One thing the rough riding and the constant care needed for the child – and the support and encouragement she had to give Sara – did for Anna: she had no time for grief. The days were a strain of riding, finding a safe way, looking, as the day waned, for shelter; and at night she was so tired that she slept soundly, and without dreams.

It took them three weeks to reach Glevum, and then they had to take a roundabout route to the bridge, but once across the Severn, and beyond the edges of the Summer Country, where the High King’s men kept the roads between them and the Cornish border, they felt safe, even though Anna feared that March would guess where she was heading.

The castle where Anna’s cousin had lived, Craig Arian, lay towards the head of the Wye valley, a little way back into the hills and beside one of the tributary streams. The widow, Theodora, had recently married again, an elderly man called Barnabas who had been an officer in one of the High King’s troops. Anna and her cousin had never been close, but she had from time to time exchanged greetings with Theodora. All parties, of course, knew that, since Theodora had no children, Anna’s claim to Craig Arian and its estate took precedence of that of the widow and her new husband, so Anna had every right to seek refuge there, but there had been no time to send a message reporting Baudouin’s death and begging for shelter for herself and her son.

So as the weary little party rode slowly up the winding river valley on the last stage of their journey, Anna was by no means sure what sort of welcome would await them. She had never met Barnabas, and had no idea what kind of man he was. A veteran of Arthur’s army, married to a widow of means and retired to a snug little property in this rich countryside? It was possible, it was even likely, thought Anna drearily, that he would shut the gates against Baudouin’s widow and the young son who could displace him and his own heirs from Craig Arian. And who could blame him if he hesitated to offend King March by taking in the fugitive princess? He could find the best of reasons for shutting his gates to her.

When at length they came in sight of the castle on its wooded crag, Anna halted her party, and sent Goren on ahead with the news of Baudouin’s death, and the widowed princess’s request for shelter.

“No more than that,” she said wearily. “I cannot ask for more, and God knows I have little right, for myself. But for the child … Beg them to let the child stay in safety and in secrecy, until perhaps I can go to the High King at Camelot, and ask him for justice. Go now, Goren. We will wait for you here, by the water.”