‘“Why?”

“Oh, think a little. Think, you tiresome man. Gwen is a ruler. Adultery for her isn’t just another pair of shoes under the bed, it’s high treason. Put her on trial and I lose the north and the Church that’s always favored Gwen more than me, bishops who’d be forced to condemn her. And I open the door to every petty prince looking to take sides for his own gain. You’d be amazed at the grubworms who feel born to rule.”

“So you put her in irons and lose them anyway.”

“Yes,” I countered, “but for something better than your twitching glands, thank you. Damn it, man, it’s not all reasoned out or clear even to me. I love Gwen—that surprises you? You

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don’t always need to be lovers to love someone. But she hurt me, can you understand that? She hurt me badly in the one small place that was mine. Those people you and she call dirt taught roe to be alive, to be a man. They were my blood.”

“She had good reason, Arthur!”

“They were mine! They loved me. I owed them so much.”

He waited some moments before asking, “What will you do with her?”

I got up and went to the casement. The fresh air cleared some of the weariness from my thoughts. “What should I do? Pardon . her, restore her to power? Let all the tribes know that imperial unity is a joke, that no man is safer thari the Parisi queen allows? A kingdom’s only an idea that men agree to, but tribes are people, and the idea’d better be stronger or the people will tear it apart.”

“Send her home,” Lancelot urged. “Peredur would love you the more for it. You’d insure his loyalty.”

“Do that and Guenevere is the north, a separate crown with

Agrivaine as the willing royal sword. She won’t give up power

and neither will I. Then what? Civil war, patchwork treaties, all

•the muck old Vortigem had. I’m getting too old for that. Dying

in bed isn’t heroic but at least it’s dry.”

I listened to the dull racket from beyond the casement.

“Now you see why the earth didn’t shake or the angels weep because Guenevere came to you. I can live with that, but no one carves up my country, boyo. Not while I’m head of the table.”

“So Guenevere goes to prison.”

“Yes.”

“That easily.”

“You fool. None of it’s easy.”

“For your stinking principles.”

”” Principles. I thought about that. An idea not even mine, that only worked through Vortigem and Ambrosius and myself like a tool. One strong country welded from jealous tribes. None of us made it, but we had to try.

“It’s got to be, Lancelot.”

“How short are we?”

“Short of everything,” Maelgwyn admitted. “Stones, arrows, even food. We didn’t expect the attacks to last so long. They just

coming.” We stood on a parapet at the south edge of Badon’s crest. The

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attack had been broken off a few minutes before for no apparent reason, giving us a chance to assess our situation. Our catapults still commanded the third level, archers .the second, their ranks thinner now. Below them on the first level, under a canopy of shields, Cerdic’s berserkers waited the order to advance.

We hung in balance today, equal forces opposed. The scale would tip with Gareth, and where in hell was he? Our lookouts sighted nothing, no movement at all east of Badon. I told myself Cerdic had broken off to save hungry men and hoped I was right.

“Arthur, look!”

Down on the piain three horsemen broke out of the Saxon ranks and trotted to the base of the hill. Cerdic and two of his earls. One of the nobles wheeled his horse back and forth, waving a large white cloth.

“I think the bleeders want a chat,” Maelgwyn grumbled. “What say you, Arthur? Hear him out or spit in his eye?”

“Let’s go down. While he talks, our men rest and his get hungrier.”

Flanked by Bedivere with the dragon and Maelgwyn on my other side, I met Cerdic at the causeway by the first level. His men cat-called the dragon, but Bedivere ignored them.

Cerdic was accompanied by two of his earls, hulking, barelegged men in sodden red tunics who carried their heavy shields as if they were made of feathers.

Cerdic had gained considerable girth in the years since we met last, his face fleshier now though the charismatic smile still transcended its heaviness, warming the blue eyes but never quite masking their watchful calculation.

“Hail, Arthur. Or is it AveT’

“Hail, Cerdic. Surprised to see you mounted. We thought you’d eaten everything but the hoofs.”

He ignored the jibe. “Prince Maelgwyn. Pray my friends be valiant as my Catuvellaun foe. And Bedivere, still lean as scrub oak. I hear you’ve a daughter betrothed at home.”

“If I choose,” Bedivere acknowledged stiffly. “Never mind our children, go home to your own—if you know them.”

Cerdic grinned. “The Gryffyn never changes. Few words and all sharp. Well, Arthur, I propose a truce.”

I had to laugh at his breezy crust. “Certainly. Disband your men and render yourself hostage.”

“Or cut your throat now and save us your keep,” Maeigwyn suggested.

Credic was unruffled. “I had something more sensible in

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mind. Retire to Severn and leave me Badon. No treaty, no surrenders, no bargains. Just Badon.”

“I agree with Mal. Cut your throat. I’ll loan you the knife.”

His easy charm vanished. “You can’t win, Arthur.”

“If not, you wouldn’t be talking.”

“Perhaps. But how long can you hold me back? I have no demands in the west. Why can’t we rule together?”

“I’ve many failings, Cerdic, but stupidity’s not one of them. I’ve played the same game with the same map. Just Badon, yes. Sit on Badon and you hold the whole south at bay. Marcus, Madgwyn, the lot. You ‘protect’ the trade of the southern ports, and suddenly you find what a friend you have in Rome while Arthur and his British shrivel in the west. Is this your bargain?”

I swept my arm up the hill. “I can’t win, can’t defend this hill against men already eating dead horse? You’ve got numbers, but you haven’t got time. Where’s the food you counted on? And where are my combrogiT’

He studied me for the slightest nuance of doubt or hesitation. “I know where they are.”

He spoke to the earl on his left, who unhooked a round shield from his saddle and dropped it face up in front of my horse.

“Or where they were,” Cerdic added, regarding the shield’s blue field and gold figures, a cross and a sun blaze. “Gareth mac Diurmuid. A knight for scalds to sing of. A close friend, wasn’t he, Arthur?”

Bedivere raised his glance from the hacked shield. “When you come up this hill, Cerdic, call my name.”

I choked back the murder that welled in me at the thought of Gareth dead in the mud somewhere. This was a time to think, not feel. “He’ll come hungry then. If I know Gareth, he did for the wagons before they got him.”

“Some of them,” Cerdic admitted. “But your archers quit the first level in such haste, they left much of their bread and cheese behind.”

He barked an order to the Saxons watching along the first level. Some of them held up a loaf or a full stone of cheese, cheering in their gutturals.

“They thank you, Arthur. What about it? Will you retire to Severn?”

“Go to hell.”

.Cerdic acknowledged it with a little nod of his head. “Stubborn as Geraint, another immortal. He went down, though. You all have to go down.” Cerdic pointed to his men on the plain.

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“Know what they are, Pendragon? The future. And I believe in it. I know you, Arthur. I know what you’ve lost. Your boasted combrogi, your queen, half your tribes ready to revolt, the rest in doubt. What have you left to fight for, to believe in so much you’ll die for it? Think about that until we come.”

With a sharp command to his earls, Cerdic turned his horse and trotted down the causeway. Bedivere dismounted to retrieve the ruined shield.

“He could be lying about this, Artos.”

Maelgwyn agreed quickly. “Anyone can lose a shield.”

I didn’t want to ponder it. “They’ll be coming. Let’s get back.”

“Na, a moment.” Bedivere hooked the shield to his saddle. “Rhian will want it if—when we go home.”

Bedivere, Maelgwyn and I leaned over the edge of a platform used to direct the flight of catapult stones. The silence was broken only by the slingers as they found chance targets on the first level, a Saxon careless enough to move without his shield. Then the whu-whu-wfeu! of the sling and a hit, or the target scurried for cover.

The rain had stopped. No noise broke the soughing of the east wind.

“Waiting for something,” Maelgwyn guessed.

Bedivere paused in cutting up a last hoarded turnip for his horse. “The word go?”

Maelgwyn cocked his ear. “Something else. Listen.”

Around the west curve of the hill, a great roar and clash of swords to shields, the honor-sound of Saxons. The din went up again and again.

“Oh yes—hail Cerdic,” said Maelgwyn. “Hail the Woden-son, begotten of many gods.”

I was honestly surprised. “You know the language?”

He nodded. “I gave Tryst his start in it. Grew up with Saxon slaves in our hall.”

Surprising, but why not? We of the west don’t have much contact with Saxons, but to the CatuveHauni they’re a daily fact of life.

“We always pretended ignorance when we dealt with them. It helped, a word here and there while we just looked blank. You can learn a lot looking stupid.”

Among Saxons, he said, me power of speech and persuasion

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was prized in a war chief as much as his word of honor, since he toast sway men to his cause with powerful reason.

“I’d guess that’s what he’s about now,” Maelgwyn said. “Stirring them up to the next attack.”

“Bastards, they’ll need it. Jesu.” Bedivere spat downwind. “We should have finished him at Neth.”

Distant horsemen rounded the base of the hill, approached the causeway and rode up into the first level amid shouts and clashing spears. Cerdic and his two earls. Behind them rode an old man on a mule, long white hair and beard billowing in the wind.