"His ancestors were commanders of British legions for three centuries, and before that they trod the battlefields of Gaul and Italy with Caesar. It is but the remnant of Roman strategy lingering in the British knights that has enabled them to beat back the Saxons thus far. But, Wulfhere, what think you of my beard?" The Gael rubbed the bristly stubble that covered his face.

"I never saw you so unkempt before," grunted the Dane, "save when we had fled or fought for days so you could not be hacking at your face with a razor."

"It will hide my scars in a few days," grinned Cormac. "When I told you to head for Ara in Dalriadia, did naught occur to you?"

"Why, I assumed you would ask for news of the princess among the wild Scots there."

"And why did you suppose I would expect them to know?"

Wulfhere shrugged his shoulders. "I am done seeking to reason out your actions."

Cormac drew from his pouch the flint arrowhead. "In all the British Isles there is but one race who makes such points for their arrows. They are the Picts of Caledonia, who ruled these isles before the Celts came, in the age of stone. Even now they tip their arrows often with flint, as I learned when I fought under King Gol of Dalriadia. There was a time, soon after the legions left Britain, when the Picts ranged, like wolves clear to the southern coast. But the Jutes and Angles and Saxons drove them back into the heather country, and for so long has King Garth served as a buffer between them and Gerinth that he and his people have forgotten their ways."

"Then you think Picts stole the princess? But how did they-?"

"That is for me to learn; that's why we are heading for Ara. The Dalriadians and the Picts have been alternately fighting with each other and against each other for over a hundred years. Just now there is peace between them and the Scots are likely to know much of what goes on in the Dark Empire, as the Pictish kingdom is called-and dark it is, and strange. For these Picts come of an old, old race and their ways are beyond our ken."