She had, of course, maintained her innocence: that she only wanted the sword of power to give to her husband Urbgen, and that Accolon had persuaded her into the business, but no one believed it, and Alexander, having himself experienced Morgan’s ways with a young lover, doubted if Accolon had had any power over her at all.

He said, trying to hide the hesitation in his voice: “You cannot still want the sword?”

Morgan, back in the present, saw in one swift glance that her toils of magic needed to be re-woven. She laughed, and rose to pour wine for them both, then seated herself on the cushions of the wide window-seat and gestured him to sit beside her.

“No, no. Did I not say it was the grail?”

“Yes. But I didn’t understand. Grail? That is a cup, I think? What grail?”

“Don’t you remember what I said, that when Merlin found Macsen’s sword of power, it was with other treasures in the Mithraeum at Segontium?”

“Yes. This grail was there?”

“Indeed. A great golden cup, they say, jewelled and with wings for handles, along with other things – I forget what – but all priceless. Things saved from the emperor’s treasury and brought back to this country after his death abroad. It was kept secret somehow, and the treasure stayed buried while the Mithraeum rotted and fell in over it. Merlin took nothing but the sword. He –” Her voice was suddenly acid – “he thought he had no need of the grail.”

“But you have?”

“Need! I like to think not, but I desire it. Alex my love, I desire it!” She set her wine aside untasted, and turning with arms held out, took his face between her hands. “More, if it were possible, than I desire you! No, no, my dear, hear me out! That grail, cup as you call it, I believe it to be more magical even than the sword! I know that whoever owns it has power, and the protection of the greater gods. I have seen this in the crystal and heard it in the whispering of the dark spirits of the air.”

He would have drawn back at that, but her hands held him and her eyes compelled him. The fumes of the wine he had drunk were warm in his brain. He said, whispering in his turn: “I will get it for you, Morgan my enchantress. Of course I will! There can surely be no wrong in it, treasure buried by Macsen’s troops so many years back? And you are royal, of Macsen’s house; you have a right to it, as Arthur had to the sword! I will get it for you. At Segontium, you said? Only tell me where it is, this temple of Mithras!”

She let him go, and sank back among the cushions. “It’s there no longer. Nimuë has it.”

“Nimuë?”

“Yes, that bitch of Merlin’s. He told her where it was. She wormed it out of him as he lay sick and near death, and then she went and lifted the rest of the treasure, grail and all, from the ruins of the Mithraeum, and took it down to Arthur at Caerleon. I’m told that neither the High King nor old Merlin would touch it. So she took it back to her home in the north, and it has never been seen since that day.”