“Oh, I’m for it,” said Camlach easily. Their attention had lifted from me. They were going, and neither had touched me. I unclenched my hands and moved back softly, half a pace; another. “But you’ve got yourself a new queen meantime, sir, and they tell me she’s pregnant?”

“No matter of that. You should be wed, and soon. I’m an old man, and these are troubled times. As for this boy—” I froze again—“forget him. Whoever sired him, if he hasn’t come forward in six years, he’ll not do so now. And if it had been Vortigern himself, the High King, he’d have made nothing of him. A sullen brat who skulks alone in corners. Doesn’t even play with the other boys—afraid to, likely. Afraid of his own shadow.”

He turned away. Camlach’s eyes met my mother’s, over my head. Some message passed. Then he looked down at me again, and smiled.

I still remember how the room seemed to light up, though the sun had gone now, and its warmth with it. Soon they would be bringing the rushlights.

“Well,” said Camlach, “it’s but a fledgling falcon after all. Don’t be too hard on him, sir; you’ve frightened better men than he is, in your time.”

“Yourself, you mean? Hah!”

“I assure you.”

The King, in the doorway, glared briefly at me under his jutting brows, then with a puff of impatient breath settled his mantle over his arm. “Well, well, let be. God’s sweet death, but I’m hungry. It’s well past supper-time—but I suppose you’ll want to go and soak yourself first, in your damned Roman fashion? I warn you, we’ve never had the furnaces on since you left . . .”

He turned with a swirl of the blue cloak and went out, still talking. Behind me I heard my mother’s breath go out, and the rustle of her gown as she sat. My uncle put out a hand to me.

“Come, Merlinus, and talk to me while I bathe in your cold Welsh water. We princes must get to know one another.”

I stood rooted. I was conscious of my mother’s silence, and how still she sat.

“Come,” said my uncle, gently, and smiled at me again.

I ran to him.

* * *

I went through the hypocaust that night.

This was my private way, my secret hiding-place where I could escape from the bigger boys and play my own solitary games. My grandfather had been right when he said I ‘skulked alone in corners’, but this was not for fear, though the sons of his nobles followed his lead—as children do—and made me their butt in their rough war-games whenever they could catch me.

At the beginning, it is true, the tunnels of the disused heating system were a refuge, a secret place where I could hide and be alone; but I soon found a curiously strong pleasure in exploring the great system of dark, earth-smelling chambers under the palace floors.

My grandfather’s palace had been in times past, a vast country-house belonging to some Roman notable who had owned and farmed the land for several miles each way along the river valley. The main part of the house still stood, though badly scarred by time and war, and by at least one disastrous fire which had destroyed one end of the main block and part of a wing. The old slaves’ quarters were still intact round the courtyard where the cooks and house-servants worked, and the bath-house remained, though patched and plastered, and with the roof rough-thatched over the worst bits. I never remember the furnace working; the water was heated over the courtyard fires.