He had already given me a boon by touching Gull, but I did not know it. I could not think. The usual thing would have been to ask for a horse and arms, but—was I ready to be a knight? No, many times no, to my shame. I said, “Sire, may I ask the boon of you some other time?”

“Do so.”

Thus ended my first audience with King Arthur.

Once again in the white and golden courtyard, I stood dazed, blinking. Gawain thumped me on the shoulder and left me, going off whistling to find his lady. The blind harper was still playing, his back to me; the raven on his shoulder did not see me, for which I was grateful. He strummed the lay of Iseult the Fair, and I listened with my throat aching for the sake of the beauty of the music and the tragedy of the lovers and the glory of Camelot.

Others listened also, among them a few silken-gowned damsels and their maidservants. I saw heads turn my way, as was natural, for I was a stranger, but still, the glances made me shy. I would have gone away except that the music held me.

When the last notes of the song had echoed and faded between the white towers, I sighed, and turned to leave, and there in my path stood a maidservant waiting to speak with me. “My lady mistress sends greetings,” she said with a bold, coy look, “and requests to know your name and lineage.”

She took me so much by surprise that I could think of no pretty speeches; I merely blurted out what she wanted to know. “Mordred of Lothian.”

Her face paled and slackened with horror. She shrank back as if I had put a curse on her, then stumbled away.

It was not always like that. Sometimes folk whispered behind their hands as I passed, but other times, other folk were pleasant to me. Yet when someone gave me a friendly greeting, I always wondered: Was it because they did not know who I was? Did they not see the Mordred mark on me, the X of my destiny hiding under my hair behind my ear? Their courtesy seemed of no account.

All the more remarkable, then, was the courtesy of King Arthur.

Because of him, Arthur, jewel of kings, my early days at Camelot shine bright in my memory. An unproved youth, I squired for Gawain or Garet, riding out with them to go hunting or hawking, carrying notes and tokens to their ladies, looking after their lances and swords, arming them for tournaments and helping them onto their chargers and handing them their shields. And riding with them on adventures, sometimes, into the Forest Perilous. But it is not the tourneys or the adventures that I remember. It is odd things, little things: