“Then render unto Caesar.” I took him by both arms and shook him gently. “Just a little now and then. Who the hell are we to be perfect?”

I could hear the expelled tension in his tremulous laugh. “Who, indeed?”

“Feel better?”

“I feel naked, Arthur.”

We should have set out for Cador’s meeting, but this moment seemed peculiarly rich, one of those rare times when a man’s heart lay open for me to study. I never saw Peredur so clearly as that night, like watching a marble statue wake to warm life.

“Did you know, Peredur,” I said, “all my life I’ve had a ridiculous fear of the dark.”

“No!” Peredur laughed in spite of himself. “Do you tell me so?”

“At the damnedest times, the small hours when courage wears very thin. I seem to remember a time—I guess it was before Uther took me From the castle where I was born—when there was nothing but dark around my cradle. It’s my earliest memory, being alone and frightened for so long. I kept hoping someone would pick me up and hold me, but no one ever came.”

The wind lapped around us. Close by, someone stumbled in the dark and cursed softly. “Seems a night for confession.” I threw the cloak across my chest. ‘ ‘Time to collect the centurions.”

Peredur hefted his armor. “I’ll see to it, Tribune.”

“No need.” I put an arm through his. “Let’s go together.”

And that was Peredur who became Prince of the Parisi and the Brigantes. His rein was firm and his lance steady next day, but he lacked the health and stamina for steady soldiering, much too wispy. He took a wound that day, a cracked rib that never set right. There must have been a splinter of bone left protruding, because he coughed blood at times throughout his life. We began “as strangers, became loyal brothers-in-law and finally royal enemies, for he had to oppose me when Gwen was banished.

Eleyne of Astolat thought him a saint, but then she would. He had all the ingredients, sufficiently pious to be revered, ill enough to fret over. But he did find her Grail.

Percival? No, Coel^ spell his name as he wore it: Peredur, good and British. Only the Saxons call him Percival, and they can’t even agree on the calendar. Will you believe your king or someone who barely knows what day it is? Indeed.

110

Firelord

Brother Coel wonders why I detail an unheroic exchange with Peredur and wish to skim over a fateful meeting of British warlords; I suppose because more of significance was uttered at the former. The conference was a squabbling shambles, but on reflection someone should preserve it as a monument to British density. As such, stone would be more than fitting.

“Why should I hate Britons,” Cerdic once remarked, “when they’re so good at hating each other. Half the time I just picked up the pieces.”

When I suggested that Cador’s small force be placed in support of my alae, his officers of foot bridled that they should stand second to mere cavalry, that the hand did not serve the elbow. Bedivere observed laconically that the elbow was whole while the hand tacked most of its fingers; that Cerdic would rather face a legion of foot than a cohort of horse. Cador knew the logic was too clear to argue.

“I’ve not always agreed with our emperor’s theories,” he confessed in an understatement bland as it was Olympian. “But the cavalry is in strength while we are a handful. We must support their salient

More serious trouble erupted when I tried to lay out the attack order for my own force. Gareth’s squadron, the only one equipped with the new stirrups, must be the center of the first line, Bedivere and Trystan on his flanks. This wide leading element would attack Cerdic’s men as they floundered in the river shallows, never giving them a chance to organize. The supporting line, under Peredur, would be Gawain and Agrivaine, to deliver a second blow while the first line reformed, Agrivaine balked

immediately.

“No, Orkney will never take second place against Picts. There’s too much to pay them back for. And more than that,”—he acknowledged Bedivere and Gareth with insufferable tolerance— “no slight to good soldiers, but there are some disproportions that cannot be allowed.”

“Disproportion?” I wondered.

Agrivaine seemed puzzled that I didn’t understand. “Gareth mac Dturmuid is only man-at-arms. Bedivere ap Gryffyn is the son of a groom. Able both, but a prince cannot be expected to hang back while commoners comprise the first line.”

“Isn’t that large of him,” Gareth retorted, stung, “when I could ride any one of his Orkney whoremongers into the ground.”

“And / intend no slight,” Trystan added in a tone bristling with it, “but the Cornish will stand down for no one.”

Guenevere

111

I had to explain for them the basis of the disposition. Gareth’s men were best mounted of the entire cohort. Trystan and Bedivere’s squadrons rode Arabians for the most part, bigger and faster than anything in the Solway camp. “And therefore, centurions—”

Gawain shouldered his brother aside like a bull brushing past a puppy. “Centurion hell! We’re tired of that meaningless title, tired of pretending to be Roman officers. Do we get Roman pay? There are Picts with Cerdic who’ve raided Orkney for a tiiousand years. I don’t care if Gareth rides Pegasus, we know how to deal with them, and we will be first.”

“Peace.” Cador rose at the head of the table. “Peace, all of you very young men. This is no time for dissension.”

But Gawain blundered on, passionate. “We’ve always been farthest away at Solway. Farthest from news, from supplies, from advancement.” A significant frown at me. “We’ve had to stand aside for royal pets. Not good enough to wait for or council when battle comes, we must run like demons just to arrive late on the field.”

“At the order of a tribune who appears very healthy for a Pict captive,” Agrivaine insinuated. “I believe those marks on Lord Arthur’s face are family-signs, their way of showing affection.”

“Prince,” I told him in a level voice, “you waste this council’s time.”

His tone was a sneer. “We have not heard where our tribune will be during the attack.”

Before I could answer, Trystan cut in, his voice gentle but with a cutting edge. “Agrivaine, one could call you vicious were you not so wondrous thick.”

Agrivaine would have leaped clear over the table at him, but Peredur caught his arm. “Enough, you foolish man. You’d lose a city for the sake of pride. Lord Arthur will be forward of the first line. Need he say as much?”

“Lord Arthur, yes. And Lord Trystan.” Agrivaine’s fury was leashed but unabated. “You see what Rome did to us when we give titles to bastards.”

“I said peace!” Cador’s sword slammed on the table. “A pack of boys, is that what the alae is? Boys who rattle their swords to hide their fear? Agrivaine, school your temper that it hinders us no more. Trystan, you the same. I charge you both.”

“Easy, lad,” Gawain muttered, draping a great paw over his brother’s shoulder. “You’re right, but easy on. Later.”

“Aye, soothe him.” Trystan’s eyes were murderous over the studiedly negligent grin. “Give comfort to the royal afterthought.”

112

Firelord

With a snarl of frustration, Agrivaine slammed his gauntlet down before Trystan, who reached for it, but I dove, swept it up in my Fist and brandished it.

“Stop, both of you. And all of you listen! It makes me sick to see this. Don’t you realize that while we bicker like children, Cerdic is moving? And if he wins tomorrow because we can’t agree tonight, what matters who we are? If we can’t plan as equals, we’ll die that way. It won’t matter to Cerdic or the

flies.”

Trystan only said, “You hold a challenge thrown to me.” “Shut up, Tryst. And you, Orkneyman. Ambrosius burned out his health and his fortune to build a weapon out of nothing. And succeeded. Not in six hundred years has there been a force like ours, but make no mistake as our fathers did who lost the east while they argued and mistrusted. If we fail today, the north, the south, the west and even far little Orkney will not be worth a whistle in the windstorm that follows.”

Unmoved, Agrivaine said, “You hold my glove, Dobunni.” “So I do.” I tapped it against the other hand. “You leave no alternative, Agrivaine. You and your brother will form the second line of attack under Prince Peredur. If you refuse—in the presence of your legate with battle imminent—he has no recourse but to have you executed for mutiny.”

“Mutiny?” The implication so stunned Gawain that he could only stare. Agrivaine, almost as speechless, turned to Cador. “Good God, must we stomach this?”

A polished ruler, Cador did not indulge his feelings openly, but I saw the way he measured each of us, especially me, with a slight shaking of his head. I’d nailed him to a cross; as legate he must uphold my authority or admit in the face of an enemy that

we had none.

“When time permits,” he clipped off the words, “I should chastise every officer in the alae. For the nonce, I must uphold Lord Arthur, roughshod and careless of tradition as he is. His disposition will stand. As for insults, if we must air personal grievances, let us do it now and be done. Prince Agrivaine, you maintain your right in arms?”

“I do.”

Again Trystan reached for the gauntlet. “The challenge was to me. Nice distinctions of birth are strange in one who worships a god bom in a stable, though it helps to have a deity for a da. My parents were mortal but married. The glove, Lord Arthur.”

Guenevere

113

But Cador wasn’t through manipulating. “I believe the circumstances touch the tribune himself.”

Until then, I hadn’t realized the two-edged diplomacy of which Cador was a master. He would mollify Orkney and teach me a lesson. On the other hand he judged me cooler than Trystan, who was a competent swordsman but not an instinctive killer-ferret like Agrivaine.