The priest stared at her; she was still such a beautiful woman, so golden and calm, the star of Powys. ‘Chosen, Lady,’ he said, ‘to unite all the peoples of Britain under the living God. Saxon and Briton, Gwentian and Dumnonian, Irish and Pict, all worshipping the one true God and all living in peace and love.’

‘And what if we decide not to follow King Meurig?’ Ceinwyn asked.

‘Then our God will destroy you.’

‘And that,’ I asked, ‘is the message you have come here to preach?’

‘I can do no other, Lord. I am commanded.’

‘By Meurig?’

‘By God.’

‘But I am the lord of the land both sides of the stream,’ I said, ‘and of all the land southwards to Caer Cadarn and northwards to Aquae Sulis and you do not preach here without my permission.’

‘No man can countermand God’s word, Lord,’ the priest said.

‘This can,’ I said, drawing Hywelbane.

His women hissed. The priest stared at the sword, then spat into the fire. ‘You risk God’s wrath.’

‘You risk my wrath,’ I said, ‘and if, at sundown tomorrow, you are still on the land I govern I shall give you as a slave to my slaves. You may sleep with the beasts tonight, but tomorrow you will go.’

He grudgingly left next day, and as if to punish me the first snow of the winter came with his leaving. That snow was early, promising a bitter season. At first it fell as sleet, but by nightfall it had become a thick snow that had whitened the land by dawn. It grew colder over the next week. Icicles hung inside our roof and now began the long winter struggle for warmth. In the village the folk slept with their beasts, while we fought the bitter air with great fires that made the icicles drip from the thatch. We put our winter cattle into the beast sheds, and killed the others, packing their meat in salt as Merlin had stored Gawain’s blood-drained body. For two days the village echoed with the distraught bellowing of oxen being dragged to the axe. The snow was spattered red and the air stank of blood, salt and dung. Inside the hall the fires roared, but they gave us small warmth. We woke cold, we shivered inside our furs and we waited in vain for a thaw. The stream froze so that we had to chip our way through the ice to draw each day’s water.