Native townspeople hawked fine needlework and hand-dipped beeswax candles scented with herbs stirred into the heated wax—far cleaner to burn than smoky, smouldering tallow and a far steadier light, for those who wished to sew or read by candlelight. There were beautifully carved chairs, platters, and bowls with a knobbly, gnarled texture, cut from the burls that disfigured many a tree in the forested hills. Jewelers displayed cloak pins, ear bobs, necklaces and bracelets and animal-motif brooches, their patterns twisting and curling back on themselves. Belt buckles as ornate as the brooches were displayed next to ladies' waist-clasping girdles with delicate links of silver or shining, sunny gold.
Farmers in from the countryside, having culled their herds in preparation for the long northern winter, sold their surplus of newly slaughtered smoked and salted meats, alongside freshly plucked and roasted chickens and ducks, all of which sent mouth-watering aromas spilling into the streets. The farmers jockeyed for the best positions at the open-air markets, squeezing in cheek-by-jowl next to fishermen with their reeking barrows and baskets crammed full of gleaming, silvery blind-eyed fish, mussels and cockles, scallops, shrimp, and freshwater oysters and eels, just pulled from the sea or scoured from every lake bottom for miles around.
The fish drew appreciative and thieving attention from the town's population of half-feral cats and hungry dogs, as well, looking for a free meal while the tantalizing smells of fresh-baked breads, jellied fruits, slabs of cheese coated with thin layers of protective beeswax, and wreaths of dried onions and garlic cloves mingled with the other scents of abundance Lailoken mourned the inability to share.
Tradesmen's daughters in pretty lace caps, their dainty white stockings peeping out from under tucked-up skirts, laughed and chatted gaily, calling out to townsmen they knew and attracting everything male within ogling range. The girls set out finely made wares, some of them imported at great cost and danger and all of them to be had at premium prices—but made to seem a bargain when sold by those dewy-eyed, well-endowed maidens. Lailoken returned a few sinful smiles without stopping, ducked into a narrow side street where small boys were playing a tag and fetch game with enthusiastic puppies, and unlocked the door to the room he had rented just a few hours before Artorius had summoned the bedlam through which he and his secret companion, Banning, had just walked.
Lailoken shifted the heavy sailcloth bag to the floor, loosened the neck, and lifted out bottle after bottle to be set in rows on his new worktable. He had acquired the table cheaply from an inn which had suffered the effects of several hundred cavalrymen arriving from kingdoms scattered all across the British Isles, acting as guard escorts for the royalty. He made sure the firewood he used to prop up the broken table leg was securely in place, leveling the surface, then started setting out glass and rough-fired clay bottles and jugs. He'd been forced to scour the surrounding villages and several trash middens, just to find as many as Banning wanted, but this morning's trip had finally garnered enough to do a proper job of it and the work was well under way.
Into each bottle or jug, he spooned chunks of boiled beef, stewed vegetables, and several spoonfuls of dirt, mixing the earth liberally with the food. He capped them with a stopper of wax, which he further secured against expansion of gasses—something invisible which Banning insisted would be created by some alchemical process Lailoken didn't understand in the slightest—by tying thin cords around them, mouths to bottoms, several snug twists each. He didn't understand why he was to do all of this, other than it would somehow magically produce a potent poison, their means of vengeance against the Irish. More potent, Banning assured him, than even witch's bane, which had been used to poison wells in the face of advancing armies.
Filling Banning's bottles took relatively little of his time each day, so Lailoken carried out a number of other tasks as well, borrowing a horse from one of his new minstrel companions and riding out to meet Queen Morgana at the time they had arranged. On the day of Cutha's arrival, they met near dusk in a grove of crimson oaks along the Roman road leading north. The grove sheltered a little stone shrine that was doubtless older than Christ, from the look of its carvings. The wind had lifted his new cloak and Morgana's long, unbound hair, fine tendrils of which blew across her face like strands of silk. She had not dismounted from her saddle, waiting for him on horseback, along with a young boy who could scarcely claim manhood, he was still so young.
"Lailoken," she greeted him quietly, "my nephew, Medraut. Nephew, this minstrel proposes to help you to a wife."
Medraut gazed at him with guileless, curious eyes. "Then we are well met."
"It is my pleasure to serve Britain. When shall I leave, Queen Morgana, for the north?"
She considered for a moment. "Not until the High Council of Kings has met at week's end. I will be traveling home to Galwyddel then, and will take Medraut with me, to meet our proposed allies to discuss terms of marriage."
"And what token might I give the king of Dalriada as evidence of good faith?"
She lifted one hand, on which glittered a large gold ring. "My signet, with Galwyddel's royal seal. I will loan it to you the day you travel north to arrange the meeting, along with the precise message you are to carry."
He nodded, satisfied. "And where, precisely, shall I bid the king of Dalriada to meet you?"
"Along the coast, at the Lochmaben Stone Circle. Do you know the place? On the northern shore of Solway Firth, not far south of Caer-Gretna."
"Yes, I know it," Banning said smoothly when Lailoken hesitated. "A fitting trysting place for a marriage of alliance," he added with a smile. Indeed, as an ancient shrine dedicated to Maponos, god of youth and music, Lochmaben was still famous in the twenty-first century for hastily concluded marriages between runaway lovers. And if Banning's memory served, it had also served—for several centuries running—as the spot where border disputes were settled. "I cannot imagine a more perfect spot."
She lifted a brow. "Indeed? So long as you can find it without difficulty, I will be satisfied. Do this quietly and you will never lack for a home or money. Cross me," she added, eyes glittering like ice chips struck from a glacier, "and you will discover just how intense my displeasure can be."
His borrowed mount, picking up Lailoken's abrupt surge of nervousness, shook its head and mouthed the bit. When the animal pawed restively at the ground, Lailoken booted him under the shoulder with a toe, eliciting a snort and an unhappy shifting of weight. Banning, speaking smoothly over Lailoken's discomfort, assured her, "I have only the interests of Britain at heart."
"See to it that remains so. Meet me here again the morning after the High Council of Kings. We'll ride together to Caer-Birrenswark, for there is safety in numbers. From there, you will continue on to the coast and travel north by water."
Medraut glanced curiously at his aunt. "Why by water?"
Her glanced softened. "Because," she said gently, "a man riding north by horseback must pass the Antonine Wall. Our border guards allow no Briton north of the mile forts, just as they allow no Pict or Irishman south. Not without meeting heavy resistance." She pursed her lips, studying Lailoken. "You should pose as a trader. Yes, I think that would be best, to reduce Dalriadan suspicions. A British bard might think twice about sailing into Dalriadan waters, but traders eager for profit will sell to anyone with the coinage—including an Irish clan chieftain who has proclaimed himself king. Return by water, as well, when you bring our proposed allies to Lochmaben."