Yet, wherever I turned my eyes we were being moved – in body and in spirit. Back and back, retreating before the armies of the night we fled. We were no longer certain of our right or our ability to defend ourselves and our homeland. And, unless something was done soon, this retreat would become a rout.

I took heart that the land itself was solid as ever – not that anyone could change it very much. Trees grew tall for timber; fields, when they could be planted in peace and left to harvest, flourished; cattle and sheep gave good meat, leather, and wool; the old Roman mines were still worked and provided tin and lead and, more importantly, iron for weapons.

There was strength and consolation in this, to be sure. Still, it would take more than healthy agriculture to embolden the hearts of men. It would take a swift, certain demonstration of leadership: success in battle, turning back the onrushing barbarian tide. For this reason, I was anxious to meet Aurelius.

In this young eagle called Aurelius I saw great potential. Perhaps he could become the High King I had seen, the one men needed to restore their faith.

Oh, I had seen Aurelius from afar – in the firemists, in the black oak water of the seeing bowl – and I knew him, after a fashion. But I needed to meet him, to sit down and talk with him and observe what kind of man he was. Only then could I be certain if Britain had a worthy High King.

Purposefully, I stayed well away from my old lands in Dyfed. I was not yet ready to witness what changes had been wrought there and much preferred my memory of the place. My sudden appearance would be awkward, to say the least, for those ruling there now. News of my return would hasten to Maridunum – now called Caer Myrddin, Pelleas informed me blithely – and that would cause confusion enough. Besides, I was not at all certain what I should do, and there would be time to decide that later, after I had met with Aurelius.

Before that, however, I had but one desire: to return to the only home I knew, to see my mother. In truth, I never stopped to think what commotion my sudden appearance at Ynys Avallach would provoke. In my mind the place was always so serene, so remote from the frantic strivings of the larger world, I imagined – if I had any thought at all – that, simply setting foot onto the Isle of Apples, I would instantly fall under its peaceful enchantment, occupying the same place I had always occupied. 'Oh there you are Merlin, I wondered where you had gone.' As if I had merely departed no further than the next room and had now returned but a moment, a small space of heartbeats, later.

For me, at least, it was something like that. For Charis and Avallach, it was something else entirely.

After the first flurry of sensation at the announcement of my arrival – there was now a gatehouse at the end of the causeway leading to the Fisher King's palace – the glad cries of welcome, and the tears – my own and my mother's – it still took some time for the place to recover its normal, staid dignity.

I had been missed, and sorely, my death contemplated and wondered at ten thousand thousand times since my disappearance. I had, selfishly I suppose, vastly underestimated my own value in my mother's life.

'I knew you were still alive,' Charis told me later, when the excitement had diminished. 'At least I think I would have known if you had been dead. I would have felt it.'

She sat holding my hand in her lap, clutching it as if afraid to let it go lest she lose me again so soon. She beamed her pleasure, the light bright and shining in her eyes, and glowing from her face. I do not believe I had ever seen her so happy. Except for this, and the fact that she had once again adopted the fashion of the Fair Folk, she was unchanged.

'I am sorry,' I said. How many times had I said that already? 'Forgive me, I could not help myself. I never meant to hurt you, I -'

'Hush.' She bent her head and kissed my hand. 'It has all been said and forgiven. It is past and done.'

At these words, and the truth behind them, the tears started to my eyes once more. Could one ever be worthy of such love?

That night I slept in my old room and the next day went fishing with Avallach, sitting on the centre bench while he poled the flat-bottomed boat along the bank to his favourite place. The sun danced on the lake surface and the reeds nodded in the warm breeze; a heron stalked the green shallows, looking for frogs, and nervous moorhens jerked and clucked on the mossy shore, and I felt like a child of three once more.

'What was it like, Merlin?' Avallach asked me. He stood poised with the spear.

'To be insane?'

'To be alone with God,' he answered. 'I have often wondered what it would be like to be in his presence – to see and hear him, to worship at his feet.'

'Is that who you think I was alone with?' It shamed me to realize I had not acknowledged it before. But through years of contemplation Avallach had grown sensitive to the life of the spirit.

'Who else? The Great Lord himself,' he said happily, 'or one of his angels. Either way, a very great honour.' At that moment a fish flashed beneath the stern of the boat and Avallach's spear flashed in the same instant and he drew it back out of the water with a fine pike wriggling on the barbed tines.

As he carefully removed the fish, I sought a reply. Of course, I had been sustained in the wild. At the time I had never questioned it, considering that my years of living with the Hill Folk had stood me good stead in surviving in the wilderness. But even that, surely, had been the Good God's hand at work, preparing me.

And at last he had appeared to me – I knew that, and had not dared admit it to myself aloud. But Avallach had seen it, and accepted it with the greatest enthusiasm and just a little pious envy. I marvelled at his faith.

'You are fortunate among men, Merlin. Most fortunate.' He bent and took up the pole once more and pushed the boat further along the reed-grown bank. 'I, who would dearly love to spend but a moment in my Lord's presence, must content myself with visions of his sacred cup.'

He said this matter-of-factly, but he was as serious as he was sincere. 'You have seen it, too?' I asked, forgetting that I had never told him I had seen it myself.

'Ah, I thought so.' Grandfather winked at me. 'Then you know.'

'That it exists? Yes, I believe that it does.'

'Have you touched it?' he asked softly, reverently.

I shook my head. 'No. Like yours, mine was a vision.'

'Ah… ' He sat down in the boat and held the dripping pole across his knees. The quiet lapping of the water against the boat's hull and the chirking of a frog filled the silence. When he spoke again, it was as a man sharing a confidence with a brother; never before had he spoken to me like this.

'You know,' he said, 'I have believed until this moment that the Lord's Cup was denied me for the great sin of my life… '

'Surely, grandfather, your sins are no greater than any other man's. Far less, I should think, than many I could name. And you have Jesu's forgiveness… '

My attempt to ease his mind was a thin one, and it is doubtful he even heard me, for he continued, 'I gave life to Morgian.'

At the sound of the name my heart turned leaden in my chest. Morgian… what had she been up to while I was lost to the world of men? Something told me her hands had not been idle. I saw her as a black spider spinning webs of alluring death around her.

'Where is Morgian?' I asked, dreading the answer. I had to know.

Avallach sighed wearily. 'She is in the Orcades – a group of small islands in the northern sea. A good place for her, I think; at least she is far from here.'

I had heard of this island realm, called Ynysoedd Erch, in the British tongue: the Islands of Fear. And now I knew why. 'What does she there?'