“All true, all true,” murmured Carausias. He belched, and Regina realized that he was getting as drunk as any of Artorius’s soldiers.

As the beer continued to flow, the talk and horseplay became more raucous, and some of the soldiers and younger men started mock-fighting and wrestling. Regina sat stoically in her corner beside a dozing Carausias, wondering how much of this she could endure.

There was a touch on her shoulder. Startled, she looked up.

Artorius was beside her. She could smell the beer on his breath, but unlike his men he was not drunk. “You are quiet,” he said.

“You should go back to your men.”

He smiled, glancing back. “I don’t think they need me anymore tonight. But you . . . I know what you are thinking.”

“You do?”

“You are remembering your mother. The parties she gave, in the villa. The glittering folk who would come, the expensive preparations she would make. You’ve told me as much. And now you must put up with this.”

“I don’t mean to judge.”

He shook his head. “We are all prisoners of our past. But the present is all we have. Those men wrestling over their beer are as rough as sand—but they will give their lives for me, and for you. We must make the best of the times we live in, what we have, the people around us.”

“You’re wise.”

He laughed. “No. Just a survivor, like you.” He took her hand with an odd gentleness. “Listen to me,” he said intensely. “That old fool Myrddin is full of legends . . . He says I must become Dagda for these people.”

“Dagda?”

“The Good God—but the most humble of gods. All that you promise to do, I will do myself alone . . . But Dagda needs a Morrigan, his great queen. And at Samhain,” he whispered, “the time of reconciliation, the god of the tribe and the goddess of the earth come together, so that the opposing forces, of life and death, dark and light, good and evil, are balanced once more.”

“What are you suggesting, Artorius? . . . We fight, you and I. We are in constant conflict.”

“But life itself results from the interplay of opposing forces. That’s the point.”

“You foolish man. I am old, and no goddess. Find yourself a younger woman.”

“But none of them has your strength—not even your daughter, beautiful though she is. You, you are my Morrigan, my Regina, my queen.” He cupped her cheek and leaned close to her, his breath flavored with the meat and the beer, his eyes bright.

She looked into her heart. There was no affection there, not even lust. There was only calculation: If I do this, will it increase my chances of keeping Brica alive another day? Only calculation—but that was enough.