Lying upon ladywater, gazing into the depths of Avalon, I spread my arms upon the surface, trying to embrace that lady’s greatness, her vastness. The maidens had long since left me; on my own I slept on the lake, floating on the bosom of the lady, lazily swimming in water as warm as my own blood’s pulsing, and I did not drown.

“Lady of Avalon,” I addressed her, “I am Mordred.”

She smiled, a rippling, shimmering smile like moonlight silvering her darkness. It was as if she knew my name—she who had given King Arthur his sword Excalibur, very likely she knew my name and all about me, very likely she knew more than Merlin did, but her own knowledge was not important to her. A starling in the sky was more important.

As if I had already explained everything to her just by telling her my name, as if I had told her the whole problem, I begged, “Teach me how to fight my fate.”

Her moon-shadow smile broadened. She did not speak, but in that moment I knew, I understood, it all seemed so simple. I did not need sword and shield and armor for this quest; I did not need to fight. I needed only to live. Just to be, like a swallow on the wing or a turtle sunning. Just to be happy.

As if some great and shining fish had jumped, the lady rippled and glistened; now her eyes were silver rings. And she spoke to me, a single word: Love.

The next morning I took gentle leave of Nyneve. “He will come back to you,” I told her.

She looked up at the white falcon flying far overhead and nodded. “I hope so.”

“He will.”

She said, “I wish I bore his baby.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again; there was nothing fitting that I could say. Why did she not bear his baby? Perhaps she needed the King’s healing?

“I am a sorceress,” Nyneve said, seeing my confusion. “It is within my power to decide whether to bear a child, and now I wish that I had decided differently. His baby—I would have had something of him. Now I have nothing.”

Urgently, urgently I felt what it could be to have a sweetheart, how sad to have none. I kissed Nyneve and rode away, spurring my steed into a gallop as soon as I was out of her sight. At reckless speed I rode toward Tintagel, where Lynette, please whatever fey god took charge of these things, where Lynette might yet await me.

Love, the Lady of Avalon had said to me.