“If we’re in time.”

“That’s not a thing to ponder,” he admonished gently. “We’re in God’s hands to win or lose. After this, will they not call you Arthur of the Hundred Battles?”

I rubbed my gritty eyes. “The Irish say that about anyone who’s run off three head of cattle.”

“Not a whit, my good lord.” Gareth laughed and slapped the saddle he rested against. “We only take plain truth and give it a bit of style.”

My glance happened to follow his hand; but for that, I wouldn’t have noticed his saddle. From each side of it dangled an extra strap ending in a wide leather loop.

“Gareth-bach, what are those?”

“What’s what?”

“Those straps.”

“A gift from the heathen, you might say, added since you were captured. Makes it easier to mount. Braces the feet with a lance. Ten times harder to unseat you. Comes from the Huns in eastern Gaul. Stirrup, he called it.”

I inspected the leather loop. “Who’s that?”

“A new lad of mine, a weird one but, clever. He’s about somewhere. I’ll call him.”

But just then a sentinel hallooed from the west rampart. “Column, Tribune!”

“Gareth.” I rose. “Saddle and form your men.”

He threw his saddle over the stallion’s back and roared at the lounging men. “All right, my lovelies, they’re coming in! Let’s show them something like a squadron.”

I paced out to the center of the drill ground and stood with feet apart, hearing the rumble grow on the west road beyond the rampart. As Gareth’s squadron drew up in four ranks behind me, I turned to survey them—and thought of old Vortigern on that night long ago. They didn’t look quite like Roman soldiers, and

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they never would. Like Geraint, it was impossible for two of them to dress alike. But these were no ragtag mercenaries to snoop about and run errands, no rabble from the edges of the empire. These were Britoris, combrogi, landowners, sons of tribal chiefs, descended from the charioteers who drove Caesar into the sea, horsemen to follow me the eighty miles to Eburacum and fight at the end of it.

I faced them with pride. On Gareth’s command, they dipped their lances. I returned the salute and turned to see—Jesu, my heart leaped at the sight of him!—Bedivere riding through the gate with the fifth behind him, harness jingling, lance tips gleaming in the sun. He saw me and gave the command without breaking out of formation.

“Right wheel, form behind me.”

Raising a wall of dust, the fifth whirled into parade formation facing Gareth’s squadron with myself in the middle.

“Dress it, dress it!” Bedivere bawled. “Front rank, you look like a herd of monks. Square off.”

Not till his men were paraded smartly as Gareth’s did Bedivere turn to face me. He saluted and the fifth dipped their lances. I tried to keep my voice steady as 1 gave the command. “Centurion, rest your men.” “In place—rest!”

A great shout went up from my squadron. “Hail Arthur!” Bedivere leaped from the saddle and in three or four bounding strides engulfed me in long arms. I felt him shaking’under his leather, choked, angry and tender all at once. “Damn you, Arthur. Damn you …” Now the fourth squadron clattered through the gate, headed by Trystan. With no order but the Hail Arthur! that rose again and again from the other squadrons, Trystan fornted his riders into a third side of the square. Under the roar, Bedivere and I were a little giddy.

“Catch me leaving you alone like that again,” he fumed.

“Sick as you were. You’re rutting Goddamned impossible, you

are! I said you were sick. I told you to be careful. Didn’t I say

that, the last words out of me? I suppose you just dozed off—”

“Ah, Bedivere, you’re a lovely sight.”

“^-as if you were home in a comfy bed. That’s just like you.

Other men die, not you, not Arthur bloody Pendragon. You’re

immortal. No thought for me or the men, how we’d have to get

on without you. Well, we got on fine. I didn’t waste time

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looking for you, 1 can tell you that. Brought the men straight back and on about our business.”

“You were right, Bedivere. One man’s not worth a squadron.”

“Teach you to be careless, it will.” He ducked his head, trembling, trying to control something. “You’re unsafe as a child, a blind child. And if we weren’t ringed round with men who expect us to behave like captains—by God, Artos, I’d hammer you flat, and I can do it. Where the hell have you been?”

I tried to answer, but the hails went on rocking the drill ground.

“Hail Arthur!”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and 1 heard a Cornish drawl. “That damned Dobunni’s been screaming at the top of his voice for six months. Now you’re back, pray he subsides.”

“Trystan! Well met.”

“Welcome home, Arthur.”

I put an arm around each of them. “Give your men a few minutes to eat. It’s the last hot meal before Eburacum.”

“Na, you don’t get off that easily,” the dogged Bedivere persisted. “I think I deserve to know how you let yourself be taken with not so much as a plaintive whisper for help. That’s what I’m waiting to hear, no more and no less.”

“Hail Arthur!”

Trystan glanced back at his men, annoyed. “A bit much with that noise, aren’t they?”

I put my hand on Bedivere’s shoulder. “If I were to tell you I was taken under the hill by Faeries, that they made me lord of fire and lord of summer, gave me a Faerie princess for a wife; that I met a prophet much like myself who promised I’d be king—would you believe me?”

His look was my answer.

Trystan sighed. “Ask a silly question …”

Bedivere exploded. “Damn! Will you listen to the man? Caught napping by the Picts and too ashamed to own up, mat’s the whole of it. Not half brazen, is he?”

“I confess, you’ve seen through me. They caught me sleeping like a babe. Come eat.”

“Hail Arthur!”

Bedivere swallowed hard. “They never knew what they had till you were lost, that’s why they cheer. Don’t go to sleep again.”

“Hail Arthur.’”

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Trystan winced in genuine misery, and I noticed that his cheery grin seemed fragile and tinged with a familiar green. “I wish they’d just wave at you,” he moaned. ‘*My head is splitting.”

We couldn’t afford one crippled or wind-broken horse. Lose a mount, lose a man. We didn’t strain them, but kept them at a steady pace with regular rests every hour until just before dawn, when all needed food and sleep. Two hours, graze and water for the horses, a quick bite for the men.

Cerdic could have made Humber mouth at midnight. Where was he now? I found it hard to sit still, but had to conserve energy. I pulled my cloak close against the chill in the morning wind, fretting to Bedivere, “If he didn’t wait, he could be in Eburacum now.”

Bedivere took one more bite of his bread and offered it to me. “Would you go dead tired against a walled town?” “No.” I bit into the bread savagely. “No, he’s got to rest.” “Well, then.” “He’s got to!” “Eat,” Bedivere soothed. “Move in five minutes. Tell the men.” We raced on. The sun climbed high, bunched our hurtling shadows under us, then slanted them further and further east. I began to search the horizon for telltale smoke. Nothing yet. In the hazy late afternoon, the road crossed a hill from which we could see the far walls of Eburacum. My captains drew up beside me, peering for any sign of trouble. The whole column fell silent, straining for any sight or sound.

Faint and distorted with distance, the rapid clanging of an

alarm bell.

“No smoke,” Bedivere decided at length. “And there’s still

someone there to ring the bell.”

My whole body sagged with relief. “There’s time. Our courier had four hours’ start. They’re already preparing. We’ll swing south of the city and enter only if there’s no sign of Cerdic on the river. There won’t be enough grooms to go around, so no man rests till his mount is walked, grained and watered, is that

clear?”

“They’ll love that,” Gareth chortled. “Some of my penny—

princes think it’s beneath them.”

“So is the horse,” I snapped, “and if it falls on the field, so do they. Those are my orders.”

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We streaked across the last few miles in a flat run as the iron screaming of the bell beat louder and closer. Ranging beside me, Bedivere shouted: “Listen!”

Faint under the bell, we heard cheering from the walls, saw now the tiny figures hopping up and down, waving their arms at us. The toy noise grew into a mighty roar as we swept by the west wall around to the south, gaining a view of the Use River—smooth, serene and Saxon-less.

Gareth gasped, “Praise God, we did it.”

The first heat was ours. We had taken the initiative away from our enemy, but again I asked myself the question that whispered in my mind a thousand times over the years until that last cold day at Badon. Where are you now, Cerdic? What are you thinking?

My men followed me toward the gate already opening to admit us amid the clamor from the walls.

We rode lathered horses down the narrow street into the central square outside Cador’s palace. The bell still clanged with monotonous urgency; soldiers ran back and forth along the square on various errands. The people of Eburacum hurried about, locking up shops, packing in wares laid out for sale. I stopped one soldier.

“Where’s Prince Cador and his staff?”

“Forming the companies that live close in, sir. He’ll be back soon.”

“And Peredur?”

“At church, I think.”

“Logical,” Bedivere muttered as the soldier hurried away. “What will you do with him?”

“What can I do? I’ve just relieved a Parisi noble of his own command on his own ground. Very like Cador will never love me so much for coming back as he did for getting lost. Touchy, but till Cerdic’s dealt with, Peredur must be second-in-command.”

Bedivere only shrugged. “I was never ambitious.” Then, on reflection, “And neither is Peredur. He wasn’t the worst trib I’ve ever seen. Just that his heart’s not in it.”

“Bedivere, you’re an observant man for all you scold me.”