“They say all sort of things. Cadal, have I another tunic that’s decent? Did my best one come back from the cleaner? And I want a bath before I go to the Count.”

He eyed me sideways as he reached in the clothes-chest for another tunic. “Uther will have gone straight to him. You know that?”

I laughed. “Of course. I warn you, I shall tell Ambrosius the truth.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

“Well, I suppose that’s best,” he said. “If anyone can protect you from them—”

“It’s not that. It’s simply that he ought to know. He has the right. Besides, what have I to hide from him?”

He said uneasily: “I was thinking about the curse . . . Even Ambrosius might not be able to protect you from that.”

“Oh, that to the curse.” I made a gesture not commonly seen in noblemen’s houses. “Forget it. Neither you nor I have done wrong, and I refuse to lie to Ambrosius.”

“Some day I’ll see you scared, Merlin.”

“Probably.”

“Weren’t you even scared of Belasius?”

“Should I be?” I was interested. “He’ll do me no harm.” I unhooked the belt of my tunic, and threw it on the bed. I regarded Cadal. “Would you be afraid if you knew your own end, Cadal?”

“Yes, by the dog! Do you?”

“Sometimes, in snatches. Sometimes I see it. It fills me with fear.”

He stood still, looking at me, and there was fear in his face. “What is it, then?”

“A cave. The crystal cave. Sometimes I think it is death, and at other times it is birth or a gate of vision, or a dark limbo of sleep . . . I cannot tell. But some day I shall know. Till then, I suppose I am not afraid of much else. I shall come to the cave in the end, as you—” I broke off.

“As I what?” he asked quickly. “What’ll I come to?”

I smiled. “I was going to say ‘As you will come to old age’.”

“That’s a lie,” he said roughly. “I saw your eyes. When you’re seeing things, your eyes go queer; I’ve noticed it before. The black spreads and goes kind of blurred, dreaming-like—but not soft; no, your whole look goes cold, like cold iron, as if you neither saw nor cared about what’s going on round you. And you talk as if you were just a voice and not a person . . . Or as if you’d gone somewhere else and left your body for something else to speak through. Like a horn being blown through to make the sound carry. Oh, I know I’ve only seen it a couple of times, for a moment, but it’s uncanny, and it frightens me.”