“That cave?”

I smiled at his expression. “When Ambrosius has done with me, and the country is quiet, that is where I shall go. I told you, didn’t I, that if you stayed with me you’d live far from home?”

“We were talking about dying, as far as I remember. You mean, live there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps not. But I think I shall need a place where I can be alone, away, aside from things happening. Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another. A man cannot be doing all the time.”

“Tell that to Uther.”

“I am not Uther.”

“Well, it takes both sorts, as they say.” He dumped the blankets on the bed. “What are you smiling at?”

“Was I? Never mind. Let’s get to bed, we’ll have to be early at the nunnery. Did you have to bribe the old woman again?”

“Old woman nothing.” He straightened. “It was a girl this time. A looker, too, what I could see of her with that sack of a gown and a hood over her head. Whoever puts a girl like that in a nunnery deserves—” He began to explain what they deserved, but I cut him short.

“Did you find out how my mother was?”

“They said she was better. The fever’s gone, but she’ll not rest quiet till she’s seen you. You’ll tell her everything now?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“We join Ambrosius.”

“Ah,” he said, and when he had dragged his mattress to lie across the door, he blew out the lamp and lay down without another word to sleep.

My bed was comfortable enough, and the room, derelict or no, was luxury itself after the journey. But I slept badly. In imagination I was out on the road with Ambrosius, heading for Doward. From what I had heard of Doward, reducing it would not be an easy job. I began to wonder if after all I had done my father a disservice in driving the High King out of his Snowdon fastness. I should have left him there, I thought, with his rotten tower, and Ambrosius would have driven him back to the sea.

It was with an effort almost of surprise that I recalled my own prophecy. What I had done at Dinas Brenin, I had not done of myself. It was not I who had decided to send Vortigern fleeing out of Wales. Out of the dark, out of the wild and whirling stars, I had been told. The Red Dragon would triumph, the White would fall. The voice that had said so, that said so now in the musty dark of Camlach’s room, was not my own; it was the god’s. One did not lie awake looking for reasons; one obeyed, and then slept.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE