THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1)

by Lavinia Collins

“Guinevere...”

  “No. You don’t have to come to me, I'll come to you. I have gone out hunting in the woods before; Arthur won't deny me. No one will suspect. Go up to my room, and take the book of Ovid. Send it to me, when you are ready, and I will find you.”

  He closed his eyes and leant his forehead against mine. I could feel his soft hair falling against my face, his breath close by.

  “I can’t,” he whispered, but he did not move away.

  I took his face in my hands and he opened his eyes.

  “Tell me it’s not what you want, that you don’t love me, and I will not ask you again.”

  I was the first one to speak the word love, and I could see the shock of it go through him, as if I had spoken it into being, given shape to what stood between us. I had not fallen in love with Arthur, it had grown, I had sunk into it; if this was that, it was how I had read it in books, vertiginous and wild and sudden. I did not know if it was love, and I did not think I would know until I had had him, but it felt strong and undeniable and great. I thought it would be a love as great as the universe itself, if he would take the adventure of it with me. He shied back from me, slightly but not entirely. The thought struck me that I could choose. I had his face between my hands, and we were here alone. All my life men had chosen for me. I had sent a man I loved to war – a man I had loved as a child, not knowing that love was – and gone willingly to be Arthur’s slave, if he had wished it, because all my life I had been told that my body belonged to my father, my brothers, my husband. I had been told my wishes meant nothing. Duty was everything. And if I had taken that boy I had loved as a girl into my bed, there would have been shame, perhaps, and people would have spoken of me as they spoke of Morgan, and perhaps I would not have loved him after all, but I would have known, and my life would not have been in the hands of someone else. I was long past that now, and choices in that were lost to me, but at last again the choice had come to me to seize my destiny in my hands. I was not a woman who could be owned. If Lancelot thought Arthur owned me he was wrong. I did not belong to either of them, to be passed between them. The blood of Maev ran in my veins and I would choose the lover I wanted.

  I kissed Lancelot hard, feeling him startle, shocked by the fierceness of my kiss. But then I felt him yield and knew the rushing joy of conquest that Arthur must have known time and again. I twined my fingers deep into his hair, holding him fast against me, and slowly, stunned, he wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me to him. I felt light-headed with joy, with new-won pleasure. I could have whatever I wanted. His lips against mine were like velvet, soft and heady, giving way to my passion, and they parted with mine, deep and passionate. I felt him shiver, gently, with it.

  When at last I sighed away from him, I felt the world all around me had changed, and the scents of spring that had once seemed like the last spring reached me with all their blossoming intensity. The flowers and the sunlight looked brighter, fresher. Lancelot still looked surprised, catching his breath. I felt the thrill of victory within me.

  “Send for me,” I said. “I shall be ready.”

  I stayed in the garden for a while, feeling the electric excitement and anticipation in the air all around me. When I felt calm, when I felt that I could hide the smile on my face and the thrill in my heart, I went back up to my rooms. When I looked through my books and saw that the little book of Ovid in French was gone, I felt the rush of joy and excitement flutter in me again. I was beginning to feel powerful and bold – giddy. I was free. I could do as I pleased. I had done it, crossed the line, and I was still here. No one would know. It was a heady rush, this feeling of freedom. This must be what it feels like to be a man, doing always as you please. No, it wouldn’t be this good, because it wouldn’t be secret and dangerous.

  My body felt full of electric strength, full of the most delicious kind of yearning. I ran to the stables. Kay was there, and he gave me a sullen look, still angry that I had shouted at him. I barely saw him. I took my horse and jumped up onto her bare back, hitching the skirts of my dress above my knees. Kay opened his mouth to protest me riding off without saddle, weapon or accompaniment, but I was already gone. I didn’t know where I was going, but I wanted to ride, fast, until I felt all the sensations of it running through me. Out in the fields outside the castle, some of the knights were training and they looked up as I rode past, but no one tried to stop me. I rode into the woods, looking for the light that dappled through the trees, the smells of wood and damp earth and the sound of the silence. I felt the wind tear my hair loose as I rode, and it fell about my shoulders. I breathed in the spring air deep into my lungs. I had not felt this alive in a long time, but now my blood felt new in my veins. I was seeing the green of the trees, I was tasting the breeze. It wrapped around me, the springtime and the potential that glimmered in the air, until that and the wind in my hair, and the thudding of the horse beneath me became one wonderful rush of joy.

  When I got back to the stables, it was getting dark. I was flushed from the fresh air, and tired, but ecstatic. I thought I was alone, but as I slid off my horse, I saw Arthur, standing there, looking at me with a curious little smile on his face.

  “You look wild,” he said. He did not sound displeased. I felt wild. My body felt full of a daring strength, a vivid hunger. We were alone, and dark was falling around. I stepped forward and seized him by the shirt, pulling him into a fierce kiss. He, unexpecting, stumbled back and we fell into the straw. In slow disbelief, his reactions catching up slowly with what he had not expected, he pulled me more firmly onto him as I kissed him hungrily, madly. I felt charged with desire all over my body, and beneath me, I felt him swell in response. This was what it felt like to be him. Powerful, in control. I pulled his breeches open and slid my hand inside. Arthur groaned with pleasure and rolled us over so that he was on top of me, pushing up the skirts of my dress, rough with haste, burying his face in the hair at the nape of my neck. I could hear him breathing hard. He thrust into me then, and we both cried out in wordless pleasure. The straw caught in my loose hair and tangled there as I smelt around me the lovely freshness of it. The pleasure rose fast and urgent in me. I thought of Lancelot, of his lips on my neck, of his hands against my thigh, of the way he had yielded to my kiss. I heard instead of Arthur’s ragged breaths at my ear, his soft voice speaking to me in the French I only half-understood. It came hard upon me, and sudden, the white-hot point of ecstasy that spread all though me, as I sighed down into the straw, and Arthur fast after me. We lay there, gasping for breath, and I ran my fingers through his hair, thoughtfully. As the sensations of our love receded around me, I was left with the cold, clammy feeling of guilt. What kind of woman was I, that could lie with one man, thinking of another? Did everyone do this? It was too easy. That was what made me feel guilty. Too easy to love two men at once. Because I still loved Arthur, and I had wanted his hands on me for his own sake. He kissed me lovingly, and I felt, awful as it was, the guilt melt away into happiness. Having everything could really be having everything, perhaps.

  As I was just brushing the straw from the back of my dress and Arthur was rubbing the stalks of straw from his hair, Kay rode in and jumped from his horse. How did he get everywhere? Arthur and he exchanged an easy smile and Arthur, excusing himself to meet in council with Nimue and Gawain, gave him a brotherly pat on the shoulder as he walked by.

  “Kay...” I began, uneasily. I wasn’t sure, really, how sorry I was, because he had been unkind about Gareth, and I knew his well-meaning taunts really upset the boy, so I shied away from apologising directly. He gave a forgiving nod.

  “Christine told me you weren’t well. I shouldn’t have teased you when you were short of patience.” His reply was also not quite an apology. Christine told me. Hmmm. What had Christine told him? But then I realised he must have ridden out looking for me. He had been worried to see me go. I forgave him a little more, then.

  Suddenly he laughed, and leapt towards me. I instinctively jumped back, but I did not have
far to go, and he caught me against the wall. I gave a little unconscious laugh in response, but I did not know why he was laughing. Then he reached over and pulled a piece of straw from my hair. He gave an arch smile, and lifted an eyebrow at me, still close.

  “Hmmmm.” He made a little noise – I could not tell whether it was mocking or approving. I batted his hand, holding the stalk of straw, away, but I was smiling. It was a deep and secret smile.

  Chapter Twenty One

  I passed the days as I waited for my little book of Ovid to return to me in a kind of luxurious trance. Spring turned to summer around me, and every day seemed full of the promise of news. At first I had hoped it would be soon, but then I thought I would be glad of him sending for me on his return, when this ‘giant’ was dead, and he was safe and when I had all of these days of tingling anticipation building up around me. And yet, though I dreamed of Lancelot day and night, I went to bed with Arthur, and the excitement of waiting filled me with a fire for him as well. And those nights when I was alone, when Arthur was with his knights, or perhaps with some other woman, in the darkness I would slide my hand between my legs, and think of Lancelot, of his lithe sensuality, his lips soft yet urgent on mine, the moment he had given his will to mine in the garden; and sometimes I thought of Arthur, the feel of his strength around me, the rough urgency of his love.

  But word did not come. As summer ripened to its fullness and the big orange sun hung fat and hot in the sky, I still lacked my little book of Ovid. It was a particularly hot summer, and it felt oppressive. I lay in my garden day after day in the shade of my little rose-tree that was drying out, miserably, in the heat, and listened to little Marie read in Breton in her chirping little voice, or Christine in her gentle, motherly voice, or sometimes Kay or Gareth reading in English. I did not like the English so much, but I liked it when the garden was full of people. The noise and the laughter distracted me from my thoughts, which were turning from giddy anticipation to a nervous fear. It went on so long that Marie noticed that my little French Ovid was missing and told Arthur. Arthur had suggested I send to Morgan and ask her to teach me Latin, so that I could read it properly anyway. She had grown up in a convent and, he assured me, would be able to teach me well. I didn’t want to let her unsettling presence into my little enchanted summer, and I told him I did not want to. I went, as often as I could, to lie on the Round Table and wish for the return of my book of Ovid, but it did not come.

  He had not returned without it, and no word had come of his death. I did not know what it could mean, this awful silence. Arthur, too, missed him and began to complain of his absence. The company of knights was not the same, he said, if one was missing.

  “He must have killed that dragon by now,” Arthur grumbled.

  “Giant,” I corrected.

  Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever Mark thinks he saw.”

  Then the news came. But it did not come to me. It came to Arthur. It had come to him in the morning, and evidently he had been waiting with excitement to announce it when we were gathered to eat in the evening. It was a day when we all eating at the high table in the great hall. It must have been one of the Feasts of the Hanged Christ, but I never paid attention in chapel, which Arthur only asked me to accompany him to once a week. Often, I just stared up at the sad face of Christ, drooping before me on his cross and wondered why people would worship such a miserable god. Also, they kept calling the cross a tree, and if it really was meant to be a tree then I did not see how Arthur’s Christ was any different from my Hanged God in the slightest.

  We had eaten a wonderful dinner of fresh fish, and green vegetables, and little soft potatoes in butter that melted in the mouth. I felt happy, festive almost. I remembered that moment clearly. Kay had just handed me a lovely ripe peach and I was just about to lift it to my lips when Arthur lifted a hand for silence. He smiled around at the group of knights, and Nimue and me. I could see he was excited.

  “I’ve had word from Lancelot. He is returning. Tonight.” The men all cheered, and Nimue gave a demure little smile. I smiled too, but I knew mine was unsteady. I didn’t know how I felt about this. I wanted to see him again, but if he was returning without sending for me with the book, had he rejected me? I had been so sure that he would not. “Wait – there’s more.” He looked as though he was straining not to shout it out across the room. “He is bringing a woman with him – a woman who is carrying his child.”

  I heard a roaring silence in my ears. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. And on top of it all a child. Whoever that woman was she had what was rightfully mine, twice over. I felt a heavy core of rage grow inside me. I felt something dripping down my arm and looked to see that I had dug my fingers into the peach I was holding, ripping it to pieces.

  I stood up slowly, shaking with anger, and held up a hand, automatic, to pat my hair, to check it was in place. I didn’t care, but something about the gesture was comforting. Oh, I would go like a queen to this. I thought, perhaps, that I might kill him. I breathed in deeply, and felt the rage inside me cool to a dangerous, heavy calm. Kay reached for my hand, but I excused myself. I felt Arthur’s gaze follow me from the room. I could sense his concern. He knew I would be upset about the child, of course. That still hurt. Unconsciously, I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling what was gone, and holding myself together.

  When I was out in the night air I stopped for a moment, to check that I had on me the dagger I always carried. It was there, cool and comforting to the touch. I looked over to the stables. They were dark and quiet. Perhaps he was not back yet. I walked slowly up to my room. Each step was an effort, each moment that I was holding myself under steely control. I would not stand for this. I would not wait and hope and dream and be betrayed. That was the worst. The feeling foolish. I had no intention of being taken for a fool.

  I hoped to be alone when I got back to my chamber, but when I opened the door it was onto Lancelot, standing framed in the open window, the night sky clear with a moon yawning full beside him. I had not been prepared to see him, I had not had time to gather myself. It all rushed at me. The sight of him, moonlight in the dark hair that I had felt between my fingers, as soft as a kiss, the way he stood, lithe and ready. It made it all rush back to me, unbearably potent, as though his lips had just been on my neck, as though his body had just been pressed against mine, and his voice at my ear, and suddenly I was gasping for breath, my head swimming with the memories. Seeing me like this, Lancelot stepped forward, towards me. The anger of betrayal flared within me, and, slamming the door shut behind me with one hand, drawing the dagger with the other, I jumped back from him.

  “Don’t touch me,” I shouted.

  “Guinevere –” He held his arms out towards me in helpless appeal.

  “I should never have trusted you. You’re a man without honour. It wasn’t so very hard for you to break your oaths to Arthur, was it? And you treated me just the same. What is a coward knight with no honour worth? No, don’t touch me.” He had stepped forward again, only slightly, but I was not going to give my ground. He looked defeated, drained. But I would not melt before his sadness. He had lied to me.

  “Please, Guinevere, let me explain.”

  I did not answer, nor did I move, or lower the dagger, though I did not doubt that if he were serious about defending himself from me he could. He still had his sword at his side, and even if he did not, he could have taken the dagger from me as easily as from a child. Still, shaking with my anger though I was, I felt better with it in my hand.

  “Guinevere, I thought it was you. Your book. I sent you your book, and I waited for you in my pavilion in the forest. You came to me – or, I thought it was you. It was dark, it was night, and I was sure it was you. But, when I woke in the morning, it wasn’t. It was once, only once.” The distress, the confusion, the utter loss of control he had suffered showed on his face, and my resolve was weakening. I lowered the dagger slightly.

  “Why did you have to bring her here?” I demanded, hea
ring the petulance in my own voice, but I felt I had a right to it.

  He shook his head in defeat.

  “Her father is one of Arthur’s vassal lords. She said she was a virgin, before. I didn’t have a choice. It was bring her here or start a war. I hoped I would get to you before his messengers, to tell you. Guinevere, I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you going to marry her?” I asked in a very small voice.

  “No, no, of course not.” He drew me into his arms and I did not resist, though I still held myself wary. He kissed me, once, lightly on the neck, and I closed my eyes, feeling my resistance slip away. “I only thought of you the whole time I was away. I dreamed of you. I am so sorry, so sorry.”

  He kissed me again, and I melted into it, feeling again what I had dreamed of so long. He held me close against him, kissing my neck, up, coming to kiss me on the lips, slow and delicious. After a moment, I pushed him gently away.

  “No, not now. Come to me tomorrow, and I will make sure we are safe.”

  Arthur was, I was sure, close behind me, ready to offer me the only kind of comfort he knew.

  “Tomorrow?” He sounded shocked, but did not disagree. I suddenly felt that time was short, and if we did not come together soon, then I would miss the chance forever. Already too much had come between us, and my patience was too thin now for prudence.

  “Tomorrow,” I replied.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The next day I woke as soon as I felt the tickle of the morning sun against my eyelids. I woke with my heart racing with almost unbearable anticipation. I did not know how I would wait until night. Arthur had come to me the night before, full of concern, and himself reminded of the loss of our child. We had fallen together, as we always did, but it had given more comfort to him than to me, and I had lain awake half the night, staring into the thick darkness, my head full of thoughts that would not be still.