Chapter Eight

Morgana rose at first light and made a surprising and welcome trip to the baths behind the principium, following a covered portico from the rear of the great headquarters building which was her stepbrother's command center. The bath was a somewhat lopsided structure, clearly having been enlarged at some later point, as the right half was built of stone and masonry that did not match the left half.

Aye, Morgana smiled at Brenna's puzzlement, they say when the first Christian priests came to Caerleul—the Romans were still here, then, and called it Luguvalium in those days—they were scandalized by the low morals of the men and women who used the same bathhouse. Not together, but the temptation was there, so the commander of the fortress had his engineers build a second bath adjoining the first, for the wives and daughters of the officers stationed in the fortress.

Given the amount of railing twenty-first-century priests did against lax morals, Brenna was not surprised in the least. When they stepped up into the bathhouse, the floor of which was at least eighteen inches higher than the ground, Brenna gasped in surprise. Frescoes of garden scenes decorated the walls, with fruit trees and flowers, fountains and birds, even butterflies recognizable as English Vanessas. A beautiful mosaic of sea life covered the floor, with dolphins playing and leaping above the waves, scattering turquoise and aquamarine droplets into the tiled sunlight, while fish glimmered in shades of blues and greens and silvers. Light splashed down into the chamber from a high, round window, glassed in to keep the heat from escaping.

"It's beautiful," Brenna murmured aloud, since no other bathers had gathered, yet. "I'd not realized how beautiful such places could be." Or that anything in the sixth century would be so finely wrought and carefully maintained. She'd envisioned Arthurian England as a realm of endless crudity and was startled everywhere she went by the overwhelming evidence of beautifully civilized culture.

Yes, it is lovely, isn't it? Morgana agreed, tactfully not commenting on Brenna's unflattering illusions as she used a dipper at a small, separate basin to wet her skin. She soaped herself with a yellowish and slightly greasy cake of soap that must have been extremely high in fat and lye, given its texture, then rinsed the soap off into a drain in the floor before sinking into the deep, rectangular pool of the calderium, an Olympian-sized hot tub with a marble bench submerged around the outer edge for sitting on while soaking. Ahh... We had nothing so fine at Ynys Manaw when I was growing up, as the Romans never troubled themselves with the island. It was better for Ynys Manaw that way, for we kept our independence and our ways intact, but the luxuries they brought would have been lovely to enjoy, when I was still a girl. We traded for a few things, but not even the kings of Ynys Manaw would hire the engineers and artisans this required—she gestured at the walls, the floor—not without risking the Romans taking over the whole island, once invited in. That was Vortigern's great folly with the Saxons.

That particular folly, the Britons were still paying for, in blood.

Morgana's worry about the Pictish and Irish troubles, as well as the Saxon ones, led Brenna to commit an error she wanted to snatch back, instantly. When Morgana brooded, We must devote so much of our strength to defending our western coast from the Irish, I fear we will not have enough strength to meet the Saxons in the south, Brenna couldn't help the thought that came arrowing out: You know, if we could persuade the Irish kings that the Saxons are a danger to them, persuade them to alliance with Britain, we wouldn't have to guard that coast at all.

Morgana, deeply startled, sat up straight, sending the hot water sloshing over her breasts. A most intriguing notion, Brenna of Ireland.

Oh, Lord, Brenna wailed silently, what've I done? She couldn't help it, though. If the Irish and Britons had managed to ally themselves against the Saxons and Angles and Jutes, not only would the invaders have found Britain a tougher nut to crack, the Anglo-Saxon kings and their English descendants wouldn't have existed to invade Ireland several hundred years later—and Brenna found the idea of saving hundreds of thousands of lives by eliminating the centuries-old war between Ireland and England very attractive. Too attractive, in fact. The desire to meddle, to try and save those hundreds of thousands of innocents—to save an entire culture—was a temptation that Christ himself would have found difficult to resist. That war, perpetuated in the conflicts of Northern Ireland, had damaged Brenna's life deeply, had led her to the mess she was currently in, trapped in the sixth century, trying to stop an Anglo-Saxon Orange terrorist. But if she acted to save those lives, she would be no better than Cedric Banning, putting the lives of billions at risk to save a few hundred thousand. It was a bitter situation, worthy of Irish history, that to act would destroy as surely as not acting.

Unfortunately, she had already done the damage, putting the notion into Morgana's mind.

I must consider this notion carefully, Brenna of the Irish. Very carefully.

There being nothing Brenna could do to stop her, and finding it utterly impossible to explain the danger inherent in trying to alter what would be Brenna's past and Morgana's future, she subsided unhappily and tried to recapture her enjoyment of the Roman bath. Morgana, however, atwitch with interest and restless to be dressed and waiting before Cutha arrived, stepped out of the bath, drying herself in a large linen bath sheet as other women arrived to bathe and ready themselves for the Saxons' visit. A few minutes later, gowned and jeweled, Morgana set out in search of her nephew.

It took her several minutes to locate Medraut, whom she expected to find haunting the street outside the royal villa of Strathclyde, which stood at a remove of several yards outside the fortress walls. A veritable horde of boys his age, sons of cataphracti officers and wheelwrights and stable boys, were waiting for first sight of Cutha's arrival, creating a colorful uproar in the village street. Medraut was not, however, anywhere in that street, nor was he inside the villa. A search of the command headquarters back inside the fortress walls also failed to yield him up.

She finally stepped out the back exit of the principium, where the portico led to the baths, and found him at last. Deep in conversation with Ganhumara, who clung to Medraut like a lover, clearly having met him on her way into the bathhouse. Icy rage blasted through Morgana, directed not so much at the lovesick boy as at Ganhumara. The girl used men for her own selfish purposes and discarded them when it suited her, a pattern Morgana had watched with narrow disapproval for several years, even prior to Ganhumara's marriage to Artorius.

"Medraut!"

They broke apart, startled and guilty at being caught. Ganhumara sent a look of utter venom at Morgana while Medraut's face alternately flushed and washed icy pale.

"Aunt?"

"Your place is in the royal villa, nephew, not trysting with"—she ran a wintry glance over Ganhumara—"other men's wives. You disappoint me severely. Go and prepare for Cutha's arrival at once."

He paused, torn between obedience and the desire to say a proper good-bye to Ganhumara. Morgana spat coldly, "Now, Medraut! Or would you prefer to tarry while Saxons butcher the whole of Britain?"

He bolted, visibly stricken. Morgana rounded on Artorius' young wife.

"Your manners and your morals are contemptible! Were your father alive, he would shorten your hair and disown you as a common slattern. Stay away from my nephew, Ganhumara. Seek for your royal heir elsewhere or know my full wrath."