“I missed you, Gwen.”

Her fingers paused. “You do know how to hurt.”

No, it was raw yet. Too painful. I changed the subject. “We lost Kay.”

“Oh, no!”

“I have to see mother and 1 dread it. There’s no way to make

it easy.”

“Poor little butterball,” she murmured. “I loved him, everyone did. We—you must comfort Flavia.”

“The rest are back. Bedivere didn’t take a scratch.”

“Indestructible peasant.”

“And Gareth. A little frozen but fine. Rhian got him roaring drunk and he fell asleep in the middle of making love.”

Owen’s laugh lilted in its silvery arc. “Lord, was he that tired?”

“Dead. And Rhian’s in her glory bullying him back to health.”

There was a question I wanted to answer before I saw it in her eyes. “And Lancelot. I sent him east to mop up.”

“Yes.” Gwen busied her hands with the cloth. I saw how thin they were, the veins like cords with small brown spots between them.

“Why him Gwen?”

“I thought we didn’t talk about that.”

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. “He doesn’t know you at all, never did. Why him?”

Guenevere answered, still and bleak, talking of something long dead. “Why not? There was nothing else. I wasn’t used to needing.”

“What was there you couldn’t bring, to me?”

“That would be going back into the pain, where it came from. You were always so sure, so self-sufficient—”

“Oh, God damn it, Gwen!”

“Oh, you were. Love is needing and we aren’t needers. I used SO wonder in bed with you where a monolith learned to make love so well. Then I found out. You trotted her out for me. The tittle pig still had her figure, I’ll give her that. She must have been a grimy jewel at eighteen.”

“Did you love him? Do you?”

“Does it matter now?”

“Not to the king, just your husband.”

She worked the needle jerkily through the linen. There was no thread on it. “I’ve thought about it. You’ve given me time for that now. Did I? Once. For a while.”

“Of all the men in Britain.”

Her head snapped back, tense. “Yes, of all the men. Don’t you understand? Anything else hurt too much. I failed.”

“Failed how? You never failed in your life.”

“I lost it.”

“The baby.”

“And I’d never failed before and ! didn’t know what to do. My soul can pray, but what do I do with this empty, useless body?”

Guenevere recovered herself with a terminating sigh; the subject was dull as it was painful to her. “What’s it matter anyway? Sometimes at night when I’m tired enough to imagine death and remember my catechism, I think: What manglers we are, Arthur. The lives we’ve stretched and pummeled and twisted to our own shapes. People that never really lived except through us. We’re creatures of a kind, hatched from the same egg. That’s why— funny, but after all the years and all the beds—you’re the best friend I ever had.”

It was true. “I guess that’s why I’m here.”

She raised her head slowly. “Then, damn you, why am / here?”

“Don’t start that. You made me put you here.v *- “Good God, you gave me reason. You gave the whole north feason to rise against you.”

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“Don’t come the martyred patriot. Not to me, woman. You didn’t have to kill her. She was helpless. Why did you have to hurt me like that?”

“You hurt me.”

We were on our feet now, squared off, the wound raw and open.

“I didn’t want to. I only wanted to see my son once. I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did. I never meant to, but did. But I loved you, Arthur. Damn you, don’t want to love that much. My life is mine and you took up so much of it. You … attract people like … I don’t know. You change them. And I said all right, I’ll be changed. Now I can trust, now I can give, there’s the child. And I fought for it in that sweaty, bloody bed, but it would not be bom and it ripped me apart in its dying.”

“Gwen, I know that fight and I know that loss. Prydn folk, my folk. People you step on like roaches, they fight and lose like that every day, but they don’t throw life in a corner like a toy that won’t work. I’ve heard flatterers call you Guenevere the Wise, but I tell you this: If you’d lived one year or even one season with them, you’d know one hell of a lot more about the guts of what you call a peasant.”

“They’re not my people, not them. They’re not my kind.” Guenevere was trembling now. “But you brought them here. You had to track your dirt into the house.”

“Like you with Lancelot.”

“I was discreet, Arthur.”

“Christ, yes. The best-kept secret since Noah’s Hood. It wasn’t discretion that kept the Commandments off your back, but me. Don’t look dense. Lancelot didn’t understand it either.”

“Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot.” She flung her hands out, sick of it all but shaken. “What does it matter who, when, where? He got so little and he was satisfied because little was all he ever got from that nun he married. But you …”

Guenevere advanced on me, voice trembling, fingers curved in and spread apart. “You could behead me, hang me, rack me, lock me in a convent for life. But no, that wasn’t your way. You put me on my knees and rubbed my face in it like a naughty dog. Bad dog, Guenevere. Bad dog. Put her back in the kennel. You bastard!”

Her nails raked suddenly across my face, stinging, drawing blood. “I despise you, I—”

. 1 caught her arms, but she still came at me, kicking, butting with sharp knees, spitting like a cat.

“Stop it, you bitch. You’re not God, no matter what you flunk. What you are is rotten with the power I gave you, and it stinks. Worse than the people you hate.”

“You should know, you’re one of diem.”

“Yes. And if I rolled in shit for a year, I wouldn’t smell as bad as the murder on your hands.”

The word murder unlocked something vicious, something that leaped from its prison into my hands. I shoved Guenevere away, slapping her back and forth, again and again.

“Murder! Murderer!”

The last blow knocked her over a bench and onto the floor. I was on her in an instant, hands about her throat. “Kill you—”

She twisted in my arms to hiss it in my face. “You did. When you brought him.”

“What do you mean?” I pulled her roughly to her feet. “Him?”

“I screamed a warning God could hear and still you brought him.”

“Gwen, stop. Him?”

She gave up then, hugging herself to me, face buried in my throat, sobbing. “And he was so beautiful—”

“Gwen, he’s not. He’s a twisted little monster.”

“—And when he touched me, it was like you touching me, and I wanted to kill him and kiss him and—”

“I hated you, too. I hated you and had to hurt you back, wanted to hurt you all (he days since.”

She relaxed slowly in my arms. Her body swelled against me in a long, shuddering breath. “And only the ache in our bellies to call us liars.”

“Only that. I feel hollowed out.”

She spread her hands over my throat and chest. “So bruised. And your face is raw as an oyster. And I can smell those clothes, when did you change diem last? You’re sopping, Arthur, you’ll catch your death.”

My wife broke off and pulled away. Guenevere again, the queen. In control. “And why should I care? You’ve got it all and I’m being packed away like last year’s fashions. And I’m comforting you? Go to hell, Pendragon.” No chance that spirit was broken. My love, my enemy, my l. “You don’t really want me to go?”

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She presented her back to me, straight and adamant. “Try me, dear. But get me a drink first. I feel a bit mishandled.”

“You deserved it.”

“So did you. Pour.”

I filled a cup, righted the bench and motioned Gwen to sit beside me. Under my arm she was still shaking with the residue of emotion. For a white we only drank and watched die fire.

“This is how it started. Gwen. Sharing a cup. Remember?”

“Oh dear, yes. That day at Eburacum. The Saxons coming and the women hysterical and myself wondering what to do—and in strides young Arthur Pendragon, male as a yearling stallion and alive as a toothache. You took a clout of frightened women and made them feel needed and important. You cried over them.”

“I did, didn’t!?”

“You were beautiful,” Guenevere kissed mef licking her tongue over my dry lips with some of her old pleasure, “Love’s such an easy word. I’ve never said it without wondering what in hell it meant. But just Uien I saw someone that I couldn’t hurt. That shouldn’t be hurt. And that’s all we’ve done for years.”

“Guilty,” I admitted.

“Not even ignorance for excuse. I am going to miss you, Arthur.”

“We’ve done that for years, too. People like us, Gwen.” I realized in the middle of the thought that what voiced so simply now was so true. “Why are we so lonely? Why am I?”

“Why did you have to say that?”

“You’re still shaking.”

“A little chilly, that’s all. I’ve just a linen undershift on.”

“Didn’t Imogen bring your woolens?”

“I hate wool next my skin, you know that. It scratches.”

“Wear it anyway. And eat more. You’re a stick.”

Guenevere shook me off, gruff. “Oh, I’m nothing of the sort. Not sick nor this nor mat, just not eighteen anymore. We wear out, you know. I’m even looking forward to it a little. Heaven or hell, at least there are no decisions to make.”

She kissed my ear. “I am glad you’re here. And what’s to become of us?”

I didn’t want to think on that. “Here, drink up, To Victory.”

“To us,” Gwen toasted me. “Long life to Arthur and Guenevere.”

“Fabled as far as Byzantium. If they could see us now.”

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We watched the fire-shapes dance, listened to the hounds of victory baying beyond the casement.

Gwen murmured against my shoulder. “Nice, isn’t it? Pretending we’re somewhere else and years ago. I love it, but the world keeps coming back. Where will you enshrine me?”

.“Caerleon. I was thinking of Trajanus’ old house. You’ll be comfortable there.”

“And almost extinct, the dear gray Lady of Britain.” Her mouth set stubbornly. “I was right to execute them, and all Britain knows it.”

“Until I won at Badon, love. Now they couldn’t care less.”

Her smile turned sweetly acid. “Neatly put as usual. I’ll be no end of trouble. Wherever you put me, that’s the firepit of Britain.”