Chapter 13
The mood in Camelot changed after Elayne’s death. Lancelot stalked about with a face like a thundercloud and the only one who would brave his temper was his son Galahad, a gentle soul who seemed ill-suited for the rough-and-tumble world of court life. He was a dreamer, and it did not surprise me at all when he came to Arthur one night at dinner to formally request his permission to leave on a vision quest. Arthur granted his permission, but he looked sad as he made his farewells. I asked him why later when we were alone.
“He will die on his quest,” Arthur said simply. “Emrys told me so long ago.”
“Does Lancelot know?”
“He did, once upon a time, but the knowledge preyed on his mind so much Emrys wiped it away.”
A sudden thought struck me. “Was Elayne in love with Lancelot?” Arthur looked at me sharply.
“He had nothing to do with that poor child’s death,” he said. Which told me the answer was yes. Unrequited love is terrible at any age, but when you’re young, it seems like a tragedy. “And besides,” Arthur continued, “we’re all a bit in love with Lancelot aren’t we?” He caught my grimace and added, “Except for you.” It’s true. I’d never really changed my mind about Lancelot, though I’d gotten to know him better and learned there was more to him than the swaggering war hero and ladies’ man persona he showed to the world. When he was around Galahad, he was a different person. Now, with Galahad gone, he seemed a bit diminished. In fact, it was like the castle’s soul had fled. Arthur buried himself in work, so much so that we drifted apart. Soon, I barely saw him. From the moment the Red Box was delivered until late into the night, he was absorbed with state affairs and had little time to devote to our marriage.
We rarely dined alone; most of our dinners were state affairs that involved formal dresses and sashes and tiaras. I’d grown to hate wearing tiaras because most of them were heavy. And hair got caught in them and pulled out. Besides, brunettes look much better in tiaras than blondes do, and my haircut was not really optimal for topping with a crown. Several of my ladies-in-waiting suggested I get it cut, but I had worn short hair before, and it did not suit me.
I began to feel a little desperate, as if I was about to disappear. Before we’d married, it had been us against the world. He had included me in his thoughts and in his conversations. Now, even on the few occasions when we were alone together, our interactions were superficial. Hadn’t the filet of sole been cooked superbly? Had I seen the magnificent sunset? Was I looking forward to fall?
My answers to all his questions was always yes. Yes, the fish was fine. Yes, the sunset was superb. As for the autumn, I enjoyed it after growing up in Los Angeles where the seasons were mostly divided into hot and sunny and cool and muddy. Lady Kay had confided to me that because fall was her favorite season and had sent me a link to a private Pinterest board she filled with nothing but photographs of autumn color. She was fascinated by the glorious pictures of fall in Japan and wistfully told me she would like to visit one day.
“You should,” I said. I had been there during cherry blossom season one year and been captivated. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “There are places where you’d swear you were walking into a fairy tale. In some of those old woods you almost expect to stumble across a dragon sleeping beneath a tree.”
“I should like to see a dragon,” she said. “They say Emrys can transform into one but if he ever has, he has done it far away from the castle.”
I believed if anyone could change into a dragon it would be Emrys. “I met a wolf-shifter once,” I said, “but never a dragon shifter.”
“Oh wolf-shifters,” she said in a dismissive tone as if they were as common as orange tabby cats. “Two of the lords who sit at the round table are wolf-shifters.”
“Really?”
Lady Kay suddenly looked like a little kid who’d blurted out a secret she’d overheard and not really understood.
“You won’t tell anyone I said that will you?”
“Of course not,” I assured her, wondering which two of Arthur’s advisors were werewolves. I’d have to keep watch during the full moon. I knew it wasn’t a question I would ask Arthur.
I worked out like a maniac in an attempt to manage my stress. Lady Inuko, who was married to Arthur’s secretary, started a yoga class for the Council of Ladies, and as the days shortened and grew as dark as the mood inside Camelot, the classes were well attended.
As the autumn turned the forest around us into flame and copper, and gold, Arthur and I began to bicker and then argue in earnest. Never mind that I had built an international business from scratch, he refused to listen to any of my suggestions when it came to finances. And he began blaming me for the country’s rocky relationship with America, an alliance that had been tested in the years of renegade rule by a would-be dictator. He was much more interested making alliances with emerging nations in Africa, so much so that he was accused of a “colonialist” agenda. These comments made him crazy. He had reached out to tech communities all over Africa—Silicon Mountain in Cameroon; Ebene Cyber City in Mauritius—as well as in South America, Oceania, and the Middle East. He had a somewhat utopian vision of a world linked by technology that would be smarter, cleaner, safer, and more productive. But it seemed like every time he took one step forward, the goal post retreated. He drove himself to work harder.
He was so absorbed—consumed—by his work that days went by without us ever speaking to each other, sometimes not even seeing each other, if he rose before I did. We no longer shared a bedroom, an arrangement that did not go unnoticed among the servants.
I took on more and more useless public duties. As we approached the three-year mark in our relationship, questions about having a child rose from a whisper to a clamor and got louder every day. All the married women in Morgaine’s clique felt free to comment on my childlessness and offer their home remedies for what Lady Sharan, the dowager duchess of Kent, referred to as “my barrenness.”
I wanted to object and say that the lack of an heir could just as easily be Artie’s fault, but since Mordred existed, that wouldn’t have been a strong argument to make. He and Morgaine were both living in Camelot, and although they kept a low profile, I sometimes found evidence of dark magic being worked in my bed chamber. One morning, after a night of exceptionally troubling dreams, I found the bleached bones of a mouse, a blood-soaked coin, and a single black raven feather almost as long as my arm under my bed. I debated hiring a food taster in order to make certain that she wasn’t enchanting my food but was well aware that would make me look weak in the eyes of the court, would make me look foolish in front of Arthur—who would absolutely refuse to believe anything bad about his cousin. I confided my concern to Emrys, who taught me yet another protective charm.
It wasn’t just me Artie was ignoring. His favorite dog, Cavall, who was used to accompanying him on long walks in the nearby woods, had to settle for the attentions of Gaheris or another man on his protective detail. Cavall was an ugly creature Artie had rescued from a dog kennel where he’d be used to fight other dogs. Artie had lavished attention and affection on him, and when that attention was suddenly withdrawn, the dog went to some dark place in his canine brain and became unpredictable in his behavior. It got so bad that there was talk of having him put to sleep, but fortunately Emrys intervened, wiped Cavall’s brain, and sent him to Dulac to join the animals on Lancelot’s large estate.
“Why didn’t you just wipe the dog’s memories in the first place?” I asked. “It seems like it would have been kinder.”
“I prefer not to interfere with nature,” he said. “It always gets messy when magic and nature collide.”
The lonely days turned into weeks and then to months.
On the morning of our third anniversary, I woke to find a bouquet of roses on my bedside table, no doubt placed there by some discreet chamberlain or maid.
They were lovely flowers, a creamy yellow tinged with pink, named after rock star Freddie Mercury. Arthur k
new they were my favorite. There was sentiment behind the choice but not much originality. Nor had he put much thought into the message on the card attached to the flowers. It had all the right words—dearest, love, sweetheart—but there was no real feeling in them. He might as well have been ticking off items on a checklist.
The flowers made me cry. Ingrith, the lady-in-waiting who most often attended me, thought I was crying for joy. “You’re a lucky woman,” she commented. She was newly married herself, and happy in her lot, so it was a sincere comment and not meant to hurt me.
“I am, indeed,” I said, because what else could I say?
“I’ll get you a vase,” she said.
“Thank you.” What I wanted to do was rip the flowers to shreds, never mind what the thorns would do to my hands. Shred them, and then stomp on them with my bare feet until my blood mingled with the pulped petals on the polished wood floor.
To my surprise, Arthur came to me that night.
“I know you’re unhappy,” he said. “What can I do?”
That was typical of Arthur. He was a problem solver.
“I don’t know that we can do anything,” I said, careful not to lay the blame on him. “Do you think we’re doomed to separate bedrooms and separate lives?”
“It’s always been somewhat that way,” he said, pensively. “Royal duties…”
“Arthur, the Prime Minister has a husband. The President of the United States has a wife. Other world leaders manage to have marriages. They have partners. They have a connection. I want that for us, don’t you?” His eyes were very dark as he studied me, but he did not reply. “I am willing to fight for that. Aren’t you?” Instead of answering me, Arthur began unbuttoning his shirt , taking it off without bothering to take off his tie, a look I found incredibly sexy. I reached for the little silk noose and pulled him down.
I unbuckled his belt and drew it from the loops, the leather supple as a silk ribbon.
I felt a little pang as his pants fell on the floor, that beautiful fabric treated so indifferently and then I chided myself for not being in the moment.
His silk underwear did nothing to shield his arousal from me. Back in the day, he had sometimes gone commando. No doubt his parents would have been horrified at the breach of royal clothing protocol. “Guinevere,” he said huskily.
“Artie,” I said, and really, that was all I needed to say for a while. We fell back into the old rhythms, in sync with each other and it felt like coming home.
I reached out to take him into my hand, using the silk of his drawers as a kind of chamois as I glided my fist up and down his cock, as if shining it. Knob polishing, I thought, a phrase Suze sometimes used to describe the act. She really was a terrible influence on me.
He grunted in unconscious pleasure and I sped things up. He climaxed with a grunt. A moment later, after cleaning himself with a thousand-thread count cotton top sheet that was so finely woven it felt like silk, he gently pressed me back onto the bed so that my feet were on the floor. He knelt between my legs and kissed my mound, then pushed his tongue into me, swirling it around in what I always thought of as “the ice cream cone maneuver.”
Not that I was complaining. He’d barely started and already waves of pleasure rippling outward from my core. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him closer to me.
When we had been dating, our sex had been unselfconscious and even wanton, although I had been expected to sign an NDA. No one wanted the details of his kinks and fetishes and preferences shared to the press. I didn’t need the paperwork. I value my own privacy too much to violate someone else’s.
But since we’d been married, our lovemaking had taken on another quality. It was less desperate, less frantic. It was still good—better than good—but it was rarely as spontaneous—or as much fun—as it had been in the beginning. I tried to blank out my inner monologue and simply enjoy myself as I felt my climax building. I came with a convulsion that momentarily stopped my heart as I thrashed around in the sheets. I had hoped we would move on the next stage, the flesh-on-flesh connection that was the most intimate act, but after a decent interval to allow my racing heart to slow down, Arthur bent down to pick up his underwear.
“You’re leaving?”
“Sorry love,” he said. And a moment later he was gone.
I didn’t realize at the time that we would never make love again.
Chapter 14
If only I had resigned myself to the status quo, been happy with my lot, and made a separate life for myself, so much trouble could have been averted. And I tried, I really did. I scolded myself daily, told myself I was greedy for wanting more out of a life that was already filled with more of everything than most people would ever experience. The self-lectures worked for a while. And then one night, all my resolve went out the window.
It was after yet another interminable state dinner. The wines served at dinner had been exceptional vintages and I had had more than my usual three sips of several glasses. I wasn’t tipsy, but I felt light and almost happy. Then I saw Artie talking to Gawain’s wife, Ragnall. I liked her and knew she was head over heels in love with her husband, but she was a wicked flirt and Arthur was responding to her in a way that made me jealous. She had her hand on his forearm and he was letting it sit there and leaning in. I tried to remember how long it had been since he’d looked at me the way he was looking at Ragnall, had laughed with me in such an easy way.
There were photographs of us taken that night that afterwards would go viral and be subject to a million different examinations by amateur body language experts. Though seated next to each other, we’re turned in completely opposite directions wearing matching expressions of such abject misery that it’s a wonder we could even manage to be in the same room.
Later, I had returned to my lonely bedroom and reached for a book I’d purchased months ago—again from Viviane—without telling Emrys. The book was in Italian and purported to be written by the infamous lover Casanova, who attributed his sexual prowess to magic and a diet heavy on rare meat and red wine. I had translated it paragraph by paragraph using Google translate, and not all of the words made it through the process, but there was enough for me to get the gist.
The charm to attract undying love seemed to be a simple one, mostly a list of ingredients, and then precise, step-by-step instructions on how to mix them together. The “recipe” was annotated with Casanova’s comments, which I might have found hilarious if I hadn’t been in such a foul mood as I read through the pages.
Some of the ingredients were easy to get—a strand of hair from Artie’s hairbrush, a button from one of his handmade shirts, a drop of juniper oil. I found most of the herbs I needed in the kitchen garden, but a couple only grew on the banks of the lovely river that flowed past the castle. I stole a sprig of willow wort from Emrys’ laboratory and he very nearly caught me at it.
Other items were harder to procure or needed their own spells to conjure up: the skin of a black snake, the feather of a white raven, a golden acorn attached to a silver leaf. The hardest thing to find was “a sleeping breath I captured with a net conjured from moonlight.” The spell didn’t specify whose breath needed to be captured, so one night I crept into the castle nursery and stole a breath from a sleeping baby who never even roused as I worked my magic.
It took me almost a month to gather everything I needed. I had to store each item in a box by itself because I found if they were in near proximity to each other, they began interacting.
I added mustard seed at the last moment, better known in spell books as “eye of newt.” That was the most dangerous ingredient because it is also an ingredient found in many curse spells, but I’d seen a mention of it being used in love spells in one of the books in the castle library and decided it would add extra potency to the potion.
Once I had everything I needed, I had to wait until the void moon to stir it all up. This was a spell meant to be crafted in shadow.
When I was finished, I had less than a dram of a m
urky green liquid, which was exactly the right color to stir into a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade. I spilled a little on my hand as I transferred the elixir to the bottle and absent-mindedly licked it off. To my surprise, it was tasteless. And I forgot all about it.
While Arthur hadn’t found time to spend with me, he still managed to carve out an hour every afternoon to play tennis with Lancelot. Sometimes I would join the spectators and cheer Arthur on. It was a way of keeping up appearances.
Arthur always kept a bottle of Gatorade in his sports bag. Lancelot preferred coconut water, which he carried in a slim metal reusable bottle. The beverages were always staged at the sidelines, within easy reach. Still, it was easy enough to swap out the bottles using my shadow spell, and as I walked away with Arthur’s un-dosed bottle, I was feeling rather pleased with myself.
And then I saw that Morgaine among the spectators, huge designer sunglasses shading her silver eyes. She was sitting with Magge and another one of her favorites, watching the match intently. Had she seen me make the switch? I didn’t know. But just as Lancelot and Arthur came off the court to change sides and hydrate, Arthur’s bottle morphed into Lancelot’s sleek silver coconut water flask, while Lancelot’s flask turned into the Gatorade.
Oh no, no, no, no, no. I started to run toward Arthur, but I knew I would be too late to stop what was happening and I was too far away for him to hear me shout a warning. Lancelot drained the potion-laced contents of his flask in one long swallow. I looked over at Morgaine, and saw she was smiling. Of course, she was.
Game. Set. And match to Morgaine.
Chapter 15
Lancelot came to my room just after midnight. Knowing what was to come, I’d frantically been searching for a counter-spell or a spell of revulsion, or something that would stop the catastrophe I had brought upon us. I couldn’t contact Emrys, he wasn’t anywhere in Camelot and he wasn’t answering calls or texts. By the time Lancelot knocked on the door, I’d been pacing my room for hours like a caged tiger but short of leaping from a parapet I wasn’t sure what I could do except avoid Lancelot. I’d locked my bedroom door as a precaution, but I should have known a locked door wouldn’t stop him. He kicked it in, and the splintering of the old wood sounded like gunshots in the quiet. Where was my security detail?
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