I ran to the door, listened for a moment, then slipped through into the deserted colonnade. I lifted the lamp from its bracket. It was heavy, and oil spilled. Of course; he had filled it just that evening.

Back in my own room I carried the lamp over to where he lay. Now—what I had not foreseen—I could see how he had died. They had cut his throat.

Even if I had not intended it, it would have happened. The lamp shook in my hand, and hot oil splashed on the coverlet. A burning fragment broke from the wick, fell, caught, hissed. Then I flung the lamp down on the body, and watched for five long seconds while the flame ran into the oil and burst like blazing spray.

“Go with your gods, Cerdic,” I said, and jumped for the window.

I landed on the bundle and went sprawling in the wet grass, then snatched it up and ran for the river wall.

Not to frighten the pony, I made for a place some yards beyond the apple tree, and pitched the bag over the wall into the ditch. Then back to the tree, and up it, to the high coping.

Astride of this, I glanced back. The fire had caught. My window glowed now, red with pulsing light. No alarm had yet been given, but it could only be a matter of moments before the flames were seen, or someone smelled the smoke. I scrambled over, hung by my hands for a moment, then let myself drop. As I got to my feet a shadow, towering, jumped at me and struck.

I went down with a man’s heavy body on top of me, pinning me to the muddy grass. A splayed hand came hard down on my face, choking my cry off short. Just near me was a quick footstep, the rasp of drawn metal, and a man’s voice saying, urgently, in Breton: “Wait. Make him talk first.”

I lay quite still. This was easy to do, for not only had the force of the first man’s attack driven the breath right out of my body, but I could feel his knife at my throat. Then as the second man spoke, my captor, with a surprised grunt, shifted his weight from me, and the knife withdrew an inch or two.

He said, in a tone between surprise and disgust: “It’s only a child.” Then to me, harshly, in Welsh: “Not a sound out of you, or I’ll slit your throat here and now. Understood?”

I nodded. He took his hand from my mouth, and getting up, dragged me to my feet. He rammed me back against the wall, holding me there, the knife still pricking my collarbone. “What’s all this? What are you doing bolting out of the palace like a rat with the dogs after it? A thief? Come on, you little rat, before I choke you.”