Ancelotis moved quickly to take her hands in his much larger, calloused ones. "Your father is dead, child," he said softly. "Killed by Picts at the border, north of Caer-Iudeu. The council has given me the kingship until Gwalchmai is of age."
Thaney paled and her eyes widened, but she made no sound, although her fingers tightened almost convulsively around his. After several swallows, she finally whispered, "I will mourn him more than you know."
Stirling understood, even though Ancelotis was puzzled. She had desperately wanted her father's love and approval and had nearly been murdered by him instead, and now she had lost all hope of ever gaining what she had so understandably wanted and needed. As Stirling's insight burst through Ancelotis' awareness, he folded his niece into his arms and just held her while she trembled.
"What's wrong?" a man Ancelotis recognized as Thaney's husband asked urgently, having come into the room still buckling on his sword. Meirchion Gul was a tall and exceedingly lean man, with the incongruous look of an over-muscled scarecrow, too tall for grace, too physically fit for any real sense of awkwardness. Despite the lateness of the hour—it was the middle of the night, after all, and bad news had not traveled any faster than they had, bearing it—there was an alertness to his eyes that told Stirling this man missed very little, indeed. He moved swiftly to his wife, stroking her hair with a protective gesture. "What is it? What's happened?"
Ancelotis gave them the disastrous double dose of bad news quickly, neatly, and quietly. Meirchion Gul scowled like thunder and struck one fist against his other hand repeatedly. When the telling was done, King Meirchion greeted Morgana and young Clinoch in turn, murmuring the inadequacies one is reduced to mouthing when nothing can be said that will lessen the pain and shock of loss. "We will, of course, honor Lot Luwddoc and Dumgual Hen with all appropriate funerary rituals, given the short shrift you have each been forced to give your honored dead."
"My thought exactly," Artorius nodded, "and the very complexity of the rituals will buy us time with the Saxons."
Before Meirchion could respond, another voice interrupted, rising in irritation like a waterspout out of a storm-slashed sea. "The devil take you hindmost, imbecile! May Hades, Lord of Darkness, eat your ill-mannered cockles and spit out your soul for Manannan to bait his fishhook! Out of my way!"
The man who swept into the room was taller than anyone Stirling had yet seen, taller even than Meirchion Gul, certainly a distinction in a land peopled with compactly built Brythonic Celts. He was powerfully made, moving with the speed and single-minded purposefulness of a bull charging into a wolf pack. His chilly blue eyes missed nothing—and the moment Stirling looked into those eyes, he was utterly and irrevocably convinced that a great deal of what those eyes saw was invisible to mere mortals.
Whoever he was, he'd twisted iron-grey hair into long and intricate braids, reminding Stirling more of Vikings than Dark Age Britons. The man had counted at least fifty years, at a guess, and the robes he wore would have been monkish had they not been bleached the same snowy white as Covianna's and cut in exactly the same style, with the same long hood folded back over the shoulders. He wore no ornamentation, not even a cross, which Stirling certainly would have expected of a Christian priest.
"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.