The priests were nodding sagely, and some of them, I noticed, held their hands in front of them in the sign to ward off enchantment. It seemed that they believed Maugan, they believed my mother, they saw me as the devil’s child. All that had happened was that her story had confirmed their own belief, the old rumours. This, in fact, was what she had been brought here for. And now they watched me with satisfaction, but also with a kind of wary fear.

My own fear was leaving me. I thought I began to see what they wanted. Vortigern’s superstition was legendary. I remembered what Dinias had told me about the stronghold that kept falling down, and the reports of the King’s soothsayers that it was bewitched. It seemed possible that, because of the rumours of my birth, and possibly because of the childish powers I had shown before I left home, to which Maugan had referred, they thought I could advise or help them. If this was so, and they had brought me here because of my reputed powers, there might be some way in which I could help Ambrosius right from the enemy’s camp. Perhaps after all the god had brought me here for this, perhaps he was still driving me. Put yourself in his path . . . Well, one could only use what was to hand. If I had no power to use, I had knowledge.

I cast my mind back to the day at King’s Fort, and to the flooded mine in the core of the crag, to which the dream had led me. I would certainly be able to tell them why their foundations would not stand. It was an engineer’s answer, not a magician’s. But, I thought, meeting the oyster eyes of Maugan as he dry-washed those long dirty hands before him, if it was a magician’s answer they wanted, they should have it. And Vortigern with them.

I lifted my head. I believe I was smiling. “King Vortigern!”

It was like dropping a stone into a pool, the room was so still, so centred on me. I said strongly: “My mother has told you what you asked her. No doubt you will tell me now in what way I can serve you, but first I must ask you to keep your royal promise and let her go.”