‘Imprisoned!’ Merlin seemed amused. ‘Guinevere shut away, Bishop Sansum locked up, if life goes on like this then everyone in Arthur’s life will soon be imprisoned! We shall all be on water and mouldy bread. What a fool Arthur is! He should knock Mordred’s brains out.’ Mordred had been a child when he inherited the kingship and Arthur had wielded the royal power as the boy grew, but when Mordred came of age, and true to the promise he had given to High King Uther, Arthur handed the kingdom to Mordred. Mordred misused that power, and even plotted Arthur’s death, and it was that plot which had encouraged Sansum and Lancelot in their revolt. Mordred was to be imprisoned now, though Arthur was determined that Dumnonia’s rightful King, in whom the blood of the Gods ran, should be treated with honour even if he was not to be allowed power. He would be kept under guard in this lavish palace, given all the luxuries he craved, but kept from mischief. ‘So you think,’ Merlin asked me, ‘that Mordred does have whelps?’

‘Dozens, I should think.’

‘If you ever do think,’ Merlin snapped. ‘Give me a name, Derfel! Give me a name!’

I thought for a moment. I was in a better position than most men to know Mordred’s sins for I had been his childhood guardian, a task I had done both reluctantly and badly. I had never succeeded in being a father to him, and though my Ceinwyn had tried to be a mother, she too had failed and the wretched boy had grown sullen and evil. ‘There was a servant girl here,’ I said, ‘and he kept her company for a long time.’

‘Her name?’ Merlin demanded with a mouth full of cheese.

‘Cywwylog.’

‘Cywwylog!’ He seemed amused by the name. ‘And you say he fathered a child on this Cywwylog?’

‘A boy,’ I said, ‘if it was his, which it probably was.’

‘And this Cywwylog,’ he said, waving a knife, ‘where might she be?’

‘Probably somewhere very close,’ I answered. ‘She never moved with us to Ermid’s Hall and Ceinwyn always supposed that Mordred had given her money.’

‘So he was fond of her?’

‘I think he was, yes.’

‘How gratifying to know that there is some good in the horrible boy. Cywwylog, eh? You can find her, Gawain?’

‘I shall try, Lord,’ Gawain said eagerly.

‘Not just try, succeed!’ Merlin snapped. ‘What did she look like, Derfel, this curiously named Cywwylog?’

‘Short,’ I said, ‘plumpish, black hair.’

‘So far we have succeeded in whittling our search down to every girl in Britain beneath the age of twenty. Can you be more specific? How old would the child be now?’

‘Six,’ I said, ‘and if I remember rightly, he had reddish hair.’

‘And the girl?’

I shook my head. ‘Pleasant enough, but not really memorable.’

‘All girls are memorable,’ Merlin said loftily, ‘especially ones named Cywwylog. Find her, Gawain.’

‘Why do you want to find her?’ I asked.