossed and wouldn’t allow it. I was

angry. No man likes to be called a pig for his mere laughter, but

Geraint was a simple cut. Honor was a fragile thing to him.

From somewhere inside, I dragged up the beginnings of humility

and perhaps a little wisdom.

“Our fooling offended Lord Geraint. We apologize.” I caught

Bedivere’s eye. “Don’t we?”

Bedivere sheathed his sword, the disgust silent but eloquent.

“So we do.”

“Geraint, may your sister find a lord as honorable as her

brother.”

He blinked and looked away; my apology left him nothing to

strike at. “Well. Well enough. It’s just that …” “I know. But you have schooled us. Let’s ride on.” Geraint led out ahead of us, wanting to be apart for a time, 1

suppose. Bedivere gave him a sour appraisal.

Merlin and a Sword

21

“Full of honor and a few other things I could name. He’ll never make an officer.”

“But a fighter he is.”

Sage words from men never within hailing range of a battle. We cantered after Geraint, keeping a little distance, letting him choose the time to join us again. After a mile or so, he began a song himself in a voice pure as Bedivere’s. There’s nothing like music to melt a Briton. We grinned at each other.

“And a singer,” I decided.

“That he is.”

Geraint waved us forward, the cloud gone from his brow. “Come you up and sing a good man’s song. Do you know ‘Bronwen in the Vale’?”

We touched heel to flanks and galloped forward, already in harmony with him. For the rest of the day, we sang well-laundered lyrics and knew we must be the soul of gallantry when we met the sainted Eieyne.

“There!” Geraint pointed ahead to a finger of bare cliff poked out at the sea. “Neth Dun More.”

My own eyes were sharp but could see at first nothing more than the raw rock. A few minutes later a subtle regularity of line became a low wall along the top of the cliff.

By Geraint’s design, we had kept the sea in sight all the way. When he pulled away from us suddenly and rode to the cliff edge, we wondered had we insulted him again. Not so; this time he pointed far out to the southwest. The word was like a low snarl.