The Future King: Logres (44 page)

Gwenhwyfar’s heart tightened. ‘What about him?’

Emily propped her chin in her hand. ‘Is
he
seeing anyone at the moment?’

Gwenhwyfar traced Emily’s gaze to the cafeteria. Lancelot was waiting
by the doors with Gavin, presumably for the others. She felt a surge of anger
as she remembered the incident yesterday. She had offered to sit alone with
Arthur today, but he had insisted he wanted to spend time with Marvin instead.
‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘No reason. I was just wondering.’

She felt her stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot. Emily
couldn’t, could she…? But then she remembered what Gavin had once said,
that blonde girl who’s obsessed with Lance
.
Suddenly Lancelot’s own words resurfaced, and she felt sick.

‘Lance—?’ she said in disbelief. ‘You like…
Lance
?’

‘
Shh
!’ she hissed at her.
‘I never said that!’ Despite the words, she smiled. ‘But he
is
fit. Have you
seen
him playing rugby?’ She released a sound that made Gwenhwyfar
feel uncomfortable. ‘I’d be surprised if he is single.’

Gwenhwyfar could barely speak.

‘Do you know if he fancies anyone?’

Yes, me
, she wanted
to shout.
He fancies me
. But did he? That
was nearly a month ago now, and a lot had happened since then. What if he liked
Emily, too? ‘I did hear that he had a thing for Juliet in sixth-form,’ she
lied, grasping at straws.

‘Juliet?’ Emily’s nose wrinkled. ‘Ugh. I don’t know why all the boys
like her: she’s such a
hag
.’

‘Emily, you’ve never dated Lance, have you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This is going to sound weird, but have you ever been
been
with him?’

She didn’t get it. As Gwenhwyfar tried to convey her meaning through
her gaze, Emily merely looked at her as if she were strange.

‘You know,’ Gwenhwyfar murmured, reluctant to say it. ‘Have you…
slept
with him?’

Emily’s sudden look of surprise turned to horror. ‘What? No! Ugh, don’t
be so vile! Of course not! Who told you that?’

‘Lance,’ she revealed with some satisfaction. ‘He said he’d had sex
with you.’

‘What? When?’

‘Ages ago, months. He was obviously bragging. He said he’d had
hundreds
of women, and that you were one
of them.’ She offered her a false smile. ‘Now I know he was lying.’

‘Lance said he slept with me?’ Emily scowled. ‘Why would he do that?
Unless… unless he actually
wanted
to.
Gwen! Don’t you see? It’s obvious! He said that because he
fancies
me!’

She stared, slack-jawed. ‘You think?’

Emily shushed her to silence as Lancelot loped over with the others. He
sat down, pulling a stolen apple and chocolate bar out of his pocket. He soon
realised that Emily was staring at him.

‘What?’

Gwenhwyfar felt the jealousy within her explode. ‘
Emily
was wondering why you were telling
everyone you slept with her,’ she snapped. Emily smacked her arm, the part that
was still sore.

‘Lance made
that up?’ Tom
hacked out a mocking laugh. Gavin and Viola looked about the table in surprise.
Lancelot’s knuckles whitened. He stood to leave.

‘Who said he made it up?’ Emily blurted out. ‘We were just wondering
why he’s told everyone, when I specifically asked him
not
to.’

Gwenhwyfar couldn’t believe it. Even Lancelot looked stunned.
‘Right,’ she said, her mouth dry.

‘You slept with Lance?’ Tom asked, his disappointment evident.

‘It was ages ago,’ Emily shrugged. ‘It wasn’t anything serious.’

Gwenhwyfar felt nauseous. What was Emily playing at? None of them had
forgiven her for what she had done, and yet she was here, as if she had always
been one of them, and she was ruining everything.

‘Is this true, Lance?’ Viola asked, as shocked as Gwenhwyfar. By this
stage Lancelot had regained his composure and was sitting as he always did,
smugly, with an unshakable air of confidence.

‘Of course,’ he claimed. ‘I said we did, didn’t I?’

The table fell into deliberation. Eventually the subject changed, the
claim forgotten, but Bedivere seemed troubled and Gwenhwyfar found her feelings
warring for the rest of recess.

She was hurrying into the girls’ toilets when Viola caught up with
her. The other girl slammed the door open, and Gwenhwyfar looked round in
surprise.

‘What the hell was that?’ Viola demanded, striding into the bathroom.
Gwenhwyfar pressed her hips into the ceramics as she adjusted her appearance in
the dirtied mirrors.

‘Gwen?’

‘What was what about?’ she snapped, irritated with herself.

‘That!’ Viola exclaimed. ‘That whole charade with Lance! You getting
stroppy with Emily!’

She sniffed, and pushed back her hair. ‘What’s it to you? I thought we
hated her anyway.’

‘I thought so too, and then you go and let her sit at our table!
Don’t you remember what she did?’

‘She apologised for what she did,’ Gwenhwyfar bit. ‘Besides, you’ve
got a mouth, haven’t you? You could’ve said no, but you just sat there and told
her you
didn’t mind
. Well, now look
what happened! Bedivere’s clearly upset about it.’

‘So you’re going to blame this on me, are you?’

‘
No
. I just don’t agree
with Lance bragging about things that aren’t true.’

‘You didn’t have a problem with it before.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It only seems to bother you now that Emily’s around.’

‘Don’t be such a hypocrite.’

‘I’m not the one taking the moral high ground here,’ she shouted.
Gwenhwyfar decided she wasn’t going to answer that. She didn’t want to argue.
‘You’re not even listening to me,’ claimed Viola.

‘I
am
listening.’

‘No, you’re not. What the hell is up with you?’

‘She had a right to know. She didn’t sleep with him. She’s only
saying she did because she likes him. She wants to make him think she
understands
him.’

Viola stared.

‘And she
doesn’t
understand
him,’ continued Gwenhwyfar. ‘She has no idea who he is. And Lancelot
seems to have forgotten what she did to
him. I mean, who does that? Claims they screwed the person who destroyed their
life?’

Viola waved her arms in exasperation and brought her palms up to her
forehead. ‘I can’t deal with this!’ she expelled. ‘I mean, God! Emily’s only
been with us for five minutes, and you’re already acting like her.’

‘Acting like what?’ she dared.

‘You know, like
her
. Like a
complete bitch.’

She was stunned, hurt, but couldn’t back-peddle now. ‘Oh, so now I’m
a bitch, am I?’

‘No! You’re acting like one, but it’s not
you. It’s Emily, and it’s driving me insane!’

Gwenhwyfar pulled out the grimy bottle of lip-gloss that often sat in
her pencil case and, lost for words, applied it angrily.

‘Look, I’m sorry. You’re not a bitch. But I mean, do you fancy Lance
or something?’

She turned to face her. ‘What? No!’

‘Are you sure? Because you’re certainly acting like it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘So you like Arthur, then?’

‘You know I do,’ she affirmed. ‘Why wouldn’t I? He’s
perfect
.’

‘Right! You like Arthur, and you don’t fancy Lance. So you shouldn’t care
if Emily
does
fancy Lance.’

‘Of course I care! I mean, he’s my friend, isn’t he? Of course I care
that that harpy wants to dig her sharp little claws into him. It’s just wrong.’

‘Lance is a big boy, Gwen. He can take care of himself.’

‘But she
lied
. She lied
about sleeping with him, and she lied about Ellie. How does she think she even
has a chance?’ Gwenhwyfar began to doubt herself. She couldn’t like Lancelot,
not in that way. The possibility that she might terrified her. ‘Lance and I are
friends. I’m just looking out for him. You know what Emily’s like.’

Viola’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. ‘Good, because I know him.
Arthur believed what Charlotte said for a reason. Ellie and Lance were close,
really close. Just friends, so they insisted, but it was a complete disaster.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know how things ended up, the division it caused.’ She sighed. ‘Lance
is… volatile. Just trust me.’

The two girls stared at one another, considering. Gwenhwyfar bit her
lip and found her eyes shifting to the tiled floor.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for acting weird. I’m just still a bit freaked
from this weekend, you know?’

‘I know. Just be careful. What would Arthur do if he found out you
were jealous?’

‘I’m not jealous,’ she countered.

‘
He
won’t see it that way.’
There was another silence between them. As always, the toilets of Old Wormelow
smelt vaguely of cigarette smoke. A tap dripped into a clogged sink, which was
half-flooded with stagnant water. ‘Do you love Arthur?’

‘I don’t know.’ Gwenhwyfar sighed, and wrapped her arms close to her
chest. ‘I don’t even know if he loves me.’

‘Arthur!’

He jolted, blinking. He was sitting in Marvin’s study for another
meeting with The Round Table, but at some point his mind had wandered off. Gwenhwyfar
wasn’t here tonight—she had commitments with her family—and as
Marvin gazed at him expectantly Arthur shifted in embarrassment and tried to
guess what he had missed.

Marvin sighed. ‘Is something troubling you, by any chance?’

He looked about the room. Opposite him sat Morgan and Percy. Next to
them, Gavin and Bedivere watched Marvin closely. Arthur felt his face heat up.

‘Sorry, I was thinking about what the implications are for the introduction
of the New Moral Army,’ he adlibbed. ‘What was the question again?’

Marvin huffed. ‘An
interesting
distraction, I am sure, and it is one we will continue to cover; but right now
we want to know what your opinion on the national lottery is. You know, the lottery
that was called in ’twenty-one, to replenish military forces stationed in the
Middle East? What do you think?’

Arthur looked to Bedivere for help, and then to Gavin, but the tall
boy eyed him critically with a strident opinion that he didn’t want to loan. ‘I
don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

Bedivere smirked. Marvin waved his hand in annoyance. ‘Well, thank
you for being honest, but please let me know when you
do
next decide to listen to me, hmm? Morgan?’

Morgan went into a long series of arguments that, though intended to
upstage Arthur, only caused him to switch off again. Gavin contested her point
of view until the discussion moved on to politics, and as Marvin refilled their
glasses—Morgan’s with squash, the boys’ with English wine—Arthur
was pulled back to those around him.

‘It’s terribly tragic of course,’ Marvin was announcing, ‘but I can’t
quite see how, in this day and age, when everything from what you eat in the
morning to where you sleep at night is monitored, something like this could be
organised. I mean, how could anyone evade all those surveillance methods
undetected? I wish I knew.’

The wine bottle glugged as it poured into Arthur’s glass. He held the
stem steady, watching the crimson swirl. ‘Gwen was on the street where one of
the bars exploded,’ he remarked.

‘Yes, I was made aware of that at the start of the week. I do have
one pupil whose sister died, and many others who were in some way involved, so
by no means am I commending the attacks. I’m merely suggesting that they’re odd.’

‘It is odd,’ Gavin agreed, ‘but not impossible.’

‘Not impossible, no, but unusual?’ Marvin sighed. ‘We were told that
the last series of attacks in London happened because the government didn’t
have enough control over monitoring mechanisms. The odd blast since then was to
be expected from lone wolves, but something as orchestrated as this? I just
don’t know how it happened.’

Morgan propped herself forwards on the table. ‘Isn’t that when
Lance’s parents died? I remember; it was in Year Seven. At Christmas.’

‘They were on the Tube, going out for their anniversary.’ Gavin
looked up, and for a moment met Arthur’s eye. ‘They weren’t supposed to be on
that train, but the line they wanted was shut due to a jumper. They had to take
the Central.’

There was a long silence. Marvin sucked his teeth and ruefully shook
his head. ‘We do live in such a violent world.’

‘That’s inevitable, considering we’re essentially a violent,
destructive species,’ remarked Arthur, a hint of disgust in his tone. ‘If we
can’t kill it off or drive it to extinction, we destroy it and exhaust it, and
if we can’t fulfil either of those ambitions we murder and rape one another
instead.’