I did not know who Morgan was. I knew only that a fay was a sorceress of the otherworld. I heard what Nyneve was saying, but no one had ever hurt me—or not within my memory—so I did not yet feel afraid.

I was still gazing at Nyneve. She wore no belt, but a green baldric hung from her left shoulder across her breast to her right hip, and from the baldric hung a golden dagger with a glimmering dark stone in the hilt. I had never seen such a fine dagger. Already I wanted one like it when I grew up.

“He will be safer in the castle at Lothian,” Nyneve said.

My fishermother sank to her knees, weeping. But Nyneve turned to me and lifted me lightly and placed me upon the withers of the horse, amid the gray mane, which flowed heavily like rain down its neck. Then just as lightly she mounted. She gathered me onto her lap and said to my fishermother as she lifted the reins, “May the Lady, my mistress, ease your pain.” And then we rode away.

I was so taken by the golden dagger and the lady and the great gray steed that I did not weep or say farewell. Also, I did not understand.

The courser surged and curvetted under us, ramping onward three times as fast as a man could walk. “Do you like to ride the horse, Mordred?” Nyneve asked me.

“Yes.”

“You’re a true noble.” I heard a quirk in her voice as if she might laugh at me.

“I am a noble?” I asked, astonished. Though I knew I was the gift of Lyr to my fishermother, I had never thought otherwise than that I was a young churl, fit to run carefree by the sea.

“You are more than noble,” she said. Her voice was soft and made me think of wild roses, as did the softness of her pale pink mouth, as did her fragrance, light and fresh and free. “You are a king’s son.”

It felt astounding at first but then fitting, that I, the gift of Lyr and sun of my fishermother’s sky, was a prince. I sat taller on the horse, and Nyneve’s moon-white hand curled around my narrow childish chest to restrain me.

“What king?” I demanded.

She hesitated.

“Who is my father?” It was the first time in my life that I had thought to ask.

“Softly, Mordred.” Something troubled her quiet voice like wind over still water. “Softly. There are those who say you were born for ill. Those who might wish to kill you yet.”

That jarred me. For a moment I struggled for breath.