We rode as fast as we could the next day, and the day after that. We covered as much ground as we had in the previous four days. Bellina’s temper became frayed; she was unused to riding astride, and complained of her aches and pains constantly. Martha got angry with her in return, and refused to speak to her. I was in constant dread of what we would find when we got to Orkney. I expected that our friends would have been slaughtered by Sir Lamorak, and, against my will, my mind delighted in finding inventive and macabre scenes of their destruction. In one, we found them hacked to pieces and strewn across the shore; in another we found them burned around a huge stake, in a cruel mockery of the Maypole.

‘What’s that?’ said Petal, as we built a fire on which to cook a poor meal of gruel.

‘What’s what?’ snapped Bellina.

‘Shush, girl,’ said Martha angrily.

I crept up the rise of the hollow in which we had decided to camp, and looked north. We were in one of the wooded areas of Caledonia, a grand forest valley, banked by high mountains. There was a clear road marked through the valley, though roads were unusual in those parts. I heard the dull clunk of a cowbell over the wind that shook the tall trees, and had just decided it was simply a cow that had become separated from its herd when I saw a figure emerge from the gloom of the trees. It was hobbling along the road, twisting from side-to-side. With each sway of its body the cowbell tied round its neck sounded. I watched with a horrified fascination as it came closer.

‘A cow, lad?’ said Martha, who had climbed the rise behind me.

‘Take a look.’

The blacksmith peeked over the ridge, saw what I had seen, and in a moment she had broken cover and was sprinting towards the shambling figure. She left behind only two words and the wind. The words were: ‘My lady.’

I watched the huge woman sprint towards the wizened one, and knew that the figure on the road was my mother. I stayed where I was. My horror mixed with pure delight. Whatever had happened to Lady Nemue, terrible as it was, she deserved it. As Martha approached her, another figure broke from the cover of the wood. He rode a black horse.

‘Oi, get away from her!’ he cried at Martha.

It was Mordred, riding to Lady Nemue’s defence.

* * *

No matter how much Martha sobbed, clutching at my mother’s hands, the thing would not stop walking south. My explanation of who Martha was and why Mordred should not hurt her were thus conducted in odd conditions, as we walked beside Nemue’s husk.

Although it was dark, it was clear my mother had been wounded by the Spear of Longius, just as Garnish had been. She looked impossibly old, her bones prodding through spiderweb skin. There was a curve to her back that would never be straightened, and a wound in her chest that, though it had been bound, wept blood. Her eyes were clouded over, not with age, but with the same hollowness I had seen in Garnish. She smelled of piss and the grave. I looked on her coldly, but Martha would not stop sobbing.

‘I saw it happen,’ Mordred explained. ‘I’d been following Sir Lamorak for three days. He spotted her riding hard, and laid an ambush. Speared her from a bush. Then she turned into this. With her being your mother I thought I should make sure she was safe.’

Martha reached for my mother’s neck, and gently, so as not to hurt her, untied the cowbell. This done, she hurled the bell into the trees with absolute fury.

‘She doesn’t stop walking, day or night,’ said Mordred. ‘The bell was the only way I could rest and still keep track of her.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ I said. ‘You should have guided her to a cliff-edge.’

Mordred was shocked. Martha wasn’t. She threw herself at me and took me down to the ground, her hand at my throat.

‘What?’ I snarled at her. ‘What? You want me to be concerned for her?’

There was an edge of brimstone on Martha’s breath, a substance in her eyes as hot as the metal she worked in her forge. I wasn’t afraid, and I showed her that with cool, defiant eyes. She pushed me hard in the neck and released me.

‘I want you to show some family loyalty, lad.’ Although her voice was calm, she paced back and forth by my mother’s side, wringing her short hair with her hands.

‘Stay with her,’ she said, and dashed back up the rise. She came back down a few moments later, leading her horse. Bellina and Petal had stayed on the ridge, but were looking down on us.

‘What are you doing, Martha?’ I said.

She ignored me. ‘My lady, my lady.’ She lifted my mother’s hand. ‘Ride, my lady. I will take you home to Lady Nerina.’

‘It’s no good,’ said Mordred, ‘I tried, but she just keeps walking.’

‘What are you doing, Martha?’ I said. ‘Martha!’

The blacksmith was leading her white horse to my mother’s side.

‘I’m taking your mother home, Drift.’

‘She banished you on pain of death – have you forgotten that?’

‘I have not. But neither have I forgotten everything she has done for me in the past. I owe her too much to leave her alone and helpless like this.’

‘What about me?’ I shouted. ‘Are you going to leave me alone too?’

I had stopped walking and they were twenty feet ahead of me. Martha dropped her horse’s reins and came back. I prepared myself to strike her. If she wanted a fight I would give her one.

She did not attack me. She looked at Mordred on his horse, and then Bellina and Petal up on the ridge. ‘You’re not alone, lad,’ she said coldly. She pointed back down the road. ‘My lady is.’

‘But you said you were on my side.’ I heard the whine in my own voice, and so did she.

Martha gave me one last disappointed look and ran after my mother and her horse. For a long while I wasn’t able to move. Then I laughed a harsh, cruel laugh. ‘So ends the tale of Lady Nemue,’ I said under my breath. ‘The harpy of the Lake.’

I caught Mordred’s eyes as I turned back up the rise. He had heard my words, and was disturbed by them.

* * *

‘When Lamorak attacked your mother there was this bright light from the end of his spear,’ Mordred told us as we sat around the remains of our fire. ‘A huge, dazzling ball of light. It blinded me for a moment, and when I could see again it had shot off into the sky.’

I was relieved. ‘We saw it.’

‘It flew over our heads,’ said Petal. ‘We thought it was a shooting star at first.’

‘I thought Lamorak had found Epicene.’ I explained to Mordred how I had seen the burned knight skewer Garnish. ‘The spear stole only a spark of magic from him.’

‘But your mother is much more powerful than him,’ said Mordred.

‘Was. Neither of them has any power now.’

Mordred bowed his head and ruffled his hair. ‘So that means that Merlin’s absorbed Lady Nemue’s powers as well.’

‘Oh Jesus,’ whimpered Bellina.

I clicked my tongue. ‘I suppose so.’ I shrugged. ‘Merlin said something about how spearing Garnish had been a test; that now he was sure spear worked, that it was his. I suppose he’s altered the spear, so he can use it to absorb magic when he’s not present. Epicene will be able to explain better than me, but I think from what happened with the Accolon-thing on Avalon that he needed to be in contact with a sorcerer to eat magic before. With the spear he can do it from far away.’

‘Then he’s more dangerous than ever,’ said Mordred. ‘Where was Lady Nemue going?’

‘Orkney,’ I said. ‘She had it in her mind that my sister Neave was there, but that’s ridiculous.’

‘I see,’ said Mordred, and I didn’t think any more of it.

As my joy at seeing my mother reduced faded, my fear of Merlin crept up on me. I remembered how the wizard’s presence distorted the magical elements of the world even before he had gained my mother’s powers – and someone had once described my mother as being close to a god.

‘But perhaps...’ Petal started to say. ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Go on Petal, what is it?’

She swept her hair back. ‘Queen Melody always used to say that every time you learn a new weapon it takes a short time to learn the attack, but much longer the defence. I mean, she was talking about insults, and boys playing with wooden swords, but perhaps this toy of Merlin’s... maybe we can find a way to turn it against him.’

‘Drift?’ said Mordred.

I shrugged. ‘Epicene will know, but I’m sure we’d need to get our hands on the spear before we could do anything to it. And even then I’m not sure she’d be powerful enough to do anything to one of Merlin’s spells. I suppose if we could get the spear to Epicene’s father, he might...’

‘But we’d need to get the spear from Sir Lamorak first,’ said Bellina. ‘He’s never been beaten. Not even by Sir Lancelot or Sir Tristan.’

Mordred flinched at the mention of Tristan. I saw his pain register on Bellina’s face, but though she knew the stories of King Anguish, Sir Marhaus and Iseult, she didn’t particularly care about Mordred’s feelings.

‘Did you see Brunor on the road?’ I asked.

Mordred shook his head.

‘Merlin sent Lamorak after Epicene. Brunor rode ahead to warn her.’

‘Lamorak’s still on the mainland,’ Mordred said. ‘At least he was last time I saw him.’

‘He’ll go to Orkney before long, regardless of whether he finds her,’ said Bellina.

‘What make you think that?’ said Mordred.

She frowned at him as if he was stupid for not knowing. ‘Everyone knows that Sir Lamorak has always been in love with Queen Morgawse. He proposed to her when they were both young, practically the only words he has ever said; but she refused him in favour of King Lot. Ever since then Lamorak has liked to go to Orkney and make a nuisance of himself whenever he can.’

‘Agravaine told me his mother doesn’t like Lamorak’s visits,’ I said. ‘Last time he was on Orkney he crippled one of Morgawse’s attendants.’

‘What next, then?’ said Petal.

‘In the morning we get you three on a boat to Orkney,’ said Mordred. ‘There’s a river village not many hours away if we ride hard. And then I find Lamorak again, see where he is. Maybe he’s still looking for Dinadan.’

‘And do what?’ said Bellina disdainfully. ‘Fight him? You’re no Sir Tristan; you wouldn’t have a chance.’

‘We need to get our hands on the spear,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a day’s start, and then lead him to Orkney. Drift and Epicene will do the rest.’

Mordred offered to stand guard for the night, but Petal said that as he had been so long on the road he should sleep. As we lay together in the smaller tent I finally had my chance to ask him why he had risked Garnish reporting to his spymasters that the others were on Orkney.

‘I always wanted lamorak to go to King Lot’s palace,’ he whispered back.

‘lord jesus,’ I hissed. ‘You wanted to put the others in danger?’

His black eyes caught what little light crept through the canvas. ‘I hoped that a visit from him would spur King Lot to join with us. But Garnish never got the chance to deliver his message.’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Epicene already knows about the spear, assuming Brunor made it to Orkney. You and she will find a way to take it from lamorak’s hands when he arrives.’

I lay awake after Mordred had fallen asleep, remembering my tenth birthday. My sisters round the Maypole. Martha playing her fiddle. My mother inviting me onto her knee. When I saw you for the first time, I felt nothing but disgust. I cursed you there, on the birthing bed. But you would not die. That’s what Lady Nemue had told me that day. She deserved what had happened her, she did.

I closed my eyes and turned onto my side.

Just before sleep took me some the old refrain drifted into my memory. Don’t forget this, hunchback, Merlin once again told me through the mouth of poor Margaret of the Marsh, everything you love will leave you.