Imagine, declaring a man heretic because he dared stand up to that swine Augustine! And him with his damnable notions of predetermination, giving a man no moral reason not to sin! Why should a man follow truth and righteousness, when his nature and fate are set in stone before he's born, leading him to sin as God wills, rather than as he chooses. Bah! Ancelotis spat disgustedly to one side. 'Tis the knaves in Rome are guilty of heresy. Any fool can see a man must have his choice, whether to sin or no, or the notion of sin and redemption from it are nothing but a mockery. Let Rome rot in her dissipation, I say. I would almost rather sit down at table with these barbarians, Picts and Irish and Saxons, pagan and godless though they be, than a priest of Rome who calls us heretics for following the Christ as He was meant to be followed.
Clearly, the state of religion in the sixth-century British Isles was every bit as explosive a matter as it was in twenty-first-century Northern Ireland. Stirling vowed never, ever to get into a philosophical debate over religion with anyone from the sixth century. Ancelotis' vehemence reminded him all too unpleasantly of Belfast's raging argument over which version of Christianity would be the accepted, right, and true one. Nominally Christian or not, Stirling spotted occasional roadside shrines, some of them obviously pagan. These were often situated near groves of trees, wells, or natural springs. He caught glimpses of women in several of the groves, doing what, he wasn't at all prepared to guess and Ancelotis wouldn't be baited into commenting.
Surrounding it all—hill forts, villages, churches, fortlets, and pagan shrines—were the stubbled fields, orchards stripped of their ripened fruit, their leaves having mellowed in shades of buttery gold and coppery fire against the dark, wet wood, and water meadows and common-land pastures where flocks of hardy sheep and sturdy cattle grazed. Peasant farmers and shepherds, busy at the tasks of slaughtering pigs and cattle for the winter's larder and the shearing of wool from those sheep marked out for mutton stew, shaded their eyes and shouted as the cataphracti passed, a glittering cavalcade of armor and sun-burnished weapons.
Near sunset, the road they'd been following met up with another Roman highway running north-south through the mountains. A small fortification, larger than the mile forts they had passed with clockwork regularity, guarded the junction where two valleys met, each with their snaking road of stone looking like faded grey ribbons in the long shadows. Wooden towers jutted up against the darkening sky, while curls of smoke drifted toward the clouds from cookfires and—so Stirling hoped, at any rate—from the firepits that fueled the central heating system. The arched spans of a one-story aqueduct marched away toward whatever water source was nearest. Clearly, the Romans had considered this little crossroads fort critical enough to spend sufficient manpower, time, and money constructing a military aqueduct for it. A small village had sprung up in the shadows of the fort's walls, sending delicious smells wafting their way. Dogs broke into a furious clamor as they thundered into the village, heading for the fort's big wooden gates.
Artorius halted the combined cavalcade long enough to eat a hot meal, rest and feed the horses, and catch four hours' sleep. Stirling craved that more than anything else; more, even, than the thick stew and hot bread which their hosts at the little garrison served their royal guests. There wasn't even plaster on the walls here, just bare stones, squared off and mortared like brick. The lack of potatoes in the stew reminded Stirling with dull and admittedly selfish unhappiness of other deprivations he would face during the coming year. No fish and chips—at least, no thick-cut, deep-fried potato slices to eat with the fish—no ketchup to eat with the nonexistent potatoes, no corn, no coffee, no tea... not even a lowly chocolate bar. None of those items would be available anywhere in the British Isles for centuries.
The reality of sixth-century Britain crashed down across Stirling all over again, in all its appalling crudity, bringing home with brutal suddenness just how very trapped and alone he was. Home lay at least forty, maybe fifty miles behind him—and some sixteen centuries in his future. A whole millennium and more than half of another...
He held back a groan and sought the privy, a separate room with troughs engineered into the stone floors and wooden planks with holes cut through them topping stone retaining walls. The trickle of water could be heard, a steady stream of it entering from one side of each trough, washing the troughs clean through a drain hole in the other end, presumably into a communal cesspit. His privy business done, he staggered past several dark storage rooms piled high with weapons and spare lamps, jugs of oil and probably wine, judging from the smell, and stored foodstuffs, then reeled into the wet night air. He found the barracks where they were to be quartered by following the sound of Artorius' snoring.
Weary to his toe bones, Stirling collapsed on the camp bed reserved for his use, asleep before he finished falling down.
Lailoken had rarely been happier.
He'd ridden almost nonstop from Caer-Iudeu to Caerleul, in the process leaving behind two stolen farm horses, badly foundered by his ruthless determination to reach Caerleul ahead of the Dux Bellorum's cataphracti and its royal escort. Exhausting as it was, he reached the ancient Roman fortress on the Solway Firth well in advance of Artorius. He arrived just past sunset, riding a third sturdy draft horse liberated during the night from a farmer who had failed, foolishly, to brand his livestock. Banning, as pleased as Lailoken by the speed they had made, immediately gave him a deeply distressing order: Sell the horse.
Sell it? But—but, 'tis the most wealth I've had in years! It is one thing, surely, to ride an animal into the ground for good cause, but now we've made it safely here, you want me to just give it up?
Banning overrode his protest with ruthless logic. If the farmer we borrowed this sorry nag from comes looking, he could make things difficult, even without the proof of a branding mark. I will not risk drawing attention in such a fashion! When we need another animal, we will buy it. And don't fret about money, I'll help you earn more cash than you've ever dreamed of owning. Just sell the damned beast and be quick about it!
Within half an hour, he'd sold the horse for a good price, which left Lailoken's purse delightfully heavy with gold. At Banning's insistence, he scrubbed himself off at a horse trough behind a stable. I can't bear the smell of your pits, Banning growled, and I'll not spend another moment with greasy hair and dirt three centimeters thick where you've not washed the filth off for a month, at least. And buy new clothing, the rags you're wearing now are fit for nothing but burning. Do you think we can win a place in the royal household, where the decisions will be made that affect our goals, stinking worse than a pigsty?
Deeply chastened by the rebuke and mortified to his toes to be found wanting by his supernatural visitor—he didn't even dare to ask what a "centimeter" was—Lailoken bought a cake of soap, a new pair of boots and fine new clothing, even a warm woolen cloak to replace his tattered and much-mended one. Having cleansed himself in ritual appeasement, Lailoken emerged from the alley behind the stable as a man transformed, clad in the thickest woolen trousers he had ever owned, a beautiful yellow linen tunic worn under a crimson one of embroidered wool.
Strong leather lacings bound warm boots to his calves. He fastened the new cloak with a silver penannular cloak pin which his fingers kept drifting up to caress possessively. A new rucksack held his belongings—harp, flute, their protective sealskin cases, more new clothing—and he wore a long, heavy-bladed scramasax and sheath, hung from a thick and sturdy new belt with a silver buckle, its chased designs matching the cloak pin. The scramasax hilt and sheath might have been heartlessly plain by most standards, but Lailoken had never owned anything so fine.