What? Stirling asked, puzzled.
That fellow in the corner there.
Stirling frowned until he'd spotted the man Ancelotis meant, an eerie experience as Ancelotis moved his eyeballs without Stirling's consenting volition, to center their shared gaze on the individual in question. What about him? Stirling asked.
I had not thought to see him in Caerleul. He was in Caer-Iudeu the day my brother died. He wandered into town a couple of weeks ago, made himself popular with the men of the cataphracti. He made excellent time, to arrive here at the same time as we did, moving by forced march.
Who is he? Stirling asked curiously.
Lailoken, he's called. A minstrel of modest fame, travels from kingdom to kingdom. Has rather a flair for the comical, although I dare say there's little enough to laugh at, these days, and even less, this past week. I wonder how long he's been in Caerleul?
Stirling frowned. If he was in Stirling—er, Caer-Iudeu—the day your brother died, he made damned good time on the road. He must have a fast horse.
If he does, Ancelotis replied, he won it gambling with the soldiers, for he came to Caer-Iudeu on foot. 'Tis the reason I was so surprised to see him here.
Before Stirling could respond, Ganhumara swept into the room. Arrayed in all her finery, which included a flame-colored silk overdress and a great deal of gold, she looked like a well-fed vixen, with her coppery tresses swept up into an elegant, patrician style full of ringlets and wispy tendrils. Her stunning beauty hit Stirling like a fist in the gut, but the opulence of her appearance on this particular morning jarred with a deep sense of impropriety. At the very least, her blazing finery betrayed a certain callous disregard of Morgana and Clinoch's grief.
Ganhumara darted occasional glances toward Morgana, secretive little glances Stirling couldn't interpret, but she looked more frequently toward the young king of Strathclyde. She and Clinoch were nearly matched in age. Doubtless she and the young men of Clinoch's generation shared more in common with one another than with anyone else in their immediate society or this room. Stirling found himself wondering whom Clinoch would marry. For that matter, he wondered whom Medraut would marry and fell to wondering where the lad was, surprised he had not yet put in an appearance. Covianna Nim slipped quietly into the room and swayed her way across the atrium floor to murmur something low in Emrys Myrddin's ear, laughing softly and slipping her arm through his.
Old men will be fools, Ancelotis snorted silently, observing the interchange between Myrddin and his much younger acolyte. And there's another trouble we could have done without, Ancelotis added sourly, watching Ganhumara insinuate herself into Clinoch's company. The matter of Clinoch's betrothal and marriage. Clan chieftains and kings from Dalriada to Cornwall will try to foist their awkward daughters on the lad. The Saxons and the Irish would both pay handsomely for the opportunity to marry into the royal house of Strathclyde and claim its throne legitimately. And Ganhumara will be even more trouble, for all that she's married to Artorius.
A young boy dressed as a servant burst through the doors from the peristyle garden, gasping, "They're here! The Saxons are here!"
Clinoch went another shade whiter, which Stirling wouldn't have believed possible, then the boy crossed the mosaics quickly to stand beside Rheged's queen. Morgana moved to Clinoch's side, giving Ganhumara a hard, cold look until the younger queen moved away, clearly piqued and not caring to instigate a public scene. Thaney seated herself in the throne farthest from the door as Stirling wondered silently, Where's Rheged's king? He was unsure where he should stand and opted to stay where he was, near the entryway from the garden.
Meirchion is doubtless up to his usual tricks, I should imagine, Ancelotis replied. Thaney picked a crafty one, when she defied Lot Luwddoc's will. Ancelotis didn't dispute Stirling's choice of vantage points near the door, either, although the king of Gododdin did wrap one hand around the pommel of his sword, a seemingly casual stance betrayed by the tension Stirling could feel in their shared grip. A moment later, the Saxons brushed arrogantly past the servants who held the doors leading from the colonnaded hall out to the peristyle garden.
It didn't take much guesswork to spot Cutha. He was younger than the men of his escort, a cocksure mid-twenties at most, heavy boned and taller than anyone save Emrys Myrddin. Young Clinoch looked like the child he was, by comparison. Long blond hair and a square-cut, Germanic face marked Cutha as the Teutonic prince he claimed to be. Cold blue eyes glittered like chips of ice. Muscles bunched along his jaw spoke of a certain level of discomfort. A barbarian's response, no doubt, to that long walk through rooms calculated to flaunt wealth and power, all the while under the watchful, hostile eyes of servants, courtiers, soldiers, even the Roman statues that stood like sentinels, glaring blindly in his direction. Stirling had felt the effect himself, and he was far less susceptible than an illiterate Saxon soldier would be. Particularly one whose father had won a throne at the point of a sword, rising from obscurity in a land where civilization was something other people possessed and penniless warriors longed to steal for themselves.
Cutha's dismissive glance at Ancelotis as the Saxon strode through the doorway into the throne room sent the hairs on the nape of Stirling's neck bristling. Aye, Ancelotis growled silently, a mannerless heathen, well schooled in testing a man's temper with calculated and subtle insults. The Saxons have made an art form of discourtesy.
Unlike the men of his bodyguard, who wore leather tunics to which iron rings or overlapping metal plates had been sewn, Cutha wore a heavy chain-mail shirt which fell just short of his waist. Cutha's conical helmet bore a rim of iron around the bottom edge, and two arches of iron met at the crown. The spaces in between sported thick horn plates. An iron boar covered with gold leaf had been welded at the top, strengthening the helmet as well as decorating it. An iron noseguard added to the young man's fierce appearance. Bindings made from linen sewn to leather wrapped his calves from ankle to knee, fairly useless as greaves, but effective at keeping the bottoms of his trousers from catching on things that might snag or trip him up.
In his wake came another young man, thickset and short and flushed from exertion or nerves or both. Like Cutha, he wore sword and ornately inlaid wooden scabbard through a slit in the side of a mail shirt. Unlike Cutha, who carried a war axe with a surprisingly narrow cutting surface, this second young man wore no other weaponry. The men of their bodyguard wore axes, but not swords, and carried long thrusting spears with ash-wood hafts a good five feet long. The spears ended in bristling iron points. Circular wooden shields with iron-bound rims and cone-shaped bosses at the center, brightly painted in pagan designs, made for a glittering, barbaric display. Cutha's guards were staring, goggle-eyed, at the display of wealth on every side.
Cutha stalked toward Thaney and the empty throne beside her, allowing a contemptuous glance to slide across Clinoch's beardless face without even acknowledging the boy's presence. Clinoch stiffened, but he did not say anything, neither in anger nor in nervous fear. He simply glared at his enemy with a look that promised blood. If Cutha noticed, he gave no outward sign.