“No?”

  Collum shoved Excalibur back into his belt. Lancelot undid the brooch, and an alert attendant caught his cloak before it could touch the ground.

  “Come on then,” Lancelot said wearily, like an indulgent father letting his son have a piggyback ride. “God save your soul, Sir Collum.”

  “God damn yours to hell.”

  Lancelot clucked his tongue sadly. Another day, another pretender to the throne who needs killing. He rolled his shoulders and undid the buttons on his doublet halfway. Neither one of them had on a scrap of armor. Whoever death came for today, it would come quickly.

  A slow chant rose up among the soldiers, the king’s name. They were young men, some even younger than Collum, brought on after Camlann, less susceptible to the romance of the Old Guard, Bedivere and Palomides and Dinadan, or even of Excalibur, which they would never have seen before. Merlin shook his head disapprovingly at the whole business, though Collum had the strong impression that it was because he thought a duel unbecoming of the king, not because he had any actual concern for Lancelot’s welfare.

  Collum walked over to the prisoners and, staring down the guards, gently relieved Nimue of her gag. What were they going to do? He was already a dead man.

  “I would offer you some plate,” Dinadan said. “But as you see…”

  He was showing a black eye, and Nimue had a split lip. Bedivere had a nasty cut all the way across his chest.

  “We would give you the benefit of our long experience and point out Lancelot’s weak points,” Palomides said, “except that unfortunately he does not have any.”

  “If you see an opening, take it,” Bedivere said. “You won’t get another.”

  “You did beat the Green Knight,” Dinadan said. “Though admittedly he was made of plants.”

  “And a polecat.” Collum tried to play it off lightly, but his hands were shaking. Death was very near. Bedivere was looking only at Arthur’s sword. Collum held it out, and the pale light played over Bedivere’s craggy features.

  “You really saw the Lady? She gave it to you?”

  “I saw her. And yes and no. I’ll tell you all about it after.”

  “Listen to me.” Bedivere raised his eyes from where he knelt to meet Collum’s. “You can do this. You don’t know it yet, but you can. I’m glad it’s you, Collum.”

  “Bend down.” Nimue was still on her knees too. “Further.”

  He squatted down in front of her and she kissed him. Her split lip tasted of blood. He felt the tip of her warm tongue.

  “There’s a green ribbon in my hair,” she said. “Take it and tie it around your wrist.”

  “What does it do?” Her dark hair was tangled and sticky with salt, but he managed to get the ribbon out.

  “What do you think it does? It’s your lady’s favor, fool.”

  “I love you.”

  “Good.” Her face was white. “Now go kill the king of Britain. I believe in you.”

  Collum kissed her again and walked away. Palomides called after him.

  “Teach him some table manners, magic boy!”

  Collum paced down the beach, windmilling his arms, trying to warm up his chilled muscles, trying not to limp. The world had shrunk to this thin, scrappy stretch of sand. This is the last thing I’ll see, he kept thinking. These rocks. That sky. He bounced on his toes and bent back one wrist, then the other. The clouds were so low they scraped the tops of the headlands at either end.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t even taken a practice cut with Excalibur, and he drew it again. He remembered what Bedivere said about it, when Arthur gave it to him after Camlann, and it was true: its balance was so perfect it felt almost weightless. Its blade bore not one notch or ding, not like the old one he lost in the Otherworld. He saw now that the writing on it was illuminated with birds and beasts and trees and flowers and ships and stars in such detail, the lines so immensely fine, that it was as though the smith had worked all of Britain into the metal. According to the legends Excalibur was forged by fairies on Avalon, in dragon fire. Though that sounded a little too legendary to be true.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Lancelot was watching him impatiently. Collum did his best to chuckle, as if the prospect of one or both of their imminent deaths was of no special concern to him—nay, ’twas even an occasion for merriment. The soldiers spread out in a loose semicircle around them. Lancelot flourished his sword with his left hand, then his right. That was all the warm-up he needed.

  “I am the stone, Lancelot. If you would be king of Britain, then take this sword from me.” Collum had thought up that line while he was swimming. Nothing if not prepared.

  “My name’s Galahad, you pathetic peasant, and I’m already king. And I’m not fighting you with that on your hip.”

  Collum stared stupidly for moment, then he realized he was wearing Excalibur’s scabbard. He supposed he could insist on keeping it on—Arthur always had—but if Lancelot refused to fight he would lose the only chance he had. He unbelted it and in what he hoped was a heroic display of insouciance tossed it aside.

  The soldiers had fallen silent. A straight arm is the essence of manhood, Marshal Aucassin whispered, all the way from Mull, or wherever he was in the wide cold world. Collum still didn’t know what it meant. Long the journey to the kill. It had certainly been long enough. Collum’s palms were slippery, and he dried them on his thighs as best he could, but his thighs were just as damp as the rest of him. It seemed not unlikely that he would die quite soon. Excalibur was great, but Lancelot was the greatest there was. The black lion of the desert padded through his thoughts. I lost an eye for you, she said. Are you going to tell me it was for nothing?

  Lancelot assumed an easy, relaxed guard, a curious one Collum had never seen before, a fairy variant of the Back Guard maybe, but with the blade pointed the other way…Collum shook out his arms, slung his jaw from side to side and let his sword drop into the Fool’s Guard: sword in front, angled down. A defensive guard, deceptively unthreatening, the better to tempt your opponent into an unwary attack.

  They circled widdershins, scraping a circle in the sand with their footsteps, and then simultaneously reversed and went sunwise. Collum had fought Lancelot once before, when he was the Indigo Knight, but that was in armor, and he hadn’t known who he was facing till it was all over. And he’d still lost. Lancelot swayed Arondight side to side like a swimming snake, silver and black, drawing Collum’s gaze hypnotically—no, wrong, watch the body—

  In the space between heartbeats Lancelot somehow flashed across the circle and gave Collum an open-hand slap that made his eyes water. By the time he’d recovered Lancelot had already skipped back to his position.

  The soldiers hooted. First touch to the king.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this,” Lancelot said, exactly as if they were enjoying a long-postponed meal together. “Before I make Excalibur mine I want to see what it looks like from the other side. And you know, as king I don’t expect I’ll get to fight too many more duels, which is a shame because in truth I don’t think anybody’s ever seen what I can really do with a sword. No one’s ever seen me try as hard as I can. I’ve never had to. Shall I try now?”

  “Suit yourself,” Collum muttered.

  Fear and energy surged through him in massive waves, more than he knew what to do with, while Lancelot looked as comfortable as a cat in a sunbeam. Start, Collum told himself. Do something. Draw your fucken sword. Lancelot did something: he executed a balletic spinning kick at Collum’s chin, almost lazily, both feet leaving the ground, which Collum just barely jerked back from in time. Trying to take advantage he sprang forward thrusting at Lancelot’s hands, but the king diverted the strike, neatly and with contempt, and cut at Collum’s bare midriff.

  Collum lost his balance but turned it into a form, sort of, spun and slashed—but no, he couldn’t slash because he had to parry an incoming high cut. He trapped Lancelot’s blade in a bind and tried to wind past it, stabbing at his chest and grabbing for Arondight’s long grip, but Lancelot melted away from the attack. Meet strong with weak. Guess he’d heard that one too.

  They separated, Collum giving ground, already breathing hard, Lancelot strolling after him—was he humming? Some Gascon fucking folk song? This man had beaten every knight alive, and most of the dead ones too. The logic is self-evident. Collum feinted but Lancelot saw right through it, and now his blade whipped and flowed, his strokes almost too fast and liquid to read—he was like a man made of quicksilver. Excalibur was a wonder, light and strong and sharp as split glass, but Lancelot gave him no space to work wonders with it. Arondight’s point flashed at Collum’s groin. Collum hammered it down in a panic and Lancelot struck him smartly in the stomach with the guard. Their swords clashed and locked again and Arondight slid up over his shoulder and he had to twist away before it sliced open the side of his neck.

  Minutes ago he’d been shivering, now he was sweating. He tried to tune out the roaring and cheering of the onlookers. A pebble bounced off his temple, thrown by an overeager minion. Lancelot held up a hand. No need. I’ve got this. I shall prove my righteousness upon his body.

  Will you though? He kicked a spray of sand in Lancelot’s face and stepped into an intricate form he’d worked up on his own, in the courtyard of Dubh Hall, though he’d never tried it on anyone besides a pinewood pell. Excalibur whistled in the air and rang and chimed when it collided with Lancelot’s sword, striking rainbow sparks. Mine is the power, Collum thought. Mine. Nimue chose me. I broke the stone and took the sword. Not you. But Lancelot refused to give ground, and for a solid minute they snapped strikes at each other in wild flurry, triple-time, toe-to-toe. He knocked Arondight aside, took a hand off his own sword and threw his arm around Lancelot’s waist. Lancelot grabbed for Excalibur and they wrestled for it, staggering in a circle like a pair of idiots while Collum tried to throw him, but the man was solid muscle and seemed to weigh a ton.

  He broke away, but Lancelot followed again—his sword kept coming at Collum from unexpected angles, it was never quite where he thought it would be, first the silver side and then the black. Pain stung his shoulder, and a moment later his thigh, then his cheek. It was like Arondight had become a swarm of stinging steel bees. Its guard cuffed his chin and he tasted blood.

  He spat. Lancelot regarded him with professional calm. Everything right on schedule, we’ll be done by nones. Collum studied the tip of Lancelot’s sword, but it was steady as a stone. There was cold water around his ankles—God’s bones, had he already backed up into the sea? This is what my father must’ve felt like, he thought, when he was fighting me. Collum knew how that story ended.

  Enough pretty fencing. Lancelot liked to fight clean so Collum went dirty, filthy, bumping and bashing in irregular rhythms, trying to break up that smooth composure. He smacked Arondight off-center and pushed in close, past it, too close for fine bladework, threw a knee at Lancelot’s groin—blocked—and an elbow at his throat—connected but not hard enough. How stupid it was that anything of consequence should be decided like this, let alone the fate of Britain! An army of great sages should spend a lifetime of study on it, but instead you got two idiots brawling on a wet beach. He grabbed the front of Lancelot’s pretty crimson doublet and tried to throw him again. His mind flashed back to the Green Knight. What did Bedivere say? I won’t countenance suicide.

  But Collum knew how that story ended too. He wondered if Lancelot had learned any schoolboy tricks under that pond. He caught Arondight in a bind again, the two guards grinding against each other, and grabbed both blades with his free hand where they met. Shouting he pushed them over and down till Lancelot’s wrists crossed then he jerked upward—

  But unlike the Green Knight, Lancelot didn’t do his part of the dance. He didn’t let go of his sword; instead he flipped forward over the crossed blades like an acrobat, wrenching Arondight out of Collum’s grip as he went. He landed lightly on his toes, acknowledging applause from the crowd.

  “Good lord, Collum!” He was laughing. “I haven’t seen that disarm since I was a teenager! Full marks for cleverness, but I don’t think it was worth it, do you?”

  Worth it? Lancelot was looking at Collum’s hand. The little finger of his right hand was gone, sheared off at the base and spurting blood, and the top half of his ring finger was dangling from a scrap of skin.

  That couldn’t be right. I’m afraid there must be some mistake. He looked away and looked back. Still there, just as bad as he thought. There was no pain yet, just an icy cold sensation, freezing numbness, but the temperature was rising. That cold was turning to hot, hot, hot.

  Shitting Jesus, what the hell was he going to do now? His mind, seeing its chance, wisely fled from his body for a moment, leaving him standing there numb and confused. He twisted off the dangling knuckle and tossed it aside into the shallow waves. The feeling of his own rubbery severed finger in his hand made him dizzy with pain and revulsion, and his vision grayed out. For a moment he had no idea where he was except that his hand was burning and blood was dripping into the sea. His stomach seized, and he doubled over and threw up into the shallow water.

  Collum leaned on Excalibur like a crutch, breathing hard. His hand was screaming, but over the top of the pain and the nausea came, even worse, a wave of sadness, sadness that it had come to this. He couldn’t look at them, but he knew all his friends, the last of Arthur’s faithful, were watching their last hope die. I’m glad it’s you, said Bedivere, King Arthur’s first companion. Still glad? That light he’d seen in Nimue’s eyes would be good and faded now. They’d put everything they loved and wanted on the shoulders of a jumped-up country knight who never belonged on the Table, let alone in a fight with the greatest swordsman in the world. Not even with the greatest sword ever forged in his hand. They deserved so much better than this.

  And it was Guinevere all along, of course it was. Obviously. But it was much too late for that. What did Bedivere say—losing makes you tough? Perhaps. But as a long-term strategy it had its drawbacks.

  Lancelot had taken a decorous pause, displaying maximum chivalry toward an injured opponent, but the time had come. Even Collum was waiting for it. Have you fucked your mother yet? The crowd roared. He was waiting for his knees to give way, and his part in the drama to end, and the hard work of living in this world to fall to others.

  Lancelot skipped forward, drew an invisible circle in the air and thrust at his heart.

  The plough hit the stone. A spark flared underground. Just as it had that very first day when Sir Villiars had tried to throw him out of the Great Hall. Fuck off back to those Isles you mentioned. Collum looked in himself for the despair, the obedient submission to fate, but he couldn’t quite find them. He found only the rock that the plough couldn’t break.

  He slapped the blow off-center with his bare hand, the hurt one, just hard enough to send it sliding past under his arm, then he snarled and charged, bulling into Lancelot, shoving him back up onto the beach, punching that flat hard stomach with the hilt of his sword. Lancelot grabbed him by the throat but Collum dropped Excalibur and got hold of Lancelot’s belt and the front of his doublet and this time he got him off the ground, lifted him bodily and threw him down hard on the packed sand and heard the wind go out of him.

  Collum tried to stomp on his Adam’s apple but Lancelot caught his foot and twisted it and he went down, too, his hand flaring white-hot when the wound touched the ground.

  But he was past caring. Pain was no longer relevant. Even hope was irrelevant. They were down in the mud, both of them, and the mud was where Collum came from. He gouged and thumbed and tore like a dirty coward, just like the boys had taught him. He groped for a fistful of sand with what was left of his right hand and ground it into Lancelot’s handsome face. He was remembering who he was: not a highborn knight, not a preux chevalier, he was exactly what Lancelot said he was, a hedge-born bastard. Liar and a thief. Collum had always hated that boy, the boy he’d been, hated him for his misery and shame and weakness and his manners and his peat-bog accent.

  But that boy was him. And he couldn’t have been as weak as all that if he got through everything he did and still kept going. Could he. So give me what you’ve got, Sir Prance-a-Lot. Are you sad that God doesn’t love you? He doesn’t love me either.

  “Are you trying yet?” Collum picked up his sword and scrambled to his feet. “Are you? Come on! Get up!”

  Lancelot still had all his fingers, but somewhere along the way he’d lost that affable smile. His fine clothes were wet and sandy. With a growl that Collum recognized he kicked up to his feet—but Collum didn’t wait a decorous interval, he was already on him. Lancelot parried the strike, but Collum was flowing into a kick to the ribs and a thrust that he meant to be blocked so his blade could whip around into a low cut that missed but forced Lancelot back a pace.

  He was coming to understand Excalibur better, what it liked and didn’t like. Bedivere always said that Arthur was a great king but no great swordsman, and Collum was no king but he knew what to do with a sword, and he fancied that Excalibur was rather enjoying being put through its paces for a change. Collum felt like he was coming to understand Arthur better too. Before he was king Arthur was like him, a boy nobody loved or wanted. Bastard-born, mother- and fatherless, raised in the back of beyond under a pall of humiliation. The world had tried to teach him to hate himself, but he’d seen through the lie and understood who he was. They carried scars, both of them, but scars were tougher than skin.

  Collum felt Arthur very near, as near as when he was in his dream. They fought side by side, and maybe he was no swordsman, but Arthur was a peerless strategist. Collum broke out his grand cuts, huge arcs and lines that sheared through Lancelot’s forms, breaking them up and turning them back on him, the geometry of it hanging pure and bright in the air all around him, pretty as one of poor Dagonet’s juggling patterns. He heard his fairy blood singing in him now, and Excalibur sang with it. He moved faster and faster until even the raindrops around him slowed in flight.