The river now below him faded away into the distance, a pale sun shining through the mist to touch it with silver.
He was standing where he had stood so many times before as a youth. Would Imogene come to him now — or had he left her behind in Greece? Did she really exist? Had she ever existed as she appeared to him? Had the vision he had seen so many times and assumed to be Imogene, the queen of ancient New Troy, been in fact rather some kind of premonition, a prophetic image, of the woman who would eventually be his queen?
No matter what feelings he had just experienced for Rheinid, he could not ignore the fact that Alcestis had been ‘given’ to him by the Fates in a most extraordinary way.
Now he could feel a presence — but he could see no one.
‘Imogene!’ he whispered, the skin prick
