When the tears began to well up, Morgana sank to the floor, leaning against the carved wooden rail separating the altar from the rest of the church, and cried in deep, gasping grief. She wanted Lot Luwddoc's arms around her, a foolish desire, since even his arms would not have kept the threat of war at bay, but she had felt so very much safer when lying beside him. The decisions she had made for Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw had been so much easier when her husband still lived.
She'd felt secure in the knowledge that she could always turn to someone as familiar as she with the heavy responsibility of command, and with the sometimes desperate necessities one had to force upon one's people, to protect them from greater harm. With Lot Luwddoc dead and Artorius riding south into war, Ancelotis at his side, Morgana had no one left to share the burden of decision with, no one left to calm her fears in the night, no one to whisper, "It will all come right, you'll see it will."
Was she wrong to pursue alliance with Dalriada?
The Irish invaders had already struck at Galwyddel repeatedly, landing on her shores by the hundreds, eager for conquest and rich farmland, until Morgana's cataphracti had managed to drive them northward, toward easier conquest against the Picts. Was she signing the death warrant of Galwyddel, giving it to Medraut to rule with Irish foederati as kinsmen? She had not yet found an answer when the village priest, who lived in a small hut behind the church, stepped into view through the rear entrance, halting in surprise when he saw her leaning against the railing, lost in helpless weeping.
"Oh, my child," he murmured, hurrying forward, "how long have you been here, alone and crying in the dark?"
She shook her head, too choked to answer.
He knelt beside her, stroked wet hair back from her face, gathered her into his arms and simply rocked her like a child, allowing her to weep out her grief against his shoulder. At length, with the worst of the emotional storm spent, she simply leaned against him, breathing quietly and feeling absurdly safe once more. He murmured, "We heard the news, these seven days past, of Lot Luwddoc's death and the call to council. Know that we grieve with you, Queen Morgana."
She managed to dry her cheeks with one hand. "I am grateful for it."
"How can we of Caer-Gretna help?"
She managed a smile, surprising even herself. "You have already." She sighed and sat up, pulling herself together again. "It is a poor time of year for the necessity, but we must look to refortify every fortress in Galwyddel. It is our task to hold the northern and western borders secure, as war is breaking out in the south."
"The Saxons again."
"Aye. Sussex and Wessex, both. You've heard the news of Penrith?"
"We have," the priest growled. "Godless bastards, they are, Queen Morgana. They'll not take Caer-Gretna by such surprise."
"Nor any other village of the Britons," she agreed. "Word has gone out in every direction to leave the harvesting and the fishing to the smallest children, for the men and women of Britain are needed for the heavier work of rebuilding stone walls and forging weapons."
"Troubled times, indeed. There is little here to protect, but even a humble priest knows from Caer-Gretna a band of raiders could strike deep into Briton land, doing enormous damage."
"Yes. You must organize the people to do whatever the commander of the garrison needs done. I will speak with him before the night is out."
"The tithes to the church, small as they are, will help buy iron for the forge. We've a good smith in Caer-Gretna, with three strong sons and a good, strapping daughter, as well, all learning the trade from him."
"Put some of that coinage aside to buy grain, in case of siege. With the armies of the Britons riding south to war, our coastal towns will be at greater risk of raid than ever before."
"It shall be done."
"There is little more I can ask than that." She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, grateful for the priest's steadying hand. "I thank you for the comfort rendered."
"It is harder to bear grief when frightened people look to you for strength and guidance. But you descend from kings and queens of iron strength and the well-tempered will to survive. Galwyddel rests easier, knowing the daughter of Gorlois has the task of leading us when war looms on the horizon."
The comment struck unexpectedly deep, hurting her heart with the knowledge that she was preparing to hand the Galwyddellians to an untried youth, in a risky gamble for safety. "I will do what I believe best for Galwyddel. Whatever comes, try to remember that."
"A promise I will gladly keep. Here, you're shivering, pull that cloak tighter round yourself." He tucked the edges firmly together and warmed her hands in his own, rubbing them briskly while she battled to blink back more tears. "There. Go now, go and find a warm fire and eat a good supper with your sons beside you. Drink a mug or two of ale, it will help you sleep."
Her lips twitched in a faint smile. Advice from a novice to a master healer—but welcome, nonetheless, for its gentle concern. "I'll do that. Thank you."
She left him to tend his guttering candles and found her way back to the garrison, where the mouth-watering scents of a major feast wafted through the evening air. Shortly, she and her children were served up a good, hot meal, insisting that the garrison officers and their families share the repast, and spoke of Britain's danger and Caer-Gretna's need to arm and defend itself. In that odd way men have of greeting trouble with a certain inexplicable air of excited anticipation, the garrison commander and his men launched into a voluble, animated discussion of precisely what was needed, where it could be obtained, and who was available to procure it.
She left them to their happy plottings and retired for the night, exhausted and bruised in body and spirit. The dawn and another day's grim reality would come all too soon, as it was.
Chapter Twelve
Trevor Stirling hadn't visited the Yorkshire Dales in years. He'd come with a school group long ago and remembered being deeply impressed by the broken country of towering limestone cliffs, deep and mysterious caverns, glacier-cut gorges, and rugged karst topography. When Stirling and the cataphracti following Cutha's trail thundered down into Ebrauc, he was deeply dismayed when the mud-churned trail led straight into the wild tangle of broken, eroding rock that comprised the roughest country to navigate by horseback anywhere in England. The stony soil did wonders for hiding the bastard's tracks—doubtless why he'd chosen the longer, more snaking route toward Dewyr. Every time they came to a feeder stream or intersecting gorge, they had to pause and waste valuable time searching for signs of Cutha's party—a muddy hoofprint on a streambank, horse dung, broken branches in the scrub.
In contrast to his earlier lightning assaults on villages and farmholds, Cutha's tracks now assiduously avoided what few settlements there were tucked away into the Dales, bypassing even tiny hamlets like Malham. He followed, instead, the Pennine Way down to the River Aire, which eventually burst out of the broken country in a froth of rain-swollen whitewater and spilled down into a gentler countryside that would one day see the cities of Halifax and Leeds rise to prominence. The river roared along, spilling over into wide water meadows where thousands of waterfowl clamored for food and mates.
The marshes bred mosquitoes and midges, as well, which plagued them by night, whether they stopped for an hour or two of sleep or pressed doggedly onward. What sounded like—and might well have been—several million frogs turned the marshes into a drum-roll chorus of territorial challenges and peeping, bellowing, bell-throated calls for females of their own particular kind. Stirling, unused to the countryside in any case and certainly unused to a countryside not yet denuded by pesticides, urban runoff, and heavy-metal pollutants, had never heard so many frogs in his entire life. It sounded at times like the night would crack wide open under the onslaught of so much raw, primeval sound.