PART I

Ethiopia, September 1974

“What is it?

The phantom of a Cup which comes and goes?”

“Nay, monk! What phantom?” answered Perceval.

“The Cup, the Cup itself, from which our Lord

Drank at the last sad supper with his own.

This, from the blessed land of Aromat…

Arimathaean Joseph, journeying brought

To Glastonbury…

And there awhile it bode; and if a man

Could touch or see it, he was heal’d at once,

By faith, of all his ills. But then the times

Grew to such evil that the Holy Cup

Was caught away to Heaven and disappear’d.”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Holy Grail”