'Let me go with you,' Gwenhwyvar pleaded.

'You are needed here, Gwenhwyvar. You and Bedwyr must buy Arthur time to heal,' Myrddin explained. 'I tell you the truth, I fear for the world if knowledge of Arthur's weakness reaches Britain's enemies. No one must know,' the Emrys said earnestly. 'See you keep the secret well.

'Tomorrow, send the lords back to their realms and the Cymbrogi back to Caer Lial. I will return here in three days and bring Arthur with me, or take you to be with him.'

Gwenhwyvar clutched at Arthur's hand. 'Have no fear," Arthur whispered. 'I go to Avallon for my healing. I will return when I am strong once more. Wait for me but a little.'

Gwenhwyvar nodded and said no more. She knelt and kissed Arthur with a lingering kiss. 'Farewell, my soul,' she whispered, and pressed the sword Caliburnus into her husband's hand.

'Bedwyr – he should have it,' Arthur protested weakly.

'Keep it,' Bedwyr replied, 'you will need it when you return.'

Gwenhwyvar kissed Arthur and laid her head against his chest. She whispered something, and he smiled – I do not know what she said. She climbed from the boat and watched as Bedwyr and I pushed it into deeper water. Once it was free of the sand, the pilot turned the bow towards the open sea and raised the sail.

The Emrys stood and called to us, 'Have no fear! Arthur will return. Keep faith, my friends. The final danger has not come. Watch for us!'

We three stood on the strand and watched the boat draw away. We watched until the small, bright point of light that was Barinthus' lamp disappeared into the cloud-wracked darkness of the sea and night. Grief, sharp as a spear-thrust, pierced my heart. For, in the mournful sigh of wind and wave, I heard the lament for the lost.

A sea-bird disturbed from his night's rest took wing above us and raised a solitary keen. Seeking some word of consolation, I said, 'If there is healing for him anywhere in this worlds-realm, he will find it in Avallon.'

Gwenhwyvar, dark eyes gleaming with unshed tears, pulled her cloak high around her shoulders, then turned away, straightened her back, and began ascending the hill track. Bedwyr stood long, gazing into the void, the restless wave-wash around his feet. I stood with him, my heart near to breaking. At last he reached out to me, took the torch from my hand, and with a mighty heave, threw it into the sea. I watched its flaming arc plunge like a star falling earthward and heard it hiss as it struck the sea and died.

ELEVEN

'Myrddin should have returned before now. Something is wrong!' Bedwyr threw down his bowl and stood up.

'He said to wait. What else can we do?' Gwenhwyyar asked, her voice raw with torment.

'He said he would come back in three days. Well, the third day has passed and he has not returned!'

Indeed, since dawn, when I arose and took up my place of vigil, we had watched and waited, gazing out over the western sea whence the Emrys' boat would come. I stood my watch all day, relieved by Bedwyr from time to time, or Gwenhwyvar, or sometimes both at once. We talked of this and that, small things, matters of no consequence. The one thing we did not mention was the boat, though our thoughts were full of nothing else.

The day had faded into a dull and sullen sunset. Still none of us saw so much as a thread of sail or a sliver of mast. But one day before, the bay had been alive with ships. The queen had let it be known that the Pendragon and his Wise Counsellor were communing together and did not wish to be disturbed. She bade the lords and kings of Britain return each one to his own realm and await the High King's pleasure. The Cymbrogi she ordered back to Caer Lial.

Fergus and Ban grew anxious and approached the queen in private. Yet, through all her assurances Gwenhwyvar protected the secret and gave nothing away, though her heart was breaking all the while.

Bors, Cador and Rhys had been the last to leave. They insisted that they would wait and ride to the palace with the king, but Gwenhwyvar urged them to hasten back and see to readying the Pendragon's palace for his return – much had been ruined by the Picti. In the end, they reluctantly agreed and rode away, so that by evening of the second day we three were alone on Round Table hill.

Then we had waited and watched, as the sun climbed to its full height and started its long slow slide to the west. But the sea remained empty; no boat appeared. Nor did we see any sign of it at dusk, when Bedwyr set a beacon fire on the beach below the hill.

Now we sat in silence before the Pendragon's tent. The red-gold dragon standard rippled in the evening breeze. As if in answer to Bedwyr's outburst, a Sight of gulls wheeling overhead began screaming. Their complaint echoed up from the valley below. Bedwyr gazed at the bowl he had thrown down and kicked it aside. 'We should not have let him go,' he muttered, his voice full of reproach and pain.

'Then we will go to him,' Gwenhwyvar said softly. She turned to me, and placed her hand on my arm. 'You have been to the island, Aneirin.'

'Several times, yes. As you have been, my lady.'

'You will pilot,' declared Bedwyr.

'But we have no boat!' I pointed out.

'Arthur the Shipbuilder is our lord,' sniffed Bedwyr, 'and this fellow says we have no boat. I will get one.'

'Then I will be your pilot – may God go with us,' I answered.

Bedwyr saddled one of the horses and left at once. Gwenhwyvar and I spent a fretful dusk before the fire, neither one of us speaking. She withdrew to her tent when the moon rose and I spread my red calfskin before the entrance and lay down with a spear next to me – no fire to warm or cheer me, no roof above me but the stars of heaven, bright with holy fire.

I lay down but I did not sleep. All night long I twisted and turned on my calfskin, watching the long, slow progression of the moon across the sky and praying to Jesu to protect us – which he did. At last, just before dawn, I slipped into a strange sleep: deep, yet alert. I knew myself asleep, yet I heard the sea moan on the shore below the hill and the wind sigh through the grass around me.

It was the time between times, neither day nor night, darkness nor light, when the gates of this world and the next stand open. The restless wash of the sea below the cliffs sounded like the troubled murmurings of distant crowds in my ears. The wind-sigh became the whisper of Otherworld beings bidding me rise and follow.

I lay in that Otherworldly place and dreamed a dream.

In my dream I awoke and opened my eyes and I saw green Avallon, Isle of Apples, fairest island that is in this world, next to the Island of the Mighty. I heard the strange, enchanting music of Rhiannon's birds, and I smelled the sweet fragrance of apple blossoms. On my lips I tasted the warmth of honey mead, and I arose.

I walked along the way-worn path from the sea cliff to the Fisher King's palace. Where the palace should have been I saw nothing but a cross of Jesu wrought of stone and lying on the ground – and, beside it, a leather pouch containing Myrddin's stone-carving tools. I bent down to trace the words inscribed upon it, but a cloud passed over the sun and the light grew dim, and I could not read what had been written there.

I looked to the east and saw stars glimmering hi the sky, though still the sun shone in the west. Storm clouds gathered above me. Lightning flashed, and thunder quaked. The whole earth began to tremble with the sound.

Across the green land the thunder became a roar, and the tremble the footfall of a terrible beast. I turned to the east, whence came the storm, and saw a great golden lion bounding towards me over the weald. The lion seized me, and snatched me up in its jaws. And then it began to run. The enormous beast carried me over the island to the sea, where it plunged into the white-foamed waves and began to swim.