"They're more like us than I'd ever believed possible," Medraut said in quiet astonishment. "I'd not expected them to make such an offer." The loan was deeply generous and very welcome, as the wind whipping across the harbor drew a foul bit of shivering from both of them.

"Aye," Lailoken was getting his stomach back under some reasonable semblance of control again, "it's rare that an offer to trade goes sour at the beginning. It's what you're offered for your goods—and what you think of their offer—that causes war to break out in little sheltered bays like this one. Pride is a fine thing, so long as it doesn't plunge a man into trouble by the refusal to bend his head. A trader's job is never an easy one."

"Nor a matchmaker's."

"Hah!" Lailoken wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and wished mightily for that drinking skin he'd sampled just before coming aboard. "That's the bloody truth."

Another delegation was descending from the hill fort, headed by a woman this time, who was surrounded by a group of older women and a few men with white in their beards. The younger woman's eyes were a soft blue-green shade, like deep waters of a steepy loch in summer's haze, eyes that were violently alive and intelligent. Her copper-flame hair, caught back in one long plait and held neatly in place by a tubular hair net that glinted with threads of gold, hung down her back like a thick and immensely expensive jeweled serpent from some pagan god's pleasure garden. As she approached, several of the fisherfolk whispered, "Riona the Damhnait!" passing the astonishment back amongst themselves.

Lailoken stared, having picked up just enough Gael at waterfront tavernas to comprehend that much of the conversation out of the general babble of speculating voices. Riona the Bard? The king's own councillor?

Lailoken studied her intently as she approached, wondering whether the king's own councillor might be a good omen, or a sign of trouble. She halted before them and saluted them with a gesture of greeting, which Lailoken and Medraut gave back again, taking care to mimic the formal flourish.

"You are Britons, I see," she said, studying them with long and slow curiosity.

Her Brythonic was not, perhaps, astonishing in its quality, for her command of the language was obviously strained. But it was astonishing, nonetheless, that she spoke it at all. "I am Riona the Damhnait, Druidess to King Dallan mac Dalriada, the Scotti, and tutor for Keelin, Dallan mac Dalriada's daughter and heiress, who will one day be queen of the Scots. Why have you come into Dunadd Harbor? Do you seek shelter from yon storm?" She lifted a graceful hand to indicate the low-scudding rainclouds and the squall line even now pouring its way across the long reach of the harbor. The wind picked up as she spoke, rattling sails and flapping cloaks and long-skirted gowns against their owners' knees.

"Aye," Lailoken nodded, "but there are more storms than those which fly above men's heads on the wind and more ways than one of meeting them."

"Speak your meaning, then, and plainly, for I do not know your tongue well enough to translate niceties of phrase."

Medraut, foolishly in Lailoken's opinion, blurted out, "Where did you learn Brythonic so well?"

She measured him with a glance that seemed to find him well-intentioned, if not overly tactful or bright. She favored him with a slight smile. "Britons have visited Irish towns and royal courts a time or two, lengthy visits, for the most part, and often ending unhappily for at least one of the parties involved. It pleased me to learn their language, for one never knows when knowledge of an enemy may help create a friend in time of critical need."

Medraut brightened, since that was precisely what his aunt was hoping to accomplish with Irish alliance, even as Lailoken's stomached knotted painfully. Slaves... Poor British bastards taken off their fishing sloops, dragged from coastal villages and put to work in Irish fields, in Irish workshops as millers and coopers and smiths, all the trades it was cheaper to steal a slave to perform than to pay wages to a craftmaster to produce the same work.

"So," she smiled to remove the worst of the threat from her reminder that they were on very shaky ground, indeed, "what brings you to Dunadd?"

He cleared his throat, summoning his best official voice. "I, Lailoken the Minstrel, bard to the Queen and King of Rheged, bard to the Queen of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, come bearing a private message for the King of Dalriada." He produced Morgana's signet. "I bear the seal of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, given me from the hand of Queen Morgana herself, whose sons will rule Ynys Manaw and Gododdin and whose nephew will soon, if things work out as may be hoped, rule Galwyddel." He turned to the boy and introduced him. "Medraut, nephew of Morgana, Queen of Ynys Manaw, Queen of Galwyddel, who has come to Dalriada seeking alliance."

Despite what must have been excellent training in political affairs, Riona's brows rose in astonishment. "Alliance?" she repeated blankly. "What sort of alliance?"

"Ah," Lailoken smiled, "that is for the king of Dalriada to hear. I am certain he would be pleased to have you translate our generous offer. We bring gifts, as well." He gestured to the fishing sloop. "With permission, they can be brought ashore."

Riona turned to her companions, clearly the Irish equivalent of the Britons' councils of advisors, and spoke rapidly, voice low to prevent it carrying to the curious crowd. A ripple of surprise washed across their faces, then they answered in brief. Riona turned back to Lailoken and Medraut. "We would be pleased to see your gifts and hear your message."

Lailoken turned to call across the water, "Captain, have your men bring the gifts ashore! And our baggage as well, I think?" A swift glance at Riona gave him the hoped-for nod of welcome, since the storm showed no sign of letting up and night was not many minutes away.

A few moments later, several dripping sailors had wrestled ashore a heavy chest, a hogshead of fine wine imported from Rome, a variety of misshapen leather bags containing Medraut's personal effects and gifts for his prospective bride, and a heavy trunk that was Lailoken's personal baggage, in which several bottles of death were layered beneath clothing and a generous amount of ordinary hay, to keep the bottles from shifting or breaking in the rough seas. Banning smiled secretly as the sailors staggered across the beach with their fine gifts, following Riona Damhnait and her retinue across the stony beach and up the access road to Fortress Dunadd.

The fortification had been solidly built, with respectably thick stone walls, although it was nothing compared to the fine Roman forts like Caerleul—doubtless, Banning supposed, the reason the Scotti would never manage to invade further south than Hadrian's Wall. The interior was gloomy, damp, and cold, the walls hung with furs and the floors strewn with rushes cut from the coastal marshlands. Light filtered in from narrow, archer-slit windows and flickered from torches set into brackets, long tapers of wood wrapped with more of the marsh-cut rushes, soaked in oil to burn longer.

The place smelled of cold, damp stone, marsh grass, and rancid fat. An immense hearth along one wall sent heat pouring into one end of the room, supplied by what must have been half a tree blazing cheerfully away. It was near this hearth that a large chair had been placed, hewn from stone and lined with cushions and furs. Beneath the occupant's feet was a curiously carved flagstone in which Lailoken made out the hollowed-out shape of a human footprint.

Ah, he smiled to himself, having been told by Banning—who had, as a young man, visited the ruins of Fortress Dunadd—what he would find beneath the king of Dalriada's foot. The Stone of Destiny, as you called it. The king was gazing at them in considerable curiosity, understandable given their bedraggled, sea-soaked appearance and the sailors at their heels, sweating under their burdens.