THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

In less than a second he turned back to me, strode back the distance and caught me in his arms, drawing me close into a kiss that stole my breath and made my heart jump in my chest. It took my mind a moment to catch up with my racing heart, with my body, that reached towards his, and met him, my hands twining in his hair, soft as silk but thick as velvet.
This is truly happening
. He was passionate, but slow; not rough like Arthur, but sensual, his lips soft against mine, and gently opening to a tongue that fluttered against my own. I felt his thumb graze lightly the top of my ear, the side of my face, as he slid his other fingers into my hair. With the other arm, he held me close against him. Every touch against my skin was hot and bright, like fire. I melted into it, into him. I felt the room dissolve around me; the world. I felt no pressing urgency; a passion wakened within me without time, as though time had melted away with the world. He made a sound of pleasure deep within his throat, and lightly lifted me so that I was sat on the edge of the table. He moved his lips to the top of my ear, kissing lightly, and down my neck. I leant my head back, feeling the sweet rush of it, giving a soft moan at his touch. I drew him close again and felt a hand slide slowly up under the skirt of my dress, along my thigh. I felt light-headed, light-bodied, as though I was filled from head to toe with a tingling light. My fingers, it seemed of their own accord, found the lacing on his breeches and pulled free the strings. I sighed towards him. I felt for a wonderful moment the bare skin of his stomach against the inside of my thigh, soft flesh on flesh, as he began to draw me towards him, and I drew him towards me.

Then, suddenly, through the tingling light surrounding me, I heard what could only be boots on the stone steps, coming up the stairs to the room. He heard them at the same time, and jumped away from me, turning his back to me, his fingers quick on the cord of his breeches, and I threw my skirts back down to the ground, jumping from the table, bracing myself back against it, leaning back, the edge of the table digging in hard to the palms of my hands, the wonderful aura of light and unreality that had shrouded us both disappearing around me. I could feel the flush on my skin, and as Arthur pushed open the door, I was still breathing fast, half with panic, half with desire.

He looked between us, and anger flashed across his face. For a moment, I thought this was the end, but then he turned to Lancelot. It must have looked a very different picture to him.

“Lancelot, what’s going on?” he said, his voice deep with threat. “What have you been doing to upset my wife?”

Lancelot turned back around, speechless. He did not look at me, and I was glad. Neither of us wanted to shatter the lie, or lose the truth that had at last glimmered between us, like a ghost.

“Cornwall,” he said at last, grasping for something that would be suitable, something that Arthur would believe. “I told her, I told her that
I
will go, to be champion for King Mark and defend Cornwall.”

I closed my eyes, and felt the blood run cold within me. That was almost as bad as the truth, because now he would be taken from me anyway. Arthur would applaud him for taking the challenge, and he would have to go. I heard Arthur sigh.

“Good. I suppose she wasn’t pleased.”

Don’t talk about me as if I’m not there.

Someone take her back to Britain
.

The room span around me, even with my eyes shut. So close, so close. What had I done? What had I
almost
done? But I would have given anything to have been back to the moment before, and taste it again. I could see blue and green spots behind my closed eyes. I had had and lost it all in a moment; it had grown like a star within me and suddenly fallen dark. And I could still feel his lips against mine.

“Guinevere?” I heard Lancelot’s voice through the darkness. I wanted to sink towards it; I wanted to feel it all around me. It fell soft against me and I felt the twinge within me again of loss. I could no longer feel my body, no longer feel the wood of the table beneath my hands. I felt myself slip, and felt an arm catch me, pulling me back to my feet. I knew it was Arthur, and somehow that made me want to cry.

“Guinevere, are you alright?” Arthur asked. I nodded, raising a hand to my eyes, shielding out the light.

“I think I’m not quite well. Will you fetch Christine?”

Arthur led me tenderly to sit in one of the chairs and put his hand against my brow. “Of course,” he replied, and kissed me lightly on top of my head. To Lancelot he said, “Stay with her.”

And he left.

Neither of us spoke. I did not know what held him quiet, but I was trying to hold on to the moment before, to taste it once again before it escaped me. What could we say to one another now, anyway? I felt as though the centre of me had shattered.

Chapter Twenty

Christine and Arthur came back quickly; too fast, it seemed to me, and laid me in my bed. Christine clicked her tongue as she always did, when she felt my brow.

“She’s not well, my lord.” She said to Arthur. They talked quietly over me for a while until Arthur leaned down and kissed me on the cheek, and left. Christine clicked her tongue again, stroking my hair, sitting beside me on the bed, where I lay face down, burying my face in the pillow.

“You are well enough, aren’t you, little one?” she said in Breton. She had not called me
little one
in a long time. She used to call me
little one
when I begged her to read me
lai
as a child. I gave a little groan. She
tsked
. “It won’t help you to feel sorry for yourself about it. It will pass.” She tucked my hair lovingly behind my ear. “Go to sleep, little one.”

When I woke in the morning, the tendrils of a lovely dream still hung around me, a dream filled with soft candlelight, and a voice whispering to me in French. I was sure, in the dream, I could really feel the smooth wood of the Round Table beneath my hands, but it had only been an illusion. Like everything else.

When Christine came in with my breakfast, she came in alone. Usually Marie or Margery was with her with my dress, or just to greet me with the gossip of the day. Christine set my food – I could smell porridge – down and sat down on the side of the bed. I didn’t want it.

“How are you, my lady?” she asked, formal and proper once more. I half hoped that she would get onto the bed beside me and call me
little one
again.

I sat up in bed, drawing my knees up towards me.

“Better,” I replied. I added, in Breton, “I want you to ask Lancelot to come to me, in my walled garden.”

Christine gave me a sharp, motherly look. I did not have the energy to scold her for it, nor the inclination.

“Are you sure that is wise?” she warned. “You don’t want to upset yourself again.”

“I want to say goodbye before he leaves for Cornwall.”

Christine nodded, understanding. She had not known he was leaving, then. She kissed me brusquely on the forehead.

“It will seem better soon.”

I nodded. I didn’t know how she had known, but I was not surprised. Christine had been with me since I was a baby. She was quiet, and good at watching the people around her. I wondered how much she had known, or guessed, too. She passed me the porridge. I didn’t feel like eating, but I had a few mouthfuls. It seemed a shame to waste food, when we had been without it for so long. I let Margery finish it, when she bustled in with a light green silk dress sewn with gold around the neck for me to wear.

I was impatient for Christine to be gone so that she could ask him, so I dressed quickly. Margery’s fingers fumbled clumsily with my hair and I wanted to slap her bumbling hands, but I held myself back. I didn’t care how I looked, I just wanted to get out to the garden. I missed little Marie, who was always so deft and quick. She would have cheered me up. Maybe I could even have told her, and she would not have scolded me. She was the youngest of us, almost five years younger than I was. She would not have dared. When I asked Margery where she was, the dull girl said that she hadn’t seen her that morning. I hoped once again that she was not with Gawain.

As soon as I was dressed and ready, I ran down the steps and out into the morning, to wait. I felt my heart fluttering within me. I did not know how it could sustain beating so fast for so long. At last he came to me, as I had asked, in my walled garden. Spring was beginning around me; snowdrops pushed through the earth, white blossom hung on the May tree in the corner, and the air smelled green with new life. But it all seemed fragile and mournful to me, the beginning of something that could never be.

I was glad that he came not dressed in his mail for departure, but in his shirt and breeches, though he had his sword at his side. He hesitated as he entered, near to the little stone archway that led in, as though he was wary of coming close to me, but after a moment he strode towards me. I thought he might take me in his arms, but he held back.

He sighed. “Guinevere... I think that this is for the best.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the waves of sorrow, and desperation, rush against me, shaking me right to the heart. I wouldn’t give in to them, not yet. I was strong enough for this.

“How is this for the best?” I asked, my voice very small, choked down with the tears I would not cry, looking down away from him. He stepped towards me and took my face in his hands and softly turned me to look him in the eye. I could see that he felt it too, the impossibility of everything. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care who thought it was wrong, who I hurt; I wanted him to stay. Right then I did not care if people knew, I didn’t care what was
proper
. But Lancelot was a man with a castle, lands, people under his care. He was responsible for them. I supposed as the son of a king he must be a vassal-prince under Arthur, with a kingdom of his own to protect. He could not risk their lives for me, if it meant the wrath of Arthur. He stroked my cheek gently with his thumb.

“Think of what just happened, what almost happened. If I stayed we would... you
know
we would. It would not be safe. You know for a queen to take a lover is treason, and that is death.”

I pushed him away, feeling the fire of my raging emotions suddenly strong within me.

“
I don’t care
.
I don’t care. I would risk
anything
. But maybe you’re not as brave as they say you are.”

My voice was soft, but harsh. I knew I had been unkind, and I expected him to bridle against it, to turn to anger in response, but he did not. He stepped towards me again, and took my hand, drawing me closer tenderly, reaching out again to brush my cheek, the hair at the nape of my neck, but lightly, as though he did not trust himself to turn back if he touched more firmly. I felt my skin warm at his touch, and closed my eyes for a moment, into the sensation. There was love in it, and longing. I could feel it against my skin; the promise of a great tenderness I might never know.

“Guinevere, you have to understand, Arthur is my king. I have made vows to him, in the sight of God; he has made me what I am. He is a good king. He is a good
man
. I have already betrayed him in this, I –” He shook his head as words failed him for a moment. “We were boys together, we fought side by side... I owe him loyalty, in everything. I will come back. I will. I just think... For now this is the best.”

But you will find someone else. Someone you can have
.

“I don’t want you to go.” It was all I could say, stubborn and petulant like a child. There were not the words within me to say it all, and I could not begin because if I did it would all pour out of me, and I would cry and scream and someone might come. “See me once, before you go.” One memory of him, one night; I thought that might be enough to last me through the years. If I had to say goodbye – and I did not think he would come back loving me still – I wanted that at least.

“Guinevere...”

“No. You don’t have to come to me, I'll come to you. I have gone out hunting in the woods before; Arthur won't deny me. No one will suspect. Go up to my room, and take the book of Ovid. Send it to me, when you are ready, and I will find you.”

He closed his eyes and leant his forehead against mine. I could feel his soft hair falling against my face, his breath close by.

“I can’t,” he whispered, but he did not move away.

I took his face in my hands and he opened his eyes.

“Tell me it’s not what you want, that you don’t love me, and I will not ask you again.”

I was the first one to speak the word
love
, and I could see the shock of it go through him, as if I had spoken it into being, given shape to what stood between us. I had not fallen in love with Arthur, it had grown, I had sunk into it; if this was that, it was how I had read it in books, vertiginous and wild and sudden. I did not know if it was love, and I did not think I would know until I had had him, but it felt strong and undeniable and great. I thought it would be a love as great as the universe itself, if he would take the adventure of it with me. He shied back from me, slightly but not entirely. The thought struck me that I
could
choose
.
I had his face between my hands, and we were here alone. All my life men had chosen for me. I had sent a man I loved to war –  a man I had loved as a child, not knowing that love was – and gone willingly to be Arthur’s slave, if he had wished it, because all my life I had been told that my body belonged to my father, my brothers, my husband. I had been told my wishes meant nothing. Duty was everything. And if I had taken that boy I had loved as a girl into my bed, there would have been shame, perhaps, and people would have spoken of me as they spoke of Morgan, and perhaps I would not have loved him after all, but I would have known, and my life would not have been in the hands of someone else. I was long past that now, and choices in that were lost to me, but at last again the choice had come to me to seize my destiny in my hands. I was not a woman who could be owned.
If Lancelot thought Arthur owned me he was wrong. I did not belong to either of them, to be passed between them. The blood of Maev ran in my veins and I would choose the lover
I
wanted.

I kissed Lancelot hard, feeling him startle, shocked by the fierceness of my kiss. But then I felt him yield and knew the rushing joy of conquest that Arthur must have known time and again. I twined my fingers deep into his hair, holding him fast against me, and slowly, stunned, he wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me to him. I felt light-headed with joy, with new-won pleasure.
I could have whatever I wanted
. His lips against mine were like velvet, soft and heady, giving way to my passion, and they parted with mine, deep and passionate. I felt him shiver, gently, with it.

When at last I sighed away from him, I felt the world all around me had changed, and the scents of spring that had once seemed like the last spring reached me with all their blossoming intensity. The flowers and the sunlight looked brighter, fresher. Lancelot still looked surprised, catching his breath. I felt the thrill of victory within me.

“Send for me,” I said. “
I
shall be ready.”

I stayed in the garden for a while, feeling the electric excitement and anticipation in the air all around me. When I felt calm, when I felt that I could hide the smile on my face and the thrill in my heart, I went back up to my rooms. When I looked through my books and saw that the little book of Ovid in French was gone, I felt the rush of joy and excitement flutter in me again. I was beginning to feel powerful and bold – giddy. I was free. I could do as I pleased. I had done it, crossed the line, and I was still here. No one would know. It was a heady rush, this feeling of freedom.
This must be what it feels like to be a man, doing always as you please
. No, it wouldn’t be this good, because it wouldn’t be secret and dangerous.

My body felt full of electric strength, full of the most delicious kind of yearning. I ran to the stables. Kay was there, and he gave me a sullen look, still angry that I had shouted at him. I barely saw him. I took my horse and jumped up onto her bare back, hitching the skirts of my dress above my knees. Kay opened his mouth to protest me riding off without saddle, weapon or accompaniment, but I was already gone. I didn’t know where I was going, but I wanted to ride, fast, until I felt all the sensations of it running through me. Out in the fields outside the castle, some of the knights were training and they looked up as I rode past, but no one tried to stop me. I rode into the woods, looking for the light that dappled through the trees, the smells of wood and damp earth and the sound of the silence. I felt the wind tear my hair loose as I rode, and it fell about my shoulders. I breathed in the spring air deep into my lungs. I had not felt this alive in a long time, but now my blood felt new in my veins. I was seeing the green of the trees, I was tasting the breeze. It wrapped around me, the springtime and the potential that glimmered in the air, until that and the wind in my hair, and the thudding of the horse beneath me became one wonderful rush of joy.

When I got back to the stables, it was getting dark. I was flushed from the fresh air, and tired, but ecstatic. I thought I was alone, but as I slid off my horse, I saw Arthur, standing there, looking at me with a curious little smile on his face.

“You look wild
,
” he said. He did not sound displeased. I felt wild. My body felt full of a daring strength, a vivid hunger. We were alone, and dark was falling around. I stepped forward and seized him by the shirt, pulling him into a fierce kiss. He, unexpecting, stumbled back and we fell into the straw. In slow disbelief, his reactions catching up slowly with what he had not expected, he pulled me more firmly onto him as I kissed him hungrily, madly. I felt charged with desire all over my body, and beneath me, I felt him swell in response. This was what it felt like to be him. Powerful, in control. I pulled his breeches open and slid my hand inside. Arthur groaned with pleasure and rolled us over so that he was on top of me, pushing up the skirts of my dress, rough with haste, burying his face in the hair at the nape of my neck. I could hear him breathing hard. He thrust into me then, and we both cried out in wordless pleasure. The straw caught in my loose hair and tangled there as I smelt around me the lovely freshness of it. The pleasure rose fast and urgent in me. I thought of Lancelot, of his lips on my neck, of his hands against my thigh, of the way he had yielded to my kiss. I heard instead of Arthur’s ragged breaths at my ear, his soft voice speaking to me in the French I only half-understood. It came hard upon me, and sudden, the white-hot point of ecstasy that spread all though me, as I sighed down into the straw, and Arthur fast after me. We lay there, gasping for breath, and I ran my fingers through his hair, thoughtfully. As the sensations of our love receded around me, I was left with the cold, clammy feeling of guilt. What kind of woman was I, that could lie with one man, thinking of another? Did
everyone
do this? It was too easy. That was what made me feel guilty. Too easy to love two men at once. Because I still loved Arthur, and I had wanted his hands on me for his own sake. He kissed me lovingly, and I felt, awful as it was, the guilt melt away into happiness. Having everything could really be having
everything
, perhaps.