"You are disturbing us all this morning, Uther," said Lot venomously, "first the priest at holy mass and then the King at his breakfast."

"Have I disturbed you? I beg your forgiveness, my lord," Uther said, smiling, and the King stretched out his hand, smiling as at a favorite child.

"You are forgiven, Uther, but send the dogs away, I pray you. Well, come and sit here, my boy," Ambrosius said, rising clumsily, and Uther . embraced the King; Igraine saw that he did so carefully, deferentially. She thought, Why, Uther loves the King, it is not just ambition or a courtier's currying of favor!

Gorlois would have given up his place next to Ambrosius, but the King motioned to him to sit still. Uther stretched his long leg across the bench and climbed across it, to slide into a seat beside Igraine. She drew her skirts aside, feeling awkward, as he stumbled-how clumsy he was! Like a big, friendly puppy! He had to put out a hand to save himself from falling directly on top of Igraine.

"Forgive my clumsiness, lady," he said, smiling down at her. "I am all too big to sit in your lap!"

Against her will, she laughed up at him. "Even your dogs are too big for that, my lord Uther!"

He helped himself to bread and fish, offering her the honey as he spooned it out of the jar. She refused courteously.

"I do not like sweets," she said.

"You have no need of them, my lady," he said, and she noticed that he was staring at her bosom again. Had he never seen a moonstone before? Or was he staring at the curve of her breast beneath it? She was suddenly, acutely conscious that her breasts were no longer quite as high and firm as they had been before she had suckled Morgaine. Igraine felt the heat rising in her face and quickly took a sip of the fresh cold milk.

He was tall and fair, his skin firm and unwrinkled. She could smell his sweat, clean and fresh as a child's. And yet he was not so very young, his light hair was already thinning over his sunburnt skull. She felt a curious unease, something she had never felt before; his thigh lay alongside hers on the bench and she was very conscious of it, as if it were a separate part of her own body. She cast her eyes down and took a nibble of buttered bread, listening to Gorlois and Lot talking about what would happen if the war were to come to the West country.

"The Saxons are fighters, yes," Uther said, joining in, "but they fight in something like civilized warfare. The Northmen, the Scots, the wild folk from the lands beyond-they are madmen, they rush naked and screaming into battle, and the important thing is to train troops to hold firm against them and not break in fear of their charge."

"That is where the legions had the advantage over our men," Gorlois said, "for they were soldiers by choice, and disciplined, trained to fight, not farmers and countrymen called up to fight without knowledge of that business, and going back to their farms when the danger is past. What we need are legions for Britain. Perhaps if we appealed again to the emperor-"

"The emperor," Ambrosius said, smiling a little, "has troubles enough of his own. We need horsemen, cavalry legions: but if we want legions for Britain, Uther, we will have to train them for ourselves."

"It cannot be done," Lot said positively, "for our men will fight in defense of their homes, and in loyalty to their own clan chiefs, but not for any High King or emperor. And what are they fighting for, if not to return to their homes and enjoy them in comfort afterward? The men who follow me, follow me-not some ideal of freedom. I have some trouble getting them to come this far south-they say with some justice that there are no Saxons where we are, so why should they fight away down here? They say, when the Saxons reach their homeland, time enough to fight then and defend it, but the lowlanders should look out for the defense of their own country."

"Can't they see, if they come to stop the Saxons here, the Saxons may never reach their country at all-" Uther began hotly, and Lot raised his slender hand, laughing.

"Peace, Uther! I know this-it is my men who do not know it! You will get no legions for Britain, nor any standing army, Ambrosius, from the men north of the great wall."

Gorlois said huskily, "Perhaps Caesar had the right idea, then; perhaps we should regarrison the wall. Not, as he did, to keep the wild Northmen from the cities, but to keep the Saxons from your homeland, Lot."

"We cannot spare troops for that," said Uther impatiently. "We cannot spare any trained troops at all! We may have to let the treaty people defend the Saxon Shores, and set up our stand in the West country, against the Scots and Northmen. I think we should make our main stand in the Summer Country; then in winter they will not be able to come down to sack our camps as they did three years ago, for they will not know their way around the islands."

Igraine listened sharply, for she had been born in the Summer Country and knew how, in winter, the seas moved inward and flooded the land. What was passable, though boggy, ground in summer, in the winter became lakes and long inland seas. Even an invading army would find it hard to come into that country, except in high summer.

"That is what the Merlin told me," Ambrosius said, "and he has offered us place for our people to establish camp for our armies in the Summer Country."

Uriens said in a rusty voice, "I do not like to abandon the Saxon Shores to the treaty troops. A Saxon is a Saxon, and he will keep an oath only while it suits him. I think the mistake of all our lives was when Constantine made compact with Vortigern-"

"No," Ambrosius said, "a dog who is part wolf will fight more hardily against other wolves than any other dog. Constantine gave Vortigern's Saxons their own land, and they fought to defend it. That is what a Saxon wants: land. They are farmers, and they will fight to the death to make their land safe. The treaty troops have fought valiantly against the Saxons who came to invade our shores-"

"But now there are so many of them," Uriens said, "that they are demanding to enlarge their treaty lands, and they have threatened that if we will not give them more land, they will come and take it. So now, as if it were not enough to fight the Saxons from beyond the sea, we must fight those whom Constantine brought into our lands-"

"Enough," said Ambrosius, raising a thin hand, and Igraine thought he looked terribly ill. "I cannot remedy mistakes, if they were mistakes, made by men who died before I was born; I have enough to do remedying my own mistakes, and I will not live long enough to set them all right. But I will do what I can while I live."

"I think the first thing and best to do," said Lot, "would be to drive forth the Saxons within our own kingdoms, and then fortify ourselves against their returning."

Ambrosius said, "I do not think we can do that. They have lived here since their fathers' and grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' time, some of them, and unless we are willing to kill them all, they will not leave the land they have a right to call their own; nor should we violate the treaty. If we fight among ourselves here within the shores of Britain, how will we have strength and weapons to fight when we are invaded from without? Also, some of the Saxons on the treaty shores are Christians, and will fight alongside us against the wild men and their heathen Gods."

"I think," Lot said, smiling in wry amusement, "that the bishops of Britain thought truly when they refused to send missionaries to save the souls of the Saxons on our shores, saying that if the Saxons were to be admitted to Heaven, they wanted no part of it for themselves! We have enough trouble on this earth with the Saxons, must we have their uncouth brawling in Heaven as well?"

"I think you mistake the nature of Heaven," said a familiar voice, and Igraine felt a strange, hollow awareness within herself. She looked down the table at the speaker, who wore a plain grey robe, monkish in cut. She would not have recognized the Merlin in this garb, but his voice she would have known anywhere. "Do you really think mankind's quarrels and imperfections will be carried on in Heaven, Lot?"