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1. “Just a backwater prince,” says Guinevere, smiling in that light cut-edge way of hers, “with nothing and no one in the world. You needed a push.”
2. He is nothing. He is worse than nothing. He is a failure and a murderer.
3. They’re watching. They’re all watching. They know he will fail. He will wait a year and come back a headless corpse. It would only be divine punishment, after all.
4. He comes back. He leaves a boy and comes back a man, an emerald belt tied around his waist to flaunt his humility to the world. Isn’t humility grand, he says? They watch and listen. Isn’t it grand to tell the truth? I’m not the greatest knight in the world. And that, of course, is what makes them all the more convinced that he is.
5. There aren’t many people at Camelot who are kind. Guinevere is sometimes surprised to find her nephew among those few.
6. “Your cousin is the greatest knight in the world,” says Kay to Yvain, the night that Calogrenant returns from Brocéliande. “I don’t suppose you could try being useful for once?”
7. “Your brother is the greatest knight in the world,” says Arthur to Aggravaine and Mordred, as they stand in front of him-- new arrivals fresh from the clutches of Morgause, looking for hope. “I hope you can follow in his footsteps.”
8. “I’ve heard Sir Gawain is the greatest knight in the world,” says Blanchefleur, sitting at the foot of Perceval’s bed. “Have you met him?”
9. “Come back with me,” begs Gawain, not sparing a glance for Laudine’s strangled expression. “Come back with me. Just for a year. Don’t you love me?” And there’s nothing Yvain can do to defeat the greatest knight in the world.
10. “No, you won,” says Yvain out loud. I beat you, he thinks to himself. I beat you, and when you think of me I want you to remember that. But Gawain only grins and maintains his damnable humility.
11. Camelot is gauntly gigantesque, and it frightens Lancelot to the core. The men and women lining the great hall are blank-faced and serious, bits of vellum nailed to a table with nothing to distinguish them but the colours of their clothes. The king is pale and frowning, and the queen stands austere. “Come,” says the smiling man in green, and his eyes glint. “What brings you here?”
12. Sir Gawain is the greatest knight in the world, repeats Lancelot to himself, and tries to ignore that he turned back at the cart. If no one else sees that pride, he must be mistaken.
13. Sir Gawain is dead.
14. Sir Gawain is the greatest knight in the world.
15. There’s a man in the haunted cemetery by the foot of the castle, and they say he’s fighting the devil. They say he’s Sir Gawain.
16. Sir Gawain is dead.
17. She watches from the sidelines as the man who was supposed to be her protector redeems himself. Perhaps he had never failed in the first place. Perhaps she is wrong.
18. Sir Gawain is dead.
19. Espinogres meets a man on the road. “Who are you?” he asks. “No one important,” says Sir Gawain.
20. Cadrovain meets a man on the road. “Who are you?” he asks. “No one at all,” says the nameless knight.
21. Tristan meets a man on the road. “Who are you?” he asks.
22. But Sir Gawain is dead.
23. “The kingdom ground to a halt without you,” says Guinevere, after the wedding. “Doesn’t that frighten you? You aren’t Camelot. You shouldn’t be Camelot.” Gawain smiles at her flippantly. “If I’m dead, why should Camelot live on?” he says, and he thinks it’s a joke, and she’s desperately worried that it isn’t.
24. Pelleas hates him. Why should he be happy and Pelleas miserable? Why should Ettarde love him? He’s heard stories of Sir Gawain. The greatest knight in the world, they say. He’ll never trust what they say again, because when he looks at the sleeping man beside Ettarde all he sees is a face which glories too much in the delights of fame.
25. Sometimes Kay sees through him. Sometimes he tilts his head in the right way and doesn’t see his nephew at all, just a cardboard cutout of a knight with something darker pulling the strings. But no one else sees that, so maybe he’s wrong.
26. “What has happened to him?” whispers Bertilak, as the front gate closes. “What has he done?”
27. “We can’t do that,” says Lancelot, nervously. “Right? That’s not chivalrous. That’s an ambush.” Leaning in, Gawain gives him a wide smile. “Oh?” he says, and everything about him is sharp and beautiful. “And who’s going to stop us?”
28. “Death to Lamorak,” says Gawain quietly. His brothers nod. There’s never an end to the reach of Gawain’s shadow.
29. It’s unfair. It’s patently unfair. Dinadan has spent his life mocking kings and bishops, always ready for a knife in the dark. But in the end it’s none of those things that gets him, just a man he used to call a friend, a man with too many strings to pull and stretch and snap and no one to tell him no.
30. “You’re a sinner,” says the priest. He doesn’t need divine help to notice that. The man on the tired roan horse has eyes like gimlets and a mouth like the devil. “You won’t find the Grail. You know that, right?” The man cocks his head, half a smile stapled onto his face. “I know,” he says.
31. Someone is dead, and it isn’t Sir Gawain.
32. “Go get the queen,” orders Arthur. His nephew-- the man who by all rights should be his heir-- stares back at him dispassionately. “Don’t try that on me.” So Arthur doesn’t.
33. Mordred has finally escaped Gawain’s shadow, but the strings are still hooked into his joints. “You’ll be a good king,” says Gawain, and Mordred doesn’t know if he’s being mocking or not. “Just stay here while I destroy him.” Mordred nods. “Right,” he says, and is desperately glad he won’t be there to see what has truly become of his brother.
34. “Take me to France,” says Gawain, gripping Arthur by the wrist with a hand like ice. “I won’t forgive him and neither will you. We will destroy him, uncle.” And Arthur can’t say no.
35. Gawain is covered in blood, his wild brown hair drenched and matted, and his eyes alight with an unholy fury. Even now, he looks more alive than anyone else Lancelot knows. “I’m not going to kill you,” Lancelot pleads. “I love you.” The worst part of it is that still, even now, he does. Perhaps this is all there ever was to love, hidden deep under the brocade and golden crest.
36. “Can we leave?” Arthur begs, more than once. “No,” Gawain always says.
37. The armies of Orkney are gathered at the base of the castle, and Guinevere storms down the halls. She should have known. She should have known from the second her husband’s nephew stumbled into court with a repentant expression and the head of a murdered woman. Patient Sir Gawain, she thinks furiously. Running the show off in France while his puppet sneaks in the backdoor. All the Orkney brothers are one and the same: the wooden limbs at the end of near-invisible strings.
38. “We have to leave,” Arthur says, his voice breaking.
39. “I love you,” says Sir Lancelot, in tears. “And what does that say about me?”
40. But Sir Gawain is dead.