‘It must have seemed so to you,’ Merlin said airily, ‘but perhaps we simply chose not to show ourselves. Have you met the Prince Gawain?’ He gestured to the young man who stood and bowed to me in greeting. ‘Gawain is son of King Budic of Broceliande,’ Merlin introduced the Prince, ‘which makes him Arthur’s nephew.’

‘Lord Prince,’ I greeted Gawain. I had heard of Gawain, but had never met him. Broceliande was the British kingdom across the sea in Armorica and of late, as the Franks pressed hard on their frontier, visitors from that kingdom had been rare.

‘I am honoured to meet you, Lord Derfel,’ Gawain said courteously, ‘your fame has gone far from Britain.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Gawain,’ Merlin snapped. ‘Derfel’s fame hasn’t gone anywhere, except maybe to his fat head. Gawain is here to help me,’ he explained to me.

‘To do what?’ I asked.

‘Protect the Treasures, of course. He is a formidable spearman, or so I’m told. Is that true, Gawain? You’re formidable?’

Gawain just smiled. He did not look very formidable, for he was still a very young man, maybe only fifteen or sixteen summers, and he did not yet need to shave. His long fair hair gave his face a girlish look, while his white armour, that I had earlier thought was so expensive, was now revealed to be nothing more than a coat of limewash painted on plain iron gear. If it had not been for his self-assurance and undeniable good looks, he would have been risible.

‘So what have you been doing since last we met?’ Merlin demanded of me, and it was then that I had told him of Guinevere and he had scoffed at my belief that she would be imprisoned for life. ‘Arthur is a halfwit,’ he insisted. ‘Guinevere may be clever, but he doesn’t need her. He needs something plain and stupid, something to keep his bed warm while he’s worrying about the Saxons.’ He sat on the couch and smiled as the two small children who had carried the Cauldron out to the courtyard now brought him a plate of bread and cheese with a flask of mead. ‘Supper!’ he said happily. ‘Do join me, Derfel, for we wish to talk to you. Sit! You will find the floor quite comfortable. Sit beside Nimue.’

I sat. Nimue had ignored me thus far. The socket of her missing eye, that had been torn from her face by a king, was covered with an eye-patch, and her hair, that had been cut so short before we went south to Guinevere’s sea palace, was growing back, though it was still short enough to give her a boyish look. She seemed angry, but Nimue always seemed angry. Her life was devoted to one thing only, the pursuit of the Gods, and she despised anything which deflected her from that search and maybe she thought Merlin’s ironic pleasantries were somehow a waste of time. She and I had grown up together and in the years since our childhood I had more than once kept her alive, I had fed her and clothed her, yet still she treated me as though I was a fool.