“Don’t be long,” he said, “that’s all.”

Twenty paces farther, round a curve, the tunnel led into the cavern.

I made a sign to him to lift the torch. I could not have spoken. This vast hollow, right in the hill’s heart, this darkness hardly touched by the torch’s flare, this dead stillness of air where I could hear and feel my own blood beating—this, of course, was the place. I recognised every mark of the workings, the face seamed and split by the axes, and smashed open by the water. There was the domed roof disappearing into darkness, there in a corner some rusty metal where the pump had stood. There the shining moisture on the wall, no longer a ribbon, but a curtain of gleaming damp. And there where the puddles had lain, and the seepage under the overhang, a wide, still pool. Fully a third of the floor was under water.

The air had a strange smell all its own, the breath of the water and the living rock. Somewhere above, water dripped, each tap clear like a small hammer on metal. I took the smouldering faggot from Cerdic’s hand, and went to the water’s edge. I held the light as high as I could, out over the water, and gazed down. There was nothing to see. The light glanced back from a surface as hard as metal. I waited. The light ran, and gleamed, and drowned in darkness. There was nothing there but my own reflection, like the ghost in Galapas’ mirror.

I gave the torch back to Cerdic. He hadn’t spoken. He was watching me all the time with that sidelong, white-eyed look.

I touched his arm. “We can go back now. This thing’s nearly out anyway. Come on.”

We didn’t speak as we made our way back along the curving gallery, past the rubble, through the adit and out into the frosty afternoon. The sky was a pale, milky blue. The winter trees stood brittle and quiet against it, the birches white as bone. From below a horn called, urgent, in the still metallic air.

“They’re going.” Cerdic drove the torch down into the frozen ground to extinguish it. I scrambled down through the thicket. The dove still lay there, cold, and stiff already. The merlin was there too; it had withdrawn from the body of its kill, and sat near it on a stone, hunched and motionless, even when I approached. I picked up the ring-dove and threw it to Cerdic. “Shove it in your saddlebag. I don’t have to tell you to say nothing of this, do I?”

“You do not. What are you doing?”

“He’s stunned. If we leave him here he’ll freeze to death in an hour. I’m taking him.”

“Take care! That’s a grown falcon—”

“He’ll not hurt me.” I picked up the merlin; he had fluffed his feathers out against the cold, and felt soft as a young owl in my hands. I pulled my leather sleeve down over my left wrist, and he took hold of this, gripping fiercely. The eyelids were open now, and the wild dark eyes watched me. But he sat still, with shut wings. I heard Cerdic muttering to himself as he bent to retrieve my things from the place where I had taken my meal. Then he added something I had never heard from him before. “Come on then, young master.”