The Winter King

PART THREE The Return of Merlin

IGRAINE TALKS TO ME of love. It is spring here in Dinnewrac and the sun infuses the monastery with a feeble warmth. There are lambs on the southern slopes, though yesterday a wolf killed three of them and left a blood trail past our gate. Beggars gather at the gate for food and hold out their diseased hands when Igraine comes to visit. One of the beggars stole the maggoty remains of a lamb carcass from the scavenging ravens and sat there gnawing at the pelt as Igraine arrived this morning. Was Guinevere really beautiful, she asks me. No, I say, but many women would exchange their beauty for Guinevere's looks. Igraine, of course, wanted to know if she herself was beautiful and I assured her she was, but she said the mirrors in her husband's Caer were very old and battered and it was so hard to tell. “Wouldn't it be lovely,” she said, 'to see ourselves as we really are?"

“God does that,” I said, 'and only God."

She wrinkled her face at me. “I do hate it when you preach at me, Derfel. It doesn't suit you. If Guinevere wasn't beautiful, then why did Arthur fall in love with her?”

“Love is not only for the beautiful,” I said reprovingly.

“Did I say it was?” Igraine asked indignantly, 'but you said Guinevere attracted Arthur from the very first moment, so if it wasn't beauty, what was it?"

“The very sight of her,” I answered, 'turned his blood to smoke.“ Igraine liked that. She smiled. ”So she was beautiful?"

“She challenged him,” I answered, 'and he thought he would be less than a man if he failed to capture her. And maybe the Gods were playing games with us?" I shrugged, unable to come up with more reasons.

“And besides,” I said, “I never meant to say she was not beautiful, just that she was more than beautiful. She was the best-looking woman I ever saw.”

“Including me?” my Queen immediately demanded.

“Alas,” I said, 'my eyes are dim with age."

She laughed at the evasion. “Did Guinevere love Arthur?” she asked.

“She loved the idea of him,” I said. “She loved that he was the champion of Dumnonia, and she loved him as he was when she first saw him. He was in his armour, the great Arthur, the shining one, the lord of war, the most feared sword in all of Britain and Armorica.”

Igraine ran the tasselled cord of her white robe through her hands. She was thoughtful for a while. “Do you think I turn Brochvael's blood to smoke?” she asked wistfully.

“Nightly,” I said.

“Oh, Derfel,” she sighed and slipped off the window-sill to walk to the door from where she could stare down into our little hall. “Were you ever in love like that?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Who was it?” she demanded instantly.

“Never mind,” I said.

“I do mind! I insist. Was it Nimue?” she asked.

“It wasn't Nimue,” I said firmly. “Nimue was different. I loved her, but I wasn't mad with desire for her. I just thought she was infinitely…” I paused, looking for the word and failing to find it. “Wonderful,” I offered lamely, not looking at Igraine so she would not see my tears. She waited a while. “So who were you in love with? Lunete?”

“No! No!”

“Who, then?” she persisted.

“The story will come in time,” I said, 'if I live."

“Of course you'll live. We shall send you special foods from the Caer.”

“Which my Lord Sansum,” I told her, not wanting her to waste the effort, 'will take from me as unworthy fare for a mere brother."

“Then come and live in the Caer,” she said eagerly. “Please!” I smiled. “I would do that most willingly, Lady, but alas, I took an oath to stay here.”

“Poor Derfel.” She went back to the window and watched Brother Maelgwyn digging. He had our surviving novice, Brother Tudwal, with him. The second novice died of a fever in the late winter, but Tudwal still lives and shares the saint's cell. The saint wants the boy taught his letters, mainly, I think, so he can discover whether I really am translating the Gospel into Saxon, but the lad is not bright and seems better suited to digging than to reading. It is time we had some real scholars here in Dinnewrac for this feeble spring has brought our usual rancorous arguments about the date of Easter and we shall have no peace until the argument is done. “Did Sansum really marry Arthur and Guinevere?” Igraine interrupted my gloomy thoughts.

“Yes,” I said, 'he really did."

“And it wasn't in a great church? With trumpets playing?”

“It was in a clearing beside a stream,” I said, 'with frogs croaking and willow catkins piling up behind the beaver dam."

“We were married in a feasting hall,” Igraine said, 'and the smoke made my eyes water." She shrugged.

“So what did you change in the last part?” she asked accusingly. “What story-shaping did you do?” I shook my head. “None.”

“But at Mordred's acclamation,” she asked disappointedly, 'the sword was only laid on the stone? Not thrust into it? Are you sure?"

“It was laid flat on top. I swear it' — I made the sign of the cross' on Christ's blood, my Lady.” She shrugged. “Dafydd ap Gruffud will translate the tale any way I want him to, and I like the idea of a sword in the stone. I'm glad you were kind about Cuneglas.”

“He was a good man,” I said. He was also Igraine's husband's grandfather.

“Was Ceinwyn really beautiful?” Igraine asked.

I nodded. “She was, she truly was. She had blue eyes.”

“Blue eyes!” Igraine shuddered at such Saxon features. “What happened to the brooch she gave you?”

“I wish I knew,” I said, lying. The brooch is in my cell, hidden there safe from even Sansum's vigorous searches. The saint, whom God will surely exalt above all men living and dead, does not allow us to possess any treasures. All our goods must be surrendered to his keeping, that is the rule, and though I surrendered everything else to Sansum, including Hywelbane, God forgive me, I have Ceinwyn's brooch still. The gold has been smoothed by the years, yet still I see Ceinwyn when, in the darkness, I take the brooch from its hiding place and let the moonlight gloss its intricate pattern of interlocking curves. Sometimes no, always I touch it to my lips. What a foolish old man I have become. Perhaps I shall give the brooch to Igraine, for I know she will value it, but I shall keep it a while for the gold is like a scrap of sunshine in this chill grey place. Of course, when Igraine reads this she will know the brooch exists, but if she is as kind as I know her to be, she will let me keep it as a small remembrance of a sinful life.

“I don't like Guinevere,” Igraine said.

“Then I have failed,” I said.

“You make her sound very hard,” Igraine said.

I said nothing for a while, but just listened to the sheep bleating. “She could be wonderfully kind,” I said after the pause. “She knew how to make the sad happy, but she was impatient with the commonplace. She had a vision of a world that did not hold cripples or bores or ugly things, and she wanted to make that world real by banishing such inconveniences. Arthur had a vision, too, only his vision offered help to the cripples, and he wanted to make his world just as real.”

“He wanted Camelot,” Igraine said dreamily.

“We called it Dumnonia,” I said severely.

“You try to suck all the joy out of it, Derfel,” Igraine said crossly, though she was never truly angry with me. “I want it to be the poet's Camelot: green grass and high towers and ladies in gowns and warriors strewing their paths with flowers. I want minstrels and laughter! Wasn't it ever like that?”

“A little,” I said, 'though I don't remember many flowery paths. I do recall the warriors limping out of battle, and some of them crawling and weeping with their guts trailing behind in the dust."

“Stop it!” Igraine said. “So why do the bards call it Camelot?” she challenged me.

“Because poets were ever fools,” I said, 'otherwise why would they be poets?"

“No, Derfel! What was special about Camelot? Tell me.”

“It was special,” I answered, 'because Arthur gave the land justice.“ Igraine frowned. ”Is that all?"

“It is more, child,” I said, 'than most rulers ever dream of doing, let alone do.“ She shrugged the topic away. ”Was Guinevere clever?" she asked.

“Very,” I said.

Igraine played with the cross she wore about her neck.. “Tell me about Lancelot.”

“Wait!”

“When does Merlin come?”

“Soon.”

“Is Saint Sansum being horrid to you?”

“The saint has the fate of our immortal souls on his conscience. He does what he must do.”

“But did he really fall to his knees and scream for martyrdom before he married Arthur to Guinevere?”

“Yes,” I said and could not help smiling at the memory.

Igraine laughed. “I shall ask Brochvael to make the Mouse Lord into a real martyr,” she said, 'then you can be in charge of Dinnewrac. Would you like that, Brother Derfel?"

“I would like some peace to carry on with my tale,” I chided her.

“So what happens next?” Igraine asked eagerly.

Armorica is next. The Land across the Sea. Beautiful Ynys Trebes, King Ban, Lancelot, Galahad and Merlin. Dear Lord, what men they were, what days we had, what fights we gave and dreams we broke. In Armorica.

Later, much later, when we looked back on those times we simply called them the 'bad years', but we rarely discussed them. Arthur hated to be reminded of those early days in Dumnonia when his passion for Guinevere tore the land into chaos. His betrothal to Ceinwyn had been like an elaborate brooch that held together a fragile gown of gossamer, and when the brooch went the garment fell into shreds. Arthur blamed himself and did not like to talk about the bad years.

Tewdric, for a time, refused to fight on either side. He blamed Arthur for the broken peace and in retribution he allowed Gorfyd-dyd and Gundleus to lead their war-bands through Gwent into Dumnonia. The Saxons pressed from the east, the Irish raided out of the Western Sea and, as if those enemies were not enough, Prince Cadwy of Isca rebelled against Arthur's rule. Tewdric tried to stay aloof from it all, but when Aelle's Saxons savaged Tewdric's frontier the only friends he could call on for help were Dumnonians and so, in the end, he was forced into the war on Arthur's side, but by then the spearmen of Powys and Siluria had used his roads to capture the hills north of Ynys Wydryn and when Tewdric declared for Dumnonia they occupied Glevum as well.

I grew up in those years. I lost count of the men I killed and the warrior rings I forged. I received a nickname, Cadarn, which means 'the mighty'. Derfel Cadarn, sober in battle and with a dreadful quick sword. At one time Arthur invited me to become one of his horsemen, but I preferred to stay on firm ground and so remained a spearman. I watched Arthur during that time and began to appreciate just why he was such a great soldier. It was not merely his bravery, though he was brave, but how he outfoxed his enemies. Our armies were clumsy instruments, slow to march and sluggish to change direction once they were marching, but Arthur forged a small force of men who learned to travel quickly. He led those men, some on foot, some in the saddle, on long marches that looped about the enemies' flanks so they always appeared where they were least expected. We liked to attack at dawn, when the enemy was still fuddled from a night's drinking, or else we lured them on with false retreats and then slashed into their unprotected flanks. After a year of such battles, when we had at last driven the forces of Gorfyddyd and Gundleus out of Glevum and northern Dumnonia, Arthur made me a captain and I began handing my own followers gold. Two years later I even received the ultimate accolade of a warrior, an invitation to defect to the enemy. Of all people it came from Ligessac, Norwenna's traitorous guard commander, who spoke to me in a temple of Mithras, where his life was protected, and offered me a fortune if I would serve Gundleus as he did. I refused. God be thanked, but I was always loyal to Arthur.

Sagramor was also loyal, and it was he who initiated me into Mithras's service. Mithras was a God the Romans had brought to Britain and He must have liked our climate for He still has power. He is a soldiers' God and no women can be initiated into His mysteries. My initiation took place in late winter, when soldiers have time to spare. It happened in the hills. Sagramor took me alone into a valley so deep that even by late afternoon the morning frost still crisped the grass. We stopped by a cave entrance where Sagramor instructed me to lay my weapons aside and strip naked. I stood there shivering as the Numidian tied a thick cloth about my eyes and told me I must now obey every instruction and that if I flinched or spoke once, just once, I would be brought back to my clothes and weapons and sent away. The initiation is an assault on a man's senses, and to survive he must remember one thing only: to obey. That is why soldiers like Mithras. Battle assaults the senses, and that assault ferments fear, and obedience is the narrow thread that leads out of fear's chaos into survival. In time I initiated many men into Mithras and came to know the tricks well enough, but that first time, as I stepped into the cave, I had no idea what would be inflicted on me. When I first entered the God's cave Sagramor, or perhaps some other man, turned me about and about, sunwise, so quickly and so violently that my mind reeled into dizziness and then I was ordered to walk forward. Smoke choked me, but I kept going, following the downwards slope of the rock floor. A voice shouted at me to stop, another ordered me to turn, a third to kneel. Some substance was thrust at my mouth and I recoiled from the stench of human dung that made my head reel. “Eat!” a voice snapped and I almost spewed the mouthful out until I realized I merely chewed on dried fish. I drank some vile liquid that made me light-headed. It was probably thorn-apple juice mixed with mandrake or fly-agaric for though my eyes were tight covered I saw visions of bright creatures coming with crinkled wings to snap at my flesh with beaked mouths. Flames touched my skin, burning the small hairs on my legs and arms. I was ordered to walk forward again, then to stop and I heard logs being heaped on a fire and felt the vast heat grow in front of me. The fire roared, the flames roasted my bare skin and manhood, and then the voice commanded me to step forward into the fire and I obeyed, only to have my foot sink into a pool of icy water that almost made me cry aloud from fear that I had stepped into a vat of molten metal.

A sword point was held to my manhood, pressed there, and I was ordered to step into it, and as I did the sword point went away. All tricks, of course, but the herbs and fungi put into the drink were enough to magnify the tricks into miracles and by the time I had followed the tortuous course down to the hot, smoky and echoing chamber at the heart of the ceremony I was already in a trance of terror and exaltation. I was taken to a stone the height of a table and a knife was put into my right hand, while my left was placed palm downwards on a naked belly. “It's a child under your hand, you miserable toad,” the voice said, and a hand moved my right hand until the blade was poised over the child's throat, 'an innocent child that has harmed no one,“ the voice said, 'a child that deserves nothing but life, and you will kill it. Strike!” The child cried aloud as I plunged the knife downwards to feel the warm blood spurt over my wrist and hand. The heart-pulsing belly beneath my left hand gave a last spasm and was still. A fire roared nearby, the smoke choking my nostrils.

I was made to kneel and drink a warm, sickly fluid that clogged in my throat and soured my stomach. Only then, when that horn of bull's blood was drained, was my blindfold taken away and I saw I had killed an early lamb with a shaven belly. Friends and enemies clustered about me, full of congratulations for I had now entered the service of the soldiers' God. I had become part of a secret society that stretched clear across the Roman world and even beyond its edges; a society of men who had proved themselves in battle, not as mere soldiers, but as true warriors. To become a Mithraist was a real honour, for any member of the cult could forbid another man's initiation. Some men led armies and were never selected, others never rose above the ranks and were honoured members. Now, one of that elect, my clothes and weapons were brought to me, I dressed, and then was given the secret words of the cult that would allow me to identify my comrades in battle. If I found I was fighting a fellow Mithraist I was enjoined to kill him swiftly, with mercy, and if such a man became my prisoner I was to do him honour. Then, the formalities over, we went into a second huge cave lit by smoking torches and by a great fire where a bull's carcass was being roasted. I was done high honour by the rank of the men who attended that feast. Most initiates must be content with their own comrades, but for Derfel Cadarn the mighty of both sides had come to the winter cave. Agricola of Gwent was there, and with him were two of his enemies from Siluria, Ligessac and a spearman called Nasiens who was Gundleus's champion. A dozen of Arthur's warriors were present, some of my own men and even Bishop Bedwin, Arthur's counsellor, who looked unfamiliar in a rusty breastplate, sword belt and warrior's cloak. “I was a warrior once,” he explained his presence, 'and was initiated, oh, when? Thirty years ago? That was long before I became a Christian, of course."

“And this' — I waved about the cave where the bull's severed head had been hoisted on a tripod of spears to drip blood on to the cave's floor 'is not contrary to your religion?” Bedwin shrugged. “Of course it is,” he said, 'but I would miss the companionship.“ He leaned towards me and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ”I trust you will not tell Bishop Sansum that I am here?“ I laughed at the thought of ever confiding in the angry Sansum who buzzed about war-shrunken Dumnonia like a worker bee. He was forever condemning his enemies and he had no friends. ”Young Master Sansum," Bedwin said, his mouth full of beef and his beard dripping with the meat's bloody juice,

'wants to replace me, and I think he will."

“He will?” I sounded aghast.

“Because he wants it so badly,” Bedwin said, 'and he works so hard. Dear God, how that man works!

Do you know what I discovered just the other day? He can't read! Not a word! Now, to be a senior churchman a fellow must be able to read, so what does Sansum do? He has a slave read aloud to him and learns it all by heart.“ Bedwin nudged me to make certain I understood Sansum's extraordinary memory. ”Learns it all by heart! Psalms, prayers, liturgy, writings of the fathers, all by heart! Dear me.“ He shook his head. ”You're not a Christian, are you?"

“No.”

“You should consider it. We may not offer too many earthly delights, but our lives after death are certainly worth having. Not that I could ever persuade Uther of that, but I have hopes of Arthur.” I glanced round the feast. “No Arthur,” I said, disappointed that my Lord was not of the cult.

“He was initiated,” Bedwin said.

“But he doesn't believe in the Gods,” I said, repeating Owain's assertion. Bedwin shook his head. “Arthur does believe. How can a man not believe in God or Gods? You think Arthur believes that we made ourselves? Or that the world simply appeared by chance? Arthur's no fool, Derfel Cadarn. Arthur believes, but he keeps his beliefs very silent. That way the Christians think he is one of them, or might be, and the pagans believe the same, and so both serve him the more willingly. And remember, Derfel, Arthur is loved of Merlin, and Merlin, believe me, does not love unbelievers.”

“I miss Merlin.”

“We all miss Merlin,” Bedwin said calmly, 'but we can take comfort in his absence, for he would not be other where if Britain was threatened with destruction. Merlin will come when he is needed."

“You think he isn't needed now?” I asked sourly.

Bedwin wiped his beard with the sleeve of his coat, then drank wine. “Some say,” he said, dropping his voice, 'that we would be better off without Arthur. That without Arthur there would be peace, but if there's no Arthur, who protects Mordred? Me?“ He smiled at the thought. ”Gereint? He's a good man, few better, but he's not clever anH he can't make up his mind and he doesn't want to rule Dumnonia either. It's Arthur or no one, Derfel. Or rather it's Arthur or Gorfyddyd. And this war is not lost. Our enemies fear Arthur and so long as he lives, Dumnonia is safe. No, I don't think Merlin is needed yet." The traitor Ligessac, who was another Christian who saw no conflict between his avowed faith and Mithras's secret rituals, spoke with me at the feast's end. I was cold towards him, even though he was a fellow Mithraist, but he ignored my hostility and plucked me by the elbow into a dark corner of the cave.

“Arthur's going to lose. You know that, don't you?” he said.

“No.”

Ligessac pulled a shred of meat from between the remains of his teeth. “More men from Elmet will come into the war,” he said. “Powys, Elmet and Siluria' he ticked the names off on his fingers' united against Gwent and Dumnonia. Gorfyddyd will be the next Pendragon. First we drive the Saxons out of the land east of Ratae, then we come south and finish off Dumnonia. Two years?”

“The feast has gone to your head, Ligessac,” I told him.

“And my Lord will pay for the services of a man like you.” Ligessac was delivering a message. “My Lord King Gundleus is generous, Derfel, very generous.”

“Tell your Lord King,” I said, 'that Nimue of Ynys Wydryn shall have his skull for her drinking vessel, and that I will provide it for her." I walked away.

That spring the war flared again, though less destructively at first. Arthur had paid gold to Oengus Mac Airem, the Irish King of Demetia, to attack the western reaches of Powys and Siluria, and those attacks drained enemies from our northern frontiers. Arthur himself led a war-band to pacify western Dumnonia where Cadwy had declared his tribal lands an independent kingdom, but while he was there Aelle's Saxons launched a mighty attack on Gereint's lands. Gorfyddyd, we later learned, had paid the Saxons as we had paid the Irish and Powys's cash was probably better spent for the Saxons came in a flood that brought Arthur hurrying back from the west where he left Cei, his childhood companion, in charge of the fight against Cadwy's tattooed tribesmen.

It was then, with Aelle's Saxon army threatening to capture Durocobrivis and with Gwent's forces occupied against both Powys and the northern Saxons and with Cadwy's undefeated rebellion being encouraged by King Mark of Kernow, tlfet Ban of Benoic sent his summons. We all knew that King Ban had only ever permitted Arthur to come to Dumnonia on condition that he returned to Armorica if Benoic was ever in jeopardy. Now, Ban's messenger claimed, Benoic was in dire danger and King Ban, insisting that Arthur fulfill his oath, was demanding Arthur's return. The news came to us in Durocobrivis. The town had once been a prosperous Roman settlement with lavish baths, a marble justice hall and a fine market place, but now it was an impoverished frontier fort, forever watching east towards the Saxons. The buildings beyond the town's earth wall had all been burnt by Aelle's raiders and were never rebuilt, while inside the wall the great Roman structures crumbled to ruin. Ban's messenger came to us in what remained of the arched hall of the Roman baths. It was night and a fire burned in the pit of the old plunge bath, its smoke churning about the arched ceiling where the wind caught and sucked the smoke out of a small window. We had been eating our evening meal, seated in a circle on the cold floor, and Arthur led Ban's messenger into the circle's centre where he scratched a crude map of Dumnonia in the dirt, then scattered red and white mosaic scraps to show where our enemies and friends were placed. Everywhere the red tiles of Dumnonia were being squeezed by the white stone scraps. We had fought that day and Arthur had taken a spear cut on his right cheekbone, not a dangerous wound, but deep enough to crust his cheek in blood. He had been fighting without his helmet, claiming he saw better without the enclosing metal, but if the Saxon had thrust an inch higher and to one side he would have rammed his steel through Arthur's brain. He had fought on foot, as he usually did, because he was saving his heavy horses for the more desperate battles. A half dozen of his horsemen were mounted each day, but most of the expensive, rare war horses were kept deep in Dumnonia where they were safe from enemy raids. This day, after Arthur had been wounded, our handful of heavy cavalrymen had scattered the Saxon line, killing their chief and sending the survivors back east, but Arthur's narrow escape had left us all uneasy. King Ban's messenger, a chief called Bleiddig, only deepened that gloom.

“You see,” Arthur said to Bleiddig, 'why I cannot leave?" He gestured at the red and white scraps.

“An oath is an oath,” Bleiddig answered bluntly.

“If the Prince leaves Dumnonia,” Prince Gereint intervened, “Dumnonia falls.” Gereint was a heavy, dull-witted man, but loyal and honest. As Uther's nephew he had a claim on Dumnonia's throne, but he never made the claim and was always true to Arthur, his bastard cousin.

“Better that Dumnonia fall than Benoic,” Bleiddig said, and ignored the angry murmur that followed his words.

“I took an oath to defend Mordred,” Arthur pointed out.

“You took an oath to defend Benoic,” Bleiddig answered, shrugging away Arthur's objection. “Bring the child with you.”

“I must give Mordred his kingdom,” Arthur insisted. “If he leaves the kingdom loses its king and its heart. Mordred stays here.”

“And who threatens to take the kingdom from him?” Bleiddig demanded angrily. The Benoic chieftain was a big man, not unlike Owain and with much of Owain's brute force. “You!” He pointed scornfully at Arthur. “If you had married Ceinwyn there would be no war! If you had married Ceinwyn then not only Dumnonia, but Gwent and Powys would be sending troops to aid my King!” Men were shouting and swords were drawn, but Arthur bellowed for silence. A trickle of blood escaped from beneath his wound's scab and ran down his long, hollow cheek. “How long,” he asked Bleiddig,

'before Benoic falls?"

Bleiddig frowned. It was clear he could not guess the answer, but he suggested six months or maybe a year. The Franks, he said, had brought new armies into the east of his country and Ban could not fight them all. Ban's own army, led by his champion, Bors, was holding the northern border while the men Arthur had left behind, led by his cousin Culhwch, held the southern frontier. Arthur was staring at his map of red and white tiles. “Three months,” he said, 'and I will come. If I can!

Three months. But in the meanwhile, Bleiddig, I shall send you a war-band of good men." Bleiddig argued, protesting that Arthur's oath demanded Arthur's immediate presence in Armorica, but Arthur would not be budged. Three months, he said, or not at all, and Bleiddig had to accept the compromise.

Arthur gestured for me to walk with him in the colonnaded courtyard that lay next to the hall. There were vats in the small courtyard that stank like a latrine, but he appeared not to notice the stench. “God knows, Derfel,” he said, and I knew he was under strain for using the word “God', just as I noticed he used the singular Christian word though he immediately balanced the score, 'the Gods know I don't want to lose you, but I need to send someone who isn't afraid to break a shield-wall. I need to send you.”

"Lord Prince' I began.

“Don't call me prince,” he interrupted angrily. “I'm not a prince. And don't argue with me. I have everyone arguing with me. Everyone knows how to win this war except me. Melwas is screaming for men, Tewdric wants me in the north, Cei says he needs another hundred spears, and now Ban wants me! If he spent more money on his army and less on his poets he wouldn't be in trouble!”

“Poets?”

“Ynys Trebes is a haven of poets,” he said bitterly, referring to King Ban's island capital. “Poets! We need spearmen, not poets.” He stopped and leaned against a pillar. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him. “I can't achieve anything,” he said, 'until we stop fighting. If I could just talk to Cuneglas, face to face, there might be hope."

“Not while Gorfyddyd lives,” I said.

“Not while Gorfyddyd lives,” he agreed, then went silent and I knew he was thinking of Ceinwyn and Guinevere. Moonlight came through a gap in the colonnade's roof to touch his bony face with silver. He closed his eyes and I knew he was blaming himself for the war, but what was done could not be undone. A new peace would have to be made and there was only one man who could force that peace on Britain, and that was Arthur himself. He opened his eyes and grimaced. “What's the smell?” he asked, noticing it at last.

“They bleach cloth here, Lord,” I explained, and gestured toward the wooden vats that were filled with urine and washed chicken dung to produce the valuable white fabric like the cloaks Arthur himself favoured.

Arthur would usually have been encouraged at such evidence of industry in a decayed town like Durocobrivis, but that night he just shrugged away the smell and touched the trickle of fresh blood on his cheek. “One more scar,” he said ruefully. “I'll soon have as many as you, Derfel.”

“You should wear your helmet, Lord,” I said.

“I can't see right and left when I do,” he said dismissively. He pushed away from the pillar and gestured for me to walk with him round the arcade. “Now listen, Derfel. Fighting Franks is just like fighting Saxons. They're all German.;, and there's nothing special about the Franks except that they like to carry throwing spears as well as the usual weapons. So keep your head down when they first attack, but after that it's just shield-wall against shield-wall. They're hard fighters, but they drink too much so you can usually out-think them. That's why I'm sending you. You're young, but you can think which is more than most of our soldiers do. They just believe it's enough to get drunk and hack away, but no one will win wars that way.” He paused and tried to hide a yawn. “Forgive me. And for all I know, Derfel, Benoic isn't in danger at all. Ban is an emotional man' he used the description sourly 'and he panics easily, but if he loses Ynys Trebes then he'll break his heart and I'll have to live with that guilt too. You can trust Culhwch, he's good. Bors is capable.”

“But treacherous.” Sagramor spoke from the shadows beside the bleaching vats. He had come from the hall to watch over Arthur.

“Unfair,” said Arthur.

“He's treacherous,” Sagramor insisted in his harsh accent, 'because he's Lancelot's man.“ Arthur shrugged. ”Lancelot can be difficult,“ he admitted. ”He's Ban's heir and he likes to have things his own way, but then, so do I.“ He smiled and glanced at me. ”You can write, can't you?"

“Yes, Lord,” I said. We had walked on past Sagramor who stayed in the shadows, his eyes never leaving Arthur. Cats slunk past us, and bats wheeled next to the smoking gable of the big hall. I tried to imagine this stinking place filled with robed Romans and lit by oil-lamps, but it seemed an impossible idea.

“You must write and tell me what's happening,” Arthur said, 'so I don't have to rely on Ban's imagination. How's your woman?"

“My woman?” I was startled by the question and for a second I thought Arthur was referring to Canna, a Saxon slave girl who kept me company and who was teaching me her dialect that differed slightly from my mother's native Saxon, but then I realized Arthur had to mean Lunete. “I don't hear from her, Lord.”

“And you don't ask, eh?” He shot me an amused grin, then sighed. Lunete was with Guinevere who, in turn, had gone to distant Durnovaria to occupy Uther's old winter palace. Guinevere had not wanted to leave her pretty new palace near Caer Cadarn, but Arthur had insisted she go deeper into the country to be safer from enemy raiding parties. “Sansum tells me Guinevere and her ladies all worship Isis,” Arthur said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Exactly.” He smiled. “Isis is a foreign Goddess, Derfel, with her own mysteries; something to do with the moon, I think. At least that's what Sansum tells me. I don't think he knows either, but he still says I must stop the cult. He says the mysteries of Isis are unspeakable, but when I ask him what they are, he doesn't know. Or he won't say. You've heard nothing?”

“Nothing, Lord.”

“Of course,” Arthur said rather too forcefully, 'if Guinevere finds solace in Isis then it cannot be bad. I worry about her. I promised her so much, you see, and am giving her nothing. I want to put her father back on his throne, and we will, we will, but it will all take longer than we think."

“You want to fight Diwrnach?” I asked, appalled at the idea.

“He's just a man, Derfel, and can be killed. One day we'll do it.” He turned back towards the hall.

“You're going south. I can't spare you more than sixty men God knows it isn't enough if Ban really is in trouble but take them over the sea, Derfel, and put yourself under Culhwch's command. Maybe you can travel through Durnovaria? Send me news of my dear Guinevere?”

“Yes, Lord,” I said.

“I shall give you a gift for her. Maybe that jewelled collar the Saxon leader was wearing? You think she'd like that?” He asked the question anxiously.

“Any woman would,” I said. The collar was Saxon work, crude and heavy, but still beautiful. It was a necklace of golden plates that were splayed like the sun's rays and studded with gems.

“Good! Take it to Durnovaria for me, Derfel, then go and save Benoic.”

“If I can,” I said grimly.

“If you can,” Arthur echoed, 'for my conscience's sake.“ He added the last words quietly, then kicked a scrap of clay tile that skittered away from his booted foot and startled a cat that arched its back and hissed at us. ”Three years ago,“ he said softly, 'it all seemed so easy.” But then came Guinevere.

Next day, with sixty men, I went south.

“Did he send you to spy on me?” Guinevere demanded with a smile.

“No, Lady.”

“Dear Derfel,” she mocked me, 'so like my husband."

That surprised me. “Am I?”

“Yes, Derfel, you are. Only he's much cleverer. Do you like this place?” She gestured about the courtyard.

“It's beautiful,” I said. The villa in Durnovaria was, of course, Roman, though in its day it had served as Uther's winter palace. God knows it would not have been beautiful when he occupied it, but Guinevere had restored the building to something of its former elegance. The courtyard was colonnaded like the one in Duroco-brivis, but here all the roof tiles were in place and all the columns were lime-washed. Guinevere's symbol was painted on the walls inside the arcade in a repeating pattern of stags crowned with crescent moons. The stag was her father's symbol, the moon her addition, and the painted round els made a pretty show. White roses grew in beds where small tiled channels ran with water. Two hunting falcons stood on perches, their hooded heads twitching as we walked around the Roman arcade. Statues stood about the courtyard, all of naked men and women, while on plinths beneath the colonnade were bronze heads festooned with flowers. The heavy Saxon necklace I had brought from Arthur now hung about the neck of one of those bronze heads. Guinevere had toyed with the gift for a few seconds, then frowned. “It's clumsy work, is it not?” she had asked me.

“Prince Arthur thinks it beautiful, Lady, and worthy of you.”

“Dear Arthur.” She had said it carelessly, then selected the ugly bronze head of a scowling man and placed the necklace around its neck. “That'll improve him,” she said of the bronze head. “I call him Gorfyddyd. He looks like Gorfyddyd, don't you think so?”

“He does, Lady,” I said. The bust did have something of Gorfyd-dyd's dour, unhappy face.

“Gorfyddyd is a beast,” Guinevere said. “He tried to take my virginity.”

“He did?” I managed to say when I had recovered from the shock of the revelation.

“Tried and failed,” she said firmly. “He was drunk. He slobbered all over me. I was reeking with slobber, all down here.” She brushed her breasts. She was wearing a simple white linen shift that fell in straight folds from her shoulders to her feet. The linen must have been breathtakingly expensive for the fabric was so tantalizingly thin that if I stared at her, which I tried not to do, it was possible to see hints of her nakedness beneath the fine cloth. A golden image of the moon-crowned stag hung around her neck, her earrings were amber drops set in gold while on her left hand was a gold ring crowned with Arthur's bear and cut with a lover's cross. “Slobber, slobber,” she said delightedly, 'so when he'd finished, or to be exact when he'd finished trying to begin and was sobbing about how he meant to make me his Queen and how he would make me the richest queen in Britain, I went to lorweth and had him make me a spell against an unwanted lover. I didn't tell the Druid it was the King, of course, though it probably wouldn't have mattered if I had because lorweth would do anything if you smiled at him, so he made the charm and I buried it, then I made my father tell Gorfyddyd that I'd buried a death-charm against the daughter of a man who'd tried to rape me. Gorfyddyd knew who I meant and he dotes on that insipid little Ceinwyn, so he avoided me after that.“ She laughed. ”Men are such fools!"

“Not Prince Arthur,” I said firmly, being careful to use the title on which Guinevere insisted.

“He is a fool about jewellery,” she had said tartly, and then had asked me if Arthur had sent me to spy on her.

We walked on around the colonnade. We were alone. A warrior named Lanval was the commander of the Princess's guard and he had wanted to leave his men inside the courtyard, but Guinevere insisted they leave. “Let them start a rumour about us,” she told me happily, but then had scowled. “I sometimes think Lanval is ordered to spy on me.”

“Lanval merely watches over you, Lady,” I told her, 'for upon your safety depends Prince Arthur's happiness, and upon his happiness rests a kingdom."

“That is pretty, Derfel. I like that.” She spoke half mockingly. We walked on. A bowl of rose petals soaking in water wafted a pretty scent under the colonnade that offered welcome shade from the hot sun.

“Do you want to see Lunete?” Guinevere suddenly asked me.

“I doubt she wants to see me.”

“Probably not. But you're not married, are you?”

“No, Lady, we never married.”

“Then it doesn't matter, does it?” she asked, though what did not matter she did not say and I did not ask. “I wanted to see you, Derfel,” Guinevere said earnestly.

“You flatter me, Lady,” I said.

“Your words get prettier and prettier!” She clapped her hands, then wrinkled her nose. “Tell me, Derfel, do you ever wash?”

I blushed. “Yes, Lady.”

“You stink of leather and blood and sweat and dust. It can be quite a nice aroma, but not today. It's too hot. Would you like my ladies to give you a bath? We do it the Roman way, with lots of sweat and scraping. It's quite tiring.”

I deliberately moved a step away from her. “I'll find a stream, Lady.”

“But I did want to see you,” she said. She stepped back next to me and even put her arm into mine. “Tell me about Nimue.”

“Nimue?” I was surprised by the question.

“Can she really do magic?” Guinevere asked eagerly. The Princess was as tall as I was and her face, so handsome and high-boned, was close to mine. Proximity to Guinevere was overpowering, like the heavy disturbance of the senses given by the drink of Mithras. Her red hair was scented with perfume and her startling green eyes were lined with a gum that had been mixed with lamp black so that they seemed larger. “Can she do magic?” Guinevere asked again.

“I think so.”

“Think!” She stepped away from me, disappointed. “Only think?” The scar on my left hand throbbed and I did not know what to say.

Guinevere laughed. “Tell me the truth, Derfel. I need to know!” She put her arm back into mine and walked me on beneath the arcade's shade. “That horrible man Bishop Sansum is trying to make us all Christians and I won't put up with it! He wants us to feel guilty all the time and I keep telling him I've nothing to be guilty about, but the Christians are getting more powerful. They're building a new church here! No, they're doing worse than that. Come!” She turned impulsively and clapped her hands. Slaves ran into the courtyard and Guinevere ordered her cloak and dogs brought to her. “I'll show you something, Derfel, so you can see for yourself what that wretched little Bishop is doing to our kingdom.” She donned a mauve woollen cloak to hide the thin linen shift, then took the leashes of a brace of deer hounds that panted beside her with their long tongues lolling between sharp teeth. The villa's gates were thrown open and with two slaves following and a quartet of Lanval's guards hastily forming post on either side of us, we went down Durnovaria's main street which was handsomely paved with wide stones and guttered to take the rain down to the river that ran to the east of the town. The open-fronted shops were full of goods: shoes, a butchery, salt, a potter. Some houses had collapsed, but most were in good repair, perhaps because the presence of Mordred and Guinevere had brought the town a new prosperity. There were beggars, of course, who shuffled close on stumps, risking the guards' spear-staves in order to grab the copper coins distributed by Guinevere's two slaves. Guinevere herself, her red hair bared to the sun, strode down the hill with barely a glance at the commotion her presence caused. “See that house?” Guinevere gestured towards a handsome two-storey building on the northern side of the street. “That's where Nabur lives, and where our little King farts and vomits.” She shuddered. “Mordred is a particularly unpleasant child. He limps and he never stops screaming. There! Can you hear him?” I could indeed hear a child wailing, though whether it was Mordred I could not tell. “Now, come through here,” Guinevere commanded and she plunged through a small crowd who stared at her from the side of the street then climbed over a pile of broken stone that stood next to Nabur's handsome house. I followed her to find that we had reached a building site, or rather a place where one building was being torn down and another erected on its ruins. The building that was being destroyed had been a Roman temple. “It was where people worshipped Mercury,” Guinevere said, 'but now we're to have a shrine for a dead carpenter instead. And how will a dead carpenter give us good crops, tell me that!“ These last words, ostensibly spoken to me, were said loud enough to disturb the dozen Christians who were labouring at their new church. Some were laying stones, some ad zing doorposts, while others were pulling down the old walls to provide the material for the new building. ”If you must have a hovel for your carpenter,“ Guinevere said in a ringing voice, 'why not just take over the old building? I asked Sansum that, but he says it must all be new so that his precious Christians don't have to breathe air once used by pagans, in which nonsensical belief we pull down the old, which was exquisite, and throw up a nasty building full of ill-dressed stone and without any grace at all!” She spat into the dust to ward off evil. “He says it's a chapel for Mordred! Can you believe it? He's determined to make the wretched child into a whining Christian and this abomination is where he'll do it.”

“Dear Lady!” Bishop Sansum appeared from behind one of the new walls which were indeed ill-dressed compared with the careful masonry of the old temple's remains. Sansum was in a black gown — which, like his stiffly tonsured hair, was whitened with stone dust. “You do us a striking honour by your gracious presence, Lady,” he said as he bowed to Guinevere.

“I'm not doing you honour, you worm. I came to show Derfel what carnage you're making. How can you worship in that?” She threw a hand towards the half-built church. “You might as well take over a cow shed!”

“Our dear Lord was born in a cattle shed, Lady, so I rejoice that our humble church reminds you of one.” He bowed again to her. Some of his workers had gathered at the far end of their new building where they began to sing one of their holy songs to ward off the baleful presence of pagans.

“It certainly sounds like a cow shed,” Guinevere said tartly, then pushed past the priest and strode over the masonry-littered ground to where a wooden hut leaned against the stone-and-brick wall of Nabur's house. She released her hounds' leashes to let them run free. “Where's that statue, Sansum?” She threw the question over her shoulder as she kicked the hut door open.

“Alas, gracious Lady, though I tried to save it for you, our blessed Lord commanded that it be melted down. For the poor, you understand?”

She turned on the Bishop savagely. “Bronze! What use is bronze to the poor? Do they eat it?” She looked at me. "A statue of Mercury, Derfel, the height of a tall man and beautifully worked. Beautiful!

Roman work, not British, but now it's gone, melted in a Christian furnace because you people' she was staring at Sansum again with loathing on her strong face 'cannot stand beauty. You're frightened of it. You're like grubs pulling down a tree, and you have no idea what you do.“ She ducked into the hut, which was evidently where Sansum stored the valuable objects he discovered in the temple remains. She emerged with a small stone statuette that she tossed to one of her guards. ”It isn't much,“ she said, 'but at least it's safe from a carpenter-grub born in a cow shed.”

Sansum, still smiling despite all the insults, enquired of me how the fighting in the north went. “We win slowly,” I said.

“Tell my Lord the Prince Arthur that I pray for him.”

“Pray for his enemies, you toad,” Guinevere said, 'and maybe we'd win more quickly.“ She stared at her two dogs that were pissing against the new church walls. ”Cadwy raided this way last month,“ she told me, 'and came close.”

“Praise God we were spared,” Bishop Sansum added piously.

“No thanks to you, you pitiful worm,” Guinevere said. “The Christians ran away. Plucked up their skirts and scampered east. The rest of us stayed, and Lanval, the Gods be thanked, saw Cadwy off.” She spat towards the new church. “In time,” she said, 'we'll be free of enemies, and when that happens, Derfel, I shall pull down that cattle shed and build a temple fit for a real God."

“For Isis?” Sansum enquired slyly.

“Careful,” Guinevere warned him, 'for my Goddess rules the night, toad, and she might snatch your soul for her amusement. Though the Gods alone know what use your miserable soul would be to anyone. Come, Derfel."

The two deer hounds were collected and we strode back up the hill. Guinevere shook with anger. “You see what he's doing? Pulling down the old! Why? So he can impose his tawdry little superstitions on us. Why can't he leave the old alone? We don't care if fools want to worship a carpenter, so why does he care who we worship? The more Gods the better, I say. Why offend some Gods to exalt your own? It doesn't make sense.”

“Who is Isis?” I asked her as we turned into the gate of her villa. She shot me an amused look. “Is that my dear husband's question I hear?”

“Yes,” I said.

She laughed. “Well done, Derfel. The truth is always astonishing. So Arthur is worried by my Goddess?”

“He's worried,” I said, 'because Sansum worries him with tales of mysteries.“ She shrugged off the cloak, letting it fall on the courtyard tiles to be picked up by a slave. ”Tell Arthur,“ she said, 'that he has nothing to worry about. Does he doubt my affection?”

“He adores you,” I said tactfully.

“And I him.” She smiled at me. “Tell him that, Derfel,” she added warmly.

“I shall, Lady.”

“And tell him he has nothing to worry about with Isis.” She reached impulsively for my hand. “Come,” she said, just as she had when she had led me down to the new Christian shrine, but this time she hurried me across the courtyard, jumping the small water channels, to a small door set into the far arcade. “This,” she said, letting go of my hand and pushing the door open, 'is the shrine of Isis that so worries my dear Lord.“ I hesitated. ”Are men allowed to enter?"

“By day, yes. By night? No.” She ducked through the door and pulled aside a thick woollen curtain that was hung immediately inside. I followed, pushing through the curtain to find myself in a black, lightless room. “Stay where you are,” she warned me, and at first I thought that I was obeying some rule of Isis, but as my eyes grew accustomed to the thick gloom, I saw that she had made me stop so I did not stumble into a pool of water that was set into the floor. The only light in the shrine came around the edges of the curtain at the door, but as I waited I became aware of a grey light seeping into the room's far end; then I saw that Guinevere was pulling down layer after layer of black wall hangings, each one supported on a pole carried by brackets and each woven so thick that no light could come through the layered cloths. Behind the hangings, that now lay crumpled on the floor, were shutters that Guinevere threw open to let in a dazzling flood of light.

“There,” she said, standing to one side of the big, arched window, 'the mysteries!" She was mocking Sansum's fears, yet in truth the room was truly mysterious for it was entirely black. The floor was of black stone, the walls and arched ceiling were painted with pitch. In the black floor's centre was the shallow pool of black water and behind it, between the pool and the newly opened window, was a low black throne made of stone.

“So what do you think, Derfel?” Guinevere asked me.

“I see no Goddess,” I said, looking for a statue of Isis.

“She comes with the moon,” Guinevere said, and I tried to imagine the full moon flooding through that window to gloss the pool and shimmer on the deep black walls. “Tell me about Nimue,” Guinevere ordered, 'and I will tell you about Isis."

“Nimue is Merlin's priestess,” I said, my voice echoing hollow from the black painted stone, 'and she's learning his secrets."

“What secrets?”

“The secrets of the old Gods, Lady.”

She frowned. “But how does he find such secrets? I thought the old Druids wrote nothing down. They were forbidden to write, were they not?”

“They were, Lady, but Merlin searches for their knowledge anyway.” Guinevere nodded. “I knew we'd lost some knowledge. And Merlin's going to find it? Good! That might settle that bitter toad Sansum.” She had walked to the centre of the window and was now staring across the tiled and thatched roofs of Durnovaria and over the southern ramparts and the mounded grass of the amphitheatre beyond, towards the vast earth walls of Mai Dun that reared on the horizon. White clouds heaped in the blue sky, but what made the breath catch in my throat was that the sunlight was now flooding through Guinevere's white linen shift so that my Lord's Lady, this Princess of Henis Wyren, might just as well have been naked and, for those moments, as the blood pounded in my ears, I was jealous of my Lord. Was Guinevere aware of that sun's treachery? I thought not, but I might have been wrong. She had her back to me, but suddenly half turned so she could look at me. “Is Lunete a magician?”

“No, Lady,” I said.

“But she learned with Nimue, did she not?”

“No,” I said. “She was never allowed in Merlin's rooms. She had no interest.”

“But you were in Merlin's rooms?”

“Only twice,” I said. I could see her breasts and I deliberately dropped my gaze to the black pool, but that only mirrored her beauty and added a sultry sheen of dark mystery to her long, lithe body. A heavy silence fell and I realized, thinking about our last exchange, that Lunete must have claimed some knowledge of Merlin's magic and that I had undoubtedly just spoiled that claim. “Maybe,” I said feebly,

“Lunete knows more than she ever told me?”

Guinevere shrugged and turned away. I raised my eyes again. “But Nimue, you say, is more skilled than Lunete?” she asked me.

“Infinitely, Lady.”

“I have twice demanded that Nimue come to me,” Guinevere said sharply, 'and twice she has refused. How do I make her come to me?"

“The best way,” I said, 'of making Nimue do anything is to forbid her to do it.“ There was silence in the room again. The sounds of the town were loud enough; the cry of hawkers in the market, the clatter of cart wheels on stone, dogs barking, a rattle of pots in a nearby kitchen, but in the room it was silent. ”One day,“ Guinevere broke our silence, ”I shall build a temple to Isis up there.“ She pointed to the ramparts of Mai Dun that filled the southern sky. ”Is it a sacred place?"

“Very.”

“Good.” She turned towards me again, the sun filling her red hair and glowing on her smooth skin beneath the white shift. “I do not want to play childish games, Derfel, by trying to out-guess Nimue. I want her here. I need a priestess of power. I need a friend of the old Gods if I am to fight that grub Sansum. I need Nimue, Derfel, so for the love you have for Arthur, tell me what message will bring her here. Tell me that and I will tell you why I worship Isis.”

I paused, thinking what lure could possibly attract Nimue. “Tell her,” I finally said, 'that Arthur will give her Gundleus if she obeys you. But make sure he does," I added.

“Thank you, Derfel.” She smiled, then sat in the black, polished stone throne. “Isis,” she told me, 'is a woman's Goddess and the throne is her symbol. A man might sit on a kingdom's throne, but Isis can determine who that man is. That is why I worship her."

I smelt the hint of treason in her words. “The throne of this kingdom, Lady,” I said, repeating Arthur's frequent claim, 'is filled by Mordred."

Guinevere mocked that assertion with a sneer. “Mordred could not fill a pissing pot! Mordred is a cripple! Mordred is a badly behaved child who already scents power like a hog snuffling to rut a sow.” Her voice was whip-hard and scornful. “And since when, Derfel, was a throne handed from father to son? It was never thus in the old days! The best man of the tribe took the power, and that is how it should be today.” She closed her eyes as though she suddenly regretted her outburst. “You are a friend of my husband?” she asked after a while, her eyes open again.

“You know I am, Lady.”

“Then you and I are friends, Derfel. We are one, because we both love Arthur, and do you think, my friend Derfel Cadarn, that Mordred will make a better king than Arthur?” I hesitated for she was inviting me to speak treason, but she was also inviting me to speak honestly in a sacred place and so I gave her the truth. “No, Lady. Prince Arthur would make the better king.”

“Good.” She smiled at me. “So tell Arthur he has nothing to fear and much to gain by my worship of Isis. Tell him it is for his future that I worship here, and that nothing that happens in this room can cause him injury. Is that plain enough?”

“I shall tell him, Lady.”

She stared at me for a long time. I stood soldier straight, my cloak touching the black floor, Hywelbane at my side and my full beard gold in the shrine's sun. “Are we going to win this war?” Guinevere asked after a while.

“Yes, Lady.”

She smiled at my confidence. “Tell me why.”

“Because Gwent stands like a rock to our north,” I said, 'because the Saxons fight amongst themselves like we do and so they never combine against us. Because Gundleus of Siluria is terrified of another defeat. Because Cadwy is a slug who will be squashed when we have time to spare. Because Gorfyddyd knows how to fight, but not how to lead armies. Most of all, Lady, because we have Prince Arthur."

“Good,” she said again, then stood so that the sun flooded through that fine white linen shift. “You must go, Derfel. You've seen enough.” I blushed and she laughed. “And find a stream!” she called as I pushed through the curtain at the door. “Because you stink like a Saxon!” I found a stream, washed myself, then took my men south to the sea. I do not like the sea. It is cold and treacherous, and its grey shifting hills run endlessly from the far west where the sun dies each day. Somewhere beyond that empty horizon, the seamen told me, the fabled land of Lyonesse lies, but no one has seen it, or certainly no one has ever returned from Lyonesse, and so it has become a blessed haven to all poor seamen; a land of earthly delights where there is no war, no famine and, above all, no ships to cross the grey lumpy sea with its wind-scoured white-caps whipping down the grey-green slopes that heaved our small wooden boats so mercilessly. The coast of Dumnonia looked so green. I had not realized how much I loved the place till first I left it. My men travelled in three ships, all rowed by slaves, though once we were out of the river a wind came from the west and the oars were shipped as the ragged sails dragged the clumsy ships down the long waves' swooping sides. Many of my men were sick. They were young, mostly younger than myself, for war is truly a boys' game, but a few were older. Cavan, who was my second-in-command, was close to forty and had a grizzled beard and a face cross-hatched with scars. He was a dour Irishman who had taken service with Uther and who now found nothing strange in being commanded by a man only half his age. He called me Lord, assuming that because I came from the Tor I was Merlin's heir, or at least the magician's lordly child whelped on a Saxon slave. Arthur had given me Cavan, I think, in case my authority should prove no greater than my years, but in all honesty I never had trouble commanding men. You tell soldiers what they must do, do it yourself, punish them when they fail, but otherwise reward them well and give them victory. My spearmen were all volunteers and were going to Benoic either because they wanted to serve me or, more likely, because they believed there would be greater plunder and glory south of the sea. We travelled without women, horses or servants. I had given Canna her freedom and sent her to the Tor, hoping Nimue would look after her, but I doubted I would see my little Saxon again. She would find herself a husband soon enough, while I would find the new Britain, Brittany, and see for myself the fabled beauty of Ynys Trebes.

Bleiddig, the chief sent by King Ban, travelled with us. He grumbled at my lack of years, but after Cavan growled that I had probably killed more men than Bleiddig himself Bleiddig decided to keep his reservations about me private. He still complained that our numbers were too few. The Franks, he said, were land-hungry, well armed and numerous. Two hundred men, he now claimed, might make a difference, but not sixty.

We anchored that first night in the bay of an island. The seas roared past the bay's mouth while on the shore a ragged band of men shouted at us and sometimes fired feeble arrows that fell far short of our three ships. Our shipmaster feared a storm was coming and he sacrificed a kid that was on board for just that purpose. He drizzled the dying animal's blood on the bow of his ship and by morning the winds had calmed, though a great fog had crept over the sea instead. None of the ships' captains would sail in the fog so we waited a full day and night, and then, under a clear sky, rowed southwards. It was a long day. We skirted some dreadful rocks that were crowned with the bones of ships that had foundered, and then, in a warm evening, with a small wind and a rising tide helping our tired rowers, we slid into a wide river where, beneath the lucky wings of a flight of swans, we beached our craft. There was a fort nearby and armed men came to the river bank to challenge us, but Bleiddig shouted that we were friends. The men called back in British, welcoming us. The setting sun was gilding the river's swirls and eddies. The place smelt of fish and salt and tar. Black nets hung on racks beside beached fishing boats, fires blazed under the salt pans, dogs ran in and out of the small waves barking at us and a group of children came from some nearby huts to watch as we splashed ashore.

I went first, carrying my shield, with its symbol of Arthur's bear, upside down, and when I had gone beyond the wrack-littered line of the high tide I plunged the butt of my spear into the sand and said a prayer to Bel, my protector, and to Manawydan, the Sea God, that one day they would float me back from Armorica, back to my Lord's side, back to Arthur in blessed Britain. Then we went to war.

I Have heard men say that no town, not even Rome or Jerusalem, was as beautiful as Ynys Trebes, and maybe those men spoke true for though I never saw those others, I did see Ynys Trebes and it was a place of marvels, a wondrous town, the most beautiful place I ever saw. It was built on a steep granite island set in a wide and shallow bay that could be riven with foam and howling with wind, yet inside Ynys Trebes all would be calm. In summer the bay would shimmer with heat, but inside Benoic's capital it always seemed cool. Guinevere would have loved Ynys Trebes, for everything old was treasured and nothing ugly was allowed to mar its grace.

The Romans had been to Ynys Trebes, of course, but they had not fortified it, only built a pair of villas on its summit. The villas were still there: King Ban and Queen Elaine had joined them together and then added to them by pillaging Roman buildings on the mainland for new pillars and pedestals, mosaics and statues, so that the island's summit was now crowned with an airy palace, full of light, where white linen curtains billowed with every breath of wind that gusted off the glittering sea. The island was best reached by boat, though there was a causeway of sorts that was covered by every high tide and at low tide could become treacherous with quicksands. Withies marked the causeway, but the surge of the bay's huge tides washed the markers away and only a fool attempted the passage without hiring the services of a local guide to steer him through the sucking sands and trembling creeks. At the lowest tides Ynys Trebes would emerge from the sea to stand amidst a wilderness of rippled sand cut through with gullies and tide pools while at the highest tides, when the wind blew strong from the west, the city was like some monstrous ship crashing her dauntless way through tumultuous seas.

Beneath the palace was a huddle of lesser buildings that clung to the steep granite slopes like sea-birds' nests. There were temples, shops, churches and houses, all lime-washed, all built of stone, all tricked out with whatever carvings and decorations had not been wanted in Ban's high palace, and all fronting on to the stone-paved road that climbed in steps around the steep island towards the royal house. There was a small stone quay on the island's eastern side where boats could land, though only in the calmest weather was the landing comfortable, which was why our ships had landed us at a safe place a day's march to the west. Beyond the quay was a small harbour which was nothing but a tidal pool protected by sandbanks. At low tide the pool was cut off from the sea while at the tide's height the holding was poor whenever the wind was in the north. All around the island's base, except in those places where the granite itself was too steep to climb, a stone wall tried to keep the outer world at bay. Outside Ynys Trebes was turmoil, Prankish enemies, blood, poverty and disease, while inside the wall lay learning, music, poetry and beauty.

I did not belong in King Ban's beloved island capital. My task was to defend Ynys Trebes by fighting on the mainland of Benoic where the Franks were pushing into the farmlands that supported the lavish capital, but Bleiddig insisted I met the king, so I was guided across the causeway, through the city gate that was decorated with a carved merman brandishing a trident, and up the steep road that led to the lofty palace. My men had all stayed on the mainland and I wished I had brought them to see the wonders of the city: the carved gates; the steep stone stairs that plunged up and down the granite island between the temples and shops; the balconied houses decorated with urns of flowers; the statues; and the springs that poured clean fresh water into carved marble troughs where anyone could dip a pail or stoop to drink. Bleiddig was my guide and he growled how the city was a waste of good money that should have been spent on de fences ashore, but I was awestruck. This, I thought, was a place worth fighting for. Bleiddig led me through the final merman-decorated gate into the palace courtyard. The palace's vine-clad buildings filled three sides of the court, while the fourth was bounded by a series of white-painted arches that opened on to a long view of the sea. Guards in white cloaks stood at every door, their spear-shafts polished and spearheads shining. “They're no earthly use,” Bleiddig muttered to me. “Couldn't fight off a puppy, but they look pretty.”

A courtier in a white toga met us at the palace door and escorted us through room after room, each one filled with rare treasures. There were alabaster statues, golden dishes, and a room lined with speculum mirrors that made me gasp as I saw myself reflected into an unending distance: a bearded, dirty, russet-cloaked soldier getting ever smaller in the mirrors' crinkling diminutions. In the next room, which was painted white and was filled with the scent of flowers, a girl played a harp. She wore a short tunic and nothing else. She smiled as we passed and went on playing. Her breasts were golden from the sun, her hair was short and her smile easy. “Looks like a whorehouse,” Bleiddig confided in a hoarse whisper,

'and I wish it was. It might be of some use then."

The toga-clad courtier thrust open the last pair of bronze-handled doors and bowed us into a wide room that overlooked the glittering sea. “Lord King' he bowed to the room's only occupant ”Chief Bleiddig and Derfel, a captain of Dumnonia."

A tall thin man with a worried face and a thinning head of white hair stood up from behind a table where he had been writing on parchment. A cats paw of wind stirred his work and he fussed until he had weighted the parchment's corners with ink horns and snake stones. “Ah, Bleiddig!” the King said as he advanced towards us. “You're back, I see. Good, good. Some people never come back. The ships don't survive. We should ponder that. Is the answer bigger ships, do you think? Or do we build them wrong? I'm not sure we have the proper boatbuilding skills, though our fishermen swear we do, but some of them never come back either. A problem.” King Ban stopped halfway across the room and scratched his temple, transferring yet more ink on to his sparse hair. “No immediate solution suggests itself,” he finally announced, then peered at me. “Drivel, is it?”

“Derfel, Lord King,” I said, dropping to one knee.

“Derfel!” He said my name with astonishment. “Derfel! Let me think now! Derfel. I suppose, if that name means anything, it means ”pertaining to a Druid“. Do you so pertain, Derfel?”

“I was reared by Merlin, Lord.”

“Were you? Were you, indeed! My, my! That is something. I see we must talk. How is my dear Merlin?”

“He hasn't been seen these five years, Lord.”

“So he's invisible! Ha! I always thought that might be one of his tricks. A useful one, too. I must ask my wise men to investigate. Do stand up, do stand up. I can't abide people kneeling to me. I'm not a God, at least I don't think I am.” The King inspected me as I stood and seemed disappointed by what he saw.

“You look like a Frank!” he observed in a puzzled voice.

“I am a Dumnonian, Lord King,” I said proudly.

“I'm sure you are, and a Dumnonian, I pray, who precedes dear Arthur, yes?” he asked eagerly. I had not been looking forward to this moment. “No, Lord,” I said. “Arthur is besieged by many enemies. He fights for our kingdom's existence and so he has sent me and a few men, all we can spare, and I am to write and tell him if more are needed.”

“More will be needed, indeed they will,” Ban said as fiercely as his thin, high-pitched voice allowed.

“Dear me, yes. So you've brought a few men, have you? How few, pray, is few, precisely?”

“Sixty, Lord.”

King Ban abruptly sat on a wooden chair inlaid with ivory. “Sixty! I had hoped for three hundred! And for Arthur himself. You look very young to be a captain of men,” he said dubiously, then suddenly brightened. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you say you can write?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“And read?” he insisted anxiously.

“Indeed, Lord King.”

“You see, Bleiddig!” the King cried in a triumphant voice as he sprang from the chair. “Some warriors can read and write! It doesn't unman them. It does not reduce them to the petty status of clerks, women, kings or poets as you so fondly believe. Ha! A literate warrior. Do you, by any happy chance, write poetry?” he asked me.

“No, Lord.”

“How sad. We are a community of poets. We are a brotherhood! We call ourselves ihefili, and poetry is our stern mistress. It is, you might say, our sacred task. Maybe you will be inspired? Come with me, my learned Derfel.” Ban, Arthur's absence forgotten, scurried excitedly across the room, beckoning me to follow through a second set of great doors and across another small room where a second harpist, half-naked like the first and just as beautiful, touched her strings, and then into a great library. I had never seen a proper library before and King Ban, delighted to show the room off, watched my reaction. I gaped, and no wonder, for scroll after scroll was bound in ribbon and stored in custom-made open-ended boxes that stood one on top of the other like the cells of a honeycomb. There were hundreds of such cells, each with its own scroll and each cell labelled in a carefully inked hand. “What languages do you speak, Derfel?” Ban asked me.

“Saxon, Lord, and British.”

“Ah.” He was disappointed. “Rude tongues only. I, now, have a command of Latin, Greek, British, of course, and some small Arabic. Father Celwin there speaks ten times as many languages, isn't that so, Celwin?”

The King spoke to the library's only occupant, an old white-bearded priest with a grotesquely humped back and a black monkish cowl. The priest raised a thin hand in acknowledgement, but did not look up from the scrolls that were weighted down on his table. I thought for a moment that the priest had a fur scarf draped about the back of his monk's hood, then I saw it was a grey cat that lifted its head, looked at me, yawned, then went back to sleep. King Ban ignored the priest's rudeness, and instead conducted me past the racks of boxes and told me about the treasures he had collected. “What I have here,” he said proudly, 'is anything the Romans left, and anything my friends think to send me. Some of the manuscripts are too old to handle any more, so those we copy. Let's see now, what's this? Ah, yes, one of Aristophanes's twelve plays. I have them all, of course. This one is The Babylonians. A comedy in Greek, young man."

“And not at all funny,” the priest snapped from his table.

“And mightily amusing,” King Ban said, unruffled by the priest's rudeness, to which he was evidently accustomed. “Maybe the fili should build a theatre and perform it?” he added. “Ah, this you'll enjoy. Horace's Ars Poetica. I copied this one myself.”

“No wonder it's illegible,” Father Celwin interjected.

“I make all the fili study Horace's maxims,” the King told me.

“Which is why they're such execrable poets,” the priest put in, but still did not look up from his scrolls.

“Ah, Tertullian!” The King slid a scroll from its box and blew dust from the parchment. "A copy of his ApologeticusV

“All rubbish,” Celwin said. “Waste of precious ink.”

“Eloquence itself!” Ban enthused. “I'm no Christian, Derfel, but some Christian writing is full of good moral sense.”

“No such thing,” the priest maintained.

“Ah, and this is a work you must already know,” the King said, drawing another scroll from its box.

“Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. It is an unparalleled guide, my dear Derfel, to the manner in which a man should live his life.”

“Platitudes in bad Greek written by a Roman bore,” the priest growled.

“Probably the greatest book ever written,” the King said dreamily, replacing the Marcus Aurelius and drawing out another work. “And this is a curiosity, indeed it is. The great treatise of Aristarchus of Samos. You know it, I'm sure?”

“No, Lord,” I confessed.

“It is not perhaps on everyone's reading list,” the King admitted sadly, 'but it has a certain quaint amusement. Aristarchus maintains — do not laugh that the earth revolves around the sun and not the sun around the earth.“ He illustrated this cantankerous notion with extravagant wheeling gestures with his long arms. ”He got it backwards, do you see?"

“Sounds sensible to me,” Celwin said, still without looking up from his work.

“And Silius Italicus!” The King gestured at a whole group of honeycomb cells filled with scrolls. “Dear Silius Italicus! I have all eighteen volumes of his history of the Second Punic War. All in verse, of course. What a treasure!”

“The second turgid war,” the priest cackled.

“Such is my library,” Ban said proudly, conducting me from the room, 'the glory of Ynys Trebes! That and our poets. Sorry to have disturbed you, Father!"

“Is a camel disturbed by a grasshopper?” Father Celwin demanded, then the door was closed on him and I followed the King past the bare-breasted harpist back to where Bleiddig waited.

“Father Celwin is conducting research,” Ban announced proudly, 'into the wingspan of angels. Maybe I should ask him about invisibility? He does seem to know everything. But do you see now, Derfel, why it is so important that Ynys Trebes does not fall? In this small place, my dear fellow, is stored the wisdom of our world, gathered from its ruins and held in trust. I wonder what a camel is. Do you know what a camel is, Bleiddig?"

“A kind of coal, Lord. Blacksmiths use it for making steel.”

“Do they indeed? How interesting. But coal wouldn't be bothered by a grasshopper, would it? The contingency would scarcely arise, so why suggest it? How perplexing. I must ask Father Celwin when he's in a mood to be asked, which is not often. Now, young man, I know you've come to save my kingdom and I'm sure you're eager to be about that business, but first you must stay for supper. My sons are here, warriors both! I had hoped they might devote their lives to poetry and scholarship, but the times demand warriors, do they not? Still, my dear Lancelot values the fill as highly as I do myself, so there is hope for our future.” He paused, wrinkled his nose and offered me a kindly smile. “You will, I think, want a bath?”

“Will I?”

“Yes,” Ban said decisively. “Leanor will take you to your chamber, prepare your bath and provide you with clothes.” He clapped his hands and the first harpist came to the door. It seemed she was Leanor. I was in a palace by the sea, full of light and beauty, haunted by music, sacred to poetry and enchanted by its inhabitants who seemed to me to come from another age and another world. And then I met Lancelot.

“You're hardly more than a child,” Lancelot said to me.

“True, Lord,” I said. I was eating lobster soaked in melted butter and I do not think before or since I have ever eaten anything so delicious.

“Arthur insults us by sending a mere child,” Lancelot insisted.

“Not true, Lord,” I said, butter dripping into my beard.

“You accuse me of lying?” Prince Lancelot, the Edling of Benoic, demanded. I smiled at him. “I accuse you, Lord Prince, of being mistaken.”

“Sixty men?” he sneered. “Is that all Arthur can manage?”

“Yes, Lord,” I said.

“Sixty men led by a child,” Lancelot said scornfully. He was only a year or two older than I yet he possessed the world-weariness of a much older man. He was savagely handsome, tall and well built, with a narrow, dark-eyed face that was as striking in its maleness as Guinevere's was in its femininity, though there was something disconcertingly serpent-like in Lancelot's aloof looks. He had black hair that he wore in oiled loops pinned with gold combs, his moustache and beard were neatly trimmed and oiled to a gloss, and he wore a scent that smelled of lavender. He was the best-looking man I ever saw and, worse, he knew it, and I had disliked him from the very first moment I saw him. We met in Ban's feasting hall, which was unlike any feasting hall I was ever in. This one had marble pillars, white curtains that misted the sea view, and smooth plastered walls on which were paintings of Gods, Goddesses and fabulous animals. Servants and guards lined the walls of the gracious room that was lit by a myriad of small bronze dishes in which wicks floated in oil, while thick beeswax candles burned on the long table covered by a white cloth which I was constantly soiling with drips of butter, just as I was smearing the awkward toga that King Ban had insisted I wore to the feast.

I was loving the food and hating the company. Father Celwin was present and I would have welcomed a chance to talk with him, but he was annoying one of the three poets at the table, all of them members of King Ban's beloved band offili, while I was marooned at the table's end with Prince Lancelot. Queen Elaine, who was seated beside her husband, the King, was defending the poets against Celwin's barbs, which seemed much more amusing than Prince Lancelot's bitter conversation. “Arthur does insult us,” Lancelot insisted again.

“I am sorry you should think so, Lord,” I answered.

“Do you never argue, child?” he demanded of me.

I looked into his flat, hard eyes. “I thought it unwise for warriors to argue at a feast, Lord Prince,” I said.

“So you're a timid child!” he sneered.

I sighed and lowered my voice. “Do you really want an argument, Lord Prince?” I asked, my patience at last nearing its end, 'because if you do then just call me a child again and I'll tear your skull off." I smiled.

“Child,” he said after a heartbeat.

I gave him another puzzled look, wondering if he played a game the rules of which I could not guess, but if he did then the game was in deadly earnest. “Ten times the black sword,” I said.

“What?” He frowned, not recognizing the Mithraic formula which meant he was not my brother. “Have you gone mad?” he asked, and then, after a pause, “Are you a mad child, as well as a timid one?” I hit him. I should have kept my temper, but my discomfort and anger overcame all prudence. I gave him a backswing with my elbow that bloodied his nose, cracked his lip and spilt him backwards off the chair. He sprawled on the floor and tried to swing the fallen chair at me, but I was too fast and too close for the blow to have any force. I kicked the chair aside, hauled him upright then rammed him backwards against a pillar where I smashed his head against the stone and put my knee into his groin. He flinched. His mother was screaming, while King Ban and his poetic guests just gaped at me. A nervous white-cloaked guard put his spear-point at my throat. “Take it away,” I told the guard, 'or you're a dead man." He took it away.

“What am I, Lord Prince?” I asked Lancelot.

“A child,” he said.

I put my forearm across his throat, half choking him. He struggled, but he could not shift me. “What am I, Lord?” I asked again.

“A child,” he croaked.

A hand touched my arm and I turned to see a fair-haired man of my own age smiling at me. He had been sitting at the table's opposite end and I had assumed he was another poet, but that assumption was wrong. “I've long wanted to do what you're doing,” the young man said, 'but if you want to stop my brother insulting you then you'll have to kill him and family honour will insist I shall have to kill you and I'm not sure I want to do that."

I eased my arm from Lancelot's throat. For a few seconds he stood there, trying to breathe, then he shook his head, spat at me, and walked back to the table. His nose was bleeding, his lips swelling and his carefully oiled hair hung in sad disarray. His brother seemed amused by the fight. “I'm Galahad,” he said,

'and proud to meet Derfel Cadarn."

I thanked him, then forced myself to cross to King Ban's chair where, despite his avowed dislike of respectful gestures, I knelt down. “For the insult to your house, Lord King,” I said, “I apologize and submit to your punishment.”

“Punishment?” Ban said in a surprised voice. “Don't be so silly. It's just the wine. Too much wine. We should water our wine as the Romans did, shouldn't we, Father Celwin?”

“Ridiculous thing to do,” the old priest said.

“No punishment, Derfel,” Ban said. “And do stand up, I can't abide being worshipped. And what was your offence? Merely to be avid in argument, and where is the fault in that? I like argument, isn't that so, Father Celwin? A supper without argument is like a day without poetry' the King ignored the priest's acid comment about how blessed such a day would be 'and my son Lancelot is a hasty man. He has a warrior's heart and a poet's soul, and that, I fear, is a most combustible mix. Stay and eat.” Ban was a most generous monarch, though I noted that his Queen, Elaine, was anything but pleased at his decision. She was grey-haired, yet her face was unlined and contained a grace and calm that suited Ynys Trebes's serene beauty. At that moment, though, the Queen was frowning at me in severe disapproval.

“Are all Dumnonian warriors so ill-mannered?” she asked the table at large in an acid voice.

“You want warriors to be courtiers?” Celwin retorted brusquely. “You'd send your precious poets to kill the Franks? And I don't mean by reciting their verses at them, though come to think of it that might be quite effective.” He leered at the Queen and the three poets shuddered. Celwin had somehow evaded the prohibition on ugly things in Ynys Trebes for, without the cowl he had worn in the library, he appeared as an astonishingly ill-favoured man with one sharp eye, a mildewed eyepatch on the other, a sour twisted mouth, lank hair that grew behind a ragged tonsure line, a filthy beard half hiding a crude wooden cross hanging on his hollow chest, and with a bent, twisted body that was distorted by its stupendous hump. The grey cat that had been draped about his neck in the library was now curled on his lap eating scraps of lobster.

“Come to my end of the table,” Galahad said, 'and don't blame yourself."

“But I do,” I said. “It's my fault. I should have kept my temper.”

“My brother,” Galahad said when the seating had been rearranged, 'my half-brother, rather, delights in goading people. It's his sport, but most daren't fight back because he's the Edling and that means one day he'll have powers of life and death. But you did the right thing."

“No, the wrong thing.”

“I won't argue. But I will get you ashore tonight.”

“Tonight?” I was surprised.

“My brother does not take defeat lightly,” Galahad said softly. “A knife in the ribs while you're sleeping? If I were you, Derfel Cadarn, I should join your men ashore and sleep safe in their ranks.” I looked down the table to where the darkly handsome Lancelot was now being consoled by his mother as she dabbed at the blood on his face with a napkin dampened by wine. “Half-brother?” I asked Galahad.

“I was born to the King's lover, not to his wife,” Galahad leaned close to me and explained softly. “But Father has been good to me and insists on calling me prince.”

King Ban was now arguing with Father Celwin about some obscure point of Christian theology. Ban was debating with courteous enthusiasm while Celwin was spitting insults and both men were enjoying themselves hugely. “Your father tells me you and Lancelot are both warriors,” I said to Galahad.

“Both?” Galahad laughed. “My dear brother employs poets and bards to sing his praises as the greatest warrior of Armorica, but I've yet to see him in the shield-line.”

“But I have to fight,” I said sourly, 'to preserve his inheritance."

“The kingdom's lost,” Galahad said carelessly. “Father has spent his money on buildings and manuscripts, not soldiers, and here in Ynys Trebes we're too far from our people so they'd rather retreat to Broceliande than look to us for help. The Franks are winning everywhere. Your job, Derfel, is to stay alive and get safe home.”

His honesty made me look at him with a new interest. He had a broader, blunter face than his brother, and a more open one; the kind of face you would be glad to see on your right-hand side in the shield-line. A man's right side was the one defended by his neighbour's shield, so it served to be on good terms with that man, and Galahad, I felt instinctively, would be an easy man to like. “Are you saying we shouldn't fight the Franks?” I asked him quietly.

“I'm saying the fight is lost, but yes, you're oath-bound by Arthur to fight, and every moment that Ynys Trebes lives is a moment of light in a dark world. I'm trying to persuade Father to send his library to Britain, but I think he'd rather cut his own heart out first. But when the time comes, I'm sure, he'll send it away. Now' he pushed his gilded chair away from the table 'you and I must leave. Before,” he added softly, 'the fili recite. Unless, of course, you have a taste for unending verses about the glories of moonlight on reed beds?"

I stood and rapped the table with one of the special eating knives that King Ban provided his guests. Those guests now eyed me warily. “I have an apology to make,” I said, 'not just to you all, but to my Lord Lancelot. Such a great warrior as he deserved a better companion for supper. Now, forgive me, I need to sleep."

Lancelot did not respond. King Ban smiled, Queen Elaine looked disgusted and Galahad hurried me first to where my own clothes and weapons waited, then down to the flame lit quay where a boat waited to take us ashore. Galahad, still dressed in his toga, was carrying a sack that he slung on to the small boat's deck. It fell with a clang of metal. “What is it?” I asked.

“My weapons and armour,” he said. He untied the boat's painter, then leaped aboard. “I'm coming with you.”

The boat glided from the quay under a dark sail. The water rippled at the bow and splashed gently down the hull's length as we drew off into the bay. Galahad was stripping himself of the toga, which he tossed to the boatman, before dressing in war gear, while I stared back at the palace on the hill. It hung in the sky like a sky ship sailing into clouds, or maybe like a star come down to earth; a place of dreams; a refuge where a just King and a beautiful Queen ruled and where poets sang and old men could study the wingspan of angels. It was so beautiful, Ynys Trebes, so utterly beautiful. And, unless we could save it, doomed utterly.

Two years we fought. Two years against all odds. Two years of splendour and vileness. Two years of slaughter and feast, of broken swords and shattered shields, of victory and disaster, and in all those months and in all those sweated fights when brave men choked on their own life blood and ordinary men did deeds they never dreamed possible, I never saw Lancelot once. Yet the poets said he was the hero of Benoic, the most perfect warrior, the fighter of fighters. The poets said that preserving Benoic was Lancelot's fight, not mine, not Galahad's, not Culhwch's, but Lancelot's. But Lancelot spent the war in bed, begging his mother to bring him wine and honey.

No, not always in bed. Lancelot was sometimes at a fight, but always a mile behind so that he could be first back to Ynys Trebes with his news of victory. He knew how to tear a cloak, batter a sword edge, rumple his oiled hair and even cut his face so that he staggered home looking the hero, and then his mother would have the fili compose a new song and the song would be carried to Britain by traders and seamen so that even in distant Rheged, north of Elmet, they believed that Lancelot was the new Arthur. The Saxons feared his coming, while Arthur sent him the gift of an embroidered sword belt with a richly enamelled buckle.

“You think life should be fair?” Culhwch asked me when I complained about the gift.

“No, Lord,” I said.

“Then don't waste breath on Lancelot,” Culhwch said. He was the cavalry leader left behind in Armorica when Arthur went to Britain, and also a cousin of Arthur's, though he bore no resemblance to my Lord. Culhwch was a squat, fiercely bearded, long-armed brawler who asked nothing of life but a plentiful supply of enemies, drink and women. Arthur had left him in command of thirty men and horses, but the horses were all dead and half the men were gone so that now Culhwch fought on foot. I joined my men to his and so accepted his command. He could not wait for the war in Benoic to end so that he could fight again at Arthur's side. He adored Arthur.

We fought a strange war. When Arthur had been in Armorica the Franks were still some miles to the east where the land was flat and cleared of trees and thus ideal for his heavy horsemen, but now the enemy was deep inside the woods that cloaked the hills of central Benoic. King Ban, like Tewdric of Gwent, had put his faith in fortifications, but where Gwent was ideally placed for massive forts and high walls, the woods and hills of Benoic offered the enemy too many paths that passed by the hilltop fortresses garrisoned by Ban's dispirited forces. Our job was to give those forces hope again and we did it by using Arthur's own tactics of hard marches and surprise attacks. The wooded hills of Benoic were made for such battles and our men were peerless. There are few joys to compare with the fight that follows an ambush well sprung, when the enemy is strung out and has his weapons sheathed. I put new scars on Hywelbane's long edge.

The Franks feared us. They called us forest wolves and we adopted the insult as our symbol and wore grey wolf-tails on our helmets. We howled to frighten them, kept them awake night after night, stalked them for days and sprang our ambushes when we wanted and not when they were ready, yet the enemy was many and we were few, and month by month our numbers shrank.

Galahad fought with us. He was a great fighter, yet he was also a scholar who had delved into his father's library and he would talk at night of old Gods, new religions, strange countries and great men. I remember one night when we camped in a ruined villa. A week before it had been a thriving settlement with its own fulling mill, pottery and dairy, but the Franks had been there and now the villa was a smoking ruin, splashed by blood, its walls tumbled and its spring poisoned with the corpses of women and children. Our sentries were guarding the paths in the woods so we had the luxury of a fire on which we roasted a brace of hares and a kid. We drank water and pretended it was wine.

“Falernian,” Galahad said dreamily, holding his clay cup to the stars as though it were a golden flask.

“Who's he?” Culhwch asked.

“Falernian, my dear Culhwch, is a wine, a most pleasant Roman wine.”

“I never did like wine,” Culhwch said, then yawned hugely. “A woman's drink. Now Saxon ale! There's a drink for you.” Within minutes he was asleep.

Galahad could not sleep. The fire flickered low while above us the stars shone bright. One fell, cutting its swift white path through the heavens and Galahad made the sign of the cross for he was a Christian and to him a falling star was the sign of a demon falling from paradise. “It was on earth once,” he said.

“What was?” I asked.

“Paradise.” He leaned back on the grass and rested his head on his arms. “Sweet paradise.”

“Ynys Trebes, you mean?”

“No, no. I mean, Derfel, that when God made man He gave us a paradise in which to live, and it occurs to me that we have been losing that paradise, inch by inch, ever since. And soon, I think, it will be gone. Darkness descends.” He went silent for a while, then sat up as his thoughts gave him a new energy. “Just think of it,” he said, 'not a hundred years ago this land was peaceful. Men built great houses. We can't build like they did. I know Father has made a fine palace, but it's just broken pieces of old palaces cobbled together and patched with stone. We can't build like the Romans. We can't build as high, or as beautifully. We can't make roads, we can't make canals, we can't make aqueducts.“ I did not even know what an aqueduct was, but kept silent as Culhwch snored contentedly beside me. ”The Romans built whole cities,“ Galahad went on, 'places so vast, Derfel, it would take a whole morning to walk from one side of the city to the other and all of your footsteps would fall on trimmed, dressed stone. And in those days you could walk for weeks and still be on Rome's land, subject to Rome's laws and listening to Rome's language. Now look at it.” He waved at the night. “Just darkness. And it spreads, Derfel. The dark is creeping into Armorica. Benoic will go, and after Benoic, Broceliande, and after Broceliande, Britain. No more laws, no more books, no more music, no more justice, only vile men round smoky fires planning on who they'll kill next day.”

“Not while Arthur lives,” I said stubbornly.

“One man against the dark?” Galahad asked sceptic ally

“Wasn't your Christ one man against the dark?” I asked.

Galahad thought for a second, staring into the fire that shadowed his strong face. “Christ,” he said finally,

'was our last chance. He told us to love one another, to do good to each other, to give alms to the poor, food to the hungry, cloaks to the naked. So men killed Him.“ He turned and looked at me. ”I think Christ knew what was coming and that was why He promised us that if we lived as He lived then one day we'd be with Him in paradise. Not on earth, Derfel, but in paradise. Up there' he pointed to the stars' because He knew the earth was finished. We're in the last days. Even your Gods have fled from us. Isn't that what you tell me? That your Merlin is scouring strange lands to find clues to the old Gods, but what use will the clues be? Your religion died long ago when the Romans ravaged Ynys Mon and all you have left are disconnected scraps of knowledge. Your Gods are gone."

“No,” I said, thinking of Nimue who felt their presence, though to me the Gods were always distant and shadowy. Bel, to me, was like Merlin, only far away and indescribably huge and far more mysterious. I thought of Bel as somehow living in the far north, while Manawydan must live in the west where the waters tumbled endlessly.

“The old Gods are gone,” Galahad insisted. “They abandoned us because we are not worthy.”

“Arthur is worthy,” I said stubbornly, 'and so are you.“ He shook his head. ”I am a sinner so vile, Derfel, that I cringe.“ I laughed at his abject tone. ”Nonsense," I said.

“I kill, I lust, I envy.” He was truly miserable, but then Galahad, like Arthur, was a man who was for ever judging his own soul and finding it wanting and I never met such a man who was happy for long.

“You only kill men who would kill you,” I defended him.

“And, God help me, I enjoy it.” He made the sign of the cross.

“Good,” I said. “And what's wrong with lust?”

“It overcomes reason.”

“But you're reasonable,” I pointed out.

“But I lust, Derfel, how I lust. There is a girl in Ynys Trebes, one of my father's harpists.” He shook his head hopelessly.

“But you control your lust,” I said, 'so be proud of that."

“I am proud of it, and pride is another sin.”

I shook my head at the hopelessness of arguing with him. “And envy?” I offered him the last of his trinity of sins. “Whom do you envy?”

“Lancelot.”

“Lancelot?” I was surprised.

“Because he is Edling, not I. Because he takes what he wants, when he wants, and does not seem to regret it. That harpist? He took her. She screamed, she fought, but no one dared stop him for he was Lancelot.”

“Not even you?”

“I would have killed him, but I was far from the city.”

“Your father didn't stop him?”

“My father was with his books. He probably thought the girl's screams were a gull calling into the sea wind or two of his fili having a squabble about a metaphor.”

I spat into the fire. “Lancelot is a worm,” I said.

“No,” Galahad insisted, 'he is, simply, Lancelot. He gets what he wants and he spends his days plotting how to get it. He can be very charming, very plausible and he could even be a great king."

“Never,” I said firmly.

“Truly. If power is what he wants, and it is, and if he receives it, then perhaps his appetites will be slaked? He does want to be liked.”

“He goes a strange way about it,” I said, remembering how Lancelot had taunted me at his father's table.

“He knew, from the first, that you were not going to like him and so he challenged you. That way, when he makes an enemy of you, he can explain to himself why you don't like him. But with people who don't threaten him he can be kind. He might be a great king.”

“He's weak,” I said scornfully.

Galahad smiled. “Strong Derfel. Derfel the Doubtless. You must think we're all weak.”

“No,” I said, 'but I think we're all tired and tomorrow we have to kill Franks, so I'll sleep." And next day we did kill Franks, and afterwards we rested in one of Ban's hilltop forts before, with our wounds bandaged and our battered swords sharpened, we went back into the woods. Yet week by week, month by month, we fought closer to Ynys Trebes. King Ban called on his neighbour, Budic of Broceliande, to send troops, but Budic was fortifying his own frontier and declined to waste men on defending a lost cause. Ban appealed to Arthur, and though Arthur did send one small shipload of men, he did not come himself. He was too busy fighting Saxons. We did get news from Britain, though such news was infrequent and often vague, but we heard that new hordes of Saxons were trying to colonize the middle lands and pressing hard on Dumnonia's borders. Gorfyddyd, who had been such a threat when I left Britain, had been quieter of late, thanks to a terrible plague that had afflicted his country. Travellers told us that Gorfyddyd himself was ill and many thought he would not last the year. The same sickness that had afflicted Gorfyddyd had killed Ceinwyn's betrothed, a prince of Rheged. I had not even known she was betrothed again and I confess that I felt a selfish pleasure that the dead prince of Rheged would not marry the star of Powys. Of Guinevere, Nimue or Merlin I heard nothing. Ban's kingdom crumbled. There were no men to gather the harvest in the last year and that winter we huddled in a fortress on the southern edge of the kingdom where we lived on venison, roots, berries and wildfowl. We still made an occasional raid into Prankish territory, but now we were like wasps trying to sting a bull to death for the Franks were everywhere. Their axes rang through the winter forests as they cleared land for their farms while their new-built stockades of brightly split logs shone in the pale wintry sun.

Early in the new spring we fell back before an army of Prankish warriors. They came with drums beating and under banners made of bull horns mounted on poles. I saw one shield-wall of over two hundred men and knew our fifty survivors could never break it and so, with Culhwch and Galahad either side of me, we retreated. The Franks jeered and pursued us with a hail of their light throwing spears. The kingdom of Benoic was stripped of people now. Most had gone to the kingdom of Broceliande that promised them land in return for war service. The old Roman settlements were deserted and their fields were tangled with couch grass. We Dumnonians walked north with our spears trailing as we went to defend the last fortress of Ban's kingdom: Ynys Trebes itself.

The island city was crowded with fugitives. Every house slept twenty. Children cried and families squabbled. Fishing boats carried some of the fugitives west to Broceliande or north to Britain, but there were never enough boats, and when the Prankish armies appeared on the shore facing the island, Ban ordered the remaining boats to stay anchored in Ynys Trebes's awkward little harbour. He wanted them there so they could supply the garrison once the siege started, but shipmasters are a stubborn breed and when the order came for them to stay many hauled their anchors instead and ran north empty. Only a handful of boats remained.

Lancelot was made commander of the city and women cheered as he walked down the city's circling street. All would be well now, the citizens believed, for the greatest of soldiers was in command. He took the adulation gracefully and made speeches in which he promised to build Ynys Trebes a new causeway from the skulls of dead Franks. The Prince certainly looked the part of a hero for he wore a suit of scale armour on which every metal plate had been enamelled a dazzling white so that the suit shone in the early spring sunshine. Lancelot claimed the armour had belonged to Agamemnon, a hero of antiquity, though Galahad assured me it was Roman work. Lancelot's boots were made of red leather, his cloak was dark blue, and at his hip, hanging from the embroidered sword belt that had been Arthur's gift, he wore Tanlladwyr, 'bright-killer', his sword. His helmet was black, crested with the spread wings of a sea-eagle.

“So he can fly away,” Cavan, my dour Irishman, commented sourly. Lancelot convened a council of war in the high, wind-kissed chamber next to Ban's library. It was low tide and the sea had fled from the bay's sandbanks where groups of Franks were trying to find a safe path to the city. Galahad had planted false wit hies all across the bay, trying to lead the enemy into quicksands or else on to firm banks that would be the first to be cut off when the tide turned and seethed across the bay. Lancelot, his back to the enemy, told us his strategy. His father sat on one side of him, his mother on the other, and both nodded at their son's wisdom.

The defence of Ynys Trebes was simple, Lancelot announced. All we needed to do was hold the island's walls. Nothing else. The Franks had few boats, they could not fly, so they must walk to Ynys Trebes and that was a journey they could only make at low tide and after they had discovered the safe route across the tidal plain. Once at the city they would be tired and never able to scale the stone walls. “Hold the walls,” Lancelot said, 'and we stay safe. Boats can supply us. Ynys Trebes need never fall!"

“True! True!” King Ban said, cheered by his son's optimism.

“How much food do we have?” Culhwch growled the question. Lancelot gave him a pitying look. “The sea,” he said, 'is full of fish. They're the shiny things, Lord Culhwch, with tails and fins. You eat them."

“I didn't know,” Culhwch said straight-faced, “I've been too busy killing Franks.” A murmur of laughter went through some of the warriors summoned to the meeting. A dozen of them, like us, had been fighting on the mainland, but the remainder were intimates of Prince Lancelot and had been newly promoted into captains for this siege. Bors, Lancelot's cousin, was Benoic's champion and commander of the palace guard. He, at least, had seen some fighting and had earned a reputation as a warrior, though now, sprawling long-legged in a Roman uniform and with his black hair, like his cousin Lancelot's, oiled flat against his skull, he looked jaded.

“How many spears do we have?” I asked.

Lancelot had ignored me till then. I knew he had not forgotten our meeting of two years before, but he nevertheless smiled at my question. “We have four hundred and twenty men under arms and each of them has a spear. Can you work out the answer?”

I returned the silky smile. “Spears break, Lord Prince, and men defending walls throw their spears like javelins. When four hundred and twenty spears are thrown, what do we throw next?”

“Poets,” Culhwch growled, luckily too softly for Ban to hear.

“There are spares,” Lancelot said airily, 'and besides, we shall use the spears the Franks throw at us."

“Poets, for sure,” Culhwch said.

“You spoke, Lord Culhwch?” Lancelot asked.

“I belched, Lord Prince. But while I have your gracious attention, do we have archers?”

“Some.”

“Many?”

“Ten.”

“The Gods help us,” Culhwch said and slid down in his chair. He hated chairs. Elaine spoke next, reminding us that the island was sheltering women, children and the world's greatest poets. “The safety of the fill is in your hands,” she told us, 'and you know what will happen to them if you fail." I kicked Culhwch to stop him from making a comment.

Ban stood and gestured towards his library. “Seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-three scrolls are in there,” he said solemnly, 'the accumulated treasures of human knowledge, and if the city falls, so will civilization.“ He then told us an ancient tale of a hero going into a labyrinth to kill a monster and trailing behind him a woollen thread with which he could find his way out of the darkness. ”My library,“ he finally explained the point of the long tale, 'is that thread. Lose it, gentlemen, and we stay in eternal darkness. So I beg you, I beg you, fight!” He paused, smiling. “And I have summoned help. Letters are gone to Broceliande and to Arthur, and I think the day is not far off when our horizon will be thick with friendly sails! And Arthur, remember, is oath-bound to help us!”

“Arthur,” Culhwch intervened, 'has his hands full of Saxons."

“An oath is an oath!” Ban said reprovingly.

Galahad enquired whether we planned to make our own raids on the Prankish encampments ashore. We could easily go by boat, he said, landing east or west of their positions, but Lancelot turned down the idea. “If we leave the walls,” he said, 'we die. It is that simple."

“No sallies?” Culhwch asked in disgust.

“If we leave the walls,” Lancelot repeated, 'we die. Your orders are simple: you stay behind the walls." He announced that Benoic's best warriors, a hundred veterans of the war on the mainland, would guard the main gate. We fifty surviving Dumnonians were given the western walls, while the city's levies, bolstered by fugitives from the mainland, guarded the rest of the island. Lancelot himself, with a company of the white-cloaked palace guard, would form the reserve that would watch the fighting from the palace and come down to intervene wherever their help was needed.

“Might as well call on the fairies,” Culhwch growled to me.

“Another belch?” Lancelot enquired.

“It's all the fish I eat, Lord Prince,” Culhwch said.

King Ban invited us to inspect his library before we left, perhaps wanting to impress us with the value of what we defended. Most of the men who had been at the council of war shuffled in, gaped at the pigeon-holed scrolls, then went to stare at the bare-breasted harpist who played in the library's antechamber. Galahad and I lingered longer among the books where the hump-backed Father Celwin was still bent over his old table where he was trying to keep his grey cat from playing with his quill. “Still working out the wingspan of angels, Father?” I asked him.

“Someone must,” he said, then turned to scowl at me with his one eye. “Who are you?”

“Derfel, Father, of Dumnonia. We met two years ago. I'm surprised you're still here.”

“Your surprise is of no interest to me, Derfel of Dumnonia. Besides, I did leave for a while. I went to Rome. Filthy place. I thought the Vandals might have cleaned it up, but the place is still full of priests and their plump little boys, so I came back here. Ban's harpists are much prettier than Rome's catamites.” He gave me an unfriendly look. “Do you care about my safety, Derfel of Dumnonia?” I could hardly answer no, though I was tempted to. “My job is to protect lives,” I said rather pretentiously, 'including yours, Father."

“Then I put my life in your hands, Derfel of Dumnonia,” he said as he turned his ugly face back to the table and pushed the cat away from his quill. “I lay my life on your conscience, Derfel of Dumnonia, and now you can go and fight and leave me to do something useful.” I tried to ask the priest about Rome, but he waved my questions away and so I went down to the storehouse on the western wall that would be our home for the rest of the siege. Galahad, who considered himself an honorary Dumnonian now, was with us and he and I tried to count the Franks who were retreating from the incoming tide after another attempt to discover the track across the sands. The bards, singing of Ynys Trebes's siege, say the enemy outnumbered the grains of sand in the bay. They were not quite that many, but still they were formidable. Every Prankish war-band in western Gaul had combined to help capture Ynys Trebes, the jewel of Armorica which, it was rumoured, was crammed with the treasures of Rome's fallen Empire. Galahad estimated we were faced by three thousand Franks, my guess was two thousand, while Lancelot assured us there were ten thousand. But by anyone's count there was a terrible lot of them.

The first attacks brought the Franks nothing but disaster. They found a way across the sand and assaulted the main gate and were repelled bloodily, then the next day they attacked our part of the wall and were given the same treatment, only this time they stayed too long and a large part of their force was cut off by the incoming tide. Some tried to wade to the mainland and were drowned, others retreated to the shrinking stretch of sand before our walls where they were slaughtered by a sally of spearmen led from the gate by Bleiddig, the chief who had fetched me to Benoic and who was now the leader of Benoic's veterans. Bleiddig's sortie across the sand was in direct disobedience to Lancelot's rule that we must stay inside the city's wall, but the dead were so many that Lancelot pretended to have ordered the attack and later, after Bleiddig's death, he even claimed to have led the sally. The fill made a song telling how Lancelot had dammed the bay with Prankish dead, but in truth the Prince stayed in the palace while Bleiddig attacked. For days afterwards the bodies of Prankish warriors swilled around the island's base, carried by the tide and providing rich carrion for the gulls.

The Franks then began to build a proper causeway. They cut hundreds of trees and laid them on the sand, then weighted the trunks with rocks carried to the shore by slaves. The tides in Ynys Trebes's wide bay were fierce, sometimes rising forty feet, and the new causeway was ripped by the currents so that at low tide the flats were littered with floating logs, but always the Franks brought more trees and stone and so plugged the gaps. They had captured thousands of slaves and did not care how many died in building the new road. The causeway became longer as our food supplies grew shorter. Our few remaining boats still went fishing, and others carried grain from Broceliande, but the Franks launched their own boats from the shore and after two of our fishing boats were captured and their crews disembowelled, our shipmasters stayed at home. The poets on the hilltop, posturing with their spears, lived off the palace's rich stores, but we warriors scraped barnacles off the rocks, ate mussels and razor clams or stewed the rats we trapped in our storehouse that was still filled with pelts, salt and barrels of nails. We did not starve. We had willow fish traps at the base of the rocks and most days they yielded a few small fish though at low tide the Franks would send raiding parties to destroy the traps. At high tide the Prankish boats rowed round the island to pull up the fish traps set further from the city's shore. The bay was shallow enough for the enemy to see the traps and then to break them with spears. One such boat grounded on its return to the mainland and was left stranded a quarter-mile from the city as the tide fell. Culhwch ordered a sortie and thirty of us climbed down fishing nets suspended from the wall's top. The twelve men of the boat's crew fled as we approached, and inside the abandoned craft we found a barrel of salted fish and two dry loaves of bread that we carried back in triumph. When the tide rose we brought the boat back to the city and tied it safe beneath our wall. Lancelot watched our disobedience, but sent no reprimand though a message did come from Queen Elaine demanding to know what supplies we had fetched back from the ship. We sent some dried fish up the road and no doubt the gift was construed as an insult. Lancelot then accused us of capturing the boat so that we could desert Ynys Trebes and ordered us to deliver the ship to the island's small harbour. For answer I climbed the hill to the palace and demanded that he back up his accusation of cowardice with his sword. I shouted the challenge around the courtyard, but the Prince and his poets stayed inside their locked doors. I spat on their threshold and left.

Galahad was happier the more desperate things became. Part of his happiness sprang from the presence of Leanor, the harpist who had welcomed me two years before, the girl for whom Galahad had confessed his lust to me, the same girl Lancelot had raped. She and Galahad lived in a corner of the store-room. We all had women. There was something about the hopelessness of our plight that eroded normal behaviour and so we crammed as much living as we could into those hours before our expected deaths. The women stood guard with us and hurled rocks whenever the Franks tried to dismantle our fragile fish traps. We had long run out of spears, except for those we had brought to Benoic ourselves and which we were saving for the main assault. Our handful of archers had no missiles except the ones shot into the city by the Franks, and that supply increased when the enemy's causeway was a short bow's shot from the city gate. The Franks erected a timber fence at the end of the causeway and their archers stood behind the fence and poured arrows on the gate's defenders. The Franks made no attempt to extend the causeway all the way to the city, for the new roadway was only ever intended to give them a dry passage to the place where their assault could begin. We knew that attack must come soon. It was early summer when the causeway was finished. The moon was full and brought huge tides. For much of the time the causeway was under water, but at low tide the sands stretched wide about Ynys Trebes, and the Franks, who were learning the secrets of the sand flats day by day, ranged all about us. Their drums were our constant music and their threats were ever in our ears. One day brought a feast special to their tribes and instead of attacking us they lit great fires on the beach then marched a column of slaves to the causeway's end where, one by one, the captives were beheaded. The slaves were Britons, some of them with relatives watching from the city's wall, and the barbarism of the slaughter goaded some of Ynys Trebes's defenders to rush out of the gate in a vain attempt to rescue the doomed women and children. The Franks were waiting for the attack and formed a shield-wall on the sand, but the men of Ynys Trebes, crazed by anger and hunger, charged home. Bleiddig was one of the attackers. He died that day, cut down by a Prankish spear. We Dumnonians watched as a handful of survivors fled back to the city. There was nothing we could have done except add our corpses to the pile. Bleiddig's body was flayed, disembowelled, then planted on a stake at the causeway's end so that we were forced to look at him until the next high tide. Somehow, though, the body stayed on the stake despite being immersed so that next morning, in a grey dawn, the gulls were tearing at his salt-washed corpse.

“We should have charged with Bleiddig,” Galahad told me bitterly.

“No.”

“Better to have died like a man in front of a shield-wall than be starved here.”

“You'll get your chance to fight the shield-wall,” I promised him, but I also took what steps I could to help my people in defeat. We barricaded the alleys leading to our sector so that should the Franks break into the island-city we could hold them at bay while our women were taken on a narrow rock-bound path that twisted across the shoulder of the granite peak to a tiny cleft on the island's northwestern shore where we had hidden our captured ship. The cleft was no kind of harbour, so we protected our ship by filling it with stones so that the tide flooded it twice a day. Under water the fragile hull was safe from being pounded against the cleft's rocky sides by the wind and waves. I guessed that the enemy assault would be made at low water and two of our wounded men were under instructions to empty the boat of its rocks as soon as the attack began so that the craft would float on the flooding tide. The idea of escaping in the boat was desperate, but it gave our people heart.

No ships came to our rescue. One morning a great sail was seen in the north and the rumour flashed about the city that Arthur himself was coming, but gradually the sail hauled off and disappeared in the summer haze. We were alone. At night we sang songs and told tales, while by day we watched the Prankish war-bands gather on the shore.

Those war-bands made their assault on a summer afternoon, late on a falling tide. They came in a great swarm of leather-armoured men, iron-helmeted, with wooden shields held high. They crossed the causeway, leaped off its end and climbed the gentle slope of sand towards the city gate. The leading attackers carried a huge log as a battering ram, its end fire-hardened and sheathed in leather, while the men who followed brought long ladders. One horde came and threw their ladders against our walls. “Let them climb!” Culhwch bellowed at our soldiers. He waited until one ladder held five men then hurled a huge boulder straight down between its uprights. The Franks screamed as they were plucked off the rungs. An arrow glanced off Culhwch's helmet as he hurled another stone. More arrows rattled on the wall or hissed over our heads while a rain of light throwing spears clattered uselessly against the stone. The Franks were a churning dark mass at the wall's foot into which we hurled rocks and sewage. Cavan managed to lift one ladder clean over the wall and we broke it into scraps that we rained down on our attackers. Four of our women struggled to the rampart with a fluted stone column taken from a city doorway and we heaved it over the wall and took pleasure in the terrible screams of the men it crushed.

“This is how the darkness comes!” Galahad shouted at me. He was exultant; fighting the last battle and spitting in death's eye. He waited for a Frank to reach a ladder's top, then gave a mighty slash with his sword so that the man's head bounded off down to the sand. The rest of the dead man's corpse stayed clinging to the ladder, obstructing the Franks behind who became easy targets for our stones. We were breaking down the store-house wall now to make our ammunition and we were winning the fight too, for fewer and fewer Franks dared try to climb the ladders. Instead they retreated from the wall's base and we jeered at them, told them they had been beaten by women, but if they attacked again we would wake our warriors to the fight. Whether they understood our taunts I cannot tell, but they hung back, fearful of our de fences The main attack still seethed at the gate where the sound of the battering ram's pounding head was like a giant drum sickening the whole bay.

The sun stretched the shadows of the bay's western headland long across the sand while high pink clouds made bars across the sky. Gulls flew to their roosts. Our two wounded men had gone to empty our boat of stones I hoped no Franks had reached that far about the island to discover the craft yet I did not think we would even need it. Evening was falling and the tide was rising so that soon the water would drive the attackers back to the causeway, then back to their encampments and we would celebrate a famous victory.

But then we heard the battle roar of cheering men from beyond the city's gate and we saw our defeated Franks run from before our wall to join that distant assault and we knew the city was lost. Later, talking to survivors, we discovered that the Franks had succeeded in climbing the harbour's stone quay and now they were swarming into the city.

And so the screaming began.

Galahad and I took twenty men across our nearest barricade. Women were running towards us, but seeing us they panicked and tried to climb the granite hill. Culhwch stayed to guard our wall and to protect our retreat to the boat as the first smoke of a defeated city curled into the evening sky. We ran behind the main gate's defenders, turned down a flight of stone steps and there saw the enemy scrambling like rats into a granary. Hundreds of enemy spearmen were flooding up from the quay. Their bull-horn standards were advancing everywhere, their drums were beating while the women trapped in the city's houses were shrieking. Off to our left, at the harbour's far side where only a few attackers had gained a lodgement, a surge of white-cloaked spearmen suddenly appeared. Bors, Lancelot's cousin and the commander of the palace guard, was leading a counter-attack and for a moment I thought he would turn the day and seal off the invaders' retreat, but instead of assaulting along the quay Bors led his men to the sea-steps where a fleet of small boats waited to take them all to safety. I saw Prince Lancelot hurrying amid the guard, bringing his mother by the hand and leading a clutch of panicking courtiers. The fili were fleeing the doomed city.

Galahad cut down two men trying to climb the steps, then I saw the street behind us fill with dark-cloaked Franks. “Back!” I shouted, and hauled Galahad away from the alley.

“Let me fight!” He tried to pull away from me and face the next two men coming up the narrow stone steps.

“Live, you fool.” I pushed him behind me, feinted left with my spear, then brought it up and rammed its blade into a Frank's face. I let go of the shaft, took the second man's spear thrust on my shield while I drew Hywelbane, then I gave the low jab under the shield's edge that sent the man screaming to the steps with blood welling between hands that cupped his groin. “You know how to get us safe through the city!” I shouted at Galahad. I abandoned my spear as I pushed him back from the battle-maddened enemies who were surging up the steps. There was a potter's shop at the head of the steps and despite the siege the shopkeeper's wares were still displayed on trestle tables under a canvas awning. I tipped a table full of jugs and vases into the attackers' path, then ripped down the awning and hurled it into their faces.

“Lead us!” I screamed. There were alleys and gardens that only Ynys Trebes's inhabitants knew, and we would need such secret paths if we were to escape.

The invaders had broken through the main gate now to cut us off from Culhwch and his men. Galahad led us uphill, turned left into a short tunnel that ran beneath a temple, then across a garden and up to a wall that edged a rain cistern. Beneath us the city writhed in horror. The victorious Franks broke down doors to take revenge for their dead left on the sand. Children wailed and were silenced by swords. I watched one Prankish warrior, a huge man with horns on his helmet, cut down four trapped defenders with an axe. More smoke poured up from houses. The city might have been built of stone, but there was plenty of furniture, boat-pitch and timber roofs to feed a maniacal fire. Out at sea, where the incoming tide swirled across the sandbanks, I could see Lancelot's winged helmet bright in one of the three escaping boats, while above me, pink in the setting sun, the graceful palace waited for its last moments. The evening breeze snatched at the grey smoke and softly billowed a white curtain that hung in a shadowed palace window.

“Over here!” Galahad called, pointing to a narrow path. “Follow the path to our boat!” Our men ran for their lives. “Come on, Derfel!” he called to me.

But I did not move. I was staring up the steep hill.

“Come on, Derfel!” Galahad insisted.

But I was hearing a voice in my head. It was an old man's voice; a dry, sardonic and unfriendly voice, and the sound of it would not let me move.

“Come on, Derfel!” Galahad screamed.

“I put my life in your hands,” the old man had said, and suddenly he spoke again inside my skull. “I lay my life on your conscience, Derfel of Dumnonia.”

“How do I reach the palace?” I called to Galahad.

“Palace?”

“How!” I shouted angrily.

“This way,” he said, 'this way!"

We climbed.

The Bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.

I have been fortunate in friends. Arthur was one, but of all my friends there was never another like Galahad. There were times when we understood each other without speaking and others when words tumbled out for hours. We shared everything except women. I cannot count the number of times we stood shoulder to shoulder in the shield-wall or the number of times we divided our last morsel of food. Men took us for brothers and we thought of ourselves in the same way. And on that broken evening, as the city smouldered into fire beneath us, Galahad understood I could not be taken to the waiting boat. He knew I was in the hold of some imperative, some message from the Gods that made me climb desperately towards the serene palace crowning Ynys Trebes. All around us horror flooded up the hill, but we stayed ahead of it, running desperately across a church roof, jumping down to an alley where we pushed through a crowd of fugitives who believed the church would give them sanctuary, then up a flight of stone steps and so to the main street that circled Ynys Trebes. There were Franks running towards us, competing to be the first into Ban's palace, but we were ahead of them along with a pitiful handful of people who had escaped the slaughter in the lower town and were now seeking a hopeless refuge in the hilltop dwelling.

The guards were gone from the courtyard. The palace doors lay open and inside, where women cowered and children cried, the beautiful furniture waited for the conquerors. The curtains stirred in the wind.

I plunged into the elegant rooms, ran through the mirrored chamber and past Leanor's abandoned harp and so to the great room where Ban had first received me. The King was still there, still in his toga, and still at his table with a quill in his hand. “It's too late,” he said as I burst into the room with sword drawn.

“Arthur failed me.”

Screams sounded in the palace corridors. The view from the arched windows was smeared by smoke.

“Come with us, Father!” Galahad said.

“I have work to do,” Ban said querulously. He dipped his quill into the inkhorn and began to write. “Can't you see I'm busy?”

I pushed through the door which led to the library, crossed the empty antechamber, then thrust open the library door to see the hunchbacked priest standing at one of the scroll shelves. The polished wooden floor was littered with manuscripts. “Your life is mine,” I shouted angrily, resenting that such an ugly old man had put me to this obligation when there were so many other lives to save in the city, 'so come with me! Now!" The priest ignored me. He was frantically pulling scrolls from the shelves, tearing off their ribbons and seals and scanning the first lines before throwing them down and snatching other scrolls.

“Come on!” I snarled at him.

“Wait!” Celwin insisted, pulling down another scroll, then discarded it and ripped another open. “Not yet!”

A crash sounded in the palace; a cheer resounded and was drowned in screams. Galahad was standing in the library's outer door, pleading with his father to come with us, but Ban just waved his son away as though his words were a nuisance. Then the door burst open and three sweating Prankish warriors rushed in. Galahad ran to meet them, but he had no time to save his father's life and Ban did not even try to defend himself. The leading Frank hacked at him with a sword and I think the King of Benoic was already dead of a broken heart before the enemy's blade ever touched him. The Frank tried to cut off the King's head, and that man died on Galahad's spear while I lunged at the second man with Hywelbane and swung his wounded body around to obstruct the third. The dying Frank's breath reeked of ale like the breath of Saxons. Smoke showed outside the door. Galahad was beside me now, his spear slashing forward to kill the third man, but more Franks were pounding down the corridor outside. I pulled my sword free and backed into the antechamber. “Come on, you old fool!” I screamed over my shoulder at the obstinate priest.

“Old, yes, Derfel, but a fool? Never.” The priest laughed, and something about that sour laughter made me turn and I saw, as though in a dream, that the hunched back was disappearing as the priest stretched his long body to its full height. He was not ugly at all, I thought, but wonderful and majestic and so full of wisdom that even though I was in a place of death that reeked of blood and echoed with the shrieks of the dying I felt safer than I had ever felt in all my life. He was still laughing at me, delighted at having deceived me for so long.

“Merlin!” I said, and I confess there were tears at my eyes.

“Give me a few minutes,” he said, 'hold them off.“ He was still plucking down scrolls, tearing at their seals and dropping them after a cursory glance. He had taken off the eyepatch, which had merely been a part of his disguise. ”Hold them off,“ he said again, moving to a new rack of unexamined scrolls. ”I hear you're good at slaughter, so be very good at it now."

Galahad put the harp and the harpist's stool into the outer doorway, then the two of us defended the passage with spear, sword and shields. “Did you know he was here?” I asked Galahad.

“Who?” Galahad rammed his spear into a round Prankish shield and jerked it back.

“Merlin.”

“He is?” Galahad was astonished. “Of course I didn't know.” A screaming Frank with ringlet ted hair and blood on his beard rammed a spear at me. I gripped it just below the head and used it to tug him on to my sword. Another spear was thrown past me and buried its steel head in the lintel behind. A man tangled his feet in the cacophonous harp strings and stumbled forward to be kicked in the face by Galahad. I chopped the edge of my shield on to the back of the man's neck, then parried a sword cut. The palace rang with screams and was filling with an acrid smoke, but the men attacking us were losing interest in any plunder they might discover in the library, preferring easier pickings elsewhere in the hilltop building.

“Merlin's here?” Galahad asked me in disbelief.

“Look for yourself.”

Galahad turned to stare at the tall figure who was so desperately searching among Ban's doomed library.

“That's Merlin?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know he was here?”

“I didn't,” I said. “Come on, you bastard!” This was to a big Frank, leather-cloaked and carrying a double-headed war axe, who wanted to prove himself a hero. He chanted his war hymn as he charged and was still chanting as he died. The axe buried itself in the floorboards by Galahad's feet as he pulled his spear from the man's chest.

“I have it! I have it!” Merlin suddenly shouted behind us. “Silius Italicus, of course! He never wrote eighteen books on the Second Punic War, only seventeen. How can I have been so stupid? You're right, Derfel, I am an old fool! A dangerous fool! Eighteen books on the Second Turgid War? The merest child knows there were only ever seventeen! I have it! Come on, Derfel, don't waste my time! We can't loiter here all night!”

We ran back into the disordered library where I rammed the big work table up against the door as a temporary barrier while Galahad kicked open the shutters on the windows facing the west. A new swarm of Franks surged through the harpist's room and Merlin snatched the wooden cross from around his neck and hurled the feeble missile at the invaders who were momentarily checked by the heavy table. As the cross fell a great burst of flame engulfed the antechamber. I thought the deadly fire was mere coincidence and that the wall to the room had collapsed to let in a furnace surge just as the cross struck, but Merlin claimed it as his own triumph. “The horrible thing had to be good for something,” he said of the cross, then cackled at the screaming, burning enemy. “Roast, you worms, roast!” He was thrusting the precious scroll into the breast of his gown. “Did you ever read Silius Italicus?” he asked me.

“Never heard of him, Lord,” I said, tugging him towards the open window.

“He wrote epic verse, my dear Derfel, epic verse.” He resisted my panicked tugging and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let me give you some advice.” He spoke very seriously. “Shun epic verse. I speak from experience.”

I suddenly wanted to cry like a child. It was such relief to look into his wise and wicked eyes again. It was like being reunited with my own father. “I've missed you, Lord,” I blurted out.

“Don't go sentimental on me now!” Merlin snapped, then hurried to the window as a Prankish warrior burst through the flames in the doorway and slid along the table's top, screaming defiance. The man's hair was smoking as he thrust his spear towards us. I knocked his blade aside with my shield, lunged with the sword, kicked him and lunged again. “This way!” Galahad shouted from the garden beyond the window. I gave the dying Frank a last cut, then saw that Merlin had gone back to his work table. “Hurry, Lord!” I shouted to him.

“The cat!” Merlin explained. “I can't abandon the cat! Don't be absurd!”

“For the Gods' sake, Lord!” I yelled at him, but Merlin was scrabbling under the table to retrieve the frightened grey cat that he cradled in his arms as he at last scrambled over the sill into a herb garden protected by low bay hedges. The sun was splendid in the west, drenching the sky brilliant red and shivering its fiery reflection across the waters of the bay. We crossed the hedge and followed Galahad down a flight of steps that led to a gardener's hut, then on to a perilous path that ran around the breast of the granite peak. On one side of the path was a stone cliff, and on the other air, but Galahad knew these tracks from childhood and led us confidently down towards the dark water. Bodies floated in the sea. Our boat, crowded to the point where it was a miracle it could even float at all, was already a quarter-mile off the island with its oars labouring to drag its weight of passengers to safety. I cupped my hands and shouted. “Culhwch!” My voice echoed off the rock and faded across the sea where it was lost in the immensity of cries and wailing that marked Ynys Trebes's end.

“Let them go,” Merlin said calmly, then searched under the dirty robe he had worn as Father Celwin.

“Hold this.” He thrust the cat into my arms, then groped again under his robe until he found a small silver horn that he blew once. It gave a sweet note.

Almost immediately a small dark wherry appeared around Ynys Trebes's northern shore. A single robed man propelled the little boat with a long sweep that was gripped by an oarlock at the stern. The wherry had a high pointed prow and room in its belly for just three passengers. A wooden chest lay on the bottom boards, branded with Merlin's seal of the Horned God, Cernunnos. “I made these arrangements,” Merlin said airily, 'when it became apparent that poor Ban had no real idea what scrolls he possessed. I thought I would need more time, and so it proved. Of course the scrolls were labelled, but the fili were for ever mixing them up, not to say trying to improve them when they weren't stealing the verse and calling it their own. One wretch spent six months plagiarizing Catullus, then filed him under Plato. Good evening, my dear Caddwg!“ he greeted the boatman genially. ”All is well?"

“Other than the world dying, yes,” Caddwg growled in answer.

“But you've got the chest.” Merlin gestured at the sealed box. “Nothing else matters.” The elegant wherry had once been a palace boat used to ferry passengers from the harbour to the larger ships anchored offshore, and Merlin had arranged for it to wait his summons. Now we stepped aboard and sank to its deck as the dour Caddwg thrust the small craft out into the evening sea. A single spear plunged from the heights to be swallowed by the water alongside us, but otherwise our departure was unnoticed and untroubled. Merlin took the cat from me and settled contentedly in the boat's bows while Galahad and I stared back at the island's death.

Smoke poured across the water. The cries of the doomed were a wailing threnody in the dying day. We could see the dark shapes of Prankish spearmen still crossing the causeway and splashing off its end towards the fallen city. The sun sank, darkening the bay and making the flames in the palace brighter. A curtain caught the fire and flared brief and vivid before crumbling to soft ash. The library burned fiercest; scroll after scroll bursting into quick flame to make that corner of the palace into an inferno. It was King Ban's bale fire burning through the night.

Galahad wept. He knelt on the deck, clutching his spear, and watched his home turn to dust. He made the sign of the cross and said a silent prayer that willed his father's soul to whatever Other-world Ban had believed in. The sea was mercifully calm. It was coloured red and black, blood and death, a perfect mirror for the burning city where our enemy danced in ghoulish triumph. Ynys Trebes was never rebuilt in our time: the walls fell, the weeds grew, seabirds roosted there. Prankish fishermen avoided the island where so many had died. They did not call it Ynys Trebes any more, but gave it a new name in their own coarse tongue: the Mount of Death, and at night, their seamen say, when the deserted isle looms black out of an obsidian sea, the cries of women and the whimpering of children can still be heard. We landed on an empty beach on the western side of the bay. We abandoned the boat and carried Merlin's sealed chest up through whin and gale-bent thorn to the headland's high ridge. Full night fell as we reached the summit, and I turned to see Ynys Trebes glowing like a ragged ember in the dark, then I walked on to carry my burden home to Arthur's conscience. Ynys Trebes was dead. We took ship for Britain out of the same river where I had once prayed that Bel and Manawydan would see me safe home. We found Culhwch in the river, his overloaded boat grounded on the mud. Leaner was alive and so were most of our men. One ship fit to make the voyage home was left in the river, its master having waited in hope of making a fat profit from desperate survivors, but Culhwch put his sword to the man's throat and had him take us home for free. The rest of the river's people had already fled from the Franks. We waited through a night made garish by the reflected flames of Ynys Trebes's burning and in the morning we raised the ship's anchor and sailed north.

Merlin watched the shore recede and I, scarce daring to believe that the old man had really come back to us, gazed at him. He was a tall bony man, perhaps the tallest I ever knew, with long white hair that grew back from his tonsure line to be gathered in a black-ribboned pigtail. He had worn his hair loose and dishevelled when he pretended to be Celwin, but now, with the pigtail restored, he looked like the old Merlin. His skin was the colour of old, polished wood, his eyes were green and his nose a sharp bony prow. His beard and moustaches were plaited into fine cords that he liked to twist in his fingers when he was thinking. No one knew how old he was, but certainly I never met anyone older, unless it was the Druid Balise, nor did I ever know any man who seemed so ageless as Merlin. He had all his teeth, every last one, and retained a young man's agility, though he did love to pretend to be old and frail and helpless. He dressed in black, always in black, never another colour, and habitually carried a tall black staff, though now, fleeing from Armorica, he lacked that badge of office. He was a commanding man, not just because of his height, reputation or the elegance of his frame, but because of his presence. Like Arthur, he had the ability to dominate a room and to make a crowded hall seem empty when he left, but where Arthur's presence was generous and enthusiastic, Merlin's was always disturbing. When he looked at you it seemed that he could read the secret part of your heart and, worse still, find it amusing. He was mischievous, impatient, impulsive and totally, utterly wise. He belittled everything, maligned everyone and loved a few people wholly. Arthur was one, Nimue another and I, I think, was a third, though I could never really be sure for he was a man who loved pretence and disguises. “You're looking at me, Derfel!” he accused me from the boat's stern where he still had his back turned towards me.

“I hope never to lose sight of you again, Lord.”

“What an emotional fool you are, Derfel.” He turned and scowled at me. “I should have thrown you back into Tanaburs's pit. Carry that chest into my cabin.”

Merlin had commandeered the shipmaster's cabin where I now stowed the wooden chest. Merlin ducked under the low door, fussed with the captain's pillows to make himself a comfortable seat, then sank down with a sigh of happiness. The grey cat leaped on to his lap as he unrolled the top few inches of the thick scroll he had risked his life to obtain on a crude table that glittered with fish-scales.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is the one real treasure Ban possessed,” Merlin said. “The rest was mostly Greek and Roman rubbish. A few good things, I suppose, but not much.”

“So what is it?” I asked again.

“It is a scroll, dear Derfel,” he said, as though I was a fool to have asked. He glanced up through the open skylight to see the sail bellying in a wind still soured by Ynys Trebes's smoke. “A good wind!” he said cheerfully. “Home by nightfall, perhaps? I have missed Britain.” He looked back to the scroll. “And Nimue? How is the dear child?” he asked as he scanned the first lines.

“The last time I saw her,” I said bitterly, 'she'd been raped and had lost an eye."

“These things happen,” Merlin said carelessly.

His callousness took my breath away. I waited, then again asked him what was so important about the scroll.

He sighed. “You are an importunate creature, Derfel. Well, I shall indulge you.” He let go of the manuscript so that it rolled itself up, then leaned back on the shipmaster's damp and threadbare pillows.

“You know, of course, who Caleddin was?”

“No, Lord,” I admitted.

He threw his hands up in despair. “Are you not ashamed of your ignorance, Derfel? Caleddin was a Druid of the Ordovicii. A wretched tribe, and I should know. One of my wives was an Ordoviciian and one such creature was sufficient for a dozen lifetimes. Never again.” He shuddered at the memory, then peered up at me. “Gundleus raped Nimue, right?”

“Yes.” I wondered how he knew.

“Foolish man! Foolish man!” He seemed amused rather than angry at his lover's fate. “How he will suffer. Is Nimue angry?”

“Furious.”

“Good. Fury is very useful, and dear Nimue has a talent for it. One of the things I can't stand about Christians is their admiration of meekness. Imagine elevating meekness into a virtue! Meekness! Can you imagine a heaven filled only with the meek? What a dreadful idea. The food would get cold while everyone passed the dishes to everyone else. Meekness is no good, Derfel. Anger and selfishness, those are the qualities that make the world march.” He laughed. “Now, about Caleddin. He was a fair Druid for an Ordoviciian, not nearly as good as me, of course, but he had his better days. I did enjoy your attempt to murder Lancelot, by the way, a pity you didn't finish the job. I suppose he escaped from the city?”

“As soon as it was doomed, yes.”

“Sailors say rats are always first off the doomed ship. Poor Ban. He was a fool, but a good fool.”

“Did he know who you were?” I asked.

“Of course he knew,” Merlin said. “It would have been monstrously rude of me to have deceived my host. He didn't tell anyone else, of course, otherwise I'd have been besieged by those dreadful poets all asking me to use magic to make their wrinkles disappear. You've no idea, Derfel, how bothersome a little magic can be. Ban knew who I was, and so did Caddwg. He's my servant. Poor Hywel's dead, yes?”

“If you already know,” I said, 'why do you ask?"

“I'm just making conversation!” he protested. “Conversation is one of the civilized arts, Derfel. We can't all stump through life with a sword and shield, growling. A few of us do try to preserve the dignities.” He sniffed.

“So how do you know Hywel's dead?” I asked.

“Because Bed win wrote and told me, of course, you idiot.”

“Bedwin's been writing to you all these years?” I asked in astonishment.

“Of course! He needed my advice. What do you think I did? Vanish?”

“You did,” I said resentfully.

“Nonsense. You simply didn't know where to look for me. Not that Bedwin took my advice about anything. What a mess the man has made! Mordred alive! Pure foolishness. The child should have been strangled with his own birth cord, but I suppose Uther could never have been persuaded of that. Poor Uther. He believed that virtues are handed down through a man's loins! What nonsense! A child is like a calf; if the thing is born crippled you knock it smartly on the skull and serve the cow again. That's why the Gods made it such a pleasure to engender children, because so many of the little brutes have to be replaced. There's not much pleasure in the process for women, of course, but someone has to suffer and thank the Gods it's them and not us.”

“Did you ever have children?” I asked, wondering why I had never thought to enquire before.

“Of course I did! What an extraordinary question.” He gazed at me as though he doubted my sanity. “I never liked any of them very much and happily most of them died and the rest I've disowned. One, I think, is even a Christian.” He shuddered. “I much prefer other people's children; they're so much more grateful. Now what were we talking about? Oh yes, Caleddin. Terrible man.” He shook his head gloomily.

“Did he write the scroll?” I asked.

“Don't be absurd, Derfel,” he snapped impatiently. “Druids are not allowed to write anything down, it's against the rules. You know that! Once you write something down it becomes fixed. It becomes dogma. People can argue about it, they become authoritative, they refer to the texts, they produce new manuscripts, they argue more and soon they're putting each other to death. If you never write anything down then no one knows exactly what you said so you can always change it. Do I have to explain everything to you?”

“You can explain what is written on the scroll,” I said humbly.

“I was doing precisely that! But you keep interrupting me and changing the subject! Extraordinary behaviour! And to think you grew up on the Tor. I should have had you whipped more often, that might have given you better manners. I hear Gwlyddyn is rebuilding my hall?”

“Yes.”

“A good, honest man, Gwlyddyn. I shall probably have to rebuild it all myself but he does try.”

“The scroll,” I reminded him.

“I know! I know! Caleddin was a Druid, I told you that. An Ordoviciian, too. Dreadful beasts, Ordoviciians. Whatever, cast your mind back to the Black Year and ask yourself how Suetonius knew all he did about our religion. You do know who Suetonius was, I suppose?” The question was an insult, for all Britons know and revile the name of Suetonius Paulinus, the Governor appointed by the Emperor Nero and who, in the Black Year that occurred some four hundred years before our time, virtually destroyed our ancient religion. Every Briton grew up with the dread tale of how Suetonius two legions had crushed the Druid sanctuary on Ynys Mon. Ynys Mon, like Ynys Trebes, was an island, the greatest sanctuary of our Gods, but the Romans had somehow crossed the straits and put all the Druids, bards and priestesses to the sword. They had cut down the sacred groves and defiled the holy lake so that all we had left was but a shadow of the old religion and our Druids, like Tanaburs and lorweth, were just faint echoes of an old glory. “I know who Suetonius was,” I told Merlin.

“There was another Suetonius,” he said with amusement. “A Roman writer, and rather a good one. Ban possessed his De Viris Illustribus which is mainly about the lives of the poets. Suetonius was particularly scandalous about Virgil. It's extraordinary what things poets will take to their beds; mostly each other, of course. It's a pity that work burned, for I never saw another. Ban's scroll might well have been the very last copy, and it's just ashes now. Virgil will be relieved. Whatever, the point is that Suetonius Paulinus wanted to know everything there was to know about our religion before he attacked Ynys Mon. He wanted to make certain we wouldn't turn him into a toad or a poet, so he found himself a traitor, Caleddin the Druid. And Caleddin dictated everything he knew to a Roman scribe who copied it all down in what looks to be execrable Latin. But execrable or not, it is the only record of our old religion; all its secrets, all its rituals, all its meanings and all its power. And this, child, is it.” He gestured at the scroll and managed to knock it off the table.

I retrieved the manuscript from under the shipmaster's bunk. “And I thought,” I said bitterly, 'that you were a Christian trying to discover the wingspan of angels."

“Don't be perverse, Derfel! Everyone knows the wingspan must vary according to the angel's height and weight.” He unwound the scroll again and peered at its contents. “I sought this treasure everywhere. Even in Rome! And all the while that silly old fool Ban had it catalogued as the eighteenth volume of Silius Italicus. It proves he never read the whole thing, even though he did claim it was wonderful. Still, I don't suppose anyone's read the whole thing. How could they?” He shuddered.

“No wonder it took you over five years to find it,” I said, thinking how many people had missed him during that time.

“Nonsense. I only learned of the scroll's existence a year ago. Before that I was searching for other things: the Horn of Bran Galed, the Knife of Laufrodedd, the Throwboard of Gwenddolau, the Ring of Eluned. The Treasures of Britain, Derfel…” He paused, glancing at the sealed chest, then looked back to me. “The Treasures are the keys of power, Derfel, but without the secrets in this scroll they're just so many dead objects.” There was a rare reverence in his voice, and no wonder, for the Thirteen Treasures were the most mysterious and sacred talismans of Britain. One night in Benoic, when we had been shivering in the dark and listening for Franks among the trees, Galahad had scorned the very existence of the Treasures by doubting whether they could have survived the long years of Roman rule, but Merlin had always insisted that the old Druids, facing defeat, had hidden them so deep that no Roman would ever find them. His life's work was the collection of the thirteen talismans; his ambition was the final awesome moment when they would be put to use. That use, it seemed, was described in the lost scroll of Caleddin.

“So what does the scroll tell us?” I asked eagerly.

“How would I know? You won't give me time to read it. Why don't you go and be useful? Splice an oar or whatever it is sailors do when they're not drowning.” He waited till I had reached the door. “Oh, and one other thing,” he added abstractedly.

I turned to see he was again gazing at the opening lines of the heavy scroll. “Lord?” I prompted him.

“I just wanted to thank you, Derfel,” he said carelessly. “So, thank you. I always hoped you'd be useful some day.”

I thought of Ynys Trebes burning and of Ban dead. “I failed Arthur,” I said bitterly.

“Everyone fails Arthur. He expects too much. Now go.”

I had supposed that Lancelot and his mother Elaine would sail west to Broceliande, there to join the mass of refugees hurled from Ban's kingdom by the Franks, but instead they sailed north to Britain. To Dumnonia.

And once in Dumnonia they travelled to Durnovaria, reaching the town a full two days before Merlin, Galahad and I landed, so we were not there to see their entry, though we heard all about it for the town rang with admiring tales of the fugitives.

Benoic's royal party had travelled in three fast ships, all of which had been provisioned ahead of Ynys Trebes's fall and in whose holds were crammed the gold and silver that the Franks had hoped to find in Ban's palace. By the time Queen Elaine's party reached Durnovaria the treasure had been hidden away and the fugitives were all on foot, some of them shoeless, all ragged and dusty, their hair tangled and crusted with sea salt, and with blood caked on their clothes and on the battered weapons they clutched in nerveless hands. Elaine, Queen of Benoic, and Lancelot, now King of a Lost Kingdom, limped up the town's principal street to beg like indigents at Guinevere's palace. Behind them was a motley mixture of guards, poets and courtiers who, Elaine pitifully exclaimed, were the only survivors of the massacre. “If only Arthur had kept his word,” she wailed to Guinevere, 'if only he had done just half of all that he promised!"

“Mother! Mother!” Lancelot clutched her.

“All I want to do is die, my dear,” Elaine declared, 'as you so nearly did in the fight.“ Guinevere, of course, rose splendidly to the occasion. Clothes were fetched, baths filled, food cooked, wine poured, wounds bandaged, stories heard, treasure given and Arthur summoned. The stories were wonderful. They were told all over the town and by the time we reached Durnovaria the tales had spread to every corner of Dumnonia and were already flying over the frontiers to be retold in countless British and Irish feasting halls. It was a great tale of heroes; how Lancelot and Bors had held the Merman Gate and how they had carpeted the sands with Prankish dead and glutted the gulls with Prankish offal. The Franks, the tales said, had been shrieking for mercy, fearing that bright Tanlladwyr would flash in Lancelot's hand again, but then some other defenders, out of Lancelot's sight, gave way. The enemy was inside the city and if the fight had been grim before, now it became ghastly. Enemy after enemy fell as street after street was defended, yet not all the heroes of antiquity could have stemmed that rush of iron-helmed foes who swarmed from the encircling sea like so many demons released from Manawydan's nightmares. Back went the outnumbered heroes, leaving the streets choked with enemy dead; still more enemies came and back the heroes went, back to the palace itself where Ban, good King Ban, leaned on his terrace to search the horizon for Arthur's ships. ”They will come!" Ban had insisted,

'for Arthur has promised."

The King, the story said, would not leave the terrace for if Arthur came and he were not there, what would men say? He insisted he would stay to greet Arthur, but first he kissed his wife, embraced his heir, then wished them both fair winds for Britain before turning to gaze for the rescue that never came. It was a mighty tale, and next day, when it seemed that no more ships would come from far Armorica, the tale changed subtly. Now it was the men of Dumnonia, the forces led by Culhwch and Derfel, who had allowed the enemy into Ynys Trebes. “They fought,” Lancelot assured Guinevere, 'but they could not hold."

Arthur, who had been campaigning against Cerdic's Saxons, rode hard for Durnovaria to welcome his guests. He arrived just hours before our sad party trudged unremarked up the road that ran from the sea past the great grassy ramparts of Mai Dun. One of the guards on the city's southern gate recognized me and let us in. “You're just in time,” he said.

“For what?” I asked.

“Arthur's here. They're going to tell the tale of Ynys Trebes.”

“Are they now?” I glanced across the town towards the palace on its western hill. “I'd like to hear that,” I said, then I led my companions into the town. I hurried towards the crossroads in the centre, curious to inspect the chapel Sansum had built for Mordred, but to my surprise there was neither chapel nor temple on the site, just a waste space where ragweed grew. “Nimue,” I said, amused.

“What?” Merlin asked me. He was cowled so that no one would recognize him.

“A self-important little man,” I said, 'was going to build a church here. Guinevere summoned Nimue to stop him."

“So Guinevere is not entirely without sense?” Merlin asked.

“Did I say she was?”

“No, dear Derfel, you did not. Shall we go on?” We turned up the hill towards the palace. It was evening and the palace slaves were putting torches into beckets about the courtyard where, heedless of the damage they were causing to Guinevere's roses and water channels, a crowd had gathered to see Lancelot and Arthur. No one recognized us as we came through the gate. Merlin was hooded, while Galahad and I wore the cheek pieces of our wolf-tailed helmets closed across our faces. We squeezed with Culhwch and a dozen other men into the arcade at the very back of the crowd. And there, as night fell, we heard the tale of Ynys Trebes's fall.

Lancelot, Guinevere, Elaine, Arthur, Bors and Bedwin stood on the eastern side of the courtyard where the pavement was elevated a few feet above the other three sides to make a natural stage; an impression heightened by the bright torches fixed to the wall beneath the terrace that had steps leading down to the courtyard. I looked for Nimue, but could not see her, nor was young Bishop Sansum there. Bishop Bedwin said a prayer and the Christians in the crowd murmured their response, crossed themselves, then settled to listen once again to the awful tale of Ynys Trebes's fall. Bors told the story. He stood at the head of the steps and he told of Benoic's fight and the listening crowd gasped as they heard of the horror and cheered when he described some particular passage of Lancelot's heroism. Once, overcome by emotion, Bors simply gestured at Lancelot who tried to quell the cheers by raising a hand thickly wrapped in bandages and when the gesture failed he shook his head as though the crowd's praise was simply too great to bear. Elaine, draped in black, wept beside her son. Bors did not dwell on Arthur's failure to reinforce the doomed garrison, instead he explained that though Lancelot knew Arthur was fighting in Britain, King Ban had clung to his unrealistic hopes. Arthur, wounded all the same, shook his head and seemed close to tears, especially when Bors told the touching tale of King Ban's farewell to his wife and son. I was close to tears too, not because of the lies I heard, but out of sheer joy at seeing Arthur again. He had not changed. The bony face was still strong and his eyes still full of care. Bedwin asked what had happened to the men of Dumnonia and Bors, with apparent reluctance, allowed the tale of our sorry deaths to be drawn from him. The crowd groaned when they learned that it had been us, the men of Dumnonia, who had yielded the city's wall. Bors raised a gloved hand. “They fought well!” he said, but the crowd was not consoled.

Merlin seemed to have been ignoring Bors's nonsense. Instead he had been whispering with a man at the back of the crowd, but now he shuffled forward to touch my elbow. “I need a piss, dear boy,” he said in Father Celwin's voice. “Old man's bladder. You deal with those fools and I'll be back soon.”

“Your men fought well!” Bors shouted to the crowd, 'and though they were defeated, they died like men!"

“And now, like ghosts, they're back from the Otherworld,” I shouted, and I clashed my shield against a pillar, shaking free a small cloud of powdered lime. I stepped into the flame light of a torch. “You lie, Bors!” I shouted.

Culhwch stepped up beside me. “I say you lie, too,” he growled.

“And I say it!” Galahad appeared.

I drew Hywelbane. The scrape of the steel on the scabbard's wooden throat made the crowd shrink back to leave a path through the trampled roses that led towards the terrace. The three of us, battle weary, dusty, helmed and armed, walked forward. We walked in step, slowly, and neither Bors nor Lancelot dared speak when they saw the wolf tails hanging from our helmets. I stopped at the garden's centre and slammed Hywelbane point downwards into a rose bed “My sword says you lie,” I shouted.

“Derfel, son of a slave, says that Lancelot ap Ban, King of Benoic, lies!”

“Culhwch ap Galeid says so too!” Culhwch rammed his battered blade beside mine.

“And Galahad ap Ban, Prince of Benoic, also.” Galahad added his sword.

“No Franks took our wall,” I said, removing my helmet so that Lancelot could see my face. “No Frank dared climb our wall for there were so many dead at its foot.”

“And I, brother' Galahad also removed his helmet 'was with our father at the last, not you.”

“And you, Lancelot,” I cried, 'had no bandage when you fled Ynys Trebes. What happened? Did a splinter from the ship's gunwale prick your thumb?"

There was uproar. Some of Bors's guards were at the side of the courtyard and they drew their swords and shouted insults, but Cavan and the rest of our men pushed through the open gate with raised spears to threaten massacre. “None of you bastards fought at the city,” Cavan shouted, 'so fight now!“ Lanval, commander of Guinevere's guards, shouted at his archers to line the terrace. Elaine had gone white, Lancelot and Bors were both at her side and both seemed to be trembling. Bishop Bed win was shouting, but it was Arthur who restored order. He drew Excalibur and clashed it against his shield. Lancelot and Bors had shrunk to the back of the terrace, but Arthur waved them forward, then looked at us three warriors. The crowd went silent and the archers took the arrows off their strings. ”In battle,“ Arthur said gently, commanding the attention of all the courtyard, 'things are confused. Men rarely see all that hapnens in a battle. There is so much noise, so much chaos, so much horror. Our friends from Ynys Trebes' and here he laid his sword arm around Lancelot's shoulders 'are mistaken, but theirs was an honest mistake. Doubtless some poor confused man told them the tale of your deaths, and they believed it, but now, happily, they stand corrected. But not shamed! There was glory enough in Ynys Trebes for all to share. Am I not right?”

Arthur had directed the question at Lancelot, but it was Bors who answered. “I am wrong,” he said, 'and glad to be wrong."

“I also,” Lancelot added in a brave, clear voice.

“There!” Arthur exclaimed and smiled down at the three of us. “Now, my friends, pick up your weapons. We will have no enmity here! You are all heroes, all of you!” He waited, but not one of us moved. The torch flames glanced off our helmets and touched the blades of our planted swords that were a challenge for a fight to establish the truth. Arthur's smile disappeared as he drew himself to his full height. “I am ordering you to pick up your swords,” he said. “This is my house. You, Culhwch, and you, Derfel, are oath-sworn to me. Are you breaking your oaths?”

“I am defending my honour, Lord,” Culhwch answered.

“Your honour is in my service,” Arthur snapped, and the steel in his voice was enough to make me shiver. He was a kind man, but it was easy to forget that he had not become a warlord by mere kindness. He spoke so much of peace and reconciliation, but in battle his soul was released from such concerns and gave itself to slaughter. He threatened slaughter now by putting his hand on Excalibur's hilt. “Pick up the swords,” he ordered us, 'unless you wish me to pick them up for you.“ We could not fight our own Lord and so we obeyed him. Galahad followed our example. The surrender left us feeling sullen and cheated, but Arthur, the moment he had restored amity inside his house, smiled once again. He spread his arms in welcome as he strode down the steps and his joy at seeing us was so obvious that my resentment vanished instantly. He embraced his cousin Culhwch, then hugged me and I felt my Lord's tears on my cheek. ”Derfel,“ he said, ”Derfel Cadarn. Is it really you?"

“None else, Lord.”

“You look older,” he said with a smile.

“You don't.”

He grimaced. “I was not in Ynys Trebes. I wish that I had been.” He turned to Galahad. “I've heard of your bravery, Lord Prince, and I salute you.”

“But don't insult me, Lord, by believing my brother,” Galahad said bitterly.

“No!” Arthur said. “I will not have quarrels. We shall be friends. I insist upon it.” And he put his arm through mine and led the three of us up the terrace steps where he decreed that we should all embrace with Bors and Lancelot. “There is trouble enough,” he told me quietly when I held back, 'without this.“ I stepped forward and spread my arms. Lancelot hesitated, then stepped towards me. His oiled hair smelt of violets. ”Child," he whispered in my ear after kissing my cheek.

“Coward,” I whispered back, then we drew apart, smiling.

Bishop Bedwin had tears in his eyes as he hugged me. “Dear Derfel!”

“I have even better news for you,” I told him softly, “Merlin is here.”

“Merlin?” Bedwin stared at me, not daring to believe my news. “Merlin is here? Merlin!” The news spread through the crowd. Merlin was back! Great Merlin had returned. The Christians crossed themselves, but even they recognized the import of the news. Merlin had come to Dumnonia and suddenly the kingdom's troubles seemed halved.

“So where is he?” Arthur demanded.

“He went out,” I said feebly, gesturing at the gate.

“Merlin.” Arthur shouted. “Merlin.”

But there was no answer. Guards searched for him, but none found him. Later the sentries at the western gate said that an old priest with a hunched back, an eyepatch, a grey cat and a filthy cough had left the city, but they had seen no other white-bearded sage.

“You have been through a dreadful battle, Derfel,” Arthur told me when we were in the palace's feasting hall where a meal of pork, bread and mead was served. “Men dream strange dreams when they suffer hardships.”

“No, Lord,” I insisted, “Merlin was here. Ask Prince Galahad.”

“I shall,” he said, 'of course I shall.“ He turned to look at the high table where Guinevere leaned on an elbow to listen to Lancelot. ”You've all suffered," he said.

“But I failed you, Lord,” I confessed, 'and for that I am sorry."

“No, Derfel, no! I failed Ban. But what more could I do? There are so many enemies.” He fell silent, then smiled as Guinevere's laughter sounded bright in the hall. “I am glad that at least she is happy,” he said, then went to talk to Culhwch who was single-mindedly devouring a whole suckling pig. Lunete was at the court that night. Her hair was braided and twisted into a flower-studded circlet. She wore torques, brooches and bangles, while her dress was of red-dyed linen girdled with a silver-buckled belt. She smiled at me, brushed dirt off my sleeve then wrinkled her nose at the stink of my clothes.

“Scars suit you, Derfel,” she said, lightly touching my face, 'but you take too many risks."

“I'm a warrior.”

“Not those sort of risks. I mean making up stories about Merlin. You embarrassed me! And announcing yourself as the son of a slave! Didn't you ever think how that might make me feel? I know we aren't together any more, but people know we were once, and how do you think it makes me feel when you say you're slave-born? You should think of others, Derfel, you really should.” I noted she no longer wore our lovers' ring, but I would hardly have expected to see it for she had long found other men who could afford to be more generous than I ever could. “I suppose Ynys Trebes made you a little mad,” she went on. “Why else would you challenge Lancelot to a fight? I know you're good with a sword, Derfel, but he's Lancelot, not just any warrior.” She turned to look at where the King sat beside Guinevere. “Isn't he wonderful?” she asked me.

“Incomparably,” I said sourly.

“And unmarried, I hear?” Lunete said coquettishly.

I leaned close to her ear. “He prefers boys,” I whispered. She hit my arm. “Fool. Anyone can see he doesn't. See how he looks at Guinevere?” It was Lunete's turn to put her mouth close to my ear. “Don't tell anyone,” she whispered hoarsely, 'but she's pregnant."

“Good,” I said.

“It isn't good at all. She's not happy. She doesn't want to be lumpy, you see. And I don't blame her. I hated being pregnant. Ah, there's someone I want to see. I do like new faces at court. Oh, and one other thing, Derfel?” She smiled sweetly. “Take a bath, dear.” She crossed the room to accost one of Queen Elaine's poets.

“Off with the old, on with the new?” Bishop Bedwin appeared beside me.

“I'm so old I'm surprised Lunete even remembers me,” I answered dourly. Bedwin smiled then took me into the courtyard that was now empty. “Merlin was with you,” he said, not as a question, but as a statement.

“Yes, Lord.” And I told him how Merlin had claimed to be leaving the palace for just a few moments. Bedwin shook his head. “He likes these games,” he said despairingly. “Tell me more.” I told him all I could. We walked up and down the upper terrace through the smoke of the guttering torches and I spoke of Father Celwin and of Ban's library, and gave him the real story of the siege and the truth about Lancelot, and I ended by describing Caleddin's scroll that Merlin had snatched from the fall of the city. “He says,” I told Bedwin, 'that it contains the Knowledge of Britain."

“I pray God it does, may God forgive me,” Bedwin said. “Someone has to help us.”

“Are things bad?”

Bedwin shrugged. He looked old and tired. His hair was wispy now, his beard thin and his face more haggard than I remembered. “I suppose they could be worse,” he admitted, 'but sadly they never get better. Things are really not much different from when you left, except that Aelle grows stronger, so strong that he even dares call himself the Bretwalda now.“ Bedwin shuddered at the barbarous pretension. Bretwalda was a Saxon title and meant Ruler of Britain. ”He captured all the land between Durocobrivis and Corinium,“ Bedwin told me, 'and he probably would have captured both those fortresses if we hadn't purchased peace with the last of our gold. Then there's Cerdic in the south and he's proving even more vicious than Aelle.”

“Doesn't Aelle attack Powys?” I asked.

“Gorfyddyd paid him gold just like we did.”

“I thought Gorfyddyd was sick?”

“The plague passed as plagues do. He recovered, and now he leads the men of Elmet along with the forces of Powys. He's doing better than we feared,” Bedwin said bleakly, 'perhaps because he's driven by hate. He doesn't drink like he used to and he's sworn to avenge that lost arm on Arthur's head. Worse than that, Derfel, Gorfyddyd is doing what Arthur hoped to do; uniting the tribes, but sadly he's uniting them against us and not against the Saxons. He pays Gundleus's Silurians and the Blackshield Irish to raid our coasts and he bribes King Mark to help Cadwy, and I daresay he's raising the money now to pay Aelle to break our truce. Gorfyddyd rises and we fall. In Powys they call Gorfyddyd the High King now. And he has Cuneglas as an heir while we have poor little lame Mordred. Gorfyddyd collects an army and we have war-bands. And once this year's harvest is collected, Derfel, then Gorfyddyd will come south with the men of Elmet and Powys. Men say it will be the greatest army ever seen in Britain and it's hardly a wonder that there are those' he lowered his voice 'who say we should make peace on his terms."

“Which are?”

“There is only one condition. Arthur's death. Gorfyddyd will never forgive Arthur for the slight to Ceinwyn. Can you blame him?” Bedwin shrugged and walked a few paces in silence. “The real danger,” he went on, 'is if Gorfyddyd does find the money to bring Aelle back into the war. We can't pay more to the Saxons. We've nothing left. The treasury is empty. Who'll pay taxes to a dying regime? And we can't spare any spearmen to collect the taxes."

“There's plenty of gold in there,” I said, jerking my head towards the hall where the sounds of the feast were loud. “Lunete was wearing enough,” I added sourly.

“The Princess Guinevere's ladies,” Bedwin said bitterly 'are not expected to contribute their jewels to the war. Even if they did, I doubt there'd be enough to bribe Aelle again, and if he does attack us in the autumn, Derfel, then those men who want Arthur's life won't whisper their demand, they'll shout it from the ramparts. Arthur, of course, could simply leave. He could go to Broceliande, I suppose, then Gorfyddyd would take young Mordred into his care and we'd just be a client kingdom ruled from Powys."

I paced in silence. I had no idea things were so desperate.

Bedwin smiled sadly. “So it seems, my young friend, that you have jumped from the seething pot into the fire. There will be work for your sword, Derfel, and soon, never fear.”

"I had wanted time to visit Ynys Wydryn' I said.

“To find Merlin again?”

“To find Nimue,” I said.

He stopped. “You hadn't heard?”

Something cold caressed my heart. “I've heard nothing. I thought she might be here in Durnovaria.”

“She was,” Bedwin said. “Princess Guinevere fetched her. I was surprised she came, but she did. You have to understand, Derfel, that Guinevere and Bishop Sansum remember him? How could you forget him? he and she are at odds. Nimue was Guinevere's weapon. God knows what she thought Nimue could do, but Sansum did not wait to find out. He preached against Nimue as a witch. Some of my fellow Christians, I fear, are not full of kindness and Sansum preached that she should be stoned to death.”

“No!” I protested.

“No, no!” He held up a hand to calm me. “She fought back by bringing the pagans of the countryside into the town. They sacked Sansum's new chapel, there was a riot and a dozen people died, though neither she nor Sansum were hurt. The King's guards panicked, thinking it was an attack on Mordred. It wasn't, of course, but that didn't stop them using their spears. Then Nimue was arrested by Nabur, the magistrate responsible for the King, and he found her guilty of stirring up revolt. He would, of course, being a Christian. Bishop Sansum demanded her death, the Princess Guinevere demanded Nimue's release, and in between those two demands Nimue rotted in Nabur's cells.” Bedwin paused and I could see from his face that the worst was still to come. “She went mad, Derfel,” the Bishop at last continued.

“It was like caging a falcon, you see, and she rebelled against her bars. She went screaming mad. No one could restrain her.”

I knew what was coming and shook my head. “No,” I said.

“The Isle of the Dead,” Bedwin gave the awful news. “What else could they do?”

“No!” I protested again, for Nimue was on the Isle of the Dead, lost among the broken ones, and I could not bear to think of that fate. “She has her Third Wound,” I said softly.

“What?” Bedwin cupped an ear.

“Nothing,” I said. “Does she live?”

“Who knows? No living person goes there, or if they do, they cannot return.”

“But that's where Merlin must have gone!” I cried in relief. Merlin had doubtless heard the news from the man he had been whispering with at the back of the courtyard, and Merlin could do what no other man or woman dare do. The Isle of the Dead would hold no terrors for Merlin. What else would have made him vanish so precipitately? In a day or two, I thought, he would return to Durnovaria with Nimue rescued and restored. It had to be thus.

“Pray God it is,” Bedwin said, 'for her sake."

“What happened to Sansum?” I asked vengefully.

“He wasn't punished officially,” Bedwin said, 'but Guinevere persuaded Arthur to strip him of Mordred's chaplaincy and then the old fellow who administered the shrine of the Holy Thorn at Ynys Wydryn died and I managed to persuade our young Bishop to take over there. He wasn't happy, but he knew he'd made too many enemies in Durnovaria, so he accepted." Bedwin was plainly delighted at Sansum's fall.

“He's certainly lost his power here and I don't see him getting it back. Not unless he's a great deal more subtle than I think. He, of course, is one of those who whisper that Arthur should be sacrificed. Nabur is another. There's a Mordred faction in our kingdom, Derfel, and it asks why we should fight to preserve Arthur's life.”

I stepped round a puddle of vomit thrown up by a drunken soldier come from the hall. The man groaned, looked up at me, then retched again. “Who else could rule Dumnonia?” I asked Bedwin when we were safely out of the drunk's hearing.

“There's a good question, Derfel, who indeed? Gorfyddyd, of course, or else his son Cuneglas. Some men whisper Gereint's name, but he doesn't want it. Nabur even suggested I might take over. He said nothing specific, of course, nothing but hints.” Bedwin chuckled derisively. “But what use would I be against our enemies? We need Arthur. No one else could have held off this ring of enemies for so long, Derfel, but folk don't understand that. They blame him for the chaos, yet if anyone else was in power the chaos would be worse. We're a kingdom without a proper king so every ambitious rogue has his eye on Mordred's throne.”

I stopped beside the bronze bust that looked so like Gorfyddyd. "If Arthur had just married Ceinwyn — ' I began.

Bedwin interrupted me. “If, Derfel, if. If Mordred's father had lived, or if Arthur had killed Gorfyddyd instead of just taking his arm, everything would be different. History is nothing but ifs. And perhaps you're right. Perhaps if Arthur had married Ceinwyn we would be at peace now and perhaps Aelle's head would be planted on a spear-point in Caer Cadarn, but how long do you think Gorfyddyd would have endured Arthur's success? And remind yourself why Gorfyddyd agreed to the marriage in the first place.”

“For peace?” I suggested.

“Dear me, no. Gorfyddyd only allowed Ceinwyn to be betrothed because he believed her son, his grandson, would rule Dumnonia instead of Mordred. I should have thought that was obvious.”

“Not to me,” I said, for at Caer Sws, when Arthur had been struck mad by love, I had been a mere spearman in the guard, not a captain who needed to probe the motives of kings and princes.

“We need Arthur,” Bedwin said, looking up into my eyes. “And if Arthur needs Guinevere, then so be it.” He shrugged and walked on. “I would have preferred Ceinwyn as his wife, but the choice and the marriage-bed were not mine to make. Now, poor thing, she'll marry Gundleus.”

“Gundleus!” I said too loudly, startling the sick soldier who groaned over his vomit. “Ceinwyn will marry Gundleus?” I asked Bedwin.

“Their betrothal ceremony is in two weeks,” Bedwin said calmly, 'during Lughnasa.“ Lughnasa was the summer festival of Lleullaw, God of Light, and was dedicated to fertility, and thus any betrothal made at the feast was considered particularly auspicious. ”They'll marry in late autumn, after the war.“ He paused, aware that his last three words suggested that Gorfyddyd and Gundleus would win the war, and that the marriage ceremony would thus be a part of the victor's celebrations. ”Gorfyddyd has sworn to give them Arthur's head as a wedding gift," Bedwin added sadly.

“But Gundleus is already married!” I protested, wondering why I was so indignant. Was it because I remembered Ceinwyn's fragile beauty? I still wore her brooch inside my breastplate, but I told myself my indignation was not because of her, but simply because I hated Gundleus.

“Being married to Ladwys didn't stop Gundleus marrying Nor-wenna,” Bedwin said scornfully. “He'll put Ladwys aside, go three times round the sacred rock then kiss the magic toadstool or whatever else you pagans do to get divorced these days. He's not a Christian any more, by the way. A pagan divorce, marry Ceinwyn, serve her with an heir, then hurry back to Ladwys's bed. That seems to be the way of things nowadays.” He paused, cocking an ear towards the sounds of laughter coming from the hall.

“Though maybe,” he went on, 'in years to come we shall think of these days as the last of the good times.“ Something in his voice made my spirits sink even further. ”Are we doomed?" I asked him.

“If Aelle keeps his truce we may last another year, but only if we defeat Gorfyddyd. And if not? Then we must pray Merlin has brought us new life.” He shrugged, but did not seem very hopeful. He was not a good Christian, Bishop Bedwin, though he was a very good man. Sansum now tells me that Bedwin's goodness will not prevent his soul from roasting in hell. But that summer, fresh back from Benoic, all our souls seemed doomed to perdition. The harvest was just beginning, but once it was gathered, Gorfyddyd's onslaught would come.