I laughed. “You may be right. Let me see them. Hm, no, not the white, I’m not competing with Maugan’s coven. Something dark, I think, and the black cloak. Yes, that’ll do. And I’ll wear the dragon brooch.”

“I hope you do right to be so sure of yourself.” Then he hesitated. “Look, I know it’s all wine and worship now, but maybe we ought to make a break for it straight away, not wait to see which way the dice falls? I could steal a couple of horses—”

“‘Make a break for it’? Am I still a prisoner, then?”

“There’s guards all round. Looking after you this time, not holding on to you, but by the dog, it comes to the same thing.” He glanced at the window. “It’ll be dusk before long. Look, I could spin some tale out there to keep them quiet, and maybe you could pretend to go to sleep again till dark—”

“No. I must stay. If I can get Vortigern to listen to me . . . Let me think, Cadal. You saw Marric the night we were taken. That means the news is on its way to my father, and if I’m any judge, he will move straight away. So far, lucky; the sooner the better; if he can catch Vortigern here in the West before he gets a chance to join again with Hengist . . .” I thought for a moment. “Now, the ship was due to sail three—no, four days ago—”

“It sailed before you left Maridunum,” he said briefly.

“What?”

He smiled at my expression. “Well, what did you expect? The Count’s own son and his lady hauled off like that—nobody knew for sure why, but there were stories going about, and even Marric saw the sense in getting straight back to Ambrosius with that tale. The ship sailed with the tide the same dawn; she’d be out of the estuary before you’d hardly ridden out of town.”

I stood very still. I remember that he busied himself around me, draping the black cloak, surreptitiously pulling a fold to cover the dragon brooch that pinned it.

Then I drew a long breath. “That’s all I needed to know. Now I know what to do. ‘The King’s prophet’, did you say? They speak truer than they know. What the King’s prophet must do now is to take the heart out of these Saxon-loving vermin, and drive Vortigern out of this tight corner of Wales into some place where Ambrosius can smoke him out quickly and destroy him.”

“You think you can do this?”

“I know I can.”

“Then I hope you know how to get us both out of here before they find out whose side you’re on?”