Arthur nodded, putting his hand tenderly on mine. It was warm and rough with fighting, comforting, familiar. His touch made me feel a little better, a little more centred. I sat slowly back in my chair, feeling embarrassed.
“That seems the best solution. Mark will not cause trouble if his wife is with us. Besides, Isolde ought to come. It is only polite to my queen if Mark sends his to court.”
I was pleased with what I had improvised. I was curious, anyway, to see this great beauty Isolde.
There was a murmur of agreement around the table.
“As for who we send,” Arthur continued, “I will leave that among you. But if someone does not come to me to offer himself as a champion I will choose one of you.” Nimue leaned over and whispered in his ear, and he nodded. “You must excuse me.” He leaned down to me and whispered, “Wait for me in my room.” I nodded, and he left with Nimue. Obviously, she had something in Merlin’s old room below us to show him. Some map of the stars that promised more success for him, something in her little whirring astrolabe that portended something or other. Some secret that I would never know.
Gawain and his brothers left right away, then Lamerocke chattering with Dinadan, and then Percival, with a soft word to Lancelot. Kay lounged in his seat, grinning at me, making no move to leave. Lancelot did not leave either. I was not sure if he wanted to speak to me at last, or if he was afraid to move in case I spoke to him. Or in case Kay said something. Kay was always just saying whatever came into his head.
I cast Kay a wary look, narrowing my eyes at him. If he had something to say, he could go ahead and say it. He had a wicked look about him, tonight.
“Excuse me.” Lancelot, seeing the look, or sensing it, stood to leave.
“No!” I protested, the words out of me before I was aware of forming them. “No, I have to speak with you.”
“I know what this is about.” Kay grinned.
“Oh, you do?” I rounded on him, suddenly fired with anger. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to stop being so smug. I wanted to slap his grinning face. “Do tell us.”
“It’s about lovestruck little Gareth,” Kay teased. “Guinevere needs you to protect her from his loving advances.” He made a joking grab at the skirts of my dress and I slapped his hand. He rolled back into his seat, laughing.
“Get out, Kay,” I shouted, louder than I had intended to. I saw the hurt flicker in his eyes, and the smile dropped off his face. He pushed himself up smartly from his chair and strode out, slamming the door behind him. I winced at the sound. I should not, perhaps, have shouted, but all the patience had drained from me, after all the waiting, and at last at last I was alone again with Lancelot. He stood and walked towards the door. I slid out of my chair and darted around the table and into his path.
“Where are you going? I said I needed to talk to you.”
He turned his face away from me. “Not now,” he said softly.
How dare he? Whatever was going on in his head, I was his queen and he would stay if I wanted him to. I crossed my arms over my chest, standing my ground. I was between him and the door. He would speak to me before he left. I didn’t want any promises from him, or anything, but he would speak with me. I didn’t care what about.
“I want you to take Gareth as your squire. He is the right age, and he looks up to you.”
Lancelot rubbed his face with his hands, turning away from me, walking a few steps back into the room.
“I don’t know why you are being like this with me. First you save my life, then you ignore me, then you agree to read with me, then you ignore me again, and now you’re refusing me this. What is wrong with you?” I was trying to sound calm, but it was failing. I could feel myself trembling with frustration; I could feel the heat rising up inside me. I tried to hold it back, but I was half-shouting. “Have I offended you in some way?”
I stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, lightly. He twisted around and grabbed my wrist, holding my hand away. He moved so fast, as though he knew what I had been about to do before I had done it. His eyes were wild and I could see his chest rising and falling fast, but his grip on my wrist was soft, and he left my hand fall away after a moment.
“My lady, you must let me go,” he insisted.
Once more I stood my ground, crossing my arms in front of me. The candlelight flickered over both of us in the moment of silence.
“Say you’ll take Gareth as your squire, and that you will come with me to tell him so tomorrow. Say you won’t go to Cornwall.”
Lancelot leaned against the back of a chair, as though he was holding himself back from something. Perhaps it was from striking me; I couldn’t tell. But I was not afraid; I was too angry for fear. He looked down again, away from me. Why won’t you look at me? I reached out and took him by the arm.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
“Stop tormenting me,” he shouted suddenly. He looked up at me, pulling his arm from my grip, his eyes flashing with anger, striding two steps away from me across the room. I felt the blood rise in me in response. He would not speak to me like that.
“I’m not tormenting you, Lancelot. It’s a simple enough request. You’re my champion; you ought to take my suggestion,” I shouted back. He wouldn’t turn back round to face me, but I could see his shoulders rising and falling with his breaths. He was being irrational. I didn’t see why he didn’t want to listen to me about this. I didn’t know why he was so desperate to deny me what I was asking. He might even have done it anyway without my suggestion and I felt as if he was dismissing it just because I had asked. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, why he had to be so distant, so opaque.
“That’s not what I mean,” he growled, low.
No, I knew what he meant. He didn’t like me looking for him, calling him to me, asking him to do his duties as a champion. I didn’t know if he thought he was above it, or if he just wanted time away from me. I could feel the anger pulsing within me, sharp now, and red-hot. I didn’t want anything other than for him to speak to me, to be close to me. I did not think that was too much for him to concede to me.
“Well I don’t know what you mean. You’re my champion, but you don’t want to see me. You obviously care about me, but you don’t want to talk to me. I’m not asking very much of you, Lancelot. I just want to speak with you sometimes, to see you, to be, to be nearby –”
In less than a second he turned back to me, strode back the distance and caught me in his arms, drawing me close into a kiss that stole my breath and made my heart jump in my chest. It took my mind a moment to catch up with my racing heart, with my body, that reached towards his, and met him, my hands twining in his hair, soft as silk but thick as velvet. This is truly happening. He was passionate, but slow; not rough like Arthur, but sensual, his lips soft against mine, and gently opening to a tongue that fluttered against my own. I felt his thumb graze lightly the top of my ear, the side of my face, as he slid his other fingers into my hair. With the other arm, he held me close against him. Every touch against my skin was hot and bright, like fire. I melted into it, into him. I felt the room dissolve around me; the world. I felt no pressing urgency; a passion wakened within me without time, as though time had melted away with the world. He made a sound of pleasure deep within his throat, and lightly lifted me so that I was sat on the edge of the table. He moved his lips to the top of my ear, kissing lightly, and down my neck. I leant my head back, feeling the sweet rush of it, giving a soft moan at his touch. I drew him close again and felt a hand slide slowly up under the skirt of my dress, along my thigh. I felt light-headed, light-bodied, as though I was filled from head to toe with a tingling light. My fingers, it seemed of their own accord, found the lacing on his breeches and pulled free the strings. I sighed towards him. I felt for a wonderful moment the bare skin of his stomach against the inside of my thigh, soft flesh on flesh, as he began to draw me towards him, and I drew him towards me.
Then, suddenly, through the tingling light surrounding me, I heard what
could only be boots on the stone steps, coming up the stairs to the room. He heard them at the same time, and jumped away from me, turning his back to me, his fingers quick on the cord of his breeches, and I threw my skirts back down to the ground, jumping from the table, bracing myself back against it, leaning back, the edge of the table digging in hard to the palms of my hands, the wonderful aura of light and unreality that had shrouded us both disappearing around me. I could feel the flush on my skin, and as Arthur pushed open the door, I was still breathing fast, half with panic, half with desire.
He looked between us, and anger flashed across his face. For a moment, I thought this was the end, but then he turned to Lancelot. It must have looked a very different picture to him.
“Lancelot, what’s going on?” he said, his voice deep with threat. “What have you been doing to upset my wife?”
Lancelot turned back around, speechless. He did not look at me, and I was glad. Neither of us wanted to shatter the lie, or lose the truth that had at last glimmered between us, like a ghost.
“Cornwall,” he said at last, grasping for something that would be suitable, something that Arthur would believe. “I told her, I told her that I will go, to be champion for King Mark and defend Cornwall.”
I closed my eyes, and felt the blood run cold within me. That was almost as bad as the truth, because now he would be taken from me anyway. Arthur would applaud him for taking the challenge, and he would have to go. I heard Arthur sigh.
“Good. I suppose she wasn’t pleased.”
Don’t talk about me as if I’m not there.
Someone take her back to Britain.
The room span around me, even with my eyes shut. So close, so close. What had I done? What had I almost done? But I would have given anything to have been back to the moment before, and taste it again. I could see blue and green spots behind my closed eyes. I had had and lost it all in a moment; it had grown like a star within me and suddenly fallen dark. And I could still feel his lips against mine.
“Guinevere?” I heard Lancelot’s voice through the darkness. I wanted to sink towards it; I wanted to feel it all around me. It fell soft against me and I felt the twinge within me again of loss. I could no longer feel my body, no longer feel the wood of the table beneath my hands. I felt myself slip, and felt an arm catch me, pulling me back to my feet. I knew it was Arthur, and somehow that made me want to cry.
“Guinevere, are you alright?” Arthur asked. I nodded, raising a hand to my eyes, shielding out the light.
“I think I’m not quite well. Will you fetch Christine?”
Arthur led me tenderly to sit in one of the chairs and put his hand against my brow. “Of course,” he replied, and kissed me lightly on top of my head. To Lancelot he said, “Stay with her.”
And he left.
Neither of us spoke. I did not know what held him quiet, but I was trying to hold on to the moment before, to taste it once again before it escaped me. What could we say to one another now, anyway? I felt as though the centre of me had shattered.
Chapter Twenty
Christine and Arthur came back quickly; too fast, it seemed to me, and laid me in my bed. Christine clicked her tongue as she always did, when she felt my brow.
“She’s not well, my lord.” She said to Arthur. They talked quietly over me for a while until Arthur leaned down and kissed me on the cheek, and left. Christine clicked her tongue again, stroking my hair, sitting beside me on the bed, where I lay face down, burying my face in the pillow.
“You are well enough, aren’t you, little one?” she said in Breton. She had not called me little one in a long time. She used to call me little one when I begged her to read me lai as a child. I gave a little groan. She tsked. “It won’t help you to feel sorry for yourself about it. It will pass.” She tucked my hair lovingly behind my ear. “Go to sleep, little one.”
When I woke in the morning, the tendrils of a lovely dream still hung around me, a dream filled with soft candlelight, and a voice whispering to me in French. I was sure, in the dream, I could really feel the smooth wood of the Round Table beneath my hands, but it had only been an illusion. Like everything else.
When Christine came in with my breakfast, she came in alone. Usually Marie or Margery was with her with my dress, or just to greet me with the gossip of the day. Christine set my food – I could smell porridge – down and sat down on the side of the bed. I didn’t want it.
“How are you, my lady?” she asked, formal and proper once more. I half hoped that she would get onto the bed beside me and call me little one again.
I sat up in bed, drawing my knees up towards me.
“Better,” I replied. I added, in Breton, “I want you to ask Lancelot to come to me, in my walled garden.”
Christine gave me a sharp, motherly look. I did not have the energy to scold her for it, nor the inclination.
“Are you sure that is wise?” she warned. “You don’t want to upset yourself again.”
“I want to say goodbye before he leaves for Cornwall.”
Christine nodded, understanding. She had not known he was leaving, then. She kissed me brusquely on the forehead.
“It will seem better soon.”
I nodded. I didn’t know how she had known, but I was not surprised. Christine had been with me since I was a baby. She was quiet, and good at watching the people around her. I wondered how much she had known, or guessed, too. She passed me the porridge. I didn’t feel like eating, but I had a few mouthfuls. It seemed a shame to waste food, when we had been without it for so long. I let Margery finish it, when she bustled in with a light green silk dress sewn with gold around the neck for me to wear.
I was impatient for Christine to be gone so that she could ask him, so I dressed quickly. Margery’s fingers fumbled clumsily with my hair and I wanted to slap her bumbling hands, but I held myself back. I didn’t care how I looked, I just wanted to get out to the garden. I missed little Marie, who was always so deft and quick. She would have cheered me up. Maybe I could even have told her, and she would not have scolded me. She was the youngest of us, almost five years younger than I was. She would not have dared. When I asked Margery where she was, the dull girl said that she hadn’t seen her that morning. I hoped once again that she was not with Gawain.
As soon as I was dressed and ready, I ran down the steps and out into the morning, to wait. I felt my heart fluttering within me. I did not know how it could sustain beating so fast for so long. At last he came to me, as I had asked, in my walled garden. Spring was beginning around me; snowdrops pushed through the earth, white blossom hung on the May tree in the corner, and the air smelled green with new life. But it all seemed fragile and mournful to me, the beginning of something that could never be.
I was glad that he came not dressed in his mail for departure, but in his shirt and breeches, though he had his sword at his side. He hesitated as he entered, near to the little stone archway that led in, as though he was wary of coming close to me, but after a moment he strode towards me. I thought he might take me in his arms, but he held back.
He sighed. “Guinevere... I think that this is for the best.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the waves of sorrow, and desperation, rush against me, shaking me right to the heart. I wouldn’t give in to them, not yet. I was strong enough for this.
“How is this for the best?” I asked, my voice very small, choked down with the tears I would not cry, looking down away from him. He stepped towards me and took my face in his hands and softly turned me to look him in the eye. I could see that he felt it too, the impossibility of everything. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care who thought it was wrong, who I hurt; I wanted him to stay. Right then I did not care if people knew, I didn’t care what was proper. But Lancelot was a man with a castle, lands, people under his care. He was responsible for them. I supposed as the son of a king he must be a vassal-prince under Arthur, with a kingdom of his own to protect. He could not risk their lives for me, if it meant the wrat
h of Arthur. He stroked my cheek gently with his thumb.
“Think of what just happened, what almost happened. If I stayed we would... you know we would. It would not be safe. You know for a queen to take a lover is treason, and that is death.”
I pushed him away, feeling the fire of my raging emotions suddenly strong within me.
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I would risk anything. But maybe you’re not as brave as they say you are.”
My voice was soft, but harsh. I knew I had been unkind, and I expected him to bridle against it, to turn to anger in response, but he did not. He stepped towards me again, and took my hand, drawing me closer tenderly, reaching out again to brush my cheek, the hair at the nape of my neck, but lightly, as though he did not trust himself to turn back if he touched more firmly. I felt my skin warm at his touch, and closed my eyes for a moment, into the sensation. There was love in it, and longing. I could feel it against my skin; the promise of a great tenderness I might never know.
“Guinevere, you have to understand, Arthur is my king. I have made vows to him, in the sight of God; he has made me what I am. He is a good king. He is a good man. I have already betrayed him in this, I –” He shook his head as words failed him for a moment. “We were boys together, we fought side by side... I owe him loyalty, in everything. I will come back. I will. I just think... For now this is the best.”
But you will find someone else. Someone you can have.
“I don’t want you to go.” It was all I could say, stubborn and petulant like a child. There were not the words within me to say it all, and I could not begin because if I did it would all pour out of me, and I would cry and scream and someone might come. “See me once, before you go.” One memory of him, one night; I thought that might be enough to last me through the years. If I had to say goodbye – and I did not think he would come back loving me still – I wanted that at least.
THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) Page 15