And never would, I knew. Damn my foolish longings; in the plain light of day I knew well enough what would happen if King Arthur named me son. It was as Gawain had said, the land would blacken and the lakes would boil. Barons would roar and rebel. Thousands of men would march to war.

Arthur, Very King, was wedded to his realm even more surely than he was wedded to his beloved Guinevere. He would never risk fifteen years of hard-won peace for my sake. He would kill me first.

As he had tried to do already.

I hated him.

No. Damn my childish hatred. I said to Nyneve, “He is all goodness.” King Arthur, the rose among kings, golden, fearsome, generous and just—I adored him. “I mean it; I should leave. No good can come of my being here.”

“Has not good come of it already? In you? In what you feel for him?”

I shrugged, angry at myself because my voice had betrayed emotion. “Let us go down to the courtyard.” And speak of other things. “Come, Nyneve, you will turn into an owl up here.” She spent too much time in her tower, gazing from her window, eastward, the way Pelleas had gone.

She made a face at me and quipped, “I should go away.”

Her mockery was gentle, as always. I rolled my eyes and offered her my arm. “Come, let us stroll in the sunshine.”

In the courtyard we found many folk enjoying the last of the good weather—little children and their nurses, stableboys, soldiers, lords in tunics of indigo velvet, ladies in satin gowns. Gawain was there with the maiden he was courting at the moment, offering her a bouquet of asters—he looked only to her, but many others looked to me, silent, wary. They moved away from me, then turned to stare. It was always thus when I went among castle folk. Camelot had heard the prophecy. Camelot was watching.

Instead of answering their stares, I looked at Nyneve, at her flower of a face, fair and pale—too pale. She was often pale these days. Only leather bound her braids, no gold, and she wore no gold on her gown, not even a brooch. I wished I could give her an aster to put in her hair.

“He will come back to you,” I told her.

She darted a glance at me, startled, then smiled—but it was not her merry smile. “The mirror is muddy,” she said. “I cannot see.”

“But you would know if he were—” I did not wish to say it.

“I am not sure. The Grail is a fearsome thing.” She turned away from me, looking toward the gates, then up at the soaring white walls as if she wanted to fly out of that place. “His quest takes him farther from me than I know how to say.”