Bastard

I am my mother's son. And the son of my father, for what that is worth - the appellation of 'bastard', and, perhaps, the crown. On the eve of battle, now, this tale I tell is not mine, alone, for so many shaped my destiny. My destiny: to kill Arthur. Let us begin, appropriately enough, at the very beginning, then.

Igraine. Sidhe, she was, one of the Shining Host of the Fae, though surely no shining example of such, poor weak thing, and mother to both Morgana, and Arthur. Her second husband, treacherous Uther, the Pendragon, could not bear the sight of my mother, and my aunt, and they were sent away, my aunt to marriage, and my mother to Avalon, where she learned to weave her half-fae magics, and to refine her hate.

And in the long years, Camelot: Uther's sword passed unto Arthur, now grown, High King. But young, yet, you understand, and more than susceptible to the charms of the now also fully-grown, and fully lovely, Morgana. She knew who he was, her half-brother, and knew the course of his destiny as well as she knew her own hatred, but if the fools tell you that he, their virtuous King knew not, they lie: How could they not, when his eyes and her's are both Igraine's, gold-rimmed, shading to green and then a brilliant blue? His hair and hers, too, both shades of fire. He knew. Arthur has been many things, but such an idiot as that? Never.

Thus, before there was any Queen in Camelot, any Gwenivere for the populace to fawn over, there was my conception, and the birth of Arthur's downfall. While Lancelot came from his Gaulish Lake to pledge himself (and so deliciously falsely) to Arthur, Morgana bore me, and raised me; all under the pretense I was Lot's get. Oh, but he knew as well, though he was, indeed, a fool, old Lot, and he hated me, and trained his petty cruelties and scorn into each of his own sons, Gawain and Gaheris, all but Agravaine, in whom that training held not, and to whom I shall speak of more, shortly.

I grew - what child does not, and though Uther had given none of his look to Arthur, in me he was reflected: hair black as midnight, eyes like Eastern emeralds. Ironic, perhaps, for he was weak, too, and so human. I, I am half-fae, as my mother and my father; I can weave their magics but weakly, but in other ways that blood has served me well. Sneaky girl-pretty serpent, they have called me, and why not? It is true enough. But who has stood against me in battle or tourney? I have spilled even Lancelot into the dirt, jousting, and that prowess I credit to my heritage.

King Lot of Orkney's favorite pastime, I believe, in those years, was tormenting me. If a brooch went missing, or a favored hound found dead, why, Mordred did it. He whipped me himself, and I knew it gave him pleasure. I could see it in his bloated, sweating face and gleaming eyes. Morgana let it happen, as if it mattered not, and now I understand why, and blame her not at all; I even thank that pig of a king, for it made me strong, learning not to cry out and beg for the blows to stop, anything but give him that satisfaction. Strong, too, Lot made me in another way, for if I was denied much of the little luxuries and favors which his other sons were granted, and I was; he did not withhold what I most required of him, for he would have no son of his (forced to claim one as such, falsely, or no) a laggard at the arts of war, and so I was well trained to be the best warrior that I might be.

Morgana too, taught me much, of the tangled strands of hate, and love, and never was she ought but a good mother to me, for all that her name is now cursed as that of an evil and cold-hearted witch: witch, indeed, yes - she was a magus to nearly rival Merlin, was my mother. Evil, perhaps, and depending entirely upon one's point of view, but cold-hearted, to me? Never. She was as loving a mother as any son has had, unstinting in praise when I pleased, and firm, perhaps harsh, but never cruel, never humiliating, when I failed. Love, there was, and it saved my spirit even as hatred forged my strength. I was hated, I was loved. I learned both in full measure.

Meanwhile, to the south, in Camelot, the King's court, too, grew strong, his rule solidified, consolidated, and he, himself, adored and revered. I have not been, however, the only serpent: my poor father (and as a father, he was poor, indeed) nurtured his two snakes right at his breast, his treacherous wife and perhaps less treacherous, if stupidity is an excuse, first knight. Oh yes, that is all true as well, all true, and if it were not, we would not be here, tonight. Indeed, I suppose it is true as well, that Gwenivere, and Lancelot, resisted their attraction for long years, struggling to remain true to husband, and to sovereign, but in the end, they betrayed him, and left me only the work of that betrayal's revelation.

I said I would return to Agravaine, and so, let us do. He was not merely my brother-by-half, youngest of Lot's sons save me, but my lover as well. Shocked? You need not be. Why not? It is not a pattern we had begun, after all, but merely danced in the steps of our mother and our separate fathers. You can see that I am fair to look upon, as they have said (though rarely as a compliment), and now, it is after the years have scarred and hardened me; in my fourteenth summer, I was more lovely than any lady of Orkney save one, and Morgana would have scalded the flesh from Agravaine's bones were he ever so foul as to attempt such a thing on his own mother. Not that he would have, for like I, he loved her well.

Agravaine, two years my elder, and, at that age, and with Lot's example, what blame can I place upon him? He began it as a relief to his own lust, but more, as another torment to visit upon the despised lastborn. At first, indeed, I fought him, and when he had gone, leaving me bloody and aching, alone, I wept, but I am as I have said, my mother's son. I saw the advantage. I determined to seize what ally I might. What he had done was, of course, forbidden, and if Lot would not have punished him, the telling of it would have ruined him, and this I knew, and held as my secret, but Agravaine's seduction was all my doing. I fought him not the second time he came, but welcomed him, and surprised myself with the discovery that there was pleasure in such passion for myself, as well. I think it is my pleasure, indeed, that most won him, for I was yet somewhat unskilled at deception, and would not have long been able to hide hatred if I felt it still, but I did not. Agravaine and I taught one another pleasure, the joy of rutting, and finally, the love for any other but the flesh that bore us.

With my flesh, and my words, thus, I captured the heart of Agravaine, who was from then onward my greatest ally save only Morgana, and if I lost my own heart in the while, what of it? It was sweet, for the years he lived, and now is but another searing flame in the fire of my determination to destroy all that once was of Camelot, and Arthur. For, you see, it was Lancelot who murdered my Agravaine, when we came to uncover his lechery with the queen.

For all that he fled, and later returned to carry off Gwenivere lest she be rightfully executed for her treason, for all that he battled Arthur, which left me my opening to seize the throne as his regent, my spies tell me that now, at the very end, he has returned to Arthur, to fight beside him one last time, and been welcomed: another sting in my heart that will return, multiplied, as steel thrust into their hearts.

Lancelot, though, I will admit it, I hated before that night he cut down my love. I hated him, the gallant First Knight; from nearly the moment I arrived in Camelot, to join Agravaine who had gone before me, when I was seventeen. I was a jest, to those glorious knights of the table round, and they laughed, saying how could a slender pretty thing like that ever win his place and spurs. I answered the taunts not with words, but action, and if some of them hated me the more for being knocked down and bloody at the end of a duel or spar, more, I will admit, gave the respect my skill was due. Fools, the lot of them, but now many of them are my fools. In any case, I won my knighthood as fairly as any knight of Camelot.

Why then, did I hate Lancelot? He had, what I had not: my father's love. Arthur knew, long before Morgana came, and the whole world knew (and how they condemned her, as if Arthur was not as guilty of that incest!) that I was his son. Yet, I may nearly as well have been merely another of his company, for all the care he showed me. Which is not to say he was cold, or cruel; Arthur was rarely that, with anyone who had not truly crossed him or when the situation did not demand his royal authority at it's most unyielding: he was affectionate, warm, full of a generous and even kindly spirit towards me, but only as he was to any who fell within his favor. Yet, for Lancelot, there was something deeper, a love that seemed near as great, and genuine, as the love he held for his wife. Even when Arthur had acknowledged me as his son, when the rumors of the infidelity reached a fevered pitch, when I had bested that great champion at the final round of tourney, even then, the king looked upon Lancelot in a way he has never looked upon me. Thus, another hatred.

Understand this, too: for all that I loved, and love still, though she too, is as dead and gone as my other love, my mother, I would never have been ought but Arthur's loyal, faithful, son and knight, had he not favored another above me. That is vital, crucial. I would have found a way to placate Morgana's hatred, and turn her plotting, if Arthur had been what I came to Camelot hoping secretly to find in him: a father worthy of my love and my respect. No, he preferred the traitor, and so twice bred another, myself, (once with his seed, once with his failure to be what I required), which will be his downfall.

Still, lest you think it has been all a misery, before I move to hatred once again, let me speak of joy, and love, for that there was, too, in those years at Camelot. Bright with dances and fairs and the clashing glories of tournaments, were my years as a man, and for all the plotting, and devising, for all that our movements had ever their root in the dark reverse of love's coin, I was happy. I had Agravaine, and I had Morgana. Of my half-brother, so often in my chambers, or I in his, even when the cock crowed dawn, of our closeness, there were of course rumors, and true enough the darkest of them, but for all that it is called evil, and wrong, our love, I never felt it so. I felt joy as he rode me, or I him, greater than even that I felt as I rode into battle, and peace in his arms, as I have known seldom elsewhere. As for mother, as I have said, there was love; she was ever my guiding star, and if I perhaps feigned, and then learned, to hate Arthur just a little more than my heart alone would have inspired, well, it was to please her, and how terrible is that, to love one's mother?

The rest? A mere game of dominoes. Morgana hated, and I hated, and we plotted, and Lancelot, Gwenivere, and Arthur played right into our hands, as neatly and easily as a fly blundering into a spider's web. She died, and Agravaine died, and I live still: perhaps I do this for love of them as much as for hatred of the others; at least, I would like to think so. Now, all that is left is the battle on the morrow. I do not believe, as you have seen, in false modesty. I know well my own prowess, and yet, I know this, too: I may well fall in this battle. I may well die. I fear it but little - whatever lies beyond the veil of death, if anything waits at all, I will be with the only ones I have ever loved, and in either case, I will be at peace, and Arthur, my father, the once great and might King in Camelot, will be destroyed.

Hatred is a complex tapestry, and love, more so; woven together, and there can be no end but this, whether you call it tragedy, or glory. Whatever the end, it is merely that, the end. It is the road, the tapestry's weaving, that matters, and the beginning, for the beginning, and the end, are one and the same. Love, and hate. I am Mordred, my mother's son, and my father's bastard.