If I’d thought Mordred’s mode of living barbaric, I had no words for how the Saxons lived. Even farm animals had more privacy and cleaner air than were found in the great hall.

It was one enormous space, down the center of which ran a long hearth continuously burning what appeared to be entire trees. Meals were cooked on it, hands warmed at it, garbage thrown into it. It provided the only light, save for what came through the doors

At the far end of the hall lived Horsa, Wynnetha, and their servants. They ate there, slept there, bathed there, all within sight of the rest of the hall, which was filled with assorted relatives, dependents, and hangers-on, along with the general folk of Calleva, most of whom did not have separate homes. Meat hung from ropes strung between beams, turning black in the smoke. Clothing dried there, too.

The floor bounced beneath our feet; it was made of loose, rough planks stretched across emptiness. Terix had surreptitiously lifted one, to find nothing beneath it but a space a foot and a half deep, serving no apparent purpose but to collect dirt, some old pots, and a single worn shoe in which mice were nesting.

Families had been pushed aside to make room for Mordred and his retinue. We were all expected to sleep on the floor or benches with one another, which made me glad of my fleece-lined cloak. It was all the bedding I would get. Gods knew I didn’t need to wear it in the great hall, for the press of bodies and the incessant heat of the fire had set my sweat flowing.

The housing might be rougher than expected, but the Saxons made a clear effort to be hospitable. To my and Terix’s relief, their tongue proved so similar to Frankish that we could understand one another without much difficulty, though the Britons had to resort to pantomime and a few shared words of Latin. The Saxons brought us water for washing and platters heaped with simple fare to hold us until the later feast: sheep’s-milk cheese, tiny tart apples, and flat cakes of mixed grains and seeds. They gave us beer, too, a welcome change from the musty, sweet mead of the Britons.

Terix, Daella, Bone, and I made our camp back by the wall, where the draft between the timber slats brought in thin rivers of cold, fresh air. Better to be chilled than to suffocate. I didn’t like leaving all our goods, including the hidden chalice, in an open room with so many people, but there was no way around it. I comforted myself that theft was unlikely, given the number of eyes in the hall.

My own eyes scanned the murk, seeking again the brightness of Maerlin’s hair and also seeking the unknown Arthur. Either they weren’t in the hall, or the gloom was too thick to see them. I did see Mordred with Horsa and Wynnetha. He offered something small in his hand to the girl, and she scooped it up with delight. Mordred said something that made her smile and blush. I shook my head, hardly believing that he could so easily charm her.

Perhaps Arthur really was a bear in comparison; maybe Mordred looked the better choice to innocent eyes.

Terix and I left Daella under the watchful eye of Bone and her fellow Britons and went outside to stretch our legs and talk. Uern, lousy watchdog that he was, was too busy ogling a comely Saxon wench to notice when we walked out behind him; it was a good thing for him we didn’t intend to run. Instead, we wandered through the strange hybrid town, and I told Terix everything Fenwig and Maerlin had said.

I started to cry when I told him about the offer to live with Theo. When I was done, he turned his worried, angry eyes on me.

“I don’t believe Fenwig,” he said.

I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I’ve never known him to lie.”

“He may be telling the truth as he knows it. But Clovis? You can’t trust any offer he makes. He’s telling you what you want to hear, which is never exactly what he ends up giving you.”

“I know,” I said, gurgling, not sounding like I did know.

Terix scowled. “He knows how to control you, Nimia. He knows what you want, and he dangles it before you. He’ll never give it to you, though, not for any longer than it takes to get what he wants.”

“I know. I know! But it hurts to think of saying no to a chance to be with Theo. How could I live with myself?”

“Then don’t say no.”

“Go back to Clovis?” I gaped at him. It was the last thing I would ever expect to hear from Terix.

“Not right now. Later, after you’ve learned all you can from Maerlin about the Phanne and about your mother, you can go back if you still want to. You don’t have to say no, Nimia. You can say ‘not yet.’ ”

“You think I’ll change my mind about returning.”

“Whether you do or don’t, Theo will be better off with a mother who is more than the puppet of his father. What would Basina tell you to do?”

Clovis’s terrifying, murdering mother was not a good example of maternal perfection, yet I did admire her strength. And her harsh honesty, even about her beloved son. I set my jaw. “She’d tell me to hone my powers so I could return and take my child, whether Clovis liked it or not.”

“Well?”

I tried to think logically about it, tried to step back from the raw wound that had opened up when Fenwig told me of the offer to be with my son. Then I thought of Maerlin’s secretive smile and his reaction when he’d heard my mother’s name. There was so much yet to learn. “Maybe I can live with ‘not yet.’ ” At least it felt better than jumping to Clovis’s bait, hook be damned, and abandoning my quest.

I put my arms around Terix’s waist and leaned my forehead against his chest. “When did you get so wise?”

He stroked my hair, and I felt his lips on the top of my head. “I know you, is all. As I always have, better than anyone.”

In this moment, I wished I could feel sexual attraction to him—his body was strong and pleasing, and gods knew I had enjoyed the one time we’d lain together—but wishing would not make it so. That close familiarity we shared was too close. He was such a part of me that I could feel no tension of male-to-female, of the unknown, of excitement over what he might be feeling about me or I for him. I craved strength in a man, beyond the physical. Confidence. Power. Command. That was what set my blood to pumping. I wasn’t willing to let go of the thrill of being taken by such a man in exchange for the sweet, unchallenging comfort of Terix’s arms.

And I regretted it.

We drew apart and continued our wandering of the town, poking our noses into ruins. We came to the baths, which still had some walls, and went inside to explore.

One pool held water, fed by the rain and the runoff from the portions of roof that sloped toward the pool. We came to the edge and looked down and saw a long, pale shape swimming through the murky green depths. I clutched Terix’s arm, a chill running up my back.

“What in Hades’s name is that?”

“Gods know,” Terix said, gaping with me.

The shape bent in upon itself, then uncoiled and shot to the surface, breaking through the scattered dead leaves floating there and sending a wave sloshing against the pool’s side. I screeched, and Terix jumped back.

A hideous, contorted face with a gaping mouth rushed toward us, and even as the scream was forming in my throat, I realized it was just a stone carving, held by a man whose hands were wrapped around the edges of the face.

He saw us, smiled, and kicked to the side of the pool, where he set the limestone face on the flagstones at our feet. “I’m not sure that was worth retrieving,” he said in Latin.

I looked from the algae-stained stone face to the clean-shaven, strong-jawed one still smiling at us, his warm sky-blue eyes set off by black lashes. His arms were folded casually on the lip of the pool, his chin resting on the backs of his hands. I suddenly felt self-conscious, aware of the stains on my gown and that a good third of my hair had slipped out of its braid. “I suppose it depends what you want it for,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not for me. It’s a gift.”

“Then I think you’d be best served by putting it back where it came from.”

He laughed and pulled himself out of the pool. Terix and I stepped back as his broad shoulders and sculpted torso rose from the water. He had a dusting of black hair on his chest, tapering to a single line down his belly to . . . He turned at the last moment to sit, his sleek back to us. The old scars of battle wounds formed white and pink slashes across his body. I reached down to pluck a leaf from his skin, acting before I could think.

He looked at me over his shoulder, eyebrow cocked. I held up the leaf in mute explanation, embarrassed that I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. Terix muttered something resignedly under his breath.

“If you’ll excuse me,” the man said, nodding toward a pile of clothes at the other end of the pool.

I crossed my arms over my waist and turned away to give him some privacy, feeling graceless and tongue-tied. I heard the small splash of his feet coming out of the water and wondered what his buttocks looked like. Tight, with muscled indentations on the sides, I was sure.

“All is safe for maiden eyes,” he said.

I turned back around. It was on the tip of my tongue to say my eyes were far from maiden, but I was afraid he’d take it wrong. Or take it right, for that matter. Which wasn’t particularly a fear, but I didn’t want him to think me eager for his bed.

Even if I was.

No, no, no! I was not going to let a handsome man distract me from my goals.

His crucial bits were covered now, alas, although I did get one more glimpse of his chest as he pulled a dark blue and green tunic over his head. His clothes were an unusual mix of Brittonic and Roman; the tunic was Roman in cut, but the cloth was a sedate plaid. He wore long breeches, but instead of leather strips around his calves, he pulled on finely made Roman-style leather shoes that laced up the front. The belt he strapped around his trim hips was also Roman. Odd though the clothes appeared at first glance, they suited him well, emphasizing the V shape of hips and shoulders, the dark colors contrasting dramatically with his light skin.

I caught Terix glaring at me, hands on his hips, his brows lowered and his lips flat. He knew what was going through my head.

I held up my hands, to say I wasn’t going to touch the man.

Terix’s squint said he didn’t believe me.

I pursed my mouth into a no, but then my gaze slid back to the man, unable to resist.

Terix rolled his eyes.

Fully clothed now, the man returned to us. He was taller than Terix and moved with a graceful confidence that had nothing to prove. “You’re Nimia and Terix, yes? Maerlin pointed you out to me. I’m his brother, Arthur.”

“The bear,” I said on an outward breath. Excitement mixed with worry and dismay. Excitement to see who the bear was, worry for what lay in his future, dismay because he was here to seek Wynnetha as a wife. That meant I had to keep my hands off.

Which I would have done anyway, of course.

Liar.

He grinned. “Better the bear than the badger, or the hedgehog, I’ve always thought, even though bears have a powerful stench.” He sniffed his arm and made a face. “Swimming in that swamp didn’t help.”

I giggled and heard Terix chuckle. I could feel him relaxing. He, too, liked this man. It was impossible not to.

I nudged the carved stone face with my toe. “Is it a gift for Wynnetha?”

“I don’t think rubble from her own village would make a welcome gift, do you? It’s for my great-uncle, Ambrosius Aurelianus. He collects what he can of Roman works.” He squatted down and wiped some of the green from the crevices of the ugly face. “Though I think some things are better left in the past. Still, I suffered through that muck to get it,” he said, tilting his head at the pool, “so old Ambrosius is going to have to pretend to like it.” He hoisted the stone onto his shoulder and stood. He tilted his head toward the entrance, and we went out together and started walking back to the great hall.

“How did Fenwig come to be in your and Maerlin’s company?” I asked. “And how did they know I would be here?”

“He’s a good soldier, is Fenwig. I quite like the man.”

I nodded. Though Fenwig kept to himself, I had no bad words to say about him. It was not his fault that I had nearly died while under his protection.

“How did he come to you?” Terix pressed.

“About three weeks ago, he appeared in Corinium, asking for Maerlin. He then told us that a woman of Maerlin’s mother’s tribe, the Phanne, would likely soon appear and asked if he could wait for her with us. He said that she—that, of course, would be you, my lady Nimia—was the concubine of the king of the Franks and needed both protection and an escort home.” Arthur raised a brow at me. “Did he speak the truth?”

“Former concubine,” I muttered, disliking the word. I had wanted to be so much more. I was reluctantly impressed that Clovis had known me well enough to guess where I would go; the mistake would be to confuse his sharp perception with caring and affection.

“Fenwig said you were the mother of Clovis’s heir.”

I bit my lip and nodded.

“You hardly look old enough to be a mother.” His eyes skimmed down me.

I stiffened, aware of the petite size of my breasts and the slenderness verging on boyishness of my figure. “You still haven’t explained how Maerlin knew I would be here, in Calleva, with Mordred. Did Maerlin sense it somehow? Did he have a vision?”

Arthur laughed. “You’ve been listening to the rumors about him, haven’t you? No, we knew you’d be here because Mordred sent a messenger to Corinium saying that ‘Nimia of the Phanne’ was looking for Maerlin and Mordred would take her to meet him in Calleva.”

Terix and I stopped walking. Terix said, “Why would he do that, and why not tell us of it?”

Arthur stopped and turned toward us. “That is the question, isn’t it?” There was still a lightness to his tone and expression, but in his eyes were deeper thoughts and deeper questions. Even, I sensed, a certain level of suspicion about us.

No wonder, given the unexpected arrival of Fenwig, and now we had Mordred sending mysterious messages. “We are at as much of a loss as you,” I said.

“How came you to be in Mordred’s company?”

Terix explained, telling the story much better than I ever could. He even told Arthur about Daella and Marri’s plan to give her a chance at a better life. “So,” Terix finished up, “we are as anxious as you about Mordred’s plans. More so, perhaps, since we are not in our homeland, have no one but ourselves to rely on, and have taken on responsibility for a fourteen-year-old girl.”

Arthur did not offer his protection. Not that I’d expected him to, but it would have been a relief if he had. Instead, I saw consideration in his eyes as he looked from Terix to me. He was not quite the easygoing man he appeared on the surface. “I’ll speak with Maerlin. He can piece together the truth where simpler minds like mine often fail.”

I doubted that Arthur’s was a simple mind.

I nodded anyway, and we resumed walking. “How go the marriage negotiations?” I asked.

“Well enough, so far. That is Maerlin’s realm more than mine, but Horsa seems to be looking favorably upon us, so far.”

“Horsa? What of Wynnetha’s opinion?”

“She’s a beautiful woman whom any man would be proud to call wife.”

It was said with formal politeness, utterly devoid of passion. “And does she find you equally . . . agreeable?”

He shrugged. “Her preferences have little to do with this.” Unspoken but heard was the addition, and neither do mine.

“Of course not,” I muttered. That was the way of political marriages, as well I knew. Neither bride nor groom would find happiness with their chosen mate, and if their hearts had been spoken for elsewhere, then those other lovers, too, would suffer. And all this for alliances that lasted only until greed or anger overrode the supposedly unbreakable bond of families joined by marriage. I resolved to find out which of her suitors Wynnetha wanted. If there was anything I could do to help her get the one she preferred, I would do it. I saw too much of my own situation with Clovis to let her suffer heartbreak without trying to help.

Even though that surely meant I could never lay my greedy hands on the man who strolled beside me. Having met both Arthur and Mordred, it was beyond my powers to imagine Wynnetha could ever prefer the latter.