Arthur had sent me dozens of young men to train into warriors and all that autumn I taught them the discipline of the spear and shield, and once a week, more out of duty than from pleasure, I visited Guinevere at nearby Ynys Wydryn. I carried her gifts of food and, as it got colder, a great cloak of bear fur. Sometimes I took her son, Gwydre, but she was never really comfortable with him. She was bored by his tales of fishing in Dun Caric’s stream or hunting in our woods. She herself loved to hunt, but that pleasure was no longer permitted to her and so she took her exercise by walking around the shrine’s compound. Her beauty did not fade, indeed her misery gave her large eyes a luminosity they had lacked before, though she would never admit to the sadness. She was too proud for that, though I could tell she was unhappy. Morgan galled her, besieging her with Christian preaching and constantly accusing her of being the scarlet whore of Babylon. Guinevere endured it patiently and the only complaint she ever made was in the early autumn when the nights lengthened and the first night frosts whitened the hollows and she told me that her chambers were being kept too cold. Arthur put a stop to that, ordering that Guinevere could burn as much fuel as she wished. He loved her still, though he hated to hear me mention her name. As for Guinevere, I did not know who she loved. She would always ask me for news of Arthur, but never once mentioned Lancelot.

Arthur too was a prisoner, but only of his own torments. His home, if he had one at all, was the royal palace at Durnovaria, but he preferred to tour Dumnonia, going from fortress to fortress and readying us all for the war against the Saxons that must come in the new year, though if there was any one place where he spent more time than another, it was with us at Dun Caric. We would see him coming from our hilltop hall, and a moment later a horn would sound in warning as his horsemen splashed across the stream. Gwydre, his son, would run down to meet him and Arthur would lean down from Llamrei’s saddle and scoop the boy up before spurring to our gate. He showed tenderness to Gwydre, indeed to all children, but with adults he showed a chill reserve. The old Arthur, the man of cheerful enthusiasm, was gone. He bared his soul only to Ceinwyn, and whenever he came to Dun Caric he would talk with her for hours. They spoke of Guinevere, who else? ‘He still loves her,’ Ceinwyn told me.

‘He should marry again,’ I said.

‘How can he?’ she asked. ‘He doesn’t think of anyone but her.’

‘What do you tell him?’

‘To forgive her, of course. I doubt she’s going to be foolish again, and if she’s the woman who makes him happy then he should swallow his pride and have her back.’