‘Honesty.’ He leaned forward, interlacing his fingers between his knees. ‘All right. When I was first clanking about in the streets of the city…I saw her. I was staggering around, endeavoring to get my bearings, and suddenly I saw her. When I looked upon her, it was as if I ‘recognized’ her somehow. I saw her sitting there, and she looked up at me, and suddenly…’ He shivered slightly at the recollection. ‘I saw her. My Gwynyfar, Guinevere, Jenny…so many names, all of them barely able to encompass the one woman. She was smiling at me from ten centuries ago, dressed in ermine, long candles flickering in our bedchamber. And Camelot was so damned cold, Merlin, you remember. On chill nights the wind would cut like the sharpest of blades, but when she was with me, there was warmth in the room, and a peace and happiness such as I never knew…’
Peter David, “Knight Life”