I crouched beside her. ‘We want nothing,’ I told her, ‘except news.’

‘News?’ The very word seemed strange to her.

‘Do you know who your King is?’ I asked her gently.

‘Uther, Lord,’ she said. ‘A big man, he is, Lord. Like a God!’

It was plain we would fetch no news from the hovel, or none that would make sense, and so we walked on, stopping only to eat some of the bread and dried meat that we carried in our pouches. I was in my own country, yet it felt curiously as though I walked an enemy land and I chided myself for giving too much credit to Taliesin’s vague warnings, yet still I kept to the hidden wooded paths and, as evening fell, I led my small company up through a beech wood to higher ground where we might have a sight of any other spearmen. We saw none, but, far to the south, an errant ray of the dying sun lanced through a cloud bank to touch Ynys Wydryn’s Tor green and bright.

We lit no fire. Instead we slept beneath the beech trees and in the morning woke cold and stiff. We walked east, staying under the leafless trees, while beneath us, in damp heavy fields, men ploughed stiff furrows, women sowed a crop and small children ran screaming to frighten the birds away from the precious seed. ‘I used to do that in Ireland,’ Eachern said. ‘Spent half my childhood frightening birds away.’

‘Nail a crow to the plough, that’ll do it,’ one of the other spearmen offered.

‘Nail crows to every tree near the field,’ another suggested.

‘Doesn’t stop them,’ a third man put in, ‘but it makes you feel better.’

We were following a narrow track between deep hedgerows. The leaves had not unfurled to hide the nests so magpies and jays were busy stealing eggs and they screeched in protest when we came close. ‘The folks will know we’re here, Lord,’ Eachern said, ‘they may not see us, but they’ll know. They’ll hear the jays.’

‘It won’t matter,’ I said. I was not even sure why I was taking such care to stay hidden, except that we were so few and, like most warriors, I yearned for the security of numbers and knew I would feel a great deal more comfortable once the rest of my men were around me. Till then we would hide ourselves as best we could, though at mid-morning our route took us out of the trees and down into the open fields that led to the Fosse Way. Buck hares danced in the meadows and skylarks sang above us. We saw no one, though doubtless the peasants saw us, and doubtless the news of our passing rippled swiftly through the countryside. Armed men were ever cause for alarm, and so I had some of my men carry their shields in front so that their insignia would reassure the local people we were friends. It was not until we had crossed the Roman road and were close to Dun Caric that I saw another human, and that was a woman who, when we were still too far away for her to see the stars on our shields, ran to the woods behind the village to hide herself among the trees. ‘Folks are nervous,’ I said to Eachern.