et a Saxon man at Ad Fines named to me
Eormen--"

"Ad Fines? Thirty miles from Londinium? Now I could have sworn that
yesternight I was in Tripontium, thrice thirty miles from there. I was
there yesterday--or maybe that time a week ago. 'Tis a small failing of
mine to go where I do not mean to go, and know not how I get there, when
the wine is in me. But this way will do, and now I am so far upon it, I
may as well go farther."

He sat down beside Nicanor.

"Dost know of any lord would have a fine stout serving-man?" he said
with a wheedle. "One who can carve, be it swine or human, skilled with
sword or sling, who can drive a chariot, pair or single-span?"

"Not I," Nicanor answered. "I be a stranger in these parts."

"Bound for Londinium?" asked the black-haired man.

"Nay, for the Christian church of Saint Peter's, on Thorney which is
called the Isle of Brambles," said Nicanor, without guile.

"Why, then, I'll go there too," the stranger said amiably. "For I am
most devilishly lost, driven from town and camp, the first time sober in
a week; and money I must gain, or starve. Eh, Bacchus! the women--the
women!" He sighed, shaking his black head dolefully.

"What concern had they with it?" Nicanor wished to know. "Did they turn
thee out from camp and town?"

"Ay, boy, turned me out and turned me inside out," said the black-haired
man, and grinned. "Never a little copper ass have I left upon me. See,
now, our paths lie in the same direction, since my path is any path.
Shall we go together? For I swear I'll not get lost again. Behold me,
Valerius, sometime of the Ninth Legion at Ratae, now, by the grace of
God, of no legion at all. I have my tablet of discharge from service; a
follower of fortune you see me, with my sword as long as the purse of
him who hires it."

Nicanor, half shy, half pleased with his new acquaintance, told in turn
his name and station.

"Thou and I will be good friends," the soldier said. "I love a lad of
spirit, such as thou. I'll fight for thee and thou shalt steal for me.
'Tis a fair division of labor. Hear you how my tongue waggeth? For a
week it hath been sleeping off the wine, and now that it be sober again,
it runneth by itself. Come, friend, art ready?"

On the way Valerius talked irrepressibly, with many strange oaths and
ejaculations, mixing his religions impartially. He told weird tales of
life in camps and teeming cities, so that Nicanor's blood tingled, and
he longed to go a