It was Nimuë of whom they spoke now. Alexander had of course heard of her, the young protégée and disciple of the great Merlin, who had been placed as a girl among the ladies of the Lake shrine at Avalon, but who had left them to live with Merlin and learn all his lore.

“As once,” said Queen Morgan, “he would have taught me, had he not been afraid that my power might outstrip his, so he persuaded my brother Arthur to pack me off north to marry King Urbgen of Rheged. It suited both kings to use me to tie their kingdoms to one another, so I was locked away in Urbgen’s castle at Luguvallium, with an old man whose two sons were older than I, and hated me.”

So the queen recounted her version of things past, where such well-known facts as must have come to Alexander’s ears were carefully twisted to adorn her story. The truth was that, on her way to a splendid marriage, escorted by Merlin as Arthur’s deputy, Morgan had tried to cajole the enchanter into teaching her some of his art. The cold set-down he gave her had made her his enemy, an enmity passed on to Nimuë his successor. Even the recent murder of her half-sister Morgause was somehow laid to Merlin’s door, though Merlin was no longer at court, and Morgause’s own son had been the murderer. But was it not known that Mordred, Arthur’s son by Morgause, had stood by, on who knew what instructions from the King’s adviser?

So Morgan, changing her tack to suit her lover’s tiresome loyalty to the High King. Carefully watching him under down-dropped lids, she proceeded to drive the point home. Knowing all this, who could tell what might come to another queen, herself, imprisoned like Morgause on some false charge of treachery, but, unlike Morgause, with no sons or kin to protect her, other than the royal brother who listened only to Nimuë’s jealous advice – advice meant to keep Morgan from her brother’s side, where she might have been able to bring to his service a power even greater than Nimuë’s?

Yes – at Alexander’s somewhat startled look she nodded – it might have been so. There was a way, one way only, for the helpless queen to assert herself against Nimuë’s magic and be reinstated at Arthur’s side. There was a talisman which, could she but lay hands on it, would give her this power. It was the quest for this talisman that Ferlas and his brother had undertaken for her. They had failed, as had another of her knights who had gone before them on the same quest.

So now how could she ask another man, however brave and gallant, to undertake so perilous a quest? Rather would she spend the rest of her days in this helpless isolation, to end, perhaps, even as Morgause had ended, by murder in the dark …

Whatever magic Queen Morgan undoubtedly possessed, there was one art that Merlin could not have taught her – and Alexander was not to know that most women could – the art that brought tears to the lovely eyes, a sob into the light pretty voice, and her lover back to her feet, his vague doubts forgotten, vowing by every god in the calendar that whatever she wished him to do for her, he would do, though it meant death. He was eager, burning, and very young. This was the adventure that, so long ago it seemed, he had set out from Craig Arian to seek. This was the stuff of poetry, of beauty and romance. A quest, on behalf of a queen, and so lovely and loving a queen.