That happiness was not marred by any knowledge of his father’s death. When, childlike, he had first asked about it, Anna told him merely that he had been born in Cornwall, where Prince Baudouin had served his elder brother King March, and that Baudouin had died when his son was two years old. Since Baudouin, as a younger son, would have had no claim to land in Cornwall, Anna had (she said) decided to leave and stake her own and Alexander’s claim to Craig Arian. And rightly, she would add, since King March, though he had no child of his own, was still living, so for both her son and herself there was a better life and a better future in the rich valleys of the Welsh border.

“He must be an old man now,” said Alexander one day, when they were speaking of it again. He was fourteen, tall for his age, and considered himself a man grown. “And he has no son. So soon, perhaps, I should travel into Dumnonia and see Cornwall and the kingdom that may one day be mine?”

“It never will,” said his mother.

“What do you mean?”

“You would be better to forget Cornwall and all it holds. It can never be yours. King March is not your friend, and even if he were, and left you the ruling of the kingdom, you would have to fight for every foot of its barren soil. Since Duke Cador died, who used to hold Tintagel, his son Constantine has ruled there. I am told that he is a hard and cruel man. March clings to what is his, but when he dies it will be a strong man and a fortunate one who keeps his stronghold after him.”

“But if it is some day to be mine by right, then surely the High King will support and help me? Mother,” said Alexander eagerly, “at least let me go to Camelot!”

Anna refused, but he asked again and again, and each time it was harder to find a reason, so that at length she told him the truth.

It happened one day, in the spring of Alexander’s eighteenth year, that he rode out with Barnabas and two other men – they were the castle’s retainers, not strictly fighting men, but ready, as men were in those days, to defend themselves and their lord – to ride the bounds of the estate. In a curve of the river, where the water ran broken and shallow over smooth stones, they saw on the far bank a group of three armed horsemen apparently preparing to cross. These were strangers, and as Alexander pressed nearer, he saw that on the breast of one man’s tunic was a boar, the badge of Cornwall. Spurring forward, he hailed the man eagerly.

It so happened that the Cornishmen, who were heading for Viroconium, had missed their way and, knowing that they were straying on some lord’s territory, were looking for a crossing-place which might lead to a farm cottage or the hut of a shepherd who could set them back on their road. But at Alexander’s shout they thought their crossing was being disputed. They halted, then the fellow with the badge, seeing what he took for a young knight accompanied by three armed men, shouted some sort of challenge in return, and drawing his sword, set his horse at the water.