The sea still tossed us, but the air cleared and the clouds turned from black to grey, and then to broken white, and all about us was an empty sea. Ours was the only boat left and as Arthur stared around the grey waves I saw the tears in his eyes. His men were gone to Manawydan, all of them, all his brave men save we few. A whole army was gone.

And we were alone.

We retrieved the spar and the remnants of the sail, and then we rowed for the rest of that long day. Every man except me had blistered hands, and even I tried to row, but found my one good hand was not enough to manage an oar, and so I sat and watched as we pulled southwards through the rolling seas until, by evening, our keel grated on sand and we struggled ashore with what few possessions we still had left.

We slept in the dunes, and in the morning we cleaned the salt off our weapons and counted what coins we still had. Balig and his Saxon stayed with their boat, claiming they could salvage her, and I gave him my last piece of gold, embraced him, and then followed Arthur south.

We found a hall in the coastal hills and the lord of that hall proved to be a supporter of Arthur’s, and he gave us a saddle horse and two mules. We tried to give him gold, but he refused it. ‘I wish,’ he said, ‘I had spearmen to give you, but alas.’ He shrugged. His hall was poor and he had already given us more than he could afford. We ate his food, dried our clothes by his fire, and afterwards sat with Arthur under the apple blossom in the hall’s orchard. ‘We can’t fight Mordred now,’ Arthur told us bleakly. Mordred’s forces numbered at least three hundred and fifty spearmen, and Nimue’s followers would help him so long as he pursued us, while Sagramor had fewer than two hundred men. The war was lost before it had even properly begun.

‘Oengus will come to help us,’ Culhwch suggested.

‘He’ll try,’ Arthur agreed, ‘but Meurig will never let the Blackshields march through Gwent.’

‘And Cerdic will come,’ Galahad said quietly. ‘As soon as he hears that Mordred is fighting us, he’ll march. And we shall have two hundred men.’

‘Fewer,’ Arthur interjected.

‘To fight how many?’ Galahad asked. ‘Four hundred? Five? And our survivors, even if we win, will have to turn and face Cerdic’

‘Then what do we do?’ Guinevere asked.

Arthur smiled. ‘We go to Armorica,’ he said. ‘Mordred won’t pursue us there.’

‘He might,’ Culhwch growled.