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Dearest, I do not remember your name.
They did not give it to me.
They said you rode like light at twilight and that your eyes held the color of orchards that bloom only once a century.
But they did not give me your name.
Even now, I cannot call you. Only wait.
Once, I was a knight.
This is both memory and lie.
What is exile, if not the sound a man makes when even his name does not belong to him?
The Queen touched my cheek and smiled like someone waiting for me to drown.
“Poor boy,” she said, “you love so poorly. You’ve forgotten how to keep your mouth shut.”
I did not answer. I was already sinking.
My tongue is a blade I do not know how to sheathe.
Or perhaps I do know how. But I have grown tired of bleeding inside my mouth.
Your kingdom—your mirror-bright, lotus-fed, hush-soft kingdom—was the only place I did not feel the rust of being watched.
I could exist without splinters in my spine.
You kissed the scars on my armor and called them beautiful.
You said: I like men who fall for a living.
You said: Stay.
And I did not.
I am sorry.
(You must know that by now.)
There are no mirrors in your land. Only water.
When you unbuckled my sword belt, I did not flinch.
When you touched my face, I forgot how to speak.
When you told me I was wanted—
I believed you.
This was my first treason.
Not loving you.
But believing.
They say fairies steal children.
But you found a man already stolen. Already unwanted.
Already half-feral with yearning.
You fed me fruit that never rotted and said: taste this, and remember no hunger.
I devoured it and still woke empty.
The Queen said: You would deny me? You, who has nothing?
I said: I have her.
And you broke like glass into my mouth.
Your name was a curse I could not keep.
There are two kinds of hunger.
The kind that eats.
And the kind that names.
I was named Lanval once.
I do not know what it means.
Maybe: stranger.
Maybe: border.
Maybe: the boy who forgot his home because it never called him back.
The King never spoke to me.
His halls were full of wine and thunder, and still, I was only ever an afterthought.
They said I was beautiful.
They said I was strange.
They said: he is not like us.
And then they gave me a horse and silence.
You said I was lovely.
Not strange.
You said: you are not a ruin. You are a relic.
I have kept that like a coin beneath my tongue ever since.
The day I spoke your secret was the first day I was seen.
I wonder if you will ever forgive me for that.
I wonder if you needed my silence to prove something.
To keep your world yours.
To keep me yours.
I am writing this from no place.
A field with no bloom. A shore with no tide.
A road that refuses to curve.
I told myself I left for your sake.
That your realm is not for men who cannot keep secrets.
That I would only ruin it, as I ruin everything.
This is cowardice dressed in longing.
I know this.
I know this.
They asked if you were real.
And I laughed so hard it tasted like iron.
They asked if I was bewitched.
Yes.
But not by you.
By the echo of you in a world that cannot hold your name.
The Queen called me faithless.
But I have never worshipped anyone the way I worshipped your shadow.
If they had buried me beneath Arthur’s feet, I would have died with your name between my teeth like a prayer.
They threatened me with execution.
But what is death to a man who has already left the only home he ever knew?
You arrived on a white horse, dressed like winter’s promise.
I saw you. And I wept.
Because I had not seen myself until you returned for me.
You said nothing.
But your hand reached down.
And I rose.
There was no trial after that.
Only thunder.
And the sound of hooves.
When we rode away, I did not look back.
I wanted to.
I did not.
When I rode behind you, I kept my eyes on your spine.
Because it looked like a road I hadn’t traveled yet.
And I wanted to know
what it meant
to follow.
I do not dream anymore.
Your world is made of dream.
It does not permit lesser illusions.
You do not age.
I have begun to.
Some nights I sit by your stream and wonder if the boy you loved is still inside me.
If I am still golden.
If I am still worth returning for.
You do not answer when I ask these things.
Only kiss me.
Only let me rest my head in your lap.
Perhaps this is answer enough.
I do not know what it means to be loved in full.
Only in fragment. In defiance. In secret. In promise.
But not in the light.
You said: Stay.
I said: I am yours.
You said: Then let the rest forget you.
And they have.
There is no Lanval in their songs now.
Only echoes of a knight who once kissed ruin and was remade.
Is that not miracle enough?
I still write letters.
Even here.
Even in your kingdom of eternal dusk.
I bury them under stones. I drop them into rivers.
They are never meant to be found.
But if you find this one—
If your name burns hot behind your teeth when you read these words—
Know this:
I would betray every crown again for the curl of your fingers in mine.
I would let them scorn me.
Let them hang me.
Let them erase me—
If it means I am not alone when I vanish.
They say fairies steal men.
But I think you only return the parts we lost.
I was never whole until I broke for you.
I want to believe you are real.
Even now.
Even as I lie beneath this flowering tree that only grows in myths.
Even as the stars blink like watchful ghosts.
I want to believe I was not a fool to love you.
That you are not simply a metaphor for mercy.
If you are dream, let me sleep forever.
If you are god, let me kneel again.
If you are neither—
Then stay beside me, as long as you can.
That will be enough.
Yours,
Lanval
(but only because you said the name as if it belonged)
P.S.
I lied.
I do remember your name.
I just don’t know how to write it down without it breaking the world.
So I keep it inside me.
Like a spell.
Like a shield.
Like a vow.
And every time I speak, it is not my voice.
But yours.
And every time I am kissed, I pretend it is the first time again.
Beneath moon.
And silk.
And sea.
I am not the knight they remember.
I am the one who remembered you.
And that, I think, is love.
---
Footnote, marginalia in a later translation of Marie’s lai:
Some scholars believe Lanval was real.
Others believe he was the name the fae gave to men who had no place in history.
Still others say “Lanval” is not a name at all, but a question:
What would you leave behind, for the promise of being loved fully?
---
“Some truths are too beautiful for history. So they become legend.”
—an anonymous footnote, scribbled in the margin of a lost lai