In the east night slackened, drew back like a veil, and the sun came up. Straight as a thrown torch, or an arrow of fire, light pierced through the grey air and laid a line clear from the horizon to the king-stone at our feet. For perhaps twenty heartbeats the huge sentinel trilithon before us stood black and stark, framing the winter blaze. Then the sun lifted over the horizon so quickly that you could see the shadow of the linked circle move into its long ellipse, to blur and fade almost immediately into the wide light of a winter’s dawn.

I glanced at the King. His eyes, wide and blank, were on the stone at his feet. I could not read his thoughts. Then he lifted his head and looked away from me at the outer circle where the great stones stood locked across the light. He took a slow pace away from me and turned on his heel, taking in the full circle of the Hanging Stones. I saw that the new beard was reddish and curled; he wore his hair longer, and a gold circle flashed on his helm. His eyes were blue as woodsmoke in the fresh light.

They met mine at last. “No wonder you smile. It’s very impressive.”

“That’s with relief,” I said. “The mathematics of this have kept me awake for weeks.”

“Tremorinus told me.” He gave me a slow, measuring look. “He also told me what you had said.”

“What I had said?”

“Yes. ‘I will deck his grave with nothing less than the light itself’.”

I said nothing.

He said slowly: “I told you I knew nothing of prophets or priests. I am only a soldier, and I think like a soldier. But this—what you have done here—this is something I understand. Perhaps there is room for us both, after all. I told you I spend Christmas at Winchester. Will you ride back with me?”

He had asked me, not commanded me. We were speaking across the stone. It was the beginning of something, but something I had not yet been shown. I shook my head. “In the spring, perhaps. I should like to see the crowning. Be sure that when you need me I shall be there. But now I must go home.”

“To your hole in the ground? Well, if it’s what you want . . . Your wants are few enough, God knows. Is there nothing you would ask of me?” He gestured with his hand to the silent circle. “Men will speak poorly of a King who does not reward you for this.”

“I have been rewarded.”

“At Maridunum, now. Your grandfather’s house would be more suitable for you. Will you take it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want a house. But I would take the hill.”