‘A soldier who can keep other soldiers alive is more likely to live to see old age himself,’ he explains. I might have questioned him further on his remedies but the door opens and Prince Brynach steps inside. Hywel scrambles to his feet, but the prince barely notices him the moment he sees that I am awake. Even in the firelight I can see he is tired and troubled, but his face is transformed with a broad smile now.

‘You have decided to rejoin the living,’ he says, coming to sit on the floor beside my bed.

‘Only for Hywel to try to kill me off with this terrible stew.’

Brynach laughs, but Hywel bridles. ‘I am expected to be cook as well as nurse and protector! Ha!’ Muttering about, needing some air to breathe and snow to piss in, he goes outside.

‘It gladdens my heart to see you well,’ the prince tells me, taking my hand in his. There was a time I would have pulled back, but such closeness with death has, perhaps, made me keener to savor life’s sweeter moments, so I let him hold me, let him softly caress my hand with his fingers.

‘I wonder that you do not find yourself … repulsed … having seen me as I was,’ I say, trying but failing to imagine his shock at seeing me shifting before his eyes.

‘I have always said you are like no other, have I not? Why, then, should I not accept all the strangeness that comprises you? I care only that you are returned to health. Despite Hywel’s cooking.’ He smiles.

‘He is a skilled healer.’

‘I have seen him bring back men from the brink of death. And I knew he would let no further harm come to you.’ He hesitates, then goes on, ‘Seren, did you see who it was? Did you see who attacked you?’

‘They wore helmets with visors or crosspieces. And they did not speak. Nor did I recognize their horses. But … well, it was not the men who sought to stove my head who wished me dead. That is, not beyond doing the bidding of whoever sent them.’

‘But who would wish harm to you? Why?’

‘Answer the “why” and you will have the “who.” There are those who see me as an obstacle in their path to greatness. If they remove me, they have an easier route to you.’

‘Me?’

‘I warned you, there is a traitor among those you name loyal.’

‘You cannot believe Wenna had a hand in what was done to you!’

‘The princess came to me, a short while ago. She asked me to help her.’

‘Asked you?’

‘It was indeed a measure of her desperation. She … she wanted to know if she would ever give you an heir.’ He draws back a little from me now, his face glum. ‘I sought answers to her question in a vision.’

‘And what did your seeing tell you?’