For King & Country by Robert Asprin, Linda Evans, James Baen Page B

and rode with him now, in his own mind. Banning, the god called himself, and promised wealth and fame beyond anything Lailoken could dream.
    And they both hated the Irish with cold, murderous passion.
    Who would not hate them? Banning had agreed the previous night, when Lailoken still sat reeling from the shock of being selected. They rape and pillage, destroy everything that is good and holy and civilized. Drunken, vicious brutes, heathens who can't even worship God properly. They've destroyed my people and I will destroy them utterly. And you, Lailoken, will help me.
    Lailoken understood the need for vengeance. He had watched Irish invaders hack his little family to death before he could run across the fields from the plowing to fight for them. The Irish had struck him down as well, leaving him for dead after laying open his head to the bone, but God had seen fit to let him live—the better to take vengeance upon the people who had shattered his world at the end of Irish swords.
    He had taken to the road, vowing never to farm or marry again. Lailoken had wandered from the Antonine Wall on the farthest northern border to Caer-Lundein in the south, a city almost abandoned now with the threat of Saxon invasion sending farmers and town-based traders alike scurrying toward the closest hill forts they could find, refurbishing the ancient walls and beating pruning forks and plowshares into swords and long, wicked spearpoints. From the dying city of Caer-Lundein, he had wandered west to Cerniw, where the Merry Maidens stood in a great circle, nineteen foolish girls turned to monolithic standing stones for daring to dance on a Sunday. He had loved Cerniw, where the Minack Theater lay dreaming in the summer twilight, its worn golden stones remembering the Roman engineers who had built it, centuries previously, flocking in to watch the ancient Greek dramas and the bawdy Roman comedies performed in it over a span of more than four centuries.
    Lailoken had played his harp and flute for money at Minack, standing on the semicircular stone floor where even the whisper of the breeze carried with the clarity of bronze bells, and his music floated magically to the highest tier of stone seats and drifted above the sea, skimming out across the deep turquoise waters of the Purthcurno Bay, with its lacework fringe of breakers spilling across the shingle.
    And from Cerniw, the long journey north again to Caerleul, along the Roman roads to Rheged and Strathclyde and up to Caer-Iudeu, nestled deep in Gododdin's mountain passes which guarded the way into Pictish country. Somewhere along the way, after months of starving as a desperately mediocre instrumentalist and singer, Lailoken had discovered a meager talent for composing poetry and a slightly greater one for making men laugh at the songs he sang.
    He employed those talents well, hiding his rage and the black dreams of vengeance behind foolish smiles while drunken soldiers and celebrating sailors with more money than sense gathered in
tavernas
to spend their hard-earned pay on cheap wine, cheaper women, and Lailoken's raunchy comic bravado. They roared with laughter and tossed him coins by way of approval and gave him answers as freely as the wine flowed, when he asked about the Irish in the port towns and trading centers he was able to reach.
    It was his dearest prayer to strike a blow that all of Ireland would bewail, leaving her screaming widows to rend their clothing in grief.
Oh, yes,
Banning promised darkly.
We shall certainly send them to hell, my very dearest friend. Thousands of them. Do as I command and we will destroy the Irish race for all time.
    Lailoken had never been happier in his life.
    As they walked, Lailoken answered his new god's questions about where he had been, and where he had planned to go next. I left the garrison of Caer-Iudeu yesterday, when the King of Gododdin and his brother left to strike across the northern border into Pictish Fortriu. There's no money for a