“How bad?” Uther asked.

“Just the foot,” Morgan said in her harsh voice. “The leg is properly formed, High Lord, but the Prince will never run.”

From deep inside his swathing fur cloak Uther chuckled. “Kings don't run, Morgan,” he said, 'they walk, they rule, they ride and they reward their good, honest servants. Take the gold." He held the brooch towards her again. It was a piece of thick gold, marvellously wrought into the shape of Uther's talisman, a dragon.

But still Morgan would not accept it. “And the boy is the last child Norwenna will ever bear, High Lord,” she warned Uther. “We burned the afterbirth and it did not sound once.” The afterbirth was always put on the fire so that the popping sound it made would tell how many more children the mother would bear.

“I listened close,” Morgan said, 'and it was silent."

“The Gods wanted it silent,” Uther said angrily. “My son is dead,” he went on bleakly, 'so who else could give Norwenna a boy child fit to be a King?"

Morgan paused. “You, High Lord?” she said at last.

Uther chuckled at the thought, then the chuckle turned into laughter and finally into another racking cough that bent him forward in lung-aching pain. The coughing passed at last and he drew in a shuddering breath as he shook his head. “Norwenna's only duty was to drop one boy child, Morgan, and that she has done. Our duty is to protect him.”

“With all the strength of Dumnonia,” Bedwin added eagerly.

“Newborns die easily,” Morgan warned the two men in her bleak voice.