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Chapter Eight
Morgana rose at first light and made a surprising and welcome trip to the baths behind the principium, following a covered portico from the rear of the great headquarters building which was her stepbrother's command center. The bath was a somewhat lopsided structure, clearly having been enlarged at some later point, as the right half was built of stone and masonry that did not match the left half.
Aye, Morgana smiled at Bre
Given the amount of railing twenty-first-century priests did against lax morals, Bre
"It's beautiful," Bre
Yes, it is lovely, isn't it? Morgana agreed, tactfully not commenting on Bre
That particular folly, the Britons were still paying for, in blood.
Morgana's worry about the Pictish and Irish troubles, as well as the Saxon ones, led Bre
Morgana, deeply startled, sat up straight, sending the hot water sloshing over her breasts. A most intriguing notion, Bre
Oh, Lord, Bre
Unfortunately, she had already done the damage, putting the notion into Morgana's mind.
I must consider this notion carefully, Bre
There being nothing Bre
It took her several minutes to locate Medraut, whom she expected to find haunting the street outside the royal villa of Strathclyde, which stood at a remove of several yards outside the fortress walls. A veritable horde of boys his age, sons of cataphracti officers and wheelwrights and stable boys, were waiting for first sight of Cutha's arrival, creating a colorful uproar in the village street. Medraut was not, however, anywhere in that street, nor was he inside the villa. A search of the command headquarters back inside the fortress walls also failed to yield him up.
She finally stepped out the back exit of the principium, where the portico led to the baths, and found him at last. Deep in conversation with Ganhumara, who clung to Medraut like a lover, clearly having met him on her way into the bathhouse. Icy rage blasted through Morgana, directed not so much at the lovesick boy as at Ganhumara. The girl used men for her own selfish purposes and discarded them when it suited her, a pattern Morgana had watched with narrow disapproval for several years, even prior to Ganhumara's marriage to Artorius.
"Medraut!"
They broke apart, startled and guilty at being caught. Ganhumara sent a look of utter venom at Morgana while Medraut's face alternately flushed and washed icy pale.
"Aunt?"
"Your place is in the royal villa, nephew, not trysting with"—she ran a wintry glance over Ganhumara—"other men's wives. You disappoint me severely. Go and prepare for Cutha's arrival at once."
He paused, torn between obedience and the desire to say a proper good-bye to Ganhumara. Morgana spat coldly, "Now, Medraut! Or would you prefer to tarry while Saxons butcher the whole of Britain?"
He bolted, visibly stricken. Morgana rounded on Artorius' young wife.
"Your ma