I said irritably: “I don’t care what you believe or what you don’t believe. I’m tired of this. All my life people have asked me this question, and all my life people have disbelieved me. It’s true, she never told me. I doubt if she told anyone. As far as I know, she may have been telling the truth when she said I was begotten of a devil.” I made a gesture of impatience. “Why do you ask?”

“We heard what the other young gentleman said.” His tone and look were stolid. “I’d rather be a bastard and have a king for a father, than a no-man’s-child who never had a father at all!’”

“If I take no offence why should you? You can see he’s in his cups.”

“We wanted to make sure, that’s all. And now we’ve made sure. The King wants you.”

“The King?” I must have sounded blank.

He nodded. “Vortigern. We’ve been looking for you for three weeks past. You’re to go to him.”

“I don’t understand.” I must have looked bewildered rather than frightened. I could see my mission falling round me in ruins, but with this was a mixture of confusion and relief. If they had been looking for me for three weeks, this surely could have nothing to do with Ambrosius.

Dinias had been sitting quietly enough in his corner. I thought that most of what was said had not gone through to him, but now he leaned forward, his hands flat on the wine-splashed table. “What does he want him for? Tell me that.”

“You’ve no call to worry.” Blackbeard threw it at him almost disdainfully. “It’s not you he wants. But I’ll tell you what, since it was you led us to him, it’s you who should get the reward.”

“Reward?” I asked. “What talk is this?”

Dinias was suddenly stone sober. “I said nothing. What do you mean?”

Blackbeard nodded. “It was what you said that led us to him.”

“He was only asking questions about the family—he’s been away,” said my cousin. “You were listening. Anybody could have listened, we weren’t keeping our voices down. By the gods, if we wanted to talk treason would we have talked it here?”

“Nobody mentioned treason. I’m just doing my duty. The King wants to see him, and he’s to come with me.”

The old steward said, looking troubled now: “You can’t harm him. He’s who he says he is, Niniane’s son. You can ask her yourself.”

That brought Blackbeard round to face him quickly. “She’s still alive?”

“Oh, yes, she’s that all right. She’s barely a stone’s throw off, at the nunnery of St. Peter’s, beyond the old oak at the crossways.”