She moved, and the lamplight built the room again round us, warm and real and smelling of apple-wood. She was watching me with something in her face that had not been there before. At last she said, in a still voice: “I told you there was nothing hidden from you. You do well to put it into words. I had thought all this. But I hoped that by sending for you I could absolve myself, and the King.”

“Once a dark thought is dragged into words it is in the light. You could have had your desire long since on the terms of ‘any woman’, as the King could on the terms of any man.” I paused. The room was steady now. The words came clearly to me, from nowhere, without thought. “I will tell you, if you like, how you may meet the King’s love on your terms and on his, with no dishonour to yourself or him, or to your husband. If I could tell you this, would you go to him?”

Her eyes had widened, with a flash behind them, as I spoke. But even so she took time to think. “Yes.” Her voice told me nothing.

“If you will obey me, I can do this for you,” I said.

“Tell me what I must do.”

“Have I your promise, then?”

“You go too fast,” she said drily. “Do you yourself seal bargains before you see what you are committed to?”

I smiled. “No. Very well then, listen to me. When you feigned illness to have me brought to you, what did you tell your husband and your women?”

“Only that I felt faint and sick, and was no more inclined for company. That if I was to appear beside my husband at the crowning, I must see a physician tonight, and take a healing draught.” She smiled a little wryly. “I was preparing the way, too, not to sit beside the King at the feast.”

“So far, good. You will tell Gorlois that you are pregnant.”

“That I am pregnant?” For the first time she sounded shaken. She stared.

“This is possible? He is an old man, but I would have thought—”

“It is possible. But I—” She bit her lip. After a while she said calmly: “Go on. I asked for your counsel, so I must let you give it.”