And Merlin’s long white hair and his long white robe turned red.

Nimue howled again. I had heard her howl many times, but never like that, for this howl mingled agony with triumph. She had worked her spell.

She slid off the horse and let go of her staff. Merlin must have died quickly, but his body still thrashed in the small waves and for a few heartbeats it looked as though Nimue was wrestling with the dead man. Her white robe was spattered with red, and the red was instantly diluted by the sea as she heaved and pushed Merlin’s corpse further into the water. At last, free of the mud, he floated and she pushed him out into the current as a gift for her Lord, Manawydan.

And what a gift she gave. The body of a Druid is powerful magic, as powerful as any that this poor world possesses, and Merlin was the last and the greatest of the Druids. Others came after him, of course, but none had his knowledge, and none his wisdom, and none had half his power. And all that power was now given to one spell, one incantation to the God of the sea who had rescued Nimue so many years before.

She plucked the staff from where it floated on the waves and pointed it at our boat, then she laughed. She put her head back and laughed like the mad who had followed her from the mountains to this killing in the waters. ‘You will live!’ she called to our boat, ‘and we shall meet again!’

Balig hoisted the sail and the wind caught it and snatched us down the sea reach. None of us spoke. We just stared back towards Nimue and to where, white in the turmoil of the grey waves, the body of Merlin followed us towards the deep.

Where Manawydan waited for us.

We turned our boat south-east to let the wind drive into the tattered sail’s belly and my stomach heaved with every lurching wave.

Balig was struggling with the steering oar. We had shipped the other oars, letting the wind do the work, but the strong tide was driving against us and it kept pushing our boat’s head round to the south where the wind would make the sail slap, and the steering oar would bend alarmingly, but slowly the boat would come back, the sail would crack like a great whip as it filled again, and the bows would dip into a wave trough and my belly would churn and the bile rise in my throat.

The sky darkened. Balig looked up at the clouds, spat, then heaved on the steering oar again. The first rain came, great drops that spattered on the deck and darkened the dirty sail. ‘Pull in those banners!’ Balig shouted, and Galahad furled the forward flag while I struggled to free the flag at the stern. Gwydre helped me bring it down, then lost his balance as the boat tipped on a wave crest. He fell against the gunwale as the water broke over the bow. ‘Bail!’ Balig shouted, ‘bail!’