Chapter 1

 

Cambria/Cymru, 506 CE

 

“Again.”

Marc circled the two boys as they practiced the sequence once more. They were well-matched—a good thing, since one was his grandson and a great source of pride.

Not that he showed favoritism.

Never, Wolf would say with a knowing wink, because they each held one of their grandsons close to their heart. Wolf’s soft spot was for Arthur, and it wasn’t difficult to see why: at ten years old, he was as redheaded and brash as his mother, Britte, had been at that age.

Cai was Marc’s and had been from the moment he’d said his first word. That word had been sword, and Marc denied prompting him. Was it his fault the boy had been fascinated by his grandfather’s weapon of choice? That he’d wanted to see and touch it at every opportunity, and had looked at Marc each time, waiting to hear the word for it? Or that one evening, as Marc hung up his scabbard in the hall of the old stronghold in preparation for supper, Cai had cried, “Swor’!”

Britte had glared at Marc for it.

When Arthur’s first word was Cai, his parents had rolled their eyes at each other. They didn’t get their due until their third child, their daughter Mora, said Mama and Papa in quick succession. Marc suspected strongly that Wolf had had a hand in making that happen.

A cry from the sparring boys drew him from his reverie. Cai sat on his rump on the ground, his short sword a few feet away.

“Up,” Marc said. “Fetch your blade and tell me how he bested you.”

Cai frowned and retrieved his blade. When he stood before Marc, he muttered, “Upswing.”

Marc looked to the other boy for confirmation. As ever, Bedwyr only nodded solemnly.

“You’re the same age, but you have different advantages. Cai…” Marc gestured but needn’t have; Cai answered eagerly.

“I’m taller.”

He was, by several inches. He would surpass Marc in a year or two, just as his father, Matthias, had. Marc turned to Bedwyr.

“Stronger,” the boy said softly.

“And your father’s a great warrior,” said Cai. “I mean, like Grandfather Marcus,” he added with a sheepish glance.

Marc accepted the compliment with a wry smile. “Then you both have promise. Cai, if Bedwyr doesn’t best you through sheer power, he will—he should—try to throw off your balance. A shorter opponent has that advantage, and greater physical strength only enhances it. Bedwyr, you must always be ready to protect your head and shoulders. You must also be aware of a taller opponent’s reach; it will likely be longer than yours, yes?”

“Yes, Master Marcus.”

“Take up your positions. Once more.”

He stood back, watching the boys clash, and tried to see them objectively. Cai would be strong, eventually. At fourteen, he was tall and gangly, a bit of an oddity among their Cambrian neighbors, who tended to be shorter and stouter.

As did Bedwyr, who took after his father, in body at least. He was a stocky lad, though growing as quickly as Cai. In Bedwyr’s case that meant he was gaining muscle every day. He could already best older boys in the impromptu wrestling matches that sprang up among bored and restless young men.

In demeanor, he was nothing like his father, who was arrogant and boastful, with a high opinion of himself—

“Someday, he might be as good as I am.”

Speak of the demon. “Uthyr.”

The man stood of a height with Marc, yet gave him the sense of standing next to a thunderhead. Thick through chest and shoulders, with hands like bear paws, Uthyr ap Emrys was formidable. And a fierce fighter—Marc had to admit that. Handling weapons and opponents came to the man with an ease Marc hadn’t witnessed since his army days. He got inordinate satisfaction in the way Wolf outsized Uthyr, but he didn’t fool himself into believing Wolf would prevail in a skirmish. A man in his sixties was no match for one in his thirties.

“Young Cai looks winded.”

But Marc enjoyed imagining such a beating nonetheless. “They’ve been at it for some time,” he said.

“You’re certain he’s ready for this patrol?”

It would be the boy’s first, and Marc was looking forward to sharing it with Cai. “Yes.”

“Bedwyr,” Uthyr barked. “Cai.” The boys halted and turned to him. “Clean your gear and finish packing.”

The boys moved off immediately.

Evidently, the lesson was over.

“I’m glad to find you alone, Master Marcus. A word?”

“All right.”

“Walk with me.”

They left the bare, hard-packed earth of the training yard and began to circle the village via its outer ring path.

The village lay in the mountains of northern Cambria. When they first arrived, Marc had considered the huts and workshops of the village clustered in a haphazard arrangement with no discernibly dedicated areas for large crop cultivation and livestock grazing. Small gardens grew here and there, tucked into sunny nooks, and the animals foraged on the hills. The people, it had seemed, depended solely on the surrounding mountains to protect them. No defensive walls, unless he counted the woven fences erected to protect the chickens from predators. As it happened, these people had a sophisticated system of lookout posts and signals, coordinated among a network of similar settlements in the region. But until Marc had gotten the lay of the land—water sources, prevailing weather patterns, trade routes—and had passed a full year of seasons, he hadn’t slept through the night.

Uthyr stopped walking and looked out over the village. They stood on a rise directly above the house Uthyr lived in with his children. The one Marc shared with Wolf and their family was situated on the far side of the village in what he’d come to understand was the second tier of homes, those belonging to latecomers to the settlement. Their friends Philip and Tiro lived in the hut just beyond. Britte’s parents, Drust and Gen, had occupied a third nearby, but both had been lost to a sickness a few years before. Now their son, Drustan, lived there with his wife, a local woman. Marc watched the smoke that rose from the smithy on the edge of the settlement and envied Wolf that he was left to work in peace and not dragged off for mysterious conversations.

“Spring is a busy time,” Uthyr commented.

Trying to contain his impatience, Marc crossed his arms. “Do you have a question about your son?”

Uthyr looked at him, dark eyebrows raised in surprise. “Why would I have a question about my son?”

“About his training? His readiness?”

“No question. He’s my son.”

Right. “Well, you didn’t suggest a walk to admire the flowers. If this is about Cai—”

“It’s not about Cai,” Uthyr said. “I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

Marc grunted in surprise. Uthyr—warrior and effectively the leader of their community—didn’t ask favors. What he wanted he demanded, and then he took. “What favor is that?”

“I want you to stay here during the patrol.”

“Why?”

“To keep watch.”

Marc frowned. “We have sentries for that.”

“I want you to oversee them.”

“You want me to watch the watchers.”

“And, as a special favor to me, keep an eye on my Gwen.”

Marc turned to face the man fully. “Gwenhwyfar is a girl of nine. She has a nursemaid.”

Uthyr looked steadily at Marc, his dark eyes inscrutable.

Except that Marc was able, suddenly, to read them very well.

A sentry of sentries. A nursemaid to nursemaids.

He was being put out to pasture.

“This will be Cai’s first patrol,” he said.

“And I’m certain he’ll make you proud.”

“I had planned to see him through it.”

“He’s ready—you’ve trained him yourself.” Uthyr narrowed his eyes at Marc. “Don’t you trust me to keep him out of harm’s way?”

“Of course.” Depending on the harm.

“It’s a routine thing, you know that. It’s too early in the year. You’re more likely to see trouble in our absence, with lamb poachers.”

In their absence. While he sat at home.

“Tiro wanted to talk to you, but I thought I should ask you myself. Out of respect.”

Marc choked back a bitter laugh. He had sixty-seven years under his belt. Respect would have been to put him at the front of the patrol.

“You’ll see that all stays peaceful here, then.”

This was no request, what Uthyr was doing. It was an order.

Marc’s fingernails bit into his palms. “I’ll ensure it.”

Uthyr nodded curtly. “Very well.”

Marc watched him walk away, feeling every one of the thirty years that separated them. Then he turned and began to climb the hill.

 

* * *

 

“Thought I might find you here.”

Marc looked up from his clenching fists to find Wolf rounding the path. With a quiet grunt, he settled on the grass beside Marc.

They sat near one of the lookout posts. The post itself lay at the very top of the hill with a full view of the surrounding terrain. Just now, in early spring, the tall tufty grass still lay bent by the blanket of snow and ice that had covered it all winter. Outcroppings of rock dotted the steep hills as if dropped by the gods in passing. He and Wolf leaned against one such outcrop. The village lay behind and below the hill, protected from the worst of the wind in winter. From the look of the iron-tinged clouds gathering, they might see a few snowflakes this night. The patrol would set out the next morning, regardless.

“Tiro stopped by the smithy,” Wolf said quietly.

He sat with his forearms on his knees. His sleeves, rolled permanently to the elbow, revealed the knotty muscle indicative of his work. His big, gnarled hands, always somewhat black in their creases, were sootier now than usual, as was the silver-blond hair on his arms. He’d come up the hill without washing up for the day.

“So he warned you but not me.”

“By his telling, he didn’t have a choice.”

“Loyalty counts for nothing?”

Wolf was silent for a long time before turning his pale eyes to Marc. “Loyalty is everything.”

Marc sighed and leaned into Wolf’s shoulder. “How did you do it?”

“It was time, and she was more than capable.”

Three years before, Wolf had handed the main responsibility for the smiths’ workshop to Britte. One day Wolf was the final word, and the next, he began deferring to her. They seemed to have made the transition painlessly.

“But what was it like, that first time someone passed you over to deal instead with Britte?”

Wolf snorted quietly. “Strange. It dismayed her for a while, I think. She would always ask my opinion before giving an answer. She took to it, though.” He shrugged. “I thought it was important that she be established as the smith well before I’m gone. Besides, I still have a role. I still smith. I still train.”

It sounded like a demotion, but Marc stopped himself saying so.

Wolf saw it on his face anyway. “Uthyr’s not telling you to cease your work.”

“Except on patrol.”

“Fewer trekking blisters? Sounds pretty fair to me.”

Marc scowled.

Wolf chuckled and put an arm around him, drawing him close. Marc maintained his frown but settled into the warmth of Wolf’s side.

“Did you worry…? Bah, never mind.”

“Worry?” Wolf asked.

Marc began to wave it away, but frustration pushed him on. “That you’d become the butt of jokes. The old man, no longer useful.”

The arm around him squeezed. “Young men jest about older ones at the first silver hair. I did. You did. Old Matthias? Judoc?”

Marc grunted acknowledgment.

“As for usefulness, your strength now rests in your knowledge.”

“I can still take on most of those men,” Marc snapped.

Wolf nudged his temple with his nose. “I know it, Marcus, and so do they. But what will the youngsters get up to if you’re doing all the work? Every man should have the opportunity to meet his potential.”

“Have I met mine?” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he looked at Wolf nonetheless, needing an answer.

“I don’t know. But I know you work toward it every day, and I’m not the only one who sees that.”

Marc watched the clouds approach the valley. “He was surprisingly tactful.”

“Uthyr?”

Marc nodded.

“He had the same discussion with his own father, remember.”

Old Emrys hadn’t taken it well. The two men had come to blows. “I wonder if he expected the same response from me.”

“I doubt it. Uthyr’s alive because he knows how to size up an opponent. And you are not Emrys.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re not a hotheaded drunkard. You know how to keep a cool tongue.”

“What if I have a cool tongue and a hot head?” He shot Wolf a look of challenge.

His husband grinned at him. “Then I know how you might apply both.” He pulled Marc close. “Now where is this cool tongue?”

Marc gave in and kissed him, grateful for Wolf’s warmth, for the secure yoke of his arms around him. No one but Wolf ever was privy to Marc’s uncertainty, and the man never flinched at it. He was as solid and stable as one of his great anvils, and though he sometimes proved just as immovable, Marc needed the grounding his husband gave him. He set his forehead against Wolf’s.

“Thank you.”

Wolf rubbed a hand up his back. “If you have to stew, this is a nice spot to do so.”

Marc looked out over the seemingly endless expanse of mountains. “Do you miss the ocean?”

Wolf considered that. “Some days, I squint and pretend these ranges are the sea.” His gaze swept over them, thoughtful and somewhat distant. Then he blinked, shuttering any longing his eyes might have betrayed, and gave Marc a reassuring smile. “Then I remember they’re mountains, which I’d never seen before coming here, and I’m glad to have gotten to know them. This spot just here reminds me of our blackberry hill.”

That had been a rise overlooking the Roman garrison near which they’d grown up. There had been a rock outcrop there too, with an overhang that provided just enough shelter for two boys. “All it needs is some berry brambles.”

“And some summer weather,” Wolf said fondly. “Are you chilled?”

He was, he realized.

“Come, let’s head down to our hearth,” Wolf said. “Britte will have supper soon.”

Marc stood, shaking out the stiffness in his joints, and followed Wolf down the path.