AMBROSIUS’ headquarters was in the town. I learned later that the town had, in fact, grown up round the camp where Ambrosius and his brother had, during the last couple of years, begun to gather and train the army that had for so long been a mythical threat to Vortigern, and now, with the help of King Budec, and troops from half the countries of Gaul, was growing into a fact. Budec was King of Less Britain, and cousin of Ambrosius and Uther. He it was who had taken the brothers in twenty years ago when they—Ambrosius then ten years old, and Uther still at his nurse’s breast—were carried overseas into safety after Vortigern had murdered their elder brother the King. Budec’s own castle was barely a stone’s throw from the camp that Ambrosius had built, and round the two strong points the town had grown up, a mixed collection of houses, shops and huts, with the wall and ditch thrown round for protection. Budec was an old man now, and he had made Ambrosius his heir, as well as Comes or Count of his forces. It had been supposed in the past that the brothers would be content to stay in Less Britain and rule it after Budec’s death; but now that Vortigern’s grip on Greater Britain was slackening, the money and the men were pouring in, and it was an open secret that Ambrosius had his eye on South and West Britain for himself, while Uther—even at twenty a brilliant soldier—would, it was hoped, hold Less Britain, and so for another generation at least provide between the two kingdoms a Romano-Celtic rampart against the barbarians from the north.

I soon found that in one respect Ambrosius was pure Roman. The first thing that happened to me after I was dumped, cloak and all, between the door-posts of his outer hall, was that I was seized, unwrapped, and—exhausted by now beyond protest or question—deposited in a bath. The heating system certainly worked here; the water was steaming hot, and thawed my frozen body in three painful and ecstatic minutes. The man who had carried me home—it was Cadal, who turned out to be one of the Count’s personal servants—bathed me himself. Under Ambrosius’ own orders, he told me curtly, as he scrubbed and oiled and dried me, and then stood over me as I put on a clean tunic of white wool only two sizes too big.

“Just to make sure you don’t bolt again. He wants to talk to you, don’t ask me why. You can’t wear those sandals in this house, Dia knows where you’ve been with them. Leastways, it’s obvious where you’ve been with them; cows, was it? You can go barefoot, the floors are warm. Well, at least you’re clean now. Hungry?”

“Are you trying to be funny?”