Read THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) Online
Authors: Lavinia Collins
“Don’t embarrass the boy,” I said quietly. Kay did not hear, or did not listen.
“No no,” Kay said. “It’s true.”
“Stop,” Gawain growled.
Arthur smiled indulgently and raised a hand for quiet. He turned to Gareth and gently said.
“Perhaps, Gareth, I might offer you a joust for the love of this fair lady?” He turned to the man beside him. “Lancelot, I believe that is how civilised men settle this in the French courts?”
The man, Lancelot, inclined his head in a little nod. So, that was his name. I felt it brush against me, unusual, unfamiliar.
The men laughed and the subject changed, but neither Gawain nor Gareth looked as happy or relaxed as they had before. Kay seemed oblivious, drinking heartily from his cup, and joking with Nimue at his side, who seemed, with her quiet decorum, to be enjoying his japes nonetheless. I caught Gareth’s eye and tried to give a sympathetic smile, but he only blushed deeper and looked away.
That night, when it was dark and I lay with my head on his chest, Arthur said, “Have you spoken with Lancelot yet?”
“No. He was the one beside you?”
“Yes. He’s the one who picked you up from the battlefield.” I made a little noise of agreement. “I have been thinking, you should ask him to be Queen’s Champion. They have in France these wonderful pageants with jousts, and women can favour men to fight for them. We should have one here, soon, to celebrate my victories in Rome. I can’t fight, because no man would strike his king, so it would be dishonourable for me to fight men who would lose on purpose, but you can have a champion to fight for you, and I think you should ask him. He is one of King Ban’s sons, so it would be appropriate.”
I agreed, and quickly Arthur fell asleep. I had been tired, and heavy from the heady wine, but after that it took me a long time to get to sleep. I kept thinking of the man Lancelot. I don’t know why I felt so unsettled about it. I thought I must feel guilty, still, about not thanking him for saving my life when I saw him in the stables. When I finally did get to sleep, I dreamed oddly, of wandering in the forest, and a helmed man in armour who lifted his visor, and was sometimes Arthur, sometimes this man Lancelot and sometimes nothing more than the hollow, depthless black eyes of the witch Merlin. When I woke, I was covered in an unpleasant film of cold sweat that chilled me in the winter morning.
I sat up in bed to find that Arthur had already gone. I suddenly felt very exposed and alone. I pulled the sheets up around me, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I found myself wondering if Arthur had spent his nights alone, thinking of me, while he was on campaign. I hardly thought it likely, the way he would come back from the battlefield every day, blazing with desire. There had been women with the camp. I thought about asking Margery and Marie about it, but the thought that it might have been one of them made me decide not to. There were some things it was better not to know. I was not naive enough to imagine that Arthur had spent more than a year sleeping alone. It made me flush with anger, though I knew I had no right to. I belonged to him in a way that he did not belong to me.
Someone take her back to Britain
. I felt, remembering that, like a belonging, like a discarded sword no good for battle any longer, and sent away. Another sword would do just as well. A man need not take only his wife to bed, especially a king, and a childless king at that.
I have had many more lovers than you
. That came back to me, across the space of time, and now it burned against my skin, the injustice of it. He had discovered other women again, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had no claim over him. This was not like my parent’s marriage, formed out of love and made between equals, and though there was love, I knew it was the steady love grown from marriage, not the consuming love of those whose hearts belong only to each other, and I had not come to him as an equal, but as a prisoner bride. I should have thought of it before.
But I had lain alone for a year. I could have, if I had wanted, found another man to fill my bed. Kay. I could have had him, if I had wanted to. I remembered his hand on my wrist, the red autumn sun falling across his face as he lay back in the grass of my walled garden, listening to me read, his dark, handsome looks. I remembered hoping
he
was Arthur when they met me at Dover. I saw the way he looked at me; he would not have denied me if I had wanted him. It would not have been love, though. And I
did
love Arthur. And I was sure he loved me. But I was also sure that that would not have stopped
him
.
No, I should not feel the anger that I did. I washed my face in a basin of cold water, trying to rub away the dreams of the night, and the anger of my thoughts. I looked at the dress of lilac silk, and the horrible thought came to me that it must have belonged to the Emperor Lucius’ daughter. I took up instead the dress of blue wool I had worn the day before. It was warmer, and in that dress I would not feel the ghosts of conquered women pressing at my skin. I had hoped, perhaps beyond reason, that when Arthur returned things would go back to how they had been, but in the harsh morning light I knew that they would not. He had tasted battle again, and women. I had heard a soft voice speaking to me in French that I could not forget. Somehow, everything had changed, and I knew, that morning, as I gazed out at the frost on the grass beneath Arthur’s window, that my life would never be the same again.
When I walked out into the courtyard, the knights were sparring with wooden swords. Arthur was among them, and Gawain, Gareth and Kay. Kay and Arthur were laughing, but fighting in earnest, slamming their swords together with resounding cracks that echoed in the yard. They were dressed only in breeches and shirts despite the cold, but both were flushed from fighting. Arthur was easily and obviously the stronger fighter. Likewise, Gawain and Gareth clashed together, though I did not think I had ever seen Gawain be so gentle as he was with his brother. He was letting the boy feel his strength, but only enough to teach him, to prepare him. Arthur saw me, and shouted a greeting, which gave Kay the opportunity to jab him in the ribs. He bent over double, losing his breath, but I could hear that he, like Kay, was laughing. I had not come looking, though, for Arthur. I wished I had worn my furs because the air was biting, but I had only a black wool cloak on. I had not thought of it until now. My mind felt strange and disconnected from my body. I felt half-dazed. I had just about managed to put back in my hair the little circlet of ivy leaves to try to hide the plainness of my clothes. A new-made empress ought to make some effort to look grand.
It took me a while to see him, through the crowd of men fighting – there were many, too, whom I did not recognise that must have come back with Arthur to play court to the man who had liberated Europe from the Romans and now ruled them from Logrys – but then I did. He sat at the other side of the courtyard, one knee drawn up in front of him, his arm resting lazily on it, and clutched in the hand hanging down was one of the peaches Arthur had brought back from the Mediterranean. He was speaking to the man beside him. I wished I was close enough to hear that voice again. He was dressed all in black, and the hilt of his sword flashed at his side as it caught the morning sun. A pale blush spread across his cheeks and he breathed out a little cloud of steam as he spoke, as though he had just retired from the fighting. I wanted to go over, but I could not move. I felt as though my feet had frozen to the spot. I couldn’t look away either, though men practising at swordplay moved between us, sometimes obscuring my view. I had no idea why I felt so nervous. He took a lazy bite from the peach and I saw his face crinkle in a laugh. I did not know the man he was speaking to either, or perhaps I just did not take him in. Lancelot wiped the juice of the peach from his lips with the back of his hand before taking another bite.
“Did you come to speak to my half-brother?” I jumped at the voice beside me that I had not expected. I had thought I was standing alone. I blushed to be caught staring, and I felt the quivering of guilt within me, though I did not see why I should be ashamed to look at a man. The voice belonged to Ector, kind Ector, looking down on me with his warm, avuncular smile. He looked tired from battle, and he stood awkwardly, his weight all on the left side, as though he had been injured. I put a hand on his arm.
“Ector, I’m so pleased to have you back.” I remembered his question. “Which one is your brother?”
“Lancelot,” he said, raising a hand to point. As though he had heard his name from across the yard, Lancelot looked up and our eyes met. For a single moment, I heard my heart beating in my ears, and had a stunning sensation of rushing, or being blown by a fierce wind, and then he looked away. I felt the need to catch my breath, but I could not. Luckily, Ector continued and I did not have to speak. “They say he saved your life on the battlefield. Then there are those things they do not talk about. How he saved Arthur numerous times as well. And many others. Young men are reckless in battle, but he’s different, my brother. He sees everything at once, it seems. He’s calm. I suppose we’re both prudent men, cut from the same mould. But,” he took my hand in his with another deep and gentle smile, “I also hear it is you and your medicine-woman Christine I have to thank for my son Kay’s life.”
“We were all so relieved that his wound healed so fast,” I replied.
Ector sighed, looking out at the young men fighting. War had aged Ector, or perhaps I had not looked at him properly before. Perhaps it was the thought that he might have to bury his son that had made his age weigh on him, all of a sudden. His face was deeply lined and weather-beaten, and grey speckled the hair at his temples. “Young men relish playing at war, and like even better to fight it for real. Old men like me just relish when it’s over.”
“So do I, Ector.” I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. He laid a hand lightly on my cheek, calloused from years of holding a sword and cold from the frosty air.
“You make a fine empress, my lady,” he said, and took his leave, walking back into the crowd. When I looked back over towards Lancelot, he had vanished, as though my presence had scared him away. I felt unaccountably hurt. But I knew where I might find him.
I went round to the stables, stopping to give Gareth a little smile of encouragement as I passed him. He blushed and looked away, but I thought he seemed pleased. I slipped inside, and sure enough he was there. He did not see me, or hear me come in. His back was to me as he brushed his horse, the rough bristles whispering against the horse’s flank. He looked as though he was concentrating intensely on the movement, firm and gentle. Through the open stable door came the clacks and shouts of the men practising. I had already waited too long to speak, and I could feel nerves prickling inside me. I had nothing to be nervous about. I would just apologise for not recognising him yesterday, and thank him. Then I would go. I was not shy. This would not be difficult.
“Lancelot?” I spoke the name, but it came out of my throat half strangled with nerves. I hoped he would not try to take my hand, because it was slick with sweat. He turned, and when he saw it was me, he had a look about him as though he had been caught at something. Perhaps I had made him feel as though I disliked him, staying silent so long. I took a little step towards him. “I came to thank you, sir. And to apologise. I did not recognise you when we met yesterday, but I, I will always be grateful to you for saving my life.”
Inclined his head in a little bow that he did not look back up from.
“It was nothing, my lady.”
Say more, say more.
I did not know what to say. I did not know what women from France did to be courteous to their men. We Breton women did not grow up with courtesies and formality, and even before coming to Logrys Margery had had to teach the three of us, Marie, Christine and myself, what would be expected. Perhaps I had offended Lancelot. I felt, as I had never done before, unsure of myself. Unsure of my actions. Even when I had been brought to Camelot as a prisoner I had been sure of what to do. But that was, I suppose, because I did not care then whether or not I would be liked.
“Well...” I cringed inside to say it, but it was all that I could say. Lancelot looked up expectantly and his deep blue eyes caught the breath from me as they met mine and my heart fluttered in my chest.
Why am I nervous?
“I will always be grateful to you,” I managed to say. I could feel myself blush, my skin hot and red giving me away, and I turned and left before he could see. Why did I feel like such a fool? I was normally gracious, clever and in control, and suddenly I did not know how to thank someone properly. Back out of the stable in the cold air, I turned and leant back against the stable wall, closing my eyes and catching my breath. Then I remembered what Arthur said about asking him to be my champion. Foolish. That was what he would have been expecting, that was what these Frenchmen did. I
had
insulted him.
I ran back inside, but found that he had gone. Slipped away, somehow. The same gift as Kay, I supposed, to be everywhere and nowhere all at once.
That evening I sent Christine to ask Lancelot to come to my chamber. As I waited for him, I noticed my hands were shaking.
What was wrong with me?
Surely I did not feel so badly about it. Surely I had not done so wrong in the clumsy way I had thanked him. I did not know why I felt so nervous, why I felt as though a line was about to be crossed that I could not go back from. It must have been the strange dream. I must be being irrational. It was only understandable, since Arthur was just back from war. No wonder I was worried. No wonder I felt so afraid. I paced the room, waiting for the knock on the door. At last it came. I opened the door, and there he was, the man who had saved my life. The breath went out of me when I saw him and I could not speak. I could not say what it was about him, about the fact that we were at last alone and I was not looking at him through a crowd, or seeing him without knowing him, or only feeling a strong arm around me, taking me to safety, that froze me to the spot, but it did.
“My lady, Queen Guinevere.” He gave a little bow, the candlelight gleaming in his glossy black hair as he did, and I gestured him in and shut the door. My hands were trembling as I shut it, and I leaned against it, for a moment. I breathed in slowly, and out, and turned back to him. He had moved silently into the room to walk to the fire, leaning against the fireplace, looking in. His pale face glowed orange from the flames, his lithe, neat body gently leaning towards the heat. His eyes stared right into the flames. He had come without his armour, and it was the first time I had seen him without it up close. Dressed in just a simple black shirt and black breeches I could see the curves of the muscles beneath. Not huge and powerful like Arthur, but swift and sinewy.
But still strong enough to pluck me from my death as though I were weightless as a flower
. I should not be thinking about that. I should not be comparing him to Arthur. I had to say something. My heart pounded. It felt high in my throat. I could feel my hands sweating.
“Sir Lancelot –” He turned his eyes to mine and the words froze within me. Deep, deep dark blue eyes like the centre of the sea.
“Are you recovered my lady, from your wound?” he asked in his deep, soft voice.
“Quite,” I nodded.
He nodded in return. “I am pleased to hear so.” The silence stretched on between us, or perhaps it was just a second. He reached forward and took my hand in his. The touch of his skin on mine felt electric, it sent a spark through my body and I could feel myself blushing already. I hated that blush, giving away what I was not sure yet that I knew. “I have thought of you often, my lady.”
I looked up to meet his gaze again and as I did my heart quickened even more within me. I could see a slight flush on him, too. Was I imagining it? What was I imagining? My body seemed to know something that my mind yet did not, or did not want to know.
I must just be nervous
.
I was not usually nervous. There was a heady, unspeakable potentiality to being alone with him like this that fogged my mind and slowed my tongue.
“I... I wanted to thank you, for saving my life, sir. Arthur – King Arthur, my lord King Arthur – he thought you might like to, to be my champion. I would like you to be my champion.”
“It would be an honour,” he replied, in the purring French lilt I had already grown to know so well. I wanted to lean in towards him, to close my eyes and listen to him speak, even those few words that he did.
“There is a tournament... there will be a tournament, soon, to celebrate the victory. You should ride for me.”
I broke away from his gaze and moved to the bed where I had laid out a cloth-of-gold sleeve to give him, to tie on his helmet. I was glad for a moment to be away from the heat of the fire, from the heat of his gaze, or the heat it was raising in me. I felt clumsy, as if I did not know what I was doing, as if I were moving in a dream. I lifted the soft, cool cloth in my trembling hands and folded it tenderly. I took it back over to him and placed it in his hands. Both of my hands holding the cloth came to rest with it in his upturned palms. Neither of us spoke. I did not think I could have moved if I wanted to. My whole body felt alive with sparks. I did not realise that I had come to stand so close to him until I moved my eyes up to meet his gaze and felt the shock at the centre of myself as they met, so close our noses almost brushed. I could hear his soft breathing and the crackling of the flames. There were many things to say,
Thank you for your valour in fighting
,
I have thought often of you, too
,
thank you for your loyalty to my husband
, but already we were beyond words. He leant down, slowly, and pressed his lips on mine with the softest of kisses. I sighed in quiet surrender. Soft, and intoxicating, the touch of a moment, but I felt the soft skin of his lips there still after he had moved away, and, wordlessly, left.
When I was alone I sat heavily on the bed, and slowly lay back. Perhaps this way the way of it, the way of things in southern France. It was not the way among us Bretons, but we did not have tourneys and champions, courtesy and love-play like the French. Perhaps they always kissed the ladies that they rode for. But that did not explain the way
I
felt. No no, no. That was because he had saved my life. I felt that way because my life was saved. No line had been crossed.
And yet, after that moment, I moved through the days as though I moved in a dream. It was too cold to sit in my walled garden, so the room below my chamber was prepared with cushions and fur rugs and I sat there with my ladies, and sometimes Gareth and Kay, when they were not fighting in the yard, and lute-players came, or we read to one another; but I heard nothing, and saw nothing. Arthur came to me at night, but that too was like a dream, and anyway he came less often, being absorbed with his burgeoning band of knights, and boyish dreams of pageantry and adventure – more battles and more glory. As Arthur prepared the court for its first tournament, it filled with courtiers. I took among my women his sister Morgan, newly widowed from her old husband and visibly relieved, and the druid Nimue, neither of whom I could bring myself to trust entirely on account of their woaded faces, but both of whom I barely noticed by my side anymore, and the young daughters of Arthur’s vassal kings, or powerful lords. I could not remember anyone’s name.
Every time I walked through the castle, every corner I turned, I expected Lancelot with a mix of fear and anticipation. I did and I did not want to turn and see him there. When I closed my eyes, I saw his face, orange with the firelight, or I heard his voice, soft and close by, as though it was a whisper in my ear, or I felt his lips brush against mine. I did not stop thinking about him. I hoped, when the tourney happened, it would make sense, it would feel resolved, I would feel that I had thanked him enough and I would stop thinking about it.
It felt as though it was an age before the day of Arthur’s tourney came, but it had only been a week since I had given Lancelot my golden sleeve. I woke in the morning early and waited restlessly, looking out of the window down at my little walled garden silver with frost, until Marie and Christine came in to help me get ready. They were chattering together in Breton, even the older woman giddy with excitement for the festivities of the day. Margery came in after them, carrying a lacquered box that she laid, with some ceremony, on the table beside the fire. She looked annoyed that her ceremony was largely ignored, and that Marie and Christine were still chattering in a language that she barely understood, and she bustled out, to check on the rest of my newly expanded band of women.
Marie and Christine had brought up for the occasion a dress made of heavy silk brocade in a dark emerald green, embroidered in gold thread with crosses. The symbol of Arthur’s god. Still, it was a beautiful dress, and I supposed he had a right to think that I had taken his god into my heart when I sat beside him and spoke the same prayers. It took both Marie and Christine to get the heavy dress over my head, but I was glad of its weight because it would be cold sitting to watch the jousts. The dress had a deep, square neck, and I was pleased to see in the pile of clothing, some white fur, flecked with black. The dress fitted close on the bodice, and on the arms down to the wrists where the sleeves finished with gold hemming. Rich, expensive. It suited me well. There were jewels, too. A gold chain that hung off it, dozens of emeralds shaped like raindrops, and a gold-and-emerald net to hold up my braided hair; the jewels I had worn to be married. No, I had not sold those. My circlet was missing, and when I asked for it, Marie gestured to Margery’s box. When I opened it, inside was a circlet of thick gold that looked like two muscular snakes wound together, meeting at the front, their heads nestled side by side, with big, emerald eyes. I lifted it out, lightly and warily, though it looked sturdy and strong. Christine called for Margery, clearly wanting to know about the curious circlet as badly as I did. Margery came up, but not alone. She came with Morgan who took the circlet from me in a businesslike way and settled it on my head. It was a perfect fit. She looked at me, with discerning eyes, grey as Arthur’s own, narrowed in consideration. I did not know why I had taken a dislike to her before. She did not have a pretty face, true, nor open, but it was shrewd and intelligent. She was dressed in mourning black in a dress of thick silk, overlaid with a layer of black lace that covered her to the neck. Through the lace I could see that the skin of her chest, too, was painted with woad. Nestled among the lace, black gemstones gleamed when they caught the light.
“Morgan said she had to see it,” Margery explained apologetically.
“That crown,” Morgan said softly, fixing me with a serious look, “was taken by Arthur from the treasures of Rome. It belonged to the Queen Cleopatra, who was the lover of two Emperors, or... one and a half. She was a fearsome queen, who rode with her people into war. He must have thought it an appropriate gift for you, my lady.”
I reached up and touched the cool metal resting on my head. So there were others like Maev, all round the world.
I thanked Morgan and she slipped from the room, silently, as though she had melted.
“You look magnificent, my lady,” Christine told me, holding up the hammered silver mirror. I squinted at myself. I could see gold, and the deep fiery red of my hair, the ivory pale skin of my face. I could not see magnificence, but I could see I looked well enough for the tourney.