Rhonwen scowled, reining in her horse to a walk. If Gruffydd were going to succeed his father as prince, he was going to have to learn to curb his temper.

She scanned the beach ahead. It was deserted. But still the hoof prints led on. Anxious suddenly, she kicked her horse on. A flight of gulls skimmed up the water beside her, easily overtaking the trotting horse, then she saw Cadi, riderless, her rein trailing. The pony was nibbling at the short salt-grass above the tide line.

Rhonwen felt a tremor of fear. ‘Eleyne!’ Her shout was lost in the empty air. ‘Eleyne!’

She reined in and stared around. Then she saw her. Eleyne was standing at the sea’s edge, her thin leather slippers in the water where the slowly rising tide had touched them. Her skirt, usually tucked up into her girdle, had fallen to its full length into the water and floated around her, a swirl of red. Eleyne was looking across the strait.

Rhonwen dismounted. Leaving her own horse to graze with Cadi, she walked towards the sea.

III

Eleyne had slowed her first wild gallop as soon as she was out of sight of the crowds and houses around the harbour. The strange need to be alone had come upon her quite suddenly, as it always did, and unthinking and unquestioning she had obeyed it.

She walked Cadi gently up the tide line, listening to the cries of the curlew – the messenger of death, the emissary of warning – and again she shivered. It was several minutes before she noticed the boats again. They had drawn nearer, out of the lee of the land, and were heading through the mist towards the island. She frowned. The mist had come suddenly, unnoticed, drifting over the water. The boats were crowded with men. She could see them clearly now – unnaturally clearly. They wore breast plates, gilded armour, helms. Spears glinted where the evening sun pierced the mist. There were more ships now – ten or fifteen abreast – and between the boats there were horsemen, hundreds of horsemen swimming their mounts towards the shore where she stood. Somewhere from across the water she could hear the beat of a drum, low and threatening in the echoing silence.

Suddenly afraid Eleyne turned, wishing that she hadn’t ridden off alone. She gathered her reins more firmly as Cadi laid back her ears and side-stepped away from the sea. She must ride back. She looked over her shoulder, her mouth dry with fear, and to her relief she saw that she was no longer alone. Two women stood near her and beyond them a group of men. She frowned at their strange garb. Both men and women wore black robes, and all had long dishevelled hair. The woman nearest her wore a gold circlet around her arm, another around her throat. In her hand was a sword. Beyond her were crowds of others; the shore was thick with people now, all armed, all keening threateningly in their throats. They were staring beyond her towards the sea. The drumbeat filled Eleyne’s ears. She felt the hairs on her arms rising in fear. She wasn’t aware that she had dismounted, but then she was standing shoulder to shoulder with the women at the edge of the sea and all around them there were others, women, men, even children.

She looked for Rhonwen, for Cenydd, for some of the men of her escort, but she recognised no one. The crowd was growing and with it the noise. The sound of a hundred, perhaps a thousand voices raised in menace as, from the sea, she heard the soft shush of keels on sand as boat after boat beached and the armed men began to jump into the water.

She whirled around, wanting to run, trying to get away, but hundreds of people surrounded her, wielding weapons, and with a terrifying clash of metal they were fighting hand-to-hand. She felt the warm slipperiness of blood on the sand, heard their screams, smelt their fear and hatred. She couldn’t breathe. They were being driven back, back from the shore. She found herself backing with them, stepping over the bleeding body of a woman. She spun round, panic-stricken, retreating with them towards the dark woods on the ridge behind them. The leaves of the oaks were russet and golden in the misty sunshine as the people broke and ran towards the trees and she knew, as they knew, that if they reached them they would be safe.

Then she saw the smoke.

The invaders from the sea were firing the trees, turning the ancient oaks into flaming torches and with them the people who were sheltering between them. She heard their screams, the crackle of flames as the air turned thick and opaque. Desperately she stretched out her hands, trying to reach a woman near her. If she could reach her, take her hand, she could guide her out of the smoke. Sobbing piteously, she reached forward but her hand passed through that of the woman as though it were a breath of air. Again she tried and at last she clutched it…

‘Eleyne! Eleyne! Wake up! What’s the matter with you!’ She felt a stinging slap on both cheeks and a shower of cold sea water caught her full in the face.

Stunned, Eleyne opened her eyes and stared around her. She was on the lonely beach with Rhonwen. There was no one in sight. No ships; no soldiers; no men and women and children, dying in their blood on the shore. Fearfully she gazed up the beach to where the oak forest had stood. There was nothing there now but scrub and a few stunted thorn trees.

She found she was gripping Rhonwen’s arm with every ounce of strength she possessed. She released it quietly. ‘I’m sorry, I hurt you.’ Her voice was shaky.

‘Yes, you did.’ Rhonwen sounded calm. She rubbed her arm. Beneath the cream wool of her sleeve, her flesh would later show ten livid bruises, the marks of Eleyne’s fingers.

‘Tell me what you saw.’ She put her arm around Eleyne and hugged her close. ‘Tell me what you saw, cariad.’

‘An army attacking Mô n; the men and women on the shore; then the fire, up there -’ She waved her arm. ‘Fire, everywhere.’

‘You were thinking of the fire when you were born – ’

‘No!’ Eleyne shook her head emphatically. ‘No, this wasn’t a hall. It was the trees. There on the ridge. A great grove of trees stood there, and they set fire to them with all the people sheltering there. The soldiers herded them there to burn – even women, even children, like me…’

‘It was a dream, Eleyne.’ Rhonwen was gazing over her head at the empty sea. She was completely cold. ‘A dream, nothing more.’

‘Am I going mad, Rhonwen?’ Eleyne clung to her.

‘No, no, of course not.’ Rhonwen pulled her closer. ‘I don’t know why it happened. Too much excitement this morning perhaps. Come, let’s catch the ponies and go back to the others. The wind is getting chill.’

Behind them a line of cats’ paws ran down the channel and high on the misty peaks the dying sun brought darkness to the high gullies.

IV

‘You are sure she has the Sight?’ Cenydd leaned forward and refilled Rhonwen’s wine goblet. He frowned down at the fire which burned between them. Behind them in the body of the hall men and women busied themselves at their various tasks. The children had retired to their sleeping chamber and Rhonwen had just returned from seeing that Eleyne was all right. She and Luned lay cuddled in each other’s arms, dead to the world. Rhonwen had stared down at them for several minutes in the light of her candle before she turned away and returned to the hall.

‘What else can it be? I don’t know what to do, Cenydd.’

‘Why must you do anything?’

‘Because if she has this gift from the gods, she has to be trained. I have to tell Einion that she is ready.’

‘No!’ Cenydd slammed his goblet down on the table at his elbow. ‘You are not to give her to those murdering meddlers in magic. Her father would never allow it.’

‘Sssh!’ Rhonwen said. ‘Her father would never know. Listen, if it is her destiny, who are we to deny it? Do you think I haven’t been praying this wouldn’t happen again?’

‘It’s happened before?’

‘When we were at Hay. She saw the destruction of the castle.’

‘Does she realise -?’

‘I told her it was a dream. The first time I think she believed me. This time, no. She knows in her heart it was no dream, at least no ordinary dream.’

‘Did she see past or future?’

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘I didn’t like to question her too far. That’s for the seer. He’ll know what to do.’

She had struggled with her conscience for months, ever since the vision at Hay. If Eleyne had powers, they had to be trained, for the sake of her country and its cause under Gruffydd of freedom from England; she knew that. But once the seers and bards heard of Eleyne’s gift Rhonwen would lose her to them and to her destiny.

‘You’re a fool if you tell him. He’ll never let her go.’ Cenydd reached for the flagon of wine. ‘You wouldn’t bring him here?’

‘I must. I dare not defy the princess again. Anyway, there’s too much unrest and unhappiness at Aber. Later – I don’t know. It will be for him to speak to the prince if he thinks she has been chosen.’

‘And her husband? What of the child’s husband? He will surely not approve of his wife being dragged into paganism and heresy; I hear the Earl of Huntingdon is a devout follower of the church.’

‘The marriage can be annulled.’ Rhonwen dismissed the Earl of Huntingdon as she always dismissed him, with as little thought as possible. She groped surreptitiously for the amulet she wore around her neck beneath her gown. ‘Everything can be arranged if it is the wish of the goddess, Cenydd.’

He frowned. He saw his cousin’s passionate faith as alternately amusingly harmless and extremely dangerous. He did not like the idea of that pretty, vivacious child being turned into a black-draped, sinister servant of the moon. On the other hand, he shuddered superstitiously, if she had the Sight, then perhaps she was already chosen.