I waited at the foot of the platform. The King’s eyes looked me up and down, but he said nothing. He was still reserving judgment. And why not, I thought. The kind of thing I seemed to have produced must be fairly familiar to him. Now he waited for proof of at least some part of my prophecy. If it was not forthcoming, this was still the time and the place to spill my blood. I wondered how the wind blew from Less Britain. The stream was a full three hundred paces off, dark under its oaks and willows.

Vortigern signed to me to take my place on the platform beside him, and I mounted it to stand at his right, on the opposite side from the priests. One or two of the officers moved aside from me; their faces were wooden, and they did not look at me, but I saw the crossed fingers, and thought: Dragon or no dragon, I can manage these. Then I felt eyes on me, and looked round. It was the greybeard. He was gazing fixedly at the brooch on my shoulder where my cloak had blown back from it. As I turned my head our eyes locked. I saw his widen, then his hand crept to his side, not to make the sign, but to loosen his sword in its scabbard. I looked away. No one spoke.

It was an uncomfortable vigil. As the sun sank lower the chilly spring wind freshened, fretting at the hangings. Where puddles lay in the reedy ground the water rippled and splashed under the wind. Cold draughts knifed up between the duckboards. I could hear a curlew whistling somewhere up in the darkening sky, then it slanted down, bubbling like a waterfall, into silence. Above us the King’s banner fluttered and snapped in the wind. The shadow of the pavilion lengthened on the soaked field.

From where we waited, the only sign of activity was some coming and going in the trees. The last rays of the sun, level and red, shone full on the west face of King’s Fort, lighting up the head of the crag crowned with the wrecked wall. No workmen were visible there; they must all be in the cave and the adit. Relays of boys ran across and back with reports of progress. The pumps were working well and gaining on the water; the level had sunk two spans in the last half hour . . . If my lord King would have patience, the pumps had jammed, but the engineers were working on them and meanwhile the men had rigged a windlass and were passing buckets . . . All was well again, the pumps were going now and the level was dropping sharply . . . You could see the bottom, they thought . . .