Arthur glanced toward the solitude of the trees, clearly torn and wanting answers now instead of waiting. But he was too kind to deny Guinevere’s request. Besides, it would draw attention and perhaps more scrutiny to her story if Arthur seemed worried. “Very well,” he said, lifting Guinevere to his own horse and then climbing on behind her, putting one arm around her waist to steady her. He was so solid, so real behind her. She let her head lean back and rest on him, surprised by how much it relieved the tension in her back and neck.
“I missed you, too,” he said, his breath soft on her neck.
She should tell him the truth. All of it.
* * *
As soon as Guinevere dismounted inside the heavy wooden gates of Dindrane’s family estate, before she could even get a proper look around, Dindrane was at her side.
Dindrane’s anger was delivered with a smile, her hand possessively gripping Guinevere’s good arm. “I wish you had told me you were going to leave early,” Dindrane said, each emphasis accompanied by an almost painful squeeze. Guinevere was certain Dindrane did not realize she was doing it, but she also could not hold it against her friend. Without Guinevere there, Dindrane had been forced to ride for days with her vicious sister-in-law, Blanchefleur. That was not a happy start to a celebration.
“I am sorry. Truly. To make it up to you, I want you to wear my jewels.” Guinevere embraced Dindrane and kissed her cheek. It was a shockingly intimate display of affection by a queen, and Guinevere knew everyone there would remark on it. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And if anyone here is cruel to you, find me immediately and I will sing your praises until the roof falls down on all their heads.”
“Thank you,” Dindrane whispered back, then straightened, nothing on her face revealing the vulnerability Guinevere had heard in those two words. “Oh, Father, hello.” Dindrane waved to a baffled-looking older man. Even though he had known they were coming, he seemed unable to reconcile his daughter standing arm in arm with a queen.
Guinevere was hyperaware of Arthur’s presence, knowing what awaited her as soon as they were alone. So much to tell. She let the introductions wash over her, smiling and nodding when appropriate. Sir Bors was almost adorably awkward, bowing so low to his future father-in-law that he nearly fell over. Guinevere had never seen him so eager to please, which provided some balm to her wounded soul. He truly did love her friend, and that, combined with the public respect he gave Lancelot, helped her like the gruff knight.
One man glared at them all, his bushy white eyebrows wild with stray hairs. He looked as though he would rather stab Sir Bors than bow to him.
“My father’s cousin,” Dindrane whispered, her voice tight. “Sir Bors has cheated him out of his bride.”
“His—what?” Guinevere looked at the old man in horror, then back at Dindrane.
“There is a reason I went to Camelot without any prospects. Anything was better than what had been assigned me here.” Dindrane nodded with a haughty expression on her face at an aunt who greeted them.
Dindrane was one of several children, three of whom were also female. It seemed cruel to Guinevere that she should have been betrothed to that old man. It explained, though, why she was willing to endure Sir Percival and his wife. At least in Camelot, she had been free to make some of her own choices. Sir Percival had gone there for the same reason. As the second son, he stood to inherit nothing, and chose to make his fortune as a knight.
It was hard for Guinevere to gauge whether or not Dindrane’s family estate was impressive. Her first introduction to cities and castles had been Camelot, and compared with that remarkable place, everywhere seemed lesser. There was certainly a lot of mud. Ladies’ maids here must spend hours of every day cleaning it from hems. Guinevere tried to negotiate her way through the mud as carefully as possible, mindful of not taking more of Brangien’s time than necessary. But the house itself looked solid, with small windows and a red-tiled roof that contrasted nicely with the surrounding rolling golden fields.
“Who is that?” Dindrane asked, glancing back at Isolde. “She is very pretty.” It did not sound like a compliment, but rather a judgment.
“Brangien’s cousin, Isolde. Brangien sent word ahead and she met us on the road. She is to assist Brangien as my maid.”
“I am so relieved!” Dindrane’s exuberance for the topic surprised Guinevere, until she continued. “It is absurd for a queen to have only one lady’s maid. And it sets a bad example for the rest of us. Sir Bors kept saying if the queen had but one, surely I only needed to hire a woman for a few days a week. This is much better. Now he cannot tell me I should not have one in the house with us. Isolde should have brought sisters. Though I would never allow a maid that beautiful into my home. Ladies’ maids should be respectfully plain.” They walked from the sunny outdoors into the dim and breathless interior of the manor. The walls were whitewashed and covered with tapestries. The floors were stone, rough and uneven but clean.
“Pardon me, Dindrane,” Arthur said, putting a hand on the small of Guinevere’s back. “I am certain my queen is tired after so long on the road. She had a fall and will need to rest until tomorrow. Show us to our rooms.”
“Of course! I will make your excuses at supper.” Dindrane appeared surprised as she noticed Guinevere’s wrapped arm for the first time. But Guinevere’s cloak was heavy and covered most of her. Dindrane snapped her fingers at the nearest person who looked like a servant. “You. Take my special guests, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere of Camelot, to their rooms.” She whispered conspiratorially to Guinevere, “You have my father’s own rooms. No others in the manor were good enough to host a king.” She looked downright gleeful at this displacement of her father.
Brangien and Isolde made to follow Guinevere, but Dindrane waylaid them. “Brangien! We have to finish my dress. Can your cousin sew? She does not look like she can sew. Isolde, is it?”
“Yes, my lady,” Isolde said, curtsying prettily.
“Well, you have a lot to live up to. Your cousin is the finest lady’s maid in the entire kingdom. We have had ever so many…” Dindrane continued as she led Brangien and Isolde away.
Brangien shot a look sharper than an arrow over her shoulder at Guinevere. Guinevere would have loved to rescue her, because then she would not be alone with Arthur. She was not ready for this conversation. She did not know if she ever would be.
Lancelot and Sir Tristan accompanied Arthur and Guinevere. Arthur held up a hand when they got to their door and the servant left. “Doubtless you are tired, but I do not know this man or his household. I do not want the queen unguarded at any time.”
“We are not tired, my lord,” Lancelot said, bowing her head. “We will not leave this post.” She did not make eye contact with Guinevere. Guinevere wanted to reassure her knight that, however Arthur reacted to Guinevere’s revelations, she would make sure Lancelot was not punished. But then they were in the room and the door was closed and it was just the two of them. The two of them, and the truth.
The room was dim, the windows shuttered against the late-afternoon sun. A large bed took up most of the space, with a fireplace and two chairs in one corner. Guinevere would have preferred a smaller room that did not belong to Dindrane’s father. She removed her cloak, moved to one of the chairs, and sat on it, curling her legs beneath her.
Arthur let out a small cry of dismay. Then, to Guinevere’s surprise, a wave of anger crashed over his face. She had never seen him look this formidable, not even when he had been confronting Mordred and the Dark Queen. She found herself shrinking, but it was not her he was angry at.
“Who did that?” He pointed at her neck.
Guinevere had forgotten about those wretched bruises. There were so many other wounds she carried, inside and out. “King Mark.” She intoned the name like she was speaking of the dead. She might as well have been.
“He hurt your arm, too?�
� Arthur’s hands were clenched into fists.
“My shoulder. And no. That was—you should sit down. There is no one you can fight. No vengeance to be had. I have seen to that.” Her voice was dark, her memories darker.
Arthur did not follow her advice, choosing to pace instead. “You were never supposed to see King Mark. How did you convince him to let Isolde go?”
The beginnings of a tremble plagued her bottom lip. She remembered the pain of his fingers around her throat to steel herself against it. “I did not convince him. I—he was choking me, and I felt what he did to Isolde, what he made her go through, and he was—” Guinevere stopped, took a deep breath. “I used magic. I was not careful. Whoever he was, whatever he has done, it does not matter now.”
Arthur was aghast. “Did you kill him? How could Lancelot and Tristan let you go alone?”
“It was my plan. They are in no way accountable.”
“They most certainly—”
“You taught me that the king is always accountable. Does that not apply to the queen, as well?”
Arthur finally sat. He closed his eyes and repeated himself. “Did you kill him?”
“No. But I might as well have. He is gone regardless. Whatever Merlin did to me—to my mind—I did far worse. Arthur, I—I erased him.”
Arthur was still for a long time; then he nodded. “Did anyone see you? Will they be coming for Isolde?”
“No. They think her dead in the fire.”
“The fire?”
“I also burned down the castle.”
“Guinevere.”
“I know. It was—nothing went how I had planned. It was a good plan. A safe plan. But he was going to burn her at the stake. There was no time.”
“You should have left.”
“I could not. Would you have?”
“That is beside the point.”
“It is exactly the point! Why should I have valued my life over hers?”
“Because you are the queen!”
“Actually, I am not!”
Arthur looked as though she had struck him. But she was too upset to comfort him or to take her words back. She was not the queen. Both because she was not actually Guinevere, and because their marriage was not legal. Arthur seemed determined to pretend that they had a normal marriage, but she could not and would not allow it any longer.
She clasped her hands tightly so she would not reach out to him. Even this angry, her impulse was to comfort him. To support him. “She could not save herself. I could.”
Guinevere wished she sounded triumphant as she said it, wished it sounded like the tales of Arthur’s quests, but she just sounded tired. Remembering everything did not feel like a victory. It felt like a tragedy, even though she had won.
“What did they think happened to the king?”
“They already condemned Isolde as a witch. They believed she did it.”
“You made them think a woman destroyed their king?”
“He hurt women. They are better off without—”
“No, Guinevere, this will hurt women. If any men are inexplicably sick, or die unexpectedly, they will blame the wives for being in league with the witch who broke the king. We banished magic to weed out the chaos of the Dark Queen, but we also did it so people will forget. So they will stop using it as an excuse to accuse women of wrongdoing, to blame them for the unknown and unexplained. You used fear as a tool, but fear and terror only lead to violence.”
“With a king like that, they were already living in violence!” Guinevere stood, panicked and angry. Arthur was wrong about this. He had to be. She could not have made things worse than they already were.
“I know. But violence can never beat down violence. Only justice can replace it.”
“No one was coming to bring them justice! No one was saving Isolde! No one was fighting King Mark! I am sorry if they did not have their own King Arthur to bring peace and goodness. All they had was me, and I used what I had to and I hurt who I had to in order to—”
A flicker of memory. Had she discussed this with Mordred? What had they said?
Mordred had told her she was not like Merlin. But the truth hit her so hard she could scarcely breathe. She was just like Merlin. She wanted to do something, and she did it using magic. Violent magic. She changed things to be the way she thought they should be, and she hurt someone permanently. But unlike Merlin, she could not see the end result of her actions. Maybe she helped things. Maybe the next king would be a better ruler. But maybe she made the entire kingdom worse. Maybe women—innocent women—would die because of what she had said and done. And she had no way of knowing.
Just like she did not know how much devastation she left behind when she escaped with the dragon. She knew what it had cost her, what it had cost the dragon. But what of Hild? What of those men, greedy and lazy as they were? Would they freeze in the coming winter? Would they starve? Would their injuries fester and kill them?
She burned with shame. “I wanted to be different from Merlin. But I am not even the same. At least he knew what he was doing. When he hurt people, it was planned. I do it without any thought whatsoever.”
“What happened to your arm?” Arthur asked, his voice softer. He guided her to his own chair, pulling her onto his lap.
“Hild—the ship captain’s brothers tried to hold me for ransom. I made our friends leave me and called the dragon.”
“The dragon? Sir Bors’s dragon?”
Guinevere nodded, pressing her face against his shoulder, wishing she could slip into the darkness behind her eyes. “It burned the village and I escaped, but it—they injured it and I made it limp away into the woods alone and hurt. I could have left the dragon unbothered. I could have waited. You would have ransomed me. I was so determined to save myself, and it got hurt and I got hurt and I used the dragon. I never even considered how the dragon might feel. It was cruel of me, Arthur.”
“But it is a dragon.” He sounded confused about how she could have hurt a dragon emotionally.
Guinevere shook her head, trying to figure out how to explain it. And to tell Arthur the next part, the part about Mordred. But there was a knock on the door. Arthur slipped free, moving her gingerly, aware of her shoulder. Guinevere turned her back so no one would see her crying when he opened the door.
“Yes, of course. I can speak with him now. The queen is resting.” Arthur closed the door softly behind him, and Guinevere was left alone. If Arthur could not understand about the dragon, how could he ever understand how complicated her feelings about Mordred were?
The room purpled with twilight. Guinevere did not wait for Brangien to come help her but fumbled and tore at her ties until she finally managed to get out of her dress. Her shoulder was stiff and sore, but she could move it. She curled into a miserable ball and tried to sleep.
Sometime after dark, Arthur climbed into bed. She had half expected him to be gone all night and was surprised. She was even more surprised when he pressed his body against her back. “You did what you had to,” he whispered, cradling her. “Once we return to Camelot, it will be easier. Guinevach is gone. We know we can match the Dark Queen in whatever she attempts. You hurt people, yes, but you hurt bad people. Men who hurt you and others. Let these things you had to do go. Do not think on them anymore. As your king, I command it.”
She let out a small laugh, closer to a sniffle. “Oh, you command me now?”
“I do. At least in this matter.” His tone grew serious. “This is the pain of being king. Of being queen. Making choices that will hurt some but save others. And often not knowing until it is too late who will be hurt and who will be saved. I am sorry you have to share it, but I am glad to have the company.”
“Me too,” she whispered. It was unfair of her to think Arthur would not understand her pain. He might not understand everything, but he understood
this. He did not see all of her, but he saw enough. And they were bad men, King Mark and Ramm both. Like Uther Pendragon had been. Like Maleagant had been. If Guinevere could not accept that she would have to hurt wicked men to protect others—and herself—she would not be a very good queen or witch.
The choices would always be hard, and she would have to live with the consequences. She could live with knowing King Mark and Ramm had suffered because they had stepped into her path and tried to stop her.
But Arthur did not know the whole story. The specter of Mordred rose behind her closed eyes. She had tucked the flower into her pouch and even though it was not magic, she could feel it pulsing nearby, declaring her duplicity.
She would throw it out in the morning. Mordred—dream Mordred, real Mordred, both—was wrong. She had made the right choice. And she was making the right choice now by not telling Arthur his traitorous nephew was more complicated than good or bad. If Arthur had to face Mordred someday, he needed to be able to do so with a clear head. Guinevere would feel conflicted enough for both of them.
Guinevere stared out the thick glass of the sitting room window. She had awoken this morning with Arthur still beside her for once. It filled her with strength and determination to shrug off the haunting guilt. This was Dindrane’s wedding, and she was here to support her friend. But supporting Dindrane through a wedding was almost as challenging as giving herself permission to accept what she had done to King Mark and Ramm.
The world was warped and distorted through the window, a vision of blue and gold she longed to be out in, instead of sewing in this stuffy room with a dozen women. The walls were stone, whiter than the gray of Camelot, but that made them look dingier with their years of stains from smoke from the fireplace. The rooms were all small and tightly crammed with furniture. This particular room was tightly crammed with women, as well. Guinevere wondered what it would be like to grow up in a building of labyrinthine hallways and tiny rooms, all access to the outdoors shut away by windows and bars and fenced courtyards. Was Dindrane ever allowed to run free? To explore?
The Camelot Betrayal Page 17