‘Men are fools,’ Igraine declared, then gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Were you ever unfaithful to Ceinwyn?’

‘No,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Did you ever want to be?’

‘Oh, yes. Lust does not vanish with happiness, Lady. Besides, what merit is there in fidelity if it is never tested?’

‘You think there is merit in fidelity?’ she asked, and I wondered which young, handsome warrior in her husband’s caer had taken her eye. Her pregnancy would prevent any nonsense for the moment, but I feared what might happen after. Maybe nothing.

I smiled. ‘We want fidelity in our lovers, Lady, so is it not obvious that they want it in us? Fidelity is a gift we offer to those we love. Arthur gave it to Guinevere, but she could not return it. She wanted something different.’

‘Which was?’

‘Glory, and he was ever averse to glory. He achieved it, but he would not revel in it. She wanted an escort of a thousand horsemen, bright banners to fly above her and the whole island of Britain prostrate beneath her. And all he ever wanted was justice and good harvests.’

‘And a free Britain and the Saxons defeated,’ Igraine reminded me drily.

‘Those too,’ I acknowledged, ‘and he wanted one other thing. He wanted that thing more than all the others.’ I smiled, remembering, and then thought that perhaps of all Arthur’s ambitions, this last was the one he found most difficult to achieve and the one that the few of us who were his friends never truly believed he wanted.

‘Go on,’ Igraine said, suspecting that I was falling into a doze.

‘He just wanted a piece of land,’ I said, ‘a hall, some cattle, a smithy of his own. He wanted to be ordinary. He wanted other men to look after Britain while he sought happiness.’

‘And he never found it?’ Igraine asked.

‘He found it,’ I assured her, but not in that summer after Lancelot’s rebellion. It was a summer of blood, a season of retribution, a time when Arthur hammered Dumnonia into a surly submission.