Taking our lead from the tracks, we rode east. Our horses, wonderful creatures, carried us over the nearer hills as lightly as thistledown borne aloft on the wind's breath, and we were soon far from sight of the Tor. I was so enjoying my ride that I soon forgot all about Llenlleawg and his lady. Peredur's sharp whistle brought me up short. I halted and turned to see him pointing away south.

'Forgive me, lord,' he said, 'but I think he has left the trail just here.'

Looking to the place he indicated, I saw the tracks of two shod horses leading south. I commended his sharp eye and confessed that I had been too much given to the ride to notice the turning. 'You have saved us the chore of retracing our steps,' I allowed, and granted him the privilege of leading the search. 'Now on with you! Tallaght and I will follow.'

Thus I took my place behind the other two, and we resumed our journey. The trail, as Peredur had rightly espied, departed its eastward course and struck off towards the south. Once beyond the salt-marsh lowlands, we encountered drought-dry hills and dusty valleys, passing abandoned holdings where but recently we might have expected a drink.

Day's end found us far to the south and searching for a stream or brook where we might make camp for the night. The first stars were already alight when we finally came upon a shrunken rill where a little water yet trickled. Though I would have preferred a more private place among the trees, I did not like to wander far from the trail, for it seemed likely that if Llenlleawg had passed this way, he might have camped hereabouts, too.

We gathered the few bits of dry brush to make our fire, and pulled provisions from the bags behind our saddles to make a quiet meal – after which we rolled ourselves in our cloaks to contemplate the bright-spangled heavens and wait for sleep to overtake us. I had just closed my eyes, or so it seemed, when a strange wailing sound roused me. I awoke and stood, stone-still and holding my breath, to listen for a moment. The sound, similar in some ways to that of a wolf crying down the moon, reached me from some distance farther south.

I walked a little apart from the red embers of our exhausted fire, and looked to the low southern hills, where I saw the faintly flickering glow of a beacon flame. I watched for a while, and scanned the land round about for an answering fire, but saw none. Neither did I hear the wailing sound again. The beacon, if beacon it was, died away as quickly as a spark, and the darkness closed around the place. I waited, but the flame was not renewed, and so I returned to my rest.

The next morning, after leaving a pile of rocks to mark the trail, we turned aside to find the place where the beacon had been lit, for I hoped to discover some sign of who had made it and why. As it happened, the ride led us farther south than I anticipated, but we found the site: an immense bed of still-warm ashes surrounded by a ring of earth erected to keep the dry hillside from taking light. Here and there we saw a few footprints – though very few – and those were scuffed and featureless.

They have taken care to leave nothing behind,' Peredur observed.

'Who could have made it?' wondered Tallaght. 'Llenlleawg and the girl?'

'Better to ask who was meant to see it,' I replied, and then considered that the wailing began only after the beacon had all but spent itself. 'Maybe they feared we would miss the signal, so they roused us another way,' I suggested lightly to my companions, but neither of them deemed it likely.

'Probably it was only a wolf,' suggested Tallaght. 'No doubt the smell of smoke disturbed the beast.'

Now, I have heard wolves howling in the night more times than either of my young friends have swung rump to saddle, and I know it was never any wolf I heard. Still, I held my tongue and let the thing go. As there was nothing more to see, I went to my horse, gathered up the reins, and regained my mount, ready to resume the trail. 'The day flies before us,' I called, urging them away.

'A moment, lord,' cried Peredur. I looked around and saw him inside the fire-ring, squatting on his haunches, prodding the ashes with a length of branch unburned at one end. So saying, he lifted something from the smouldering ash pile and brought it to me. 'What think you of this?' he asked, extending the stick towards me.

I saw that he had found a scrap of cloth – fine stuff, tightly woven – which had been all but consumed in the flames. Taking the scrap between my fingers, I looked again, more closely, and to my dismay recognized it at once.

'God help him,' I moaned, my voice a low croak. 'It is a piece of Llenlleawg's cloak.'

‘I must have an infant – a child, my sweet. I need a child.'

Loth, as I recall, merely shrugged. 'No difficulty there,' he replied lightly. 'I will send one of the men to the settlement. There are always brats enough, and no one squeals overmuch if one goes missing.'

'No,' I said. 'Not that way.' Taking up the camphor-wood box from the table, I removed the lid and dipped my fingers into the fine grey powder.

'It is nothing. Last time we – '

'This is different,'I insisted quietly. 'It is not like last time.'

Young Loth hesitated in the flickering candelight. A beautiful young man, he was the very image of his father. I dropped a pinch of the grey powder into the flame between us. Smoke puffed up, and a subtle fragrance filled the air. 'I need a child,' I said, pressing my hands to my stomach. 'It must be bone of my bone, blood of my blood. It must be my child.'

I dropped another pinch of the powder – a potion of compliance -into the flame, replaced the camphor-wood box, and stepped nearer, lowering my voice slightly. 'And you must give me this child, my darling.'

'Me! But I-'

'I will tell you about this child, shall I?' Putting my hands on his chest, I stepped forward, drawing him to me. 'This child will grow to be a sorceress of rare and wondrous powers, and she shall be called the Bane of Britain. She will destroy that simpleton Myrddin and his tiresome pet, Arthur. She will lay waste to the Kingdom of Summer, and prepare the way for us to reign – you and me. Together we will establish a dynasty that will last a thousand years.'

I drew him closer as I spoke. 'Come, my darling Loth.' My hands found his arm, and began leading him away. ‘I have prepared the bedchamber for our pleasure.'

'Mother, I-'he began, then hesitated, still uncertain. 'Morgian, it is-'

'Shh,'I hushed gently. 'I ask nothing you have not done with other women. There is food within, and wine. We will eat and drink and, in the time-between-times, you will give me your seed for the making of a child.'

He looked through the door and into the candlelit interior beyond. 'Come, my darling,' I said, my voice like warm mead, sweetly intoxicating and seductive, 'the night awaits.'

'I would not hear you speak so, even in jest,' Tallaght intoned ruefully.

'As I breathe, son, it is no jest. Either this is all that remains of our swordbrother's cloak, or I know him not at all.'

Turning his gaze once more to the ash pile, he said, 'Then we best make certain there is no more of him here than that.'

And so we did. Stir the embers how we might, the ashes revealed nothing more. Keen-eyed Peredur, meanwhile, busied himself with searching the surrounding hillside, and his labour bore fruit.

'See here!' he cried, drawing our attention. 'They passed this way!'

Hastening to where he stood, we saw the tracks of two people – and possibly a third – leading away from the fire-ring. I bent low to examine the faint markings – little more than bent grass and scuff marks in the dirt – and marvelled once more at Peredur's ability. 'Son,' I said, for he was that young, 'wherever did you learn to track?'