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But everything was as settled as it was going to be.
Guinevere wanted nothing more than to sleep until it was time to leave. But with Brangien far away in her Isolde dreams, Guinevere found sleep eluded her. She paced. She could not help glancing at Brangien’s face, jealous not of the slumber, but of the company Brangien kept there. Guinevere was itching on the inside. Like she had been trapped beneath a layer of ice all winter and could sense the coming of spring thaw.
She wanted out.
She wanted a release.
She wanted.
She used the secret passageway to knock on Arthur’s door and then enter his room, but he was not there. She went back to her own rooms, disappointed. She did not know what she would have done if he had been there, but she hated being denied the surprise of finding out.
There was an unexpected knock at her door; she opened it eagerly. There was no one in the hall. Puzzled, she closed the door. Then she heard the knock again.
It was at her window.
Which was in the middle of a wall high up on the side of the castle, with no walkway outside it. She rushed to the glass with a candle and peered out to see a face staring back at her. She barely muffled her scream, dropping the candle.
“Sorry!” a voice shouted, muted by the glass.
“Lancelot?” Guinevere could not believe it. She grabbed a cloak and wrapped it around herself. Then she snuck out the nearest door and leaned over the walkway. Lancelot st
ill clung to the side of the castle, hanging by only her fingertips and boots.
“What are you doing?” Guinevere hissed.
With more ease than Guinevere navigated a flat walkway, Lancelot climbed over to her, jumping the last several feet and landing as light as a cat.
“I could not sleep,” Lancelot said, sounding sheepish. “I am sorry. This was presumptuous of me.”
Guinevere laughed. “No, it was madness, not presumption. How do you do that?”
Lancelot shrugged. She twisted her toes against the walkway, staring bashfully down. “I am nervous. For tomorrow.”
“Me, too.” Guinevere led them around a curve to a more sheltered portion of the walkway, then sat, pulling her cloak around her. She felt suddenly shy. Both because she was in a nightdress, and because when she had last been with Lancelot, it had been a time filled with mortal peril and intense distress. Now, cocooned by the summer night, changed by what she knew of herself, she was not sure what to say. “How have you been?”
“I have not encountered a single possessed boar, demon spider, or vengeful water spirit. The forest is quite dull without you there.”
Guinevere laughed, leaning back. Lancelot copied her posture.
When Lancelot spoke again, the playfulness had left her voice. “I am terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of tomorrow. If I fail, then it is over. My dream is dead. I have nothing to build a future around. And if I succeed…I step past everything I have known into everything I have wanted. I feel like I am clinging to the side of a cliff in the dark, about to drop, and I do not know whether I will survive the fall.”
Guinevere understood. More than Lancelot could ever know. Except she had been walking confidently in one direction only to find herself stepping off an unseen cliff. In a way she felt as though she were still falling. Where would she land?
“Why do you want this so badly?” Guinevere asked.
Lancelot looked down over sleeping Camelot. “I grew up under Uther Pendragon’s rule. My father died, forced to serve in his army. And my mother— I am not sure what happened to her. It is probably a kindness that I do not know. I was orphaned. Alone. No family, no future. So I swore that I would become the warrior I needed to be in order to kill Uther Pendragon. I trained without pause. I stole food, clothing, worked in fields as a boy, whatever I had to do to survive. And then King Arthur killed Pendragon before I could. At first I was angry. But I saw what King Arthur brought. And I realized my plan was as small and selfish as I had been. I wanted to kill Pendragon to make myself feel better. King Arthur killed him to make the whole world better. And so I decided that instead of becoming the warrior who would kill a tyrant, I would become the knight who would defend a king. I believe in King Arthur. I believe in his story. And I want nothing more than to be part of it.”
Guinevere nodded. She understood this, too. Arthur was building something new. Something good. Something truly noble. And it drew those who could find that nowhere else. That was why most of his knights came. They could not find the justice and fairness they longed to defend in their own countries.
Arthur was like a flame in the night. A burning brand. Even those like Rhoslyn who did not fit here did not begrudge him his light.
Lancelot was ready to devote her entire life to Arthur, just like so many others. Guinevere envied Lancelot her certainty, her determination to become the thing that she knew she should be. Lancelot was born to be a knight.
Guinevere was not born to be a queen. Would she land safely, filling this role? Would the fall kill her? Or would she continue falling, forever?
