Текст книги "The once and future queen"

Автор книги: Paula Laferty

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

A soft glow brought Vera back to wakefulness, but it wasn’t the moon.

The side of her face lay on the horse’s neck, and the light came from Lancelot’s direction, not the sky.

Vera blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. There was a lantern, a ball of light not unlike the ones she’d seen in Glastonbury, this one the size of a grapefruit and bobbing along between the two horses of its own accord. It didn’t create any harsh shadows nor hurt to look at directly, but lit the space around them in all directions, like a traveling bubble. She sat up and rubbed her face.

“Good morning, there,” Lancelot said. “Did you have a nice nap?”

She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping. Long enough for her neck and back to be stiff from the awkward position and for the moonstone on her forehead to have indented her skin where it pressed against her. Her ears perked at the distinct clip-clop sound of hoof on stone. They’d left the marshland and arrived on a cobbled street. They passed a farmhouse with a thatched roof, and she saw a concentrated cluster of light not far ahead atop a great hill, guessing that it marked their destination. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Yes. Once we pass through the village gates, it’s only a few minutes to the castle.”

A few minutes to the castle. Vera’s stomach gave a jump. This was really happening.

They switch-backed along the path up the hill to a towering stone wall extending in either direction. If the wall stopped or curved, it was far enough away that Vera couldn’t see. She understood straight away why this spot might be chosen for a castle—the high ground for miles, defensible and fortifiable. The gates to town were shut and guarded, with men posted at alternating pillars atop the stone wall, only their dark silhouettes visible from the ground. The road was blocked by a massive wooden gate in the shape of an arch, split into two doors. With both swung open, it would be wide enough for most modern vehicles. Two soldiers were posted at each side of the gate. Lancelot called out to them, and they immediately recognized him.

The guard atop the wall shouted out, “Two on foot!”

The left side swung outward with an angry moan. The cobbled road snaked through the town. Homes were frequent in patches interspersed with shops and market stalls; a blacksmith here, maybe a pub there. The smell of smoky peatmoss fires rose from rudimentary chimneys, and the glow from hearths peered through cracks in window shutters where households stirred. Some lights through the town emanated a familiar sunset color, unmistakably the type of magic light that Lancelot carried.

They rounded the corner, and she saw it. She couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t noticed it sooner—perhaps clever placement of the structures on the hill. Even in the dark, though, the castle was unmistakable. It was not the cold medieval fort structure Vera expected. It was taller, the stone a light pearl color with an opalescent sheen in the moon’s glow. The same wall surrounding the town carved another path in front of the castle for an added layer of protection, each section divided by a turreted watch tower. Four much taller towers rose behind it, marking the castle’s corners. Three reached an equal and impressive height, topped by a round stone silo with a pointed cone roof. The fourth tower, farthest from Vera and Lancelot, was even taller and capped with a solid, flat-topped cylinder. Peaked roofs poked up from behind and between the wall and towers. There weren’t spires reaching twelve stories high, nor was there a moat with a draw bridge or cascading fountains, but it was beautiful in its simple and shining form.

“Camelot,” Lancelot said as Vera gaped in awe.

She raised her eyebrows. The stories had gotten the name right.

Lancelot led her through yet another gate into an expansive courtyard. There were stables to the left, and Vera smelled the horses before she heard them or turned to see their heads and hooves poking out above and below stall doors. One other structure in the vast field was jutting out on her right. It was the same pearl stone with a high peaked roof, but with one primary difference from any other structure. The door was flanked by a stained-glass window on either side and a triplet set of windows above.

Differently shaped glass panels in sea greens, evening blues, greytinged white, and a sharp, stark red were chunked out by thick ribbons of some sort of dark clay between them. It didn’t form a picture, but the effect was a pleasant mosaic of colorful, shining pebbles. A squat stone cross was at the topmost point where one side of the roof met the other.

Beyond the chapel opposite Vera and Lancelot was the castle proper’s main entry. Lancelot dismounted his horse, and Vera followed suit. She hadn’t noticed the sleepy stable boy behind them until he handed her the satchel from the back of her saddle and led both horses toward the stable.

“It’s nearly midnight.” Merlin’s voice cut through the silent courtyard, sounding cross. He stood expectantly in the doorway to the castle. “What took you so long? You’re two hours later than I expected.”

“Pardon my chivalry,” chided Lancelot, hands at his hips. “You brought a woman through a thousand years and didn’t bother to ask if she was hungry.” He conveniently avoided any mention of their run-in with the thieving boys on the road, and Vera didn’t chime in either. She couldn’t tell for sure from where she stood beside Lancelot, but she thought he might have given her the tiniest hint of a wink. He palmed his light ball, which faded to darkness before shrinking to the size of a plum. Lancelot pocketed it as naturally as one might tuck away a five-pound note.

Merlin sighed. “I’m sorry, Guinevere. It’s been quite a day.”

She followed the two men into an entry chamber with high vaulted ceilings that made the echo of their footsteps louder than the steps themselves. There was a door on each side—one to the left, one to the right, and a grander door straight ahead on the opposite wall. With a flick of Merlin’s wrist, the fixtures along the walls filled with light.

“Is he … ?” Lancelot asked.

“He’s coming,” Merlin said quickly, but uncertainty colored his voice. “Wait right here.” He hurried off toward the grand door opposite them.

A flutter rose in the lowest part of Vera’s belly. She was suddenly very conscious that she’d been on a horse for hours and had her face pressed against it. She straightened her circlet, making sure the moonstone rested in the center of her forehead, and she tried to flatten her dress around her legs.

“Do I look all right?” she asked without thinking, then felt immediately stupid and wished she could take it back.

Lancelot, however, answered without hesitation. “You look beautiful.”

A flame of affection warmed her chest again. His Adam’s apple bulged with a heavy swallow. He was anxious, too.

Through the open door where Merlin had disappeared, a faint sound from the hall beyond grew louder and more distinct. It was the sound of footsteps. Vera stiffened. She wished she could hold Lancelot’s hand for support. She glanced down. His hand nearest her was poised on the pommel of his sword, a stance he seemed to take out of habit rather than a defensive posture. He, too, watched the doorway but took a small step toward Vera so that his bent elbow grazed her arm.

Merlin rounded the corner first with another man on his heels. He had to be Arthur. His eyes were trained on the floor in front of his feet. He didn’t wear a crown or any finery and was dressed simply in an off-white shirt and dark trousers. And he wasn’t a small man. He towered over Merlin. Everything about Arthur was more intense than Lancelot; his shoulders were broader, and his hair much darker. It looked like it came to his chin but was pushed to the back of his neck, and it had the slightest curl, making it hard to tell its exact length. The wave at its ends may have made him seem boyish if not for the severe line of his mouth. He stalked across the room behind Merlin and stopped three steps away from Vera and Lancelot before looking up.

Vera hadn’t expected a tearful, joyous reunion, but she was still shocked. She took a reflexive half-step back before stopping herself. Arthur’s face was a cold slate, humming with anger, though he held his features in a way that felt determinedly expressionless. He might have been handsome, but Vera couldn’t see past his barely contained rage.

His eyes were a hazy grey when the light hit them right. They shone, a little watery, but not as if he were teary, more like … more like he’d been drinking. Fear prickled at the back of Vera’s neck as Arthur stared at her. She knew she must look exhausted, and she wondered if she looked afraid, too.

Merlin also watched her, expectant. Hopeful.

She shifted her gaze back to Arthur and tried, really tried. But there wasn’t a single thing that was familiar about the man before her.

No one asked Vera for confirmation. Her silence spoke volumes.

Merlin sighed. “It’s not unreasonable that remembering His Majesty will take time.”

Then Arthur looked away from her and spoke for the first time, his voice deep and with a low growl that made him sound frightening.

“That’s not her,” he said to Merlin.

Without a word or even a gesture to Vera, he turned and left through the same door he’d entered.

Lancelot had been as still as a statue the whole time, but now he moved quickly. He shifted his hand to Vera’s elbow. “I need to—” he said, his jaw clenched as he took a step toward the door. “But do you want me to stay here?”

Vera did, but she shook her head. “Go.”

“I’ll find you tomorrow!” he called as he hurried after Arthur.

The heart-thumping nervous energy that had pulsed through her all congealed and lodged as a lump in her gut.

“What now?” she asked Merlin.

His eyes were closed, and he took a breath before opening them. “This isn’t going how I hoped.”

“No shit,” Vera mused, letting out a bitter chuckle.

He smiled and cocked his head to the side like Vera was a painting (or an oddity) he was seeing for the first time. “I think many of us would be served well by a second chance at childhood with parents like Allison and Martin. It has clearly done your spirit good.”

Vera couldn’t help but feel gratified by his praise. And she’d only thought of Vincent once in the hours since she arrived, which was a far cry better than any other day since his death. Even as she congratulated herself, she pushed his memory away, afraid that she’d catch the virus of pain in this time, too, if she let his name linger in her thoughts.

“I thought Arthur would have responded more stoically.” Merlin patted her arm. “I’ll show you to your room. Your chambermaid will be there to help you. She’s helped run castle matters while you were away.”

“Does she know about me?” Vera asked.

“No,” Merlin said sternly. “Matilda, like all others, believed you to be away at a monastery the past year recovering from an accident. In any case, she will help with your duties as you get readjusted.” They wove through a maze of corridors with wall sconces that lit as they passed and dimmed in their wake until they reached an open doorway leading to a spiral staircase up one of the stone towers Vera had seen from outside.

The tower was so large that the stairs wound their own hallway up through it. Every story they ascended had a landing with a corridor cutting across the width of the tower. They stopped at the top, the fourth landing, where a lovely woman stood waiting.

Her wildly curly hair was a shade of red that reminded Vera of maple leaves in autumn. It was mostly tamed in a low twist at the back of her head save a few coiled strands that escaped and framed her forehead. Her simple, indigo-blue apron dress over an ankle-length white tunic complemented everything from her skin to her hair to her eyes. Vera guessed this was Matilda, though she didn’t recognize her. She must have been in her early forties, and she was also one of the most effortlessly beautiful women Vera had ever seen.

Matilda’s brow drew together with concern, and her disbelieving eyes were trained on Vera. “Your Majesty, I can’t believe you’re …” She trailed off. Her arms flinched upward as if to hug Vera. Instead, she stiffly clasped her hands together in front of her. “Well, I’m so happy that you’re home.”

“Thank you,” Vera said, unable to stifle a dull pang at the word home.

“I trust you have things well in hand from here?” Merlin asked.

Matilda nodded, and the mage bid them goodnight before he disappeared down the stairs. Silence fell. Matilda’s eyes searched Vera for a moment before she led her down the corridor to a door on the left. She unlocked it with a key that she fished from her smock’s pocket.

Vera stepped into the room behind her. It was clean and well-lit by a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, speckled with tiny, glowing orbs. Centered against the wall on Vera’s left was a large four-post bed with thick, navy-blue curtains hung from each post. On the wall to her right, next to another door, was a dark wooden desk.

The sound of a slam, wood against stone, pulled Vera’s attention to the wall opposite, the curved wall of the tower’s exterior. She saw the sound’s source almost instantly: a window, taller than her, carved up into the wall. Three stone stairs led up to it, where there was a blue cushion on a bench in what she thought would be a quaint reading nook. The window had no glass pane. Instead, wooden dowels crisscrossed one another to make a trellis of diamonds, each the size of Vera’s face. A gust of wind whistled through them, and again, the window’s unsecured wooden shutter crashed against the wall.

Vera started toward the window, but Matilda cut in front of her. She hurried up the steps to snap the shutter closed and secured it with a metal pin at the top. Matilda’s anxious eyes flashed to Vera as she descended the stone stairs. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. That should have been closed. Would you like a fire to take the chill from the air?”

There was a great hearth next to the window. Vera was as enamored by the inviting fireplace as she was by the window seat. Poofy cushions surrounded a short wooden table in the middle of a lush fur rug.

“No, thank you,” Vera said when she realized that she’d been gaping with wonder at a space that Guinevere would have known well.

When Matilda offered to help her change into the nightgown that sat folded on the bed, Vera frantically said no, remembering her out-of-place undergarments. Matilda was rightfully confused when Vera backtracked and asked her to loosen her gown’s laces. Matilda stared at her with a keen eye before unconvincingly brushing it off as traveling weariness.

“I’ve laid some things out if you’d like to clean up after your journey,” she said, fingers working swiftly at the woven cords of Vera’s gown. She gestured to the corner nearest the door where they’d entered. There was a square wooden pedestal that looked bewilderingly like a tap.

“Are you certain I can’t help with anything else?” Matilda asked more slowly.

Vera shook her head, and Matilda did nothing to hide her disapproval.

“All right,” she relented with a sigh, hands on her hips. “My quarters have been moved up here until you feel more settled. I’ll be right across the hall.”

“Thank you,” said Vera.

Matilda stood in front of her for a few seconds longer, waiting—for what, Vera couldn’t say. Then she shook her head and left.

Vera waited, holding her breath, until she felt confident Matilda wouldn’t return. She first dropped her bag on the bed and changed into the bedclothes laid out. She was accustomed to a T-shirt and leggings, but the white tunic, not so different from what Matilda wore under her blue apron dress, came down to her shins. It was soft and thick enough to keep her warm.

Then she began exploring the room in earnest. She opened the wardrobe next to the bed to find gowns in gorgeous jewel tones with elaborate embroidery. Vera traced the intricate threadwork on the sleeve of one, took the fabric between her fingers, and held it to her face, breathing in the scent, searching for any hint of familiarity, and finding nothing.

This seemed as good a place as any to tuck away her discarded sports bra and the bag she’d commandeered from Merlin containing her other contraband. She shoved them behind the gowns, hoping no one would care to dig back there. Not sure what else to do with it, she hung the circlet crown unceremoniously from the knob on the wardrobe’s door.

Next, Vera investigated the pedestal. Sure enough, what she’d thought was a tap was indeed so, albeit a rudimentary one. The handle reminded her of a pump at an outdoor campground spigot. When Vera tentatively lifted it, a steady stream of cool water flowed from its mouth and into the smooth basin, where it swirled down through a drain at the bottom. Her mouth went dry as she let the water stream through her fingers. She was desperately thirsty. She grabbed the cup conveniently sitting next to the tap and filled it up but hesitated before she brought it to her lips. Was it even safe to drink?

Thirst nearly won out over caution, but Vera sighed and set the cup down. She distracted herself from her thirst by wandering over to the desk.

Wedged between a round rock on one end and a brass candlestick on the other was a neat row of leather-covered tomes lining the back of the desk. Books. She tried to remember when writing made the leap from papyrus and scrolls to books before it occurred to her that any information she could recall from what she’d been taught in history class was likely wrong anyway. After all, she was almost positive a sink and tap with plumbing didn’t belong in the seventh century. Yet the clothing had no elastic, and the window didn’t have clear glass. In fact, the only glass she’d seen was the stained window in the chapel. She couldn’t pin down when things were as they should be and when they diverted riotously.

Vera pulled a book from the middle, one with a mossy green cover. She flipped it open and choked on her breath as she took in two significant things. First, the words on the title page were typed, and second, the font at the center read The Hobbit. As if she needed more confirmation of the impossible before her, she read the following line in a smaller type: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien.

She laughed in disbelief as she snapped it closed and examined it again. The leather book cover felt right in this time period, but The Hobbit was over a thousand years out of place, much like herself. Vera pulled another book from the dozen or so and opened it. Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

She opened each one in turn. The Iliad and The Odyssey, All Quiet on the Western Front, Kindred, Death of a Salesman, Pride and Prejudice, Beloved, The Stranger, Frankenstein … Vera had read all of them in secondary school or university.

She knew The Hobbit best, so she flipped through the pages of it as she sat down on the bed, scanning for her favorite passages. Everything seemed in place. It was the familiar story she loved, and that she, Martin, and Allison made a tradition of reading aloud together every Christmas season.

Vera shut the memory out as she closed the book and instead paid attention to where she sat. The bed was inviting to her weary body, with space to sprawl out and plenty of pillows—

Her eyes flashed to the wardrobe filled with her clothes, and she scanned the room. There it was.

Another wardrobe. And there were stacks of parchments on the desk, too. A quill lay unceremoniously next to one. Of course. This wasn’t just her room, and it wasn’t just her bed. After Merlin reassured Vera that she was not brought here to bear a child, she’d put it out of her mind. But how had she not recognized before now that she wouldn’t be sleeping alone?

It was like her thoughts acted as an invitation. The door opened. Arthur came in, locked it behind him, and took two steps into the room before he noticed her there. She stood, feeling it somehow imperative that she not be on the bed at this moment. He looked nearly as surprised to see her as she did him, which made Vera feel slightly better on the whole.

His eyes were still glassy, and after the initial rush of shock, his face was once again a sheet of ice. She opened her mouth only to close it.

Arthur didn’t speak either. He collected himself and began walking toward her. Vera instinctively backed away from him, and Arthur stopped mid-step.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. His voice came out in a low rumble even when he spoke quietly. He started walking again, giving her a wider berth as he went to the second wardrobe. He took out a few garments and draped them over his arm as he crossed to the desk and filed through the books. His finger ran down their spines twice before he selected one. Finally, Arthur turned to face Vera. His eyes flicked to The Hobbit, hanging from her hand. Vera held it out to him, suddenly feeling like she’d violated his privacy.

Arthur shook his head. “They’re yours. Merlin brought them for you from your time. He thought they might comfort you.” He looked at Vera’s shoulder rather than her face. “Leave the door to the hall locked through the night unless you need something. Go to Matilda if you need help.” The unspoken was also clear: don’t come to me.

Arthur turned to the door beside the desk, his fingers on the handle.

But she did need help, and she couldn’t ask Matilda. She didn’t know what to say to get his attention. Should she call him “Your Majesty” or “my lord”? Owing to necessity and rising panic that her only source of informed help was leaving, Vera found her voice.

“Arthur,” she said.

When he looked at her, his face was a stone mask of displeasure.

“I—can I drink this water safely?” She hated that her voice shook as she spoke to him. “And I don’t know how to turn off or, um, put out the light. I couldn’t ask Matilda because I should already know …” Her words petered to silence.

Arthur’s expression slipped for a fraction of a second. Vera was nearly certain that something other than blank anger, something softer, rippled through the muscles of his face. He nodded curtly.

“The water is safe. And the light …” He crossed by her to the side of the bed with Vera’s wardrobe and gestured to a marble-like tile on the wall beside the bed. “Hold your hand here until it’s as dark as you like.”

He kept his cold eyes on her only long enough for Vera to mutter, “Thank you.”

Arthur gave another swift nod and stared at the floor as he strode back to the door by the desk, and without another word, he left. She heard the scrape of metal on wood as he locked it behind him.

Vera was certain by Arthur’s response to her and by Lancelot’s carefully couched words that there was far more to Guinevere’s story than Merlin had let on. The looming task of unearthing her memories seemed an impossibility. She’d been naïve to think she was up to the task. An acrid taste rose in Vera’s mouth. She was afraid and felt utterly alone.

Vera downed the cup of water, refilled it, and brought it to the bedside table. She pressed her hand to the marble tile and watched the light fade to black and back up to daylight bright, settling on a dim glow as the darkness of having it completely off unsettled her. She crawled under the heavy covers, lay on her side with her knees curled up by her chest, and, not knowing what else to do, began reading The Hobbit. Vera didn’t notice that, as she read the dialogue, she imagined the voices her father used to perform for all the characters during their Christmas readings. His voices had always delighted her.

And so it was that on Vera’s loneliest night she slipped off to sleep, her hand limp on the open book, with the voice of someone who loved her drifting through her mind.