From whence they come, no one really knows. Sagramor, who has travelled more widely than any other of Arthur’s commanders, tells me the Saxon land is a distant, fog-shrouded place of bogs and woodland, though he admits he has never been there. He just knows it is somewhere across the sea and they are leaving it, he claims, because the land of Britain is better, though I have also heard that the Saxons’ homeland is under siege from other, even stranger, enemies who come from the world’s farthest edge. But for whatever reason, for a hundred years now the Saxons have been crossing the sea to take our land and now they hold all eastern Britain. We call that stolen territory Lloegyr, the Lost Lands, and there is not a soul in free Britain who does not dream of taking back the Lost Lands. Merlin and Nimue believe that the lands will only be recovered by the Gods, while Arthur wishes to do it with the sword. And my task was to divide our enemies to make the task easier for either the Gods or for Arthur.

I travelled in the autumn when the oaks had turned to bronze, the beeches to red and the cold was misting the dawns white. I travelled alone, for if Aelle was to reward an emissary’s coming with death then it was better that only one man should die. Ceinwyn had begged me to take a warband, but to what purpose? One band could not hope to take on the power of Aelle’s whole army, and so, as the wind stripped the first yellow leaves from the elms, I rode eastwards. Ceinwyn had tried to persuade me to wait until after Samain, for if Merlin’s invocations worked at Mai Dun then there would surely be no need for any emissaries to visit the Saxons, but Arthur would not countenance any delay. He had put his faith in Aelle’s treachery and he wanted an answer from the Saxon King, and so I rode, hoping only that I would survive and that I would be back in Dumnonia by Samain Eve. I wore my sword and I had a shield hung on my back, but I carried no other weapons or armour.

I did not ride directly eastwards, for that route would have taken me dangerously close to Cerdic’s land, so instead I went north into Gwent and then eastwards, aiming for the Saxon frontier where Aelle ruled. For a day and a half I journeyed through the rich farmlands of Gwent, passing villas and homesteads where smoke blew from roof holes. The fields were churned muddy by the hoofs of beasts being penned for the winter slaughter, and their lowing added a melancholy to my journey. The air had that first hint of winter and in the mornings the swollen sun hung low and pale in the mist. Starlings flocked on fallow fields.