The boy's head snapped up and his face washed white beneath its dusting of tan freckles. The full import of his father's death struck with devastating force as it came home that he might well be called upon to take his father's place as king—or, perhaps even worse, not be called.
Ancelotis slid to the ground and strode across to clasp Clinoch's arm in a grip of equals. "I grieve with you, Clinoch, and with all of Strathclyde. Your father will be sorely missed. But," and he, too, laid a hand on the boy's trembling shoulder, "your father has trained you well. My sword and men are at your call, should you need us. I pledge to defend Strathclyde if defense be needed in this time of confusion and grief. But you will avenge him, Clinoch, just as I will avenge my slain brother, this I swear by all that is holy."
Suppressed weeping shook the boy's young shoulders as he met Stirling's eyes, his own reddened and wet. "Yes," he said harshly. "I will have heads for this!" Then, visibly struggling to recall the courtesies, "Forgive me, I had not heard the news of Lot Luwddoc."
"Nor could you have, and him slain not two days since. We're bound for a council of the northern kings at Caerleul, a council I'm thinking you will attend as an equal, for I, too, will speak in your favor, Clinoch son of Dumgual Hen."
"I thank you for that," the boy said, bringing himself under steadier control.
Artorius said quietly, "Come, Clinoch, we must bear him home to your mother at Caer-Brithon, then ride for Caerleul as if all the demons of hell were at our heels, for the Saxons have challenged the sovereignty of Rheged itself."
Clinoch's breath caught as he stared into Artorius' angry grey eyes. "Challenged Rheged? Are they mad?"
"Only with greed. You're needed, heir of Strathclyde, as you have never been needed in your life."
"Then we will sing my father's funeral dirges in the saddle and leave him to be buried by my mother and younger brothers. Strathclyde can ill afford the number of orphans the Saxons would gift us with."
"Well spoken," Ancelotis nodded.
They lifted Dumgual Hen's body, placing him across the saddle of a riderless horse and bound him there securely for the king's final journey. Dumgual's own mount lay dead at Stirling's feet, chest and ribs pierced by long, broken pikes which had brought both animal and king down to destruction. Clinoch recovered his father's sword and cleaned the blood from it, then sheathed it in an ornate scabbard decorated with silver and strapped it to his own horse before vaulting into the saddle.
Soldiers of the cataphracti were recovering their dead, as well, while others stripped weaponry from the Pictish men they'd slain. So far as Stirling could see, the Picts had nothing else of value that would tempt the Briton cavalry to loot. The sight sickened him, however, worse than Belfast. Without food or supplies, the surviving women and children would starve. Surely Ancelotis and Artorius could see the risk posed by ravenous marauders desperate for food to put into their children's bellies? The Pictish refugees were heading disconsolately northward, not even permitted to bury their newly slain along the verges of the Roman road. Carrion crows were already circling overhead, waiting their chance.
As Stirling struggled back into his own saddle, he caught snatches of conversation from the Celtic cavalrymen, angry mutters about heathen Picts who refused to die properly on their own side of the border, who came in ravening bands to kill Celtic royalty. Covianna Nim, Queen Ganhumara, and Queen Morgana had remained well clear of the battle, although both queens clenched swords and Morgana's fingers were white from the strength of her grip. The women reined their horses nearer and Ganhumara edged her way over to Medraut, who had rushed into the battle with Artorius and Ancelotis and sat staring bleakly at the heir to Strathclyde. The boy's sword dripped with as much gore as any other Briton's.
Ganhumara spoke too quietly for Stirling to catch the words, but he found Morgana gazing narrowly at her nephew and Artorius' wife. Stirling realized with a start of surprise that Medraut and Ganhumara were almost exactly the same age. The look Medraut gave the young queen rang alarm bells at the back of Stirling's skull, a look of compounded misery, grief, and hopeless love.
The murky and complexly shifting political nightmare into which he'd been so abruptly thrust deepened another degree as the full import of that look sank in. Morgana's nephew, a potential heir surely, to someone's kingdom given his family history, was helplessly in love with Artorius' beautiful young queen. And the look—and touch—she gave in return were far more tender than any he'd seen her bestow on her husband. Deeper and deeper this disaster grew, and Stirling had no idea how to navigate his way through it.
They set out again, riding steadily south in a massive column, Gododdin in formation behind Ancelotis and Strathclyde in formation behind Prince Clinoch. The drizzle which had plagued them through the night thickened into an hours-long downpour which soaked through Stirling's wool cloak and ran in chilly runnels down the neck of his cuirass, soaking tunics and trousers to the skin. The wind blew mercurial sheets of rain across the road, slashing horses and riders alike. Stirling was used to patrols through the worst sorts of weather, but never on horseback and never after an exhausting and sickening battle from horseback, and certainly never faced with the prospect of no central heating and no tea—not even coffee—to warm him at the end of the grueling day.
During the long day, they passed small Briton settlements, mostly walled villages and small hill forts, and Roman fortlets, teacup-sized forts of less than a hectare, where auxiliary troops were quartered, along with the even smaller mile forts and fortified stone watchtowers with their circular wooden palisades, defensive ditches, and their boxlike wooden viewing platforms jutting out on all four sides. They sent riders to every fort and tower they passed, to spread the word of the kings lost in the fighting and exhort them to greater vigilance during this crisis.
Empty fields stood fallow, already stripped of their standing hay crop or grain, the bounty of harvest stored now in large stone barns to protect it from the rats and the rain. Ancelotis muttered, Aye, and it's one of God's own miracles we got the crops in without disaster, for the weather's been foul, unseasonably wet and cold. We had men working in the fields by torchlight, in shifts with the women and the children, to get the harvest in before the rains left all in ruin. We lost a portion of the hay, as it was.
Starvation, Stirling realized with a cold chill, was only one poor harvest away, when no international trade routes existed to ship food by air or sea. He was too accustomed to living in a world where one nation's bounty could be sent in a matter of hours to another's drought- or flood-starved thousands. Another surprise for Stirling was the number of Christian churches they passed, constructed of stone or wood, depending on the size and wealth of the village or town that had built it. His surprise, in turn, startled Ancelotis. Are you not a Christian, then? the Scots king demanded warily.
Well, yes, Stirling responded, but I hadn't realized there would be so many churches, this early in history.
Ancelotis snorted, a sound of mingled anger and disgust. I may be descended from Druid judges and kings, but those Druids have been Christian for two centuries, Stirling of Caer-Iudeu. Mark you, there are those who follow the old ways, more now than when the Romans were still among us, but we follow the teachings of Christ closely enough. Not, he added wryly, that Rome is so very well pleased with us. Heresy, they call our notions of free will and the immortality of a man's soul. It's been a century or more since they declared our greatest Briton philosopher, Pelagius, a heretic.
Heretic? Stirling blinked, startled at the deadly serious use of such a word. He'd forgotten, or perhaps had never viscerally understood, how serious a matter heresy had been in the early Christian centuries. That disturbed him, deeply. Ancelotis, undaunted, continued to rail.