Or: “Now think of your grandfather’s nobles. How many will be loyal to Camlach? Their names? How many men? And of his allies, who? Their numbers . . . their fighting power . . .?”

And then, suddenly: “Now tell me this. How did you know Camlach was going to Vortimer?”

“He said so to my mother,” I told him, “by my grandfather’s bier. I heard him. There had been rumours that this would happen, and I knew he had quarrelled with my grandfather, but nobody knew anything for certain. Even my mother only suspected what he meant to do. But as soon as the King was dead, he told her.”

“He announced this straight away? Then how was it that Marric and Hanno heard nothing, apart from the rumours of the quarrel?”

Fatigue, and the long relentless questioning had made me incautious. I said, before I thought: “He didn’t announce it. He told only her. He was alone with her.”

“Except for you?” His voice changed, so that I jumped on my stool. He watched me under his brows. “I thought you told me the hypocaust had been filled in?”

I merely sat and looked at him. I could think of nothing to say.

“It seems strange, does it not,” he said levelly, “that he should tell your mother this in front of you, when he must have known you were his enemy? When his men had just killed your servant? And then, after he had told you of his secret plans, how did you get out of the palace and into the hands of my men, to ‘make’ them bring you with them to me?”

“I—” I stammered. “My lord, you cannot think that I—my lord, I told you I was no spy. I—all I have told you is true. He did say it, I swear it.”

“Be careful. It matters whether this is true. Your mother told you?”

“No.”

“Slaves’ talk, then? That’s all?”

I said desperately: “I heard him myself.”

“Then where were you?”

I met his eyes. Without quite realising why, I told the simple truth. “My lord, I was asleep in the hills, six miles off.”

There was a silence, the longest yet. I could hear the embers settling in the brazier, and some distance off, outside, a dog barking. I sat waiting for his anger.

“Merlin.”

I looked up.

“Where do you get the Sight from? Your mother?”

Against all expectation, he believed me. I said eagerly: “Yes, but it is different. She saw only women’s things, to do with love. Then she began to fear the power, and let it be.”

“Do you fear it?”

“I shall be a man.”

“And a man takes power where it is offered. Yes. Did you understand what you saw tonight?”

“The bull? No, my lord, only that it was something secret.”

“Well, you will know some day, but not now. Listen.”