Collum, a young, would-be knight from Mull, finds himself locked in single combat with a mysterious knight in a sunlit British meadow. Outmatched at first, he is exhausted, hungry, and desperately afraid of losing his stolen armor and horse, his only possessions and the only things that give him a shred of identity. The opposing knight wears old-fashioned, noble armor decorated with a defaced silver rose and bears a vergescu, a plain white shield used by knights in disgrace or hiding their identity.

The fight is fierce, but when the mystery knight overcommits a backhand stroke, Collum seizes the opening and pummels him to the ground with sword and gauntlet. Triumphant and tearful, Collum thanks God for his improbable victory and politely asks the knight to yield, hoping to converse and perhaps gain news of Camelot or Sir Bleoberys of the Round Table.

Instead, the defeated knight responds with crude insults and treacherously offers his hand only to draw a misericord and stab at Collum's groin. They wrestle on the ground; in panicked self-defense, Collum forces his own knife through the slit of the knight's helm, killing him. Shaken, Collum realizes he has committed his first kill, an inglorious murder a day's ride from Camelot.

Examining the dead man's painted-over shield, Collum makes out the heraldry beneath the whitewash: Azure, Three Scepters, a Chevron Or, hinting that the slain knight had a noble identity he was hiding.