“Perhaps. I find it hard to believe. It may mean nothing. I understand he has married a young wife, and it may only be that he kept within walls all winter to keep her warm. Or that he foresaw what would happen to Vortimer, and preferred to serve my cause by staying safe and apparently loyal to the High King. But until I know, I cannot send to him directly. He may be watched. So you are to go to Galapas, for the news from Wales. I’m told Vortigern’s holed up there somewhere, while the length of Eastern Britain lies open to Hengist. I’ll have to smoke the old wolf out first, then weld the West against the Saxons. But it will have to be fast. And I want Caerleon.” He looked up then. “I’m sending your old friend with you—Marric. You can send word back by him. Let’s hope you find all well. You’ll want news yourself, I dare say.”

“It can wait,” I said.

He said nothing to that, but raised his brows at me, and then turned back to the map. “Well, sit down and I’ll brief you myself. Let’s hope you can get away soon.”

I indicated the swaying curtains. “I shall be sick all the way.”

He looked up from the map, and laughed. “By Mithras, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you suppose I shall be, too? A damned undignified way to go back to one’s home.”

“To one’s kingdom,” I said.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

I CROSSED in early April, and on the same ship as before. But the crossing could not have been more different. This was not Myrddin, the runaway, but Merlinus, a well-dressed young Roman with money in his pocket, and servants in attendance. Where Myrddin had been locked naked in the hold, Merlinus had a comfortable cabin, and marked deference paid him by the captain. Cadal, of course, was one of my servants, and the other, to my own amusement though not his, was Marric. (Hanno was dead, having overreached himself, I gathered, in a little matter of blackmail.) Naturally I carried no outward sign of my connection with Ambrosius, but nothing would part me from the brooch he had given me; I wore this clipped inside the shoulder of my tunic. It was doubtful whether anyone would have recognised in me the runaway of five years ago, and certainly the captain gave no sign, but I held myself aloof, and was careful to speak nothing but Breton.

As luck would have it, the boat was going straight to the mouth of the Tywy and would anchor at Maridunum, but it had been arranged that Cadal and I were to be put off by boat as soon as the trader arrived in the estuary.