‘I believed in the Treasures, Lord.’

He gave a derisory bark of laughter. ‘This is the Treasure I believe in,’ he said, patting Excalibur’s hilt. ‘Believe in victory, Derfel! If we march against the Saxons like beaten men then they’ll give our bones to the wolves. But if we march like winners we’ll hear them howl.’

It was a fine bravado, but it was hard to believe in victory. Dumnonia was shrouded with gloom. We had lost our Gods, and folk said it was Arthur who had driven them away. He was not just the enemy of the Christian God, now he was the enemy of all the Gods and men said that the Saxons were his punishment. Even the weather presaged disaster for, on the morning after I parted from Arthur, it began to rain and it seemed as though that rain would never stop. Day after day brought low grey clouds, a chill wind, and insistent driving rain. Everything was wet. Our clothes, our bedding, our firewood, the floor-rushes, the very walls of our houses seemed greasy with damp. Spears rusted in their racks, stored grain sprouted or grew mouldy, and still the rain drove relentlessly from the west. Ceinwyn and I did our best to seal Dun Caric’s hall. Her brother had brought her a gift of wolf pelts from Powys and we used them to line the timber walls, but the very air beneath the roof beams seemed sodden. Fires burned sullen to grudge us a spitting and smoky warmth that reddened our eyes. Both our daughters were cross-grained that early winter. Morwenna, the eldest, who was usually the most placid and contented of children, became shrewish and so insistently selfish that Ceinwyn took a belt to her. ‘She misses Gwydre,’ Ceinwyn told me afterwards. Arthur had decreed that Gwydre would not leave his side, and so the boy had gone with his father to meet King Meurig. ‘They should marry next year,’ Ceinwyn added. ‘That will cure her.’

‘If Arthur will let Gwydre marry her,’ I responded gloomily. ‘He has no great love for us these days.’ I had wanted to accompany Arthur into Gwent, but he had peremptorily refused me. There had been a time when I had thought myself his closest friend, but now he growled at me rather than welcomed me. ‘He thinks I risked Gwydre’s life,’ I said.

‘No,’ Ceinwyn disagreed. ‘He’s been distant with you ever since the night when he discovered Guinevere.’

‘Why would that change things?’

‘Because you were with him, my dear,’ Ceinwyn said patiently, ‘and with you he cannot pretend that nothing has changed. You were a witness to his shame. He sees you and he remembers her. He’s also jealous.’

‘Jealous?’

She smiled. ‘He thinks you are happy. He thinks now that if he had married me then he too would be happy.’

‘He probably would,’ I said.

‘He even suggested it,’ Ceinwyn said carelessly.