Thirty-Five
The roaring in Guinevere's ears only made her head pound all the more. Her arms hurt, too, and she could scarcely feel her hands. She'd expected cold, metal manacles, but instead rough rope wrapped around her wrists, dragging her arms high above her head so that her slippered toes only just touched the stone floor.
She wanted to shout to Melwas that he would regret this, but the gag in her mouth turned her words into a garbled mess.
Someone grabbed her hair, pulling hard.
"Here she is! The traitor who seduced and killed your king. What would you have me do with her?"
"Burn her!"
"Hang her!"
"Flay the flesh from her bones!"
"Put out her eyes!"
"Cut off her head!"
"A week in the stocks, naked!"
"Burn the bitch!"
She could not shut out the voices, for there were too many of them.
But Guinevere had never been a coward. She would meet the eyes of her accusers, even if she could not speak in her defence.
Something scratchy tickled her ankles. Straw, forked onto the stone platform beneath her feet by two burly farmers whose cries of, "Burn her!" seemed to light an unholy fire in their eyes.
The straw piled up beneath her, until her heels sank into it, taking some of her weight from her aching arms.
She'd expected a dungeon, but Melwas had taken her instead to the public square, and tied her to the whipping post where common criminals received their punishment. The stocks stood empty before her. Melwas had not wanted anyone else distracting the mob.
"Traitors to the crown must die. Hanging's too good for her. I say she should burn, like the devil she worships!" Melwas shouted.
Cries of assent drowned out the suggestions for other punishments they wanted her to endure first.
Melwas met her eyes, and Guinevere did her best to glare back. As soon as Xylander arrived, he would save her. She knew it.
"You could have warmed my bed, like Viviana did before you. But you're as stupid and stubborn as Zurine, like all women, which is why men are born to rule. Smart women are obedient, lying on their backs and taking what they're given. Even the women in the crowd know that." Melwas swept a hand around, encompassing the screaming mob. "They want the King's killer, and I'm giving them you."
She tried to bite through the gag, to scream that she knew he was the King's killer, not her, but she did not have the strength.
A gap opened up in the crowd to let a cart through. Men climbed atop it to take the wood, throwing it at her feet, piling it around the little stone platform until she stood on a pyre.
"Lord Regent! The princess has returned!"
The crowd fell silent, faggots falling from suddenly hesitant hands.
Melwas looked around, his panic showing for just a moment, before he shouted, "Keep piling it up! I will go tell the princess we have caught the traitor, and when we return, together we shall watch her burn!"
A ragged cheer rose up, and the pyre began to pile higher.
If the princess heard, then so would Xylander, and he would come to save her. He had to. As long as he was in time…
Silently, Guinevere prayed for a miracle.
Thirty-Six
Zurine dozed against Xylander's back, half hidden beneath his cloak. The soft warmth of her brought a smile to his lips that would not leave his face. Not even when he answered the guards' challenge as he approached the city gates.
"I have brought Princess Zurine safe home!" he announced, when the guard seemed unlikely to open the gates for him.
Gasps went up, and Zurine stirred.
"You are home, Princess," he murmured.
"What's happening over in the square?" she asked sleepily.
Xylander turned to survey the crowd. "Someone is tied to the whipping post. An execution, or punishment of some sort. Blood always does get the common people excited."
Zurine shuddered. Her arms tightened around him. "Please, I don't want to see. Take me home."
"As my princess commands," he said, turning his horse away.
"We will send word to Lord Regent Melwas that the princess has returned," one of the guards said.
"Tell whoever you please, but she needs rest, and will see no one before the morrow," Xylander said.
"Lord Melwas will want – "
"I don't care what Melwas wants. He is not the king here," Xylander snapped.
The guard's eyes widened. "But the King is dead, and Lord Melwas is Regent until…"
"Until Princess Zurine is crowned queen. Then send word to the castle to prepare for her coronation."
"My father is dead?" Zurine buried her face in his shoulder and wept. "Oh, Xylander…"
The guard squinted at him. "And who are you, to be giving orders?"
This was the moment he had hoped never to happen, but for Zurine he would do it. "I am Prince Xylander, Princess Zurine's betrothed, and your future king."
Thirty-Seven
The wood had piled so high, Guinevere could no longer see the crowd, though she could hear them. Still Xylander did not come.
Doubt began to creep in. A proper princess would have been rescued by now, but no matter how much she'd loved her mother's tales, she'd never expected to be in one.
If today was her day to die…then she would do so with dignity. No tears, for queens did not cry where her people could see. She prayed her brother would forgive her for saddling him with the throne he had not wanted, and that he would forgive himself when he arrived too late.
Perhaps…no one could have saved her.
She felt a kinship with Queen Viviana, who had at least been able to choose the time and method of her death, but Melwas had not made the mistake of leaving Guinevere with a blade. Then, she might have been able to cut her hands free, and take the only escape open to her, for Guinevere could not escape the mob milling around the square.
A shadow fell on her. Someone standing atop the stacked wood. She stared steadily at the branch before her, refusing to meet the eyes of a man who believed Melwas' lies.
Something flashed overhead. The rope holding her wrists fell away, and her arms dropped heavily to her sides, twin dead weights, as her hands began to tingle painfully with returning circulation.
A hand appeared before her face. "Take it, my queen."
Not Xylander.
She tried to clasp his hand, but her stiff fingers would not do her bidding. After a long moment, he reached down and seized her around the waist instead, drawing her up beside him.
"She is still your queen!" Lancelot thundered. "How dare you judge her? The King is barely cold in his bed, and this is how you treat his beloved queen?"
The shouts that had been so sure before, sounded uncertain now in the face of Lancelot's cold fury.
"The new queen will be crowned, and she will stand in judgement. Until then, anyone who so much as whispers a word against Queen Guinevere will answer to me!" Lancelot lifted Guinevere into his arms, as effortlessly as she suspected he'd done for many a damsel. "Go home, good people of Castrum. Go home and mourn your king!"
The crowd parted for him, leaving him a clear path to the castle.
A princess would have swooned, but Guinevere clung stubbornly to consciousness, concentrating on freeing herself from her gag. When the crowd was far enough behind them not to hear her, she said, "I can walk, you know."
"Better that they see your weakness, my queen. Save your strength," Lancelot said.
For the trial ahead. It should be Melwas on trial, not her. "I didn't kill the King!" she snapped. "Melwas did. Suffocated him in his sleep. With a cushion."
Lancelot's tone did not change. Calm and steady, like she wished her heartbeat was right now. "And how do you know this, my queen? Did you see him do it?"
"In a fashion," she said. Ah, what did she have left to lose? Only her life, and she owed that to him anyway. "I will show you. And the princess."
"You will show me. I will deci
de what to show the princess."
Slowly, Guinevere nodded. That seemed fair.
"There is a mirror on the wall of my chamber. A magic mirror. Bring it to me, and I shall show you all I can."
Lancelot nodded once.
No one paid them any heed as they entered the castle. Guinevere expected to be taken to the dungeons, but instead Lancelot carried her to a small, spare chamber that held a narrow bed, a chest, and little else.
"Please, stay here, until I return. Rest, if you can," he said, moving to close the door.
"Thank you," she said.
He bowed. "I am only doing my duty, my queen." The door closed, leaving her alone with the evening light streaming in through the high window.
A window open to the sky, and a door he had not locked. Definitely not a dungeon.
Guinevere looked longingly at the bed, but she could not rest. Instead, she paced the narrow chamber, seven steps up and another seven back, until she caught her toe on the side of the chest and swore.
She kicked it, and the lid fell open.
A blazon of azure blue, embroidered with a silver sword, sat on top. Lancelot's, which made this his chamber. Why had he brought her here?
He soon returned, carrying a sack full of clothes and the mirror.
"I think it might be prudent to take you out of the city, to somewhere safe, where Melwas cannot easily reach you. I would suggest Zurine do the same, but he cannot turn the city against her as readily as they turned on you, and someone from the royal family must stay to stand against him. King Artorius did not trust the man, and there were always rumours surrounding him, but…no one ever came to accuse him in court. That in itself is odd – why, I think he is the only courtier who has never had a charge brought against him. No man can be such a paragon that no one complains about him."
Guinevere smiled faintly. "How many times have you been accused of a crime in court?" Not once, she was willing to wager.
"At least once a month," Lancelot said. "More, if Sir Hector's gout is not bothering him."
She blinked in surprise. "With what imagined crime?"
It was Lancelot's turn to smile. "'Tis always the same. I offered Sir Kay or Sir Hector a mortal insult, and one or the other demands reparation."
"Which guards were they?" she asked.
"Oh, I would not trust either of them to guard your chamber, my queen, so you may not have met them. They are both arguably the worst swordsmen in His Majesty's troop of knights. Perhaps even the whole kingdom. Sir Hector was once tolerable, but he has grown soft at court, and between his girth and his gout, his balance is not what it was. Sir Kay…well, we were fostered together in Sir Hector's household. He is built like a bull, and he charges into every battle with all the finesse of a battering ram. In a swordfight against an opponent with the slightest bit of skill…he wouldn't last three seconds. Both men take any comment on their lack of sword skills as a mortal insult, up to and including the simple statement that I've won a training bout against either one of them." He shrugged. "One of them would bring a complaint, and the King would listen with more patience than I confess to owning, before ordering us to conduct a trial by combat, as is customary among knights for lesser crimes such as these."
"Trials you won easily," Guinevere guessed.
"A man must defend his honour," Lancelot replied matter-of-factly, before his expression tightened. "As must you, my queen. You accused Melwas of killing the King. While I believe there is much to distrust about the man, I did not think him so without scruples as to kill his kinsman."
She set the sack on the floor and took the mirror in both hands. "Show me the King's final moments, before he died," she instructed the looking glass. When the glass misted, she held it up so that Lancelot might see what it showed.
Guinevere wanted to turn away, but she could not bring herself to do so. Nevertheless, when she saw Artorius' grey, lifeless face, she was conscious of tears tracking down her cheeks.
A queen did not cry before her subjects, she scolded herself, swiping her sleeve across her face before Lancelot saw.
He sniffled and, to her amazement, appeared to wipe a tear from his own eye. "A terrible loss, both to you and the kingdom," he said. "His Majesty did not deserve to die at the hands of such a man. He would have wanted to die fighting, like he lived."
Tears flooded down her cheeks now, as she felt the barb of his reproach. "He did fight. I woke to him fighting his own body, that first morning. A body he could no longer control. To fight would have only killed him faster, and I could not bear to see him die. I saw the fear in his eyes…and I cast a sleeping spell over him. There was nothing else I could do. Yet…if I had not, and he had survived, perhaps he might have been able to fight off Lord Melwas. Maybe…"
"No, my queen. His physicians said he was dying. Perhaps you prolonged the end a little with your sleep spell, but the outcome would have been the same. To fall in battle is to know failure. Death in glorious battle might have been what he wanted, but he deserved better. You granted him the peaceful death he deserved, for few men have the luxury of dying in their sleep."
She managed a small smile, wiping her face again for what she swore would be the last time. "Thank you for your kind words of comfort, Sir Lancelot. I am…grateful that you chose not to offer me a mortal insult instead."
He bowed. "To insult such a beautiful queen would be a crime indeed. But if I may offer a suggestion…" His gaze dropped to the sack at her feet. "I must speak to the princess before we depart, and make my men aware of what Melwas had done, but while I am gone, I pray that you use the time to dress in clothing suitable for travel. Stout boots, if you have them, instead of court slippers."
Guinevere glanced down. She'd lost one slipper somehow, between leaving her chamber and arriving here, and wisps of straw clung to the remaining one. She must look more like a slovenly stable girl than a queen.
As if reading her thoughts, Lancelot added, "There's water in the jug and a comb on the table, as well, if you have need of them."
Give her a day stuffing mattresses with fresh straw instead of the political play of life at court, Guinevere thought. If the knight had noticed how bad she looked, she must look frightful indeed. Still, she had her pride. She drew herself up. "Do what you must. I will be ready when you return."
Thirty-Eight
Lancelot found Zurine in her father's chamber. The King's body was gone, taken to be prepared for tomorrow's funeral in the cathedral. For a moment, Lancelot wished he could stay for the funeral, to pay his final respects to the man who'd been the closest thing he'd known to a father, but he knew he could not. As if Artorius himself had stood there to remind him, he was a knight loyal to the crown, and he would carry out his king's commands. Especially his final one.
He'd thought the princess was too deep in thought to be aware of his entrance, but he was mistaken.
"I still can't believe he's dead, Lancelot. Can you?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the very pillow that had stolen his final breath.
"The dead are never truly gone, or so the priests say," Lancelot said. "But he had lived a long and happy life. If he could speak now, I'm sure he would say it was definitely his time."
"But I never got a chance to thank him. He was so busy with his silly wedding that he didn't get to tell me my prince had come. So…I couldn't thank him." She sighed deeply.
"What prince is that, Your Highness?" he asked. For unless the man was hiding under the bed, he was nowhere to be seen.
"Prince Xylander. He saved me from…the men holding me captive. A true hero. He will make a wonderful king," she said. A dreamy smile lit her face. "Father found him for me."
"And where is he now?" Lancelot pressed.
She waved a hand aimlessly. "I told him I wanted to be alone with my father's memory, so he went to guard my chamber from assassins."
While she sat here alone, with no guard at all. Then again, this was the first he'd heard of any assassins. Well, except for Melwas, of course, bu
t assassin did not seem the right word for the King's murderer. To call him an assassin implied there had been some skill involved. Still…only he, the Queen and Melwas knew of his crime, or so Lancelot thought. Had there been others involved?
"Who told you there were assassins in the castle?" he asked.
"The Queen. Well, I overheard her. Telling an assassin to bring her my heart, of all things. I fled from the castle. I could not live under the same roof with a woman who wanted someone to cut my heart from my breast!" Zurine pressed a hand to her chest, breathing hard. For a long moment, Lancelot feared she'd swoon. Instead, she engaged in a lesser evil – she burst into noisy tears. "Is it wrong that I want her dead?"
No. What he knew of Guinevere…she could not have done such a thing.
"Perhaps you misheard. Or mistook her for someone else…" Lancelot began.
Zurine sniffled. "No. She was in her chamber, and I heard her as clearly as I hear you now. I don't want her here, or at my father's funeral. Where is she?"
Caution held his tongue. "Somewhere safe," he said. "I will take her outside the city, into the forest, and see that she does not return." Let Zurine make of that what she would. She'd surely forget about Guinevere before the week was out, too caught up in her own new duties as queen.
Zurine nodded stiffly. "Good. I don't want to see her again. I can't imagine what possessed my father to marry her in the first place."
Lancelot rarely betrayed the King's confidences, but he suspected Artorius would forgive him, this once. "He suspected his time was short, and he hoped she might be a fitting companion for you, when you are queen."
He was inclined to agree with Artorius. Guinevere was more of a queen than Zurine would ever be. Guinevere's steadying influence might have helped Zurine to come to terms with being a ruler with responsibilities, instead of the pampered princess she'd been all her life.
The horror on Zurine's face said she most certainly did not agree with either of them. "Then my father had gone mad!"
No. Artorius had been quite lucid, that last night. As sane a man as he could hope, with perhaps a little more foresight than most. "I'm sure he did what he thought best," Lancelot said.
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