‘Let her rot,’ Guinevere said savagely, then shrugged. ‘I know you can’t. Does he love her?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Lady,’ I said.

‘Of course you’d know,’ Guinevere said sharply. ‘Arthur loves to pretend that he’s ruled by reason, but he yearns to be governed by passion. He would turn the world upside down for love.’

‘He hasn’t turned it upside down lately,’ I said.

‘He did for me, though,’ she said quietly, and not without a note of pride. ‘So where are you going?’

I had walked to my horse that was cropping grass among the molehills. ‘I’m going south,’ I said.

‘Do that,’ Guinevere said, ‘and we risk losing you too.’

She was right and I knew it, but frustration was beginning to boil inside me. Why had Issa not sent a message? He had fifty of my finest warriors and they were lost. I cursed the wasting day, cuffed a harmless boy who was strutting up and down pretending to be a spearman, and kicked at thistles. ‘We could start north,’ Ceinwyn suggested calmly, indicating the women and children.

‘No,’ I said, ‘we must stay together.’ I peered southwards, but there was nothing on the road except for more sad refugees trudging north. Most were families with one precious cow and maybe a calf, though many of this new season’s calves were still too small to walk. Some calves, abandoned by the road, called piteously for their mothers. Others of the refugees were merchants trying to save their goods. One man had an ox-wagon filled with baskets of fuller’s earth, another had hides, some had pottery. They glared at us as they passed, blaming us for not having stopped the Saxons sooner.

Seren and Morwenna, bored with their attempt to denude the wood of bluebells, had found a nest of leverets under some ferns and honeysuckle at the trees’ edge. They excitedly called Guinevere to come and look, then gingerly stroked the little fur bodies that shivered under their touch. Ceinwyn watched them. ‘She’s made a conquest of the girls,’ she said to me.

‘A conquest of my spearmen too,’ I said, and it was true. Just a few months ago my men had been cursing Guinevere as a whore, and now they gazed at her adoringly. She had set out to charm them, and when Guinevere decided to be charming, she could dazzle. ‘Arthur will have a great deal of trouble putting her back behind walls after this,’ I said.

‘Which is probably why he wanted her released,’ Ceinwyn observed. ‘He certainly didn’t want her dead.’

‘Argante does.’

‘I’m sure she does,’ Ceinwyn agreed, then stared southwards with me, but there was still no sign of any spearmen on the long straight road.