'I had little to do with it,' Myrddin assured me. His voice grew solemn. 'Arthur lived, but only that much and no more.' He held up a finger pressed against his thumb to show how narrow was Arthur's claim on mortal life. 'I do not know how he clung to a cord so slender, but he did.'

'Yes? And then?'

'Heaven was with us, and he was healed,' Myrddin answered, regarding me mildly. 'He is as you see.'

'Yes, yes,' I said, impatience getting the better of me. 'I can clearly see, but how?'

'It was a miracle,' he explained, 'but a miracle of such provenance that it allowed no witnesses. I cannot tell you how, nor will Arthur speak of it. Perhaps one day he will tell us, but not yet.'

Despite Myrddin's words, I sensed there was still much that he would not say. 'But Cai said -'

'Cai refuses to believe his eyes,' Myrddin declared flatly. 'As for the golden armband,' he continued, 'it belonged to Uther. Ygerna had it made for him after they were married; it gave him the idea for the dragon standard. When Uther died, Ygerna kept it for her son, always believing he would one day become High King like his father.'

'Why did you wait until now to give it to him?'

'Whenever did I have a better chance?' Myrddin demanded. 'We have scarcely had space enough to draw breath from one battle to the next.'

'No doubt that will change,' I mused. 'Now that we have rid ourselves of invaders and rebellious Britons, we can enjoy a season of peace.'

'That is what I have been saying all my life,' Myrddin replied tartly.

I remember lost Atlantis. Though I was but a babe in arms when the calamity came upon us, I can still see the Isle of Apples as it was then, before the destruction. The Great Palace was much reduced from its former glory; owing to Avallach's long, wasting illness, everything was falling into neglect. Even so, to my childish recollection all was leaf-green and golden sunlight, endless gardens and mysterious rooms no one entered anymore.

My mother turned the gardens to her use. Lile was wise in the ways of root and stem; she knew the lore of herbs, and her medicines were most potent. We would spend entire days in those gardens, my mother and I- she working among her herbs, and I playing at her feet. She believed me too young to understand, yet she told me everything she knew about the plants. 'This is Three Hearts,' she would say. 'It is useful for stanching the flow of blood, and for purging the bowel.'

In this way Lile awakened in me the thirst to master the plants of healing and death. But there was much, much more than she knew. The Magi of Atlantis had amassed the lore of every age and realm, and though it took what would have been a lifetime for a mortal, this lore I also acquired. In Broceliande's deep wood I found what I sought. A remnant of our race had taken root there – Kian's people, Avallach's son and Charis' brother. There among the tall trees and deep shadows, they had built a city. I found it, and found, too, the knowledge I craved.

There was a book -from Briseis' library it came. The queen loved her books. I do not think she ever read it, but it was saved. I think Annubi, the royal family's faithful sage and counsellor, may have had something to do with that. If Lile kindled the flame of love for secret lore, Annubi fanned that flame into an all-consuming fire. At first it gave him pleasure to tell me things; he was lonely, after all. Later, however, he had no choice. I made certain of that. He served me, and lived at my command.

Annubi was the first man I bent to my will, and I learned much about the power of the female sex. When I had wrung him dry, I let him go. Indeed, I hastened him on his way. He was the first, but not the last. Far from it! There have been so many. Each has had his purpose – wealth, power, position, blood – I choose them well, and take what they have to give. Whatever is required, I become: queen, wife, lover, whore. It is all the same to me.

Myrddin was right, of course; there had been little time for anything other than fighting. Sometimes it seemed to me that we spent all our days ordering our weapons; if we were not sharpening them, we were repairing them, and if not repairing them, we were sharpening them again. Whenever we had a spare moment, we looked to our horses and tended our wounds, always anticipating the next battle, the next war.

Though the Vandali had been defeated, we remained wary -unwilling, perhaps, to think that peace had finally come to the Island of the Mighty. We had been cruelly disappointed before.

But, as the Wise Emrys had suggested, over the next few days Arthur began to tell how he had come by his miraculous healing – an intriguing tale, made more so by the simple fact that, apart from Avallach, Arthur was its only observer and as he had been lying at death's gate at the time, he was not best placed to say what had happened. And though he spoke with great enthusiasm, and greater reverence, the details remained hazy.

I gleaned there was something about a cup, and a heavenly visitation, and a prayer in a strange language by Lord Avallach. Of the holy men at the abbey, there was never a mention; thus, I supposed they had little to do with the matter. Indeed, the chief agent of the miracle seemed to be the cup, or bowl, which Arthur had seen, or thought he had seen, in Avallach's possession.

'You drank something from the cup?' wondered Bedwyr. We were sitting at table, Arthur and the queen together with Myrddin and a dozen of the Dragon Flight – the elite of the Pendragon's warhost – in the tent which served as a hall for us when we were on the battle trail. It was late, but we were exulting in our king's return and reluctant to leave the tent. 'A potion, or elixir? One of Paulus' concoctions?'

Arthur pursed his lips. 'That may be so,' he allowed. 'I cannot remember. Avallach held it like this.' He cupped his hands as if cradling a bowl. 'No, wait,' he said, shaking his head, 'it was the other one – Avallach never touched it.'

'The other one?' Cai demanded with growing frustration. 'You mean to say there were two bowls now?'

'No, not two bowls,' Arthur retorted, 'two people: Avallach and some other.'

The angel,' suggested Gwenhwyvar helpfully, and everyone around the board turned his head to stare at her. 'We all saw her,' she insisted. Appealing to Myrddin, she said, 'Tell them, Myrddin; you must have seen it.'

But Myrddin, scowling now, refused to speak.

'There was an angel,' she maintained defiantly. 'We saw her.'

Cai instantly resumed his inquiry. 'Did the angel speak to you, Bear? What did she look like?'

'If you say it was an angel, so be it,' replied Arthur equably. 'I thought her one of Avallach's servants.'

This drew a snort from Myrddin, who folded his arms and turned his face away.

'But what did they do?' demanded Bedwyr. 'Did they touch you? Did you touch the bowl?'

No, said Arthur, he did not think he was touched, or touched the bowl – other than to drink, if indeed he had drunk from the cup. There was speaking – a prayer, he thought, from the way Avallach prostrated himself – but in a language unknown to Arthur. There was light, yes, a blaze of candlelight that whelmed the room in shimmering radiance most wonderful to see. And there seemed to be music. Arthur definitely thought he heard music, but neither singing, nor harps, nor pipes, nor anything else he had ever heard before; but since neither Avallach nor the heavenly servant had produced this music, he could not be certain precisely how it might have come about. He was more certain about the delicious fragrance that accompanied the appearance of the bowl. It was, he said, as if all the flowers of summer were tumbled together, each lending sweetness to the other and blending into an odour at once divine and indescribable.