The old tribal forts, no more than circular earth- works, were to be modernized and rendered impregnable.

Circumvaltations were to be dug around them. Committed to this work, the engineers would be vulnerable to attack.

The Prydn would defend them, mounted or afoot.

There was only one comment on that, from Bredei.

"Who takes this great hill so diggers can dig?"

"We do." Padrec added quickly that they would be followed in by foot troops after the mounted assault to deliver a second blow on top of the first. The Prydn stared at the picture-war on the ground. They were mountain men and knew what mountain ponies could do. They would be the first blow, moving uphill with no protection but speed. Most of them did not think in words but saw the problem in terms of success, no matter how difficult.

Their word was given to Padrec and Christ. They didn't know or care that they were an experiment, but they proved its exact worth with no uncertainty. As Ambrosius later acknowledged in a classic of understatement, all new ideas need refinement.

Padrec and Malgon sat their mounts at the cop of the last hill before River Wye. They could expect to engage Coritani at any time now. Padrec hadn't expected to find the bridge intact, but there it was. Mere ants in the dis- tance, two scouts from Hawk fhain nosed the approaches to the bridge, crossed it, and dismounted on the other side.

Padrec's stomach felt queasy leading men in an enter- prise so foreign to him. Not much consolation that officers like Gallius were no more seasoned beyond the drill ground.

He would lose lives from now on and feel each toss like a blow.

Malgon munched currants from a cloth bag, offered some to Padrec, and bent forward over his pony's mane to feed him a treat. Below them on the road leading to the bridge, the long worm of Gallius's maniple inched toward their hill.

227.

"They're coming back, Mal."

Their scouts wheeled the big army horses and can- tered across the bridge, stretching out into a gallop when they cleared it, making straight for the hill. Good that the bridge was whole. Gallius was bad-tempered enough and never subtle in his contempt for Faerie, who got the oldest and leakiest tents in any camp they pitched. For rations, what was left over from the other mess units. Padrec wondered why Ambrosius served them this way after such hearty promises.

The scouts worked their long-legged mounts up the slope, riding like small monkeys high on the animals'

necks, clattering up to Padrec and pointing back at the bridge. Coritani had been there not long ago. Many tracks, both sides of the river.

"How long?"

In their own terms, the scouts knew exactly how long, but it was still hard to think in the Roman way of time.

They pointed to the sun and then to the east: about three hours, a large mounted force had come to the river. Some had turned south again, others crossed to this side and veered northwest.

"Braw work, brothers." Padrec brought the black's head around. "Now we go home."

Until the bridge was secured. First Centurion Gallius Urbi's mission was specifically scouting. The annoying priest had brought him good news for a change. A number of points along Wye were fordable, but if they were attacked in the middle of the stream, they were helpless.

"Intact, you say?"

"Yes, but they've been there today in some force. I'd say we were expected."

Gallius glared at him. The centurion was one of those florid, tallish men, once in fine condition, who'd gone to fat concentrated all in his stomach, an incongruous paunch.

His bullhide breastplate had to be specially shaped. It helped him to be a little more imposing.

"Anything else?"

One of the scouts mumbled rapidly to Padrec, who translated. "There's probably a goodish force of them this side of Wye now."

"Can't these ignorant mules learn enough Brit to speak for themselves?"

228 "They are learning. It is much easier than their own language. Orders?"

"They'll be coming. That's all for now. And take your . . . flock with you."

It was the midday halt. Gallius received the report sitting in the shade of a tree while his meal cooled, barely tasted. He had more problems on his mind than the priest and his monkey-squadrons. Into his fortieth year, Gallius suffered from chronic indigestion. The potbelly was a cathedral for suffering that dampened good humor even when he felt disposed to it.

He prospered as a seller of foodstuffs, building the business from a failed stall owned by his father-in-law to a white-plastered edifice of respectable proportions in Eburacum's marketplace, with a mosaic sign of his trade set into the paving before the door. Would that satisfy his miserable wife? Did she appreciate the comfortable life he gave her by being shrewd at trade, an acumen bordering on banditry and, on occasion, crossing over? No, it did not. The woman and he tolerated each other like oxen mired together in a peal bog, merely used to each other's proximity. He didn't like her much or their three screech- ing children, who were more energetic in filching from the store than working in it. Both he and his wife were relieved at the mobilization. Gallius wasn't, at all sure of himself as a commander, but at least it got him away from her for a white, not to mention he'd go back with a tidy profit, but let that pass. Gallius wanted the leading mani- ple. There was prestige in it beside the money. He wanted to return to Eburacum with honor, something that, if meaningless to his dull wife, was at least a part oT him she couldn't get at. // was at the River Wye, nothing in front of me but the enemy and a bunch of scouts I couldn't trust. Ambrosius was miles behind. The decision was mine, and I made it.

The decision was his. He made it. Gallius called for a tablet and a messenger.

Wye bridge intact. Will cross and secure/G. Urbi

The message reached Ambrosius at almost the mo- ment the leading maniple halted at the bridge, the worst news of a bad day. Ambrosius sent the messenger flying 229.

back: on no circumstances would Gallius cross until the main body came up and the bridge was thoroughly in- spected. The tribune forked his own horse from a dead run and galloped back along sweating ranks to hurry his officers.

Not half an hour before, a horde of naked, screaming Coritani horsemen had dashed down on them to huri spears and arrows, sweeping away unscathed. The casual- ties were light, mostly inexperienced troops who panicked when there was no need. The shaken men had to be pushed on. Gallius was green as the rest. He could panic and be cut off very easily. Ambrosius tore off his gold- plumed helmet and plowed agitated fingers through his hair.

"He had no orders to cross. The bloody fool was told to scout. The alae are forward. In other words, no one up there who knows what he's doing." He settled his helmet with a fatalistic tug. "Hurry them on. Run them."

A small square stone set at one end of the bridge claimed it as the work of VI Legio only five years since.

The clayed wicker of its surface was underlain by sturdy logs.

On the downstream side, flying struts reinforced the struc- ture against the current. Upstream, triangular breakwaters of three timbers each pushed the flow to either side of the supporting posts, minimizing stress overall. Padrec admired it as he waited with Malgon for Galiius' order to cross.

The first centurion walked his horse away from the ranks of fool to rein up at Padrec's knee, shielding his eyes against the sun's glare. There was very little level ground on the other side; the hill slope began almost immediately.

"We'll set up the bridgehead right away," he ordered, not referring to Padrec by name, which he did as seldom as possible. "You and your Faerie get across, scouts first.

Establish a perimeter with one base there on the bank."

He described a semicircle. "To about there upstream. Cen- ter point out there where the hill begins. When you're in place, the foot will cross."

Absorbed in his first tactical problem, Padrec answered casually, "Yah."

"The word is sir," said Gallius belligerently. "And didn't anyone teach you to salute?"

230 "No. Sir. Nor that nor Roman gear nor decent quar- ters or mess. Perhaps when there's time we can address those questions."

Gallius' florid complexion deepened a shade. "Get across that bridge."

"Delighted, sir." Padrec swooped a broad approxima- tion of a salute and trotted away to his squadrons. "Scouts out- Squadrons by twos."

In the trees overlooking the slope, Rhiwallon, prince of the Coritani. lay behind a fallen log, digging a silver spoon into a bowl of cold porridge and eating with relish as he watched the horsemen flow onto the bridge. So it was true: Marchudd was using Faerie. Good horsemen armed with bows. Not "squared off" like the rest of the filthy legion, they had no more sense of straight lines than his own men. The scouts crossed, then the first squadron straggled after. They began to take up a ragged arc about the bridge.

And the dear bridge could go at any time, with every supporting timber sawn half through just below the water- line. Dyw, wouldn't that be a lovely sight, the bridge and every man on it sinking like the sun in the west, like Rome itself.

"But not yet," Rhiwallon prayed. "A few more fish in the net, and then . . ."

Rhiwallon's people had been only nominally subju- gated by Rome. Little of the culture rubbed off. Not a barbarian, he still believed in government by force, tribute in cattle. What he took was absorbed by his chieftains, but Marchudd Rhvs was not going to reclaim cattle or terri- tory allotted him by Roman decree when the ancient rights were clearly Coritani.

The prince offered his porridge to the small boy beside him, ruffling the child's long red hair in good humor to ease his tension. "Hungry, Cadwal?"

"No, Father."

"Mind, when I say move back, there'll be no argu- ment from you. Out of trouble- There will be time later for you to be brave. Years."