He gripped my horse’s bridle above the bit and led him on, for which I was grateful, as the path was dangerous, narrow and slippery and twisting along the steep bank between the rustling bushes, not a path I would have wished to ride even in daylight on a strange and frightened horse. The others followed, Cadal’s mount and Ulfin’s plodding stolidly along, and close behind me the grey stallion snorting at every bush and trying to break his rider’s grip, but Uther could have ridden Pegasus himself and foundered him before his own wrists even ached.

Here my horse shied at something I could not even see, stumbled, and would have pitched me down the bank but for Ralf at its head. I swore at it, then asked Ralf: “How far now?”

“About two hundred paces to the shore, sir, and we leave the horses there. We climb the promontory on foot.”

“By all the gods of storm, I’ll be glad to get under cover. Did you have any trouble?”

“None, sir.” He had to raise his voice to make me hear, but in that turmoil there was no fear of being heard more than three paces off. “My lady told Felix herself—that’s the porter—that she had asked the Duke to ride back as soon as his troops were disposed at Dimilioc. Of course the word’s gone round that she’s pregnant, so it’s natural enough she’d want him back, even with the King’s armies so close. She told Felix the Duke would come by the secret gate in case the King had spies posted already. He wasn’t to tell the garrison, she said, because they might be alarmed at his leaving Dimilioc and the troops there, but the King couldn’t possibly be in Cornwall for another day at soonest . . . Felix doesn’t suspect a thing. Why should he?”

“The porter is alone at the gate?”

“Yes, but there are two guards in the guard-room.”

He had told us already what lay inside the postern. This was a small gate set low in the outer castle wall, and just inside it a long flight of steps ran up to the right, hugging the wall. Halfway up was a wide landing, with a guard-room to the side. Beyond that the stairs went up again, and at the top was the private door leading through into the apartments.

“Do the guards know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “My lord, we didn’t dare. All the men left with the Lady Ygraine were hand-picked by the Duke.”

“Are the stairs well lighted?”

“A torch. I saw to it that it will be mostly smoke.”