THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

“Of course, my lady.” Isolde lowered her eyes from mine, but not without giving me a dumb smile of complicity. I had to get her out of court. If she was going to be jabbering to people like an idiot about
lovers
then I could not have her here. It hurt all the more how much I wished it were true.

“Where is Tristan now?” I asked eventually, desperate for any distraction.

She smiled broadly, as though she had been waiting for the question. It was as though dawn had broken across her face, it was so written with joy. The girl was no born liar, lacked any ability to hide her feelings. That shocked me suddenly, that I was looking on her honesty with scorn. I was proud already of my ability to lie, to hide, to be two women at once. This simpleton was a better woman than I, honest in the truth of her feelings. But she would not survive on it, surely. Though the reach of Mark’s revenge would never be so broad as that of Arthur, I was sure.

She leaned close again, excited.

“He waits for me at Joyous Guard.”

Joyous Guard
.
That was Lancelot’s castle, out on the borderlands to the west. So he was helping her play this dangerous game. But it was no castle for lovers, it was a siege fortress. Perhaps Tristan and Isolde would survive with Lancelot’s help. I could not imagine Mark even with all the might of Cornwall being able to fetch them from Joyous Guard.

I nodded, and patted her hand with mine.

“I hope you two will be safe there.” I could not help but smile at her. The world was simple to her. Her husband was cruel, so she would run away. And Mark
was
cruel. Or seemed so from what people said. In a jealous rage he had already tried to have her burned at the stake once in a year of marriage, and often he locked her away. Mark must be more than twice her age. I suppose I could not blame her if the young nephew was more to her liking, and if she too desired the right to choose. But she had been rash, and she had been reckless, and she had brought her danger home to me.

“Do you sing, Isolde?” I asked her.

She nodded, shyly.

I wanted to distract her, to stop her talking, and so I asked her to sing for us. The lute player knew the tune she asked for, and she began to sing. Her voice was lovely, soft and low, more complex and mature than I would have expected, full of light and shade, and she sang beautifully. Partly, it was her innocence, as she closed her eyes with the song, but it was also a deep and knowing understanding of the music. Her soft pink lips moved invitingly as she sang and I could see why men found them so attractive. I did not think my angry little red mouth could ever have looked so enticing.

Then, a few minutes into the song, I heard giggling in the corner of the garden. I turned to see Elaine and Margery whispering together. Elaine was laughing and Margery was smiling with her eyes wide. I felt the rage flare within me. Elaine clearly felt she had the right to everything that was mine. I stood and strode over. I expected Isolde to stop singing, but she was lost in the music, and in part I was glad of it. I felt Christine’s eyes on me in warning as I went, but I ignored her. I grabbed Elaine by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She made a pitiful little face of pain that I did not think was entirely sincere. Margery jumped to her feet, too, nervous and wary.

“What amuses you two ladies so?” I asked, my voice bristling with forced courtesy that did not match my actions, my hand still clamped around Elaine’s little arm. Margery’s mouth flapped open and shut, like a fish’s.

“Forgive me,” began Elaine, fixing me with her gaze, and there I saw again what I had expected. No innocence there, but a dark pleasure in her gaze, and a malicious knowledge.
Good
. I was ready for a fight, and an innocent opponent was no opponent at all. “I was telling Margery of the love of Sir Lancelot.” The girl even managed to force a demure blush. “I know I should not speak in public of such things, but he was so tender. So,” she drew her breath in, enjoying herself, “
manful
, I –”

Before I realised what I had done, I slapped her hard across the face. I was not sorry. As my hand made contact, I felt the empty space of the dark Otherworld inside her, and I knew I was right. Margery gasped, but Elaine smiled, a smile just for me, full of perverse victory and wicked delight. She would not smile that way for long. High on her cheekbone, her olive skin was already reddening.

I realised that Isolde had stopped singing, and there was quiet all around us. I let go of Elaine’s arm and stepped back. Isolde’s mouth hung open, in a big round ‘o’. Even her surprise was picture-perfect. I raised a hand to my hair, patting it gently in place, and breathed in slowly.

“I think I will retire to my chamber,” I declared.

But I did not go to my chamber. I went to Arthur’s room, to fetch Excalibur. I was relieved he was not in his room, but there Excalibur was, beside the bed. I was the only one the guard would let up to this tower alone, so he felt safe leaving it there, and he liked to have it beside him as he slept, afraid always of losing it again. I slid it from its sheath and looked at it. Arthur held it in both hands, as though it weighed as much as all the other broadswords, but I could lift it easily in one. Excalibur had been forged in the Otherworld, and the sword recognised the Otherworld blood in me, yielding its strength to my touch. If I had ever held the false sword, I would have known it for what it was, but I knew this one was true. I slid it back into the scabbard and slipped down the stairs to Arthur’s council chamber and the Round Table. I hid the sword behind one of the chairs at the back, where I would know where to find it. Tonight, I would bring Elaine there, and with the sword and table I knew I would have the power to make her give up her secrets. Somehow bringing her, and the child that ought to have been mine, back to the Round Table felt like the right thing to do.

As I went to leave, the door opened, and Lancelot walked in. Caught off guard, not expecting to see me, he looked shaken, but not displeased.

“I’m sorry – I came to –”

“The table?” I asked. He nodded. So he knew its power, too. He shut the door lightly behind him, and my heart jumped within me.
Now? Would it be now?
I had not planned for this; I was not sure that no one would come, and yet to wait another moment and risk the losing of it was too unbearable to think of.

We moved towards each other, both tentative, both filled with a delicate daring. He reached out a hand towards me, and I rushed into his arms, our lips meeting in desperate longing. I felt sparks of light rise inside me, and a wonderful rush of
finally
. I buried my hands in his hair, pulling him closer against me, losing myself in the intoxicating whirl of desire, feeling his hand at the base of my back, holding me tight against him, and the other, lightly brushing against the bare skin at the neck of my dress, then my neck, then down over my dress, his touch even through the fabric filling me with a desperate heat.

The door opened and we parted as suddenly as we had come together. I closed my eyes, cursing again the lost moment, feeling still around me, like a cloud, like a fading dream, the intense heady promise of his touch. The door was heavy, and opened in, so by the time Kay stepped through it, we stood apart, Lancelot leaning against the back of a chair and me, sat perched against the table. Kay fixed me with an odd look as he came in, a look I could not read, and it chased away the warm haze of joy I felt about me, and made me shiver. It was as though he saw into me, and was dismayed at what he found. Arthur came in fast after him, and Gawain and Percival and Lamerocke and Dinadan. Arthur gave a cry of joy when he saw Lancelot, who he noticed before he noticed me –

“Lancelot! I’ve been looking for you. Come, join us, we’re deciding where to ride out and hunt tomorrow. I’m tired of that same forest.”

Lancelot nodded mutely. Arthur saw me then, and smiled. He strode over and kissed me lightly. He did not taste another man on my lips, nor feel the heat inside me, just as he had not seen what Kay had seen in the same room. Perhaps it was because he did not want to see.

“I’m afraid there will be no hunting for you, my love,” he told me. “You have to stay and entertain Isolde, until Mark sends to say he wants her back.”

I glanced at Lancelot then, who gave a tiny shake of his head.
Arthur was not to know about Tristan, hiding at Joyous Guard
.

“Of course,” I replied, leaning up onto my tiptoes to kiss him softly, and before I could catch Kay’s eye again I slipped from the room. I hoped they did not notice Excalibur and move it back.

When we dined that night, it was a more elaborate feast than we had ever had – perhaps so that Isolde would go back to Cornwall telling them what great power resided in Camelot – but I barely tasted it. Elaine sat beside Lancelot, and he was ever attentive and kind to her. I knew there was nothing else he could do, but I wished that earlier I had told him what I feared about her. Perhaps he would not have believed me; perhaps he would have thought me mad with jealousy. I knew I was right.

I was sat between Arthur and Kay, though I wished that I had been by Isolde who was on Kay’s other side. I felt his eyes on me, and on Lancelot. I would rather have taken the simple girl and her sweet voice and happy smiles. Shrewd Kay saw everything, and now he had seen the truth. The strong wine did not ease my anxieties, though it did stop Arthur from noticing them, as he laughed and joked with Gawain and Lamerocke. Kay was quiet and serious, but no one seemed to notice. I wished, too, that Nimue was at court. She came and went like a cat, suiting only herself. As the sweet cakes came, Kay draped an arm over the back of my chair, and leaned down to whisper in my ear.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I turned and looked at him with an even stare. He hadn’t actually
seen
anything, he didn’t
know
anything. He had only his suspicions. But I did want his help.

“She’s from the barrows,” I told him. He knew what I meant. His lip curled in disdain. He tilted his head towards her.

“That little doe?” he laughed, cruelly. “I hardly think so.”

I felt the blood rise in my face. He was the only person who could have helped me.

“If you touch her, you’ll see.”

“Just a word of friendly warning to your champion, was it, that I caught you at earlier?” he asked with a mean, cynical smile. I gave him a narrow look and turned away, taking up my cup of wine again. If he would not help me, I was capable of helping myself.

I left the feast as soon as the eating was done. I had barely eaten at all, my stomach too full with anticipation, and nervousness. Lancelot had seen my look towards him as I left, and I was sure he would come. Kay had seen it, too, but I did not care. It would be safe enough, to see Lancelot once, and then I could carry the memory the rest of my life at the centre of me, like a hidden jewel. I was sure it would be enough.

Chapter Twenty Three

But he did not come. Neither did Arthur, though I did not expect that. On feasting days like that he was more likely to stay down in the hall drinking with Gawain and his brothers, and the cheery Dinadan, and Lamerocke – who after wine grew garrulous and even more pompous, but whose long tales Arthur always liked – than to come up to me. If he did come, it would be late, and he would be drunk. I did not really mind. But Lancelot did not come, and that I did mind.

I lay there, listening to the sounds of revelry dying away across the courtyard, and looking out of my window, open to the warm summer air, watching the full moon rise.
Why did he not come?
Had Kay stopped him? What business was this of Kay’s, anyway?

I heard noise in the room beside my own, the noise of a woman’s voice, and a man’s. The room I had given to Elaine, wanting to keep my eye on her. I lay on my bed, still fully dressed, paralysed by the anger pulsing through me, listening to the sounds that filtered through the thick wall. They were unmistakably the sounds of a man and woman
together
. I was shaking with anger when I finally stood, freed from the paralysis of my anger when I heard the sounds suddenly stop, and strode to the door, my head buzzing with every furious accusation I was about to make, but when I got to my door and wrenched it open the sight that I met with was the sight of myself.

There I stood, looking at me, my hair loose around my shoulders, dressed in my bedclothes, a light flush on my cheeks. The deep green eyes were my own, and the dark red lips against the white skin, and yet it was not me.
I
was me. This was the witch. I grabbed the figure of myself by the hair, and saw a sudden flicker, a sudden slip of the mask of my own face, and through the illusion on the skin of my own face, for a second, I saw the blue lines of woad tracing in whorls.
Morgan
. In my grip, the figure of me changed to Elaine, and the hair in my hand from thick red to silky brown, but I did not let go. She began to cry out in pitiful little wails, but I had no pity now I knew who she was. She wriggled and kicked, but hiding her shape had obviously drained the strength from Morgan and it was easy for me to drag her down the stairs, across the courtyard and up to the room with the Round Table. It was the dead of night, by then, but I could hear far away the dim noises of knights still in the great hall. I was glad of that, because I would not run in to them.

When we got to the room, I threw her inside and slammed the door behind us, rushing to Excalibur and drawing it. Elaine backed into the corner of the room, whimpering.

“Please,” she begged, “please don’t hurt me. I don’t know what I have done wrong.”

I advanced towards her, the sword drawn and pointing towards that smug swollen belly that she covered with her hand. When she saw I would not be fooled, her face changed to a cruel smile.

“What kind of woman are you, good queen? You have Arthur. Women all over this realm pray every night for a man such as him, and yet you long for another. But you do not love him enough to let him be happy with some other woman, but you must draw Lancelot ever back to you. You desire only to possess him.”

“Get on the table.” I took another step towards her, and she flinched. I felt Excalibur begin to vibrate in my hands from the Otherworld strength now coming off her like a wave of stench.

She shook her head, stubbornly, but as I moved towards her I could see the patterns of woad showing through on her cheeks, I could see the illusion slipping.

I heard the door open behind me, but I did not give ground. I knew who it would be. Lancelot come to follow the screaming, Lancelot slow to put the pieces of this together, unsuspecting of a trick against himself. But I had seen. I should have warned him, but he probably would not have believed me.

“Guinevere, what are you doing!?” He ran towards me, and moved to take the sword, but I stepped away. “Guinevere, please, let her go – she hasn’t done anything wrong – stop!”

He looked at me. I saw confusion flash across his face as he noticed that I was still fully dressed in the blue gown I had worn all day, my hair still braided and pinned.

“Who was with you, just now?” I asked him, with all the effort I could muster to hold it below a shout.

“You,” he replied, quietly, sounding unsure.

I took another step towards Elaine with Excalibur, and she had nowhere further back to go. The lines of woad on her face were darkening, her hair beginning to show black beneath the brown; she seemed to grow taller before me. Lancelot looked on in silent shock.

“
Get on the table
,” I insisted.

By the time she stepped up onto it and kneeled, Morgan was in her own form. Unmistakable. Her black hair fell long and loose around her, and her white skin etched with blue glowed eerily in the candlelight where it showed at the open neck of my nightdress. I had not been wrong to smell the barrow-lands about her. But, what had not been illusion was the swell at her stomach. No, that was real enough. Some desperate place hidden away inside me had hoped that was only part of the trick, I stepped towards her, raising Excalibur, but as I did so, with a final grin of triumph she dissipated into dust, as Merlin had done, and dissolved into the night.

I let the sword fall by my side, shaking. The truth was just as bad as the illusion. Lancelot reached towards me, but I pushed him gently away. I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes.

“You thought
she
was me.”

“Guinevere...”

I could see he was sad; I could see he was sorry. I could see that he was a victim of this, that he had been an innocent in it all, but I could not bear the thought of him with her. I could not bear it. She had taken my place, twice; she had taken the moment that I had longed for with him, and the child that should have been mine.
How had he not known it was not me?
He should have known. He should have known. We had been so close, and it had slipped through my fingers, unbearably evanescent. He had let it be taken from me, by Morgan. I had lived on this for months, all the time he was away, the promise of him, and Morgan had taken it from me so easily. I did not think I could sustain another missed moment, I didn’t think my body could take the hope and then the disappointment again. My heart ached within me. I had betrayed Arthur, if not in the deed than in the desire, I had begun to become someone else, all to have him. I had told myself that it would be worth it; I had told myself that no one would come to harm. And Arthur all the while had given me good, wholesome love, without question. Did I want this? Did I want a love so great that it tore me to pieces? Did I want something that I could not have? Was I supposed to be in this much pain? Better to live with the simple, domestic love Arthur had to offer me, than to throw myself into more and more hurt to have something that threatened to swallow me up. Perhaps I was as much of a fool as Isolde to think that I could live in innocence with it all, to think that it could ever be. Lancelot stepped towards me, and I put up a hand to stop him. I drew in a slow, quivering breath, stepping further away from him.

“I want you to go,” I said.

The End of Book I