Morning came too soon for Trevor Stirling.
With it came the Saxons.
Much to his surprise, Stirling met them in a sprawling villa situated just outside the fortress walls. He had been shaken awake well before first light by the manservant who had followed him all the way from Caer-Iudeu, serving as combination valet and batman. Stirling gulped down a steaming breakfast of oatmeal sweetened with honey and donned the finest clothing his servant had brought from Gododdin, heavily embroidered layered tunics of crimson and royal blue wool, soft leather trousers as supple as velvet, dyed a deep, pine green, and a hip-length black cloak trimmed with dazzling white ermine fur and held closed with an immense penannular cloak pin of heavy gold that must have weighed a quarter of a pound. He shoved his feet into thick leather boots, strapping them around the leather trousers, raked back damp hair, and pronounced himself as ready as he would ever be.
Outside, Ancelotis' horse waited patiently, chewing at the bit and blowing steam in the chill air of morning. The sun had not yet cleared the horizon when Stirling laid his reins along the big grey stallion's neck, turning him with a touch, and jogged through the fortress' wide streets with a rattle of hooves on paving stones. He noted with approval the heavy guard mounted along walls and watchtowers. In the daylight, the immense fortress was even more impressive than it had been in total darkness. Red sandstone walls stood impenetrably thick, immune to virtually anything but artillery fire—and Europeans wouldn't discover the secrets of gunpowder for several more centuries. As Ancelotis clattered through the snaking turns of the fortress' main gates, Stirling stared in rapt fascination at the sixth-century town which spread out in every direction.
Seabirds drifted high above, crying their raucous and mournful loneliness to the wide horizons, while sunlight flashed in tones of pink and honey on the undersides of white wings and high grey clouds. The waters of Solway Firth glinted in the distance, where the tip of the bay narrowed down into a thin finger of water. That fingertip curved inland toward Carlisle like a giant, hooked claw, raking deep into the coastline's flank. Hadrian's Wall marched steadily westward out of town, paralleling that long claw of water for several miles, before finally dead-ending at the Atlantic Coast. A tall aqueduct completely unknown in the twenty-first century carried water to the fortress, while feeder lines supplied the whole town.
Despite the early hour, the town was already awake. Caerleul's inhabitants filled the morning with the ringing slam of blacksmiths' hammers on iron, the scrape of saws and rasps on wood, the deep lowing of cattle and the sharper protest of sheep and chickens being driven to market. Fresh-baked bread sent tendrils of deliciousness through the muddy lanes, while merchants threw back shutters on their shop windows. Stirling couldn't help staring at glass panes set into several shop-window frames, a sight that shocked him speechless.
He knew, of course, that the Romans had used glass extensively and that glazed windows had not been all that uncommon. Shards of glass from wide windows overlooking the sea had been discovered during excavations of Herculaneum's public baths, he remembered reading an article about that, but somehow Stirling hadn't expected to find glass windows in a shopkeeper's storefront at the extreme edge of Rome's one-time empire, a full century after the Roman pull-out from Britain. The merchants eyed him hopefully as he passed, calling their wares to any and all interested customers.
Stirling's first impression of the town was of calm and ordinary urban bustle, but closer inspection revealed strain and the shadows of uncertainty and fear. It didn't do his jitters much good when Ancelotis commented, Aye, they're afraid, and with good reason. Two kings newly slain and the Saxons knocking at their doors. Think you we Britons are immune to such emotions, for all that we're certain of the Afterlife? A man may accept a promissory note from a debtor to collect payment in the Afterlife, but that hardly means we welcome the transition with arms thrown wide.
Stirling couldn't find a single response to that astonishing piece of information and decided it was probably best if he didn't try. Their destination, a large villa which lay perhaps a dozen meters beyond the fortress and its multi-layered rings of defensive barriers, had doubtless served as residence for the commander of the Sixth Legion and his family, if not as the main residence of the client kings of Rheged. The inhabitants had probably evacuated to the fort for safety—along with the rest of the town—during times of trouble. Whether the villa had been kept up by the kings of Rheged or refurbished by Ambrosius Aurelianus and his protege Artorius was difficult to decide, just by looking at the outside.
For the most part, it was as plain and utilitarian as any other Roman house in the sprawling, once-great Roman empire, its coat of whitewash faded from exposure to years of Scottish weather. The sandstone roof had been maintained in excellent repair, greeting the strengthening light of morning with a rosy red glow, the cheeriest sight Stirling had yet seen. The entrance, invisible during the night, was its most stunning feature, with a triangular pediment resting on no fewer than six immense sandstone columns, fluted gracefully. The entrance lay at the end of a flagstone path bordered by statuary and formal flower beds, which separated the villa from the commonplace bustle and mud of the street.
A servant, one of the burliest roustabouts Stirling had ever seen, who fairly bristled with weaponry and stiff-necked military pride, held the door. Stirling expected to find the interior as faded as the outside, perhaps because every Roman villa he'd ever seen, in pictures or on the telly, wore a melancholy air of ancient glory gone dim, a ghost dissolving into the light of dawn. But when he stepped into the vestibule, his jaw dropped.
Frescoes in a beautiful, deep red covered the walls, highlighted with golden birds frolicking amongst painted fountains. Beyond the vestibule lay an atrium, with its marble basin for catching rainwater, its frescoes bright and fresh, depicting deities, pastoral scenes, and architectural elements. And beyond the atrium, through open doors that could, at the owners' whim, be closed for privacy, was a stunning colonnaded reception hall, reminding him strikingly of the Fishbourne Roman Palace, but on a smaller scale.
The entire villa was an archeological treasure trove. These two rooms alone were. He moved forward through the atrium and reception hall with a sense of awe, glad of his soft-soled boots, for even a clicking footfall would have been sacrilegious in such rooms. The marble basin of the atrium pool glinted like quicksilver where sunlight struck the grey stone through a shimmer of clear water. The colonnaded hall was the backdrop for bronze statues on marble pedestals and a breathtaking fountain in the center of the floor. Water splashed softly in the hush, catching sunlight in brilliant sparkles, obviously fed by the aqueduct outside.
The villa's mosaic floors might have been laid yesterday, they were so immaculately maintained; they caught the eye with complex patterns, depicting the wildlife of the Scottish border counties—deer with liquid eyes, hares and songbirds, snarling Scottish wildcats, blood-red foxes, and leaping silver fish, in groups of three paying homage to a divine huntress and a horned god at the very center. Celtic triskelions, sunwheels, and intricate knotwork borders ran along the edges. The fusion of Celtic sacred images with the Roman medium of expression—thousands of tiny, colored tiles laid with loving precision—created a breathtaking hybrid art form.