Sir Mordred

Good morrow, I am Sir Mordred, a knight of Camelot. I was born in Orkney, on the lands of my mother’s husband, King Lot, around 413 anno Domini, though I was shortly afterwards sent away from that place. 

Ah yes, there is an intriguing story. You see, my father is King Arthur and my mother is Queen Morgause of Orkney, his half-sister, who he laid with shortly after his coronation. How that exactly came about I myself am unsure of, and I killed the man who told me before he could reveal the details of it all. I confess that my temper sometimes runs away from me in times of high passion, and my sword has oft been reddened because of it. It is not so unusual as you would think, here in Camelot. The trick is to only kill those who will not be avenged, or if you do kill those with kin, you make sure they are a weak, sickly sort. 

My mother claims that my kingly father, like his own father before him, took the form of her husband to seduce her. My father claims that she seduced him and that he only knew the truth of their relation when the wizard Merlin told him of it. For my part, I have no idea which is the truth and which is not, only that my mother rarely needed any persuasion to go to a man's bed and that my father has not quite the same monopoly on morality that many here in Camelot would ascribe to him. Then again, I might own to some bias, given that he attempted to drown me, along with every other child born that same May’s Day as me, in a cowardly attempt to save his own life from a prophecy that said that I would one day kill him. 

You know, sometimes I wonder if things would have been better if that old Devil’s bastard Merlin ever learned to keep his mouth shut. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you side with in this little family quarrel, I was taken in by a poor noble family, who presented me at court for the first time when I had attained fourteen years of age. When I was twenty, I was knighted, and it has since been several years. I swear that the smile on my father’s face as he touched that sword to my shoulder, so blissfully unaware, is one that I shall never forget.    

I might not have the same care for such things as dear Sir Galahad, but I do believe that such acts as child murder are generally frowned upon, no? Since then, I believe it is fair to say that my relationship with my father has not been so harmonious as it might have been otherwise, and, if it is indeed destiny, God's will, what have you, that I should one day kill him, I am hardly one to argue. And, if the rest of it all-The crown, the queen, all of the royal trimmings, should fall to the one who kills him, his only living son, then so much the better. After all this anticipation, I should hate to disappoint.