Page 4 of Warrior Queen

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Cerdic didn’t beat about the bush. He seized the sword hilt with both hands, set his feet on either side of it, and heaved. The tendons in his neck bulged, his face reddened, but the sword didn’t budge. Releasing it, he straightened up, then stepped down off the rock and approached Caninus and Arthur. Caninus’s fingers tightened further on Arthur’s arm, the knuckles whitening.

Cerdic dropped to one knee. His words rang out around the forum. “I, Cerdic of Caer Guinntguic, acknowledge Arthur Pendragon, King of Dumnonia, as High King of all Britain.” He bent his head in supplication.

Caninus’s fingers relaxed. Arthur stared down at the man who’d killed his boyhood hero, his face working for a moment as he clearly struggled to control himself.

Common sense won. He stretched out a hand and touched Cerdic’s bent head. “I accept your homage.”

With a rustle of clothing, almost every king did the same, even Caw. Like barley flattened by the wind, their assembled retinues followed suit. All around the forum, the townspeople sank to the ground as one. They had a new High King.

Merlin nodded to me and Cei, and we three also knelt.

Finally, Caninus released Arthur’s arm and took the knee as well.

The only ones left standing were Cadwy and Morgana, his face dark as a storm cloud, hers cold and calculating, her hand rubbing her belly.

After a long, pregnant moment, Caninus got to his feet. “All hail the new High King.” His voice rang out as he surveyed the sea of bent heads. “All hail High King Arthur Pendragon.”

A huge cheer rose from the throats of all the watching people.

My heart, that had been hammering with nerves, swelled with pride until it felt as though it might burst.

Chapter Two

Two days laterwe took the road south toward Arthur’s stronghold of Din Cadan, capital of Dumnonia. The weather continued to favor us. Under a blue sky patched with only occasional white clouds, we rode through a countryside where farmers and their families labored in the sunshine. In the fields, the blades of sickles flashed, rhythmically cutting down an abundant hay crop. Behind them, the drying grass lay in fat swathes, and little barefoot boys and girls, waving long sticks and helped by scrawny farm dogs, chased off cattle and sheep looking for an easy meal. The scent of the newly made hay sweetened the air around every farm we passed.

Protected by stone walls and grassy banks, the wheat, oats and barley were turning slowly from green to gold as a blush of gilding crept across the fields. In the scattered stands of trees along the river valleys, and the denser tracts of forest, the pale green of spring buds had changed to the richer, darker hues of midsummer.

We followed the old Roman road that would be known as the Fosse Way in my day. Most likely it had been a road long before the Romans came, but they’d turned it into an engineered marvel, with layers of stones and finally a thick covering of gravel that made our journey far easier than riding across country would have been. Although, of course, we rode our horses on the rough ground beside it most of the time, to spare their unshod hooves.

Fifth-century Britain was nothing like the one I’d grown up in, fifteen hundred years into the future. It abounded with as yet undrained wet and boggy areas, especially in valley bottoms. The river crossings mostly had no bridges worth mentioning and were often only fordable in summer. The wild stretches of primordial forest in between the towns, fortresses and farms might harbor wolves, or worse, brigands. Roads were by far the best and safest way of traveling, and the Romans had kindly left a good supply.

Arthur’s army– hiscombrogi– consisting not only of our men of Dumnonia, but also warriors supplied by almost every kingdom in Britain, followed behind us in a long snake of armored riders that no brigands would dare attack, the sunlight glimmering on the scales of their well-oiled mail shirts. Before becoming High King, Arthur had been Dux Britanniarum, and had put this highly mobile cavalry at the beck and call of any kingdom that needed his help.

“Now you’re High King, will you still carry out all the same duties as when you were Dux?” I asked, as we rode side-by-side at the head of the column.

He’d been staring up the road ahead in silence for a while, his distant expression telling me he was deep in thought. Now, he turned his head, his eyes taking a moment to focus. “Will I what?”

His dark brows knit together in a frown, giving him a saturnine look not altogether unlike Cadwy. “Oh…yes. My duties as High King are not far different from those I had as Dux.” He rubbed his stubbly chin and conjured me a smile. “It’s more a title than an obligation. But at the Council, what I say will go. The other kings are duty bound to listen to me, to take my opinions seriously. And if I call on them, to follow me into battle against our enemies.”

I frowned. “Why so much rivalry for the position, then? It sounds almost an empty title. I don’t quite understand.”

His smile widened, lightening his face and giving him back the boyish charm he sometimes showed me, and I felt the familiar leap of almost unbearable love in my heart for this man. “You can trace that back to the days of the legions. And you’ve Merlin to thank that I know the history. He was– and is– an excellent teacher. Not just reading and writing, but history and rhetoric, something of politics. As much about the world as he knows.”

“And magic?” The only way I could have got to this world was by magic– Merlin’s magic. He’d left a gold ring in the tower on the top of Glastonbury Tor for me to find. When I’d picked it up, it had whisked me back fifteen hundred years in an instant, and I’d somehow been able to understand the languages spoken here like a native. I glanced down at the ring on my finger, glimmering in the sunshine. I’d once taken it off, hoping doing so would whisk me back home again. It hadn’t, and now I had no inclination to go. A lot served to anchor me here in the fifth century.

Arthur laughed. “Nothing of magic. He savedthatfor Morgana.”

I didn’t want to think about that cold-hearted, scheming bitch, still less talk about her. I steered the conversation away. “What does the need for the post of High King have to do with the Romans?”

“Theirs was a hierarchical society.” He chuckled. “That’s a direct quote from Merlin, by the way, not my words. Layers of greater and greater responsibility stopped with the Governor of a province. Here in Britain, before they left, many of the positions of command were taken by locally born and bred men.”

“Just men?” I said, raising an ironic eyebrow at him.

He grinned. “Yes. Just men. I know you think women should be allowed to hold positions of power. It was as impossible then as it is now.”

I grinned back. “I’m teasing you.” No need to remind him of all the women in history who’d played important political roles. He knew them well enough. Or at least the ones I’d deemed relevant– like Boudicca, Cleopatra, and Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great.

“I know.”