A ley line is what might be called a field of force, a trail of telluric energy. There are hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all over Britain, and they've been around since the Stone Age.

That Arthur has not always existed seems odd to me. Like the wind on the moors and the wild winter stars, surely he has always lived . . . and always will.

They are young and life has no limits. Nothing is impossible, nothing beyond doing or knowing. The world is theirs and everything in it.

The Queen of Air and Darkness tilted back her head and laughed. A more ghastly sound I hope never to hear. ‘Do you think I care about these trifles?’ ‘Murder is no trifle, woman,’ Arthur said. ‘No? How many men have you killed, Great King? How many have you slain without cause? How many did you cut down that you might have spared? How many died because you in your battle-rage would not heed their pleas for mercy?’ The High King opened his mouth to speak, but could make no answer.

I knew, even as we touched that I had never wanted anything more in all my life. All my crabbed cravings were as a cupful of pond water beside the vast ocean of longing I felt surging through me. My head swam; my eyes blurred. I burned from the inside out as if my blood and bones were consumed with liquid fire.

The path is revealed in the treading.

We are closest to Christ when sharing the world’s misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.