She did not think that Nyren would have much sympathy for the High King. Ten days ago another messenge had ridden in to be received with a far warmer welcome: a lean, dark man with cleanly shaved face, wearing the breastplate and helmet of the Emperor’s men. The Emperor was long gone, though it was said that emperors still ruled overseas. But the Imperial Eagles had been lost from this land since her father was young,
It seemed that at least one leader still believed in the Emperor. The dark man had come from him to ask Nyren’s men for his war banner, just as the messenger who had spoiled the feast tonight. That one had had a strange, tongue-twisting name, after the style of the Romans. Brigitta said it aloud now, proud that she knew enough of the old speech to say it properly.
“Ambrosius Aurelianus.” She added the equally strange title he held, for he did not claim any kingdom, Dux Britanniae. Lugaid had said it meant Leader of Britain in the other tongue. It was a lot for a man to claim when half the land was filled with Vortigen’s new kin, the Winged Hats from overseas.
Her father had been schooled at Aquae Sulis in the old days when the Emperor Maximus had ruled not only Britain, but half the lands overseas. He remembered how it was when there was peace and one only had to fear the Scotti raids or trouble along the border. So he was one who had inclined to the Roman, one of those Vortigen had hunted out of the cities because the High King feared their influence.
Thus Nyren had returned to the clanship of his fathers, had drawn around him those of kin blood. Perhaps he had only been waiting … Brigitta sipped her ale again. Her father was one who kept his own counsel, even among the kin.
She studied him now where he sat in the high seat of the clan house. Though he wore the dress of the hills it was in more somber colors than that of the men around him. His tunic of fine linen had been worked by her own hands with a pattern copied from an old vase, a wreathing of leaves in threads of gilt and green. His trousers were of dark red, his cloak of the same shade. Only the wide torque of gold about his throat, the two brand-bracelets on his wrists and the seal ring on his forefinger, equaled in splendor the ornaments of his fellows,
Yet he held authority among them, and no man entering the clan house and setting eyes on Nyren need ask who was chief in this place. Brigitta felt the swell of pride as she watched him now, displaying not a flicker of emotion as he listened with surface courtesy to the words of the High King’s messenger, who was leaning forward, plainly ill at ease as he tried to impress this small chief, as the High King might rate Nyren.
But the influence of the lord of this clan reached beyond the walls of his kin house and many among the hills listened closely to any words of his. For his wisdom was great and he was a wily and successful raider and war leader. He might have called himself king, after the fashion of others hereabouts, but he did not choose to do so.
Brigitta stirred again impatiently. She wished that her father might speedily send the High King’s man about his business, that they might feast at their ease with no troubling from the world outside on this night.
She could catch the roar of the wind above the sounds of the court hall below. There was a storm, and a storm on this night was unlucky. It might well carry the hosts of the Dark to wreak their evil will on men.
Now she looked for Lugaid where he sat near her father. He had the old knowledge and he had set up the spirit protections about them this night. Though his unshaved beard was white, his lean body was not stooped, nor did he have the signs of age about him. His white robe was bright in the firelight and one thin hand stroked his beard absentmindedly as he, too, listened to Vortigen’s man.
The Romans had striven to stamp out the old knowledge and while they were in power men such as Lugaid had moved secretly, keeping to their own silences. Now they were honored once more among the kin and their words were listened to. Brigitta doubted that Lugaid would favor the High King, for he and his kind held the ancient mysteries of this land and they liked the Winged Hats no better than they had the Romans.
The ale was strong and made her a little dizzy. She shoved the tankard aside, her eyes now drowsily watching the play of the flames on the great hearth below. In and out they danced, swifter, more gracefully, wilder than any maid could weave her way across the grass on Beltaine Eve. In and out… Now the wind was roaring so loud she could hardly catch more than an echo of the murmur from below.
It was dull anyway. This feast which had promised so much in the way of excitement had been spoiled by the stupid affairs of war. Brigitta yawned widely. She was both bored and disappointed. Distant kin had come riding in yesterday, and she had had a wan hope that among them her father would find a suitor he approved.
She tried now to search out those strangers below, find one face which was to her own liking. But they were only a blur of flesh, reddened by the flame play; the gaudy colors of their plaid and checkered clothing bewildered her. Though there were both young men and seasoned warriors, none had caught her attention when they arrived. Of course she would have gone dutifully to the one her father named.
That he did not name any was her present grievance. They would march to war, all those possible suitors, and many would die, so there would be far fewer to choose among. It was a sad waste. She shook her head, muddled by the ale she had drunk, the half-hypnotizing play of the flames. Suddenly she could stand it no longer.
She rose from her bench and went back into her chamber. The opposite door of her room opened out on the parapet of the wall, their outer defense. It was tightly closed, yet through it the whistle of the wind came even closer. A lamp burned very dimly in the far comer. She shrugged out of her robe and, in her chemise, her cloak still about her, she burrowed into the covers of the bed against the wall. She shivered, not so much from the chill of the stone against which that bed was set as from the menace of the wind and the tales she had heard of what might ride its gusts this night of all nights. But she was also sleepy and her eyes soon closed as the lamp sputtered out.
Below, in the warmth of the fire, Lugaid’s hand was suddenly stilled. His head turned so that he no longer regarded Nyren or the man so eloquent in his plea for the support of the hill chief and Ais people. It was as if the priest of the Old Ones were listening to something else.
His eyes were wide, startled. Yet there was no sentry horn sounding, or if there was, only his ears caught it. His hand moved from his beard to the emblem embroidered on the breast of his robe, the spiral of gold, as if he hardly knew what he did or why his fingers traced the lines of that spiral from outer edge to inner heart. He might have been half-consciously seeking some answer of vast importance.
Now his eyes lifted to the balcony on which the women sat, and he deliberately looked from face to half-seen face until he came to a gap in their number. Sighting that, he gave a small gasp. Then he glanced hastily right and left. He might have feared that his involuntary sound had betrayed him in some manner, but the rest of the company was intent on Nyren and the uninvited guest. Lugaid drew back a little, his eyes closed, a look of deep concentration on his bearded face.
Planet time meant nothing to the installations. The flying things reported, memory banks sorted, classified, worked to feed information to the more sophisticated final judge of the project. A decision was made, twice tested. Then the most delicate and complicated portion of the space-carried equipment was prepared.
Once more one of the fliers spiraled out. It made a wider swing, its distort on full. The farthest reach of that swing carried it across another spur of rock reaching skyward. The beacon which had summoned the installation out of space and time had died. Only now, deep within other rocks beneath, another signal woke to life. Undetected by the flier, it began to pulsate, its wavelength sweeping higher and higher as its energy built and roared to full power.