"It is truly his ring, lady Igraine," said a voice she knew, and Igraine, bending her eyes to see the ring in the torchlight, saw familiar hands, big, broad and callused; and above them, what she had seen only in vision. Around Uther's hairy arms, tattooed there in blue woad, writhed two serpents, one on either wrist. She thought that her knees would give way and that she would sink down on the stones of the courtyard.

He had sworn it: I will come to you at Midwinter. And he had come, wearing Gorlois's ring!

"My lord Duke!" said Father Columba impulsively, stepping forward, but the Merlin raised a hand to forbid the words.

"Hush! The messenger is secret," he said. "Speak no word." And the priest fell back, thinking the cloaked man was Gorlois, puzzled but obedient.

Igraine dropped a curtsey, still struggling against disbelief and dismay. She said, "My lord, come in," and Uther, still concealing his face beneath the cloak, reached out with the ringed hand and gripped her fingers. Her own felt like ice beneath them, but his hand was warm and firm and steadied her as they stepped into the hall.

She took refuge in banalities. "Shall I fetch some wine, my lord, or send for food?"

He murmured close to her ear, "In God's name, Igraine, find some way we can be alone. The priest has sharp eyes, even in the dark, and I want it thought it is Gorlois, indeed, who has come here."

She said to Isotta, "Bring food and some beer to the soldiers here in the hall, and to the Lord Merlin. Bring them water for washing, and all they desire. I will speak with my lord in our chambers. Have food and wine sent there at once."

The servants went scurrying in all directions to do her will. The Merlin let a man take his cloak, and set his harp carefully on one of the benches. Morgause came into the doorway, peering boldly at the soldiers. Her eyes fell on Uther's tall form, and she dropped a curtsey.

"My lord Gorlois! Welcome, dear brother!" she said, and started toward him. Uther made a slight forbidding movement and Igraine stepped quickly in front of him. She thought, frowning, This is ridiculous; even cloaked, Uther looks no more like Gorlois than do I!

She said sharply, "My lord is weary, Morgause, and in no mood for the chatter of children. Take Morgaine to your chamber and keep her; she will sleep there with you this night."

Frowning, sullen, Morgause picked up Morgaine and carried her away up the stairs. Keeping well behind them, Igraine reached for Uther's hand and held it as they climbed. What manner of trickery was this, and why? Her heart was pounding until she thought she would faint away as she led him into the chamber she had shared with Gorlois and shut the door.

Inside, his arms were stretched to sweep her into his embrace; he shoved back the hood and stood there, his hair and beard wet with fog, holding out his arms, but she did not move toward him.

"My lord King! What is this, why do they think you are Gorlois?"

"A small magic of the Merlin," Uther said, "mostly a matter of a cloak and a ring, but a small glamour too; nothing that would hold if they should see me in full light, or uncloaked. I see that you were not deceived; I had not expected it. It is a seeming, not a Sending. I swore I would come to you, Igraine, at Midwinter, and I have kept my vow. Do I not even get a kiss for all my travail?"

She came and took the cloak from him, but she evaded his touch.

"My lord King, how came you by Gorlois's ring?"

His face hardened. "That? I cut it from his hand in battle, but the oathbreaker turned tail and fled. Mistake me not, Igraine, I come here by right, not as a thief in the night; the glamour is to save your reputation in the eyes of the world, no more. I would not have my promised wife branded adulteress. But I come here by right; the life of Gorlois is forfeit to me. He held Tintagel as the sworn vassal of Ambrosius Aurelianus; that oath he renewed to me, and now that, too, is forfeit. Surely you understand this, Lady Igraine? No king can stand if his sworn men may break oath with impunity and stand under arms against their king."

She bowed her head in acknowledgment.

"Already he has cost me the wreck of a year's work against the Saxon. When he left London with his men I could not stand against them, and I had to step aside, flee, and let them pillage the town. My people, whom I am sworn to defend." His face was bitter. "Lot, I can forgive; he refused to take the oath. A score I have to settle with Lot, indeed-he will make peace with me or I will see him off his throne and hanged- but he is not oathbreaker or betrayer. Gorlois I trusted; he took oath and forswore it, and so I am left in the wreck of the work Ambrosius spent his life to accomplish, with all of it to do again. Gorlois cost me that, and I am come to have Tintagel at his hands. And I will have his life, too, and he knows it."

His face was like stone.

Igraine swallowed hard. "And you will have his lady, too-by conquest and by right, as you have Tintagel?"

"Ah, Igraine," he said, drawing her to him with his two hands, "I know well what choice you made, when I saw you the night of the great storm. If you had not warned me, I would have lost my best men, and, no doubt, my life as well. Thanks to you, when Gorlois came against me, I was ready for him. It was then I took the ring from his finger, and would have taken the hand, and the head too, but he escaped me."

"I know well you had no choice as to that, my lord King," Igraine said, but at that moment there was a knock on the door. One of the serving-women brought in a tray with food and a jug of wine, and muttered "My lord," dropping a curtsey. Mechanically Igraine freed herself from Uther's hands, took the food and wine, shut the door behind the woman. She took Uther's cloak, which was, after all, not so very different from the one Gorlois wore, and hung it on the bedpost to dry; bent and helped him off with his boots; took his sword belt from him, Like a dutiful lady and wife, a voice remarked in her mind, but she knew she had made her choice. It was even as Uther said: Tintagel belonged to the High King of Britain; so did its lady, and it was at her own will. She had given her allegiance to the King's own self.

The women had brought dried meat seethed with lentils, a loaf of new-baked bread, some soft cheese, and wine. Uther ate like a man starving, saying, "I have been in the field these two moons past, thanks to that damnable traitor you call husband; this is the first meal I have eaten under a roof since Samhain-the good Father down there, no doubt, would remind me to say All Souls."

"It is only what was cooking for the servants' supper and mine, my lord King, not at all fitting-"

"It seems to me good enough for the keeping of Christmas, after what I have been eating in the cold," he said, chewing noisily, tearing the bread asunder with strong fingers and cutting a chunk of cheese with his knife. "And am I to have no word from you save my lord King? I have dreamed so of this moment, Igraine," he said, laying down the cheese and staring up at her. He took hold of her round the waist and drew her close to his chair.

"Have you no word of love for me?- Can it be that you are still loyal to Gorlois?"

Igraine let him draw her against him. She said it aloud. "I have made my choice."

"I have waited so long-" he whispered, pulling her down so that she half-knelt against his knee, and tracing the lines of her face with his hand. "I had begun to fear it would never come, and now you have no word of love or look of kindness for me-Igraine, Igraine, did I dream it, after all, that you loved me, wanted me? Should I have left you in peace?"

She felt cold, she was shaking from head to foot. She whispered, "No, no-or if it was a dream, then I too dreamed." She looked up at him, not knowing what else to say or do. She did not fear him, as she had feared Gorlois, but now that the moment was at hand she wondered, with a sudden wild panic, why she had come so far. He still held her within the curve of his arm. Now he pulled her down on his knee, and she let him draw her back, her head against his breast.