THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

He reached for me again, fired with desire, his kisses more insistent. This time found the laces of the underdress, deftly undid them, and pushed it off my shoulders. It fell to the ground around my feet, and I stepped out of it. He took a step back then, and looked at me, for a moment, naked in the candlelight. From his lips escaped a tiny groan of pleasure and lust before he grasped me by the hips and threw me down on the bed. I felt my heart thud, and I was not sure it was fear. It was new, and dangerous, but exciting. I stretched out under him as he climbed onto me. His hands were all over me, strong, but gentle, yet demanding. I felt a delicious haze of it spread up around me, through me, and I was lost in it. My body responded with its instinct, following the heat of his touch. His kisses were hot and strong, first on my mouth, then neck, then my breasts and nipples and down my body until he found that place that made me cry out sharply, but quiet, with pleasure, and surprise. I felt at the centre of a hot, bright swirl of heady sensations, deliciously lost, and my body seemed to know what I wanted better than I did. At last, he entered me, his face hot against my neck, one hand tangled in my hair, the other at the small of my back holding me tight against him as we moved together. He was rough, but he did not hurt me, and I found I liked the feel of his bare skin against my own, his lips against my neck, at my ear, his powerful movements on top of me. There had been a sharp pain at the start, and I felt the patch of blood beneath me against my leg, but as Arthur groaned deeply, and with satisfaction, into my neck and rolled off me, I thought that it was nothing like I had been warned it would be, by Christine, who had been married and widowed before she had come to me. Unpleasant, but soon over, she had told me.

Arthur turned on his side, propping himself up on his elbow, to face me. He reached out his other hand and gently smoothed the red curls back from my damp brow as I stretched out beside him, feeling the warmth of the wine and the pleasant ache inside me spread through me. He said nothing, and I said nothing, but this was a new kind of saying nothing between us. He leaned over and kissed me once, tenderly. The last candle guttered out as he gathered me into his arms, and we fell asleep.

Chapter Five

When I woke, for a moment I didn’t remember where I was. The sunlight winked under my fluttering eyelids, dazzling and lovely, and for a moment I could have been anywhere. I could have been home. But home was gone.
Camelot
. I was in Camelot. And I remembered last night with Arthur. I slowly opened my eyes, and pushed myself up onto my elbows. He was there beside me, and it was real. This was my life now. Last night I had become his queen, and it had not been a dream. It was done now, and I was a wife, and I would not run home. I could not.

I looked at him, still sleeping, with the soft gold touch of the sun glancing and lighting in his golden hair. His rough, masculine features relaxed in sleep, but still those, unmistakably, of a man who had forged his kingdom through war. He was handsome, I supposed. People always said that about their rulers, but Arthur did have a rough, primal charm to his looks that was undeniable. Besides, he had told me that he had had many women before, so I could not have been the only one who thought so. I was not sure, then, if I cared or not. Arthur groaned softly as he woke beside me, sensing my wakefulness, perhaps. With one strong arm he reached for me, rolling onto me, gathering me under him. Still sleepy, he rubbed his face – newly rough with a night’s growth of beard – into my neck. I could not suppress a little gasp of surprise as he thrust himself inside me again. It was slower, this time, less hurried, gentler. I was surprised that it already felt familiar, and my body, seeming to know, followed his. His mouth found mine with a deep, slow kiss, the heat of which seemed to mingle with the heat already rising in my body. I ran my hands down his strong arms, feeling, too, our legs brush against each other, his skin hot from sleep against mine. As I felt the breaths come to me quicker, the heat within me spreading, I reached my arms around his broad back and pulled him tighter against me. He gave a deep moan of pleasure at this and sighed against me, rolling aside and gathering me into his arms as he had done the night before. Between my legs I felt the warmth of where he had been, and the slickness that promised something distant of new life. In Arthur’s arms I felt small, small and fragile, but safe. I was a tall, strong woman, with my own lean and competent muscles from a lifetime of running and hunting in the woods, but beside Arthur I was little and frail as a bird. His arms and shoulders bore the thick, corded muscles of a short lifetime’s training with broadsword and shield, of wearing the heavy armour. He was not sinew but brawn, the blood of conquerors, for sure. Across one side of his chest ran the thin, white line of a scar, running from the centre, above the nipple towards his shoulder. I traced a finger along it as I lay with my head on his shoulder. His eyes followed my finger.

“That one was the gift of the King of the Vale.”

“What happened to him?”

He smiled slightly, a little proud, a little pleased with himself. I supposed he had a right to be.

“Well, there is only one King of the Britons now.”

“Hmmmm,” I agreed, quietly. In that soft, morning light, with Arthur’s warm, bare skin against my own and a warm bright soft feeling spreading through my limbs from his touch, I was not sure how I felt. I had not wanted to come, I had not wanted to be wed, but all of a sudden, against every expectation I had had, I felt happy. I spread my hand out in the middle of his chest, feeling the skin, feeling the strength beneath it.

“So I am not so bad, my lady Queen?” Arthur reached out and gently brushed his fingers against my cheek, and I looked up to meet his gentle smile with a small, tentative one of my own.

I rolled on to my front, propping myself up on my forearms to look back, deep into the eyes that – I had not noticed before – were dark steel-grey and serious beyond his years. Thoughtful.
Not the eyes of a brute
,
I reproached myself. He also looked less like a boy to me now, more like a man. I supposed that I had seen, in my anger, only what I had expected to see.

“Not
so
bad.” I reached out to, gently, tentatively, touch his cheek, and he laid a big hand over mine, drawing me closer with the arm still wrapped around my back, for a soft and tender kiss.

“And I? Was I as like my ancestress the Witch-Queen Maev as you had hoped?” I teased.

Arthur laughed softly with what seemed to me like embarrassment. Perhaps he had not meant to speak of it last night.

“Oh, far less frightening, and far more beautiful.”

“That’s not
always
what a lady likes to hear, you know.” I gave him a playful smile and he wound his fingers deeper into my hair. I liked the feeling of his fingertips pressing my scalp, the power of the hand that wound there. I sighed softly into it. My body still felt hot from having him inside me, and hungry. He pulled my head back, gently, and, rolling back over me as he turned me onto my back, kissed the soft skin under my neck, beneath the ear. I sighed softly with pleasure, and he took one breast in his hand, brushing the nipple lightly until I pressed myself up against him for more and, as I felt the longing in my body for him again, his slid his other hand under my back and, pulling me towards him, entered me again. I wanted it as much as he did now, more even perhaps, and I found myself lost in the lovely whirl of desire. This time I moaned softly as he did and he buried his face in the thick hair at the side of my neck, moving against me as I pressed closer to him. I wrapped a leg around his back and he grasped it by the thigh, holding me faster against him, closer, harder as I felt the pleasure rising within me, the heat in my stomach, then at my heart, at my face. I felt the hot, sweet clench of it at the centre of me and the heat go out of me, suddenly, with a sigh, as Arthur groaned above me, and was still for a moment, breathing hot and fast against my neck, and then slid away. Slowly, I stretched my arms above my head and turned my face, eyes closed, to the sun pouring in at the window, to feel its soft red touch on my closed eyes, and then, opening my eyes, I reached for Arthur and laid my head softly on his chest. I felt sleepy again, but I did not want to sleep. I had not expected to like being with Arthur. I had assumed he would be clumsy or unkind, but I had been wrong. He stroked my hair with one hand, and with his other arm down my back, cradled me close.

“Look at all this fire,” he said thoughtfully, running a hand through my hair.

I kissed softly the skin of his chest, where I was resting.

“Did you always know you would be a king?” I asked. I had been raised all my life in the knowledge of who I was –
what
I was – but Arthur had fought for his throne. I wondered if he had had a sense of it, in his blood. I had no idea what it must have been like, not to know who you were.

“Me? No. No. Sir Ector raised me, and his wife. I hoped I would be a knight like my older brother Sir Kay. I never thought I would be here. I’m not sure if I would even say I wanted it. But I found out it was mine. The will of God. I was... I was squiring for Kay in this tournament, but he had forgotten his sword – I think he did it on purpose to annoy me, because Kay never forgets anything
or
misses a chance to play a joke on his friends – so I went to get him one. I didn’t want to go all the way home because I knew if I wasn’t back in time that stubborn old Kay would fight anyway with just his shield and get himself wounded. People said that there was a sword in the church in the town and I thought I would just borrow that one. There it was, resting in a block of stone in the church. I didn’t know then it was covered in writing. I couldn’t read then, so it could have been anything – pictures, numbers. I just put my hands on the sword and it flew out. I really
was
a boy then. Thirteen, maybe. Anyway, I took it to Kay, and my father – no, Sir Ector – was so shocked, I didn’t understand it. He kept asking Kay how he’d got it, and then everyone else around was shouting and demanding to know where he got it from, and eventually when my witch Merlin, who was not
my
witch then, came out of the crowd and asked him, Kay told everyone I had brought it to him. They made me take it in and out of the block of stone again and again and Merlin told me the stone said “Whoever pulls this sword from this stone is rightwise King of England”, and that was me. He told me that Uther Pendragon, the just-dead king, was my father, and the Lady Igraine was my mother.” He paused, for a second. “That was the saddest day of my life.”

I knew what he meant. I would not tell him, but that was how I had felt, watching my father’s castle at Carhais disappear in the distance. On the one hand is the path that is decided for you, that might indeed be a path for greatness, and on the other hand is everything you love, and you never dreamed would change. But everything changes.
Arthur has lost something like you lost
.
A father and brother and mother who now have to see him as a king. A self that he thought he was. And gained a heavy destiny. And a bad one. I had not remembered the child until just then. I was not sure how I felt about that, either.

“You have Kay and Ector close, still. And your mother the Lady Igraine seems kind.”

“She is kind,” he replied.
But she is not my mother
, were his words unspoken. No, Sir Ector’s wife had raised him as a child. And I had not met her. She must be dead.

“A man must face his destiny, and his God. A man must face these things, and try to be good.”

I pushed myself up, resting my chin on my hands, folded on his chest and looked him in the eye. He had that simple sincerity about him. I could see, now, why the people followed this man, whom I had thought a boy. The serious eyes, the quiet sense of duty. No, last night in my anger I had seen truly only what I had expected. A boy. This morning, I did not doubt that he was a man, grown.

I was about to say something, to try to say something adequate in response to his humble gravity, but he took my face in his hands and kissed me. It was a deep, intense kiss, and when he grazed my bottom lip lightly with his teeth I felt it at the base of my spine. He pulled me on top of him as we kissed, wrapping his arms around me. He seemed to have an endless desire.

“Arthur?” An insistent banging came from the door. Someone tried the latch. It was still bolted. Arthur pulled gently away and released his arms around me, but did not move. A wicked boyish smile played on his lips and he pressed one finger gently to my lips. “Arthur? Arthur?!”

Then, with a splintering crack the door flew open. Arthur leapt from the bed, naked, swiftly out from beneath me, quick as a wildcat, already tensed to fight. I gathered the covers around me, my heart pounding in fear, blushing like a girl. I hated it when I blushed. I was a married women in my husband’s bed; I had no reason to be embarrassed. When Arthur saw who it was, he relaxed with a deep laugh, and across his face came the boyish smile that still betrayed his few years.

“For God’s
sake
, Kay. The door was
bolted
. We were asleep.”

“You were
not
asleep,” Kay replied peevishly, trying to prop the door back up in the space he had knocked it from. “How was I to know you hadn’t both been murdered in your sleep?”

What he meant was
I was sent to see if she had killed you in your sleep
.
Someone had their eye on me. Someone thought I might be dangerous. Last night, I was prepared to be.

Kay was laughing too, now, at his king standing naked before him, who had somehow already got a sword in his hand.
He is still afraid
,
I thought
.
The days of fighting were not long past. That sword must have been beside the bed all night long. I had not even noticed it. The new-finished war must have left its mark on all of them. King Arthur did not sleep so easy in his bed, nor did his knights shrug at a silent, locked bedroom. I had, foolishly, thought that war could have only scarred those who lost in it.

“Don’t you know,
Sir Kay
, that it is terribly ill-mannered to burst in on the king and his queen abed?” It was the easy banter of brothers that he spoke to Kay with, his tone light and playful, but still when he noticed Kay’s eyes wandering towards the bed where I still lay, holding the sheets around me, Arthur sharply drew shut the bed curtains.

“My liege,” Kay replied, with an easy, friendly, mocking tone. “Most apologies. You and my lady the queen are expected at mass in an hour.”

“We shall attend.”

Kay left, and I could hear Arthur shoving at the door, trying to get it back into place. I shuffled on my knees to the edge of the bed and peered through the curtains.

“
Kay
,” Arthur muttered under his breath, indulgently annoyed, shaking his head to himself.

“What is mass, Arthur?” I hoped mass was a meal. I could feel my stomach empty within me.

Arthur froze in the doorway, and turned to look at me thoughtfully for a moment.

“Your people aren’t Christians.” It wasn’t a question. I nodded. I knew what a Christian was. I had seen the monks in brown with their shaven heads, and the nuns dressed in black and white, neat as pages in a manuscript, filing in and out of their big stone temples. I had been inside a chapel before, but not one like Arthur’s. Not one where the plain wood cross was made in gold, and bearing the Hanged God. Not one where everything shone with gold. Not one where kings knelt down.