‘I should, Lord, but never know where to send it.’

‘Not that it matters now,’ Merlin said. ‘I’m old and feeble. Doubtless I shall be dead soon.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘you look wonderfully fit.’ He looked old, of course, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes and a liveliness to his ancient, creased face. His hair and beard were beautifully plaited and bound in black ribbons, while his gown, except for the dried blood, was clean. He was also happy; not, I think, just because we had achieved victory, but because he enjoyed Taliesin’s company.

‘Victory gives life,’ he said dismissively, ‘but we’ll soon enough forget victory. Where’s Arthur?’

‘No one knows,’ I said. ‘I heard he spent a long time talking with Tewdric, but he’s not with him now. I suspect he found Guinevere.’

Merlin sneered. ‘A hound returns to its vomit.’

‘I’m beginning to like her,’ I said defensively.

‘You would,’ he said scornfully, ‘and I dare say she won’t do any harm now. She would make you a good patron,’ he told Taliesin, ‘she has an absurd respect for poets. Just don’t climb into bed with her.’

‘No danger of that, Lord,’ Taliesin said.

Merlin laughed. ‘Our young bard here,’ he told me, ‘is celibate. He is a gelded lark. He has forsworn the greatest pleasure a man can have in order to preserve his gift.’

Taliesin saw my curiosity and smiled. ‘Not my voice, Lord Derfel, but the gift of prophecy.’

‘And it’s a genuine gift!’ Merlin said with unfeigned admiration, ‘though I doubt it’s worth celibacy. If I had ever been asked to pay that price I’d have abandoned the Druid’s staff! I’d have taken humble employment instead, like being a bard or a spearman.’

‘You see the future?’ I asked Taliesin.

‘He foresaw victory today,’ Merlin said, ‘and he knew of Cuneglas’s death a month ago, though he didn’t scry that a useless Saxon lump would come and steal all my cheese.’ He snatched the cheese back from me. ‘I suppose now,’ he said, ‘that you want him to forecast your future, Derfel?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘Quite right,’ Merlin said, ‘always better not to know the future. Everything ends in tears, that’s all there is to it.’

‘But joy is renewed,’ Taliesin said softly.

‘Oh, dear me, no!’ Merlin cried. ‘Joy is renewed! The dawn comes! The tree buds! The clouds part! The ice melts! You can do better than that sort of sentimental rubbish.’ He fell silent. His bodyguard had ended their dance and gone to amuse themselves with some captured Saxon women. The women had children, and their cries were loud enough to annoy Merlin, who scowled. ‘Fate is inexorable,’ he said sourly, ‘and everything ends in tears.’

‘Is Nimue with you?’ I asked him, and saw immediately from Taliesin’s warning expression that I had asked the wrong question.