So he dealt with me, treating me more as a prince than I had ever been treated in my grandfather’s house, where at least I had had some sort of claim to it.

Cadal was assigned to me as my own servant. I thought at first that he might resent this, as a poor substitute for serving Ambrosius, but he did not seem to mind, in fact I got the impression that he was pleased. He was soon on easy terms with me, and, since there were no other boys of my age about the place, he was my constant companion. I was also given a horse. At first they gave me one of Ambrosius’ own, but after a day on that I asked shamefacedly if I might have something more my size, and was given a small stolid grey which—with my only moment of nostalgia—I called Aster.

So the first days passed. I rode out with Cadal at my side to see the country; this was still in the grip of frost, and soon the frost turned to rain so that the fields were churned mud and the ways were slippery and foul, and a cold wind whistled day and night across the flats, whipping the Small Sea to white on iron-grey, and blackening the northern sides of the standing stones with wet. I looked one day for the stone with the mark of the axe, and failed to find it. But there was another where in a certain light you could see a dagger carved, and a thick stone, standing a little apart, where under the lichen and the bird droppings stared the shape of an open eye. By daylight the stones did not breathe so cold on one’s nape, but there was still something there, watching, and it was not a way my pony cared to go.

Of course I explored the town. King Budec’s castle was in the centre, on a rocky outcrop which had been crowned with a high wall. A stone ramp led up to the gate, which was shut and guarded. I often saw Ambrosius, or his officers, riding up this ramp, but never went myself any nearer than the guard post at the foot of it. But I saw King Budec several times, riding out with his men. His hair and his long beard were almost white, but he sat his big brown gelding like a man thirty years younger, and I heard countless stories of his prowess at arms and how he had sworn to be avenged on Vortigern for the killing of his cousin Constantius, even though it would take a lifetime. This, in fact, it threatened to do, for it seemed an almost impossible task for so poor a country to raise the kind of army that might defeat Vortigern and the Saxons, and thereafter hold Greater Britain. But soon now, men said, soon . . .