by Kris Owyn
He laughed, took the knife away from Arthur’s throat. “Oh, this will be sweet.” He turned the knife around and slammed it through the King’s thigh, pinning him to his chair. Arthur screamed in agony, doubled over in pain, as Gawain stepped out and around the desk, cricking his neck this way and that.
“I didn’t have to be this way,” he said, sauntering closer, closer. Guinevere backed up, sword still held out, eyes narrow as she kept track of his every breath. Every muscle twitch. “Things could have turned out so differently if you had just followed the rules...”
“The rules?”
“I wanted to win you,” he said, and it was like he was trying to woo her again, like he was being romantic, instead of acting like a blood-spattered animal moving in for the kill. “We were meant to be together, you and I. Don’t you see? You bested me, I bested you, but we weren’t dealing with small things, Guinevere, we were dealing with empires! If we’d worked together instead of trying to outdo one another, we could have conquered the world!”
“You do realize how stupid you sound, don’t you?”
His nostrils flared, and he drew his own sword. “All I ever wanted was to win you. It was my right.”
She laughed. “That is the root of our problem, Gawain. You think I’m a prize to be had. You think if you pull the right levers in the right order, I’ll have no choice but to fall for you. But those levers lead nowhere, and watching you try only made me angry.”
“This could have been so different...” he sighed.
“Yes,” she said. “But you’re too you.”
He snarled at that, raised his sword and swung it back and forth to signal the start of the duel. She stumbled back, wielding her own weapon like a child holding a stick to fend off a vicious dog. He laughed to himself.
“You’re too full of pride,” he said, stepping closer and closer. “You’ve never understood your boundaries. You think just because your father let you hold a sword once, you can beat a man trained in combat? You foolish girl.”
Guinevere sighed. She knew he was right. She shook her head, sadly.
“It’s true, I don’t know how to use a sword.”
She dropped it to the ground, pulled the miniature crossbow from her pocket with other hand. “But I do know what ten paces looks like.”
Crack! went the crossbow, and Gawain looked down to see the bolt jutting out of his heart. His sword fell from his hand as he reached for it, tried to pull it free, but his body had already lost the battle, and his muscles had had enough, and a breath and a half later, he collapsed, dead.
Guinevere ran to Arthur, tore the knife from his thigh, and before she could wrap the wound in a cloth or press down on it or even consider her next steps, he pulled her into an embrace, and squeezed her tight. She dropped to her knees, and hugged him back, because, she realized, she was shaking with fear. She gasped for breath, and he gasped for breath, and they stayed that way for far too long, until the palace guards came racing in to save them, until they pulled the two of them apart, until they set the world right again. Again.
Forty-seven
A strong wave rocked the boat, and the plank shifted violently; Guinevere looked over at it warily. She swallowed her fear, put on a pleasant smile for the assembled company.
Arthur had crutches, still, after weeks of recovery. Guinevere thought he was playing up his injury for sympathy, to convince her to stay, but every time he tried walking without them, the look on his face said he was in real, unbearable pain. Or maybe she was just too willing to believe him.
“You’re sure you must go?” he asked, looking out at the water in much the same way she did. “We do need you here.”
She shrugged like she had no choice in the matter. “As much as I enjoy your company, sire, these harvesting machines won’t sell themselves.”
“Machines do not sell themselves,” said Merlin, with a stern look on his face. “Machines cannot sell themselves.”
She laughed and ignored him henceforth.
Adwen gave Guinevere a hug, and lingered even longer than Guinevere expected. “May I visit you in Paris?” she asked. “I think I would like Paris.”
“You may,” said Guinevere with a smile, “but only after you get your house in order, here. If I hear that Bors’ estate is falling apart, I will storm back to Camelot, tear up our contract and take all his assets back.”
“You can’t do that,” said Adwen, slyly.
“No I can’t,” agreed Guinevere, and curtsied to her friend.
Adwen raised a curious eyebrow in return.
“The coast is clear,” said a voice from around the boat, and Rufus strode forth, nodding in keen appreciation. He pointed down, along the cliffs, nodded. “The coast is fully clear. The sea, I cannot say. Nor the shore, up there, or beyond. But the coast... that is clear.” He bowed to her. “Lady Guinevere, adieu.”
She nodded back to him, because there was really no reason not to. “Goodbye, King Rufus. I shall ever be on the lookout for Saxons.”
“Aye,” he said, scanning the horizon with great suspicion. “Saxons.”
Guinevere gave a little sigh, nodded to her friends, and turned to face the gangplank. The water was so rough, she wasn’t sure she could even make it two steps without falling in. She reached out one foot, then leapt to the other, and— she stumbled, missed her footing, and—
A hand caught hers, and steadied her. She looked up to Lancelot, certain on a boat as he was on land, and smiled. He helped her the last few steps across, until she hopped down on the ship, next to him.
“Seems safe enough,” he said, needling her on an issue he knew made her desperately anxious. “You sure you want to go out like this?”
She slapped his chest playfully, sneered for all she was worth. “I should have left you for dead.”
“You did, actually,” he said. “Couldn’t have called for help, could you?”
“I was preoccupied.”
“You had quite the conversation in there.”
“I was drawing him in.”
“While I was bleeding to death.”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but my point is—”
She grabbed his cheeks between her fingers and squeezed until he stopped talking. She glared at him, and he at her. “Take care of my King, Captain.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” he replied.
“Just this once?”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. But only because I’ll be sad that you drowned.”
She laughed as he leapt off the boat, made a show of crossing the plank in one piece, and landed on the docks beside the others. He gave her a magnificent bow, and she waved to them, trying not to cry as she turned back and, with a nod to the captain, descended into her quarters below.
Her things were all there, strewn out across the cabin like some assistant had been told to “just throw it anywhere” and taken the order quite literally. She pushed a trunk aside, then set a smaller case top it, unlocked it and rested a hand on the contents: the Lyonesse crest from Ewen’s uniform — recovered by Rufus’ men ahead of a magnificent funeral — and the crossbow he carried with him wherever he went. She pulled the cartridge free, checked inside: the Camelot seal, two bolts, and endless possibilities, unrealized.
She clicked it back into place, smiled at the memory him.
And she aimed the crossbow to the corner of the room, where a strange man was hidden in the shadows.
“Don’t move,” she warned, standing and walking toward him carefully.
But as she arrived, the weapon lowered, her face twisted with confusion. The man was no stranger, he was a friend... but a very scared friend, from the looks of it.
“Tristan?” she gasped. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Ireland!”
Tristan crept forward on his
hands and knees, looking for all the world like he expected something to pounce on him from out of nowhere. He knelt there, before her, trembling.
“Help me, Guinevere...” he said, looking over his shoulder... at a beautiful woman nestled in the corner, looking even more scared than he. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
To be continued…