"I don't fear death, Emrys Myrddin, any more than you. You must understand, surely, that my place is working at the forges with my kinsmen? Making swords and doing what I can to doctor injuries."

He frowned. "Do you think so little of our chances that you must be on hand to treat the wounded if the Saxons break through and lay siege to the Tor?"

Covianna laughed softly. "Oh, no, you mistake me entirely. I have every confidence in our fighting strength. But when kings demand hundreds of new weapons in a very short time, to prepare for war, smiths must make many more blades, spearpoints, and pilum heads in one month than they might ordinarily make in half a year. Such a heavy demand means long hours at the forge, with little time for food or even sleep.

"Even the apprentices are run into exhaustion, keeping the forge fires hotly stoked and the bellows in good working order, turning out simpler pieces on their own anvils, or heating the iron bars the master smiths and journeymen will forge into weapons. Work done at that pace causes fatigue and accidents—and if the work goes on long enough at that pace, exhaustion can cause crippling injuries, even death. Master healers are desperately needed when the forges are kept running day and night before battle."

Myrddin blinked in surprise, much to her delight. It wasn't often anyone was able to startle the aging Druid. Then he gave her a rueful smile.

"Forgive me, my dear, for being so obtuse. At least"—he caressed her cheek fondly—"I will have the pleasure of your company on the road south."

Covianna let her gaze smoulder. "I cannot think of anyone I would rather travel with, Myrddin."

He cupped her chin, lifting her face to meet his lips. He then breathed against her ear, "It is, alas, a long journey in the company of others."

Covianna whispered back, "Even an overcrowded taverna has a stable, and stables have hay lofts and not even the stableboys stand guard on a dark and empty hay loft."

He laughed aloud. "I haven't been in a hay loft in..." he paused to consider "... it must be twenty years, if it's a day. It wasn't until after I'd tumbled her that I decided to marry her."

Covianna, who disliked—intensely—any reference to Emrys Myrddin's wife, swatted him in seemingly mock ferocity. In truth, Covianna hated Myrddin's wife, who was not only alive and likely to outlive God himself, but was an intensely suspicious bitch, nosing around in Covianna's affairs whenever both women happened to be in the same city. Which was as infrequently as possible, making it difficult to find time to pump Emrys Myrddin for everything he could teach her—including how to apply one's own ambition and make it look like another's idea, or how to salve the affronted intellect of the British kings who were, in Covianna's opinion, among the dullest, stupidest men on the earth.

Myrddin grimaced. "My apologies, Covianna, I will forget and mention her. I will make it up to you on the road south to Caer-Badonicus."

You'd better believe you will! Covianna snarled under her breath, while smiling with the fondness of a mildly irritated mistress. Men, even those with Druidic training or Emrys Myrddin's keenly incisive mind, were by and large a stupid lot, driven by their gonads more than their brains. Aloud, she murmured, "I must go and see that my medicines are properly packed and stored."

"We will meet, then, on the road out of Caerleul."

Covianna slipped back into the great hall and spotted Artorius deep in conversation with a group of grey-haired kings and their younger sons. The Dux Bellorum had removed his sword and sheath, neither of which were in evidence. A swift search of the hall found no trace of the weapon, so she slipped away to the room Artorius and Ganhumara had shared.

The young queen was not in the room, although an appalling amount of clothing and jewelry was scattered carelessly like peacock feathers thrown down in the barnyard mud. From beneath one of Ganhumara's exquisite silk gowns Covianna spotted the tip of Artorius' scabbard. Covianna slipped the lovingly forged blade from the scabbard, letting Caliburn itself drop to the bed again amidst the riot of silks, furs, and kashmir wool imported from far Constantinople.

The sword, she left behind, leaving Artorius with nothing but naked steel between him and a ruined reputation. The power of Caliburn was not in the Damascus pattern-welding so coveted by wealthy, high-ranking officers, but in the sheath—and Covianna intended to remain in possession of that for a long time to come. Laughing softly, she hid the scabbard in the folds of her skirt and slipped away to her own room to hide it amongst her remaining baggage.

Intrigue, she sighed happily, was nearly as delicious a sport as murder. Particularly since those she planned to embroil in her nasty little web would—if all went well—end up deliciously dead.

Caer-Gretna wasn't much of a village, Brenna thought sourly as their horses plodded through the gate in the town wall, taking them toward a fortress that might have been better dubbed a mud hovel. It was smaller, even, than the mile forts along the Roman roads through Gododdin and Strathclyde, and boasted a garrison of ten soldiers, their plump wives, and a gaggle of scrawny hens and equally scrawny children vying for the same patches of dirt to scratch in. The town wall overlooked a long, low slope to the sea, where Solway Firth, its waters turned luridly crimson by the slanting light of the setting sun, lapped against tidal mud flats and a short stretch of sandy beach where fishing nets had been strung up to dry overnight. The tidal flats and beach stank of mud, dead fish, and human waste.

You want us to sleep here? Brenna asked with a note of dismay she could not hide.

Morgana sighed. It is safer inside the walls than it would be further along the road, where there are no forts at all to protect us should an Irish raider and his crew decide to strike. I enjoy the smell no more than you, but I prefer my sons and I to wake tomorrow still among the living.

There being no argument to counter that, Brenna tried to breathe shallowly until her nostrils accustomed themselves to the pervasive stink. The little garrison was, at least, kept scrupulously clean inside by the commander's wife, whose reaction to royal visitors was to fly into a frenzied state of agitation that soon had the entire town in an uproar, bringing in foodstuffs to be cooked, properly comfortable beds from the hamlet's wealthiest residents, even a keg of ale from the taverna, into which Lailoken happily disappeared with his harp and flute uncased and ready for the evening's merriment.

Morgana wisely suggested they allow Caer-Gretna's women time to work uninterrupted on their evening meal and guest quarters. Medraut followed Lailoken into the little taverna, smiling and eager for a bit of fun after the strain of the week at Caerleul, while Morgana's sons, carefully chaperoned by their guards, joined the village boys in a game involving wooden hoops, sticks to keep them rolling, and at least a dozen eager, panting puppies which kept darting underfoot as the boys ran and shouted. Morgana, feeling a need for more solitude than the taverna, the garrison, or the children could offer, sought out the little village church, a rough-hewn structure of planks and logs cut from the surrounding forest.

She stepped into the chilly, dim interior, where a low table to one side supported a few flickering candles. There were no pews, no chairs, just a long, flat floor made of smooth-worn sandstone, an altar of finely carved wood, and a riot of paintings on the wooden walls, half Christian saints, half pagan symbols left over from earlier beliefs that could not and would not be set aside in a mere handful of centuries. Morgana observed the proper form, going to one knee in genuflection, crossing herself while facing the altar, then pulled her fur-lined cloak more closely about herself for warmth and walked slowly toward the front of the little church, needing the balm of silence it offered. So much had happened in such a rushed blur of days, she had not yet been granted the luxury of simple grieving for her husband.