‘You’d walk among the dead?’ I pulled back aghast. I would have waited till dawn had chased the ghouls away before venturing away from the protective firelight.

‘We made them into the dead, Derfel, you and I,’ Arthur said, ‘so they should fear us, should they not?’ He was never a superstitious man, not like the rest of us who craved blessings, treasured amulets and watched every moment for omens that might warn against dangers. Arthur moved through that spirit world like a blind man. ‘Come,’ he said, touching my arm again.

So we walked into the dark. They were not all dead, those things that lay in the mist, for some called piteously for help, but Arthur, normally the kindest of men, was deaf to the feeble cries. He was thinking about Britain. ‘I’m going south tomorrow,’ he said, ‘to see Tewdric’ King Tewdric of Gwent was our ally, but he had refused to send his men to Lugg Vale, believing that victory was impossible. The King was in our debt now, for we had won his war for him, but Arthur was not a man to hold a grudge. ‘I’ll ask Tewdric to send men east to face the Saxons,’ Arthur went on, ‘but I’ll send Sagramor as well. That should hold the frontier through the winter. Your men,’ he gave me a swift smile, ‘deserve a rest.’

The smile told me that there would be no rest. ‘They will do whatever you ask,’ I answered dutifully. I was walking stiffly, wary of the circling shadows and making the sign against evil with my right hand. Some souls, newly ripped from their bodies, do not find the entrance to the Otherworld, but instead wander the earth’s surface looking for their old bodies and seeking revenge on their killers. Many of those souls were in Lugg Vale that night and I feared them, but Arthur, oblivious of their threat, strolled carelessly through the field of death with one hand holding up the skirts of his cloak to keep it free of the wet grass and thick mud.