THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

We sank down together, and Arthur gathered me against him, and I rested my head against the hot skin of his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and closed his eyes with a murmur of content. As I fell asleep, I wondered if it would always be like this between us, and if it was enough. We did not know each other, really, though I knew his body well enough already, and my own seemed to respond in natural recognition. We were still strangers, this warrior-boy and I. But he was also gentle, and kind, and I was beginning to think that he was also good. In his sleep he gathered me closer, rubbing his face into my thick hair, and in his sleep he murmured my name.
He is beginning to love me already
, I thought in the darkness.

Chapter Seven

Arthur left to go to his prayers in the morning, but it was not a public mass, so I did not have to go. I did not
want
to go and stand beneath the sad gaze of his Hanged Christ. Marie and Christine poured me a hot bath and dropped in it the scented oils they made in Logrys. It wasn’t like the clean, clear waters of the river I bathed in at home, where I came out smelling like the fresh grass or the green leaves, but Logrys was cold, and I was glad at least of the hot water. The aromas of lavender and rose from the bath felt mildly intoxicating in my nostrils as I sank back into it. Marie began to comb out my wild, knotted hair. I thought about Arthur, about how much had changed already. It would have been easier if I could have just hated him as a brute, but he was not. It would have been easier if I could have dismissed him as a boy, but I had been so very wrong about that, as well. I did not want to lose the connection I felt with the lands and the people of my home. I did not want to be swallowed by Camelot and become a queen of Logrys. I had given up my gods in public, to take Arthur’s gods. I spoke Arthur’s language with him and in the court. The only thing I had left to hold on to was my anger, the dim memory of my idea of him as a murderer, a savage, a boy-king battle-mad and cruel, and that was not what I had found here. I thought perhaps it would be easier if I let go of the thoughts of my past, if I would be happier if I tried to become what I was, forget my old land and make Logrys and Britain my new, but I could not bear, yet, to let Brittany or Carhais go.

“How do you find it, my lady?” Marie asked me in the lovely, rich Breton of my home. In a moment, it tantalisingly brought it all back, but also it comforted me. I had not left it all behind. I had my two Breton women, and I could hear the speech of my own people. Truly, the only thing about Logrys that had been as bad as I expected was the awful brutality of its language.

“The bath? Very pleasant.” I slid deeper into it, and sighed.

Marie and Christine giggled together; I was surprised that the solemn older woman joined in. I opened one eye and peered at her, where she was sitting at the foot of the bath, sewing, her mouth stern, only betraying her amusement at the edges.

“No, my lady,” Marie whispered conspiratorially. “With the King.”

I raised an eyebrow and flicked water at Christine with my foot.

“I think it would be treason for me to say anything other than very pleasant,” I replied, archly.

“No one here will understand what you say, even if they do overhear us,” Marie whispered.

Christine gave the younger woman an indulgent smile.

“I wouldn’t be sure, Marie. That Sir Kay has a celtic look about him, and he seems to get everywhere,” I said, aloof. I wasn't sure if they were making fun
of
me, or making fun
with
me.

“We heard,” Christine replied, with an infuriating little smile. “We heard from the smith’s boy who had to get iron for new hinges for the door. What that Sir Kay thought he was doing...”

I splashed her again, less playfully this time, and Christine tightened her little button mouth into a knot, holding back her smiles and laughter. It worried me more than it ought to, the jumpiness of Kay, knocking down the door, and Arthur, carrying his sword by his bed. They were still afraid of something, still wary of finding their friends dead in their beds. It was funny enough to the others, but they had not seen Arthur’s face as he reached for his sword. The man still lived in fear of his life.

Marie filled a little stoneware jug with water and pushed me forward gently to pour it over my head. It felt good, hot and cleansing, as though I was making myself new. New for my new home, my new role as a wife. I would begin to belong in this place. I thought that it was perhaps better, too, to have rooms of my own where I could talk with my ladies in Breton, where I would not always be under the eyes of the court. Particularly the eyes of Merlin, who I did not think I would ever trust. Marie brushed my hair again, wet, and plaited it, winding it around and pinning it with the little gold net while it was still damp enough to be tame. I missed wearing it long, and wild, but in Logrys none of the noblewomen did this. Even Marie and Christine wore theirs neatly tied away. I thought I had heard Christine tell Marie that it was only children and prostitutes in Logrys who walked about with their hair entirely loose.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Find out who it is,” I told Christine. She went to the door and opened it a chink. It was the Lady Igraine, so she let her in, and brought her a chair. Marie brought me a silk sheet to wrap myself in to dry as I stepped from the bath. We would never have used anything as expensive as that to dry ourselves at home.

“Queen Igraine.” I bobbed my head in a little bow. I spoke slowly, my brain still swimming with Breton, trying to struggle back to my English. I hated switching between the languages, and I was conscious of wanting my English to sound as natural as possible. As much as I wanted to keep my connection to my own home, I also did not want to be obviously foreign here. “Are you well?”

“Bless you, child,” she smiled, and I saw the lines of smiling crinkle with much use around her lovely pale grey eyes. “You don’t have to call me Queen. I have come to tell you that there is a lady come from Avalon who wants to see you.”

“What is Avalon?” I asked, as Marie helped me into a dress of pale lilac silk, sewn with little silver flowers at the sleeves and hems. It was not one I had brought with me. I was not sure if the gift of all these new, rich dresses was a kindness, or a judgement on the clothes of my own people. “A realm like Logrys? Part of Britain? Or a noble house?”

Igraine laughed softly.

“Avalon is... many people call it an island. It is here, in Logrys, on the borders. It’s a...” she laughed again, “a place that is hard to describe. Merlin the witch came from there, and my daughter Morgan schooled there a long time, but I have never been.”

I thought of the cold faces and blue woad of Morgan and Merlin.

“Is it like the barrow-lands?” I asked.

Igraine shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what those are.”

When I thought of Morgan and Merlin I felt sure Avalon would be a place like the barrow-lands, where the Otherworld touched the surface and men and women hovered between death and life, filled with the same trees hung with dead leaves, the same mounds where the barrow-wights lived. Cursed, and beautiful. So Avalon was Logrys’ barrow-land. Yes, I thought Morgan and Merlin seemed as if they had come from a dark, strange place, a place between life and death.

Igraine led us down to Arthur’s throne-room, where I had not been before. It was smaller than I would have expected, much smaller than the hall, though still grand, with high ceilings and enough room for fifty men, at least, to stand inside. Arthur sat on his throne with the casual easiness of youth, although I knew now he did not feel it. He sat lazily in it, one knee bent and the foot braced against the edge of the seat, opposite elbow on the arm, gazing thoughtfully down at the group just before him. At his side stood Merlin, Kay and Ector, two of whom I was pleased to see. The group before him were all women; most, by their dress I guessed, neat little nuns. All but the one at the front, who stood as I entered with her back to me, but whose white-blonde hair marked her out strikingly from the rest. As she turned on our entrance I could see that her face and hands, too, were threaded with patterns of blue in the form of twisting vines and sharp-petalled flowers. When Arthur saw me, he rose from the throne with a smile.

“There you are, lovely as ever, my queen.”

“Are four days enough for ‘as ever’?” I replied, teasing. He smiled and ran down the steps in two strides to take my hand and lead me back up. He was excited; I could see it on his face. I wondered what for. For once I could not feel Merlin’s gaze on me. When I glanced at him, I could see that his eyes were fixed on the white-haired lady before us.

“Nimue, this is my queen, Guinevere.”

The girl – because she was a girl as I looked upon her – she could not have been more than thirteen years of age – curtseyed neatly, and so did the nuns. She wore a lovely dress, pale blue like the sky and, like Morgan’s dress, sewn with little gems from its high neck to the waist, making her shimmer in the light. Her gossamer-fine white hair lay on her shoulder in a simple plait, shining in the sun that streamed through the windows. She looked as though she were spun from glass.

“My lady, you are every bit as lovely as they say.” Her manners were impeccable, but her voice, too was sincere, and I found myself already warming to the little creature. She was not like Morgan or Merlin; her eyes were light and quick, and she had a ready smile. “I am sorry I am late to pay my respects at your wedding. I come with a gift. It is from the Lady of the Lake, the Lady of Avalon. She brings you an oath, for all your knights, that they might swear to you and to the kingdom to protect and be faithful always.”

The girl took from one of the nuns a wooden box, and opened it and held up a scroll of parchment. Arthur took it gratefully, and read it aloud. I noticed that his reading was slow, as though he had learned late. I supposed he had not been born a king. I remembered he had said he could not read the stone his father’s sword was set in.

“It is a good oath. We shall all take it tonight, for tonight is Pentecost and at this time the spirit of the Lord is closer to us all, and each man will be truer in his oath.”

Nimue nodded in approval.

“There is a second gift.”

“Your lady is generous.” Arthur replied.

“A hunt. The hunt for the White Hart.”

This seemed a gift even more to Arthur’s liking, but it was also to mine. I would feel more like myself again astride a horse, and I would enjoy the fresh air in my hair and on my skin.

We gathered in Camelot’s great courtyard for the hunt. It was a hot, bright summer’s day with a soft breeze. I was glad I had hidden some hunting leathers among my things and I strode down from my tower dressed in those – thick trousers and sturdy brown boots, a jerkin of leather over a thin silk vest, the net gone from my hair and instead it plaited back and tied with a leather string. I had not realised how I had missed my boots until I had them on again; the women of Logrys wore little pretty shoes like slippers, no good for riding a horse. Across my back hung my bows and arrows. Arthur smiled when he saw me.

“Now there is a queen fit for a warrior king.” He held me by the hips, looking over me with approval.

“Here is a queen fit to go hunting,” I corrected him.

I could hear some voices of those in the background not as pleased at the sight of their queen as Arthur, but I did not care. It was a small group riding out: Arthur, Kay, Ector, Gawain and his brothers, and a couple more I did not recognise. Just Arthur’s chief knights, and his wife. The others too, were just dressed in leathers, armoured for light hunting not for fighting. Whatever dangers Arthur sensed, they must be further off than in the forest beside Camelot.

As we rode through the forest, the others spread off, deeper into the forest, looking for the hart. Arthur and I rode on together. I would have been happy to hunt on my own, but I think he wanted to keep me close by. Perhaps he was afraid I would try to run away, but I think it was rather that women did not seem to hunt, or even to ride out, on their own in Logrys. I did not think it could be more dangerous than Carhais, but then our men were different, too. We did not have these armoured giants raised for the battlefield. Perhaps we Bretons would not have let our women ride alone if our men were like these men of Logrys.

“How do you know the Lady of Avalon?” I asked, notching an arrow into my bow. There was nothing to shoot, but I wanted to feel as though I was doing something. I did not see any other game about the forest. Perhaps the lady Nimue had emptied it by magic for the purpose of the enchanted hunt.

“She gave me my sword.”

“The one in the stone?”

He laughed.

“Not that old thing. It would have shattered at the first fight. My sword. I keep forgetting the damn name Merlin gave it.”

He drew it to show me. The steel was cold and blue, perfectly smooth, so sharp it was impossible to see the edge clearly. I knew the name of the sword. Its name had come to Carhais. People did not forget a sword like that.
Excalibur
. Cutter of steel. I could not have missed that sword. The steel was forged in the Otherworld, the blade smooth at the side and sharp at the edge, the pommel covered in jewels of all colours that glittered in the sunlight. I felt the power coming from it as I stared at it. I was about to reach out and touch it, when Arthur sheathed it.

“It is a good sword, but my witch is always telling me the scabbard has the greater magic.”

“What does the scabbard do?”

“The bearer never sheds a drop of blood. But the scabbard was stolen from me.”

So there were enemies at home. That was why Arthur slept with Excalibur by his bed, so he would not lose that as well. And that was why he rode beside me, so that I would not be snatched in the woods. I thought a scabbard that saved the wearer from harm seemed much more valuable than any sword. I supposed that was why it was taken.

A pheasant suddenly burst up from a bush, shrieking its harsh cries. I hit it easily with an arrow, and Arthur laughed.