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climbing the creaking wooden stairs slowly, painfully. In the starlight his tattered white beard seemed to glow faintly. With his long robe he seemed to glide along the platform toward us, rather than walk.
    “I have determined when the Saxons will attack,” he pronounced in his quavering, thin voice.
    “When?” Arthur and Bors asked as one.
    “On the night of thefull moon,” said Merlin.
    “A week from now.”
    Bors growled, “It makes sense. They know we’re starving in here. They’ll wait until they figure we’re too weak to fight.”
    “Then we’ve got to do something,” Arthur replied. “And soon.”
    “Yes,” Bors agreed. “But what?”
    Arthur had been put in charge of the hill fort’s defense by his uncle, Ambrosius, who styled himself High King of the Celtic Britons.The Saxon barbarians had been raiding the coasts of Britain for years, decades, ever since the Roman legions had left the island. Now the Saxons and their brother tribes of barbarians were building permanent settlements in the coastal regions.
    And moving inland. Amesbury was one of a string of hilltop forts that Ambrosius had hoped would stand against the Saxon tide. Some called it a castle,but it was nothing more than a wooden palisade enclosing a few huts and stables, with a single timbered tower, a rude wooden chapel, and a blacksmith’s forge. Even so, it stood against the barbarians well enough. They knew nothing of siege warfare, had no knowledge of rock-throwing ballistae or any devices more complicated than a felled tree trunk for a battering ram.
    Yet crafty old Aelle haddecided to bring all their strength to Amesbury and destroy the fort. And afterward? I wondered. Would they methodically reduce each of Ambrosius’ forts and leave the interior of Britain open to their ravages?
    The dark night wind whispered to me and I looked up at the stars scattered across the black sky. I had seen the same stars at ancient Ilium, I remembered, in another life. I had built asiege tower there, under the watchful eye of wily Odysseos, and led my men over the high stone wall of mighty Troy.
    In another life. I have lived many lives, and died many deaths. I have traveled among those far-flung stars bedecking the night sky. I have fought battles on distant worlds under strange suns.
    My Creator Aten, the Golden One, has sent me to this place and time to serve Arthur untilthe moment comes when I must stand aside and let him be killed. Or perhaps the Golden One plans for me to murder Arthur. I have assassinated others for him, in other lifetimes. I knew that I must obey my Creator’s commands, yet with every fiber of my being I wanted to defy those commands, to disregard his murderous orders and raise young Arthur to the power and authority that would save Britainfrom these barbarians.
    Yet I stood helplessly in the gathering darkness beside Arthur, the son of an unknown father, adopted by Ambrosius and guided by Merlin. Barely old enough to begin growing a beard, Arthur had been marked by my Creator for a brief moment of glory—and then ignominious death.
    To Bors and Merlin and all the others I was Arthur’s squire, a servant, a nonentity. Arthur knewbetter, but we kept our friendship a secret between us. It was easier for me that way: I could remain at Arthur’s side and provide him with advice and guidance—and help in the fighting, when it was necessary.
    “Well, what do you want to do?” Bors asked again, gruffly. He was a blunt, hard-faced man, scarred from many battles, his thick beard already showing streaks of gray.
    Without taking hiseyes from the hundreds of Saxon campfires dotting the night, Arthur replied softly, “Instead of waiting for the barbarians to build enough strength to bring down this fort, we should sally out and attack them.”
    Bors said flatly, “There’s too many of ’em already. We’d be massacred.”
    But some of Arthur’s youthful enthusiasm was returning. “If a strong group of us charged out at