“I believe you. There’s something about you tonight . . . The way you spoke just now to the King, not thinking, shorter than you’d speak to a servant. And he said never a word, but did as he was bid. Yes, I’d say you know what you’re about. Which is just as well, master Merlin, because otherwise, you realise, you’re risking the life of the King of Britain for a night’s lust?”

I did something which I had never done before; which I do not commonly do. I put a hand out and laid it over Cadal’s where it held the reins. The horses were quiet now, wet and unhappy, huddling with their rumps to the wind and their heads drooping.

I said: “If Uther gets into the place tonight and lies with her, then before God, Cadal, it will not matter as much as the worth of a drop of that sea-foam there if he is murdered in the bed. I tell you, a King will come out of this night’s work whose name will be a shield and buckler to men until this fair land, from sea to sea, is smashed down into the sea that holds it, and men leave earth to live among the stars. Do you think Uther is a King, Cadal? He’s but a regent for him who went before and for him who comes after, the past and future King. And tonight he is even less than that: he is a tool, and she a vessel, and I . . . I am a spirit, a word, a thing of air and darkness, and I can no more help what I am doing than a reed can help the wind of God blowing through it. You and I, Cadal, are as helpless as dead leaves in the waters of that bay.” I dropped my hand from his. “An hour before dawn.”

“Till then, my lord.”

I left him then, and, with Ulfin following, went after Ralf and the King across the shingle to the foot of the black cliff.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

I DO not think that now, even in daylight, I could find the path again without a guide, let alone climb it. Ralf went first, with the King’s hand on his shoulder, and in my turn I held a fold of Uther’s mantle, and Ulfin of mine. Mercifully, close in as we were to the face of the castle rock, we were protected from the wind: exposed, the climb would have been impossible; we would have been plucked off the cliff like feathers. But we were not protected from the sea. The waves must have been rushing up forty feet, and the master waves, the great sevenths, came roaring up like towers and drenched us with salt fully sixty feet above the beach.