She sighed and leaned toward the lake, laying her head against a pillar, her face in shadow. She said, “I have told you it is a hard thing to be a woman. Morgan le Fay is one who could have been our blessed liege King Morgan had she only been born a man.”

“And I could have been an eagle to fly away from here had I only been born with wings.”

Nyneve sat up and scowled at me. “You of all men should understand. You have felt yourself to be a chattel of your so-called fate; is not a woman a chattel of her low estate? Morgan le Fay rules her lands as ably as any lord in the realm, but King Arthur will not title her or admit her to his council.”

But King Arthur was right. The idea of titling a woman was laughable. “Why, what would he call her? Lord Morgan?”

Nyneve did not answer, but merely gazed at me levelly and asked, “Have you found that for which you quest?”

She stopped my laughter in my throat. How did she know of my quest? And what was she trying to tell me?

“No,” I replied, feeling fear coil in the hollow of my chest, “I have found nothing.” Speaking with my fisherfather had not helped me. Speaking with Morgan le Fay had only made things worse. I felt my fate riding like a serpent on my shoulders, winding tighter around me day by day.

“And for what did you come here? To speak with me?”

I understood her then. She was saying that I needed her—a woman—to be my ally. She angered me, but I saw the falcon on her shoulder and pitied her, so I said nothing of my anger. “I came to thank you for saving my life,” I told her quietly, “and to see if you are all right.”

That surprised a soft sound out of her, a sigh that might almost have been a sob. After a moment she said with something of her old gentle merriment, “You’re welcome. And what will you do about it if I am not all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dear Mordred.” She had never spoken to me so tenderly. “There is nothing you can do. But since you are here, you should seek audience with the Lady of the Lake. Perhaps she can help you find what you are seeking.”

I slept that night in an airy pavilion on Avalon shore, and the next day the maidens fed me flowers by the plateful, amaranth and lilies and columbine and asphodel. It seemed not at all odd to eat flowers. In that one day my wounds healed as if they had never been. Then I slept again in the pavilion with Gull by my side.

In the afternoon of the next day, Nyneve came for me. “Are you ready?”