For King and Country

by Robert Asprin

  "Emrys Myrddin," Artorius greeted the man drolly, "one day your wife will toss you into the nearest loch and where will the people of the dragon be then, eh?"

  "Bad news travels swiftly, Artorius," the grey-haired man said coolly, ignoring the jibe, "and you have left it late, this time. Morgana, Clinoch, I grieve for your loss. Meirchion, summon the high council of Rheged and send messengers to all the kings of the Britons, north and south. Tell them to send their sons to vote their pleasure, if they cannot tear themselves away to meet in high council by week's end. Artorius, you did well to order the ancient hill forts of the south strengthened and refortified, where the old walls had crumbled to dust. With the deaths of two kings of the north, the Saxons will abandon guile and attack as soon as they hear the news. Ancelotis," he said with an abrupt shift of attention, "you are not well. Sit you down, before your knees collapse."The concern in his tone surprised Stirling, who was still trying blearily to follow the lightning-swift observations and predictions.

  Stirling wiped cold sweat from his brow and stared, surprised, at his damp fingers. "Sorry," he mumbled, stumbling to the nearest wooden bench, where he sat down a trifle too heavily. Queen Thaney frowned and spoke sharply to the servants. They brought him another brimming mugful of the same alcoholic beverage he'd just drunk, which he decided must be mead as he gulped the stuff down like medicine. A joint of roasted meat arrived—he had no idea what kind—and hot soup rich with meat stock, vegetables, and barley. A few mouthfuls later, he started feeling almost human again. Myrddin sounded his pulse while the others tore into their own meals.

  As Stirling downed a third mugful of mead—probably a mistake in his exhausted condition—Morgana sat down across the table from him and consumed her own meal with the determined look of a soldier who is too keyed up to feel hunger, but knows he must eat, to retain his strength. Standing near the end of their table, Covianna told Myrddin succinctly everything she knew about Ancelotis' collapse, finishing with a description of the treatment Morgana had rendered that first night.

  "Well thought," the older man nodded approvingly toward Morgana, who nodded back in appreciation, leaving Covianna's eyes glittering and her fingers curling into talons where she crushed the long skirt of her robes beneath her angry grip. By the time Emrys Myrddin glanced back at her, Covianna had herself under control again and presented him with a sweet smile.

  "I would count it a great honor, Emrys Myrddin, if you could find just a few moments to teach me a bit more. I would have been all but helpless to assist Ancelotis, had Morgana not been present to see to his care. And with the Saxons massing on Glastenning's border, I would count it a great favor to learn all I can of healing, should the swine overrun Glastenning Tor and attack my kinsmen and the priests of the abbey."

  Emrys Myrddin missed the piercing look Morgana shot his way, because he was gazing at Covianna Nim with such pleased infatuation, sharply at odds with his earlier, surgically precise manner, even Stirling felt a serious twinge of alarm. "My dear Covianna, I would be honored to continue your instruction." He lifted a hand to brush a wisp of honey-colored hair back from her brow, where it had escaped her long, single braid. She smiled radiantly and murmured, "I am all gratitude."

  Emrys Myrddin gave her cheek a final caress, then dragged his attention back to the business at hand. "Ancelotis, you must be fit to meet those Saxon swine when they ride into Caerleul and you have a hollow, dazed look about you that I mislike."

  "I'm here, aren't I?" Stirling mumbled around a mouthful. "And on time."

  Myrddin favored him with a thin smile. "Indeed. And if you fall flat on the ground in front of Cutha, you might as well have stayed in Gododdin."

  The barb struck home, mostly because it was true. Not that Stirling could have prevented the collapse, given the immense shock of transition through time. "I won't fall down in front of Cutha or anybody else," he muttered, washing down the mouthful of roast. "I'm fine. Or I will be, after I've had more sleep." He couldn't stifle the jaw-cracking yawn.

  "We'll all fare better for some sleep," Artorius agreed, shoving back his empty bowl, scraped clean of every speck of stew. "Ganhumara." He rose, holding one hand out to his wife. "Morgana, Clinoch, Ancelotis, we'll speak again at first light." Artorius gave them a strangely formal salute, Roman-style, then took his leave.

  The company was breaking up, servants scurrying to clear away wooden trenchers and mugs, Medraut escorting his aunt away while Thaney and Meirchion departed, and Covianna and Myrddin, still comparing notes on how best to treat Ancelotis' "ailment," abandoned him without a further glance. Sage and disciple, more interested in the intellectual puzzle than the patient—or perhaps merely self-absorbed in one another. If Emrys Myrddin had a wife, as Artorius had mentioned, Stirling wondered how she would feel about Covianna's presence. Clearly, Emrys Myrddin wasn't terribly concerned with a wife's opinion, as publicly besotted as he appeared to be over the hypnotically attractive Covianna Nim.

  Whatever the case, Stirling wanted nothing more than to hit the nearest bed and sleep for about a year. Stirling staggered to his feet, then paused. He had no idea where Ancelotis was supposed to sleep, when in garrison. The king of Gododdin had no such difficulty, however, and steered a mostly steady path through the tables toward the doorway where everyone but the servants had already departed.

  The narrow corridor in which Stirling found himself had the look of a covered portico which had later been closed in, the now-solid stone wall keeping out cold and rain and snow. Bricks, carefully mortared, filled in the spaces between heavy stone columns. These were not the fancier Roman variety—most of which were not solid marble, in any case, constructed rather of a thin facing of fluted marble over a rougher stone for interior support—but were simple, massive pillars of rough-dressed red sandstone, much like the stone used to build Carlisle's great castle and cathedral in later centuries.

  It was entirely possible that the ancient Roman fortress had been dismantled to build that castle and cathedral, pre-dressed stone being easier to cannibalize from existing structures than undressed stone could be quarried raw from the earth and moved into place. And if Stirling's memory of his last visit to modern Carlisle was accurate, the castle and cathedral sat on the very site occupied by this stronghold.

  Stirling stumbled into a little room Ancelotis had evidently used before, barked his shins on a wooden bed frame, and collapsed onto another fur-covered bag stuffed full of straw. He was asleep before he could even fumble his way out of his clothes.

  Chapter Eight

  Morgana rose at first light and made a surprising and welcome trip to the baths behind the principium, following a covered portico from the rear of the great headquarters building which was her stepbrother's command center. The bath was a somewhat lopsided structure, clearly having been enlarged at some later point, as the right half was built of stone and masonry that did not match the left half.

  Aye, Morgana smiled at Brenna's puzzlement, they say when the first Christian priests came to Caerleul—the Romans were still here, then, and called it Luguvalium in those days—they were scandalized by the low morals of the men and women who used the same bathhouse. Not together, but the temptation was there, so the commander of the fortress had his engineers build a second bath adjoining the first, for the wives and daughters of the officers stationed in the fortress.

  Given the amount of railing twenty-first-century priests did against lax morals, Brenna was not surprised in the least. When they stepped up into the bathhouse, the floor of which was at least eighteen inches higher than the ground, Brenna gasped in surprise. Frescoes of garden scenes decorated the walls, with fruit trees and flowers, fountains and birds, even butterflies recognizable as English Vanessas. A beautiful mosaic of sea life covered the floor, with dolphins playing and leaping above the waves, scattering turquoise and aquamarine droplets into the tiled sunlight, while fish glimmered in shades of blues and greens and silvers. Light splashed down into the chamber from a high, round window,
glassed in to keep the heat from escaping.

  "It's beautiful," Brenna murmured aloud, since no other bathers had gathered, yet. "I'd not realized how beautiful such places could be." Or that anything in the sixth century would be so finely wrought and carefully maintained. She'd envisioned Arthurian England as a realm of endless crudity and was startled everywhere she went by the overwhelming evidence of beautifully civilized culture.

  Yes, it is lovely, isn't it? Morgana agreed, tactfully not commenting on Brenna's unflattering illusions as she used a dipper at a small, separate basin to wet her skin. She soaped herself with a yellowish and slightly greasy cake of soap that must have been extremely high in fat and lye, given its texture, then rinsed the soap off into a drain in the floor before sinking into the deep, rectangular pool of the calderium, an Olympian-sized hot tub with a marble bench submerged around the outer edge for sitting on while soaking. Ahh... We had nothing so fine at Ynys Manaw when I was growing up, as the Romans never troubled themselves with the island. It was better for Ynys Manaw that way, for we kept our independence and our ways intact, but the luxuries they brought would have been lovely to enjoy, when I was still a girl. We traded for a few things, but not even the kings of Ynys Manaw would hire the engineers and artisans this required—she gestured at the walls, the floor—not without risking the Romans taking over the whole island, once invited in. That was Vortigern's great folly with the Saxons.

  That particular folly, the Britons were still paying for, in blood.

  Morgana's worry about the Pictish and Irish troubles, as well as the Saxon ones, led Brenna to commit an error she wanted to snatch back, instantly. When Morgana brooded, We must devote so much of our strength to defending our western coast from the Irish, I fear we will not have enough strength to meet the Saxons in the south, Brenna couldn't help the thought that came arrowing out: You know, if we could persuade the Irish kings that the Saxons are a danger to them, persuade them to alliance with Britain, we wouldn't have to guard that coast at all.

  Morgana, deeply startled, sat up straight, sending the hot water sloshing over her breasts. A most intriguing notion, Brenna of Ireland.

  Oh, Lord, Brenna wailed silently, what've I done? She couldn't help it, though. If the Irish and Britons had managed to ally themselves against the Saxons and Angles and Jutes, not only would the invaders have found Britain a tougher nut to crack, the Anglo-Saxon kings and their English descendants wouldn't have existed to invade Ireland several hundred years later—and Brenna found the idea of saving hundreds of thousands of lives by eliminating the centuries-old war between Ireland and England very attractive. Too attractive, in fact. The desire to meddle, to try and save those hundreds of thousands of innocents—to save an entire culture—was a temptation that Christ himself would have found difficult to resist. That war, perpetuated in the conflicts of Northern Ireland, had damaged Brenna's life deeply, had led her to the mess she was currently in, trapped in the sixth century, trying to stop an Anglo-Saxon Orange terrorist. But if she acted to save those lives, she would be no better than Cedric Banning, putting the lives of billions at risk to save a few hundred thousand. It was a bitter situation, worthy of Irish history, that to act would destroy as surely as not acting.

  Unfortunately, she had already done the damage, putting the notion into Morgana's mind.

  I must consider this notion carefully, Brenna of the Irish. Very carefully.

  There being nothing Brenna could do to stop her, and finding it utterly impossible to explain the danger inherent in trying to alter what would be Brenna's past and Morgana's future, she subsided unhappily and tried to recapture her enjoyment of the Roman bath. Morgana, however, atwitch with interest and restless to be dressed and waiting before Cutha arrived, stepped out of the bath, drying herself in a large linen bath sheet as other women arrived to bathe and ready themselves for the Saxons' visit. A few minutes later, gowned and jeweled, Morgana set out in search of her nephew.

  It took her several minutes to locate Medraut, whom she expected to find haunting the street outside the royal villa of Strathclyde, which stood at a remove of several yards outside the fortress walls. A veritable horde of boys his age, sons of cataphracti officers and wheelwrights and stable boys, were waiting for first sight of Cutha's arrival, creating a colorful uproar in the village street. Medraut was not, however, anywhere in that street, nor was he inside the villa. A search of the command headquarters back inside the fortress walls also failed to yield him up.

  She finally stepped out the back exit of the principium, where the portico led to the baths, and found him at last. Deep in conversation with Ganhumara, who clung to Medraut like a lover, clearly having met him on her way into the bathhouse. Icy rage blasted through Morgana, directed not so much at the lovesick boy as at Ganhumara. The girl used men for her own selfish purposes and discarded them when it suited her, a pattern Morgana had watched with narrow disapproval for several years, even prior to Ganhumara's marriage to Artorius.

  "Medraut!"

  They broke apart, startled and guilty at being caught. Ganhumara sent a look of utter venom at Morgana while Medraut's face alternately flushed and washed icy pale.

  "Aunt?"

  "Your place is in the royal villa, nephew, not trysting with"—she ran a wintry glance over Ganhumara—"other men's wives. You disappoint me severely. Go and prepare for Cutha's arrival at once."

  He paused, torn between obedience and the desire to say a proper good-bye to Ganhumara. Morgana spat coldly, "Now, Medraut! Or would you prefer to tarry while Saxons butcher the whole of Britain?"

  He bolted, visibly stricken. Morgana rounded on Artorius' young wife.

  "Your manners and your morals are contemptible! Were your father alive, he would shorten your hair and disown you as a common slattern. Stay away from my nephew, Ganhumara. Seek for your royal heir elsewhere or know my full wrath."

  Ganhumara's face washed white with shock. Not the shock of insult, but astonishment that her ploys had not only been correctly interpreted, they had been flung back into her face. Morgana left her gaping, with her fidelity and reputation in tatters, to wonder when the axe would fall on her neck in the form of full disclosure to Artorius. Morgana had no intention of handing her stepbrother such news, not now and perhaps not ever. She loved Artorius far too deeply to wound him with such tidings, particularly on the eve of war. Steps would have to be taken immediately to remove Medraut from further contact with Ganhumara and her wiles, else he would make a fool of himself and plunge them all into civil war with Artorius. The most logical course would be to marry the boy off at once, to a princess of royal blood as far from Ganhumara as could be arranged.

  And without a kingdom to offer such a bride, not even a younger daughter with older sisters in line to marry kings would consent to marry the son of a woman executed as a poisoner, with no hope of ruling a kingdom of his own. Not while Morgana's younger son stood in line to inherit Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, just as her elder son would inherit Gododdin. The only answer she could see to that was to give Medraut a portion of Galwyddel or Ynys Manaw and name him king. This was, of course, well within her rights as sovereign queen, a solution other Briton monarchs resorted to with fair frequency, to stop brothers and cousins from feuding.

  Unfortunately, to give Medraut a kingship, even a small one, would make him doubly attractive to Ganhumara, who wanted an heir with royal blood in its veins, which Artorius could not provide. Cousin to kings and stepbrother to queens, he was not, himself, of royal descent—a fact Ganhumara had resented from the moment her father had announced the betrothal two years previously. Morgana suspected that poor King Carmelide, beset by seas of difficulties, had married the vixen off at fourteen simply to stop her from ruining both their good names with her skirt-flipping, hot-blooded passions.

  That girl was a disaster poised to strike like the headsman's axe.

  "Queen Morgana?"

  The voice startled her from the shadows of a room just off the corridor which led from
the baths back toward the main hall. A man she vaguely recognized as one of the minstrels stepped forward, hat literally in hand as he approached.

  "Yes?" she asked, brows furrowed slightly at the interruption.

  "I'm that sorry, I am, to have overheard you just now, but I'm thinking I might be able to help."

  Morgana's blood ran cold. "And just how might you do that?"

  He twisted his Phrygian cap and said softly, "Well, 'tis obvious young Medraut must marry, and soon, to prevent trouble breaking out. I'm thinking it would solve two problems, to seek a marriage of alliance to the north."

  Morgana frowned. "Strathclyde? Clinoch has sisters, yes. All younger than he and not yet of age to marry."

  The minstrel shook his head. "You mistake my meaning, Queen Morgana. It was farther north, I had in mind. A princess of Dalriada would give us the alliance we must have to secure our northern border while we deal with the Saxons in the south. And marriage alliance with the Irish Scotti clan would be of such political significance, Medraut would think several times before risking war by trysting with Artorius' wife."

  Morgana narrowed her eyes while Brenna held her breath. It was a disturbingly attractive solution, one Brenna did not dare influence; she'd done enough damage already, priming the pump that would doubtless make Morgana far more receptive to the minstrel's idea. "And what would you expect by way of reward, minstrel?"

  A fleeting smile touched the man's lips. "You need not buy my silence, Queen Morgana, for I have the interest of the Britons at heart. But a man must eat and a queen must have minstrels for her court. I am weary of walking from Strathclyde to Cerniw and back again, playing at every tavern along the way to earn my bread. I have spent this week with the royal minstrels of Rheged and I think they have found no fault with my performances, if you worry on that account. I'll not disgrace your court."