The Guinevere Deception

by Kiersten White

  A threat is coming, he had said. We need more time. I need to give you more. But it is nearly here, and I dare not delay. You must go to Arthur.

  But why me? she had asked. Your power is so much greater than mine. What if I cannot protect him?

  You are afraid of the wrong thing, he had said. And then he had looked at her, the way he did when he was searching for something in her eyes. He never found it. He twitched into a smile, and then wandered away. I will find some horses. There is a convent waiting for you.

  Guinevere sent silent anger and curses toward Merlin. That was all the preparation he had given her. Something was coming, it was nearly here, and she had to protect Arthur. Alone.

  “We should talk about my role here,” she said. “I am sorry you had to marry me.” It was the only way for her to stay close to him, and to have access to the castle. To the people around him. To every threat that his knights could not dream of, that swords could not save him from.

  Arthur was trying to carve a nation of ideals from the wild and hungry land, and the land was not giving up without a fight. Only someone who knew the subtle paths and seeping reach of magic could ever hope to protect him against it. She had seen his knights in the magical forest. Their terror gave her some hope. She was no Merlin and never would be, but she knew more than these men. She would see things they never could. Merlin had not told her what the threat was, but she would know.

  “Do not apologize.” Arthur took her hands in his. She dampened her sense of him; it felt intrusive right now. She could control it, a little, if she concentrated and it did not catch her by surprise. “It is a great sacrifice you have made for me. And I needed to marry soon anyway. Percival has been arranging for me to unexpectedly run into his sister.”

  “She is ten years your senior!” Guinevere coughed to cover up the force of her exclamation. “And lovely.”

  Arthur grinned. “She is a jewel among women. But a lesser jewel. Perhaps more of a shiny stone. Certainly not a ruby.”

  Now she was sure he saw her blush, because he looked away and spoke quickly. “Then there are the Picts to the north, who would have me wed one of theirs and use it as an excuse to expand southward into our lands. Better to have military treaties than marital treaties where the Picts are concerned. Besides, marriage to a distant king’s daughter renews my southerly bonds of friendship without any of my borders fearing I am trying to expand. It is ideal.”

  “But I am not a distant king’s daughter.” She was surprised by the subtle longing in her voice. If she were really Guinevere, how much simpler her life would be. How different this night would be. Though she suspected she would have been just as terrified had the marriage bed awaited, rather than a discussion on how to keep Arthur safe from fey assassins and magical attacks. Perhaps those aspects of being a queen had been covered in the convent. If so, the real Guinevere had taken them to the grave. And Merlin certainly had not given her an education in romance. She was sixteen, and this was the first time a boy had held her hands. Rather than being thrilled by it, she was fighting magic to avoid invading his mind.

  “You are Merlin’s daughter. And that makes you far more valuable than any princess.”

  “I hope I am a better protector than he is a father.”

  She meant it in jest, but Arthur’s face darkened. He nodded. “We all of us must be better than our fathers. At least Merlin leaves you nothing to atone for. Only to live up to.”

  It was a relief to see how much Arthur missed Merlin. It confirmed Merlin’s stories of him, how much they trusted each other.

  She tried to understand why Camelot would demand Merlin’s banishment. It was true that he was closer to the wild magic of the forest than to the orderly rule of Arthur. Merlin was not quite human, not quite other. He was inscrutable and confusing and often somehow absent even when he was right next to her. But he was also the reason Camelot existed. The reason Arthur was alive. If Camelot could reject that, what would they do if they found out she was no princess, but rather a simple forest witch?

  Arthur was king because of magic—a magical sword, delivered by the Lady of the Lake. A life protected by a wizard. But his role as king was to push back magic in order for mankind to thrive.

  Until magic was truly gone, it could threaten him. She would be the shield against any magic seeking to destroy what Arthur was doing here. As ill-prepared as she felt, she would not fail him. She would live up to Merlin’s legacy. “I am honored to serve you, my king.”

  “And together, we serve Camelot.” He smiled wearily, leaning back and rubbing his face. “I am glad I do not have to get married every day. It is exhausting.”

  Guinevere, too, was more tired than she could remember being. She felt as though she had lived a lifetime in the last few days. And, in truth, she had. An entire new life as she became Guinevere.

  There was one thing left to discuss, though. She did not want to, but she needed to know the boundaries of their agreement. The things the real Guinevere would have known.

  “What do…” She hesitated, then changed tactics. “What do the people expect of your wife?”

  Arthur, honest Arthur, sweet Arthur, did not understand her meaning. “I have never had a queen before. I think you should be at my side for formal events. When greeting other rulers. Perhaps even for hunting, if you wish.”

  “I will need privacy to do my work.”

  He frowned, scratching the back of his neck. It was obvious he had not considered this yet. No wonder Merlin had sent her. Even with her there to protect him through magic, Arthur hardly thought about it. “Hunting parties could be a good way to get you out of the confines of the city without arousing suspicion. I will see to it that you have everything you need, and privacy to do your work without being noticed. We can figure out reasons why you need to be out and about instead of always in the castle. I—” He paused, then smiled. “I want you to be happy here.”

  “I am here to work. To serve you, as Merlin did.”

  Arthur nodded, something shifting in his warm, open face. “But you can still be happy. It is important to me.”

  Guinevere did her best to suppress her own brilliant smile. “Very well. I will add happiness to my list of duties, alongside protecting the king from magical threat.” She stood. Arthur stood. They both stood there, unmoving. The bed awaited. Their marriage was legal only upon consummation. “But it is not legal anyway, since I am not actually Guinevere,” she blurted out, continuing her unspoken thought.

  Arthur raised an eyebrow, puzzled. Then, at last, he understood what she was unwilling to say. He blushed in a confusingly gratifying manner. “You are here as Merlin’s daughter, and I ask nothing more of you. Neither do I expect anything more.”

  Her relief was…complicated. “But eventually they will want heirs.”

  Arthur’s gaze seemed to turn inward, a shadow of old pain crossing his face. Perhaps he thought of his mother. “We will worry about that when it comes. Besides, I am fully confident that you will root out every magical threat to my life within a fortnight.”

  She was grateful she could tell he was joking. She did not expect it to be so quick or so easy. The urgency of Merlin’s demand, the lengths he went to in order to establish her here as Guinevere—it all made her certain that the coming threat was not to be underestimated.

  But she was also grateful that Arthur expected her to be a wife in name only. He was a stranger to her, still, no matter how familiar he seemed and how instantly she trusted him. She would die for him.

  The thought startled her. It felt like it was coming from far away, like an echo. She accepted it as it presented itself, though. She would die for Arthur. But that did not mean she wanted to share his bed on the first day they met. Though here, without the trappings of kinghood, he was just as handsome and far more real in a way that made her feel light and unsteady inside.

  Sh
e had met more men in the last few days than in all the other days of her life combined. It would take some time to decide how she felt about them in general, and him in particular. Though he was by far the best of them. She suspected she could meet every man on the entire vast island and still find Arthur the best.

  He pulled aside a tapestry of a woodland hunting scene. Like everything in his bedroom, it was faded with age. There were no luxuries here. Everything was serviceable or old.

  Behind the tapestry, a heavy door was revealed. “It connects my rooms to your rooms. We will visit each other enough, so there will be no cause for suspicion.” He grinned. “Perhaps I can learn how to plait your hair, and you can teach me some magic.”

  She laughed, finally at ease. “Plaiting hair is magic. That is why men cannot do it. It is women’s magic alone. Which reminds me!” He would not sleep in his crown, after all. She needed to do more than the knots she had left there. She went to the nearest window, the thick, uneven glass cool to the touch. She breathed on it, then traced her knotting patterns onto it. When her breath fog faded, so, too, did her tracings. But they were still there. It was weak magic, like the hair knots, but it left a bit of her here. It would keep minor things out, and she would feel the break if any knot was undone.

  She did the same on all the windows. With each bit of breath magic, she felt more winded, as though she had been running. It would fade with time. The door was not right for breath, so she spat on it. Arthur laughed at that. She shushed him, but she was secretly pleased. Though Arthur smiled easily, it still seemed a very fine thing, making him laugh.

  At the bed—which she could view without fear knowing it expected nothing of her—she pulled threads free from the worn coverlet and twisted them into the correct knots. More permanent, but less personal. The sacrifice was not in her body, but in the risk that the magic would come unbound without her knowing. But it was enough for now.

  “Did Merlin teach you this?” Arthur asked, curious.

  “No, he—yes.” Guinevere paused, trying to remember. Merlin would never stoop to knot magic, even to demonstrate it. It was far too human. Frail and temporary. She tried to conjure a memory of Merlin explaining it to her, teaching her. It would have been at their sturdy table. Or in the forest? She remembered her neat bedroll, the cottage she kept tidy. The trees and the sun and the birds. Staring at her own hands in wonder. Night and day, sleeping and waking, hunger and food and everything swirling and obscured as though she were searching through fog…

  Merlin, frowning, pushing his fingers against her forehead. “This should be enough,” he had said. “Do not look for more.”

  She rubbed at the spot on her forehead. He had pushed the knowledge into her brain. Willed it to be there, rather than teaching her himself. He could be very lazy. “Yes, he taught me, in his own way.” She finished the knot.

  Satisfied, she turned and almost ran into Arthur. He had come up behind her to watch her work.

  “Sorry!” Her hands were on his chest. She pulled them back quickly. “I am sorry. I should go. I am tired.”

  He walked her to the tapestry, pulling it aside again and holding it for her. “Thank you. I am glad you are here, Guinevere.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, surprised to find how much she meant it. And surprised by how much she wished she had told him her name after all.

  As the door closed behind her, leaving her holding a candle in the dark passageway, she closed her eyes and leaned close to the flickering light. She whispered her name directly into the flame.

  And then she blew it out.

  The spider dies on the windowsill.

  The centipede withers, legs twitching in agony, at the space between door and stone floor.

  A dozen other things that creep and crawl and skitter try and fail to visit Arthur that night. None intends harm, so the magical bonds are not broken and no one is alerted to the dark queen’s attempt. But those same magical bonds mean that the queen cannot see.

  Not seeing, however, is just as telling as seeing.

  The usurper king has a new wizard. Merlin is gone, but still has his claws in the kingdom. She calls back her legions that have not yet perished. There will be other times to see. Other ways to spy. She has hands and eyes in Camelot yet. Let the king and this wizard sleep.

  She is the earth, the rocks, the forest. She is patient.

  She plucks the life from a hundred spiders in a twitch of anger.

  Perhaps not too patient.

  The problem with being a lady was that a lady had a lady’s maid, and a lady’s maid never left.

  Brangien had been sleeping on a cot in the corner when Guinevere crept from the passageway into her own bedroom. If Brangien was startled to wake up in the morning and find Guinevere, she did not show it. She bustled about, drawing curtains and tidying. There were windows along only one side of the room. The back wall was against the secret passage, which itself was against the rock of the mountain. The way the castle clung to the cliff was unnerving to Guinevere. There was so little between her and falling. And the lake lurked, waiting beneath to swallow her whole.

  No wonder Merlin had never described Camelot to her. He had filled her instead with stories of Arthur. His goodness, his bravery, his goals. If she had been aware of the particular geography of the place, she might not have agreed to come.

  Come to think of it, she had never explicitly agreed to come, because he had not asked. He had told her the threat was imminent and whisked her to the convent. That was his way, though. For all she knew, ten years in the future he would sit down and explain the whole thing to her, including what the threat was, how she was to fight it, and why it had to be she, and she alone.

  After she had already done it.

  She tried to have compassion for him. It was like he lived every moment of his life all at once, his mind slipping through time. Which meant that he knew things were coming before they happened, but it also meant that he had a hard time landing on what needed to be said or done at any given time.

  And it made her own life very frustrating. Nothing to be done for it, though, but to get to work.

  She stood and stretched. The bed, at least, was comfortable. It seemed new compared to Arthur’s. The coverlets were dyed deepest blue. The ropes across the bed frame tight enough that they did not so much as creak when she moved. And the mattress was softer than yellow-green tufts of new spring grass. The bed at the convent had been a straw mattress, itchy and lumpy. And her bed at home had been…She could only picture it, not remember sleeping in it. It felt like a lifetime ago. She had only the memory of dreams, which was fitting for a home shared with a wizard.

  Cloth draped over the four posters of the bed could be drawn closed like curtains at a window, sealing her in to sleep. She had not done that the night before. She did not like the idea of being confined in her dreams.

  In addition to the bed, there were several chests in the room, sent ahead by the convent. They were the real Guinevere’s. She wondered what was inside them. It felt wrong to open them, but she had already claimed Guinevere’s name. How much guiltier would claiming belongings make her?

  She tore her eyes away from the chests, which had begun to feel like caskets. There was a table with a single chair, and Brangien’s neat cot in the corner. A door led out to the hallway, and another door to a side chamber.

  Two tapestries brightened the wall without windows; one of them hid the secret door. The tapestries were both old, like the one in Arthur’s room. The pastoral scenes could have been hanging in any great man’s home.

  “Why does he have no tapestries of his life?” Guinevere asked as Brangien bustled around.

  “Beg pardon, my queen?”

  “Arthur. The king. All the tapestries I have seen are meaningless. Does he have none of the miracle of the sword? Of his victory over Uther Pendragon? The defeat of the
fairy queen and the forest of blood?”

  Brangien paused where she was laying out fresh underclothes. “I had not thought of it before. But he has never commissioned them. And there are no tapestries of Uther Pendragon, either. I think he had them destroyed.”

  “Is he— Am I supposed to eat breakfast with him?” Guinevere did not know the rules yet. Could she go over to his room to bid him good morning? Should she?

  “I believe there is a trial this morning. A woman caught practicing magic.” Brangien said it as perfunctorily as her movements making Guinevere’s bed were. It was a routine matter. Guinevere forced a neutral hmm in response.

  After Brangien was satisfied with the items she had chosen, she bowed and left. Guinevere hurried to the windows, repeating for herself the same work that she had done last night for Arthur. She would need to redo it all at least once every three nights. And there were bigger, stronger magics to work. But those would take time as well as supplies.

  She had just finished tracing the knots on the window when the sitting room door opened. She hoped it looked like she was trying to see the view through the thick glass.

  Brangien bowed neatly. “Everything is ready, my lady.”

  Ravenous, Guinevere followed, eager for breakfast. Instead, she was greeted by a tub of steaming water in the center of her sitting room.

  “No!” she exclaimed.

  “My lady? Did I do something wrong?” Brangien was standing next to the tub. A table held various tinctures and soaps, a soft length of cloth, a scrubbing brush. Brangien’s sleeves had been tied back, her pale arms exposed.

  “What is this for?” Guinevere looked everywhere but at the bath. She had seen something reflected on the water. Something not in this room. She did not want to know what it was. Water was the best tool for seeing, better than any of her paltry tricks. Water touched everything, flowing from one life to the next. With enough patience and time, water could lead a skilled magician to any answer.