She shook her head. “In all my travelling I’ve never seen a lovelier country than this, or a more beautiful place than my own home in Rheged. Even Rome, Athens, even Jerusalem, can’t show anything to compare –”

“Jerusalem!” As if the word had been an arrow striking home, he remembered. The quest, so hotly undertaken for Queen Morgan; the grail; his private plan to gain the confidence of the bearers of the marvellous relic. His hope, in fact, to take it, if necessary by force.

“What is it?” asked Alice, disturbed by his look.

He turned away from her, his head bent, his hands unconsciously savaging some inoffensive weed, tough-rooted in the grass. At length he spoke, still looking away from her.

“I spoke with the tavern-keeper up yonder in the village. It was he who told me of this place, and the good lodging to be found here. He told me, too, of a party – he called it a ‘royal party’ – that had recently ridden in bearing some great treasure to be lodged here for safe keeping. This must have been your party? Was the story true?”

“Quite true. I told you that we came to escort a young Frank who is to join the brothers here. He is a prince, and he brings with him a princely treasure.”

“From Jerusalem?”

“Oh, no, from Gaul. I suppose it may have come in the first place from Jerusalem, or somewhere in the Holy Land, but it has been in Gaul for many years. Queen Clotilda, who was wife to Clovis, the Frankish king, first acquired it, and kept it in her own private chapel. That’s all I know, except that now there is war, so the grail has been sent here for safe keeping.”

“Then it is the Grail?”

“They say so.”

He did not appear to notice anything evasive in her reply. He was frowning down again at the weed in his fingers: “I was told that the Grail was here, in Britain, in the keeping of Nimuë the enchantress, who is queen of some castle in the north. In Rheged, she – they said.”

“Macsen’s treasure. Yes, everyone knows that.”

“That is why –” he spoke awkwardly. “You must have wondered when I spoke of witches. I thought that the treasure must have been brought here by Queen Nimuë, perhaps on her way south to the High King’s court. And you were veiled, so I, well, I –”

“Took me for the King’s enchantress?” Alice laughed. “I see. And you sought speech with her. May I ask what your concern is with Macsen’s treasure?”

“I – yes, of course I will tell you. Later I will tell you all of it. But believe me, it doesn’t concern me now. Not as it did. Do I understand that you know where it is?”

“I know that Queen Nimuë’s husband, Pelleas, has a castle in the north-west near the sea, some miles beyond the borders of our land. She also has a house near Camelot, that was Merlin’s house. It’s called Applegarth. She spends a lot of time there, when King Pelleas is with the High King. But I don’t know where she has lodged Macsen’s treasure. How should I? Nobody knows. It’s said that she keeps it hidden by enchantment until Arthur, or the High Kingdom, may have need of it.”