“SO, INSTEAD OF FIGHTING outside the walls of the burh, we fight inside?” Llewelyn asked. He still sounded deeply puzzled. Then he winced as the cart bumped and rattled.
Alex coaxed Atiya into moving just a little bit closer to the cart as it progressed across the grassy plain. Offa’s Dyke was visible on the horizon. “You don’t fight at all, my lord. No one fights. Instead, the best fighters you have take part in arranged battles with the best fighters Aethelfreda can put forward, and everyone watches.”
“Watch the fighting?”
“Your fighters will be representing you and the strength of Powys. They fight for the honor of Powys and its King. Whoever wins the matches, the final victor, will decide how the matter is settled between you and Aethelfreda.”
Llewelyn considered it.
Siorus was walking his horse along the other side of the cart. “Do you know of the Roman arenas, then?” he asked sharply.
Llewelyn looked at him, startled. “Like the arena at Caerleon?”
“Yes, that is what made me think of this,” Alex said. “Except the Romans watched slaves fight each other for entertainment. You, though, want to measure the fighting strength of the Mercians and the army wants honor restored. A fight or a series of fights between the strongest warrior you can field and hers will let you have both. You can watch how Aethelfreda’s best fight.”
“It is an interesting notion,” Llewelyn said slowly. “I do not know how it will be received among the men, however. They’re ready to fight. We are marching already.”
“I could ride ahead,” Alex said. “I could reach Chirbury by sunset. I am an unarmed physician. They would let me speak to Aethelfreda and then I could propose settling the dispute this way.”
“You?” Llewelyn laughed. “I know the temper of my men, Alexander of Cordoba. They would rather slit their own throats than have someone beg for mercy on their account.” He was speaking loudly, for everyone around him to hear.
“It would not be begging,” Alex pointed out. He already knew he had lost the argument. Llewelyn on his own might have been persuaded, but he held power only via the good will of his army. He had to keep them placated and they wanted war.
As soon as the king dismissed him, Alex dropped back along the line until he drew level with Rafe and the household retinue who had been drafted to fight.
“The king did not agree,” Rafe guessed, looking at his face.
Alex shook his head.
“Perhaps it’s better that he did not,” Rafe said quietly.
“Physician!” The call came from ahead. Siorus, astride his big war stallion, was cantering toward them. As the line reached his position, Siorus turned the horse and settled alongside them. He let the reins drop. The horse kept pace without his direction.
“I would have words with you, Alexander,” Siorus said. He pointed to Rafe. “The scribe, too. He is working with you. Let’s move out.” He directed the stallion with his knees and it moved out of the line and took a path parallel with the marching army.
Alex glanced at Rafe, then nudged Atiya into following Siorus’ horse. Rafe came behind with his borrowed mare. Atiya snorted as he pulled up beside Siorus.
Siorus waited until Rafe was level with them. He turned to look at them, letting his stallion find its own way. “What exactly are you trying to do, the pair of you?”
“I don’t understand what you are asking,” Alex said truthfully.
“This campaign of yours for war games to decide a war. Your insistence upon defending Powys against an imaginary Viking invasion…. You are interfering with matters that are outside your realm of interest.”
“Peace is not one of my interests?” Alex asked politely.
“Don’t be a fool,” Siorus raged, his face suddenly red with anger. “You know exactly what it is I speak of.” He brought the tip of his heavy leather glove up to his mouth and touched the top of his lip, then slid it along to the other side. “You and I have no role in human affairs anymore.”
Rafe let out a heavy exhalation. “That is your secret. I knew you were hiding something. I’ve just never been close enough to you to see it for myself.”
“You gave yourself away with that miraculous recovery of yours,” Siorus said dryly. “You should have died decently and moved on.”
“It’s not the way I remembered it happening,” Rafe said.
“Rafe, shut up,” Alex said quickly. Siorus might be a vampire, but he was not a time traveler and didn’t know his own future.
Rafe shrugged. “According to you, it doesn’t matter what I say.”
Siorus was studying them both carefully. “My name is Cyrus,” he said slowly. “I was born in Greece in the third century before the Christian king was martyred. I was an apprentice to Plato.”
That made Cyrus one of the oldest vampires Alex had ever met. Even in this tenth century, he was as old as Veris and Brody were in their current lives. If he survived to the twenty-first century he would be venerable, indeed. “I’ve never heard of you,” Alex told him flatly.
“Just as I have never heard of Alexander of Cordoba, or a Muslim physician wandering the lands, healing as he goes…and now I suspect I know why,” Siorus replied. “Plato had some strange ideas about time. When he was very drunk, I could sometimes get him to speak of the things he only suspected might be true about the world. He said that time was all around us, like air, without body or thought. If humans could put aside their corporeal reality, then they could dip into time at will.” Siorus gave them a dry smile, while Alex worked to keep his expression neutral and not react in any way.
“Through the years I have heard rumors of a special sort of traveler. Only those of our kind speak of them, for these travelers come only from among our ranks. Travelers that go back into their pasts.”
Rafe didn’t react, either, although Alex could feel his tension. He was almost vibrating with it.
Siorus picked up the reins and directed his horse for a few steps. “You do not have to speak. Whether I have guessed right or not does not matter. What matters is that you both remember your place in this time. That place does not encompass influencing the affairs of men.” He took a firmer grip on his reins. “This will be my only warning.”
Alex glanced at Rafe as Siorus galloped back to the king’s side.
Rafe was frowning.
“Do you know Cyrus?” Alex asked softly.
Slowly, Rafe nodded. “He is on the Council. I have never met him, of course. He is one the most powerful of them.”
Then Cyrus did survive to the twenty-first century. “He speaks as if he is already on the Council,” Alex said, watching Siorus lean over and speak to the King. “So much for not influencing human affairs. He’s only the King’s right hand man.”
“Maybe he is already on the Council,” Rafe replied. “No one knows when it was formed. I certainly don’t.”
That was a startling idea.
“This must be the end of your scheming, of course,” Rafe added.
Alex thought of the still darkness at the end of the small time stream that he had seen on his way here. “Perhaps,” he said. Then, because it was Rafe and he could not lie to him, he added, “I’m not sure I can let it go that easily.”
Rafe sighed. “You’ll get us both killed,” he muttered, turning his horse to bring it back in line with the rest of the caravan.
“That might change things, too,” Alex replied. “I just don’t know if it would change things enough.”
Rafe swore under his breath. In English.
* * * * *
They camped that night four miles inside the Mercian border. It had taken most of the day for the army to file through the chink in the dyke and for the carts to negotiate the narrow plank bridge across the trench. The long minutes while the King’s cart was eased across were filled with tension, with guards on both sides of the dyke keeping an eagle eye out for approaching travelers.
No one had the energy to travel much farther after that. Chirbury was a good day’s march away.
Now they were in Mercia, guards were posted around the perimeter of the camp, which was kept tight and small. There was not the same degree of drinking and merriment there had been the previous night.
Because they had been picked out by Siorus and seen travelling together with him, Alex and Rafe were able to stay closer together than they had before. Yet Alex was still the camp physician and there were injuries from the crossing of the dyke, including a broken arm.
After everyone else had eaten their small evening meal of venison sliced straight off the haunch roasting over the fire, Alex set the broken arm. The man writhed in pain and setting it was complicated, made worse by the man’s screams. It took three others to hold him down firmly enough and by the time Alex was done, everyone around him was on edge and muttering. The sun had set while he worked. He got to his feet and pulled out his belt knife. “Keep him down and still,” he told the three. “I’ll need stout branches for a splint.”
He moved over to the nearest tree, only a few feet away. The land on this side of the dyke was the same rolling, verdant pastureland as was on the other, with only occasional clumps of trees and bushes. The camp had been struck next to a small glen of trees that could be used for wood for the fires. Alex worked by firelight, stripping branches to make his splints.
The man came out of the trees at a full run, his sword over his head and a battle cry on his lips. He wore an English helmet. Every single soldier in the camp jerked his head up to see where the threat was coming from, just as Alex did.
The man was coming for him. He was the closest. He had no arms other than the little knife in his hands.
Alex was suddenly tired of it all. The fear, the worry, second-guessing himself, and the doubt of those around him, including Rafe. Siorus, this morning, had been the last straw. Now this. If he was to stay in the role of a meek physician, he should cringe and run away from the attacker.
Screw that.
The man launched himself at Alex with a berserker scream. Alex dropped his knife and the branch, stepped inside the man’s guard and grabbed the thick wrist. He wrenched it backward. The arm broke with a wet crunching sound and the scream turned into a howl of pain. The man let go of his sword, which dropped into Alex’s waiting hand. He gripped the hilt, stepped back and swung the sword flat and hard. It took the falling man’s head off with the ease of a knife going through soft butter.
The body fell forward onto its knees, then toppled and was still.
Alex straightened up and rested the sword point in the ground, looking at the headless body. The whole thing had taken perhaps three seconds.
Silence.
He looked up. The entire camp, every single man, was watching him. Most of them had their mouths open and their eyes were very large.
Someone started to laugh. It was a low sound to begin, a deep subterranean chuckle. Then it grew into a belly-shaking roar. Alex spotted who it was. The king was laughing. He was holding his belly, his head back, as he gave vent to his mirth.
Nervous smiles appeared here and there. Siorus scowled heavily, as he looked from Alex to the king.
Rafe hurried over to where Alex stood next to the body. “Are you crazy?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “Doctors don’t fight!”
“This one does, apparently,” Alex said. “Besides, it’s done now.”
Rafe looked down at the head. The helmet had rolled off. Rafe stiffened. “That’s Gwil,” he said, his voice harsh.
“Gwil?” Alex said, barely curious about the man’s identity.
“He’s one of Siorus’ men!” Rafe whispered furiously. “He’s not English at all!”
They both looked over to where Siorus stood beside the king, who was finally getting control of his amusement. Siorus was watching them, the scowl still in place. As they looked, he lifted his forefinger and wiggled it.
Then he crouched down by the king and murmured in his ear.
“A first and last warning, and then action,” Alex murmured.
“He can’t kill you, not with a sword. He has to know that,” Rafe said.
“He wasn’t trying to kill me,” Alex said. “If everyone was to see me take a sword to the gullet, then I would have to ‘die’ and take myself off his chessboard. That’s all he needs.”
Rafe watched Siorus murmuring to the king. “If that’s not influencing human affairs, I don’t know what is,” he said, sounding pissed.
“It doesn’t look as though he’s getting very far,” Alex observed, for the king had lost all his humor and was scowling as hard as Siorus. As he looked, Llewelyn shook his head, his jaw set. “Whatever he’s saying, the king doesn’t like it.” He bent over and picked up the branch he had discarded.
“What are you doing?” Rafe asked curiously.
“I still have a broken arm to splint,” Alex said.
This time, when he crouched next to the man to splint his arm, the man stayed silent. So did the three men holding him down. They watched Alex with the wariness of prey.
Not long after that, Siorus came to him and said curtly that the king wanted his attendance.