“No. Will you go?”

“Yes.” I said slowly, and very seriously, searching for the words: “My lord, when you are looking for . . . what I am looking for, you have to look in strange places. Men can never look at the sun, except downwards, at his reflection in things of earth. If he is reflected in a dirty puddle, he is still the sun. There is nowhere I will not look, to find him.”

He was smiling. “You see? You need no guarding, except what Cadal can do.” He leaned back against the edge of the table, half sitting, relaxed now and easy. “Emrys, she called you. Child of the light. Of the Immortals. Divine. You knew that’s what it meant?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you know it was the same as mine?”

“My name?” I asked, stupidly.

He nodded. “Emrys . . . Ambrosius; it’s the same word. Merlinus Ambrosius—she called you after me.”

I stared at him “I—yes, of course. It never occurred to me.” I laughed.

“Why do you laugh?”

“Because of our names. Ambrosius prince of light . . . She told everyone that my father was the prince of darkness. I’ve even heard songs about it We make songs of everything, in Wales.”

“Some day you must sing it to me.” Then he sobered suddenly. His voice deepened. “Merlinus Ambrosius, child of the light, look at the fire now, and tell me what you see.” Then, as I looked up at him, startled, he said urgently: “Now, tonight, before the fire dies, while you are weary and there is sleep in your face. Look at the brazier, and talk to me. What will come to Britain? What will come to me, and to Uther? Look now, work for me, my son, and tell me.”

It was no use; I was awake, and the flames were dying in the brazier; the power had gone, leaving only a room with rapidly cooling shadows, and a man and a boy talking. But because I loved him, I turned my eyes to the embers. There was utter silence, except for the hiss of ash settling, and the tick of the cooling metal.

I said: “I see nothing but the fire dying down in the brazier, and a burning cave of coal.”

“Go on looking.”