Taking an extra horse, I departed, pausing at the abbey to inquire where I could find Paulus. Some of the brothers had just returned from a long stint away in the south, just outside Caer Lundein, where Paulus had established a camp off the old Roman road. Charis was there, along with a good many monks from neighbouring monasteries, helping to combat the yellow death. 'It has ravaged Londinium terribly,' one of the brothers told me. 'I believe it is far worse there than it ever was here. Paulinus is easy to find, and you will not have to enter the city.'

'Perhaps you would not object,' suggested Elfodd, 'to taking a few supplies to them. The need is great, and it is the least we can do. Would you mind?'

'Not at all,' I assured him, and then watched as the good The seasons passed. Harvest came and went: a dismal business, best forgotten. The long, dry summer had done its worst. There was nothing for it but to trust winter rains to bring a better spring. Though we looked to every grey cloud that drifted overhead, the rain did not come.

The lack of rain meant, however, that the work on the new shrine could continue without interruption, and people began to look upon its completion as the salvation of the land. 'When the Grail Shrine is finished' became the litany which began every conversation, as people turned hopefully to a brighter future. Each day the Pendragon and Cymbrogi rode out to their labours, and each night returned delirious with exhaustion and companionship. Accordingly, the day of completion, hastened by favourable weather and the unquenchable ardour of the Cymbrogi labourers, arrived far sooner than expected.

Though I did no work myself, I often rode out to watch as the builders, seized with the fervour of creation, vied to outdo one another in the quality of their work. And despite my inexplicable aversion, I will say that it grew into a fine and handsome place: six-sided, with neat straight walls rising from a tiered base and topped by a steep-peaked roof of wood covered with red Roman tile – God knows where they got that! – and a series of curved steps. It was not large, but Arthur allowed that it was, after all, only a beginning; in time, the shrine could be expanded, or attached to a much larger structure, which he had in mind. 'But this will do for now,' he declared, well pleased with the result.

As the turning of the year approached, Arthur began making plans for the Grail Shrine's consecration. He called for messengers to summon those he wished to attend the august event. I volunteered at once, since the errand provided me a welcome escape from what I had begun to think of as the delirium which had overtaken almost everyone.

I say 'almost' because there were others, like myself, who regarded the absurd euphoria with increasing suspicion. Myrddin, as ever, pleased to garner whatever he could of the builders' craft, would speak no word against the shrine or the Grail, but his praise was ever guarded and he held himself aloof from any talk of miracles, or thousand-year reigns of peace, and such. Likewise Bedwyr, who always seemed to find one important concern or another to occupy him -1 know he often fished with Avallach. Llenlleawg, I believe, never so much as rode out to the site; it was whispered that Lady Morgaws demanded his constant attention. Cai helped often, however, and Cador only now and then, as it pleased him.

Thus, Bedwyr, Cador, and I, along with a score of Cymbrogi, rode out one cool, bright morning to our various destinations, far and wide throughout the realm and beyond. I was sent to Londinium to bring back Charis, who yet laboured there in one of the plague camps. Before leaving, I asked Llenlleawg if he would ride with me – for all he appeared so haggard and ill at ease that I reckoned a little sojourn away from the overheated mood of the Tor would be no bad thing – but he declined. 'No,' he said, 'my place is here with Arthur.'

'Of course,' I replied lightly, 'no one doubts it. But Arthur himself has commanded me to go and escort Charis home.'

'Then go. It is nothing to do with me.'

I watched him as he stumped away, and could not help thinking that he was no longer the man I knew. I resolved to bring the matter to Myrddin's attention at the first opportunity when I returned. Be that as it may, it was with a sense of relief that I left the Tor – relief that I might be quit of the tedium and hypocrisy of maintaining a pretence of support when my heart was not in it.

Taking an extra horse, I departed, pausing at the abbey to inquire where I could find Paulus. Some of the brothers had just returned from a long stint away in the south, just outside Caer Lundein, where Paulus had established a camp off the old Roman road. Charis was there, along with a good many monks from neighbouring monasteries, helping to combat the yellow death. 'It has ravaged Londinium terribly,' one of the brothers told me. 'I believe it is far worse there than it ever was here. Paulinus is easy to find, and you will not have to enter the city.'

'Perhaps you would not object,' suggested Elfodd, 'to taking a few supplies to them. The need is great, and it is the least we can do. Would you mind?'

'Not at all,' I assured him, and then watched as the good monks piled bundle after bundle upon the horses: supplies for making medicine, cloaks and winter clothing for the brethren, dried meat, and casks of ale and mead to help their fellows celebrate the Christ Mass, which was drawing near. When they finished at last, I took my leave and made for the Londinium Road. I thought it a long time since I had been on that highway; the last time was for Arthur's crowntaking and wedding. So much had happened since then, it seemed a lifetime ago. Perhaps it is as Myrddin says: time is not the passage of an endless succession of moments, but the distance between events. That was nonsense to me when I first heard it. Now, looking back, I think I begin to know what he meant.

The swiftest way to the Londinium Road lies through a stretch of forest – an old, old trackway, used from ages beyond remembering. The forest is older still, of course, and there are yet many of the great patriarchal trees to be seen: elms on which moss has grown so thick that they appear grey-green with age, and oaks with trunks large as houses. The forest fringe, where light still penetrates to the ground, evokes no fear; but when men must go into the dark heart of the ancient wood, they go in haste, passing through as quickly as possible.

This I did, hunkering down in the saddle with one of the Wise Emrys' saining runes on my lips. As I rode, I said:

Be the cloak of Michael Militant about me,

Be the cloak of the Archangel over me, Christ's cloak,

Blessed Saviour, safeguarding me,

God's cloak of grace and strength, shielding me!

To guard me at my back,

To preserve me from the front,

And from the crown of my head to the heel of my foot!

The cloak of Heaven's High King between me and

all things that wish me ill, and all things that

wish me harm, and all things coming darkly

towards me!

In this way I passed through the darkest part of the forest. After a while, the path lightened ahead of me, and I knew that I was reaching the end. I emerged from the wood at a gallop and gained the hills above the road, where I paused to look back at the Tor's blue-misted shape in the distance. I rode until nightfall, whereupon I made camp and spent the first of several mild nights under the winter stars.

The journey remained uneventful and four days later, through the murky brown haze of evening smoke – as if the plague were a visible cloud under which the city suffered – I glimpsed Londinium, cowering behind its high walls. Those walls, erected long before Constantine was Emperor, were collapsed in several places and falling down. It was amidst the rubble of one such breach outside the northern gate that Brother Paulus' camp had been established.