I followed the track and the road, emerging from the hills near the old Roman fort of Cicucium that was now home to a group of nervous families. Their menfolk saw me and came from the fort’s broken gate with spears and dogs, but I waded the stream and scrambled uphill and when they saw I meant no harm, had no weapons and was evidently not the scout for a raiding party, they contented themselves with jeering at me. I could not remember being so long without a sword since childhood. It made a man feel naked.
It took me two days to reach home; two days of bleak thinking without any answer. Gwydre was the first to see me coming down Isca’s main street and he ran to greet me. ‘She’s better than she was, Lord,’
he called.
‘But getting worse again,’ I said.
He hesitated. ‘Yes. But two nights ago we thought she was recovering.’ He looked at me anxiously, worried by my grim appearance.
‘And each day since,’ I said, ‘she has slipped back.’
‘There must be hope, though,’ Gwydre tried to encourage me.
‘Maybe,’ I said, though I had none. I went to Ceinwyn’s bedside and she recognized me and tried to smile, but the pain was building in her again and the smile showed as a skull-like grimace. She had a fine layer of new hair, but it was all white. I bent, dirty as I was, and kissed her forehead. I changed my clothes, washed and shaved, strapped Hywelbane to my waist and then sought Arthur. I told him all that Nimue had told me, but Arthur had no answers, or none he would tell me. He would not surrender Gwydre, and that condemned Ceinwyn, but he could not say that to my face. Instead he looked angry. ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense, Derfel.’
‘A nonsense that is giving Ceinwyn agony, Lord,’ I reproved him.
‘Then we must cure her,’ he said, but conscience gave him pause. He frowned. ‘Do you believe Gwydre will live again if he is placed in the Cauldron?’
I thought about it and could not lie to him. ‘No, Lord.’
‘Nor I,’ he said, and called for Guinevere, but the only suggestion she could make was that we should consult Taliesin.
Taliesin listened to my tale. ‘Name the curses again, Lord,’ he said when I was done.
‘The curse of fire,’ I said, ‘the curse of water, the curse of the blackthorn and the dark curse of the Otherbody.’
He flinched when I said the last. ‘The first three I can lift,’ he said, ‘but the last? I know of no one who can lift that.’
‘Why not?’ Guinevere demanded sharply.
Taliesin shrugged. ‘It is the higher knowledge, Lady. A Druid’s learning does not cease with his training, but goes on into new mysteries. I have not trodden that path. Nor, I suspect, has any man in Britain other than Merlin. The Otherbody is a great magic and to counter it we need a magic just as great. Alas, I don’t have it.’
I stared at the rainclouds above Isca’s roofs. ‘If I cut off Ceinwyn’s head, Lord,’ I spoke to Arthur,
‘will you cut off mine a heartbeat later?’
‘No,’ he said in disgust.
‘Lord!’ I pleaded.
‘No!’ he said angrily. He was offended by the talk of magic. He wanted a world in which reason ruled, not magic, but none of his reason helped us now.
Then Guinevere spoke softly. ‘Morgan,’ she said.
‘What of her?’ Arthur asked.
‘She was Merlin’s priestess before Nimue,’ Guinevere said. ‘If anyone knows Merlin’s magic, it is Morgan.’
So Morgan was summoned. She limped into the courtyard, as ever managing to bring an aura of anger with her. Her gold mask glinted as she looked at each of us in turn and, seeing no Christian present, she made the sign of the cross. Arthur fetched her a chair, but she refused it, implying that she had little time for us. Since her husband had gone to Gwent, Morgan had busied herself in a Christian shrine to the north of Isca. Sick folk went there to die and she fed them, nursed them and prayed for them. Folk call her husband a saint to this day, but I think the wife is called a saint by God. Arthur told her the tale and Morgan grunted with each revelation, but when Arthur spoke of the curse of the Otherbody she made the sign of the cross, then spat through the mask’s mouthpiece. ‘So what do you want of me?’ she asked belligerently.
‘Can you counter the curse?’ Guinevere asked.
‘Prayer can counter it!’ Morgan declared.
‘But you have prayed,’ Arthur said in exasperation, ‘and Bishop Emrys has prayed. All the Christians of Isca have prayed and Ceinwyn lies sick still.’
‘Because she is a pagan,’ Morgan said vituperatively. ‘Why should God waste his mercy on pagans when He has His own flock to look after?’
‘You have not answered my question,’ Guinevere said icily. She and Morgan hated each other, but for Arthur’s sake pretended to a chill courtesy when they met.
Morgan was silent for a while, then abruptly nodded her head. ‘The curse can be countered,’ she said,
‘if you believe in these superstitions.’
‘I believe,’ I said.
‘But even to think of it is a sin!’ Morgan cried and made the sign of the cross again.
‘Your God will surely forgive you,’ I said.
‘What do you know of my God, Derfel?’ she asked sourly.
‘I know, Lady,’ I said, trying to remember all the things Galahad had told me over the years, ‘that your God is a loving God, a forgiving God, and a God who sent His own Son to earth so that others should not suffer.’ I paused, but Morgan made no reply. ‘I know too,’ I went on gently, ‘that Nimue works a great evil in the hills.’
The mention of Nimue might have persuaded Morgan, for she had ever been angry that the younger woman had usurped her place in Merlin’s entourage. ‘Is it a clay figure?’ she asked me, ‘made with a child’s blood, dew, and moulded beneath the thunder?’
‘Exactly,’ I said.
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,