The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

“I think you’ve been honest with me, Sir Collum, or as honest as you can be, so I should be honest too. You fought well for Camelot today but I don’t trust you. You’re keeping secrets.” At that moment all Collum wanted to do was tell her everything, good and bad, start to finish. It would almost be worth it just to have had this be a genuine conversation between two people in the middle of the night in a courtyard at Camelot. But it wasn’t quite. He wasn’t quite brave enough. “Everybody has secrets,” he said. “Of course they do. Bedivere certainly has them. And Dinadan, and Scipio—Scipio is made of secrets. But you want to be particular about which secrets you keep, right? Because they require a lot of care and feeding. In my experience it’s almost never worth it.” “Well,” he said sheepishly, “fortunately I’m not very good at keeping them.” “I suspected as much.” “I have a feeling you’re the opposite.” “It’s a mixed blessing.” Nimue smiled, and Collum almost felt like himself, whoever that was, for the first time since the battle. She took something out of her bag and tossed it to him. “Here.” It was a silver shilling. “I won it off Dinadan. I have a feeling you’re going to need it more than me.”