But Lucullus called after to me. “How if you lose? How will Britain account to Theodoric for his embassy and close friend? How then, Artorius?”

The thought stopped me. “Frankly, I don’t know. We’ve improvised so long, we’ll think of something.”

Gareth swept low in a flourishing bow. “Dear my lord—after you.”

Kay’s house was always kept ready for him, a large dwelling near the north gate, not unlike Uther’s but notably lacking in some of its comforts. His servants were bustling about in preparation for Flavia’s dinner when I arrived.

Nearing seventy, my stepmother still insisted on a Roman household, rather impractical in these declining days. As the years passed she retreated more and more into a narrow memory of the past, and drinking had become chief prop and solace to her illusion. Ill with nothing more than age, she directed the servants from her bed, one hand fluttering in imperious command, the other holding a goblet of costly Egyptian glass inset with pieces of jet, amber and onyx.

“The last of six.” She set it down with a mournful pride. “Sent from Rome by Augustulus—my cousin, you know. Nice boy, but a ruinous emperor.”

The Ghost Dancers

269

Flavia patted the edge of the bed for me to sit. “Come here, Artorius? Why in the world did you allow anyone to scar your cheeks like that. So unfashionable.”

I eased down and kissed her. “Comfortable, mother?”

“Comfortable, what’s that nowadays?” she fretted. “I want to be home in my own house, damn those Dobunni. Uther’s family ruled them superbly for an hundred years, and now they want a change. Stupid animals. Herds,-not tribes, the whole country.”

I tucked the coverlet around her. “Yes, mother.”

“They’re forgetting everything Rome ever taught them. No wonder Lucullus feels a stranger. You won’t deal too. harshly with him? After all, he is a Roman knight.”

“Not too harshly, no. A little fresh air.”

“Poor Kay,” Flavia mused vaguely. “He does try so hard for those savages. Why did you shave your beard?”

“It’s gone all white and makes me look ninety.”

“Vanity,” she scoffed, holding out her goblet. “British vanity. You always looked a prince, though you never dressed it until that very clever girl took you in hand. Fill me up again, Artorius.”

I poured more wine into the goblet and wrapped a shawl around her bony shoulders. All Flavia’s plumpness had deserted her in age. She rambled now in the wine mist that was her only comfort.

“Kay has a talent for rule. He does, give him that. Who was it revised the tax structure for you when you were crowned? But… you had a genius for men. How oddly things turn out.”

Flavia plucked at my sleeve with thin fingers. “You never hated me, did you? You never grudged Kay his birthright?”

“The Dobunni never had a better prince,” I said truthfully. “I would have had them at my throat in a year.”

Flavia settled back on her pillows, in control and pettish again. “I daresay. Talent is always more reliable than genius. A steady glow beside lightning. You’re dark more often than brilliant, boy.”

“Yes, so I’m told.”

“I mean this mess with Guenevere.”

“Let’s not talk of that.”

“Rot!” she said sharply. “I am a decade older than most of the gods, that gives me some privilege. Your wife is a fine ruler. What in hell is she doing pent up when she’s worth five of the

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271

best ministers you could find? Yes, yes, I know what she did, a hasty decision perhaps, but after all~”

“Mother, I know who I am.”

It caught her off guard. “What?”

“I know what I am. Where I came from. It answers a lot of things.”

The news silenced her. She leaned over to set the goblet on her bed stand, but her grasp slipped and the glass toppled to the floor.

“Oh, is it broken? Artorius, I don’t dare look. Is it broken? Oh, no.”

I looked at it quickly and refilled the glass. “Good as new.”

She closed both hands tight around it with relief and reverence. “Just that it’s the last. Augustulus sent a set of six. They were exquisite. See how it catches the light? Vortigem drank from one that day he came to the villa. What … what were you saying?”

“Lucullus brought Julia’s letters. About Ygerna.”

“Julia,” she murmured. “Marvelous woman. Long-suffering, Generous.” She fussed at her shawl, suddenly tender. “I never held it against you, Arthur. Please believe that.”

“I know, mother.”

Her eyes ravaged mine for assurance that I did truly know. “Really?”

“No complaint. If I’ve lost Ambrosius from the family tree, I’ve also pruned Lucullus. It’s a distinct consolation.”

“Just that Uther was my husband, and it—it hurt so much. I was so frightened before he brought you home, frightened what you’d look like. Silly of me, you’re a big, fair ox like Uther’s father. But I couldn’t help hating her.”

The rain began again, the cold downpour of late December. Flavia’s servants came in to latch the casements against the wind and poke up the brazier near her bed.

“Wretched country!” she muttered, grabbing the shawl tighter. “Poor Kay, having to campaign in weather like this.”

“Mother, did you know Ygerna?”

She answered without relish. “Yes, it was unavoidable.”

“Tell me.”

Flavia dabbed daintily at her mouth with a napkin. “Ambrosius’ so-called niece was a spoiled brat. No humility and absolutely no modesty. Unstable, but your father found that attractive for a while.”

The bitterness in her voice was old as a faded scar. Her mouth

curved in an arch smile. “And a positive gift for saying the right thing at the wrong time. You remember Caradoc, what a bore he was. Good man, but such a trial with that Grail story. If we beard it once, we heard it a thousand times. We could mouth it along with him.”

“His daughter’s much the same. Have you met her?”

“Eleyne? No.” Flavia sniffed. “If I arrange my time carefully, I may never have to. Well, anyway, we were all at a banquet given by Vortigern …”

It seemed Caradoc trotted out the venerable story again on this occasion when Ygerna was a little drunk. She listened quietly, chin on her hands, until Caradoc got to the part about the young female pilgrim and her loosened robe.

Suddenly Ygema broke in with a merry laugh. “My lords, I am nineteen years old, and do men lie when they call me beautiful?”

The table gallants assured her to the contrary.

“Then by all the gods and Caradoc’s too,” Ygerna vowed, “if I were undraped in public, I’d expect someone to take passing note without the crockery vanishing.”

“The table laughed for a quarter hour. Caradoc never spoke to your mother again.” Flavia’s afterthought carried delicate venom. “She had all the luck.”

I leaned over, laughing, to hug her. “Flavia Marcella, one more emperor is your slave.”

“Oh, you big ruffian. There now, I love you too.” She pecked my cheek. “And where’s my supper, damn those people! Artorius, tell them to bring hot bricks, my feet are blue. Why have I lived in this miserable country all my life?”

The curtain thrust aside. Kay clumped into the bower, wet and shivering- “Filthy night.”

He bent dutifully to kiss Flavia, stripping off the sodden cloak. “We heard you all the way to the scullery, mum. Your supper’s coming.”

I asked him if his messengers were gone north.

“An hour ago. Bedwyr says the combrogi are seeing to their gear and horses. They’ll be ready.”

“When must you go?” Flavia asked us.

“At first light,” I said.

She held out a hand to each of us. “It has been so long since I had both of you under one roof, and here you go dashing off again. Oh, such times, everyone running, nothing permanent. in such weather.”

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I kissed her hand. “Maelgwyn and Lancelot expect us. If Cerdic gets there first, they’ll take an awful pounding.”

She dropped my hand but held on to Kay like life itself. “Will you send word every day?”

“Every day,” he promised. “By the post riders.”

“Where must you go?” she pressed. “How far away?”

I handed Flavia her goblet. “Not far, just to Badon.”

“Where is that?”

Kay grinned. “Nowhere really, mum. Just a silly big hil!.”

Flavia gasped suddenly. “Look!”

She held the goblet close to a lamp. “It is cracked. Look, a thin, thin line, but it goes all the way down. Look at it!”

She peered up at us in anguish, the sudden tears blurring her eyes. “U was the last. Augustulus sent me six, and this was the last. And it’s cracked.”

We hovered on either side of the old woman, trying to soothe her, saying it was nothing, just a glass, when it was really so much, and Flavia hugged the forever-flawed glass to her breast and cried with despair bottomless as a child’s.

“It was the last …”

King of a Hundred Battles

You don’t know misery until you’ve pushed yourself and horses through winter rain driven by a relentless east wind. ! had planned originally to raise Badon in a day and a half. With the hampering muck underfoot and waiting for the men from Severn, we took three long, sodden days.

And Cerdic was there already.

Even now it’s hard to believe he could do it. His entire force was infantry. He must have marched them clear through two nights with only short rest. A clever man with iron men behind him. Maelgwyn said they came on the field and stormed the hill with no rest at al!. But then Badon was Cerdic’s ultimate gamble. He wouldn’t commit everything and then cripple it with half measures.

The rain limited visibility, but as we watched the embattled hill from a mile-distant promontory, we knew how late we were. Badon was under heavy attack, the fower defenses perhaps already breached, we couldn’t tell. We expected to be outnumbered, but the juggernaut on the plain stunned us for its size.

“Ten thousand,” Gawain whispered.

“More,” said Gareth. “A deal more.”

“I once saw some ants find a bit of pastry at the scullery door,” Kay commented grimly. “Thai’s what they look like. Hungry ants.”

“Well, I made confession before we left,” Bedivere consoled himself. “But I do wish I hadn’t rushed it.”