I ran back to the road, clamping my teeth against the shivering. It was the cold, of course, that made me shiver; what else? The wagons had drawn ahead again, and I ran after, keeping to the turf at the road’s edge, though this in fact seemed as hard as the gravel. The frost broke and squeaked under my sandals. Behind me the silent army of stones marched dwindling into the dark, and before me now were the lights of a town and the warmth of its houses reaching out to meet me. I think it was the first time that I, Merlin, had run towards light and company, run from solitude as if it were a ring of wolves’ eyes driving one nearer the fire.

It was a walled town. I should have guessed it, so near the sea. There was a high earthwork and above that a palisade, and the ditch outside the earthwork was wide and white with ice. They had smashed the ice at intervals, so that it would not bear; I could see the black stars and the crisscross map of cracks just skinning over with grey glass as the new ice formed. There was a wooden bridge across to the gate, and here the wagons halted, while the officer rode forward to speak to the guards, and the men stood like rocks while the mules stamped and blew and jingled their harness, eager for the warmth of the stable.

If I had had any idea of jumping on the back of a wagon and being carried in that way, I had had to abandon it. All the way to the town the soldiers had been strung out in a file to either side of the convoy, with the officer riding out to one side where he could scan the whole. Now, as he gave the order to advance and break step for the bridge, he wheeled his horse and made back himself to the tail of the column, to see the last cart in. I caught a glimpse of his face, middle-aged, bad tempered and catarrhal with cold. Not the man to listen patiently, or even to listen at all. I was safer outside with the stars and the marching giants.

The gate thudded shut behind the convoy, and I heard the locks drive home.

*   *   *

There was a path, faintly discernible, leading off eastward along the edge of the ditch. When I looked that way I saw that, some way off, so far that they must mark some kind of settlement or farm well beyond the limits of the town, more lights showed.

I turned along the path at a trot, chewing at my chunk of barley bread as I went.