"Quite understandable to a soldier, sir."

"Every officer in my command has signed the regulae of the Sixth Legio, as fully understanding their import.

You remember the forty-second article."

Gallius did not at the moment.

"Then let me refresh you," Ambrosius went on easily.

"It states that any officer knowingly falsifying a report or manifest shall, in garrison, be flogged through his com- mand and dismissed in disgrace with forfeiture of any monies due or pension to become due. Or, in the field, shall be put before archers and shot with arrows. As my archers are all Faerie, the execution detail would be volun- tary and meticulous, not to say inspired. Do I make myself clear?"

Ambrosius watched the other man blink and swallow.

Yes, you understand well enough, merchant. Easy enough to short-route part of a shipment and lose it now to later profit. I'll never find those lost rations, but you will, and no one will ever be able to prove it because there isn't lime.

"Am I accused of theft, Tribune?"

"No. Merely reminding you of regulations." Ambrosius turned a corner of thought and brushed the subject aside.

"Now, then: hungry?"

"Famished, sir."

"Good." Ambrosius lifted the linen cover from the plate and offered it to Gallius, whose nose quickly advised the rest of him away from it.

"I prepared it myself," Ambrosius informed him mildly.

"And sampled it, so I know what I ask. Eat it, Gallius."

251.

,,{ "For God's sake, it's rotten."

S "Just pleasantly ripe." The plate was thrust in Gallius'

^ face. "A direct field order, refusal of which is punishable by death. Eat it, you larcenous son-of-a-bitch. And let it be the last raw horse any man in your maniple has to swallow."

The hill dreamed in the early sunlight.

A morning of such beauty and peace that Mother seemed to open one drowsy eye and then, reassured by tranquillity, turn over for another short nap. Drust fed turnip to his pony and breathed deep of the sweet air, gazing across the valley at the fortified hill. "Malgon, Padrec?

Would be a braw place for a church."

"An abbey," Padrec said. "A whole community for . God."

A little forward of them, the scout from Wolf fhain rested in the saddle, one leg hooked around the pommel while his army black switched lazily at marauding flies with its tail. The scout beckoned Padrec forward: it was time.

"Should be with thee," Malgon fretted.

"Nae fear, be no great Gaffius," Padrec assured him.

"Will not play at bravery before I must, only look."

Before we're committed to it.

Drust and Malgon watched the progress of the two riders, intent, as if concentration alone could protect them.

They were almost to the first ditch, drawing apart as they moved. Then Drust sucked in his breath. "First arrows."

The tiny figures flattened out as they broke into gal- lop, sliding to the protecting shoulder of the horses, dash- ing in opposite directions around the far side of the hill.

For most of a mile, stretched back along Churnet Valley, VI Legio waited in ranks. Under a tree a little distance from the first maniple, Padrec crouched over a bare patch of earth, drawing lines with his knife while Ambrosius absorbed it all.

"The first ditch is wider and deeper than at Wye, with sharpened brushwood alt through." Padrec went on with his knife point to the next line. "Beyond the ditch, there's stimuli planted, not too many, but the hooks can give a

252 horse or man a nasty slash." The blade trailed toward the rampart line. "Past that there's the ditch with the lilies."

"AH the way around?"

"AH the way." Padrec wiped his sweaty forehead on a grimy sleeve. "He's learned from you, Tribune."

"How far from the lilies to the rampart ditch?"

"About forty-five gradii, sir."

Ambrosius looked skeptical- "Are you sure? Those Faerie of yours don'l think in straight lines or numbers."

Padrec gave him a tentative smile with the confession.

"I measured it."

"Damn it, Patricius! I told you not to go nosing about the hill yourself. And what happens? Don't you go pranc- ing up to measure a distance a bare forty yards from the rampart. What if I lose you? You're the only one who can understand your men, let alone order them."

Padrec contemplated the lines in the dirt. Violence in still-life. "After today, it may be academic."

"Don't talk rot, that won't help."

"There's one more thing, sir. The entrance to the fort. I got pretty close while I was at it."

Ambrosius turned despairing eyes to heaven. "Oh, very good."

"Not to worry. I didn't linger; they'd got my range by then, but they were more interested in throwing insults than wasting arrows. This is the manner of it."

Padrec sketched what looked like the open end of a tore with a spur growing out of one end to curve in from of the opening. Ambrosius knew it, immediately.

"The fort was built by Marchudd's grandfather, who apparently read his Caesar. The Venelli used this in Gaul."

He borrowed the knife and drew an alley from the open- ing into the fort. "See anything like this?"

Padrec thought he might have but couldn't be sure, moving fast as he was. The alley was angled at forty-five degrees from the rampart.

"The heavy concentration of archers will be on the right," Ambrosius explained. "The unshielded side for men with swords. Efficient."

"A beautiful place, for all that." Padrec stood up, sheathing his knife. "A braw site for a monastery."

"Hm?"

253.

"A monastery, Tribune. We are to convert them, are we not?"

"Oh. Yes- To be sure."