Her eyelids were heavy, her head light. “Just the magic. It takes more than breath and hair to seal a castle.”
“Your lip is bleeding.”
She touched her tongue to the blood. It tasted like iron. She shuddered, repulsed. That was why she had to use blood. It was the only bit of magic iron would accept. And it was evidence that, unlike Merlin, she was human. “It will heal. The knots are ready. But I cannot place them yet. It would not do to have the queen wandering the castle, bleeding and fainting.”
Arthur laughed, though his laughter was strained. “No, that would not do at all.” He lifted her and set her in the middle of his bed. “Can I finish it instead?”
“It has to be me. The iron will not listen to anyone else now.”
“Well, tell the iron I am its king and it must obey me.”
Guinevere sank into the feather mattress and covered her forehead with her arm. “Iron answers to no king. It only likes blood.”
He sat next to her on the bed, leaning against the rock wall behind it. “I have built my entire reign on the bite of iron and the spill of blood.”
Guinevere rolled to the side, looking up at him. His own eyes were closed. She wanted to reach out to him, to rest her hand on his arm. But he seemed so separate from her. “You have built your reign on justice. On peace. The cost has been high, but I have seen Camelot. I have seen your people. And I have seen what they fear.” She remembered the forest, the house. The boy. All devoured. She knew the stories of the great war with the Dark Queen and her forest of blood.
Drawing Excalibur was only the beginning for Arthur. He was the bridge between man and magic. Between tyrants like Uther and chaos like the fairies’ Dark Queen. Merlin was right. The world needed Arthur. He was the best chance mankind had.
Arthur pressed his thumb as lightly as a whisper against her bottom lip. Then he lifted it. “No more blood.”
“Blood stops. Peace and protection last.” She closed her eyes. But though she was weak everywhere, she could not sleep. It hurt too much. Her blood burned cold, tracing its way through her body with spikes of pain. “Tell me a story,” she said. “Tell me how you defeated the Dark Queen. I have only heard it from Merlin, and you know how confusing his stories are. He starts in the middle and it only gets more jumbled from there.”
Arthur sighed, shifting and sliding down so he lay next to her with his hands behind his head. The weight of him depressed the mattress and she slid closer. Neither of them moved.
“The wolves came first,” he said.
* * *
The wolves came first.
Teeth and jaws coated in the sticky blood of the throats they had already torn. But men could fight wolves, and they did. The wolves melted back into the darkness, repulsed.
Then the insects came. Crawling, biting, swarming. A man cannot fight a thousand wasps with a sword. Merlin called down birds, flocks of starlings and murders of crows, so thick that the rushing of their wings was as a hurricane, the stretch of their wings blocking out the sun. The birds ate the insects.
Then the Dark Queen woke the trees. A forest where there had been none. Spirits ancient but fragile enough to fear men. To hate men. The trees separated the soldiers. Voices cried out in pain, in terror, and the wolves found them.
Merlin called forth fire. He lashed at the trees with terrible force.
The trees felt their brothers and sisters dying. They quaked and trembled. What was the love of a dark queen against the fire of a mad wizard? Better to live for a hundred years before tasting the ax of man than to burn away in a single moment. And so, when Merlin bade the trees sleep, they sank their spirits deep into the soil, away from where the Dark Queen could call them.
Merlin quelled the fire. The men stumbled from the trees. The wolves stayed in the shadows and the darkness. The Dark Queen emerged, ringed by her knights. They wore armor of stone, of roots, of skulls and bones. Snakes, fangs bared, encircled their arms. Bats clung to their backs—wings pulsing, ready to fly into battle.
Merlin told her to stop. She laughed, the sound like the wailing of infants, the cries of women, the dying gasps of men. What will you do, old man, against the water?
The men trembled. They fell to their knees in despair. They were on the shores of a great lake. Birds could not fight water. Fire could not drive it back. Swords could no more cut a deluge than they could grow if planted in the ground.
The Dark Queen raised her hand, calling out their destruction.
The water stayed cold and still. Unmoving.
The Dark Queen screamed in rage, demanding, pleading. But still the water did not join her. Forest and water, ever allies, ever companions, now divided.
* * *
Here, Arthur paused in his telling. The cadence slipped, the images he painted for Guinevere suddenly became less story and more…personal.
“The Lady of the Lake,” he whispered, “chose my side. Just like Merlin. But the rest was up to me.” Then he pulled the story back in place, like tucking a blanket around Guinevere as he told the rest.
* * *
The dread fairy knights charged. Alone, Arthur stood against them. Excalibur pierced them, unmade them. The Green Knight, ancient forest god and unbeatable foe, became dead leaves and branches. The bats released their hold on the Black Knight, flapping blindly away and dropping their liege to shatter like glass against the ground. The snakes fled, the skulls and bones of the Dead Knight becoming lifeless things once more. Where there had been a living nightmare menace, now there was nothing but the detritus of ages past.
The Dark Queen stood alone.
Merlin did not want to kill her. He did not want to see her ended. He bade her retreat as the trees had done. Send herself deep into the earth. Let chaos sleep.
A great stag bolted free from the trees, its eyes red with madness. It lowered its head and charged at the Dark Queen. It impaled her, lifting her high in the air. Her arms were outstretched, her face beatific. Then the stag turned and disappeared back into the trees, the forest claiming the Dark Queen forevermore.
“No,” Guinevere said. The story matched what Merlin had told her in bits and pieces. He delivered stories the same way the grouchy falcon delivered food. A little here, a little there, dropped on the head when least expected. She struggled to sit up as certainty gripped her. “The Dark Queen is not dead. You saw the knights. They were not killed. They were unmade. She was not unmade.”
Arthur turned on his side so they were face-to-face. “I followed her.” He sighed. If the early story was blood-tinged horror, this part was the stage beyond horror. The weariness of unspeakable tasks. “Through the forest. Across plains. Finally, we came to a meadow. I shot the stag. Her body fell. And then…we destroyed it.” He closed his eyes. “The Dark Queen is dead. There are traces of her magic still, the chaos that bites at my borders. Like the village you saw. That used to happen regularly. Now, it is so rare people forget to fear the trees. Soon they will walk and hunt in forests fearing only the things they should.”
Guinevere felt oddly deflated. She should have been terrified to think she might face the Dark Queen, but at least there would have been a target. An opponent. “What should people fear? Other men? Like Sir Maleagant?” She wanted him to tell her what had been in the letter. If she could not define the threat she faced, she wanted to know about all the others.
Arthur sighed. “Yes. Other men. We do not need a dark queen when we have so much darkness within ourselves. But we will beat back the chaos and the darkness. I am glad you are here. I have been fighting this battle for so long. When I lost Merlin, I was alone.”
“I am sorry you had to send him away.”
“It was for the best. Magic and Camelot cannot exist in the same space. Magic—even good magic—thrives on sacrifice and chaos. Pain.” He reached out and touched her lip once more. “I am sorry it must go.
I have seen wonders and miracles. I have been given gifts unparalleled. The Lady of the Lake…” His voice went distant, and a spike of jealousy pierced Guinevere. Because here, finally, she saw what Arthur looked like when he longed for something. And she knew he would never long for her that way.
She did not need him to. Or even want him to. She was simply tired. That was all.
Arthur cleared his throat, back beside her instead of far away in a memory of magic and wonder beneath the waters of a lake. “She passed the mantle on to me. It is man’s time. And I will do whatever it takes, no matter how difficult, to build the kingdom my people deserve. I will always choose what is best for Camelot, no matter the cost. Nothing comes before peace and order. Not even myself.” He smiled fondly. “But you understand. Thank you for your service to my people.”
She had only come here for him. But Arthur was his people.
Arthur was Camelot.
* * *
After a few fitful hours of rest, she was ready to finish it and be done. It was the middle of the night, the castle sleeping around them as Arthur took her from door to door. Where there were guards, he laughed about taking Guinevere on a midnight tour of their home.
* * *
When the last seal was affixed on the bottom of the last door where it brushed the floor and no one would ever see it, Guinevere was done. And she was done.
Fortunately, they had ended up back at the exterior door nearest their rooms. Guinevere could hardly stand. She was no longer connected to the iron the way she would have been with the lesser magic done with her hair or breath. The cost was paid up front. And it was steep. Arthur opened her door and lifted her into her bed, leaving her to the darkness with a whisper of thanks and the soft press of lips against her forehead.
* * *
It was late in the day when she finally pulled herself from the suffocating confines of sleep and sat up, bleary-eyed and light-headed.
“Good morning,” she said to Brangien, who was sitting next to the bed, sewing.
Brangien dropped her embroidery and rushed to Guinevere’s side. She pressed her hand to Guinevere’s forehead, then held a goblet of watered wine to Guinevere’s lips. Guinevere laughed but drank willingly and deeply. Her throat was dry, her stomach cramping from emptiness.
“I slept so long! The day is nearly over.”
“You have been asleep for two whole days, my lady.”
“What?” Guinevere lifted a hand. It trembled weakly. That would explain her hunger. She had felt so strong at Arthur’s side, so inspired, that perhaps she had pushed it too far. Merlin would not have broken a sweat accomplishing something similar. It was unfair. She had mere child’s tricks compared to the elements he commanded.
But her tricks could sneak beneath the notice of Camelot. His power never could.
Brangien placed pillows behind Guinevere’s back, helping her sit up. She was fussing too much, but Guinevere let her. As she ate the plate of food Brangien had waiting, she asked what she had missed.
“Ever so much gossip. But it is all about you, so I suppose you did not miss anything anyone would have said to you.”
Guinevere dropped her bread. “Gossip? What?” Had someone seen her alone with Mordred? She knew she should not have agreed to that!
“All about your purity. They are dreadfully impressed that you are so virtuous and delicate, one night entertaining the king in his bedroom requires two days of rest.” Brangien lifted an eyebrow wryly.
“They are saying that? Arthur’s bed is really the topic of so much discussion?”
“Everyone is very invested in the girl who finally found a place there. Many have tried over the years. This is pure vicious gossip, mind you, but I have heard from more than one source that Dindrane, Sir Percival’s sister, once paid a servant to sneak her into Arthur’s bedroom, where she waited…alone…in his bed…with only the clothes she was born in.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Brangien’s eyes twinkled in delight. “But our king is as virtuous as he is strong and kind. He asks nothing of others that he would not do himself. Thus, to wed a virgin, he himself was a virgin.”
Guinevere knew very little of men. Merlin hardly counted as one. She did not know what to make of this information about Arthur. She changed the subject. “I might love Dindrane now. Is that odd? How brave she must be, how bold to attempt such a direct attack!”
Brangien laughed, handing Guinevere another goblet of watered wine. “You are a surprising lady. But she has nothing and therefore nothing to lose. Be careful what you say or do around her. We will avoid her whenever possible.”
“Thank you, Brangien. I would be lost without you.”
Brangien waved away the compliment, but Guinevere could tell she was pleased. She let Brangien brush and braid her hair, chattering and filling her in on everything else. Arthur had been to visit her twice to check on her state. But he had left that morning on business.
When Guinevere used the chamber pot in private, though, she had a terrible shock. The magic must have broken her. She cried out in fear, needing Merlin. Needing anyone.
Brangien rushed in. “What is it?”
“Blood,” Guinevere said, staring at her underclothes in horror.
“Well, that is no concern. The timing was not right to conceive anyhow.”
“What do you mean?” Guinevere could not help the tears streaming down her face. She had broken herself. She would bleed to death from the inside. No one would be left to protect Arthur. No one would know where the real Guinevere was buried. And she herself would die unknown, unloved, unnamed.
Brangien’s face shifted to shock and then pity. “Oh, my lady. You have not— This is your first time?”
“My first time what? I do not understand. I am dying, Brangien. Please tell Arthur—”
Brangien led her to the bed. She picked up the blood-stained underclothes and tucked them away with the wash, then busied herself getting new ones, along with several narrow lengths of cloth. “Your convent has a lot to answer for,” she grumbled. “Imagine, sending a girl to be married who has not yet started her courses, and who does not understand her own body.” Brangien layered the cloth into the underclothes, then slipped them both up Guinevere’s trembling legs. “This is normal. Healthy, even. It will happen every month until Arthur’s seed takes root in your womb.”
“What?”
Brangien laughed. “It is not quite fair, is it? But it is the way of women’s bodies. You may have some pain, exhaustion, even. That could explain the last couple of days. But it will pass in under a week, and then you will be clear as a summer morning. Until the next moon.”
“This happens to you, too?”
“Yes.”
“It is awful. Who ever designed this system?”
Brangien laughed. “I believe that would be God, so you are welcome to take it up with him. In the meantime, I will heat some towels for you to hold against your abdomen. It feels nice.”
Guinevere was even more willing to let Brangien take care of her. She felt fragile and new, unnerved at this strange development in her own body. And betrayed that she had not known it was coming.
“Can you—” Her voice cracked. She knew that men and women had babies. All things did. But she had never considered the specifics of how, as it related to humans. And Merlin had certainly never told her about it. That was one lesson she would not have forgotten. “Can you explain the part about the seeds?” she asked.
Brangien tucked the warm towels around her. “I am going to give those nuns an earful if we ever see them again.”
* * *
A couple of hours later, Guinevere felt much better physically, if a bit unsteady emotionally. “I would like to speak to Arthur. When will he return?”
“No one told me.”
“Hmm.” Guinevere wished she knew, bu
t doubted anyone would tell her. She was not important in the workings of the castle or the business of knights. “Oh!” Guinevere remembered another task to be done, now that the castle was secure. “When will there be another aspirant tournament?”
“They increased them! Two a week. I think the king is trying to get the patchwork knight through. One is happening right now.”
“No!” Guinevere would lose her chance to try and steal an item of the patchwork knight’s.
“You are in no state to go to the arena, anyhow. You need to rest.”
“I have been resting for two days.”
“And you will rest until I decide you are well enough to stop.”
Guinevere did not want to wait until the next week to spy out the patchwork knight. And if she could not get something of his, she had another idea.
“Actually, I am quite tired. I should sleep more. Would you please see to it that I am not disturbed until the morning? I think one night of deep sleep will set me right.”
Brangien nodded. She took away Guinevere’s empty plate and refilled the goblet, which she left on a table next to the bed. Then, after leaving more cloth should Guinevere need it, she slipped into Guinevere’s sitting room.
Guinevere stood on shaky legs. She padded her underclothes, her feelings as unsteady as her body, which had become a stranger. She pulled out Brangien’s dress and cloak, once against tugging a thread and knotting confusion into it. She would have to go slowly, which meant she needed to leave now to reach her destination in time.
As she slipped out the door to go outside, she gasped. The thread she had knotted popped and sizzled. The magic snapped back, slapping her and leaving her winded and stinging.
How could she have been so stupid? She had set up the magical barriers herself! The iron spell had done its work, dismantling her confusion knot as soon as it passed the threshold. At least she had evidence that her work had not been in vain. Any magic that tried to pass these doors would be undone. Even her own.
The Guinevere Deception Page 11