They had heaped the Saxon dead high on a great stack of wood, and poured oil and pitch over them. At the top of the pyramid, on a platform roughly nailed together of planks, lay Hengist. How Ambrosius had stopped them robbing him I shall never know, but he had not been robbed. His shield lay on his breast, and a sword by his right hand. They had hidden the severed neck with a broad leather collar of the kind some soldiers use for throat guards. It was studded with gold. A cloak covered his body from throat to feet, and its scarlet folds flowed down over the rough wood.

As soon as the torches were thrust in below, the flames caught greedily. It was a still night, and the smoke poured upwards in a thick black column laced with fire. The edges of Hengist’s cloak caught, blackened, curled, and then he was lost to sight in the gush of smoke and flames. The fire cracked like whips, and as the logs burned and broke, men ran, sweating and blackened, to throw more in. Even from where we stood, well back, the heat was intense, and the smell of burnt pitch and roasting meat came in sickening gusts on the damp night air. Beyond the lighted ring of watching men torches moved still on the battlefield, and one could hear the steady thud of spades striking into the earth for the British dead. Beyond the brilliant pyre, beyond the dark slopes of the far hills, the May moon hung, faint through the smoke.

“What do you see?”

Ambrosius’ voice made me start. I looked at him, surprised. “See?”

“In the fire, Merlin the prophet.”

“Nothing but dead men roasting.”

“Then look and see something for me, Merlin. Where has Octa gone?”

I laughed. “How should I know? I told you all I could see.”

But he did not smile. “Look harder. Tell me where Octa has gone. And Eosa. Where they will dig themselves in to wait for me. And how soon.”

“I told you. I don’t look for things. If it is the god’s will that they should come to me, they come out of the flames, or out of the black night, and they come silently like an arrow out of ambush. I do not go to find the bowman; all I can do is stand with my breast bare and wait for the arrow to hit me.”

“Then do it now.” He spoke strongly, stubbornly. I saw he was quite serious. “You saw for Vortigern.”

“You call it ‘for’ him? To prophesy his death? When I did that, my lord, I did not even know what I was saying. I suppose Gorlois told you what happened—even now, I couldn’t tell you myself. I neither know when it will come, nor when it will leave me.”

“Only today you knew about Niniane, and without either fire or darkness.”