‘Twenty?’ Arthur guessed, ‘thirty? Maybe more. They were coming from some trees. There could be a hundred of them.’

There was a soft scraping noise and I turned to see that Culhwch had drawn his sword. He grinned at me. ‘I don’t care if it’s two hundred men, Derfel, they’re not cutting my beard.’

‘Why would they want your beard?’ Galahad asked. ‘A smelly thing full of lice?’

Culhwch laughed. He liked to tease Galahad, and to be teased in return, and he was still thinking of his reply when Arthur cautiously raised his head above the rampart and stared west towards the place where the approaching spearmen would appear. He went very still, and his stillness quieted us, then suddenly he stood and waved. ‘It’s Sagramor!’ he called to us, and the joy in his voice was unmistakable. ‘It’s Sagramor!’ he said again, and he was so excited that Arthur-bach took up the happy cry. ‘It’s Sagramor!’ the small boy shouted, and the rest of us clambered over the rampart to see Sagramor’s grim black flag streaming from a skull-tipped spear shaft. Sagramor himself, in his conical black helmet, was in the lead and, seeing Arthur, he spurred forward across the sand. Arthur ran to greet him, Sagramor vaulted from his horse, stumbled to his knees and clasped Arthur about the waist.

‘Lord!’ Sagramor said in a rare display of feeling, ‘Lord! I thought not to see you again.’

Arthur raised him, then embraced him. ‘We would have met in Broceliande, my friend.’

‘Broceliande?’ Sagramor said, then spat. ‘I hate the sea.’ There were tears on his black face and I remembered him telling me once why he followed Arthur. Because, he had said, when I had nothing, Arthur gave me everything. Sagramor had not come here because he was reluctant to board a ship, but because Arthur needed help.

The Numidian had brought eighty-three men, and Einion, Culhwch’s son, had come with them. ‘I only had ninety-two horses, Lord,’ Sagramor told Arthur. ‘I’ve been collecting them for months.’ He had hoped he could outride Mordred’s forces and so bring all his men safe to Siluria, but instead he had brought as many as he could to this dry spit of sand between the sea-lake and the ocean. Some of the horses had collapsed on the way, but eighty-three had come through safe.

‘Where are your other men?’ Arthur asked.

‘They sailed south yesterday with all our families,’ Sagramor said, then pulled back from Arthur’s embrace and looked at us. We must have appeared a sorry and battered group, for he offered one of his rare smiles before bowing low to Guinevere and Ceinwyn.

‘We have only one boat coming,’ Arthur said worriedly.

‘Then you will take that one boat, Lord,’ Sagramor said calmly, ‘and we shall ride west into Kernow. We can find boats there and follow you south. But I wanted to meet you this side of the water in case your enemies found you too.’