Brithael, already moving, checked and stared. In another pace he would be clear of the door which hid me from him. I must not let him reach the steps and get above me.

“Murdered? Why, in God’s name? Who would do that? That’s not Uther’s way. No, the Duke took the chance before the King got here, and we attacked the King’s camp tonight, out of Dimilioc. But they were ready. Gorlois was killed in the first sally. I rode with Jordan to bring the news. We came straight from the field. Now lock that gate and do as I say.”

He turned away and made for the steps. There was room, now, to use a sword. I stepped out from the shadow behind the door.

“Brithael.”

The man whirled. His reactions were so quick that they cancelled out my advantage of surprise. I suppose I need not have spoken at all, but again there are certain things a prince must do. It cost me dear enough, and could have cost me my life. I should have remembered that tonight I was no prince; I was fate’s creature, like Gorlois whom I had betrayed, and Brithael whom I now must kill. And I was the future’s hostage. But the burden weighed heavy on me, and his sword was out almost before mine was raised, and then we stood measuring one another, eye to eye.

He recognised me then, as our eyes met. I saw the shock in his, and a quick flash of fear which vanished in a moment, the moment when my stance and my drawn sword told him that this would be his kind of fight, not mine. He may have seen in my face that I had already fought harder than he, that night.

“I should have known you were here. Jordan said it was your man down there, you damned enchanter. Ralf! Felix! Guard—ho there, guard!”

I saw he had not grasped straight away that I had been inside the gate all along. Then the silence on the stairway, and Ralf’s quick move away from me to shut the gate told its own story. Fast as a wolf, too quickly for me to do anything, Brithael swept his left arm with its clenched mailed fist smashing into the side of the boy’s head. Ralf dropped without a sound, his body wedging the gate wide open.

Brithael leapt back into the gateway. “Jordan! Jordan! To me! Treachery!”

Then I was on him, blundering somehow through his guard, breast to breast, and our swords bit and slithered together with whining metal and the clash of sparks.

Rapid steps down the stairs. Ulfin’s voice: “My lord—Ralf—”

I said, in gasps: “Ulfin . . . Tell the King . . . Gorlois is dead. We must get back . . . Hurry . . .”

I heard him go, fast up the stairs at a stumbling run. Brithael said through his teeth: “The King? Now I see, you pandering whoremaster.”