The Camelot Betrayal

by Kiersten White

  “She does not have the coloring for it.”

  “What does that mean? Guinevere always looks pretty.”

  “Because she has a maid who is careful to dress her in colors that will flatter her complexion.”

  Guinevere snatched the yellow tunic from Brangien and tossed it onto the bed. “Can we focus on the threat?”

  “Right. Yes.” Giving one last frown to Brangien, Arthur turned his full attention to Guinevere. “I unsheathed the sword as I walked in. Held it at my side and passed directly behind her. She did not react. And she was using a specially prepared iron goblet.”

  Guinevere slumped, disappointed. “That was clever.”

  Arthur laughed. “Try not to sound too proud of my cleverness.”

  “I am proud of you! It just would have been so much simpler if she had, I do not know, dissolved into flowers or gone up in a puff of smoke.” Guinevere gestured toward the ceiling where puff-of-smoke Guinevach would have gathered.

  “You want her to be evil?” Arthur asked.

  “What? No! No. Of course not. But I need answers. And she is a threat, evil or not. If she is sent by the Dark Queen, or if she can tell everyone that—” Guinevere cut herself off. Brangien did not know that Guinevach could reveal the truth of Guinevere’s identity.

  “She has two lady’s maids,” Brangien said, laying out jewelry and pretending like she was not curious about why Guinevere had stopped talking. “A young maid, barely old enough to have her monthly courses, if that. She seems quite dim. And an older maid, who appears to be doing the bulk of the work. She is always sewing.” Brangien held up a hand. “I looked. It is actual sewing, no knot magic.”

  There was a knock at the door. Brangien crossed the room and opened it, then stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

  Arthur spoke quickly. “I had Sir Tristan interview her guards. She came with three. One was familiar with a cook in the kitchen, who confirmed that the man was from Cameliard. So that would seem to confirm that Guinevach is indeed from Cameliard, which means she is actually Guinevach.”

  “Guards can be bribed.”

  Arthur nodded, sitting next to Guinevere. “That is true.”

  Brangien came back in. “The older maid. Guinevach sends her regards and hopes you feel well enough to meet her tomorrow morning. Dindrane is furious, by the way.” Brangien swept the jewelry that did not meet her approval back into a box. “She is taking it personally that you are ‘sick’ and unable to help her finalize her preparations for the wedding. We leave in three days.”

  Three more days of avoiding both Guinevach and Dindrane? Any potential magical threats paled in comparison to Dindrane’s wrath. It would take an entire contingent of knights and guards to keep Guinevere safe from her demands.

  Guinevere felt the stones of Camelot closing in around her. It was less like a refuge and more like a cage, now that Guinevach was here. “Lancelot and I will go scout the eastern borders tomorrow. The river—”

  “Is impassable,” Arthur said.

  “For human armies. I would like to see that region for myself, just to be certain.”

  “I cannot come.”

  “I did not ask you to.”

  Arthur frowned. “What if there is a threat? It could be dangerous.”

  “I am dangerous.” Guinevere raised an eyebrow, daring him to challenge her. This had been their agreement. She came back as queen, but also as the first line of defense against the Dark Queen. Arthur relented.

  “Can we leave early?” he asked, watching Brangien sort through Guinevere’s things. “For the wedding, I mean.”

  “Early?” Brangien’s face became a mask of horror at the suggestion. “Impossible.”

  “You can follow after with the main train so you have time to finish preparing. I will leave tomorrow night with Guinevere and a few guards.” Arthur sounded excited the more he spoke. “Go tell Sir Caradoc and the captain of the guard. And the kitchens. We will let the main party catch up with us in a day or two, so we do not need too many provisions.”

  Brangien looked like she would rather strangle her king than follow through on his plan. But when she turned to Guinevere, some of the aggravation had a hint of anguish. “But how will you sleep on the road?”

  Guinevere’s dreams. They needed to see whether, with her own dreams returned, the invasive dream of the city returned. And until Guinevere sorted it out, Brangien would not be reunited with Isolde in her own dreams.

  Guinevere tried to smile reassuringly. “I will sleep as well as I can tonight.”

  “Once you leave, I will not be there to help.”

  Arthur waved away Brangien’s concerns, not understanding how complicated they really were. “I will be with her. You have nothing to fear.”

  Guinevere stood and took Brangien’s hands. “I will be fine, and as soon as we are reunited, I will catch you up on everything.”

  Brangien bit her lip and then hurried from the room to fulfill her king’s orders.

  Arthur was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Problem solved. I will rescue you from Guinevach and whisk you away to a very dull wedding filled with strangers!”

  Guinevere laughed. She wanted to be excited, too. She had been looking forward to this journey, and leaving early with so few people meant even more time with just Arthur. But she could not be selfish. Arthur was trying to protect her from the potential threat of Guinevach and all she could reveal. But who would protect Camelot?

  “We cannot leave the kingdom unguarded.” Guinevere gestured toward the space on Arthur’s belt where Excalibur should have been.

  “We were going to be away from Camelot regardless. Guinevach’s presence does not change that I am not always in the city. Besides, if she is a threat to anyone, it is to you, specifically. So the best way for us to combat any potential danger is to remove you from the situation.”

  Guinevere considered it. If Guinevach was soaked in magic, their combined efforts to protect Camelot would have already harmed her. And if she was here to reveal the truth of Guinevere’s identity, she had not done so yet. “We leave early, and we send Guinevach home,” she said.

  “Write her a letter that you have to attend this wedding and do not know how long we will be away, and that you will visit her in Cameliard next. I will inform Sir Gawain he is to escort her and her traveling party beyond the borders of Camelot as soon as we are away.”

  “It does not answer any of our questions, though.” Why Guinevach had come. If she was truly Guinevach or an imposter, like Guinevere. And why she pretended to recognize Guinevere. Guinevere put a finger against the side of her nose, tracing the freckles she could not see. How could she have freckles if her mother was the Lady of the Lake? Had her father been human? Was Merlin her father after all? There had been an entire history in the way he had addressed the Lady. Nynaeve, my Lady, my love.

  “Do we need those questions answered? One way or another, Guinevach is a threat to you. If the threat is gone, the questions are, too.” Arthur stood, striding to the door. “I will make preparations!”

  Guinevere disagreed. Threats could be vanquished or disarmed, but questions lingered as long as wounds. And with no answers, she had no way to heal them.

  If Guinevere dreamed, she did not remember it. Her suspicions about the Lady of the Lake plagued her as she rode slowly alongside Lancelot, swinging around the southern end of the mountain of Camelot. Ferrying across the lake that morning had filled her with the usual dread and terror, this time compounded by wondering what she was not remembering.

  What was missing.

  How could she be a person when so much of who she was…was not? Not spoken. Not remembered. Not true.

  It would take half the day to get to the other side of the mountain and see terrain flat enough to allow passage. They would stop at the enormous bisecte
d river that came down as waterfalls on either side of Camelot. Guinevere did not have it in her to cross a river, and did not feel it was necessary. The land in this direction had been tamed fields where possible, but it was rocky and barren closer to the mountain. They were alone. The sun beat down, the heat less intense than in summer but somehow more unbearable because of the promise of autumn’s cooler embrace. A petulant last assault of discomfort with no breeze or shade to offer relief.

  “My queen?” Lancelot prodded, steering her reliable blind steed closer to Guinevere’s gray mare. “You seem distracted.”

  Guinevere laughed, releasing some of the tension inside her. She imagined it escaping like a burst of steam from a boiling pot. “I realized yesterday my mother might be the Lady of the Lake; I have an enemy in Camelot who threatens my place; we do not know when the Dark Queen will strike again; and my best friend is in mourning because she cannot use my magic to visit her true love every night.”

  “And you have to go to Dindrane’s wedding.”

  “And I have to go to Dindrane’s wedding. What should I expect?”

  Lancelot glanced at her, trying not to smile. “I have never been to a noble wedding.”

  “Oh, I forget. You are so good at being a knight, it seems as though you have always been one.” Guinevere shrugged off her cloak and set it across her lap. It was oppressively warm. She wished she could shrug off several more layers. “The only wedding I have ever been to is my own.”

  “I watched from across the lake. The lights were beautiful.”

  “That was my favorite part.” The whole day had been overwhelming. Terrifying, even. Guinevere had been determined not to make a mistake. It felt like remembering a different person. That Guinevere had not yet been Guinevere. She still had her name. And she still thought she was coming to Camelot as Merlin’s daughter to be the protector of Arthur.

  Did everyone feel such sadness thinking back on who they had been? Lancelot certainly did not seem to want to dwell or speak of her life before now. Brangien, too, rarely spoke of her past. Guinevere knew she and Sir Tristan had been banished because of something to do with Isolde, but the details of it were never shared. She had felt the pain inside Brangien. The pain inside so many people, now that she thought about it.

  Perhaps it was not such a bad thing to have so few memories.

  Lancelot scanned the countryside. She was more at ease now, guiding her horse without conscious effort. Seeing her out here made Guinevere realize how tense Lancelot always was in Camelot.

  “Do you miss being the patchwork knight?” Guinevere asked.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “The freedom of it. Going where you wished. Doing what you wanted. Not accountable to anyone save yourself. It was a very different life from the one you have now.”

  She expected Lancelot to protest, but her knight looked thoughtful as she considered the question. Finally, she spoke. “There were some aspects of it that were better, yes. But everything I did was to become what I am now. Who I am now. I gladly accept any struggles or restraints, because it means I get to wear my king’s colors and stand at my queen’s side. This is exactly what I wanted.”

  “But is it what you expected?”

  At this, Lancelot turned away. There was something evasive in the way she suddenly needed to resume scanning the horizon for threats. “Nothing is ever what we expect.”

  That, at least, Guinevere understood.

  * * *

  The river was wide, white and foaming as it rushed around jagged rocks and tiny islands that reminded Guinevere too much of where Maleagant had kept her prisoner. She could almost smell the damp space, hear the sneering replies of the guards. They were all dead now.

  Guinevere looked away from the hungry river, focusing instead on the trees around it. It had been a steady uphill ride to get here, and they were letting the horses rest.

  Choosing a shady spot beneath a soaring oak, Guinevere pricked one finger and carefully knotted her blood onto the stone, connecting them. If something passed this way that was a threat to her—and therefore Camelot—she would feel it. She set the stone beneath the tree, then closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of green things and ancient, patient life.

  How unfortunate that nature was both the most peaceful and the most dangerous place possible. But that was its duality. It gave life and it took it, provided and withheld, offered beauty and danger in equal measure. Camelot was safe and ordered and structured, so many things put in place to separate people from nature. Roofs and walls. Pipes for water. Swords with men to wield them. The separation was a protection but also a loss.

  Still. Better to protect what they had built, and now she would have a warning of impending danger.

  Was it enough to know that a threat was coming, though? Guinevere remembered the feeling of the trees lashing her arms. Her blood dripping to give life. To feed. To create a new form for terror and death.

  Her eyes closed as revulsion flooded her. Not at the memory of what had been done to her in that hollow, but at the idea for a knot creeping across her mind. She did not want to think it through, but she owed it to Arthur, to Camelot. Knight or not, she was still a soldier in the fight to protect this kingdom.

  She considered the potential knot with as much detachment as she could manage. If she added hunger, if she added her own fear, if she twisted them all together in exactly the right way…

  She could see it coming together, the twists and loops of the knot re-forming. It would work.

  It was the worst kind of knot. She wanted to open her eyes, to look away, to imagine anything else. But how many decisions did Arthur make that he wished he could look away from? That he could avoid?

  If she had a way to protect Camelot, she owed it to Camelot to do so. And what was more valuable than a warning of danger? Something to end the threat before it ever arrived.

  She pulled several hairs from her head and reopened the cut on her hand. Coating the hairs in blood, she knotted and tied them around the sentry stone. Ugly, harsh knots and hungry magic. If anything passed this stone with the intent to harm her, the hunger would be unleashed and the land itself would draw blood until all was drained.

  The worst part was that it took almost nothing from her. All spells, all knots, all magic had a price to pay. But this one demanded the price of whoever triggered it. Guinevere stared numbly at the weapon in her hand. That was the nature of weapons. The person who wielded them never paid the cost. Only the victims.

  “I can swim it,” Lancelot said, dropping out of a tree next to her.

  Guinevere jumped, startled, and set the rock behind herself guiltily, as though Lancelot would be able to see what she had created. “Swim what? The river? No!”

  “I will start upstream. The current will carry me down, but I can do it. And then I can place a rock on the other side, too. We can save ourselves the trip to secure the northern side of the river.”

  Guinevere hated this plan as much as she hated what she had just knotted into the stone. “I do not mind coming back.”

  Lancelot laughed. “You do not have to swim, or even watch. It will take me an hour at most. Besides, there is no real farmland to the northeast. An excuse for that trip will be harder to come by.”

  Guinevere sighed. Lancelot was right. It was the smarter choice to get it all done now, and then they could journey to Dindrane’s family estate with more confidence. She would not leave Arthur’s kingdom unguarded.

  “Could you get to one of the islands?” Guinevere did not want to tie another of those terrible knots. Water was a powerful force of magic. That was why she never used it. But with water connected to the island and both shores, placing the knot in the middle would encompass the whole region.

  It would set a trip line of death across the land. Guinevere twitched. She should destroy these knots, but they would on
ly hurt those seeking to hurt her. Seeking to hurt Camelot, and Arthur. She shoved the rock into an oiled pouch and tied off the top. “Keep it dry, if you can.”

  Lancelot took the pouch, not knowing what she carried. If Guinevere told her, would her knight—her noble knight—still do what she was asked? “I have to go upstream a ways. Give me an hour. Stay right here.”

  Guinevere pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs. She watched Lancelot stride away with purpose. How did Arthur feel when he was about to go into battle? Dread? Guilt? Or determination?

  She closed her eyes. The knot she had tied was branded on the darkness inside her eyelids, tying itself over and over. It was not the cost of the magic. It was the demand of her soul, forcing her to face what she had done, the choice she had made. She did not flinch. She watched and accepted. Minutes passed, and she could look at the knot without horror.

  “For Camelot,” she said, opening her eyes, her voice steadier than expected. If anyone came this way with the intent to harm, all she was doing was defending herself and her city and her king.

  And then a thought struck her. The enemies before had been faceless ideas. But there was one they knew. She imagined Mordred approaching from this direction, with his moss-green eyes, his clever lips, his promises and lies and spark and passion. Walking this way. Triggering the magic. Mordred cut down without a witness, without a mourner, without a chance to defend himself. Without Guinevere ever seeing him again, or even knowing that she had killed him.

  She stood, sick. “Lancelot!” she shouted, rushing through the trees toward where Lancelot had disappeared. How long had it been? Would Lancelot already be in the water?

  “Lancelot!” She pushed through the undergrowth, dodged around trees. She ran until she was out of breath. Lancelot could not have gone this far. Guinevere turned to double back. Maybe she could catch Lancelot swimming. A twig snapped behind her and she let out a cry of relief as she spun. It was not too late. It was—