A wall ringed the village on the plateau. The fact that the village was protected this way, and lay on the flat top of a high tor surrounded by earthwork ramparts at the base of the tor, told her that this area was not always as peaceful as it was today. She remembered that MC 6’s specialty in Mojave Center had been social stability, and wondered what had drawn him here.
The journey to the base of the tor took over an hour. By that time, they had passed a couple of people walking along the road. Other people, some of them driving carts or riding horseback, came and went from the tor. As Jane saw the open gate in the earthworks clearly, she looked first at the donkey, then down at Ishihara.
“Is this little donkey going to make it home again? He must be worn out.”
“Emrys expects to sell the wood and the meat. The return load will be much lighter.”
Sentries at the gate glanced at the cart and waved them through without stopping them, though they stared in wonder at Jane in her Chinese robe. Emrys drove the cart up a steep slope to the top of the tor. Jane saw Wayne looking around with interest and did the same.
The defensive earthworks turned out to be more than a single wall. Four concentric walls ringed the base and the lower portion of the slope. Starting just inside the gate, cobblestones paved the road.
“It’s bigger than it looked from outside,” said Jane, as the donkey began pulling the cart up the steep angle. “Ishihara, how big is this place?”
Ishihara scanned the area briefly. “I cannot see the far side of the tor, but if the shape of its base as a whole is roughly a circle, I estimate that outer wall encloses approximately seven hectares.”
Up ahead, the road led through an open, nearly square gatehouse in the high wall that surrounded the summit and the village within it. Sentries held spears lazily on the top of the wall, talking among themselves. Jane thought the wall had been constructed of wood until the cart passed through it. Then she found that only a breastwork of wood faced the outside; the bulk of the wall was made of unmortared stone.
Inside the wall, they found themselves in a bustling village. Jane turned and looked up at the inside of the wall. Now she could see that the sentries stood on top of a wooden platform that ringed the top of the stone wall, with the wooden breastwork rising high enough to protect them from attackers who might have crossed the first four earthen ramparts on the lower slope. All around the village, the interior side of the wall was designed the same way.
“It looked so modest from a distance,” said Jane. “This is pretty impressive.”
“I estimate the perimeter of this wall to be over three-quarters of a kilometer,” said Ishihara. “Since the wall has neither straight sides nor represents a circle, my approximation is quite rough.”
On the far side of the main gate, a two-story hall built of timbers rose over the rest of the village. Emrys turned the cart down a narrow side street, but Jane continued to look at the hall. If MC 6, after returning to his full size, was going to seek the seat of power, he would probably find it inside that hall.
Jane saw that Wayne also had taken a second glance at the hall. He almost certainly had reached the same conclusion, but she said nothing. Maybe something else was on his mind. In any case, MC 6 was still microscopic, possibly somewhere on the ground at their feet this very moment.
Emrys drew up the cart and greeted a couple of men behind a booth. Chunks of meat layout on a wooden counter, with flies buzzing over them. The men called out heartily and waved for him to step down.
As he did so, Jane realized that the men at the booth and most of the other villagers nearby were all staring at her. Then she saw that they looked just as curiously at Wayne and Ishihara, in their more modest Chinese peasant clothes. None of the villagers spoke, however.
5
Jane watched in silence as Emrys drew the cloth bag back from the sheep carcass. The other men examined the meat as Emrys talked, and then they unloaded the carcass and carried it to their booth. One of them carefully counted a few coins into Emrys’s hand. He slapped the other man on the shoulder with a quick smile and mounted the cart again.
“It’s interesting to watch,” Jane said to Ishihara. “In all the times and places we’ve visited, dickering over small business transactions seems to be about the same.”
“Yes,” said Ishihara.
Emrys shook the reins. This time he drove the donkey around a corner and followed the narrow, crooked streets to the main doors of the large hall. He spoke briefly to a sentry, who slipped inside.
“I wonder who lives here,” Jane said casually to Ishihara. She did not want to express too much interest in the building, for fear of alerting Ishihara and Wayne to her belief that MC 6 would eventually come here. Even if they had reached the same conclusion, she could pretend she had not. “I guess, Emrys knows they burn a lot of wood in a building this size.”
“I expect so.” Ishihara changed languages and spoke to Emrys, who answered at some length.
Wayne turned in the seat to look at Ishihara. “What did he say?”
“Emrys says this is the palace of Artorius Riothamus,” said Ishihara.
“Artorius is a Latin name,” said Wayne. “Is he a Roman warlord who stayed behind or something?”
“ ‘Riothamus’ seems to mean ‘High King,’ “ said Ishihara. “He is also called Artorius the ‘Dux Bellorum.’ “
“That’s Latin for ‘War Leader,’ “ said Wayne. “But what does it mean as a title?”
“I presume that not every High King leads his men out to war personally,” said Ishihara. “However, that is merely my own surmise.”
“We’re roboticists, not historians,” said Jane. “Ishihara, do you have any history at all that pertains to this time and place?”
“Very little,” said Ishihara. “However, I believe that Artorius the High King may be the man upon whom the legend of King Arthur is based.”
Wayne scowled. “This place doesn’t look much like the Camelot I learned about as a kid.”
“The legend was built by storytellers and poets and novelists over many centuries,” said Jane.
A tall, burly man dressed in a worn leather tunic came outside with the sentry and several other men. The tall man spoke to Emrys briefly, then nodded. The other men started to approach the cart but stopped, looking at Jane.
“Emrys has sold the entire cartload of wood,” said Ishihara, raising his arms to lift Jane. “I will help you down.”
Jane stood up and let Ishihara move her to the ground. As the workmen began carrying armloads of wood into the palace, the first man counted out a handful of coins into Emrys’s palm. Emrys opened a leather pouch at his belt and slipped the coins inside.
Jane remained with Ishihara, looking around the village. People filled the narrow streets in every direction. She saw booths and shops offering food, clothing, pottery, and leather goods for sale.