“He knows now.” I spoke with sudden, complete certainty. “He saw it, back there on the road, when he saw the dragon brooch the Count gave me. I’d never thought about it, but of course he would realise the Count would hardly put the royal cipher on his catamite. He had the torch brought up, and took a good look at me. I think he saw it then.” A thought struck me. “And I think Belasius knows.”

“Oh, yes,” said Cadal, “he knows. Why?”

“The way he talked . . . As if he knew he daren’t touch me. That would be why he tried to scare me with the threat of a curse. He’s a pretty cool hand, isn’t he? He must have been thinking very hard on the way up to the grove. He daren’t put me quietly out of the way for sacrilege, but he had to stop me talking somehow. Hence the curse. And also—” I stopped.

“And also what?”

“Don’t sound so startled. It was only another guarantee I’d hold my tongue.”

“For the gods’ sake, what?”

I shrugged, realised I was still naked, and reached for the bedgown again. “He said he would take me with him to the sanctuary. I think he would like to make a druid of me.”

“He said that?” I was getting familiar with Cadal’s sign to avert the evil eye. “What will you do?”

“I’ll go with him . . . once, at least. Don’t look like that, Cadal. There isn’t a cat’s chance in a fire that I’ll want to go more than once.” I looked at him soberly. “But there’s nothing in this world that I’m not ready to see and learn, and no god that I’m not ready to approach in his own fashion. I told you that truth was the shadow of God. If I am to use it, I must know who He is. Do you understand me?”

“How could I? What god are you talking about?”

“I think there is only one. Oh, there are gods everywhere, in the hollow hills, in the wind and the sea, in the very grass we walk on and the air we breathe, and in the blood-stained shadows where men like Belasius wait for them. But I believe there must be one who is God Himself, like the great sea, and all the rest of us, small gods and men and all, like rivers, we all come to Him in the end.—Is the bath ready?”

Twenty minutes later, in a dark blue tunic clipped at the shoulder by the dragon brooch, I went to see my father.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE secretary was in the lobby, rather elaborately doing nothing. Beyond the curtain I heard Ambrosius’ voice speaking quietly. The two guards at the door looked wooden.