The country here was grander than in South Wales, but to my eyes forbidding rather than beautiful. Perhaps in summer the land may be as green and gentle along the estuary, but when I saw it first, that winter, the hills rose behind the town like storm-clouds, their skirts grey with the bare and whistling forests, and their crests slate blue and hooded with snow. Behind and beyond them all towers the great cloudy top of Moel-y-Wyddfa, which now the Saxons call Snow Hill, or Snowdon. It is the highest mountain in all Britain, and is the home of gods.

Vortigern lay, ghosts or no ghosts, in Macsen’s Tower. His army—he never moved in those days with less than a thousand fighting men—was quartered in the fort. Of my grandfather’s party, the nobles were with the King in the tower, while his train, of which I was one, was housed well enough, if a trifle coldly, near the west gate of the fort. We were treated with honour; not only was Vortigern a distant kinsman of my grandfather’s, but it seemed to be true that the High King was—in Cerdic’s phrase—‘drumming up support’. He was a big dark man, with a broad fleshy face and black hair as thick and bristled as a boar’s, growing grey. There were black hairs on the back of his hands, and sprouting from his nostrils. The Queen was not with him; Cerdic whispered to me that he had not dared bring her where Saxons were so little welcome. When I retorted that he was only welcome himself because he had forgotten his Saxon and turned into good Welsh, he laughed and cuffed my ear. I suppose it was not my fault that I was never very royal.

The pattern of our days was simple. Most of the day was spent hunting, till at dusk we would return to fires and drink and a full meal, and then the kings and their advisers turned to talk, and their trains to dicing, wenching, quarrelling, and whatever other sports they might choose.

I had not been hunting before; as a sport it was foreign to my nature, and here everyone rode out hurly burly in a crowd, which was something I disliked. It was also dangerous: there was plenty of game in the foothills, and there were some wild rides with necks for sale; but I saw no other chance of seeing the country, and besides, I had to find out why Galapas had insisted on my coming to Segontium. So I went out every day. I had a few falls, but got nothing worse than bruises, and managed to attract no attention, good or bad, from anyone who mattered. Nor did I find what I was looking for; I saw nothing, and nothing happened except that my horsemanship improved, and Aster’s manners along with it.