She knew the country well, so he left it to her to choose which way they should go. His horse was very fresh, so she led him at a good gallop along the river-side, almost to the place where he had taken his fall, then turned uphill into a forest track which perforce they took at a gentler pace. In a while the trees thinned and they rode out into the sunshine of a sheltered upland valley where the horses could once more go side by side. Morgan slowed her mare to a walk and Alexander let his chestnut range alongside.

They were followed all the while by the four guards, and from time to time Morgan glanced over her shoulder with a rather appealing show of apprehension. They watched her constantly, she told him, and reported every move back to her brother Arthur. She was afraid of them – she confessed it prettily – afraid that soon, bored by the monotony of their task in this remote spot so far from their own people, they might send some sort of lying report to Arthur, who would give orders for her to be taken back to Caer Eidyn in the bleak north, or sent to the strictly guarded prison (so she called it) of Castell Aur in the Welsh hills. And there, it was hinted, Alexander would see her no more. Unless, of course, he would help her to escape the punishment, so unjust and harsh, that the High King had meted out to her …?

But here she drew blank. However besotted Alexander was, he could not be brought to an open criticism of the High King. To him, throughout his young life, Arthur and Camelot had represented all that was good and right. Nor – with the knowledge of the state that the queen kept here in the Dark Tower, the luxury of her apartments, the food and service that was offered her, with her “court” and her “councils” and the freedom of her rides abroad, guarded though they were – nor, with all this in mind, could Alexander be brought to see the queen as a pathetic and maltreated prisoner. So he listened, sympathised, swore eternal devotion – as yet he dared not say love – but shied away from any talk of “rescue” or even of any attempt to shake off the watchers. She, in her turn, evaded any direct replies to his tentative questions about the reasons for Arthur’s stern decree. He was young enough to be able, with Morgan’s lovely eyes looking into his, and her hand resting on his knee as their horses paced side by side, to believe at one and the same time that Arthur had punished her rightly for a breach of faith, and that she, a sadly ill-used lady, had only been led into trouble by a lover’s treachery. A lover who, praise God and thanks to Arthur, was now dead.

Morgan, of course, saw this very clearly, and saw that, however deep in love the young fool was, she had no hope of adding him to the “court” that held council in the private chamber of the east tower. These young men, some of whom had been (still were from time to time) her lovers, were all men who for one reason or another had no love for Arthur. Throughout the country, mainly among the younger outland Celts, was a growing dissatisfaction with the “King’s peace”, by which was meant the centralisation of government and the peaceful enforcement of law and order. Reared by custom and tradition as fighting men, they despised the “old men’s talking-shop” of the Round Hall at Camelot, and longed for action, even for the “glory” of war.