The Emrys stood and touched Arthur on the arm. The Pendragon stirred – he had fallen asleep. However, he stood at Myrddin's touch, straightened himself, and called the victors of the contest to him. With good words he praised their prowess, while Gwenhwyvar presented them gifts of gemstones. When this custom had been served, Arthur bade farewell to his men and returned to camp.

At supper, we ate roast venison which some of the warriors had stalked in the nearby wood earlier in the day, and drank ale from the stocks aboard the ships. The night came on cold and damp, as the Emrys said it would, so the fires were banked high. Gwenhwyvar and Bedwyr tried on several occasions to persuade Arthur to withdraw to his tent to rest, but the Pendragon would not.

Instead, he insisted that he should remain with his lords and battlechiefs and called for a song. Myrddin Emrys at first resisted the summons, but at length consented and ordered his harp to be brought to him. 'Which of the tales of Britain would you hear, Pendragon?'

Arthur's brow wrinkled in thought as he paused, then answered, 'It is not of Britain that I would hear tonight, but of the Otherworld. A cold night, with a fresh wind blowing – on storm-tossed nights like this such tales should be told.'

'Very well,' agreed Myrddin Wledig, 'hear then, if you will, the song of Bladydd, the Blemished King.'

I wondered at this choice, for it is an obscure tale and very strange – concerning a prince with a voracious hunger for wisdom, who falls foul of an Otherworld king and is blighted and eventually destroyed by the very knowledge he sought. But the company of lords and battlechiefs loved this tale and, indeed, it was beautifully sung by the Exalted Emrys, last of the True Bards of the Island of the Mighty.

The tale grew long in its telling and when it was over Arthur bade his companions sleep well and with Gwenhwyvar on his arm, went to his tent. I stretched myself on the red calfskin next to the fire, wrapped my cloak tightly around me, and went to sleep.

In the night I heard urgent voices. I arose and saw torchlight flickering inside the Pendragon's tent. Something was wrong. My stomach tightened in alarm.

The camp was dark and no one else was about. I crept to the tent and peered inside.

Bedwyr and the Emrys were with him. Gwenhwyvar stood a little apart, her hands at her side, twisting her silken mantle in tight fists. Blood smeared her face and the front of her mantle.

'Lie still, Bear,' Bedwyr was saying. 'Let the Emrys care for you.'

'Be easy, brother,' said Arthur in a rasping voice. 'I am going to get up now. I cannot let the Cymbrogi see me here like this.'

The Emrys toiled at the wound; his hands were dripping with Arthur's blood.

'The Cymbrogi have seen you lie about before,' Bedwyr told him. 'They are well used to the sight. Be quiet, now.' 'I will not! Help me stand.' He snatched at Bedwyr's cloak

and made to pull himself up. The covering slipped from around his neck. I saw the wound and gasped.

It was a ghastly green-grey, with violet thread-like fingers stretching across the Pendragon's shoulder. The flesh along the original cut was withered, black and rotting. Arthur's neck was red and inflamed from his throat to his armpit. The wound had apparently burst in the night – the pain must have been unbearable! – and the Emrys had been called to stop the bleeding.

'I am finished,' said Myrddin at last. 'I can do nothing more here.' Bedwyr and the Emrys put their arms around Arthur's wide shoulders and raised him up.

'We have made an end of Medraut at last,' Arthur said carelessly. 'It will be a cold day in hell before anyone dares attack the Emperor of Britain again. Where is Gwenhwyyar?'

'She waits over there a little,' Myrddin Emrys told him.

'I hope she is not hurt… '

'No, she is well. Arthur,' said the Emrys, speaking in low, urgent tones, 'your wound is swollen and has broken open. I am at the end of my skill, Arthur – do you understand? I can do nothing more for you, but I know where help can be found.'

Bedwyr glanced up and saw me. He motioned me closer and gripped my shoulder hard. 'Quickly!' he said in a voice tight with dread. 'Go find Barinthus and tell him to make ready a boat.' I stepped to the tent flap and Bedwyr added, 'Aneirin – take care. No one else must know.'

Alarm and dread warring in me, I dashed away to rouse Arthur's pilot and charge him with this secret task. Barinthus was never difficult to find, for he always stayed near the ships. I hastened down the hill track, a stiff wind whipping my cloak against my legs. Rags of cloud streamed across the moon; the white-crested wavetops glinted darkly in the shifting and uncertain light.

I made directly for the lone camp fire, flickering on the shore before the dark hump of a small skin-covered tent just above the high tide mark. 'Barinthus!' I hissed amid the sough and moan of wind and waves.

He stirred and thrust his head out through the hide-covered opening, and I charged him with Bedwyr's command. He ducked back into his shelter for his lamp, and emerged wearing his bearskin. He marched into the tideflow to where his coracle was moored.

I hurried back across the beach and saw the glimmer of a guttering torch on the hill-track above me. Bedwyr and Myrddin, with Arthur sagging between them, met me as I reached the foot of the hill. Gwenhwyvar, holding a torch in one hand, and the High King's sword in the other, went before them.

'The boat is being readied,' I told Bedwyr.

'Was anyone with Barinthus?'

'He was alone. No one else knows.'

'Good.' The Emrys gazed out onto the sea. Though the wind still blew and the sea ran strong, the waves were not driven overmuch. 'It will be a rough voyage, but swift. All the better. We have a little time yet.'

'I am going to sit you down now, Arthur.' Bedwyr shifted the High King's weight.

'No – I will stand. Please, Bedwyr. Only a little longer.'

'Very well.'

'Bedwyr, my brother… '

'What is it, Bear?'

'Look to Gwenhwyvar. See that she is cared for.'

Bedwyr swallowed hard. 'Do that yourself, Bear.'

'If anything happens to me.'

'Very well…if you wish it,'Bedwyr told him, pulling the red cloak more closely around Arthur's shoulders.

The Pendragon could scarcely lift his head. His speech had grown soft, almost a whisper. 'Myrddin,' he said softly, 'I am sorry I could not be the king you wanted me to be – the Summer King.'

'You were the king God wanted. Nothing else matters.'

'I did all you ever asked of me, did I not, my father?'

'No man could have done more.'

'It was enough, was it not?'

'Arthur, my soul, it was enough,' Myrddin said softly. 'Rest you now.'

The queen stepped close and handed me the torch. She embraced her husband and held him. 'Rest your head on my shoulder,' she said, and placed her cheek against his. They stood like this for a long moment and Gwenhwyvar spoke soothing words into his ear. I did not hear what she said.

After a moment we heard a whistle. Bedwyr turned. 'It is Barinthus. The boat is ready.'

I walked ahead, holding the torch high to light the way across the stone-strewn beach to the water's edge, where Barinthus had brought the boat. He had chosen a small, stout vessel with a single mast and a heavy rudder. There was a tented covering in the centre of the craft where Arthur could rest.

I waded into the water and stood beside the boat, with the torch lifted high. The wave-chop slapped the boat and rocked it from side to side; I gripped the rail with my free hand to help steady it. Bedwyr and Myrddin made to carry Arthur to the boat, but he refused. The Pendragon of Britain strode into the water in his own strength and boarded the pitching craft.

While Barinthus busied himself with the sail, the queen fussed over Arthur, to make him comfortable beneath the canopy. At last the Emrys said, 'We must go. It will be dawn soon, and we must be well away before we are seen.'