Hawk Of May Part 6

"The battle will be about you. And take warning: it is not always to be fought with the sword, even with a sword like yours."

"I understand, Lord. I have conquered my own Darkness, but cannot destroy it."

He nodded, smiling. "And if you remember that, you will be wise. The Darkness can use your own will, and can use others when they are themselves ignorant of it. You have walked in the Darkness and chosen Light, and will be hard to deceive. But it will not be impossible. There is much sorrow on Earth, and the Darkness is very strong..." He stopped abruptly, and turned his eyes from the future to the present and me. "For warband, you will be able to recognize those who serve the Light. Arthur you already know of. Go to him, and accept him as your lord on Earth, if he will have you. But you will need to convince him that you have abandoned the Darkness, first: do not expect that it will be easy. Whatever happens, I am certain that great things will be done on the Earth in these days, for there is a great struggle taking place. What the end will be I do not know and cannot see, except that it will be strange and different from what is expected. But I think you will fight honorably. Now, come."

I followed him from the room, carrying my sword, and he led me through a maze of pa.s.sageways out, somehow, on to a kind of platform just below the roof of the feast hall, of the kind men use for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the thatch. We stood just beneath the roof of feathers and looked out to the west. The sun was going down, covering all the world with light, and it seemed closer and brighter than on Earth. Lugh pointed westward, and I followed the direction he indicated. I could see the whole of his island, right to the sea which circled it, and beyond that still into the sun itself. Just for a moment, it seemed to me that a light like a new star burned behind the sea, beyond the horizon; and in that instant, I felt that I understood the song in the Hall, and to what I had pledged my sword. I fell to my knees and raised the sword before me, whether in homage or in defence I am unsure. Lugh threw his arms up as in acclamation, and the light within him seemed to leap up. Then the sun touched the horizon, covering that other light, and he turned to me again.

"It is time that you go," he said gently. "Perhaps you will return one day, when the Earth has pa.s.sed, and then you can hear the end of that song. But till then, I fear, we will not meet, nor will you ever again come to my realm. So, kinsman, I give you my blessing," and he rested his hands on my shoulders as I still knelt. "Carry it well in whatever battles are before you." He helped me to my feet, then embraced me, more tenderly than my father ever had. "Go in Light, mo chroidh, my heart, and do not wonder at what happens."

Stepping back, he lifted his hands and spoke a word which the wind caught and repeated about me. The gold and bronze wall of the Hall, the setting sun on the feathers of the roof, dissolved into that sound; and the plains and woods and ocean of the Isles of the Blessed faded slowly with the wind. Last of all, Lugh himself, now standing afire with light, faded into a luminous mist, still smiling, and the last echoes of the magic word carried me back softly, ever so softly, to Earth and sleep.

Six.

A hawk was flying in slow circles through the air above me. I watched him tilt his wings, balancing on the wind, then drift up sideways into it. I let my mind drift with him, swinging slowly along the blue sky and not really watching the blur of memories that lay below. I felt light, strong, purposeful: that was enough.

Presently, however, it occurred to me to wonder what had happened, and why I had this strange feeling of confidence, and I looked into my memories.

Llyn Gwalch. I had ridden there, with a demon riding after me through the night. I had stayed there for a day, and afterwards...no, a long blaze of color and light, pain and glory and ecstasy. A song overwhelming everything, and a sorrow too deep for words. And an oath, a commitment. The Isles of the Blessed. Tir Tairngaire, Land of Promise, the Silver Land, the Land of the Living: a crowd of names for it rushed to me. Lugh of the Long Hand-no, it had to be a dream. Indeed, it had the strange enchanted feeling of a dream, in which colors are too bright and time and distance changed, alien and meaningless. Llyn Gwalch, then. I had certainly been there, so presumably I still was, here. Later in the day I would have time to consider the feeling of being changed, but for the moment I had better try to find something to eat.

I sat up, yawning, and looked about me; went rigid.

I was on a hilltop, seated in the low gra.s.s and heather that covered it. To one side the hill swept down, up into another range of hills, then clothed in an incredible shadowing of forest bright green with the spring. On the other side, the hill continued into a range of taller hills. The sky was an unimaginably clear blue, and seemed to rise for ever.

"No," I said out loud. "It is impossible." There were no hills this tall in all the Orcades, and no forests. It was not spring, but autumn.

But the earth and sky were indisputably real. I clutched my head, terrified. Where was I? This could not be a dream, but if it were not, then...the other couldn't have been a dream either.

"Do not wonder at what happens," Lugh had said before he sent me back to Earth. I remember the words clearly, and remembered his face as he said them, and the west spread out below the roof of his Hall. I remembered the room beneath the Hall, and the agony of drawing the sword; the joy and power when I had drawn it. The sword...my hand fell to my side.

It was there.

I closed my hand about the hilt, and it seemed to flow into and become a part of me. I lifted it, looked at it. It was real. The whole voyage had been real, and the magic of Light was no less real than the power of Darkness. I had sworn fealty to the Light, and it, he, had given me arms. I held in my hand a weapon not forged on Earth.

I laughed, gripping the hilt with both hands, doubt and terror departing without leaving a trace behind them. I sprang to my feet and lifted Caledvwlch to the sun.

"My lord, Great King!" I shouted. "I thank you for this, and for delivering me from my enemies, and taking my oath!" As I spoke, the sword blazed again with light, but this time it did not burn me; rather, it seemed to radiate my own joy. I lowered it slowly, looking at it. "And I thank you, too, kinsman, Lord Lugh," I added, "for your hospitality." The light burned a little while longer, then dimmed until it seemed as though I held an ordinary, if very fine, sword in my hands.

I had not really noticed the fas.h.i.+on of it before. It was a two-edged slas.h.i.+ng sword, such as a man could use from horseback. It was somewhat longer and thinner than most such swords, and perfectly balanced. The hilt was very beautiful: the cross-piece far longer than usual, each branch coiled with gold which then intertwined up the grip to the pommel, which was set with a ruby. The blade, as the inner light died from it, caught the sunlight with the true "snake" pattern of well-forged steel. It was sharp, too: I drew the edge along my arm, and it cut every hair without pulling. It would be a fine weapon to use in an ordinary battle, without the addition of unknown powers against the Darkness.

Looking down, I saw that it had a sheath. This was very plain, of simple wood and leather, and fastened to a plain leather baldric. I set the sword down and put this on, then sheathed the sword and adjusted it. It was an easy weight to carry, since I felt lighter with it than without it.

The question now was, which way to walk? I had no idea where I might be. Lugh had said that I should go to Arthur, and Arthur was presumably fighting the Saxons somewhere in Britain, so I was probably in Britain, rather than in Erin or Caledon-or Rome or Constantinople, for that matter. Britain, though, is a large land, and there were few in any of her many kingdoms who would welcome strangers from the Orcades. Well, if Arthur was fighting the Saxons, presumably I had been sent to somewhere near him. That might mean I was near the border of one of the Saxon lands, but, again, it might not. A well-planned raid may strike a region over a hundred miles from the raiders. And most of the British kingdoms bordered Saxon lands on the east. Well then, at least I should not walk east. I checked my directions by the sun. The chain of hills lay directly to my west. These looked to be hard walking, and I was unused to travelling long distances on foot. I looked for easier country.

I looked again at the sky. The hawk I had seen earlier was still visible, circling slowly southward. That seemed as good a direction as any. I started off.

After three steps I had to stop again. My boots pinched dreadfully. Sitting down to check them, I saw that they were far too small. So, for that matter, was everything else I was wearing. I remembered then that Lugh had said that two and a half years had pa.s.sed during my single day on the Isle of the Blessed.

I stared at the boots. Everyone must think me dead, would even have forgotten me. It was late spring. I must be fully seventeen.

Almost against my will, I recalled tales that are told of those who visit the Sidhe. Sometimes, returning only to look again at their homeland, such travellers crumple into dust when they touch mortal earth and their age returns to them. Or sometimes they themselves were left unchanged, but the world had known centuries since they left, and they wandered about earthly lands for years, asking for persons long dead and forgotten. I felt sick. Suppose that this had happened to me. Suppose that it was not just two and a half years, but ten, twelve, a hundred years? Suppose I went to the nearest farmstead and asked about Arthur the Pendragon, and the people said "Who?" and looked at me with strange eyes?

No, I told myself firmly. Lugh said two and a half years, and he would not deceive me. This is spring, and two and a half years from the time I left Llyn Gwalch. And if it is not so, then it is because the Light wills it not to be, and the Light is your sworn lord and you must accept and have faith in his judgements.

I unlaced the boots and took them off. I had been warned, after all, I told myself. And the advantages were great. I had grown somewhat before I left Dun Fionn but now I was fully adult, and could swear service to any lord in Britain-any that would have me, that is. Doubtless I was still a poor fighter.

This thought made me smile, albeit shakily, and I remembered Agravain and Lot and all those who had tried to train me at Dun Fionn, when I had still wanted to be a warrior. It had been hard then, bitterly hard. Now, at least, I knew what my road was and knew that it was good, even if it might be difficult. The ascent from Avernus apparently was not to be made in one step. I remembered suddenly the light I had seen at sunset in the Isles of the Blessed, and struggled to recall what it meant. I could not. But the song in the Hall I could remember, still sharp and brilliantly clear. Too clear: the sorrow flooded over me in a great wave, mingled with homesickness, and I crouched a moment, staring at the heather. Best not to think of that for a while.

I tossed the boots aside-I could easily go barefoot on that gra.s.s-and started down the hill.

It was a fine day for walking. It was warm, about as warm as it ever becomes in the Orcades (though it is often much hotter in Britain) and I first loosened, then took off my stained cloak. The sky was very clear and blue, and there was only the slightest of breezes to ripple the gra.s.ses. Skylarks dropped music from overhead, rabbits jumped off on all sides, and once, as I walked by the edge of the forest, a herd of deer leapt up and ran off before me in great startled bounds. Flowers abounded, in types I had never seen in the Orcades. The woods were a marvel to me, who had seen none before, and the play of sunlight through the leaves seemed too wonderful for words.

After noon, when I was becoming thirsty, I found a stream running from the hills into the forest. The water was sweet and clear. After drinking, I rested by it for a while, soaking my feet, which were already sore; then set off again, still southward.

As the day wore on, the hills became lower, finally blending into the surrounding countryside. The forest grew thicker, and marvellous as it was, I became uneasy with the trees so tall about me, and began to wish for the open hills of the Orcades and for the sea. My feet were cut and sore, and I was also growing tired and stopping to rest more frequently. I had seen no sign of human habitation all day, and I wondered where in this great land Arthur could be. When it was growing late in the afternoon, however, I found a road.

It astounded me. Never had I seen such a thing. It was paved with great stones, slightly arched in the middle, and the forest had been cleared for some distance about it-although loose scrub had grown since that clearing. It was a road wide enough for the largest cart and firm enough to withstand the fiercest rains and coldest winters. I had heard of the Roman roads, but had always thought their virtues exaggerated. Well, I now knew them to be real.

This road ran eastwest, straight as a spear shaft. I walked cautiously from the forest on to it, then began walking west. It was easy walking after the forest, and I made good time.

When twilight was only an hour or so away I saw people coming down the road towards me. The setting sun was behind them, and I could not see them clearly. Nonetheless, I ran forward eagerly to meet them. They were the first humans I had seen since awakening-in fact, the first in two and a half years-and I felt the need of company after the strange forest and stranger things preceding it. Besides that, men meant houses, fire, food. And even more than the hunger, I felt a peculiar turning of my mind towards other men, an eagerness for them, almost as though all humanity was my clan, and I wanted their shared warmth against the vastness and awe of the powers of Light and Darkness. It is a strange feeling, but whenever I have been nearest the Light and, thus, farthest from common humanity, I feel so.

The party emerged as eleven men leading three pack-laden horses and driving a cow. The men were warriors. The sun glinted off the tips of their spears, limned the oval s.h.i.+elds slung over their shoulders, and shone warmly on their steel topped helmets. I stopped, frowning. The warriors of the Orcades do not wear helmets, and none of the British warriors who had been attracted to my father's warband had done so either. Most warriors consider it cowardly to wear one, and besides, unless it is very well made a helmet merely blocks one's vision without providing much protection.

As I stood, stupidly staring and thinking this, one of the warriors hailed me, shouting in a language I did not know. Then I realized that I should have fled. I knew Irish, British, Latin, and some Pictish, all but one of the languages spoken in Britain. The one I did not know was the Saxon tongue-and Saxons also wore helmets. But I had hesitated too long, and now it was too late to flee. The warriors were almost upon me. I would have to try to bluff, and hope that the Saxon reputation for unthinking violence was mistaken, and that their reputation for lack of imagination and stupidity was correct.

The Saxon who had called before repeated his greeting. I nodded in what I hoped was a half-witted fas.h.i.+on and stood aside to let them pa.s.s.

They were all tall men, I saw now, and most had the oddly pale fair hair which is also a part of the Saxons' reputation, though three were dark. They were well armed with swords, throwing and thrusting spears, and the long knives, the seaxes, which give them their name. The horses were laden with food: three pigs, grain, and some plain sacks containing either fruit or vegetables. The party walked towards me, more slowly now, and the leader suddenly stopped and frowned. He said something ending on a questioning note. I shook my head.

He took another step towards me, hesitated again, staring intently. He made a gesture with his left hand. One of his comrades made some comment in their odd guttural language, and the leader shook his head dubiously and asked another question. There was a strange note in his voice, of uncertainty, almost of fear, and his comrades had dropped the points of their spears. I shook my head again.

The leader glanced back at his friends, then spoke in British. He had a strange accent, speaking in the back of his throat, and coughing out harsh vowels and swallowing the ends of his words but I understood him well enough. "I said, greetings to you, whoever you may be." He hesitated again, watching me, the whites of his eyes showing oddly, then continued belligerently, "Who are you, and why do you travel this road, so close to nightfall?"

"I...am travelling because I must," I said. "Come nightfall, I will stop."

One of the other Saxons stepped forward angrily, levelling his spear. "That is no answer, Briton! What do you in the domain of the West Saxons? If you be a thrall, where is your master? If you be no thrall, what do you?"

"Eduin!" said the leader in an alarmed tone; and in the abrupt and tense silence that followed he studied me again, as though he did not like what he saw. I stood quietly, thinking hard.

The second Saxon, Eduin, argued something quickly with the leader, gesturing eastward. The leader looked uncertain, chewing his moustache, then became angry, and turned back from his companion to me. "Where is your master, Briton?" he demanded.

They thought I was a thrall, then, and they had called this the domain of the West Saxons. I struggled to remember what I knew of the Saxon kingdoms. It was so easy to say "the Saxons" and think of one nation covering all the east of Britain, and ignore the real divisions between them, the different tribes of Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Franks...but the West Saxons had attracted attention enough to register on my memory. Cerdic was the king of the West Saxons, and had claimed one of the old Roman provinces, the eastern half of Dumnonia. In such an area, newly conquered or perhaps actively resisting the invaders, any Briton would be either a thrall or an enemy. It was safer to be a thrall, especially when the odds were eleven to one, and that one a poor fighter.

"Well, answer me, Briton!" said the Saxon leader. Again there was a tone in his voice which I could not understand, a note almost of desperation.

"I..." What could I say? "I have none."

The leader too levelled his spear, the point only a foot from me. "You are not a thrall, then?" he asked, in a very low voice. "What, then? Do you fight? I fear no..." and he added a word in Saxon. The other warriors drew closer, spears lowered, one or two slinging the s.h.i.+elds from their backs, though they plainly did not understand their leader's British.

I realized that my hand had dropped towards Caledvwlch's hilt, and, astonished at myself, stopped it, tried to relax and looked cowed and bewildered. I could not fight them with the sword. I would have to see if I had inherited any of my father's famed cunning.

"But I am a thrall, n.o.ble lord!" I said, forcing a note of terror into my voice. It was not difficult to do. "I-arglwydd mawr, great lord, my master's dead, and I don't know..."

At my first words the Saxon had relaxed with a shudder. Now he spoke with an arrogant and aggressive self-a.s.surance. "You try to flee to your British High King, no? Just because Arthur the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is within a hundred miles you run from your master and try to join him."

"No, my lord!" I cried. "I only...I am running, yes. My master is dead, I told you! And my elder brother with him. I fear, my lord, that they will kill me, too. I need your protection. If I were running to the High King, would I have hailed you, my lord?"

"He would have hid himself, when that we came," Eduin said to the other. "He is a thrall brat, Wulf, liken to any."

Wulf frowned, though. "How did your master die? Who are 'they'? Answer me quickly."

"There was a duel, my lord," I replied at once, remembering the stories told by one of my father's spies. "My master killed a man, about a month back; and the man's kin accepted the blood-price, because of the war, and because the king wished it. But still in their hearts they were angry, and when we were going across the hills to take possession of some lands the king had given him, they sprang on him from an ambush and killed him, and all with him. My brother, another of his thralls, was there, and him they killed as well. I hid beneath a bush until they were gone, and then I ran. I am afraid, my lord, for I know they will kill me too, to stop me from saying that they broke their oaths concerning the blood-price."

Wulf nodded. My story was apparently plausible. "What was your master's name, then? And who are these oath-breakers?"

I dropped my eyes and fidgeted. "My lord," I whispered. "I dare not tell you. I am only a thrall. They would kill me."

He studied me for another moment, then noticed the hilt of my sword for the first time-I had put my cloak back on with the evening cool. He frowned at it unhappily.

"What is that sword? Your master's?"

"Yes."

He hesitated, began to ask for it, then stopped, shook his head. I looked at my feet.

"And you think we can protect you?" Eduin asked sardonically.

I fidgeted more, praying desperately to the Light that they would ask no more about Caledvwlch.

Eduin laughed harshly, "It happens we have no need for British brats underfoot, unless they are useful. What can you do?"

I allowed myself to relax a little. Be careful, I warned myself. Fortunately, with my bare feet and outgrown clothing I must look like a thrall, and biddable slaves were rare enough to be potentially valuable. If I made myself appear valuable enough they would let me live, either to keep themselves or to sell, but if I made myself appear too valuable it would be the more difficult to escape, and I might draw questions I could not answer. But if I appeared worthless they would probably kill me out of hand. Light, I thought briefly, why did you let me come here? Well, do not wonder at what happens.

"D-do, my lord? I'm good with horses. I cared for my master's stable. And I can play the harp a little, and serve at table."

Wulf chewed his lip, said something to Eduin. He still looked anxious. Eduin replied sharply, and Wulf seemed to argue with him. Eduin shrugged and said something which angered Wulf, who turned back to me.

"Very well, Briton, we will keep you. If you try to run away, you will be whipped. Care for our horses, and later we will sell you to someone who will use you properly, if we cannot find your master's kinsmen."

"Thank you, my lord." I bowed to him, thinking, Later? When? When they reached the army from which they must have set out as a raiding party? They had mentioned that the Pendragon was near. It would seem that I was in the midst of the war. I wondered what had happened in Britain while I was in the Land of Promise.

Wulf explained me to his followers, and the Saxons gave me their horses' leads and commenced walking east without further comment. As I watched them, I became the more certain that they were a foraging party sent to fetch supplies. I cursed my bad luck in finding them. Had I encountered a lone warrior or farmer first I would have had some warning of my location, and could have abandoned the road (a.s.suming that I survived such an encounter) and continued west safely. As it was, I was trapped and in danger. The Saxons would certainly not allow me to keep the sword. I could not understand why they had not asked for it already. And I did not like to think what would happen when they tried to draw it; it would give me away altogether. Moreover, I would have to come up with a name for my imaginary master-if I did not immediately give myself away by some piece of ignorance any thrall would have been free of.

Well, I consoled myself, there must be some way out. Surely the Light would not throw my life away and let my sword fall into the enemies' hands so soon after saving me and giving me arms. The Light had delivered me from Morgawse; surely it could save me from the Saxons. But I was afraid. The Light had saved me from the Darkness, yes, but that was magic working against sorcery, and the Saxons were physical power, flesh, blood, and steel. It had happened so quickly that I had had no time to feel anything. But now I wanted to drop the Saxon horses' leads and run. It was as though I had stepped from Morgawse's world into Lot's, where Morgawse could work only indirectly. And the Light?

The Light is High King, I told myself. He has brought you here; he can bring you out.

But the doubt persisted, and the fear. The Saxons had an evil reputation.

At least, I told myself, the High King Arthur is somewhere nearby, making war against these Saxons. Arthur, Arthur, Pendragon of Britain. Arthur who fights the Darkness. When Lugh had told me that, I had not questioned him, but now I began to wonder. Arthur, as far as I knew, fought the Saxons. He had done so, and seemed to be doing it still. But the Saxons could not be the same as the Darkness. I could sense no deep evil in the warriors I walked beside, and, had it been there, I would have known. They acted much like any warriors. They could be atypical, but I doubted it. The Saxons had a reputation for being violent, brutal, slave-drivers and maltreaters of women; for being also dull, gullible, naive, and stupid. There were many jokes about these supposed latter qualities of theirs-though, watching Eduin's cool wariness, I began to think that this part, at least, of the Saxon reputation might be mistaken. But as to the rest, all warriors are violent and most are brutal, if need be, and all nations are, at times, cruel to slaves and women. Deliberate evil was never ascribed to the Saxons. They seemed, indeed, less given over to torturing, poisoning, and black magic than the Romanized Britons, and were certainly better at keeping their oaths to one another. If the Saxons kept more slaves, it was because British and Irish clan holdings couldn't afford or didn't need to keep as many slaves as the Saxon villages could; and the British and Irish women weren't abused as greatly simply because they wouldn't permit it, as the Saxon women apparently did. I could not see that the Saxons were uniquely servants of Darkness. Yet Arthur gave all his strength to the war against the Saxons. If he indeed served the Light, there must be some reason for that.

I remembered, suddenly, how my mother had used my father, and was chilled by it. If some force were using the Saxons that way, and if that force recognized me for what I was when I reached the Saxon camp, this journey could easily mean my death.

Of course, to attempt to escape meant death, and whatever way I came to the Saxon camp would be hazardous. And even if I could survive, and escape from the Saxons, what use would I be to Arthur? He needed warriors, not...whatever I was.

Lugh had said, "Do not wonder at what happens." Again I fixed upon that. The Light had heard me and delivered me when I spoke to it without words at Llyn Gwalch. It-he-had fas.h.i.+oned the fire of Caledvwlch and given it to me. He had brought me to the kingdom of the West Saxons from a world beyond the Earth. He was unimaginably powerful, and I could not a.s.sume that he was ignorant. There had to be some reason for this. I had only to wait, to watch, and be strong.

I sighed and turned my attention to leading the horses.

The Saxons did not stop at sunset, but kept on walking stolidly. My feet had gone numb by that time, which was fortunate, for they were blistered and bleeding. My legs ached and felt like stone after the unaccustomed walking. I was ravenously hungry and very thirsty, but I said nothing and struggled to keep up, and the Saxons did not offer to help or wait. I judged that they would not burden themselves with a slave who was useless, so steeled myself so as not to fall behind and perhaps be disposed of. The camp must be close if the Saxons continued walking by night without even stopping for a meal. We should not have to go much further.

The stars were out when we reached the camp. It was a large one, for the whole of the army of the West Saxons, and built accordingly. The site was plainly an old hill fort, but had been fortified by the Romans as a military base and a town. The Saxons had moved into some of the old Roman buildings, and added some new Saxon houses of their own, and the wide area of cleared fields about the town had been newly sown with seed. I was impressed by the place, even through my exhaustion. I had never seen a village before, much less an almost-Roman town. The hill was steep, and the bank and ditch about it were clean-cut-the fort was obviously a good one-and nearly all the s.p.a.ce enclosed by those banks was filled by the houses of the townsmen, or the tents of the summoned warbands and armies. As it was early summer, and the planting was over, the farming men had been summoned to join the warbands-the fyrd, the Saxons call it-and the numbers were very great. But all the camp was orderly and close-guarded. Sentries were posted on the walls, and one of these stopped us before allowing us to enter the fortress, checking carefully that no spy should enter.

My band of Saxons went directly to one area of camp, where they unloaded their supplies. Others crowded around them, asking questions and congratulating and back-slapping in a manner that made it plain that they were the kinsmen of the foraging party. Wulf answered the questions, waved towards me, and I caught the word "thrall." Eduin made what sounded like a joke, and laughed. The Saxons glanced at me casually, then gave me a second look, and stared at Caledvwlch. There was another moment of uncomfortable silence before they shrugged and went back to their fire, over which a sheep was roasting. It was nearly done, and filled the air with a scent which made my mouth water. I drifted towards the fire myself, but Wulf stopped me.

"First, care for the horses," he ordered. "They are there, tied up. Care for them all, not just these new ones."

I nodded, though I wanted to either strike him or weep. Only the knowledge that disobedience would mean a beating at the least restrained me. "Yes, my lord. Where is the food?"

Wulf pointed to a pile of hay of rather poor quality and went over to the fire.

I tended the horses. There were eighteen of them, all in bad condition, and it took me quite a while to finish with them. The poor creatures had obviously had no grain and much hard work for months, and that without the most ordinary care. By the time I was done with them, the sheep had been devoured to the bones and the Saxons were sitting about, drinking mead and boasting. (I knew they were boasting by the tone of their voices. Irish, British, Saxon, or Breton, all men boast alike. They even tell the same stories.) I crept up to the fire very quietly and managed to gain one of the sheep bones and a cup of water without being noticed. I was retreating to eat when Wulf noticed me again.

"Here!" he called. "Are you finished with the horses?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Horses is sick," said one of the other Saxons, his accent so heavy I could barely understand him.

"Not sick, my lord," I replied, trying to sound respectful. "But they need proper care, or they will become very sick. And they need shoeing."

"Whu-hut?"

Wulf translated for me. The others nodded wisely, commented on horses and drank some more mead, curiosity satisfied. I guessed that they knew very little about horses, and felt a bit less afraid. I had wondered whether they treated their thralls the same way.

I gnawed my sheep bone, trying to think of a way to slip off into the night while the Saxons drank. The thing seemed impossible. The camp was too well ordered and well guarded, and the sentries would certainly be alert to British thralls trying to leave the camp by night. Besides that, I knew I could not go far before collapsing. Perhaps tomorrow, I thought. They will have to give me some shoes, and when I am rested...

"You! Briton!"

I looked up; the voice was Eduin's. "My lord?"