“Like a bet on it?” I saw he had reached into the pouch at his waist and brought out a pair of dice, which he tossed idly from hand to hand. “Come on, give you a game?”

“No, thanks. At any rate, not here. Look, Dinias, I’ll tell you what, we’ll get another flask, or two if you like, and go home and drink them there?”

“Home?” He sneered, loose-lipped. “Where’s that? An empty palace?”

He was still talking loudly, and from across the room I noticed someone watching us. Nobody I knew. Two men in dark clothes, one with a fringe of black beard, the other thin-faced and red-headed, with a long nose like a fox. Welshmen, by the look of them. They had a flask on a stool in front of them, and cups in their hands, but the flask had been at the same level now for a good half hour. I glanced at Dinias. I judged he had reached the stage now of being disposed either to friendly confidences or a loud quarrel. To insist on leaving now might be to provoke that quarrel, and if we were being watched, and if the crowd near the door were indeed Vortigern’s men, it would be better to stay here and talk quietly than take my cousin out into the street, and perhaps be followed. What, after all, did a mention of Ambroses’ name matter? It would be on every man’s lips, and if, as seemed likely, rumours had been flying more thickly than usual of late, everyone, Vortigern’s friends and enemies alike, would be discussing them.

Dinias had dropped the dice on the table, and was pushing them here and there with a reasonably steady forefinger. At least they would give us an excuse for a heads-together session in our corner. And dice might take his attention off the wine flask.

I brought out a handful of small coins. “Look, if you really want a game. What can you put on the table?”

As we played I was conscious that Blackbeard and the foxy man were listening. The Saxons near the door seemed harmless enough; most of them were three parts drunk already, and talking too loudly among themselves to pay attention to anyone else. But Blackbeard seemed to be interested.

I threw the dice. Five and four. Too good; I wanted Dinias to win something. I could hardly offer him money to get him behind the curtain with a girl. Meanwhile, to put Blackbeard off the scent . . .