Seasons passed. Nyneve did not come again to Lothian, and I decided that she had forgotten me. Garet turned fourteen and became wild with waiting, for in another year he would go to Camelot and wear mail and fight and smite helms and proudly bear a shield blazoned with the device of Lothian: white, a quarter red, with eagles. I turned eleven, nursing a secret fear that I was unworthy to be a noble and King Lothe’s son. I did not like jousting. I did not like sword fighting. Sometimes when I was sleeping restlessly I dreamed of the sea, of the white gulls wheeling and the herring flashing silver in the waves. If some miracle were to happen and I were to wake up one day no longer Mordred, Prince of Lothian, I would gladly be a fisherman on the sea. Or a bard chanting songs of old gods and heroes. Or even a sheep-herder on the rocky hills, spending my days with the sun and rain and the foxes and meadowlarks. But I could tell these thoughts to no one; I was a king’s son and I had to be a knight and a fighter.

Mock combat had taught me enough of fighting, so that I dreaded the time when I would have to fight in earnest; I knew I was a coward. Or so I thought until one summer day.

A hot day, so villainously hot that Gull and I were spending it lying on the floor of one of the basement storerooms. Gull was five years old then, a lovely pure white brachet, strong backed, well sprung, sturdy legged, hard of tooth and soft of temper, with the soulful eyes of a bride. When she ran, her short legs churned and her long ears flew, so that she seemed to skim the ground like a white bird. She could run as fast as any scent-hound in the pack. But this was Gull’s oddity: She had not yet whelped. When she was not with me, she ran with the other castle dogs, scent-hounds and sight-hounds and harriers; she was no virgin. Like King Arthur’s Queen, Guinevere, Gull was barren—so folk teased me. But I did not care if Gull never bore pups.

We lay nose to nose—I could always count on Gull for a wet, cold nose on a hot day—we sprawled on the cool dirt, and I felt so much at peace that I must have dozed; I did not hear Garet calling me or hear him stride in.

“Mor-dred!” He was in a temper. He kicked me in the ribs—this was his customary way of lifting me off the floor, with the toe of his boot—but then he did what he had not done before, what he should not have done: He kicked Gull.