‘That is for my father to hear and for me to speak. You are not part of it.’

He turned and gestured towards his men. ‘We make it our business.’

‘Your name?’ I demanded.

He hesitated, then decided that imparting his name would do no harm. ‘Ceolwulf,’ he said, ‘son of Eadbehrt.’

‘So, Ceolwulf,’ I said, ‘do you think my father will reward you when he hears that you delayed my journey? What will you expect of him? Gold? Or a grave?’

It was a fine bluff, but it worked. I had no idea whether Aelle would embrace me or kill me, but Ceolwulf had sufficient fear of his King’s wrath to give me grudging passage and an escort of four spearmen who led me deeper and deeper into the Lost Lands.

And so I travelled through places where few free Britons had stepped in a generation. These were the enemy heartlands, and for two days I rode through them. At first glance the country looked little different from British land, for the Saxons had taken over our fields and they farmed them in much the same manner as we did, though I noted their haystacks were piled higher and made squarer than ours, and their houses were built more stoutly. The Roman villas were mostly deserted, though here and there an estate still functioned. There were no Christian churches here, indeed no shrines at all that I could see, though we did once pass a British idol which had some small offerings left at its base. Britons still lived here and some even owned their own land, but most were slaves or else were wives to Saxons. The names of the places had all changed and my escort did not even know what they had been called when the British ruled. We passed through Lycceword and Steortford, then Leodasham and Celmeresfort, all strange Saxon names but all prosperous places. These were not the homes and farms of invaders, but the settlements of a fixed people. From Celmeresfort we turned south through Beadewan and Wicford, and as we rode my companions proudly told me that we now rode across farmland that Cerdic had yielded back to Aelle during the summer. The land was the price, they said, of Aelle’s loyalty in the coming war that would take these people clean across Britain to the Western Sea. My escort was confident that they would win. They had all heard how Dumnonia had been weakened by Lancelot’s rebellion, and that revolt had encouraged the Saxon Kings to unite in an effort to take all southern Britain.