Whatever the Saxons had been up to, at least they'd done it under the scrutiny of Briton military might. Cutha gestured toward Emrys Myrddin and Ancelotis, then said something that drew howls of laughter from his companions. Most of Cutha's men swayed in the terminal stages of drunkenness, clearly having indulged in an extended celebration which had continued right through until morning and apparently had no intention of ending until Cutha had actually defeated his opponent on the field.
"Overconfident windbags," Ancelotis muttered, drawing a chuckle from Emrys Myrddin.
Stirling, however, had noted quite narrowly that Cutha neither swayed in his saddle nor appeared to be even the slightest bit drunk. Creoda, riding in his wake, had gone from looking like a scared rabbit to resembling a potted one, badly drunk and too terrified in his drunkenness to put so much as a toe wrong in Cutha's presence.
"Looks to me," Stirling muttered under his breath, "like he holds his liquor better than his pals do. Jolly wonderful."
A shout went up from the arena and signal trumpets blared as the footrace competitors, having made one more complete circuit of the track, shot past a finish line marked with white chalk. They slowed to a halt, many of them gasping deeply for breath. The winner jubilantly retraced his route, jogging a victory lap before halting at the royal pavilion halfway down the homestretch. The panting victor climbed sandstone steps up from the track and bowed low to Thaney and Meirchion. The king of Rheged made some sort of speech, which Stirling couldn't hear, then Thaney laid an honest-to-god laurel wreath on the winner's head. It had been made from actual leaves, rather than the more opulent golden versions which competitors in the Eternal City had aspired to win although at second glance, they looked more like oak leaves than laurel. As the crowned victor accepted a money purse and turned to bow to the crowd, the arena exploded once more into cheers.
They don't realize they're not Romans any more, Stirling thought sadly. They've maintained the trappings, but Rome has long since gone from their lives.
Ancelotis' response surprised him. We never believed ourselves Romans, Stirling of Caer-Iudeu. But we are a civilized people, as civilized as Rome ever was. We teach our sons and daughters Latin and Greek and bring them up on Plato and Aristotle and Julius Caesar and Cicero. We pass on to our children, and their children in turn, the skilled trades which the Roman legions and colonists brought among us, adding to our own skills in metallurgy and healing and the arts and suchlike. And we are just as determined as Rome to preserve our way of life when barbarians threaten our borders. This is all that really matters, is it not? To safeguard the beliefs and learned arts which Britons share, from the Wall to the southern tip of Cerniw, no matter which tribe or kingdom is at immediate risk? Artorius lives for this purpose only: to protect Britons from marauding savages. It is a good purpose. It is enough.
It was a good purpose—the same purpose which had sent Stirling plunging through time itself. He realized with a chill that it would be all too easy to be seduced by the desire to help these people; to interfere in beneficial ways he couldn't afford, given the danger to humanity's entire future. Ancelotis, distracted by instructions Emrys Myrddin was giving him, fortunately didn't hear that last thought. The Scots king would doubtless consider Stirling's failure to assist whenever and however possible as base treason.
At some unexplored level he didn't want to probe too closely, perhaps it was.
Weary runners exited through the starting gates, stepping past Stirling and Emrys Myrddin on their way out of the arena. Following Myrddin's instructions, Stirling reined his charger into the nearest starting stall. Cutha, red-eyed but sitting straight in his saddle—a much inferior type of saddle, possessing neither the Celtic style's supportive horns nor its innovative stirrups—grinned at Stirling and gave a mocking salute before entering another of the starting gates.
Behind him, Myrddin said, "May God and your ancestors look favorably upon you, Ancelotis."
Stirling nodded. Gilroy appeared like a silent shadow, handing Stirling a long thrusting spear reminiscent of Swiss pikes, a slimmer Roman-style pilum, with its javelinlike haft and long-necked soft iron barb, and an iron-rimmed shield of heavy oak. The shield had been built up from multiple layers laid crosswise one above the other for strength, as modern marine plyboard was made, sawn into an oval shape that was slightly curved toward the edges. An iron boss jutted up from the center, topped with a nasty spike that gave Stirling all sorts of darkly intriguing ideas.
He slid his left hand through leather-wrapped iron braces on the back, then slid the pike and the pilum into rawhide holders strapped to his saddle horns. He wondered uneasily how Ancelotis would manage shield, weapons, and reins all at the same time and received a snort of derision in response. Clearly, Ancelotis knew what he was doing.
Glad one of us does, Stirling muttered to himself.
Directly overhead, a man on the officials' balustrade, invisible on the parapet from Stirling's perspective inside the starting gate, began shouting out a speech that Stirling finally realized was a benediction, rather than instructions to the combatants. The exhortations to abide by the rules of conduct laid down by God, to strive with all one's might to find the truth and live by it, to strike no wicked blows, etc. ad infinitum, were an odd blend of early Christian dogma and lingering pagan values. Cutha, a confirmed pagan, was struggling not to howl with laughter—the sound of snorted and ill-mannered mirth drifted from Cutha's chosen starting stall, two gates down.
The moment the sermon or benediction or whatever it was came to an end, Stirling's valet fled, scrambling out the front of the starting box, loaded down with extra shields and weapons. Gilroy ran hell-for-leather toward a spot along the sandstone wall that separated the arena floor from the lowest circuit of seats. The wall was just slightly too high for a man to jump and reach the top. Gilroy stacked the shields against the base of the wall and piled a fistful of pila beside them, along with a second thrusting pike, even a spare spatha—a long, heavy-bladed, two-edged Roman cavalry sword with its characteristically blunt, rounded tip.
Curiously, one of Cutha's thanes, busy at the same task on the opposite side of the arena, laid out nothing but spare shields, and only two of those. A psychological ploy, perhaps, demonstrating supreme confidence that he would need nothing more? Or sheer, blind arrogance, incapable of imagining defeat? Stirling didn't care for the implications, either way.
Men with wide-tined wooden rakes worked in gangs to smooth the sandy track surface, removing animal dung from previous horse races, a shoe some unfortunate runner had lost, and dozens of colorful little twists of plaid woolen scraps. Ancelotis, sensing Stirling's curiosity, commented, Even a poor man can afford to shower a favorite who wins a laurel, if he bundles up the tailings from his wife's loom. In the days of the Romans, they say people threw coins more often than flowers, so a man could grow rich at the games. If, Ancelotis added with a dour laugh, he survived the arena.
A fairly substantial "if."
Signal trumpets rang out again from somewhere above Stirling's head, a shimmer of brassy notes defying the sullen pewter of the sky. His pulse picked up at the sound, thudding in his eardrums and beating at his throat, a heady mixture of anticipation, pre-combat jitters, cold anger at Brenna McEgan for having forced him to come after her, and a healthy dollop of sheer, schoolboy excitement. He was about to participate in an honest-to-God sixth-century duel, with King Arthur as the ruddy field judge. For a boy raised in broody grey hills steeped in Arthurian lore, it just didn't get much better than this.