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He made countless mistakes each day. But that was how he learned this new world, he supposed. So, he grinned sheepishly at her and chose the two largest rolls. She smiled widely back at him and shyly tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, her lashes fluttering prettily on her blushing cheeks.
Aye, it would no doubt release a lot of tension and confusion to lie with a comely woman like her. For a few hours, he could forget who he was, how strange his life was. Forget that he wasinextricably tied to a man he loved above all others, then hated with the same intensity of feeling.
Now, he didn’t know what he felt. It was different.
Everythingwas different…
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Reign of Uther Pendragon, Dark Ages Britain.
“Fancy seeing you this morn. I expected the night of swiving and imbibing had laid you flat.”
Arthur twitched a corner of his mouth in a half-hearted response, which was a waste of effort since the unruly scruff on his jaw hid it anyway.
Gawain wasn’t wrong. He barely pulled on his trousers and boots and crawled out of his tent in time for the first day of the tournament after the wild night he’d had. Which was per usual and shouldn’t surprise either of them.
But his friend and comrade should know him well enough by now to also expect that nothing could keep Arthur from a good fight, mock or otherwise. Even though they’d just returned from the northern front.
There was always a restless energy he felt compelled to burn through, or it was going to burn through him.
“Flat but not down,” he rasped, his voice rough as sandpaper. “A quick dunk in the water barrel will make me a new man.”
He scratched absently at his bare chest, the dark dusting of hair there and the line bisecting his stomach stiff and itchy from dried sweat and other unsavory fluids. He enjoyed all kinds of physical exertions, but sex always left him irritable, restless and cold the morning after.
He couldn’t wait to wash the stench of his bedmate off and headed toward the water barrels with swift strides. His friend kept pace, and a page ran after him carrying supplies.
“I enlisted you under a false name,” Gawain related.
“Oh?”
Arthur wondered what uninventive moniker Gawain had labeled him with this time.
In the last tourney it was “the Green Knight,” just because Arthur had spent the morning of the first competition vomiting up the sins of the night before, and his ashen, bedraggled appearance had made Gawain laugh uproariously. The one before it was “Dragon Knight,” which didn’t really help to hide his identity given that no man, save the royalty who bore the name, dared invoke the symbol of “dragon,” much less publicly own it, when it belonged to the King’s crest.
Gawain waited for Arthur to submerge his head underwater in the barrel for a good two minutes before sharing his incognito identity, “The Bear.”
Arthur shook the icy cold water from his hair and body like a wet dog and slicked his tangled mane away from his face.
He pinned his friend with a gimlet stare.
“Bear,” he deadpanned.
“Aye,” Gawain answered, grinning.
“You don’t think anyone would guess my identity in the lists when my namemeans‘bear’?”
“Sometimes the most hidden thing is the most obvious,” Gawain said sagely.
Arthur grunted, snatching a small rag his page extended to wash his pits and groin, haphazardly shoving a hand down his trousers, not bothering to pull it down. If all went well, he’d be covered in dirt, sweat and blood before long anyway. Might as well save the real washing for when the contests of the day ended.
The use of false names didn’t really hide Arthur’s identity, as well he knew. At well over six feet, broad and heavily muscled, with wavy dark hair, a respectable scruff and “stormy blue eyes” (as the troubadours told), he cut an easily recognizable figure. Few men equaled him on the battlefield, and it showed in the way he carried himself, in his stance and strides.
The pretense was merely a token effort to abide by the rules the King had laid out. A prince of the realm could not compete in tournaments. And Arthur was the heir apparent. The rule doubly applied to him.
He wasn’t sure why Uther felt it necessary to set these boundaries. Perhaps it was to protect his heirs from dying premature deaths, or worse, getting maimed and made useless. Or perhaps it was to protect them and the Pendragon name from humiliation if they were defeated publicly in battle.
A king’s power in these relatively lawless lands was earned, not expected. Uther had worked hard to create and develop his own mythology. His bards traveled the kingdom far and wide to spread stories of his valor, strength and wisdom. If his son made a fool of himself in public forums getting trounced by random knights…well, that would certainly detract from the legend Uther was trying to build.
