Collum sleeps poorly at the Ditchley inn, troubled by ominous warnings that something is wrong at Camelot. In the morning the innkeeper's daughter denies any memory of the short-haired woman in green. Collum sets out for Camelot in grim determination, knowing he is likely to be humiliated: he is not a knight, his stepfather is a mere wool broker, and he is a bastard born of a fisherman lost at sea—wholly unsuited for the Round Table.

The chapter then flashes back to Collum's childhood. His stepfather Peadar paid Lord Alasdair of Mull to foster and train Collum as a knight, providing money to service Alasdair's massive debts. Instead, Alasdair used Collum as a scapegoat, subjecting him to years of beatings, burns, sexual abuse, and isolation at Dubh Hall. Collum sank into despair (acedia), comforted only by the smithy and the blacksmith's stories of the Round Table, which inspired him to embrace Christianity and dream of Camelot.

One day Collum impulsively grabbed a wooden waster from another fosterling and discovered an extraordinary natural gift for fighting. He thrashed three boys before Marshal Aucassin, a worldly Frankish swordmaster, knocked him out. Aucassin afterward tolerated and trained Collum, teaching him the formal art of the longsword and cryptic mystical aphorisms. Collum surpassed his peers and the household knights, training obsessively against the pell, hoping to burn the taint out of himself and one day reach Camelot.

Years later, Lord Alasdair unexpectedly grew rich from a sealskin-and-wine venture and no longer needed Peadar's payments. He ordered Collum to leave by sunset. Enraged, Collum chopped down the pell, then donned Alasdair's prized ceremonial armor; Aucassin silently helped strap it on and sent him off. Collum stole a horse and rode to the docks, trading a stolen hatchet for passage across the Firth of Lorn.

On the boat Collum's bravado collapsed into seasickness, regret, and self-loathing, but he refused to turn back. He needed to discover whether he truly was nothing. Landing on the mainland, he slept in a haystack—seventeen years old, armored, nearly penniless, and bound for Camelot, the one place he believed could remake him.