“I turned three blows that would have felled him,” Brion reported, “and stretched their assailants cold on the floor. They were common men, only enjoying a good fight. I doubt they knew Gaheris for a prince.”
“So how come you didn’t see who struck the killing blow?”
“Because some foul knave came upon me from behind, and laid me low.”
Matt looked Brion up and down in one quick glance. He was taller than Matt, which made him much taller than most men of his time, and even more broad-shouldered and muscular. It was hard to imagine anyone being able to hit hard enough to knock him out, especially through a trooper’s boiled-leather helmet.
“So you don’t know who knocked you out.”
Brion shook his head.
“Was anyone else helping you guard Gaheris?”
Brion stared, then swung about in his saddle to transfer that stare to Sergeant Brock.
Brock stared back, then frowned slightly, puzzled.
Brion turned back. “It was your sergeant! I did not recognize him until now!”
“That figures,” Matt said with chagrin. “That’s why he and Sir Orizhan are with me—they both lost honor when a prince who was officially under their protection was slain.”
“As though any could protect Gaheris from the consequences of his own wickedness!”
“Just a matter of time, huh? But I thought Brock was fighting in front of Gaheris.”
Brion shrugged. “It was a melee, Lord Wizard, a mass of confusion. Like as not the ebb and flow of battle carried him around the prince, fighting as strongly as he could, until he was beside me. However, it was not long after that the world went dark around me.”
“Well, you can’t fault a man for protecting his prince from every possible direction,” Matt said. “Unfortunately, he’s already told me everything he remembers, and that ain’t much.”
Brion sighed. “My brother died in combat, Lord Wizard, albeit it was a brawl in a tavern, not a battle on the field of honor. Is that not enough for you?”
“For me, yes,” Matt said. “For your mother, no.”
Old Meg was waiting in the moonlight with her little boat, though how she knew to which stretch of rocky beach they were coming, Matt didn’t know, especially since he had steered the party well away from their original landing place on the theory that unwelcome visitors might have been waiting for them along the road they had already traveled.
They climbed into the glorified skiff, which somehow managed to hold all of them, and Brion’s warhorse, too. Since it had been just barely large enough for the four of them and the old woman on the way to Erin, Matt wasn’t about to ask questions. Instead, he made sure he was the last one aboard, on the excuse of saying goodbye to the horses. “We appreciate the favor,” he told them. “Back to your homes, now, whether they be in the meadows or the barns.” He withdrew four silver coins from his wallet and slipped one under each saddle. “That’s to thank your masters for the loan. ‘Bye, now.”
He turned and walked away, and was about to get into the boat when the old woman commanded, “Shove off!”
Matt stared, deciding that he ought to be angry, until he realized that she meant the term literally. “Well, that’s what I get for being last.”
“What, Lord Wizard?” Brion asked, frowning.
“Wet clothes,” Matt sighed, and set his feet. He shoved hard, and the little craft floated free. He waded out knee-high before he clambered over the gunwale, not wanting his weight to ground it again. Then he looked back at the shore, already receding—and saw a man in peasant’s clothes holding all three horses. The fourth was missing.
Matt stared.
The peasant lifted a hand in farewell.
Matt waved back, then turned around to shiver with his companions.
Sir Orizhan noticed. “What troubles you, Lord Wizard?”
“I just found out that poukas can shift their shapes to include clothing,” Matt said. “Makes sense—what else would they do with all that horsehair?”
Sir Orizhan glanced back at the shore, then forced a smile, though he shivered, too, as he turned back. “They came to us with saddles and bridles, my lord. Who can say what was in the saddlebags?”
“Good point,” Matt acknowledged. “Me, I didn’t check.”
“Nor did I,” Sir Orizhan confirmed. “There were other matters more pressing.”
Old Meg was a very poor host, at least for the original three companions—she spent the whole crossing in quiet but earnest conversation with Rosamund, who seemed dazed by what she learned, then with Brion, and the young man’s face became more grave with every sentence. Matt felt indignation mushroom within him, but tried to stifle it—the old druid priestess had paid enough attention to him on the way to Erin, after all, most of it unwelcome.
But when the ship grounded on the Bretanglian shore and Old Meg clambered out after her passengers, Matt had an even bigger surprise in store, for the old woman knelt stiffly before Brion and cried, “Hail, rightful King of Bretanglia! Long may you live, and long may your line flourish!”
Matt stared, astounded, and Rosamund’s face seemed to close into a mask, no doubt resenting Meg’s presuming the princess’ part in the flourishing of the royal line, but Brion seemed to grow and swell with every word, becoming something greater than human. Matt realized all over again that in this universe it was no mere fable that the king became the embodiment of his people and his land.
“You have given me honor and countenance,” Brion told her, “and for that, I shall name you—”
“You shall name me nothing!” the woman said sharply, glaring up at him. “I am only Old Meg, as I have been these many years, and nothing more—nothing that any king or sheriff need know of, at least.”
“Meaning that you are and always have been a druid priestess,” Matt said quietly.
Old Meg turned her glare upon him. “The fisher-folk know me only as a wise woman, young man. Who are you to say otherwise?”
“A wizard,” Matt answered, “and one whom you sent to Erin. But if you’re a druid, why do you kneel to a king of Bretanglia, and one who, moreover, hasn’t an ounce of Celtic blood in him?”
Brion stared at Matt, startled, but Old Meg said evenly, “Not all of us fled to Erin or Scotland, or even Wales. I am a druid and a Celt, aye, but I am a Celt of Bretanglia, and no matter his parentage, this young man is rightwise born king of this country. By his deeds and his actions he has shown that he cares immensely about the common people and their land, cares as much as he does for the nobility and their castles— and more than he cares for the lands in Merovence from which his mother and father sprang.”
“That is so,” Brion said quietly. “I fought to inherit my mother’s patrimony and would have taken it gladly, but my heart was truly in Bretanglia.”
“Then you are the first of your line of whom that is true,” Old Meg said, “since the first of those foreign hussies wed your great-grandfather and turned the eyes of your house southward. It is for that I kneel to you, not for your father’s crown or your mother’s heart.”
“Then, Your Majesty,” Matt said, “you have as much as been crowned by a bishop, for this woman is of the clergy, too, though not Christian.”
Brion turned back to Old Meg, startled, but the woman rose stiffly. Sergeant Brock sprang to her aid and she took his arm gladly, smiling up at Brion with triumph. “It is true what he says, Your Majesty. I am as much a senior druid as any woman, as my age should tell, and am very much like one of your archbishops. I will tell you further that a great number of your people still follow us druids, though many of them are also Christians. That is why there was never any great chance that these mock druids would ever gain the whole land—there are too many of us who knew them for what they are. Oh, there are far more of your people who are Christians, or were before they flocked to the false priests for the pleasures and cruelties your church would never allow—but there are enough druid folk to form an army or two, and these will rise and march behind you wherever you go.”