‘What does that have to do with love?’ she asked derisively. ‘I wanted him to be King because he’s a weak man and a woman can only rule in this world through such a feeble man. Arthur isn’t weak.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But Lancelot is, and perhaps he will rule here when the Saxons come, but whoever controls Lancelot it will not be me, nor any woman now, but Cerdic, and Cerdic, I hear, is anything but weak.’ She stood, crossed to me and plucked the letter from my hands. She unfolded it, read it a last time, then tossed the parchment into the fire. It blackened, shrivelled, then burst into flame. ‘Go,’ she said, watching the flames, ‘and tell Arthur that I wept at his news. That’s what he wants to hear, so tell him. Tell him I wept.’

I left her. In the next few days the snow thawed, but the rains came again and the bare black trees dripped onto a land that seemed to be rotting in the misty damp. The solstice neared, though the sun never showed. The world was dying in dark, damp despair. I waited for Arthur’s return, but he did not summon me. He took his new bride to Durnovaria and there he celebrated the solstice. If he cared what Guinevere thought of his new marriage, he did not ask me.

We gave the feast of the winter solstice in Dun Caric’s hall and there was not a person present who did not suspect it would be our last. We made our offerings to the midwinter sun, but knew that when the sun rose again it would not bring life to the land, but death. It would bring Saxon spears and Saxon axes and Saxon swords. We prayed, we feasted and we feared that we were doomed. And still the rain would not stop.

PART TWO

Mynydd Baddon

‘WHO?’ IGRAINE DEMANDED as soon as she had read the first sheet of the latest pile of parchments. She has learned some of the Saxon tongue in the last few months and is very proud of herself for that achievement, though in truth it is a barbarous language and much less subtle than the British.

‘Who?’ I echoed her question.

‘Who was the woman who guided Britain to destruction? It was Nimue, wasn’t it?’

‘If you give me time to write the tale, dear Lady, you will find out.’

‘I knew you were going to say that. I don’t even know why I asked.’ She sat on the wide ledge of my windowsill with one hand on her swollen belly and with her head cocked to one side as though she were listening. After a while a look of mischievous delight came to her face. ‘The baby’s kicking,’ she said, ‘do you want to feel it?’

I shuddered. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was never interested in babies.’

She made a face at me. ‘You’ll love mine, Derfel.’

‘I will?’