“Hush!” Gawain turned on his brother, then back to me, looking up into my face, pleading. “The land would blacken if he said it. The lakes would boil and turn to poison. The sky would cry blood.”

I sat cold, not knowing whether to believe them. Was I, King Arthur’s nephew and his son, so very unnatural? If they could think me such a monster, how could they not hate me? Yet Gawain’s big, rugged hand lay warm on my knee.

“Mordred, you must not say it, you must not even think it,” he begged me. “Never again. Please. Promise.”

But—it was my dream he was trying to take from me. “Gawain, I cannot promise you my thoughts!”

“But you will not speak. Mordred, swear it to me.”

And I swore. For it was as Gawain said; it would be most unwise for me to call myself the King’s son. I could indeed be killed. But even more, I swore for this reason: that always in my dreams it was not I, Mordred, who spoke; it was my father, King Arthur, who acknowledged me. And that was what I truly wanted.

My brothers called for a cot and made me and Gull a bed in a corner of their chamber. In the morning, Gawain would take me to court to look upon my father’s face.

6

I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT FOR DREAMING OF KING Arthur. I would keep the vow I had sworn to Gawain, to be silent; it would be better that way. My father would look upon me and see himself in my face. He would reach out to me. He would stand, wavering just a little, and step down from his throne and embrace me. My son, he would say. Prince Mordred.

In the morning I dressed in my best clothing: tunic of bleached cambric and tabard of quilted indigo silk, blue cap, blue leggings, boots—and knew it to be not nearly good enough. Gawain and Garet took me to the kitchen, but I could not eat. Gawain jested with the serving folk, but I could not smile. When he had eaten, he led me through a maze of passageways—this castle was as bewildering in its way as the Forest Perilous, this Camelot. Vast and towering and labyrinthine. But not green-shadow dim; even inside, Camelot shone white. The courtyard, where Gawain led me, glowed with sunlight.

In the sunlight sat a blind harper, an old man in a simple robe of brown homespun, playing on his harp and chanting a ballad:

. . . Down in yonder green field

Lies a knight slain under his shield.

His hounds lie down at his feet

To guard him in his final sleep.

His hawks fly a watch so fierce

No carrion bird dares to come near.

Down there comes a fair red doe

Great with fawn, weighted with sorrow.

She kissed him on his bloody head.

She carried him to his earthen bed.