by Kris Owyn
And Guinevere—
Thirty-four
—leapt off her chair and wrapped her arms around Ewen. She fought hard not to burst into tears, but she felt them coming anyway; hot and stinging and built up over months of isolation and tension and agony and—
“I thought you were dead!” she said, gasping for breath. “I thought Gawain had killed you and you were in a ditch somewhere and—”
He rubbed her back, familiar in a way he’d never been before, but it was exactly the right kind of familiar for her, right now. She needed it more than she ever could have expected.
“I guess that answers that,” he said. “You never got my letters.”
She pulled away, frowning, wiped her eyes on her sleeves. “What letters? How many?”
“A dozen, at least. They started as progress reports, but they’re less so, now. I trust you saw the tax collectors?”
She smiled. “They were well-trained. Got a healthy sum from the caravan, on the way in.”
“Good,” said Ewen. “Not that it matters. I can’t get at the money.”
“What? Why not?”
“It started as a mugging, here or there. I assumed corruption or just petty thievery, so I increased security, gave each collector more protection. But it kept happening, over and over again... our men were free to operate until they tried to make their deposit at the castle.”
Guinevere scowled. “Rinwell.”
“Indeed. They left the collectors alive, but killed the guards. I was losing too many good men to his attacks, so I had to change things up. We have a network of safe houses around the city, where the coins are kept out of view. Even if Rinwell finds one, he won’t find them all. But the side-effect is that I can’t get to them either. Every time I try to leave, a bolt hits the wall right next to me, as if to warn me away.”
“He’s trapping you inside.”
“And not being subtle about it.”
She imagined all the odd shacks they were using for such a delicate operation; knowing the people of London, it would be a miracle if even one of the caches was still intact. But Ewen was right: it was a better bet than trying to outrun an entrenched enemy, especially when you had a limited number of routes to take, and they knew them all.
“So I assume you haven’t paid the Gwynedds?” he asked.
“No,” she said, her stomach twisting in sick realization. “I’ve no money left. I was hoping to solve that problem, coming here, but now...”
“They won’t be happy. I’ve been putting them off, promising you’d handle things from your end. I just assumed you knew, and couldn’t reply without arousing suspicions. I don’t understand how none of my letters made it to you.”
“Lancelot has taken to censoring my correspondence,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“But I sent them through Eleanor,” he said. “She didn’t get a single one?”
Guinevere sunk back into the chair. “Gawain. He must have intercepted them. That’s how he knew about London in the first place, I’ll wager. And how he made all those weapons shipments just disappear.”
Ewen smirked at her. “Disappear? Have some faith, Guinevere. We’ve got them all, right here...” He took the torch off the wall, stepped a few feet into the darkness behind him, and she caught sight of crates... hundreds and hundreds of crates, stacked all the way down a massive room that seemed to go on forever. It would be thousands of weapons, millions of rounds of ammunition... enough to keep her in business for at least a year or two. Ewen motioned for her to follow, and she did. “We emptied out Rufus’ vaults to make space. They were full of junk, anyway, so it was no bother. I don’t think he even knows these rooms exist, to be honest.”
“And Rinwell just... lets you bring this into the castle?”
Ewen nodded, knowingly. “I don’t understand it, either. And it worries me.”
“Maybe he’s trying to turn the Gwynedds against us? If I dodge them too long, they’ll demand payment publicly, and make it known I was trying to evade Council’s oversight.”
“True,” nodded Ewen. “Once the shipment is made, it’s our responsibility. If he interferes any earlier, they’re on shakier ground.”
Guinevere shook her head. There was something to it, something that felt off. “But I’m already at his mercy, as it is. Turning the Gwynedds against me does nothing if I don’t control Lyonesse anymore. What’s he gain by this?”
Ewen shrugged. “He’s petty,” he said. “He wants to see you suffer. After all, you refused to let him sweep you off your feet.”
She gave him a grin. “I’m callous like that.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
They stopped by a large chest full of crossbow bolt cartridges. Forty per row, six rows per stack, and forty stacks per chest. Twelve bits apiece, and that was almost nine hundred tremisses in revenue, waiting to be sold. If she offloaded even just the crates she could see by torchlight, right now, she could clear fifty thousand tremisses, easily. It was easy money, but nothing about her circumstances were easy anymore. Gawain wasn’t just being petty, he was being thorough: it wouldn’t matter if she somehow got free of Arthur and escaped to Paris; if she made enemies of the Gwynedds, she’d be ruined forever.
“We need to get access to the money before the final shipment arrives,” she said. “Every last penny needs paying. Do you think we’ll have enough?”
Ewen shrugged. “Assuming the stashes aren’t raided? Easily. Even just one good location would do it.”
“Good,” she said. “And they’ll let me in? Let me take the money?”
His face broke into an expression somewhere between amusement and horror. “You’re not going in there alone...”
“Rinwell won’t let you leave,” she said.
“And you expect he’ll make an exception for you?”
“No, but I do travel with a royal escort, now. So I suspect he’ll think twice before firing a crossbow in my direction.” Her smile grew, as her mind started racing faster and faster. “The King is installing tubes in the city tomorrow—”
“Tubes?”
“It’s complicated. The point is: we’ll be out and about with a dozen guards and armoured wagons that nobody outside our party will be able to touch. How portable are the coins?”
“Very,” he said. “Rolled in stacks. You could carry a few dozen tremisses’ worth without trouble. So you hide them in the wagons, and—”
“And when we get back to the castle at the end of the day, you have your men unload, count and repackage them for when the Gwynedds arrive.”
Ewen shrugged. “It could work. We’ve got one reliable cache fairly close to the castle, so if you can direct your excursion into that area, you should have no trouble getting what you need.”
She took his hands in hers, so full of joy she was vibrating with excitement. “Oh, it’s so nice to have you back, Ewen. I never knew how much I needed you, until I lost you. I’ve had so many ideas and plans that don’t quite work without you here, to help me think.”
He grinned. “Glad I could be of service. To your thinking.”
She started back, towards the room they’d started in. “Come on, you musn’t hide in the shadows like this. Eleanor will be so happy to see you, and the King—”
But Ewen had let go of her, staying put. He had a look on his face like he was at a funeral. Or worse. She paused, confused, hand still out to him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
His voice was weak. He didn’t look her in the eye. “I explained it all in the letter,” he said. “I left it in the knot in the tree where you like to think. I figured you’d—”
“I’ve been trapped in the palace since the coronation,” she said. “Why? What does it say?” She had another thought; a nagging one. One she’d hoped to leave for later, but... “Where did you go that day? I looked away for a moment, and
you’d just disappeared.”
He let out a heavy sigh. The shadows on his face betrayed how hard the summer had been on him: he looked older, more tired, more ready to lay down and die. He was struggling to find words... words that he’d already written down, and yet still couldn’t speak without pain.
After a long moment of silence, he ventured: “You know how I... how I ended up in your father’s service?”
She knew the contours of it, but never much cared. When he entered her life, she’d been awed by the fact that she had her own bodyguard; shortly thereafter, she was perpetually frustrated that she had to listen to her bodyguard. It took them some months to learn to operate around one another, but as far as she knew, he was picked because he was smart, patient, and capable. A high-value position for an up-and-coming squire.
Something in his tone suggested she was wrong.
He squeezed his hands together like he was praying. “Mercia had just fractured. It seems obvious now, but it was a trauma to the kingdom, back then. Council was loath to let both sides take seats at the table, since they of course had favourites. So they invented an admittance fee and set it just out of reach of Mercia East. All districts were expected to contribute—”
“But Lyonesse was poor,” said Guinevere, starting to piece together some parts of the story.
“Aye,” Ewen nodded. “It was before the Continental expansion and all that came with it. Lyonesse had no markets to speak of, no farmland to exploit... there was no way they could pay the fee. And a great many on Council were happy about it, too. They saw Lyonesse as a freeloader, riding off past glories but contributing nothing. Cornwall, in particular, was eager to pare down their roster. Greedy for it.”
He paused for a moment, lost in a memory. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, but never quite did. Finally, he settled into a thought: “Your father made a deal with Gawain’s grandfather: Lothian would front him the money, but with Lyonesse and all its titles as collateral.” He laughed a joyless laugh. “You remember your summer house?”
“In the country? With the cows, and the tree by the stream.”
“It wasn’t a getaway, truly. It was a prison, to your father. A tiny allocation in Lothian — a poor performer and always late with its taxes — granted to him, to pay back his debt. It was a slap in the face, for a former king, but to a gifted administrator like him, it was an easy win. He thought it was an easy win.”
Guinevere shuddered. “The sickness.”
“Aye. One child dead, another fallen ill with a fever. His wife — your poor mother — stricken by grief and pox and...” He was fighting with memories, and losing. “He couldn’t leave until the debt was paid, or he’d lose it all, but he was so desperate to get out of there. He needed results, so he... we...” He looked at Guinevere, eyes wide with shock at a thing long since past. “I don’t know how to...”
Guinevere frowned. In the back of her mind, the strings were being pulled together, tied in a bow; but she couldn’t quite fathom it yet. Couldn’t quite bear to look.
“I was a lad,” Ewen continued, voice a whisper. “Twenty and a day, still hungover from the celebrations the night before. They needed men, and I was... I was just so sure of myself, then, I didn’t even... I...” He sighed, shook his head. “Not that it would have mattered. I’d have done anything to get ahead. And I suppose I did.
“There was a curfew. Everyone knew it, but the villagers were... they weren’t...” He swallowed. “I found a man, out past dark, with a jug of wine on him, trying to sneak back home. He tried to laugh it off, but we were getting nowhere with these people. They were treating us like jokes while your family was...”
He stared at the ground, weighed down by shame. “He was the first man I killed. No, murdered. And the second it was done, I knew I’d done wrong, that I’d made a horrible mistake, but I...” He swallowed. “When I turned around to run, there was this boy there, staring at me. He never said a word, but he... he made this wailing sound as he ran to his father, and I’ll never... I’ll never forget that sound. Or that boy’s face.”
He looked up at her, finally, and his cheeks were wet with tears. “I never saw the King until the coronation. I knew he was from Lothian, but what are the odds that—”
“Wait,” Guinevere gasped, wind knocked out of her like she’d been struck. “Are you saying—”
“As soon as I saw him, that day, in the procession, I knew. I knew I was poison to you, from now on. Never mind how good or noble or wonderful he may be... I killed his father in cold blood. That’s a sin he’ll never forgive. And anyone around me is damned.”
“Ewen...”
“No, Guinevere, think. You have too much to lose, here. I can work from the shadows for as long as it lasts, but I cannot be by your side any longer. We haven’t come all this way, fought all these battles, to be undone by my mistakes. By one mistake, made so long ago.” He was adamant, calm and precise. “If I’m dead to the world, you stand a chance at living. It’s the only way.”
And she knew, to her dismay, that he was right.
Thirty-five
Her mother was the colour of the sheets, and it seemed odd to Guinevere that if she squinted, all she could see of maman was her hair, and her eyes staring outward. She lay on the bed next to her, looking up from time to time, just listening to her mother breathe.
She closed her eyes and heard the sounds... it was like water, bubbling down a stream. She imagined sitting at the edge of that stream with maman and her brothers, watching fish go by, Dafydd wanting to catch them, but never finding the courage to try. She could feel the heat on her face from the sun, shining through the trees near their home at Lyonesse. She could feel the warmth on her face of her mother’s skin, boiling in the winter.
“Don’t,” said her mother, voice faint and wavering. “She’s asleep.”
Guinevere knew better than to show otherwise; if she were awake, she’d be scolded for sneaking into the bedroom at all. She knew exactly how many times she’d been told to stay away: twenty-seven. Twenty-eight once they figured out her lie, tonight.
Her father sat on the bed next to her, rested a hand on her back. She kept very still.
“I’m sorry to even—” he began, and then stopped talking suddenly, and she wondered why. She heard him breathing, like he was trying to whistle, and then he sucked in a breath and continued: “I need to get them home. Before...”
Her mother put a hand on his, on Guinevere’s back. It was so hot, it made her uncomfortable. She desperately wanted to squirm but—
“I’ll be fine.”
“No,” he said, voice so small she could barely hear it. “No you won’t, and I—”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, more distant this time.
He squeezed her hand. Guinevere could tell, and it gave her hope.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” he said. “They have no mercy. No mercy at all. And I...” He made a sound like he was crying, and Guinevere held her breath. She’d never heard that before. She’d never imagined that before. “I can’t find a way out of this anymore.”
“I’ll be fine,” said her mother... and Guinevere realized that was the last thing she remembered her mother saying at all. The words echoed around her mind on dark nights, like whispers in an endless cave, coaxing her into a fitful sleep.
She heard it, now, in the castle, and it frightened her.
Lancelot’s men found her wandering the halls, and after a sharp greetings, ushered her back down to the Great Hall. The place was partitioned, now: on the western side, the sheep were fenced in with upturned tables and chairs and, as far as she could see, not a single one had been slaughtered. Several were wearing bows around their necks, though. And then on the eastern side, a dinner party was in full swing. Rufus and his guests sat at a single, long table with golden plates for everyone, and more food available than Guinevere could ever hav
e imagined in her week of starvation.
Just as she started towards the group, Lancelot intercepted her, face twisted in anger. “Where were you all this time?” he hissed, under his breath. “I thought you’d been killed or captured or—”
“It’s not what we thought,” she said, still reeling from Ewen’s revelations. “It’s not Gawain. We were wrong.”
“What is it then?”
She looked him in the eye, gave a feeble shrug. “I can’t tell you.”
That didn’t help any. “I need more than that, Guinevere. First you say we’re walking into a trap, that we could be killed at any moment, and now you’re saying—”
“I’m saying we’re safe. In here, we’re safe. And that’s all you need to know. Truly.”
He opened his mouth to argue further, but Arthur interrupted, calling from the table: “There you are! Come on, sit! We’ve been waiting on you!”
“Have we?” asked Rufus, pausing with mouth full of bread.
The table was arranged very strangely for a party of two kings; normally, the royals would be on one side together, with ample room as befitted their station. The others would be at a lesser table, arranged by rank, and always facing the kings. Instead, they were all bunched up on the end together; Rufus on one side, Arthur across, and the rest of the party crammed in close. There was plenty of room for Guinevere, really anywhere, but she could see where they wanted her to sit. At the head, between Arthur and Rufus.
“I don’t think—”
“Come on, Eleanor!” shouted Rufus. “We don’t bite!” He looked across at Arthur, suddenly awkward. “You don’t, do you?”
Arthur just laughed. Rufus laughed, too. Nervously.
Guinevere took her seat, her chair nudged in by Lancelot. Her plate was covered in vegetables already, and a piece of bread off the side. There were no spoons or knives to use, and her cup of wine seemed to be both infinitely filled and regularly-shared... but it was a meal. And she had to try to relax and enjoy it.