“Agrivaine has to get there first,” I said.

“He’ll make for Solway and the boats,” Bedivere guessed.

“No mercy,” Cumaill begged.

“No. Gareth, when we get back to camp, bring me the maps of the Wall. Gareth?”

My lord-milite was gazing fixedly at the northern horizon and now uttered the most uncharitable sentiment of his life.

“I’ve hated the insides of that scant man since we rode the Wall.”

I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then Gareth vaulted into the saddle with a sudden, massive energy.

“Shall be done, sir!”

News of the treachery spread through my combrogi like a disease, the anger personal with each of the many men who knew Gawain. None wanted to be left behind. To find an escort for Guenevere, I had to remind them of their personal oath to me and, after some arguing and delay, assembled Lord Bors and twenty of my younger knights.

Bors still objected morosely. “It will be dishonor that I’m not there.”

“Nonsense. The Church has named you a knight of the Grail, you and the others who went with Peredur. With whom is the queen safer? Who hinders you goes against God. You could almost travel unarmed.”

Bors accepted his duty reluctantly. “I’d be a fool to try. Please the queen, we’ll be waiting.”

Guenevere walked to her horse on my arm. “What a mess. Just when we thought there might be quiet again.”

“Agrivaine’s not war, it’s sanitation. Now listen: When you get to Camelot, issue a general proclamation of our peace and send it to the Saxons as well.”

350

Firelord

Modred and a Grail

351

“Won’t I just.” She stretched on tiptoe to kiss me good-bye. “I want those savages to know who’s back. And that Britain intends to remain”—another lingering kiss—“very British.”

“Fine. Then I want you to write Gawain’s wife at Orkney with—”

Gwen stamped her foot. “You maddening man, you’d think I never governed so much as a cow pasture. I’ve been at this longer than you.”

I grabbed my wife by her narrow waist and lifted her off the ground, suddenly happy. “List to a’s pride! A’s got a mouth like—”

“Don’t talk like one of them!” She pulled viciously at my hair in revenge. “I hate that.”

“Then would my lady be so good as to belt up and get mounted? I hate to think of the work waiting at Camelot.”

Guenevere put her foot to the stirrup and I gave her a leg up. “You never trust me, Arthur.”

“Up you go! And long iife to the Lady of Britain.”

My hand rested on the saddle horn, and Gwen covered it with hers. “Do you trust me?”

“You always ask that. I need you, Gwen.”

“Of course you do. You didn’t become great alone.”

“And you need me—”

“I’ve always suspected it.”

“—To keep you honest. Don’t proclaim your divinity till I get home.”

Guenevere leaned down to kiss me again and bit my lip. “Peasant.”

“Bitch.”

She waved Bors forward to join her. “That I am, and the best in Britain. God wouldn’t waste a nice girl on you, Pendragon.”

Bors cantered up, the escort in formation of twos behind. Guenevere took a deep, pleasurable breath of the scented spring air.

“It’s our time, Arthur. I feel it. We could do anything now. We could take back the east, even civilize those Saxon bastards.”

“Next year, love. Next year, by God, we’ll do it.”

She blew me a kiss as she moved off. “Don’t be long.”

We let Cumaill lead the chase until we raised the ambush site where heat and the crows were doing their work, pausing long enough to pray for Gawain’s men, then off again following

Agrivaine’s easy trail that led straight north toward the Wall. He obviously wanted to cross before running west for Solway. By the map that meant he’d come up on the Wall a little east of Camlann. We tracked until it was too dark, unsaddled and slept by our horses with a careful watch and were up with the first light, eating on the move.

The chance of ambush seemed small. We rode over bare, bleak moor with hardly a stone to hide behind, yet Gareth and Cumaill rode ahead with Dafydd’s bow for cover. They began to sight a good many crows.

Gareth found the first body about ten miles short of the Wall. One of Agrivaine’s men, neatly speared with an arrow. When they found two more a little further on, I had Davy retrieve one of the arrows and showed it to Bedivere.

“Bronze head. See how it blunted a little on the mail?”

Dafydd inspected it critically. “Too soft. Who’d make an arrow that way?”

“People who can’t make iron,” I said.

My cold little premonition was confirmed less than a mile later. The trail was very fresh now and the crow-ridden bodies still warm. Tracks showed where Agrivaine’s men dashed off this way and that to nose for their invisible stalkers, then doubled back before the harried squadron pushed on faster.

But they’d searched mainly to the south where there seemed better cover for archers, if any at all. Perhaps a few dogged his rear, but the main party would be down the wind, which had blown all day from the south. You can hide from a man’s eyes, but rarely from a horse’s nose. Agrivaine didn’t grow up with this knowledge but Modred did. I gave the order.

“From now on, look sharp. Don’t ride three breaths without a look left, right and behind.”

The hills grew even barer as we approached the Wall, difficult for even a hare to hide in, but Agrivaine’s trail was punctuated by three more bodies. And on either side of the fly-buzzing clump, someone had gouged two straight lines in the earth.

Bedivere licked his lips. “Think it’s Modred?”

“For sure. That’s our/tarn-sign. He wants me to follow.”

We moved at a swift but watchful gait now, no one daring to straggle, until we raised the line of the Wall less than two miles off. Gareth rode back to report, pointing north.

“They’re across by now. That’s their dust.”

Cumaill’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. “We’ll have them before dark. Close now,” he urged. “Let’s finish it.”

352

Firelord

Instinct said no, not too hastily. It was no longer Agrivaine’s game but Modred’s. He toyed with the Orkneymen in a manner calculated to taunt their tallfolk pride. No doubt he started out merely to decimate Agrivaine, but once he knew I was trailing, the game had a more deadly relish.

Gareth’s instincts agreed with mine, but that wasn’t good enough for Cumaill. “Will we not lose them?” he wailed.

“Lose what?” Bedivere answered coolly. “Modred’s doing it

for us.”

We hallooed the sentry castles when we drew up to the crossing ramp. Everything seemed normal. A few men walked the top of the low parapet. Others leaned out of the mile castle’s upper level, worried at first, and very relieved to hear I had no quarrel with them. Yes, Lord Argivaine had crossed scarce an hour before with all his squadron. They didn’t stop but turned west on the north side at a full gallop. No, nothing else had been seen. The Orkneymen had shouted something about Picts, and the sentries were ready, but they hadn’t seen hide nor hair.

We were right, then. Agrivaine would pass near the abandoned

village of Camlann.

But where was Modred? The Faerie might yet be south, but I doubted it. More likely they had crossed to the west to be waiting for Agrivaine. In country like this you follow three things: tracks, dust and crows. Where men have passed you find the first two; where they’ve fallen the third come quickly.

The sky was white as I scanned the west where Agrivaine’s dust settled slowly. He wasn’t mat far ahead, and he wasn’t moving,

“Gareth, give them ten minutes’ rest. And make the most of it. We’re going to close.”

“Down, you lovelies!” Gareth bawled. “Give ‘em a breath. We’re going in.”

He drew his sword and jammed it upright into the ground, drawing a line along its shadow edge with his dagger. Our column dismounted, filling buckets for the horses from their water bags, easing cinches.

Bedivere and I sprawled out together in the shadow of his mount.

“Cnoch-nan-ainneal,” he mused. “Thai’s where I lost you, wasn’t it?”

“The hill of the fires. You waited and we were under you all

the time.”

Modred and a Grail

353

The sword-shadow crept over Gareth’s mark. Bedivere took small, measured sips from his water bag, always watching the hills.

“Still worried about your luck, boyo?”

He stoppered the bag, nodding. “Since I saw Kay dead.” My friend rolled over on his lean stomach, squinting up at me out of a seamed, weatherbeaten face, “You’ve got the luck, Artos. They said at Badon you couldn’t die, but me …”

“You?” I scoffed. “Who charged a Saxon square alone and walked away from it? And the same at Eburaeum and Neth Dun More and the midlands and where else? You’ve survived poisoned arrows, Irish uisge and legion food. You’ll probably live forever.”

Bedivere rolled over with rich laughter, kicking long legs in the air. “That muck they called soup at CJlumum, remember? Thickened with dust and seasoned with flies. And that dirty Brigante cook saying, ‘Don’t mind the grit, it’ll clean your teeth.’ “

I remembered it too well. “Take away the grit, there was nothing left. And Tryst throwing the bowl at him and screaming, ‘You’re not a cook, you’re a bloody assassin!’ “

“I remember,” my friend chuckled. “Clear as yesterday. Odd, but I daydream more and more now. I think of Tryst a good deal and the old squadron, the old days. I look back more than forward. That’s age for you.”

Gareth sat up and consulted his sword sundial. “Time, sir.”

“Get them up. Column of threes behind the dragon.”

The men formed quickly. We moved forward at a trot, then a canter. When the rested horses were wanned to their stride, we lengthened it to a gallop, eating up the long valley leading to Camlann and the hill of the fires. Head on a swivel, as when we learned our soldiering in these same hills. Be alert, don’t go to sleep. Is that a rock? Did it move? You won’t get a second guess. And Agrivaine’s dust loomed nearer. Too near. He could see our own now, probably hear us.

“Artos, the birds!”