She shuddered, spread her arms and prayed silently. None of us spoke. Her prayer went on a long time, and perhaps she was hoping we would abandon her, but when none of us left the courtyard, she dropped her arms and turned on us again. ‘What charms is the witch using?’

‘Berries,’ I said, ‘slivers of bone, embers.’

‘No, fool! What charms? How does she reach Ceinwyn?’

‘She has the stone from one of Ceinwyn’s rings and one of my cloaks.’

‘Ah!’ Morgan said, interested despite her revulsion for the pagan superstition. ‘Why one of your cloaks?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Simple, fool,’ she snapped, ‘the evil flows through you!’

‘Me?’

‘What do you understand?’ she snapped. ‘Of course it flows through you. You have been close to Nimue, have you not?’

‘Yes,’ I said, blushing despite myself.

‘So what is the symbol of that?’ she asked. ‘She gave you a charm? A scrap of bone? Some piece of pagan rubbish to hang about your neck?’

‘She gave me this,’ I said, and showed her the scar on my left hand.

Morgan peered at the scar, then shuddered. She said nothing.

‘Counter the charm, Morgan,’ Arthur pleaded with her.

Morgan was silent again. ‘It is forbidden,’ she said after a while, ‘to dabble in witchcraft. The holy scriptures tell us that we should not suffer a witch to live.’

‘Then tell me how it is done,’ Taliesin pleaded.

‘You?’ Morgan cried. ‘You? You think you can counter Merlin’s magic? If it is to be done, then let it be done properly.’

‘By you?’ Arthur asked and Morgan whimpered. Her one good hand made the sign of the cross, and then she shook her head and it seemed she could not speak at all. Arthur frowned. ‘What is it,’ he asked, ‘that your God wants?’

‘Your souls!’ Morgan cried.

‘You want me to become a Christian?’ I asked.

The gold mask with its incised cross snapped up to face me. ‘Yes,’ Morgan said simply.

‘I will do it,’ I said just as simply.

She pointed her hand at me. ‘You will be baptized, Derfel?’

‘Yes, Lady.’

‘And you will swear obedience to my husband.’

That checked me. I gazed at her. ‘To Sansum?’ I asked feebly.

‘He is a bishop!’ Morgan insisted. ‘He has God’s authority! You will agree to swear obedience to him, you will agree to be baptized, and only then will I lift the curse.’

Arthur stared at me. For a few heartbeats I could not swallow the humiliation of Morgan’s demand, but then I thought of Ceinwyn and I nodded. ‘I will do it,’ I told her.

So Morgan risked her God’s anger and lifted the curse.