“Your Majesty,” a small voice said, so faint that it was almost lost in the debating hall’s echoes. The speakers and audience had barely finished settling down after their arrival. A page boy approached Arthur with deferential step. “Your Majesty,” he repeated. “I come from Prince Garbonian.”
Lance leaned forward. He could have had a front-row seat today, but preferred the broad perspective of his former perch, from which all kinds of things could be seen. Briefly Arthur met his eyes, in wry acknowledgement that neither of them—nor Coel himself, to judge by his expression—had missed Prince Garb so far.
“Very well,” Arthur said, gesturing the boy forward. “I trust the prince is in good health?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He…” The boy stopped. Clearly it was one thing to be given a message, and quite another to deliver it. “He begs King Arthur and King Coel to allow him to enter Din Guardi with Oesa, a nobleman from the Anglian settlement near Alauna. Oesa has his wife and children with him to offer as hostages. He wishes to treat for peace.”
Lance had fulfilled his prophecies. Art had slept well. It had only been for a few hours, but he had fallen into smiling dreams as easily as if his head had never borne a crown. He looked refreshed. His world and his beliefs had been turned upside down and shaken until they rattled since last he had stood in this hall. Not Anglian raiders but a dragon, now become a worm again and sent harmlessly back to the earth… He turned to Coel. “Your Highness, will you consider it?”
Coel grunted in astonishment. “No, of course not,” he said reflexively. Then he looked into the face of this young king who was shedding the light of a new age around his gloomy home. “Why? Do you think we should?”
“Not on Garbonian’s terms. We will ride out and see these Anglians of his on neutral ground.” He met Coel’s woebegone expression with a smile. “We’ll have our best archers man the walls, sire, just in case.”
But Garb’s Anglian didn’t look like a threat. Nor did they look especially noble. Riding across the windy plain at Arthur’s side—aware of Guy, Bors and Drustan behind them along with Coel and his personal guard, all of them armed to the teeth—Lance wondered what the outcome would be of this strange meeting. He was startled that Arthur had agreed, and more surprised still that the Merlin had kept silence, not stirring from his seat in the shadows behind the throne.
The man called Oesa stood with his eyes downcast as they approached, his bearing meek, although he towered over Garbonian’s soldiers around him. He was massive and fair, thick hair in a plait down his spine. He wore a finely worked torc around his throat, and a good leather sword belt from which the scabbard hung conspicuously empty. Otherwise he was dressed like a well-to-do farmer, in brightly coloured tunic and calfskin breeches, a red woollen cloak swept back across his shoulders. Looking past him, Lance saw a woman huddled by the flank of her pony. She and the two children clinging to her skirts were as fair as Oesa, but their posture indicated less respect than terror. Arthur drew his party to a halt a few yards away. “Garbonian,” he said. “Who are these people?”
Garb was pale with nerves. He twitched as Oesa cut with a low-pitched growl across his attempt to reply. “He, er—he wishes to speak for himself, Your Majesty.”
Lance felt a brief, reluctant sympathy for Oesa. One thing to decide on a diplomatic mission—quite another, to be brought to it under guard by a diminutive British prince he could have probably snapped over his knee. Lance exchanged a glance with Art, offering a small nod in answer to the question in his eyes. “Then let him,” Art said. “Who are you, sir, and what do you want at Din Guardi?”
The Anglian nobleman looked up. When he did so, Lance understood why he had been told to keep his eyes on the ground: they were fearless, a blazing frosty blue. “I am Oesa of Alauna,” he said in rough Latin. “I lead the people of my settlement—they call me their thegn. We came here five years ago from the kingdom the Romans call Anglia.”
“Why did you come?”
Oesa shrugged. “We heard the land was undefended.”
Garb went paler still. Watching, Lance thought that he might have liked to poke Oesa in the ribs to remind him of his manners. Art sounded half-amused, too. “And did you find it so?”
“Almost. We did not have to kill many to make our claim. But now we have farms of our own. Fields, homes, children. We don’t want others of our kind to come and take them from us. Neither do you want more of us in your land. We have common cause.”
“Doesn’t dress it up, does he?” This from Guy, who had leaned forward on his horse’s neck to listen. A ripple of laughter went through the assembled soldiers. Oesa stared brazenly back at them. “Better an honest enemy then a snake-tongued friend,” he said, and gave Garb a nudge that made him stumble and the guards laugh more loudly still. “You need not fear me, King Artorius. My wife Aedilthryd will answer for it, if I behave ill.”
“No, Thegn Oesa,” Arthur told him politely. “You will answer for it. I don’t take women and children hostage. But, with King Coel’s agreement, I will welcome you and your family at Din Guardi as guests.” He turned to the elder king. “What do you say, sire?”
The poor old man looked ready to slide off his horse and die of despair on the ground. “My father was a tribal chief,” he announced unexpectedly. “He was in charge of a hillfort, twenty people and some goats. The Romans came, and they made me a king. I took their money and the title they gave me. Then they vanished, and they left me their gift as a curse in my hands, an unbearable burden. Now you, Artorius—the hope of Britannia, as the people claim, and as I truly believe you to be, with your wisdom and kindness—you, of all men, ask me to open my own castle doors to the invaders.”
“Not if you don’t wish it. Say the word.” Art lowered his voice so that only Coel and the men closest to him would hear. “I know what it is that I’m asking you, my friend. I do understand.”
“I feel ancient, Arthur. And lost.”
“You’re neither, I swear. I will stand by you, no matter what you decide.”
“Will your general, too—good Sir Lancelot?” Coel’s brow creased. “Odd name, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Lance agreed, as solemnly as he could. He supposed Lance o’Lough had been round the fortress a few times and come back to him like this. “But my king’s allegiance is mine.”
Coel turned back to Arthur. “Are you truly certain this is wise?”
“I’m not certain at all,” Art said honestly. “Our grandchildren will judge us for it, one way or the other—as visionaries or fools. But I think we have to try.”
***