“That’s our affair. Can you swim?”

“No.”

He laughed under his breath. It was not a reassuring sound. “Then it won’t matter to you which way we go, will it? Come along.” And he clapped his hand once more over my mouth, swung me up as if I had been no heavier than my own bundle, and strode across the path to the oily dark glimmer that was the river.

The boat was a coracle, half hidden under the hanging bank. Hanno was already casting off. Marric went down the bank with a bump and a slither, dumped me in the lurching vessel, and clambered after me. As the coracle rocked out from under the bank he let me feel the knife again against the back of my neck. “There. Feel it? Now hold your tongue till we’re clear of the bridge.”

Hanno thrust off, and guided us out with the paddle into the current. A few feet from the bank I felt the river take hold of the boat, and we gathered speed. Hanno bent to the paddle and held her straight for the southern arch of the bridge.

Held in Marric’s grip, I sat facing astern. Just as the current took us to sweep us southwards I heard Aster’s high, frightened whinny as he smelt the smoke, and in the light of the now roaring fire I saw him, trailing a broken rein, burst from the wall’s shadow and scud like a ghost along the towpath. Fire or no fire, he would make for the gate and his stable, and they would find him. I wondered what they would think, where they would look for me. Cerdic would be gone now, and my room with the painted chest, and the coverlet fit for a prince. Would they think I had found Cerdic’s body, and in my fear and shock had dropped the lamp? That my own body was there, charred to nothing, in the remains of the servants’ wing? Well, whatever they thought, it didn’t matter. Cerdic had gone to his gods and I, it seemed, was going to mine.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE black arch of the bridge swooped across the boat and was gone. We fled downstream. The tide was almost on the turn, but the last of the ebb took us fast. The air freshened, and the boat began to rock.

The knife withdrew from my flesh. Across me Marric said: “Well, so far so good. The brat did us a good turn with his fire. No one was watching the river to see a boat slip under the bridge. Now, boy, let’s hear what you have to tell us. What’s your name?”

“Myrddin Emrys.”

“And you say you were—hey, wait a minute! Did you say Myrddin? Not the bastard?”

“Yes.”