From within the chamber came a woman’s scream, a man’s hoarse shout, and I was saying, “Don’t, Lynette, they’ll slay you too,” and the woman in the chamber was crying out, “No! No, stop! Please—” and I was struggling with Lynette to pull her away from the shattered door, she screamed as if I were trying to hurt her, and from within the chamber came the wet thwack of swords hacking into flesh, and the man’s shout gurgled away, and the woman’s screams—I could not yet think of it as my mother screaming—the woman’s screams gave way to sudden silence, cut off.

In the silence, footsteps echoed as folk came running from all directions, and someone was pommeling me to make me let go of Lynette, or perhaps Lynette was hitting me as she sobbed, “Monster, traitor, murderer,” and I let her go. I strode away.

As I stumbled through the great hall, almost running, from the bard’s shoulder the raven laughed at me—black, croaking laughter.

Outside the keep, I took Gawain’s horse—no one tried to stop me—and I slashed the reins of the other horse, Garet’s horse, and sent it skittering away. It was a small revenge, a pitiful revenge, for the bloody death of my hope.

Perhaps I should not have blamed Gawain and Garet. My lady love would have heard my name soon enough.

Oh, her white face. Horror, there had been nothing but horror for me in Lynette from the moment she learned that I was Mordred.

Because I am Mordred, she thought that I had been trying to ravish her. Lynette thought that I had been trying to carry her away.

I fought my way out of Tintagel by the postern gate, leaving two guards bleeding as I galloped off into the night. On a black horse I rode, and my fate coiled around my chest, tight, hurtfully tight, and hissed like storm wind in my ears. It was no use to fight it. It was no use. Whoever had said “love” to me was a fool; folk hated me even though I had done nothing evil except to be born.

I began to wonder what would happen to me after I killed King Arthur.

I was so in despair. Even Gull’s faithfulness could not comfort me. When I finally halted the black horse that night, threw off my weapons and armor and lay on the dank grass of the Forest Perilous, my sweet little brachet pressed against me and licked my face, but I turned my face to the ground. I ached all over as if I had been in mortal combat, when all I had been fighting was—