As I bent to remove the clay pot carefully from the hob, she moved away, into my sleeping chamber, and I heard her moving purposefully about in there. I poured wine into two cups and replaced the pot, swinging the hob away so that it did not rest directly over the coals. Just as I thought to ask her what she was about, she came back into the main room, her arms filled with the cured animal skins I used as bedding when I went campaigning. As I stood there watching her, a steaming cup in each hand, she dropped the double armload on the floor before the fire and spread them out with her feet and hands, making a double layer. That done, she brought a low stool from against the wall and placed it to one side, after which she lowered herself to sit on the skins and reached for a cup, smiling up at me.
"Now, come and sit down, plain Cay, and drink with me while we enjoy the firelight."
The mere use of the term 'plain Cay' reminded me that she alone, of all Derek's folk, was aware of my real identity. I was glad she knew that I was Merlyn of Camulod, although I remembered being upset when I found that Shelagh had told her. Now it seemed absolutely natural that she should have been informed. Grinning, I sat as bidden, and she tasted my spiced wine, raising her eyebrows high with simulated rapture at the surprising tang of it.
"What is it?"
"Nectar. We call it 'sweet flames.' It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac."
She raised herself higher on an elbow. "A what? Aphrodisiac? What does that mean?"
I sipped, deliberately slurping noisily. "A love potion to promote desire and to extend performance."
"Ooh ... " Her eyes went round with wonder and mischief. "And does it work? Will I regret the drinking of it?"
"I don't know, lass. Do you think you might?"
"Only if it fails us." She started to laugh, softly at first and then more unrestrainedly, and eventually I found myself laughing helplessly with her, filled with elation and a feeling of release and great relief, so that years fell away from me. We rolled about on die bed she had prepared for us, spilling more than the occasional drop of wine. And soon we had drunk the pot dry, talking and laughing all the while and taking delight in the learning of each other, free of constraint. And as we talked and laughed and took delight, we kissed; and as we kissed, we ventured further, so that soon our clothes were cast aside and we lay intertwined, exulting in the newfound beauty of each other, uncaring if the aphrodisiac were real or not. We had no need of it. And I fed the fire from time to time. And when the sun came up it found us still awake, rejoicing together at the advent of a time that stretched and stretched ahead of us without a care.
PART TWO
Mediobogdum
FOURTEEN
In the late summer of that first full year of our residence, the first overland expedition from Camulod arrived with our new supply of horses, making their way, to the great excitement of everyone in the fort, over the high saddle of the pass above and to the east of us.
Anticipating that they might be arriving someday soon, I had begun posting guards on the peak above the pass several weeks earlier, and so the horn announcing their arrival had sounded as soon as they came into view, permitting us ample time to assemble our own small force and change into our military trappings, seldom used in those peaceful days of building, to welcome the newcomers appropriately.
A stirring sight they made, too, their weapons and armour and equipment flashing in the westering sun as they wound their way down from the heights to our gates, a journey of some third of an hour. They moved in what seemed like an endless file, four wide. Two squadrons of cavalry rode front and rear, with the foot soldiers and extra horses in place between them, the latter haltered and strung together in sets of four, with the outer horse on each rank, alternating right and left, being ridden by a trooper.
Ambrose rode at the head of them all, beneath my own
great, black-and-white standard with the silver bear, which had become the standard of Camulod. Watching his approach from my vantage point on our fort's south-east tower, I felt my heartbeat quicken and my breath speed up in a very strange fashion. It was like watching myself ride towards me, which was in fact, as I had to remind myself, precisely the effect Ambrose was looking to achieve. In the eyes of the people, he rode as Merlyn of Camulod, and even I might have been convinced to believe it. The effect on young Arthur and his three friends, however, was far more salutary.
Arthur had always been smitten by the heroic aspects of Uncle Ambrose, as he called him. On this occasion the boy was actually struck dumb by the splendour of the Camulodian approach. I have no doubt the reasons for his reaction were many and mixed. It might have been occasioned by the fact that we ourselves had been away from Camulod for more than a year by then. It might also have been augmented by the fact that we seldom wore armour nowadays in Mediobogdum, and were more akin to farmers and artisans—in appearance and dress at least—than to soldiers and warriors. Then again, it might have been due to the simple apparition of a large, disciplined force of regimented, heavily armed men and horses in a place where we had grown accustomed to seeing the native warriors going about on foot, or on shaggy ponies, individually.
Whatever the reasons, when the vanguard of the Camulodian troops arrived and Ambrose himself sat smiling down at us, immense in his high-crested Roman helmet and heavy, shimmering and highly polished plate armour, flanked by his three senior troop commanders, young Arthur walked forward alone, wordlessly, his eyes shining, his hands held out to relieve Ambrose of his heavy shield. My brother grunted, looking down at the boy, and then swung easily down from his high saddle, passing the shield to him with one hand and reaching out to ruffle his hair with the other; he paused, then, the gesture incomplete, and changed his mind, contenting himself with gripping Arthur cordially by one shoulder before moving directly to embrace me.
"He's too big to be greeted as a child now," he whispered as we hugged each other. I said nothing, stepping back to clear the way for the others at my back to move forward.
When all the introductions had been completed, Ambrose released his three troop commanders to supervise the settling of their men and horses on the flat parade area outside the eastern gate, where the infantry that had accompanied them were already laying out their tents and gear in the traditional Roman style. A group of us moved into the fort and up onto the eastern wall, where we could see what was going on. From that viewpoint, it was Lucanus who observed that this old fort had never seen such a gathering of military might before. At its most active time, shortly after it was built, it might have held five or six hundred men, although we had strong grounds to doubt that it had ever been so fully garrisoned, but it had never seen more than a hundred heavy cavalry mounts at once. As Lucanus pointed this out, Derek, who had been staying with us for a week at that time, stood silent, his arms folded on his chest, his bearded chin resting on the gorget of his leather breastplate as he stared at the horse camp that now filled the parade ground. This was, I knew, the first time he had actually seen the kind of peacetime force that Camulod could field, and he was impressed, aware that this was merely a patrol dispatched several months earlier and barely missed in Camulod.
When I had told him, at the time of Ambrose's departure months earlier, that we would be having visitors by land from Camulod, the king had been perturbed, fearing that such an open use of the rear road to Ravenglass might point the way for others afterwards, but he had been mollified when I pointed out that the reason for the visit was to leave a defensive garrison of cavalry behind, and that it would be relieved and replaced by newcomers on a regular, twice-yearly basis. The reality of having a solid, well- trained garrison to guard his back had made light of his fears of invasion from that direction.