The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [98]
"Not King's men?" He paused, open-mouthed, to stare, then remembered himself and stooped again over the saddlebag he was packing. "How do you know? Did you know them?"
"No. But Uther doesn't use troops to spy; how could he hope to keep them secret? These are troops, sent -- as Crinas told me -- to ask questions in the market and the taverns in Maridunum, and then to search this place while we were out of it, and find, if not the prince, some clue to him. They weren't even spies. What spy would dare go back to his master and say he had been discovered, but had been given a letter to carry for his victim, with the information in it? I tried to make it easy for them, and it's possible they think they deceived me, but in any case they had to take the chance and get their hands on the letter. I give Crinas best, he's a quick thinker. When I caught them at it, he did well enough. It wasn't his fault that the other man gave him away."
"What do you mean, lord?"
"The small man with the pale face. I heard him say something in his own tongue. I doubt if Crinas heard it. He was speaking in Cornish. So later I spoke of the Isle of Glass, and described the bay, and he knew of that, too, and the Cas-siterides. They are islands off the Cornish coast, ones in which even Crinas must believe."
"Cornish?" asked the boy, trying the word.
"From Cornwall, in the south-west."
"Queen's men, then?" Stilicho had not spent all his time in London in the stillroom with Morgause. He listened almost as much as he talked, and had regaled me continually since we left Uther's court with what "they" were saying about every subject under the sun. "They said she was still in the south-west after the last lying-in."
"That's true. And she might use Cornishmen for secret work, but I think not. Neither the King nor the Queen keep Cornish troops close to them these days."
"There are Cornish troops at Caerleon. I heard it in the town."
I looked up sharply. "Are there indeed? Under whom?"
"I didn't hear. I could find out." He was looking at me eagerly, but I shook my head.
"No. The less you know about it, the better. Leave it now. They'll stop watching me for the length of time it takes to read that letter, and by the time they find someone who can read Greek -- "
"Greek?"
"The King has a Greek secretary," I said blandly. "I didn't see why I should make it easy. And I doubt if they know I suspect them. They'll be in no hurry. Besides, I put something in the letter to make them think I would stay here until spring."
"Will they come back?"
"I doubt it. What are they to do? Come back to tell me they read the King's letter, and are not King's men? As long as they think I'm here, they will be afraid to do that, in case I report to the King. They dare not kill me, and they dare not let me find out who they are. They will keep away. As it is, the next time you go into Maridunum, see that a message is sent to the garrison commander to watch for these Cornishmen, and tell him to report what has happened to the King. We may as well use his spies to guard us from the others...There, I've finished. You've packed the food? Fill the flask now, will you? Meanwhile, if anyone does come up here, what is your story?"
"That you have been out daily on the hillside, and that you went last towards Abba's valley, and that I think you must be staying to help him with the sheep." He looked up doubtfully. "They won't believe me."
"Why not? You're an accomplished liar. Be careful, you're spilling that wine."
"A prince help with the sheep? It's not very likely."
"I've done stranger things," I said. "They'll believe you. In any case, it's true. Where do you think I got the bloodstains on my old cloak today?"
"Killing someone, I thought."
He was quite serious. I laughed. "That doesn't happen often, and usually by mistake."
He shook his head in unbelief, and stoppered the wine. "If those men had drawn swords on you, my lord, would you have stopped them with magic?"
"I hardly needed magic, with your dagger so ready. I haven't thanked