XIThen old Ambrosius rose, like a man coming from a deep trance, shaking his head and holding the sword in his hand as though he had not known it was there before. The noise about the tables was at its height, and here and there men began to quarrel, pushing at each other drunkenly. Uther Pendragon looked at Ambrosius curiously, even insolently, as though amused that the Count of Britain should, by his rising, call for silence on such an occasion.
Medrodus felt the tears coming to his eyes. This was not the moment, he thought. He beat on the hard board before him in self-pity and despair.
Ambrosius was speaking now, though none listened. Medrodus caught a phrase or two, precisely formed in a Roman tongue that few in that hall could have understood, even had they heard them. “He who shall
