I looked over my shoulder to where the grey horse came ghostly behind me through the dark. Ralf had had to raise his voice to make me hear above the wind which screamed across the top of the valley, and I would have thought that the King would be waiting to know what passed between us. But he was silent, as he had been since the beginning of the ride. It seemed he was indeed content to trust the time. Or to trust me.

I turned back to Ralf, leaning down over my horse’s shoulder. “Is there a password?”

“Yes, my lord. It is pilgrim. And the lady has sent a ring for the King to wear. It is one the Duke wears sometimes. Here’s the end of the path, can you see? It’s quite a drop to the beach.” He checked, steadying my horse, then the beast plunged down and its hoofs grated on shingle. “We leave the horses here, my lord.”

I dismounted thankfully. As far as I could see, we were in a small cove sheltered from the wind by a mighty headland close to our left, but the seas, tearing past the end of this headland and curving round to break among the offshore rocks, were huge, and came lashing down on the shingle in torrents of white with a noise like armies clashing together in anger. Away to the right I saw another high headland, and between the two this roaring stretch of white water broken by the teeth of black rocks. The stream behind us fell seawards over its low cliff in two long cascades, which blew in the wind like ropes of hair. Beyond these swinging waterfalls, and in below the overhanging wall of the main cliff, there was shelter for the horses.

Ralf was pointing to the great headland on our left. “The path is up there. Tell the King to come behind me and to follow closely. One foot wrong tonight, and before you could cry help you’d be out with the tide as far as the western stars.”

The grey thudded down beside us and the King swung himself out of the saddle. I heard him laugh, that same sharp, exultant sound. Even had there been no prize at the end of the night’s trail, he would have been the same. Danger was drink and dreams alike to Uther.

The other two came up with us and dismounted, and Cadal took the reins. Uther came to my shoulder, looking at the cruel race of water. “Do we swim for it now?”

“It may come to that, God knows. It looks to me as if the waves are up to the castle wall.”

He stood quite still, oblivious of the buffeting of wind and rain, with his head lifted, staring up at the headland. High against the stormy dark, a light burned.