We emerged from the little, wooded valley around noon, looking nothing at all like the squadrons who had entered it, and over the course of the next four miles I harangued my men continuously, forcing them to spread out into a straggling, sloppy, widely dispersed train, riding in groups of no more than five together, the majority of them ranging far out on both sides of the roadway whenever the encroaching woods would allow them to do so, thereby creating the impression, I hoped, that no more than forty or so belonged to the party closest to, and presumably escorting, the five wagons we had left in our train. Within one of those wagons, folded and concealed, lay my great black bear standard and all the outward paraphernalia that had previously marked us so clearly as a force to be reckoned with.
A few miles further on, after passing through a long stretch of heavy woodlands, we encountered our first "hostiles." The road emerged from the woods into open grassland, bare of snow now, although the wind was still cold enough to make a mockery of the bright sunlight, and as we straggled out into the glare of the sun, we were confronted by a group of about twenty horsemen approaching the road from our right. They drew rein as they saw us, and sat watching us with suspicion but no outright hostility. Clearly they were prepared to accept us, but were curious as to who and what we were. The suddenness of the meeting crystallized some of the thoughts that had been going through my mind and I acted on impulse, forcing myself to turn casually in the saddle and speak to my companions without betraying any of the chaotic reactions that leaped in my breast.
"Cyrus, spread the word among the men, but do it without being obvious. We are from Northumbria, detached from Verulamium by Vortigern as his ambassadors to other kings. Donuil, come with me. I'm going to speak with these people. The rest of you remain calm and take your lead from me."
I kneed my horse sideways and approached the newcomers as though I had been expecting to meet them. Their obvious leader was an enormous man, bearded, wild-looking and heavily muscled, whose immense frame dwarfed the large horse on which he was mounted. He was armoured in layered thicknesses of toughened bull hide reinforced with plates of bronze, and he carried a large, round shield slung across his back. He sat calmly, reins loose on his horse's neck, and watched me impassively as I advanced, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. I addressed him in the mixture of Latin and Celtic that I had used with Vortigern's people.
"Well met," I called out when some twenty paces separated us. "I am Ambrose of Lindum, nephew to Jacob, Councillor of Lindum, and the bearer of greetings from King Vortigern of Northumbria to King Lot of Cornwall. This is our first time so far south, and we are without guidance. Can you tell us how far we have to go to the meeting place?"
I was prepared for a challenge and swift action, because the only reference I had had to any meeting place came from my own assessment of the intelligence brought to me by our scouts, but my question provoked no suspicion and no response. By this time I had stopped almost within sword's length of him, and I allowed my gaze to move idly over his companions. They were an unsightly crew, all heavily" armed and armoured like their leader, and all unkempt, with long hair, beards and moustaches. Their leader continued to look at me in silence, considering my words, and then his eyes moved to Donuil, taking in the size of the young man.
"Who are you?" he asked him.
Donuil shrugged his broad shoulders and looked defiantly back at the big man. "Cormac," he said.
"Cormac? What kind of a name is that? Arc you one of Vortigern's tame Saxons?"
I was gratified by this signal of acceptance, but concerned at the same time that Vortigern's affairs, and his folly, were so widely known. Donuil spoke on.
"It is Erse, and noble. I, too, ride with Vortigern—by choice."
"A mercenary." The leader dismissed Donuil and looked back at me, indicating my dress with a disapproving scowl. "You look Roman." He made it sound like an insult. I took no offence, keeping my voice pleasant.
"My father was. My full name is Ambrose Ambrosianus. And our armour is Roman because it works well for us. The Romans understood such things."
He scowled again and snorted through his nose. "Derek," he said then, "from the north-west coast, Ravenglass. It was a Roman town, once, before we threw them out."
"I have heard of it," I responded, ignoring the obvious boast, and indeed I had, from Vortigern himself, less than a week earlier. "The Romans had a fort near there, once, a place called Mediocogdum."
His eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Huh," he grunted. "It's still there, empty and abandoned, above the road through the high pass. How would you know that?"
I shook my head, indicating that it was unimportant. "I have a memory for insignificant things. Somebody mentioned it, a long time ago, I know not who or when, but I recall something about it being the most westerly fort along the Wall."
"There's no wall there." His voice was scornful. "The Fells are walls enough. It's a grim and cheerless place, haunted by spirits and shunned by wise men. We will ride with you. We should reach the appointed ground by late tomorrow."
I eyed his men, deciding to take no chances and knowing that I had to assert my own authority immediately with this man. "If you wish, so be it, but tell your men to keep apart from mine. We have come a long way and my men are tired and impatient of the road. You'll notice some of them have wounds. We've already encountered unfriendly strangers and I want no more such stupid, wasteful nonsense. We are on an embassage, and I have no wish to spoil it through petty squabbling with every bad-tempered stranger we meet." I waited for his response, but when it came, it surprised me.
"No more have I. My people will keep their peace, so be sure yours do not provoke them."
And so it came about that we rode in company with our enemies for several hours, during which I learned much of Lot and his affairs and what he had been about since his last attack upon Camulod. I was surprised—and yet, upon reflection, not so—to find that Lot, like his father Emrys before him, was master of a large fleet of galleys permanently engaged in piracy. He had a stronghold now, with its own natural fortifications: a high-cliffed, sea-girt island on the north coast of Cornwall, which guaranteed his pirates a safe base, and Lot grew ever richer from his levy on the flow of booty they generated. Those riches he had amassed carefully, then used to purchase armed support from all directions, gathering a massive army with large payments of gold and the promise of enormous riches to be garnered from the conquest of the wealthy area around Glevum, Aquae Sulis—and, by association, Camulod.
Derek, a king in his own right, had been recruited by one of Lot's sea-going chieftains, who bought his services with gold and promises of more to be won. Derek had taken the gold, and then he and his twenty mounted men had ridden southward on their own from their mountainous land to join Lot's gathering host. The remainder of his men, a force of perhaps two hundred, had been ferried south by Lot's galleys and would join the riders at the meeting place, thirty miles north of Aquae Sulis and approximately twenty miles south-west of our present position. I listened to all of this and said little in response.
As we rode and talked, the road had been descending gently but steadily, so that we were now riding through dense, high trees again, and I knew that the forest would stretch ever thicker and unbroken from here to the gathering place of Lot's army. If we were to avoid being trapped there, we would have to turn around, and soon, and make our way back to the high ground, free of trees, whence we would have some hope of circling around the meeting place and escaping to the south and Camulod. I glanced up at the small patch of sky I could see between the tops of the trees that pressed in on the road. It was growing late and my mind was seething with the urgency of our rapidly worsening situation. The closer we drew to Lot's gathering point, the greater would become the concentration of hostile troops converging on the meeting place, and sooner or later—if we had not already passed it—we would arrive at a point where discovery of our true identity would become inevitable.