It was two full hours of chill, numb waiting, and it was almost dark, before lights came down the track and with them the crowd of workmen. They came fast but deliberately, not like frightened men, and even before they came close enough to be clearly seen, I knew what they had found. Their leaders halted a yard from the platform, and as the others came crowding up I felt my guards move closer.

There were soldiers with the workmen. Their captain stepped forward, saluting.

“The pool is empty?” asked Vortigern.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what lies beneath it?”

The officer paused. He should have been a bard. He need not have paused to gather eyes: they were all on him already.

A gust of wind, sudden and stronger than before, tore his cloak to one side with a crack like a whip, and rocked the frame of the pavilion. A bird fled overhead, tumbling along the wind. Not a merlin; not tonight. Only a rook, scudding late home.

“There is nothing beneath the pool, sir.” His voice was neutral, carefully official, but I heard a mutter go through the crowd like another surge of wind. Maugan was craning forward, his eyes bright as a vulture’s, but I could see he did not dare to speak until he saw which way the King’s mind was bending. Vortigern leaned forward.

“You are certain of this? You drained it to the bottom?”

“Indeed, sir.” He signed to the men beside him, and three or four of them stepped forward to tip a clutter of objects in front of the platform. A broken mattock, eaten with rust, some flint axe heads older than any Roman working, a belt buckle, a knife with its blade eaten to nothing, a short length of chain, a metal whip-stock, some other objects impossible to identify, and a few shards of cooking pots.

The officer showed me a hand, palm up. “When I said ‘nothing’, sir, I meant only what you might expect. These. And we got as near to the bottom as made no difference; you could see down to the rock and the mud, but we dredged the last bucket up, for good measure. The foreman will bear me out.”

The foreman stepped forward then, and I saw he had a full bucket in his hand, the water slopping over the brim.

“Sir, it’s true, there’s naught there. You could see for yourself if you came up, sir, right to the bottom. But better not try it, the tunnel’s awash with mud now, and not fit. But I brought the last pailful out, for you to see yourself.”

With the word, he tipped the full bucket out, deluging the already sodden ground, and the water sloshed down to fill the puddle round the base of the royal standard. With the mud that had lain in the bottom came a few broken fragments of stone, and a silver coin.