‘They taught you well,’ I said, not believing a word she said, but strangely comforted by the warm grip of her small hand.

‘They have cloaks of gossamer,’ she said.

‘They don’t dance naked?’ I asked, teasing her.

‘A gossamer cloak hides nothing, Lord,’ she reproved me, ‘but why should we hide what is beautiful?’

‘Do you lie with the elves?’

‘One day I shall. Not yet. In the time after the kings, I shall. With them and with golden men. But first I must lie with another salty man. Belly to belly with another dry thing from the Cauldron’s heart.’ She laughed and tugged at my hand and we left the ridge and climbed a smooth slope of grass to reach a higher crest. There, for the first time since the clouds had hidden the moon, I saw light.

Far across a dark saddle of land there lay a hill, and in the hill there must have been a valley that was filled with fire so that the nearer brow of the hill was edged with its glow. I stood there, my hand unconsciously in Olwen’s hand, and she laughed with delight as she saw me gazing at that sudden light. ‘That is the land before kings, Lord,’ she told me. ‘You will find friends there, and food.’

I took my hand from hers. ‘What friend would put a curse on Ceinwyn?’

She took my hand back. ‘Come, Lord, not far now,’ she said, and she tugged me down the slope, trying to make me run, but I would not. I went slowly, remembering what Taliesin had told me in the magical mist he had drawn across Caer Cadarn; that Merlin had ordered him to save me, but that I might not thank him for it, and as I walked ever nearer that hollow of fire I feared I would discover Merlin’s meaning. Olwen chivvied me, she laughed at my fears and her eyes sparkled with the reflection of the fire’s glow, but I climbed towards the livid skyline with a heavy heart.

Spearmen guarded the edge of the valley. They were savage-looking men swathed in furs and carrying rough-shafted spears with crudely fashioned blades. They said nothing as we passed, though Olwen greeted them cheerfully, then she led me down a path into the valley’s smoky heart. There was a long slender lake in the valley’s bed, and all around the black lake’s shores were fires, and by the fires were small huts among groves of stunted trees. An army of people was camped there, for there were two hundred fires or more.

‘Come, Lord,’ Olwen said and drew me on down the slope. ‘This is the past,’ she told me, ‘and this is the future. This is where the hoop of time meets.’