Jenny: Scrutiny

The horses sprang forward almost before the men could get their heels in. As one, soaring up through the darkness and downward like a diving bird of prey the horsemen swept. The exhilaration burned inside his brain; his sword was a flickering silver flame somewhere in the rolling spray of his mare's mane. Out of his throat, out of the throat of a hundred, two hundred, three hundred other horsemen, came the deep, droning, unearthly humming roar, rising up on the wind as they charged. The air seemed to pulse with it, and terror licked up into his face as he and his mare and the whole Cavalry of Britain pieced into the unsuspecting foe.

* * * *

As soon as the Guttersnipe was gone, Gwenhywfar turned back to the slave-girl. She had spared only a momentary glance from the outset, the girl at that moment being superfluous. Now that the Guttersnipe had gone about her other duties, she had time to observe the newcomer. Unlike the snapdragon Guttersnipe who had stood her ground under Vortigern's eye - more than likely out of ignorance of the man's character - the slave-girl looked sickly, unkempt, ill-used, pale, and unhelpful. There was a smudge of dirt on the side of her face: she had laid in the road. There was a patch of fine gravel clinging to the hem of her gown: she had fallen hard. The girl exuded an unsteady atmosphere. But there was a detail that roused Gwenhywfar's curiosity: the length and fineness of the girl's fingers.

Hmm.

"It is nearly time to retire," she told the girl, "but the fountain has not been cleaned of poppy petals. Please see to that."

She gathered her amber-strings and her skirts and swept in after the Guttersnipe, leaving the slave-girl to the quiet task of scooping the jewelled red petals off the surface of the fountain.