Charges of powder, Hywel knew, for the hand-cannon in the pouch.

The badge on the soldiers' sleeves was a snarling dog on its hind legs; a talbot-hound, for Sir John Talbot, the latest Lieutenant of Ireland. Talbot had smashed the Cotentin rebels at Henry V's order; it was said the mothers of Anjou quieted their children with threats of Jehan Talbo. Now that Henry was dead, long live Henry VI, and the advisors to the three-year-old King hoped the War Hound could quiet the Irish as well.

Four soldiers held chains that led to the other thing, which crouched on the ground, black and shapeless. Hywel thought it must be some great hunting-hound, a namesake Talbot, perhaps, or a beast from Ireland across the sea; then it put out a pale paw, spread long fingers, and Hywel saw it was a man on hands and knees, in fantastically ruined clothes and a black cloak.

The thin hands left blood on the earth. There was a shackle, engraved with something, on each wrist and each ankle, linked to the leash-chains. The head turned, and the black hood fell back, showing dull iron around the man's neck. The collar was engraved as well. Next to it was a straggly gray beard, a nostril with blood dry around it.

Hywel stared at a dark eye, glassy as with fever, or madness. The eye did not blink. The cracked lips moved.

"None of that, now!" shouted a soldier, and pulled the chain he held, dropping the man flat; another soldier swung the butt of his axe into the man's ribs, and there was a hint of a groan. The first soldier bent halfway down and shook the chain. "'Tain't beyond th' law for us to have your tongue, an you try any chanteries." To Hywel he sounded exactly like Dafydd's wife Nansi scolding a hen that would not lay. The prone man was very still.

"Ale! Where's ale!" cried the others, turning away from the prisoner, and Dafydd came behind Hywel with a tray of tankards, hot mulled ale topped with brown foam and steaming. "Here, Hywel. And Ogmius send us all the right words to say." Hywel took the tray into the yard. A cheer went up—for him, he realized, and for one passing instant he was Caesar again—then the mugs were snatched from him.

"Here, boy, here."

"Jove's beard, that's good!"

"Jove strike you down, it ain't English beer." The speaker winked at Hywel. "But it's good anyway, eh, boy."

Hywel barely noticed. He was staring again at the chained man, who still did not move except to breathe raggedly. A little of the cloak had blown back, showing the man's shirt sleeve. The fabric was embroidered in complex patterns—not the Celtic work he knew, but similar, interlocking designs.

And The White Hart was an inn with good trade; Hywel had seen silk twice before, on the wives of lords.

"You have a care of our dog, there, lad," said the soldier who had winked. His tone was friendly. "He's an eastern sorcerer, a Bezant. From the City itself, they say."

The City of Constantine. "What... did he do?"

"Why, he magicked, lad, what else? Magicked for th' Irish rebels 'gainst King Harry, rest him. Five years he hid up in them Irish hills, sorcellin' and afflictin'. But we ketched him, anyway. Lord Jack ketched him, an' now he's Talbot's dog."

"Tom," the serjeant said sharply, and the soldier stood to attention for a moment. Then he winked at Hywel again and tossed his empty tankard into Hywel's hands.

"Have a look here, boy," Tom said. The soldier reached down and grasped the manacle around the wizard's left wrist, pulled it up as if there were no man attached to it. "See that serpent, cut there in th' iron? That's a Druid serpent, as has power t' bind wizards. Old Irish Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland, for the good of his magic fellows. But we took some snakes with us.