Yes, pups. It was as King Arthur had said: Gull had whelped a litter at last, seven handsome round little brachets and brach-hounds as blind and soft as so many moles, three of them white, three spotted, and one as black as night. Gull had given birth to them in my bedchamber in Nyneve’s tower, but Kay, the seneschal, had suggested to me in decided tones that the kennel was a more fitting place for puppies, so to the kennel they went, and of course Gull had to stay there with them. And I spent hours every day there with Gull. At one time or another I had my face licked by every dog in the kennel, from the great fierce-toothed mastiffs and willowy gazehounds to the tiny terriers; maidens did not care for me, but dogs adored me.

In the kennel, I would let Gull’s puppies crawl upon me and nuzzle my throat with their blunt heads as I lay in the straw and tried to sense what I should do. I should leave, I had said to Nyneve. I should leave, I had said also to Gawain more recently. “You just hold up your head,” he said. “No brother of mine is a coward.” But I was a coward, and therefore not his brother, so why did I stay?

“Mordred.”

I blinked and looked up. Standing as he was in the brightness of the doorway, and lying as I was in the shadows, I saw at first only a tall form haloed in golden glory, as if he were an angel.

“My liege?” I lifted three of the puppies away from me and started to scramble up.

“No, stay.” King Arthur came in and sat on a bale of straw close by. “You’re wise. It’s warm in here.” Flushed from cold, he threw back his deep-dyed blue mantle, then spoke gravely to Gull, who was lying flat on her side in the straw, thumping her tail at him, as the other four puppies suckled. “Greetings, brachet. You’re a good brachet to make such fine pups.”

Just the month before, I had seen the folk lined up at Camelot’s gate by the hundred on the first day of the new moon: sickly children, old people with goiters or gout or scrofula, cripples, folk from all over the realm in need of the King’s touch. I understood that part of being a Very King was to be a healer.

“The brachet thanks you for taking away her barrenness,” I said, trying to match King Arthur’s whimsical tone, wondering why he could not take away the barrenness of Queen Guinevere.

He gave me a wry half smile. “She’s welcome.”

We sat in silence as I tried to think why he might be there and as my heart struggled with the clashing emotions I always felt in his presence, the yearning and resentment.