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By Root 575 0

of the guard-room, I could see nothing. I shut the door behind me and leaned back against the damp wall, while the night air poured over me like a river. Then things took shape around me. In front and a few paces away was a battlemented wall, waist high, the outer wall of the castle. Between this wall and where I stood was a level platform, and above me a wall rising again to a battlement, and beyond this the soaring cliff and the walls climbing it, and the shape of the fortress rising above me step by step to the peak of the promontory. At the very head of the rise, where we had seen the lighted window, the tower now showed black and lightless against the sky.

I went forward to the battlement and leaned over. Below was an apron of cliff, which would in daylight be a grassy slope covered with sea-pink and white campion and the nests of seabirds. Beyond it and below, the white rage of the bay. I looked down to the right, the way we had come. Except for the driving arcs of white foam, the bay where Cadal waited was invisible under darkness.

It had stopped raining now, and the clouds were running higher and thinner. The wind had veered a little, slackening. It would drop towards dawn. Here and there, high and black beyond the racing clouds, the spaces of the night were filled with stars.

Then suddenly, directly overhead, the clouds parted, and there, sailing through them like a ship through running waves, the star.

It hung there among the dazzle of smaller stars, flickering at first, then pulsing, growing, bursting with light and all the colours that you see in dancing water. I watched it wax and flame and break open in light, then a racing wind would fling a web of cloud across it till it lay grey and dull and distant, lost to the eye among the other, minor stars. Then, as the swarm began their dance again it came again, gathering and swelling and dilating with light till it stood among the other stars like a torch throwing a whirl of sparks. So on through the night, as I stood alone on the ramparts and watched it; vivid and bright, then grey and sleeping, but each time waking to burn more gently, till it breathed light rather than heat, and towards morning hung glowing and quiet, with the light growing round it as the new day promised to come in clear and still.

I drew breath, and wiped the sweat from my face. I straightened up from where I had leaned against the ramparts. My body was stiff, but the ache had gone. I looked up at Ygraine's darkened window where, now, they slept.

9

I walked slowly back across the platform towards the door. As I opened it I heard from below, clear and sharp, a knocking on the postern gate.

I took a stride through to the landing, pulling the door quietly shut behind me, just as Felix came out of the lodge below, and made for the postern. As his hand went out to the chain-bolt, Ralf whipped out behind him, his arm raised high. I caught the glint in his fist of a dagger, reversed. He jumped cat-footed, and struck with the hilt. Felix dropped where he stood. There must have been some slight sound audible to the man outside, above the roaring of the sea, for his voice came sharply: "What is it? Felix?" And the knocking came again, harder than before.

I was already halfway down the flight. Ralf had stooped to the porter's body, but turned as he saw me coming, and interpreted my gesture correctly, for he straightened, calling out clearly:

"Who's there?"

"A pilgrim."

It was a man's voice, urgent and breathless. I ran lightly down the rest of the flight. As I ran I was stripping my cloak off and winding it round my left arm. Ralf threw me a look from which all the gaiety and daring had gone. He had no need even to ask the next question; we both knew the answer.

"Who makes the pilgrimage?" The boy's voice was hoarse.

"Brithael. Now open up, quickly."

"My lord Brithael! My lord -- I cannot -- I have no orders to admit anyone this way..." He was watching me as I stooped, took Felix under the armpits, and dragged him with as little noise as I could, back into the lodge and out of sight.