The land is there. You have my redeemed pledge. I wash my hands of it."

"You give them nothing. They are not farmers or town folk. They must move. Like the salmon or reindeer, it is their way of life."

"Priest." Marchudd folded his arms like a barrier and leaned back behind it. "I have said and you have received, and other business calls me. Your grace, take this so-called man of God and school him in obedience."

Padrec moved toward him. Prudently, Meganius in- tercepted, but the priest shot it at Marchudd anyway.

"They cannot live there."

"Well, if you will not take the lands freely and gener- ously offered, then let the Faerie seek it where they will."

Marchudd spread his hands. "In Gaul, for all I care." He laughed suddenly, pointing at Malgon. "Or at the end of the rainbow, for a start. Isn't that where the pot of gold is

282 supposed to be, in Faerie-land? You are remanded to your Church. Guards, escort them out."

"Come, Sochet." Meganius put his hand to Padrec's shoulder, only to have it shaken off.

"Leave me alone."

But the bishop persisted in a soft voice. "Sochet, there is the reality of God and that of secular princes. There is nothing without a price. There will be missions to the Corilani and a biscopric. Whatever else, you did do God's work."

"And other horrors. Leave me alone."

Padrec stalked away with Malgon between the guards.

"Your grace," Marchudd invited carefully, "will you have some wine before you turn to business? We must consider Auxerre in this new biscopric."

"Thank you, no." With no more excuse than flat refusal, Meganius nodded curtly to the prince and fol- lowed after Padrec. Alone with Ambrosius, Marchudd took a wine decanter and two cups to the edge of the dais and sat down. "Some wine?"

"1 don't believe I will, sir."

"1 was being polite," Marchudd said with an edged weariness. "Sit. Here. Drink."

Ambrosius settled himself dutifully and took a cup, "So much for Patricius."

"Uncomfortable little man. Picts would have been far less trouble; pay them and forget it. Well, it's done- Except for the matter of Gallius' widow."

"My lord?"

"She's been talking to some of your men about the manner of her husband's demise."

Ambrosius considered it over his cup. "I was your legate in the Field. It's my word against theirs."

"Of course, but I like to be tidy. I want this ended, Ambrosius. Was Gailius Urbi a good soldier?"

"He might have been, in time."

"But valiant."

Ambrosius sipped his wine without reHsh. "Now and then, like most men."

Marchudd's observation was distinctly curdled. "It never changes. You always have to buy people, and you never get the best for your money. Give the woman a gold laurel of valor."

283.

"What? For merely following orders, and tardily at that?"

"Tribune, subside. Call it a matter of judgment. He was not tardy. You understand? He was an exemplary soldier who ied the first foot into Churnet Head at great personal risk. For this, the posthumous gold laurel and a full pension to his grieving widow."

"Hell, why not a eulogy?"

Marchudd didn't even smile. "Why not?"

Ambrosius understood the prince's drift. Being quite self-possessed, he accepted it. Many things didn't matter now. "Why not? I'll write a commendation."

"In glowing detail," Marchudd suggested. "Something she can show the children and visitors."

Ambrosius reserved his private thoughts for the bot- tom of his cup. "Jesus."

"Precisely," said the quite capable prince of the Parisii, Briganles, and now a considerable number of the Corilani.

"You know what Rome has said to Vortigern? 'Fight your own battles, boyo, we can't help.' There's only one real power that stretches now from the Wall to Jerusalem, Ambrosius. The Church. And I need trouble from them no more than I need it from the plebes. Meganius wants no part of the new diocese. You saw how he forced me just now."

"He's your man, isn't he?"

"Meganius is Meganius' man. We travel the same road enough of the time, but not today. He has an attachment to that painful little man. So does Germanus."

Marchudd refilled his cup. "And Germanus thinks his favorite disciple is still in the Augustinian fold. I need his cooperation toward a bishop I and the Corilani can live with, and the price of that was the gentle treatment of Father Patricius. I think we have managed it all rather well." When he elicited no response from Ambrosius, he put his arm around the young man's shoulder. "Come, you heard Meganius. It is all God's work, isn't it?"

As mentioned, Ambrosius Aurelianus was a private man even in his youth, He wrote his own Final word on the matter more than forty years later, in the last months of his reign as emperor of Britain.

284 Parks Godwin

The lessons were dear. I began with a large idea and larger ideal. If what I ended with was leaner, it was at least a workable truth. The value of disciplined cavalry has been proved by Artorius Pendragon. This last year at Eburacum, his use of cavalry in attack thoroughly shattered die Saxons under Cerdic. I passed to him a knowl- edge of the strengths and limitations of alae as I learned them against the Coritani. Although Marchudd was never convinced of its value and caviled at the waste of horses and equipment, my standard for both was clearer for this exper- iment, and of course the Faerie were expendable from the first.

VI.

The Road of the Gods

Summer was waning and the evening cool, but Meganius lingered in his atrium to

^ lingered in his atrium to see the western sky go from blue to smoky indigo, a hint of orange deepening to blood red as the sun sank to a narrow border of light on the horizon. His tarrying was not entirety aesthetic, although the meditation sometimes took the edge from his concern for Father Patricius.

A week since the shameful hearing, and his priest had , disappeared. Worried, still Meganius could not send out " the praetect's men in search of an ordained priest as if he '-' were some errant husband. Discreet inquiries among the

* city's decurions and minor clergy were fruitless. Patricius had not been seen in any place one might expect to find him, not even in the shops, certainly in no chapel. The taverns, of course, were beneath consideration. Meganius threw it over. If the man was gone north again, he might

, have said good-bye, but what else could one do?

The light in the west was a mere thread. Meganius felt the chiTl. He rose from his bench and turned toward the portico. The tentative knock at the gate made his

- heart thud. He hoped.