‘I asked for news,’ Sansum snapped, ‘not women’s gossip about a child. What about the fires? Did Dafydd mention the fires?’

‘He knows no more than we do, Bishop,’ I said, ‘but King Brochvael believes they are Saxons.’

‘God preserve us,’ Sansum said, and walked to my window from where the smear of smoke was still just visible in the east. ‘God and His saints preserve us,’ he prayed, then came to my desk and put the strange bundle on top of this skin. He pulled away the cloak and I saw, to my astonishment, and almost to the provocation of my tears, that it was Hywelbane. I did not dare show my emotion, but instead crossed myself as if I was shocked by the appearance of a weapon in our monastery. ‘There are enemies near,’ Sansum said, explaining the sword’s presence.

‘I fear you are right, Bishop,’ I said.

‘And enemies provoke hungry men in these hills,’ Sansum went on, ‘so at night you will stand guard on the monastery.’

‘So be it, Lord,’ I said humbly. But me? Stand guard? I am white-haired, old and feeble. One might as well ask a toddling child to stand guard as to rely on me, but I made no protest and once Sansum had left the room I slid Hywelbane from her scabbard and thought how heavy she had become during the long years she had lain in the monastery’s treasure cupboard. She was heavy and clumsy, but she was still my sword, and I peered at the yellowed pig bones set into her hilt and then at the lover’s ring that was bound about its pommel and I saw, on that flattened ring, the tiny scraps of gold I had stolen from the Cauldron so long ago. She brought back so many stories, that sword. There was a patch of rust on her blade and I carefully scraped it away with the knife I use for sharpening my quills, and then I cradled her for a long time, imagining that I was young again and still strong enough to wield her.