"He will be."
"He had better be, noble Roman! Take good care of him, for if he is not here on the due date, you will have war with every man on our island, and not all your Roman wiles will win that war for you."
I looked him straight in the eye. "I hear you. If your prince abides by his sworn word he will come to no ill at my hands, nor at the hands of any of my people."
The big man did not take his eyes away from mine. "Make you sure that he takes no ill at the hand of any, be he friend or enemy."
I allowed a smile to soften my next words. "Will you threaten me forever, or shall we take our leave of each other now?"
He nodded. "So be it. He is in your hands."
Donuil still had not spoken, but now he turned to his uncle and embraced him, and we withdrew to watch from a hillside as they embarked and put to sea, each boat towing an empty one behind it. When they had shrunk to the size of toys on the horizon, I turned to look at my young prisoner. He stood erect, straight as a spear, his eyes fixed on the distant fleet, his face giving not the slightest indication of what thoughts were going through his head. I felt for him, imagining what my own feelings would have been had our situations been reversed.
"Prince Donuil," I said. "It is time. We must return to Camulod. You may ride behind one of my men."
He looked at me with empty, emotionless eyes. "I will walk."
"So be it." I gave the signal to my waiting troops and we began the long journey home.
He walked every step of the way, his pace tireless and unflagging, at the left side of my horse. On one occasion, when we were crossing boggy ground, I told him to take hold of my stirrup, but he merely looked at me and kept his hands by his sides. We did not speak further. When we stopped to camp on the first and second nights, he accepted food wordlessly and then lay down to sleep in the spot I indicated to him, mid I had no doubt that he slept soundly, for we had been pushing our horses at a hard walk, which meant brutal speed for a man on foot.
As soon as we reached Camulod, I handed over my prisoner into the keeping of a centurion with orders that he be confined, unchained, in one of the cells that we kept for our own petty offenders, and there I left him for twenty-four hours, giving him time to consider close confinement while I looked after the affairs that had accumulated during my absence.
Uther had not returned from his foray against Lot, although he had sent back the legates Titus and Flavius with two hundred of the four hundred men they commanded. Frustrated by their failure to find Lot on our lands, Titus told me, Uther had decided to pursue him all the way back to Cornwall if he had to, but could not justify depriving Camulod of three of its senior commanders for a task he felt could be handled effectively by one. He had taken half of their troops in addition to his own and had penetrated the south-western peninsula with a force of five hundred, since which time no word had been heard of him. My father was worried. On his return, after speaking to the two legates, he had called an immediate meeting of the Council to discuss all that had happened since our departure, and to assess the state of readiness of the fort and of the colonists themselves. By the time I arrived with my cavalry, he had everything in order. He was in the midst of redeploying his infantry, who had had twenty-four hours' rest and were ready for anything, and I was happy to discover that there was almost nothing for me to do. The few minor duties that fell to me were quickly taken care of, and I was free to make my way to my hidden valley and Cassandra. I left word with my father and rode out of the fort just as the shadows began to stretch out in the late afternoon.
Despite the lateness of the hour, the sun was still hot and I sweated freely as I rode, the beads springing from my forehead beneath the headband of my helmet and running down to burn the corners of my eyes while others bedevilled me with the tickling of their progress down the valleys of my back and chest under my heavy armour. I found nothing strange, however, in riding to a lovers' tryst fully armed and armoured, and had the thought occurred to me then, I would have been hard pressed to recall a time when I went anywhere, even within Camulod itself, without my heavy and ungainly impedimenta. My armour, from helmet to boots, was as customary to me as my skin, so that I was aware of it—and uncomfortable—only when I removed any part of it.
Evening was approaching as my horse emerged from the narrow path through the bushes into the tranquillity of Avalon. I saw Cassandra immediately, standing with her back to me, staring into the waters of the pool at her feet. Some instinct must have warned her that she was being watched, for she turned and saw me there. Even in the gathering dusk I saw the pleasure in her eyes at the sight of me. She came running across the short, green turf towards me, her teeth gleaming in a smile of welcome, and I sat there on my horse and watched her approach, feeling my own cheeks bunching in a smile. She stopped right in front of me and her hands bade me welcome, and invited me to step down from my saddle.
As soon as my feet were on the ground she took me by the hand and began tugging me in the direction of the hut. I let her pull me and led my horse behind us, dropping the reins as we approached the door so that he began to graze immediately.
The room was filled with flowers. Vases and bowls of blossoms bedecked every available surface and the scent of them hung sweet and heavy in the air. A small fire burned brightly in the fireplace, but the room was free of smoke, and I was grateful once again to my uncle for teaching me die secret of building a flue. She stopped me in the middle of the floor and took hold of both my hands, holding me at arm's length and running her eyes over me from head to foot. I did the same to her and wondered again how I could ever have thought her ugly. Then her hands were undoing the fastening of my helmet and removing it from my head. When she had laid it on the table, she undid my new cloak, running her fingers admiringly over the great silver bear embroidered on it before she folded it and placed it beside the helmet. Next, she took off my swordbelt and armoured kirtle of leather, so that I wore only my knee-length tunic. She had never done this before, and I stood there like an ox, grinning with pleasure and making no move to help her as she ministered to me.
When she had stripped me completely of my armour she grinned at me, poked me in the stomach, skipped nimbly to the door, and ran outside. Smiling, and wondering what she was about, I followed her slowly, only to find that she had already run more than half-way to the entrance of the path down which I had so recently arrived. Evidently, I was supposed to follow her. I drew a deep breath and took off in pursuit, thinking to overtake her easily, but by the time I began to experience my first shortness of breath, less than half-way up the steep, narrow path, it had begun to dawn on me that this young woman had no intention of being lightly overtaken; not only did she remain out of sight ahead of me, but I could hear no sound of her progress. I accepted the challenge, lengthened my stride and began conscientiously to control my breathing, sensing that victory in this chase might not come quickly.
I was breathing hard, almost gasping for breath, by the time I reached the summit of the path and broke into the clear ground at the top of the hill. Cassandra was waiting, grinning merrily, a hundred paces from me at the opposite end of the rolling hilltop. As soon as she knew that I had seen her, she turned and disappeared downhill again. I stifled the urge to curse, paused for the space of several heartbeats to catch my breath again, and followed her.
In the course of the hour that followed, I received a humbling lesson in physical fitness and self-sufficiency, and came within reach of her no more than twice, each time only because she allowed me to. On the first of these, when I had paused again for breath, wondering where she had gone, she dropped onto my shoulders from a tree above me, her weight knocking me off my feet and down a grassy bank. Her arms hugged me tightly to her as we rolled together and my nostrils were filled with the warm scent of her, hair and sweat and wild blossoms, all mixed with the sharp tang of crushed grass and dry, pungent, crumbling earth. We came to rest at the bottom of the slope, me lying flat on my back with the wind knocked out of me, and she sitting astride my chest, grinning down at me, her smooth, firm, bare thigh beneath my hand. Before I could move to collect myself or utter a sound, she chuckled softly in her throat, ruffled my hair and was up and away again, and I realized that she had not even been breathing hard! A short time later, she dived from beneath a bush and wrapped her arms around my knees, bringing me crashing to the ground again, but this time she did not even pause to savour her victory or feast on my discomfiture before dashing away again.