If I had been asked then what she looked like I could not have said. Cadal had told me she was fair, and I had seen the hunger in the King’s face, so I knew she was desirable; but as I stood in the airy scented room looking at the woman who lay with closed eyes against the grey silk pillows, it was no woman that I saw. Nor did I see the room or the people in it. I saw only the flashing and beating of the light as in a globed crystal.

I spoke without taking my eyes from the woman in the bed. “One of her women stay here. The rest go. You too, please, my lord.” He went without demur, herding the women in front of him like a flock of sheep. The woman who had greeted me remained by her mistress’s bed. As the door shut behind the last of them, the woman in the bed opened her eyes. For a few moments of silence we met each other eye to eye. Then I said: “What do you want of me, Ygraine?”

She answered crisply, with no pretence: “I have sent for you, Prince, because I want your help.”

I nodded. “In the matter of the King.”

She said straightly: “So you know already? When my husband brought you here, did you guess I was not ill?”

“I guessed.”

“Then you can also guess what I want from you?”

“Not quite. Tell me, could you not somehow have spoken with the King himself before now? It might have saved him something. And your husband as well.”

Her eyes widened. “How could I talk to the King? You came through the courtyard?”

“Yes.”

“Then you saw my husband’s troops and men-at-arms. What do you suppose would have happened had I talked to Uther? I could not answer him openly, and if I had met him in secret—even if I could—half London would have known it within the hour. Of course I could not speak to him or send him a message. The only protection was silence.”

I said slowly: “If the message was simply that you were a true and faithful wife and that he must turn his eyes elsewhere, then the message could have been given to him at any time and by any messenger.”

She smiled. Then she bent her head.

I took in my breath. “Ah. That’s what I wished to know. You are honest, Ygraine.”