She sat very straight, looking past me at the wall. There was a woman with her today, sitting on a stool on the other side of the bed; it was one of the nuns who had attended her at Dinas Brenin. I saw her make the sign of the cross on her breast, but Niniane sat still and straight looking past me at something, thinking.

“Tell me, then.”

I told her all I had heard about the affair at Doward. The woman crossed herself again, but my mother never moved. When I had finished, her eyes came back to me.

“And you will go now?”

“Yes. Will you give me a message for him?”

“When I see him again,” she said, “it will be time enough.”

When I took leave of her she was still sitting staring past the winking amethysts on the wall to something distant in place and time.

Keri was not waiting, and I lingered for a while before I crossed the outer yard, slowly, towards the gate. Then I saw her waiting in the deep shadow of the gateway’s arch, and quickened my step. I was turning over a host of things to say, all equally useless to prolong what could not be prolonged, but there was no need. She put out one of those pretty hands and touched my sleeve, beseechingly. “My lord—”

Her hood was half back, and I saw tears in her eyes. I said sharply: “What’s the matter?” I believe that for a wild moment I thought she wept because I was going. “Keri, what is it?”

“I have the toothache.”

I gaped at her. I must have looked as silly as if I had just been slapped across the face.

“Here,” she said, and put a hand to her cheek. The hood fell right back. “It’s been aching for days. Please, my lord—”

I said hoarsely: “I’m not a toothdrawer.”

“But if you would just touch it—”

“Or a magician,” I started to say, but she came close to me, and my voice strangled in my throat. She smelled of honeysuckle. Her hair was barley-gold and her eyes grey like bluebells before they open. Before I knew it she had taken my hand between both her own and raised it to her cheek.

I stiffened fractionally, as if to snatch it back, then controlled myself, and opened the palm gently along her cheek. The wide greybell eyes were as innocent as the sky. As she leaned towards me the neck of her gown hung forward slackly and I could see her breasts. Her skin was smooth as water, and her breath sweet against my cheek.