The Guinevere Deception Read online

  “Help me,” Brangien said. “I cannot move, she clings so. I think she is insensible.”

  “It is not right for us to touch her,” Sir Bors grumbled.

  “God above,” Mordred said, “I will do it. If he wants to kill me for touching his bride, he is welcome to, so long as I get to sleep in my own bed one last time.” Arms lifted her, reaching beneath her knees and cradling her like a child. She buried her face in his chest, breathing in the scents of leather and cloth. Never had she been more grateful for something solid. For something real.

  “My lady.” Mordred’s voice was as soft as his hair, which her fingers were tangled in like claws. “I deliver you safely to dry land. So brave in the forest—what is a stream to you?”

  He set her down, hands lingering at her waist. She stumbled. Now that the threat was past, shame claimed her. How could she be strong, how could she complete her mission, if she could not so much as cross a river?

  An apology bloomed on her lips. She plucked it and discarded it. Be what they expect.

  She straightened carefully. Regally. “I do not like water.” She delivered it as a fact, not an apology. Then she accepted Brangien’s hand and remounted her horse. “Shall we move along?”

  * * *

  On her way to the convent she had seen castles of wood that grew from the ground like a perversion of a forest. Even one castle of stone. It was a squat, cross-looking building.

  Nothing had prepared her for Camelot.

  The land was tamed for miles around it. Fields divided the wild into orderly, neat rows, promising harvests and prosperity. In spite of the presence of more villages and small towns, they had seen no one. This did not inspire the same fear and wariness as the forest. Instead, the men around her grew both more relaxed and more agitated—but with excitement. And then she saw why. She removed her veil. They had arrived.

  Camelot was a mountain. An actual mountain. A river had carved it free from the land. Over too many years for her mind to hold, the water had split itself, pushed past on either side, and worn away the land until only the center remained. It still cascaded violently on either side. Beneath Camelot, a great lake lurked, cold and unknowable, fed by the twin rivers and giving birth to a single great river on its far end.

  On the mountain, surrounded on all sides by water, a fortress had been carved not by nature but by generations of hands. The gray rock had been chipped away to create fanciful shapes. Twists and knots, demon faces with windows for eyes, stairs curving along the outer edge with nothing but empty space on one side and castle on the other.

  The city of Camelot clung to the steep slope beneath the castle. Most of the houses had been carved from the same rock, but some wooden structures intermingled with them. Streets wound through the buildings, veins and arteries all leading to and from the castle, the heart of Camelot. The roofs were not all of thatch, but mostly of slate, a dark blue mixed with thatch, so that the castle looked as though it were nestled into a patchwork quilt of stone and thatch and wood.

  She had not thought men were capable of creating a city so magnificent.

  “It is something, is it not?” Envy laced Mordred’s voice. He was jealous of his own city. Perhaps viewing it through her eyes, he saw it anew. It was a thing to be coveted, certainly.

  They rode closer. She focused only on the castle. Tried to ignore the ever-present roaring of the rivers and waterfalls. Tried to ignore the fact that she would have to cross a lake to get to her new home.

  Failed.

  On the banks of the lake, a festival awaited them. Tents had been erected, flags snapping and whipping in the wind. Music played, and the scent of roasting meat tugged them forward. The men straightened in their saddles. She did the same.

  They stopped on the outer edge of the festival grounds. Hundreds of people were there, waiting, all eyes on her. She was grateful she had replaced the veil that hid her from them, and that hid them from her. She had never seen so many people in her entire life. If she had thought the convent crowded and the company of knights overwhelming, that was a trickling stream compared to the roar of this ocean.

  A hush fell over the crowd, which rippled like a field of wheat. Someone moved directly through the crowd, and the people parted, closing in again behind him. The murmur that accompanied his procession was one of reverence. Of love. She sensed they had come there to be near him more than they had come to see her.

  He strode to her horse and stopped. If the crowd was hushed, her body and mind were anything but.

  Sir Bors cleared his throat, his booming voice perfectly at home in this environment. “Your Grace, King Arthur of Camelot, I present to you Princess Guinevere of Cameliard, daughter of King Leodegrance.”

  King Arthur bowed, then extended his hand. It engulfed hers. It was a strong hand, firm, steady. Calloused, and with a sense of purpose that pulsed warmly to her through him. She began to dismount, but with the rivers and the lake and the travel, she was still shaky. He bypassed that effort, lifting her free of the horse, spinning her once, and then setting her on the ground with a courtly bow. The crowd roared with approval, drowning out the rivers.

  He took off her veil. King Arthur was revealed like the sun breaking free of the clouds. Like Camelot, he looked as though he had been carved straight from nature by a loving and patient hand. Broad shoulders over a trim waist. Taller than any man she had ever met. His face, still youthful at eighteen, was firm and steadfast. His brown eyes were intelligent, but lines around them told stories of time spent outside, smiling. His lips were full and soft, his jaw strong. His hair was cut startlingly short, clipped almost to the skin. All the knights she had met kept theirs long. He wore a simple silver crown as easily as a farmer wore a hat. She could not imagine him without it.

  He studied her as well. She wondered what he saw. What they all saw when they looked at her long hair, so dark it shone almost blue in the sun. Her swift and expressive eyebrows. Her freckled nose. The freckles told the truth of her life before now. One of sun and freedom and joy. No convent could have nurtured those freckles.

  He took her hand and pressed it to his warm cheek; then he lifted it and returned his attention to the crowd.

  “Your future queen, Guinevere!”

  The crowd roared, shouting the name Guinevere. Over and over.

  If only it were actually her name.

  Finger on leaf. Leaf to forest floor to root. Root to root to root, interlocking webs crawling through the dirt. Root to soil to water.

  Water seeping and creeping through the soft black loam. Rushing over stone. Falling and breaking and rejoining, flowing, flowing.

  Water to water to water to root to tree to sap.

  Sap to dirt that held the absence of a body.

  Arthur’s queen does not taste the way a queen should taste. What does she taste like? The true queen, the dark queen, the generous and cruel and wild queen, wonders. She has no answer. But she has eyes. So very many eyes. They will see the truth.

  There were so many people.

  Too many people.

  Arthur led her through the crowd. Hands reached out to touch her. She tried not to shudder, tried to keep herself pleasant and regal. There were jugglers, minstrels. Children running madly through the crowd. Those she found fascinating. She had never seen a child before.

  Tables had been set up and they overflowed with food. There was no money being exchanged. Free food probably accounted for much of the attendance. They passed a miniature wooden stage. Two crudely carved imitations of humans bowed dramatically at her, and she paused. For one confusing moment she thought they were moving of their own free will, but then she saw the arms and hands behind a curtain, controlling them. No magic.

  “Oh, this.” Arthur smiled with weary tolerance. It was obvious he wished to move on, but she was intrigued.

  “We now present,” one of the puppets
cried out in a squeaky, exaggerated voice, “the story of our great King Arthur!”

  Children pressed in, eager to watch. The two puppets disappeared, and in their place were puppets of a battered knight, a child, and a baby. “I am Sir Ector!” the battered knight said, weaving drunkenly around the small stage.

  “I am Sir Kay!” the child said.

  Sir Ector bopped Sir Kay on the head. The children watching roared with laughter. “You are not Sir Anything yet, rat!” Their fight continued until they noticed the baby. A booming voice from offstage declared, “This is Arthur. He is yours now. Take care of him.”

  Sir Ector and little Kay looked at each other, then looked at the baby, then looked at each other, then looked at the baby, continuing the repetition for far too long. The children giggled, shouting, “Take the baby! Take the baby!”

  Finally, the puppets complied. They wandered offstage.

  Interesting that there had been no puppet for Merlin, only a disembodied voice. And it had not happened exactly like that. There had been violence, pursuit, simmering threat. There had been those who wanted to kill the baby simply for existing. And Arthur’s mother was left out entirely. Though Igraine’s sad fate was hardly fodder for a children’s play.

  Various stages of puppets progressed through Arthur’s childhood as a servant to Sir Ector and Sir Kay. Then they came to a tournament in Camelot where Sir Kay’s sword broke. Desperate to replace it, Arthur pulled Excalibur out of the enchanted stone that held it fast against all other attempts to retrieve it. The stone that would only release the sword to the true future king.

  The audience gasped and clapped when the tiny puppet held up the knife-sized sword. Then they laughed as he tripped and the sword skidded away. Sir Kay and Sir Ector chastised Arthur for a dizzyingly silly few minutes.

  In reality, the three had fled. Uther Pendragon, the king, wanted no heir. No usurper. Sir Ector had thrown Excalibur into a lake to get rid of the evidence of Arthur’s right to rule. The inky depths claimed it. Until…

  The backdrop of the puppet play was replaced with a blue cloth. The Arthur puppet was larger now. A hand—a real hand—shot up out of the blue cloth, holding the miniature sword.

  This version acknowledged the magical elements—the story could not be told without them—but made them so minor they were afterthoughts. The Lady of the Lake was merely a prop to get the sword back to Arthur. Not one of the few magical beings who had sided with him against the Dark Queen was present. But Camelot had abandoned magic; perhaps even its stories were pushing it away, as well.

  A huge puppet with a black, spiky crown roared onto the stage. The kids screamed, jeered, and shouted curses at Uther Pendragon.

  “Come.” Arthur took her elbow. His eyes were still kind, but there was something hard there. “There will be gifts.”

  She wanted to see the rest of the play, see how Arthur’s citizens decided to interpret and spread his story. See if Merlin ever came back into it, if they acknowledged his part in the next scenes after ignoring his role in the first ones. And she was very curious as to how puppets would re-create the Forest of Blood and the battle with the Dark Queen. Not to mention the banishment of Merlin.

  But she could not very well demand to be left with the children. She followed Arthur.

  * * *

  The lakeshore was lined with boats. Flat ferries, narrow vessels made of hollowed-out logs, rowboats that looked as steady and dependable as a leaf caught in a maelstrom.

  “Are you nervous?” Arthur asked. For the last two hours, he had celebrated among his people while she sat with Brangien at her side, bowing her head and smiling as people laid gifts on a table. Food, mostly, though some lengths of cloth and cleverly twisted pieces of metal. She had touched each item. None bit her. None sang to her. They were all safe.

  Now it was evening and the festival was being dismantled. The boats awaited. Camelot awaited. No king would be married on the shore of a lake.

  “Our Lady Guinevere does not care for water.” Mordred’s voice winked brightly as the daylight faded. Somehow he always ended up at her side.

  “Is that true?” Arthur asked.

  She nodded, wishing she could lie and pretend to be strong. What would he think of her?

  Arthur turned to their company. Though Mordred was closest, all Arthur’s knights were gathered around them. She had already lost track of which ones had accompanied her here and which ones she had only just met. So many faces! The forest had seemed lonely, but now she longed for the simplicity of her life there.

  Arthur’s voice was as warm as his smile. “My bride and I will take another boat. We wish to arrive first so we can watch the procession.”

  “But my king, is it proper?” Sir Bors frowned dubiously, his mustache drooping. “To be alone with her before you are wed? Women’s passionate natures cannot be trusted.”

  Annoyed, she forgot to be a painting. “I shall protect his honor with my life,” she answered drily. There was a brief silence, and then the men broke out into raucous laughter at the idea of this slip of a girl protecting their king. If only they knew. Sir Bors, however, did not seem amused.

  Mordred clapped him on the back. “Fear not, valiant Sir Bors. I will attend them.”

  “Thank you, nephew,” Arthur said. It was odd, hearing Arthur call Mordred—who was a year older than the king—nephew. Arthur’s family tree was gnarled and diseased, filled with twists and betrayals and pain. How it had produced him, she did not know.

  Well. She knew some of it. She wished she knew less.

  Arthur had his horse brought. He lifted her onto it, and then mounted behind her. She did not know how to respond to this startling intimacy; she was buzzing with awareness that every eye was on them. So she sat as primly as she could while Arthur waved and then spurred his horse forward.

  He leaned his head close to her ear. “There is another way. It is known only to Mordred and me. I share it with you as a wedding gift, since I forgot to get you anything else.”

  “Saving me from a boat is the kindest gift imaginable.” She tried to dampen how attuned she was to the feel of him behind her—his broad chest, the rise and fall of his breaths. She had had more direct physical contact with other people in the last two days than in all the years of her life combined. Brangien. Mordred. Now Arthur. Would she get used to it? She would have to.

  They rode along the lakeshore. Mordred’s horse was pure white, almost glowing in the darkness beside them. The rush and roar of the nearest waterfall became deafening. She felt it through her body. Even knowing she did not have to go through the water did little to alleviate her panic at the nearness of it all.

  Arthur dismounted and lifted her down as easily as if she were a child. He seemed so comfortable in her company. There was none of the proper distance his men had maintained. She had been instructed not to so much as touch a man’s hand—though she had broken that spectacularly on the way here. But Arthur did everything without pause. No lingering, like Mordred had done as he released her after their river crossing. Arthur wanted her off the horse, so he lifted her off the horse. It was as simple as that.

  He took her hand and guided her through the dark. His steps were assured, his path known, though invisible to her. Her racing heart would not let her forget how close the lake was, how ravenous the waterfall right beside them. A fine coat of mist settled on her and she shuddered, holding his hand too tightly, pulling as much of her sense of Arthur into herself as she could. If her fear was like the water—pounding, rushing, coating everything—Arthur’s strength was like the rocks. Steady and immovable. No wonder he was the foundation on which a kingdom was built.

  “Here,” he said, releasing her hand. With the loss of his touch, she felt diminished. He struck flint and a torch burned into life. Mordred drew a curtain of vines aside to reveal a cave. The smile Arthur shot back at her was pure boyi
sh delight, betraying his youth in a way his bearing and manners had not. “It was how I first entered Camelot. Merlin showed it to me.”

  She felt a pang at Merlin’s name. It should be him here. He was so much better suited to this. Smarter. Stronger. But he was not exactly marriageable material for a young king.

  “Uncle king, may I remind you not to speak the banished demon spawn’s name.”

  Arthur sighed. “Thank you, Mordred. Yes.”

  She hoped she had not reacted to Merlin’s name in any way that Mordred might have noticed. She could betray no connection to the wizard.

  “Your soon-to-be queen knows, does she not?” Mordred asked. “Things might be different in the south.”

  “Ah, yes.” Arthur cleared his throat. “We have banished all magic from Camelot.”

  “Why?” Guinevere asked. Merlin had never been clear. He had referred to his banishment with a derisive but resigned puff of air from between his lips, and then talked to her at length about a type of frog that could change from male to female if a situation required it for survival.

  Mordred answered. “We worked and fought to push the Dark Queen and her fairy forces back. But leaving any magic here was like sowing tares among the wheat. The tendrils grow and choke out what we are trying to do. And so it was decided that there would be no magic allowed inside Camelot. Which meant our resident wizard was no longer welcome, and cannot be referred to with anything other than the sternest dismissal.” Mordred turned so he was walking backward, facing them. “And any who are found to be practicing magic are banished from the kingdom. Or worse.” Mordred lingered as lightly as a spider’s touch on that last sentiment, then moved quickly on. “My uncle king rules with justice and order. He is bringing the kingdom forward from the chaos of its birth to the peace of its future.”

  Arthur’s smile was tight. “Yes. Thank you, Mordred. There is no magic within our borders. It is an absolute rule.”