She could do nothing about Caer-Badonicus, but Glastenning Tor was another matter. And there was one more thing in the Saxons' favor, from Covianna's viewpoint. The Saxons were still a decently non-Christian group of pagan souls. She felt far more in common with the likes of Aelle than she did with the abbot who presided over the rape of the Goddess Brigit's most holy shrine. What worth could be placed on the restoration of one's faith and the destruction, stone by hated stone, of the abbey perched so hideously atop the Tor? Covianna would risk much, to see that fate brought down upon Glastenning Tor's abomination.
As they came around the last upward turn of the labyrinth, the abbey grounds opened out onto a relatively flat summit. Wind blew briskly, full of gusting rain and biting chill. The dour stone walls rose forbiddingly against the slate of sky and storm. It was not a particularly large abbey, although Covianna supposed it would be enlarged in due time, as the abbey's power and wealth continued, like cancer, to grow. A young monk Covianna didn't know, barely seventeen, if that, met them near the abbey's heavy wooden doors. "Is there trouble?" he asked, hurrying across the small plaza.
Covianna's mother reassured him, "No, not immediately. The Dux Bellorum has sent Emrys Myrddin to look over the Tor's defenses."
Relief and worry chased by turns across his young face. "I'll take you to see the abbot at once. Father Elidor is in his chamber at this hour, going over the abbey's accounts."
"That will be fine, thank you," Myrddin nodded courteously.
The monks of Glastenning Abbey had learned, long ago, the folly of trying to keep the women of Covianna's family out of the abbey when professional business was involved; their escort merely guided them inside without even a brow raised in protest. Their footsteps echoed across the stone floor. Dark walls rose around them, claustrophobic, with squat columns and ugly arches and high, narrow windows.
The windows were the abbey's only attractive feature, as most of them had been glazed in beautiful colors by the smithies of Glastenning Tor's glasshouses, who had been making colored glass for centuries, learning the skill from Roman artisans. The patterns were simple, the pieces shaped to an approximate fit and held together by strips of soft lead. Little squares and circles of white and yellow light, punctuated here and there by more expensive greens and blues and reds, fell in lovely geometric shapes where the dull, fitful daylight passed through into the darkness of the room. The masterpiece was above the altar, a mosaic in glass, depicting the death of Christ. For all its beauty, it was still abomination in Covianna's eyes, a temple dedicated to death erected on a hill sacred to the deity of life.
They stepped through a doorway behind the altar and found themselves in the monks' private quarters, a long and even uglier building adjoining the church. Tiny cubicles lined the dingy corridor, empty now, as their occupants were hard at work elsewhere. The abbot's room lay at the far end, larger than the other cells, to accommodate the abbot's worktable, accounting records, and manuscripts he was studying. Covianna could hear the quiet scratch of goose quill on parchment as Father Elidor made careful notations. Head bent, absorbed in his work, he didn't hear their approach until their guide tapped at the open door. Elidor looked up in surprise, pausing with quill suspended midair, the tip glistening with wet ink in the light cast by his oil lamp.
"Lady Vivienna has come up from the village, Father."
"Vivienna? What is the trouble?" He rose to his feet, frowning. When he glanced at Covianna, standing behind her mother's shoulder, his eyes widened. "My dear child, you've come home at last!" He hurried forward, smiling in open delight.
She accepted his embrace graciously. "It's good to be here," she murmured with perfect honesty. "I've brought Emrys Myrddin with me."
Elidor frowned as he turned to greet his unexpected guest. "I'm sorry to meet you under such circumstances. It must be drastic news, to bring you to Glastenning Abbey. How can we help?"
Myrddin clasped his arm in greeting, then said, "I would like a tour of the entire abbey, its safe rooms, lockable doors, approaches not only up the hill, but through doors and windows, weak points that would be difficult to defend. There must be room for the townfolk to shelter here, as well, should a real crisis develop." Elidor was nodding. Myrddin added, "Do any of your men know the use of arms?"
A grimace came and went. "To my sorrow, yes, all too many. There are former soldiers among us, men so distressed by the killing they've waged this past decade, they have renounced the sword and sought refuge with God. But if it comes to seeing women and children butchered, I believe even they will find it easy to lay aside the commandment to turn the other cheek, and follow instead Christ's admonition that if a man has not a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one."
A smile, bittersweet, chased its way across Myrddin's lips. "A good thing to remember in these troubled times. Very well, the sooner we begin, the sooner you will be prepared."
The tour was thorough, with Elidor himself serving as guide, joined by half a dozen of the senior monks, who made notes as Myrddin made specific suggestions, often sketching out the defense works to be added to the labyrinth's existing walls.
"Anything to slow them down will help," Myrddin explained, pointing out places in the looping approaches where thorny branches could be piled atop walls—leaving Covianna to wonder whether a single stand of hawthorne would be left in the south of Britain by the time this war had ended—or where pitfalls could be rigged at strategic points to send invaders plunging down onto sharpened stakes.
Elidor was frowning. "Won't wooden stakes be useless against armor?"
"One thing Artorius has gained experience of is the strength of Saxon arms and armor. Most of the soldiers they send to battle have nothing but a bit of quilted leather. Even amongst their nobility, thegns, they call them, armor is usually of limited quality and quantity. They are not wealthy, these Saxons, and their chieftains make gifts of weapons and mail shirts to their favorites, to be returned to the 'king' when the thegn dies, for such gifts are mere loans, wealth returning to the leader whenever he demands it.
"A Saxon thegn cannot pass on to his sons his armor and weapons, for they are not his. Nothing is his, except what his king lends him for a while. And since most of their wealth has been taken from others, and most of those others have resisted vigorously, there is not a great store of weapons or armor in the Saxons' camps. A narrow, sharpened stake set into the ground in a deadfall can pierce virtually any ring shirt made or punch through legs and arms, rendering a man helpless, or at least, unable to fight effectively. Either will suffice for our present needs."
"Indeed," Elidor nodded. "I am twice enlightened. We had begun to fear these Saxon dogs were unstoppable, the way they've gobbled up the southern kingdoms of Britain and seek constantly to expand their borders."
"Oh, they're quite stoppable," Myrddin assured him with a nasty grin. "You would have enjoyed seeing that verminous little Cutha knocked flat on his backside by Ancelotis of Gododdin. He put to rest a fair number of unfounded rumors of just that sort. Bested him with bare hands, sent him skulking out of Caerleul like a scalded dog. The realization these bandits can be defeated, coupled with Cutha's ill-tempered slaughter afterward, showing us precisely what we may expect with Saxons to rule us, has sent the entire northern half of the Britons rushing to take up arms to stop these beasts for good."
The monks duly added notations on where to dig pits, to be lined with narrow, sharp-ended pole stakes. When their journey through the grounds led past well after holy well, springs gushing up from the depths of the Tor, Myrddin frowned thoughtfully. "There seems to be an immense amount of water pouring out of this hill."