"When shall we meet?"

She considered the question for a moment. "On the night of the next full moon, I think. That will give you time enough to travel both ways. Find me there at moonrise. Take this now," she pulled a small leather bag from under her cloak. "You will have expenses to bear before leaving Caerleul, for a man who poses as a trader must have something to trade—and a pack animal to carry it. I leave the details—and much else—to your discretion."

Lailoken accepted a small purse heavy with gold, exulting in his good fortune. Once back in town, he bought a fine riding horse, two sturdy pack horses, a variety of baubles such as women coveted for their necks and wrists, fine woolen gowns and kidskin slippers for delicate feet, several bottles of excellent wine imported from Rome itself, and a bale of hay to cinch down over the sets of panniers he bought for the pack animals, baskets which would carry the trade goods near the top, as a screen for the more lethal cargo carefully cushioned beneath.

With Morgana's gold, he had no need to gamble for money, as Banning had originally intended. He still picked up the odd coin playing as a minstrel, of course, and spent many pleasant hours at the town's sandstone racing and gladiatorial arena, watching the games and cheering the crowd's favorites to victory. Banning, in particular, was fascinated with the arena and the games.

'Tis a grand arena, Banning said the first time they entered the immense structure which stood like a red sandstone battleship at the edge of town. It's completely unknown in my own time. Doubtless the poor dismantled it for building materials, over the centuries, Banning mused, more's the pity. It boasted an outer, one-story colonnade of the same red sandstone as the legionary fortress. One end was gracefully rounded, typical of raceways from one end of history to the other, but the opposite end had been squared off, giving the outer portico a truncated, clumsy look, like an elongated horseshoe with a blunt, square wall closing off the opening.

This puzzled Banning until they passed through one of the arched entrances cut into the portico. Sandstone starting gates had been built right through the squared-off end, a series of wide arches which formed stone chambers giving access to the track. A red sandstone balcony capped the starting boxes, roofed over to shelter officials who moved with a colorful flutter of woolen plaids stirred by the wind. A wooden machine something like the wheel of a sailing ship evidently controlled the heavy wooden doors of each racing stall. At the moment, these doors stood open, giving Lailoken and Banning a clear view of the open space beyond the back of the starting boxes. Runners and wrestlers stood waiting for the end of the foot race currently under way.

What startled Banning most of all was the seating. Unlike other Roman-era arenas he'd seen, which boasted tiers of stone seats, Caerleul's outer colonnade enclosed multiple ranks of tall wooden bleachers, the highest tiers of which rose some twenty feet above the sandstone parapet. The bleachers gave the arena an incongruous look, reminiscent of a small-town cricket or soccer field—games Lailoken didn't understand, even when Banning attempted to explain the rules.

Cricket's a bloody marvelous game, if you'd brains enough to learn it, Banning finally said in peevish ill temper. Now shut up and let me watch your idea of sport. Fortunately for Lailoken, who was coming to dread Banning's anger, his unseen guest enjoyed the barbaric splendor of the funerary games even more than Lailoken did. And so the week passed, very pleasantly indeed, with money in his pouch, games to entertain him, and lively music each night, with plenty of good wine to wet his throat. Even better, as one of the minstrels favored by the royal house of Rheged, he had access to the royal villa and the Dux Bellorum's councils virtually any time he wanted it. For the first time in his life, Lailoken had every luxury he wanted or needed within reach.

All that remained now was the waiting.

Chapter Nine

The morning of Stirling's fight with Cutha dawned as dismally as his spirits: overcast and cold, with a wet wind whipping across Solway Firth from the distant, slate-grey Atlantic. Ragged, racing clouds were a low-scudding promise of more rain before midmorning or Stirling was no judge of late autumn weather in the border counties. Ancelotis merely grunted agreement after their mutual, quick look at the sky. Stirling, with a twenty-first-century soldier's appreciation of the need for cleanliness, nevertheless muttered under his breath about the tepid bathwater his servant Gilroy brought in a pitcher and basin, shivering in the cold air as the rapidly cooling water sluiced down his chest and back.

Ancelotis, growing impatient with his bellyaching, finally said, The villa's baths are kept fired, you know. Meirchion and Thaney would hardly begrudge you a long, hot soak. Or if you're reluctant to trespass on Thaney's charity, the officers' baths at the fortress are kept heated, as well. We're hardly barbarians, the Briton king growled in an irritable tone, due more to pre-combat nerves than Stirling's naivety about the Britons' civilized manners. It's the Saxons who don't bathe or comb their hair more than once or so a month, he added peevishly.

Stirling blinked, taken completely by surprise. The Roman baths were still operational? A delighted grin chased its way across his face. Jolly well fabulous! He'd arrange for a very long and very hot soak, at the earliest possible moment—say, right after his bout with Cutha. He couldn't think of a better way to soothe the inevitable crop of bruises and cuts he would pick up.

Stirling had no sooner finished pulling on clean clothing and his armor, assisted by Gilroy, than Emrys Myrddin arrived. "An excellent morning to you, Ancelotis. One might have wished the weather to grant us more favorable conditions, but I have every faith you will prevail."

"May your faith in my sword arm be justified," Ancelotis responded as they strode briskly outside to their waiting horses. Gilroy followed, carrying Ancelotis' spare weapons and shields.

They rode through the town at a bracing trot, past cheering Britons who closed ranks behind them and followed eagerly toward the field. Little girls along the side of the road waved branches of greenery cut from pines and spruces before joining the throng at their heels and small boys darted in front of Ancelotis' immense charger, shouting gleefully as they dared each other to dash past the war-horse's enormous hooves. The horse snorted and tossed his head and pranced almost sideways down the road, proudly flicking the white feathers which hid his feet, slinging mud every which way and having a marvelous time with all the attention directed at him.

Ancelotis let the animal dance, commenting laconically, He mirrors my feelings, belike.

Stirling muttered, If all you feel is nervous tension, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Gunga Din? Ancelotis frowned. Who or what is a Gunga Din? And why do you call me by the name?

Stirling's ill-advised quotation left him trying to explain Kipling. Ah, yes, well, Gunga Din was a water boy, not a boy at all really, that's just a name given to natives who carried water to the wounded during battle. A rude name, I'm afraid, demeaning and given to a grown man who was both a native of India and a servant. Two things guaranteed to earn such a man scorn from the British soldiers who had gone to India to win an empire—

British soldiers, fighting a war in India? Ancelotis interrupted excitedly. Building such an empire as exceeded Roman might? Emrys Myrddin has a piece of ivory taken from the tusk of an elephant that came from India, stolen, he says, while he was still a slave in Constantinople. Traders still ply the route from the city astride the Bosporus and the fabled realm of eastern spices and mysterious, veiled women. So far as I know, not one Briton has ever been there. This Kipling, then, was he a British soldier in India?