Towards the middle of November the frosts were sharp, and the work was finished. The last camp fire was put out, and the last wagon-train of men and materials rolled away south back to Sarum. Cadal had gone ahead of me, into Amesbury. I lingered, holding my fidgeting horse, until the wagons had rolled out of sight over the edge of the plain and I was alone.

The sky hung over the silent plain like a pewter bowl. It was still early in the day, and the grass was white with frost. The thin winter sun painted long shadows from the linked stones. I remembered the standing stone, and the white frost, the bull and the blood and the smiling young god with the fair hair. I looked down at the stone. They had buried him, I knew, with his sword in his hand. I said to him: “We shall come back, both of us, at the winter solstice.” Then I left him and mounted my horse, and rode towards Amesbury.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

NEWS came of Uther in December; he had left London and ridden to Winchester for Christmas. I sent a message, got no reply, and rode out once more with Cadal to where the Giants’ Dance stood frostbound and lonely in the centre of the plain. It was the twentieth of December.

In a fold of the ground just beyond the Dance we tethered our horses and lit a fire. I had been afraid that the night might be cloudy, but it was crisp and clear, with the stars out in their swarms, like motes in moonlight.

“Get some sleep, if you can in this cold,” said Cadal. “I’ll wake you before dawn. What makes you think he’ll come?” Then, when I made no reply: “Well, you’re the magician, you should know. Here, just in case your magic won’t put you to sleep, you’d better put the extra cloak on. I’ll wake you in time, so don’t fret yourself.”

I obeyed him, rolling myself in the double thickness of wool, and lying near the fire with my head on my saddle. I dozed rather than slept, conscious of the small noises of the night surrounded by the immense stillness of that plain; the rustle and crack of the fire, the sound of Cadal putting new wood on it, the steady tearing sound of the horses grazing at hand, the cry of a hunting owl in the air. And then, not long before dawn, the sound I had been expecting; the steady beat of the earth beneath my head which meant the approach of horses.

I sat up. Cadal, bleary-eyed, spoke morosely. “You’ve an hour yet, I reckon.”

“Never mind. I’ve slept. Put your ear to the ground, and tell me what you hear.”