He paused, and I made bold to suggest that he should rest now. 'Sleep, lord, you are tired.'

'Sleep!' Arthur growled. 'How can I sleep when my wife is in danger?' He pressed his fingertips to his eyes as if to pluck them out of his head. In a moment, his hands dropped away and he continued. 'Gwenhwyvar came to me. She was so brave – she did not want to let me see her crying. She kissed me for the last time, as she thought, and left me – Myrddin left, too – everyone left the Tor and then Avallach came into where I lay…'

I realized that I was about to hear how Arthur had been healed and restored to life by the Grail, so said no more about resting just now.

'I did not see either of them at first,' Arthur said, his voice falling to a whisper at the memory, 'but I knew Avallach had entered the room, and that the Holy Grail was with him, for the bedchamber was suddenly filled with the most exquisite scent – like a forest of flowers, or a rain-washed meadow in full blossom – like all the best fragrances I had ever known. The scent roused me, and I opened my eyes to see Avallach kneeling beside me, his hands cupped around an object that appeared to be a bowl…' Arthur licked his lips as he must have licked them at the time. 'And I opened my mouth to receive the drink, and tasted the sweetest flavour – the finest mead is as muddy water compared to it – and this was merely the sweetness of the air I tasted, but he had not brought me a drink as I supposed. It was the Grail itself infusing the very air with its exquisite savour.'

Arthur drew the air deep into his lungs now as he had then. His tormented features smoothed as, in memory, he relived the marvel which had saved him.

'I breathed the redolent air, and the vapours of death which had clouded my mind parted and rolled away. I came to myself again, and knew myself in the presence of an eminent and powerful spirit – not Avallach only, for though he is of great stature in the world of the spirit, this Other was more immense, more profound, more potent by far. My own spirit, hovering between life and death, seemed a feeble, fragile thing – a bird caught in a bush weakly fluttering wings for release. I was nothing beside them… nothing. My life had been wasted – '

Here I interrupted. 'Arthur, it is not so. You have ever held true to that which has been given you.'

But the king would not hear it. He shook his head in denial. 'My life has been wasted in the pursuit of things mean and ordinary – insignificant matters, meaningless and swiftly forgotten.'

'Peace and justice are not insignificant,' I countered, alarmed to hear him talk so. 'Winning freedom for our people and our land is not meaningless, nor will it be quickly forgotten.'

This brought a wan, pitying smile to the king's face. 'Dust,' he said. 'Nothing but dust carried away by the first wind that blows, lost forever and forever unknown. Who but a fool regards the dust beneath his feet?'

I made to protest again, but he raised his hand, saying, 'Let it be, Gwalchavad. It matters not.' Returning to his recounting, he closed his eyes and lowered his head. 'Shame,' he said. 'I have never known such shame: it burned – how it burned! – as if to consume me from within. My guilt overwhelmed me. Guilt for the misuse of my life and the lives of so many, many others. I stood adjudged and knew myself condemned a thousand times over. Neither Avallach nor the Other with him so much as raised a finger in accusation. They had no need – my own spirit damned me. To die before making atonement filled me with such remorse, the tears flowed from my eyes in a flood as if to wash away the mountain of my guilt.

'But, oh, the Grail! The Grail was there, and even as the world dimmed before my eyes, Avallach held the sacred bowl before me, dipped in his finger, and touched his fingertip to my forehead. He sained me with the cross of Christ. It was, as I thought, the last rite for a dying man. Soon my soul would stand before the High King of Heaven, and I would face my judge.

'Yet even as Avallach touched me with his fingertip, I felt life surge within me. I was alive! What is more, I was forgiven. At Avallach's touch, I was at once healed and released from the guilt and shame of my squandered existence. My former ways dropped from me like a sodden cloak, and like an eagle borne up on the winds of a gale, my soul rose from the pit and soared.

'The joy, the rapture, the delight overwhelmed me and kindled within me a fire which blazed with the love of goodness and right. And it was as if I stood on a high mountain, looking down at the world far below. I looked and saw a green and peaceful land spread out on the breast of the blue-green sea.

'I looked to see whence came this light, and lo! it was the Grail. I saw a shrine of stone set on a hill and, established within this shrine, the Blessed Cup of Christ. Even as I beheld the cup, a voice from Heaven said, "Feed the people, heal the land." The voice spoke these words three times, and I saw Britain shining like gold in the radiance of a light brighter than the sun.

'What could this mean but that I should build the shrine and set the Grail within it to shine as a beacon of truth and right throughout the land. From Britain would flow every good and perfect thing for the succour of the world; all men would look to the Island of the Mighty and hope would be renewed. Ynys Prydain would become that vessel through which great blessing would flow to all mankind.

'I vowed that this would be my work hereafter: to build the Grail Shrine, that the Blessed Cup might begin transforming the world. Thus, I stood up from my bed of death, fully healed, and possessed of an ardour to bring the vision granted me into living reality. I went out and greeted my wife – Myrddin and Llenlleawg were there, too, and all the Fair Folk.

'The next day I took the work in hand, and began laying plans for the Grail Shrine. From that day I have held but one thought uppermost: to honour my vow for the glory of God and the good of Britain and her people. This I have done' – he paused, raising his eyes briefly, only to turn them away again -'and for this I am brought down.'

Arthur lowered his chin to his chest once more and lifted a hand to his forehead. 'Leave me,' he said, the glorious vision vanishing in the hollowness of his resignation. 'I am tired, Gwalchavad. Leave me.'

I stood for a moment, longing to speak a word of solace to ease his hurt. 'I am sorry, Arthur,' I said at last, then crept away, leaving the king to the cold misery of his woe.

How many realms had Morgian ruined? How many men had she killed? In her relentless pursuit of power, how many lives had she destroyed?

Myrddin said she had returned, and I did not doubt it. Indeed, it was not difficult to believe the relentless, ever-vindictive Morgian had somehow preserved a portion of her power when she fled to her stronghold. Safe in the distant fastness of her dark dominion, she has been tirelessly assembling the remnants of her broken art from the wreckage. Even if Morgian was not as strong as before, she was still far more powerful than any other adversary mortal man could face. Dread Morgian was yet a force to be reckoned with, an implacable enemy as sly and deadly as any serpent and more wicked, more hateful, more vicious and rapacious than a whole host of demons.

These things I thought, and my thoughts were true. But no matter how hard I tried, I could find no good explanation for Morgaws. Who was she? What was her part in the cruel treacheries breaking upon us?

Myrddin, I thought, might hold the answers, so to Myrddin I went. After a search that took most of the day, I found him, not with the king, but in the old wooden shrine beside the abbey. One of the monks had seen him enter the shrine at break of day. 'I never saw him leave, lord,' the monk said. 'Perhaps he is still there even now.'