A colleague’s envy, when all is said and done, is the scholar’s one reward on earth. I didn’t tell him that in all likelihood I wouldn’t be publishing anything. My nature is to spend years amassing the material for a great work and, when everything is at last ready, I lock it away in a desk drawer and start something new. I had in fact revealed my horror of writing for publication to the Earl and had met with his full sympathy. I think the confession may well have led to the invitation. The Earl felt sure that the outcome of my researches would not be any sort of masterwork.

I also concealed from my colleague one fact he would have sneered at from the dizzy heights of his learning: that it was the living Earl of Gwynedd rather than the dead Robert Fludd that had seized my imagination. The Earl’s face, his person, his whole being, together with the tales Fred had told me, had set my mind racing. He seemed to embody an historical past the way no book ever could. My intuition told me that here was the last living example—and an exceptional one at that—of the genuine student of the arcane in the guise of the aristocrat-alchemist, the last descendant of Rudolph II of Prague, one for whom, as late as 1933, Fludd had more to say than Einstein.

I tell you, the invitation thrilled me. To pass the intervening time—and what else could anyone like me, seeking spiritual adventure, do in my position?—I set about researching the family history. I found a mass of material in the Dictionary of National Biography, and enough references to occupy me for a month of full-time work.

The Pendragons trace their origin—though I notice the line isn’t exactly clear—to Llewellyn the Great. This is the Llewellyn ap Griffith who was beheaded by Edward I, the king whom János Arany immortalised for the young reader in Hungary as riding a pale-grey horse. The old Welsh bards who went to their death in the flames singing like the doomed heroes of their own tragic art were in fact being punished for praising the house of Pendragon. But all this is in the mists of the past. These are the medieval Pendragons, living with their half-savage tribes among the great mountains: in their wars against the English there is something redolent of the hopeless struggle of the American Indians.

Then a strange incident disturbed the tranquillity of my studies.

I was smoking my pipe in the foyer of the hotel one evening, in the company of Fred Walker, when I was called to the phone.

“Hello, is that János Bátky?” a man’s voice asked.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing at the moment?”

“I’m talking on the phone. Who are you?”

“Never mind. Are you in an enclosed booth?”

“Yes.”

“János Bátky … you would be well advised not to get involved in other people’s affairs. You can be quite sure that the people you are working against are aware of your movements.”

“I’m sorry, there must be some mistake. I’ve never worked against anyone. This is János Bátky speaking.”

“I know. Just bear this in mind: everyone who pokes their nose into the Earl of Gwynedd’s little experiments comes to a sticky end. Dr McGregor died in a road accident. The same thing could happen to Dr Bátky”.

“Who is this McGregor?”

“Your predecessor.”

“My predecessor? In what way?”

“I can’t speak more openly. The less you know about this, the better for you. All I can tell you is: stay in London.”

“But why?”

“The air in Wales won’t do you any good. You must sever all connection with … ”

He was trying to articulate something.

“Hello, hello … I can’t catch what you’re saying. Can you speak more clearly … ?”

But he had hung up. I went back to Fred, thoroughly agitated, and told him what had passed.

“Strange … ” he said, and tapped the ash from his pipe into the fireplace, seemingly lost in thought.

“Fred, for God’s sake, don’t be so damn English. Say something. Can you think of no explanation?”

“Well, I did tell you the Earl of Gwynedd is an odd fellow.