We found Arthur in his blacksmith’s shed. He had built the shed himself, made a hooded furnace from Roman bricks, then purchased an anvil and a set of blacksmith’s tools. He had always declared he wanted to be a blacksmith, though as Guinevere frequently remarked, wanting and being were not at all the same thing. But Arthur tried, how he tried! He employed a proper blacksmith, a gaunt and taciturn man named Morridig, whose task was to teach Arthur the skills of the trade, but Morridig had long despaired of teaching Arthur anything except enthusiasm. All of us, nevertheless, possessed items Arthur had made; iron candle-stands that had kinked shafts, misshapen cooking pots with ill-fitting handles or fire-spits that bowed over the flame. Yet the smithy made him happy, and he spent hours beside its hissing furnace, ever certain that a little more practice would make him as carelessly proficient as Morridig.

He was alone in the smithy when Galahad and I returned from Burrium. He grunted a distracted welcome, then went on hammering a shapeless piece of iron that he claimed was a shoe-plate for one of his horses. He reluctantly dropped the hammer when we presented him with one of the salmon we had bought, then interrupted our news by saying that he had already heard that Mordred was close to death. ‘A bard arrived from Armorica yesterday,’ he told us, ‘and says the King’s leg is rotting at the hip. The bard says he stinks like a dead toad.’

‘How does the bard know?’ I asked, for I had thought Mordred was surrounded and cut off from all the other Britons in Armorica. ‘He says it’s common knowledge in Broceliande,’ Arthur said, then happily added that he expected Dumnonia’s throne to be vacant in a matter of days, but we spoiled his cheerfulness by telling him of Meurig’s refusal to allow any of our spearmen to cross Gwent’s land and I furthered his gloom by adding my suspicions of Sansum. I thought for a second that Arthur was going to curse, something he did rarely, but he controlled the impulse, and instead moved the salmon away from the furnace. ‘Don’t want it to cook,’ he said. ‘So Meurig’s closed all the roads to us?’

‘He says he wants peace, Lord,’ I explained.

Arthur laughed sourly. ‘He wants to prove himself, that’s what he wants. His father’s dead and he’s eager to show that he’s a better man than Tewdric. The best way is to become a hero in battle and the second best is to steal a kingdom without a battle.’ He sneezed violently, then shook his head angrily. ‘I hate having a cold.’

‘You should be resting, Lord,’ I said, ‘not working.’

‘This isn’t work, this is pleasure.’

‘You should take coltsfoot in mead,’ Galahad said.