‘Merlin sent me,’ I said.

‘Reckoned he would. Said he would. Is he coming himself?’

‘He’s dead,’ I said.

Caddwg spat. ‘Never thought to hear that.’ He spat a second time. ‘Thought death would give him a miss.’

‘He was murdered,’ I said.

Caddwg stooped and threw some logs on a fire that burned under a bubbling pot. The pot held pitch, and I could see that he had been caulking the gaps between Prydmen ‘s planks. The boat looked beautiful. Her wooden hull had been scraped clean and the shining new layer of wood contrasted with the deep black of the pitch-soaked caulking that stopped the water spurting between her timbers. She had a high prow, a tall sternpost and a long, newly made mast that now rested on trestles beside the stranded hull. ‘You’ll be wanting her, then,’ Caddwg said.

‘There are thirteen of us,’ I told him, ‘waiting at the fort.’

‘Tomorrow this time,’ he said.

‘Not till then?’ I asked, alarmed at the delay.

‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ he grumbled, ‘and I can’t launch her till high water, and that’ll be tomorrow morning, and by the time I get her mast shipped and the sail bent on and the steerboard shipped, the tide’ll be ebbed again. She’ll float again by mid afternoon, she will, and I’ll come for you quick as I can, but like as not it’ll be dusk. You should have sent me word.’

That was true, but none of us had thought to send a warning to Caddwg for none of us understood boats. We had thought to come here, find the boat and sail away, and we had never dreamed that the boat might be out of the water. ‘Are there other boats?’ I asked.

‘Not for thirteen folk,’ he said, ‘and none that can take you where I’m going.’

‘To Broceliande,’ I said.

‘I’ll take you where Merlin told me to take you,’ Caddwg said obstinately, then stumped around to Prydwen ‘s bow and pointed up to a grey stone that was about the size of an apple. There was nothing remarkable about the stone except that it had been skilfully worked into the ship’s stem where it was held by the oak like a gem clasped by a gold setting. ‘He gave me that bit of rock,’ Caddwg said, meaning Merlin. ‘A wraithstone, that is.’

‘Wraithstone?’ I asked, never having heard of such a thing.

‘It’ll take Arthur where Merlin wanted him to go, and nothing else will take him there. And no other boat can take him there, only a boat that Merlin named,’ Caddwg said. The name Prydwen meant Britain. ‘Arthur is with you?’ Caddwg asked me, suddenly anxious.

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ll bring the gold as well,’ Caddwg said.

‘Gold?’

‘The old man left it for Arthur. Reckoned he’d want it. No good to me. Gold can’t catch a fish. It bought me a new sail, I’ll say that for it, and Merlin told me to buy the sail and so he had to give me gold, but gold don’t catch fish. It catches women,’ he chuckled, ‘but not fish.’