I don’t know when I began to suspect: the first goblet of red wine that I assumed had gone bad; how many mornings I slept late instead of rising with the lark; the high scent of the honeysuckle clambering over my terrace that I noted, not realizing I could smell the sun-warmed stone distinctly as well.
The Queen’s solar became more stifling than usual, myriad perfumes mingling with too much breath, starched linen and the scent of decaying flowers. By the time a second month arrived without my courses, undiluted wine was unpalatable and I was napping through any spare moments of the day. Still the thought was too great to let it take hold.
Nor could I discuss my suspicions with Alys; she and I were on speaking terms but barely, and only where her duties were concerned, my great Gaulish transgression between us like a wall of glass. Tressa treated us with her usual wise equanimity, but I would not burden her with keeping secrets from her beloved.
Then, one muggy morning, I awoke with my queasy stomach hitching beyond my control. I had just enough time to fly out of bed before expelling the meagre contents of my stomach into a washbowl, and I couldn’t deny it any longer.
I was with child, trapped in Camelot, and completely alone.
“You have a lover.”
The words were low and unclear, and came from beside me at High Table. With Lady Clarisse returned to her quiet forest castle, my seat was now next to the Queen’s, but she so rarely glanced in my direction it was a surprise to look up and meet her greenish scrutiny. I was sure I’d misheard her.
“I beg your pardon?” I said.
“You are an adulteress,” Guinevere murmured. “There’s a bed you frequent that is not your own. Broken marriage vows. Some careless man caught in your web of immorality.”
Her words coincided with a queasy swoop in my gut. Controlling the sickness had become increasingly difficult, and to sit in the Great Hall amidst smells of roasted capon, spiced fruits and dripping candlewax was almost more than my senses could bear.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said uneasily.
She leaned in, and her sweet, expensive perfume caught in my nostrils, violet oil and ambergris. “Oh you do, Lady Morgan. Once again your bodily sins threaten this court’s good name.”
I turned away, inhaling from the packet of dried herbs concealed within my sleeve. Somewhat restored, I levelled my gaze at her.
“Where did you hear such a fabric of lies?”
Guinevere fell silent as a wine page appeared, filling both of our cups and affording me time to think. Accolon had been gone for a month—in the unlikely event we had been discovered, why the delay? Since his departure, I had sought no particular contact with men, other than the occasional dance with Sir Guiomar to vex the Queen. That I was being accused of this now, and so vaguely, made little sense.
The fresh wine aroma made my stomach churn, and I put a hand over my goblet. “Who is it, then?” I demanded. “Name my supposed lover.”
She paused, eyes flickering away just barely, but it was enough.
“You cannot, can you?” I said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s untrue,” she replied. “There’s been something amiss with you for weeks—not unlike when you did this before. And when Arthur hears how you have betrayed his trust and disgraced his Crown, he will never forgive you.”
“This is absurd,” I snapped, though how she had sought a transgression of mine and hit on the truth was a dreadful sort of wonder. “You have no proof.”
“Proof can always be found,” Guinevere said.
Another lurch assaulted my gut. “Arthur is my brother, and we share a deep bond. It would take more than some ridiculous claim to damage his regard.”
“Do not be so certain,” she said. “Your disagreement over the Royal Summer Hunt was an awakening for him. My husband is inching ever closer to seeing you for what you really are.”
Her suspicious gaze slid to my hand, still covering my goblet, so I gripped the stem and lifted it to my lips. The wine’s bloody, ironish scent hitched in my gullet, but I took a defiant sip.
“Tell him what you wish, my lady,” I said. “I have nothing to hide.”
She held my eyes for a long, sickly moment as the wine hit my gut, then pursed her lips and turned away. I tried to take hold of the nausea, pulling deep breaths against the herb packet, but the aversion was too strong, along with the room’s warm air and the Queen’s rich perfume. With as little ceremony as possible, I hurried from my seat and out to the Great Hall’s terraced garden.
I ran as far from the door as I could and purged into a small shrubbery. When it was over, I slumped onto a bench between two twisted hedges, sweating and trembling. It had not been this violent with Yvain, and I was not used to lacking control. I needed to tell Alys and soon; the thought of her perfectly blended tinctures far outstripped my worries over her reaction.
“Now I see what ails you.”
A tall shadow cut across my shuddering body like a knife. In the angular torchlight, Guinevere looked older, her rosy beauty uneven, yellow hair made gaudy in the unflattering glow. “By God, you are with child.”
It took all of my strength to stand up. “I am unwell, nothing more. Excuse me.”
I made to step around her, but she grabbed my elbow. “Admit it,” she said.
She had hardly condescended to touch me since we ceased to be friends, and her authority brought a flare of indignance.
“Do not presume to know my life,” I said, pulling out of her grip. “You are severely mistaken.”
“Mistaken?” she said. “You think I cannot recognize what’s in front of my eyes? Why—because I’m not as clever as you? Or is it because I have not yet given my husband a child? Do you think I haven’t learned every possible sign?”
There was a sudden wildness to her I had not seen before, a white-eyed, bared-teeth quality that spoke of strain far beyond what I knew lay beneath Guinevere’s surface. For the first time, I saw the depth of the fractures in her, the guilt inherent in both her joy and pain, the confusion of what she was allowed to feel. She was so young, so scrutinized, elusive in her complexities, yet still firm in her belief in a queen’s perfection, a woman’s. It was too late for me to tell her that such a state didn’t exist.
“I didn’t say that,” I replied. “I would never say that.”
“You claim you would never do a lot of things.” She straightened, drawing queenly composure about her as she always did. “You lied to my face about having a lover, and you’re still lying now. But I know you—I’ve watched and listened. You told the entire solar that pregnancy made you averse to wine. This makes your adultery indisputable.”
“To what end?” I said. “My private life is none of anyone’s business.”
“Your behaviour is the realm’s business,” she replied. “I didn’t make the rules, the laws, nor did I break them. Last time, you were spared redress, and you have exploited my leniency. You are reaping what you began sowing a year ago.”
“So that’s what you wish for—my punishment, my ruin? You believe it’s fair to put me on trial for adultery, despite the good I’ve brought to Arthur and the kingdom?”
“Lord in Heaven, your arrogance never ceases to astonish me,” she exclaimed. “The constant certainty that everything you do, every rule you choose to disdain, is justified by the absolute rightness of your every thought. I’m not permitted to sit on Arthur’s council, yet you believe you have a place?”
A resurgent twist of nausea gripped my stomach, and I put my hand to it. Guinevere shot me a look of blazing significance.
“You do not deserve Camelot,” she said. “You haven’t truly earned Arthur’s regard. Every time he finds clarity and begins to see the truth, there you are in his ear again. And he listens, and forgives, because he is good and you are his sister. You have a bond. When he doesn’t know the half of who you are, or what you’ve done.”
Head spinning, I sank back onto the stone bench. I was trapped, that much I knew, but had never known how to walk away from a fight.
“Then it’s decided?” I said. “Whatever I say, you’ll tell Arthur and let Fate do as it will?”
The Queen clasped her hands together, emerald rings winking at me like cat eyes. “I do not have a choice, Lady Morgan. You may be willing to lie endlessly, but I cannot live in dishonesty with my husband.”
I considered her words. The adultery stake was not certain but likely. Urien would be told and inevitably make the complaint, and after the child was born, there was no law that Arthur could use to circumvent a trial. Accolon would return and insist on being my champion, damning us both. There had to be another way.
I continued to rub my roiling belly in soft, pensive circles. Glancing up, I caught Guinevere watching the motion, and her hard expression wavered, as if she was contemplating sitting beside me. With equal suddenness, I wished that she would, a faint sense that if she gave in, then so could I.
The chance hovered in the air, then she cut her eyes away, leaving us adrift in the harsh torchlight. I had never played a game of chess to stalemate, until her.
“Is this truly what you want, Guinevere?” I asked. “To destroy me and damn the consequences? We were friends once—you said you loved me as a sister.”
She sighed impatiently. “I cannot remember when I last had any regard for you.”
“Yet you did. What you toy with now is my life, my future. There’s no coming back from a betrayal like this.”
The doubt in her eyes turned to stone. “The betrayal is yours, Morgan. What I’m doing is for Arthur, the Crown and the greater good.”
“Very well, Your Highness.” I stood up, facing her as if answering a challenge of honour. “I admit I have a lover and am carrying his child—there you have won and I cannot escape it. But are you sure you’re ready to hear my full confession?”
A slight confusion winnowed across her brow.
“After all, it takes a pair of lovers to form a tryst,” I continued. “Two people to make a child. It’s clear in your righteous quest to capture me, you have not considered there is another side that you might not want brought into the light. What if my partner in sin is someone you love and wish to keep safe? What if I told you my lover is Sir Guiomar?”
Guinevere’s face drained to ashen. “N-no,” she said. “I put an end to that. You may not know how to obey, but he does. He would never enter into anything so sordid.”
“Yet he did, before,” I replied. “I will not claim it’s any great love affair, but I’m sure my lady has seen us dancing together, and lust is a powerful temptation. Old connections do not die just because you force them apart.”
“I won’t believe a word of this. What proof do you have?”
“Proof can always be found,” I said pointedly. “Of course, if you must tell Arthur of me, then I in turn must name Sir Guiomar. The whole truth. Perhaps he’ll be pleased to hear he will become a father.”
The Queen glared at me, bottom lip protruded, like a child contemplating a tantrum. “You would still be destroyed in Arthur’s eyes. You would still go to the adultery stake. Why curse a good man’s reputation when you should be begging God for forgiveness?”
“What choice do I have?” I said. “As you intend, I will face the severest consequences, but what of your dear cousin? Who knows Arthur’s ideals better than you? Maybe, after a decade or so in a dusty, far-flung fortress, Sir Guiomar will find a way back into the King’s righteous heart. I’m sure he will not blame you, nor will your family question why you couldn’t prevent the collapse of his fortunes.”
“You—how can you…I am the High Queen.”
“Indeed you are, my lady,” I replied. “With all the scrutiny that comes with such a crown. Do you think Arthur will thank you for exposing my scandal in such a public way? It could set the realm back years. How will he bring forth his vision for the kingdom if my sins are all anyone can talk about?”
Guinevere looked down, smoothing her damasked skirts, her face half turned from the light. “What do you want, Lady Morgan?”
Again, I wasn’t sure of the answer, my mind tired out by sickness, fatigue and the race to outwit the Queen’s unexpected manoeuvres. Still, I had come this far, and I had her in check.
“If you wish to protect Arthur and your family’s reputation,” I said, “you will forget you ever knew this, and understand that my private life has never been any of your business. That I am no more yours to control than I am anyone’s.”
I crossed my arms and awaited her concession. She met my gaze and held it, pale eyes strangely calm.
“No,” she said. “I cannot do that.”
Her refusal was an arrow in the dark, striking without warning. “W-what?” I said.
Guinevere straightened to her full height, resplendent and righteous as an archangel. “I am a good and generous Queen, Lady Morgan, but I am not as meek as you have assumed. For Arthur’s sake—for the realm—I must do what’s right. Understand that it’s not for you to give me a choice, but I am offering you one.”
Once again, inexplicably, the air hung with her advantage. “What choice?”
“Either you persist in exposing your own scandal and go to the adultery stake,” she said, “or you can save yourself. Relinquish your place in the court and raise your child in peace elsewhere. Leave Camelot well enough alone, and keep your distance from Arthur. I will not tell my husband of your sins, and you won’t risk death for your transgressions. Accept my mercy, and be thankful.”
I hadn’t yet decided how I wanted things to be, but this wasn’t close to it.
“Be sure of what you are doing, Guinevere,” I warned. “I am not an enemy you want to make.”
“Perhaps it’s time to learn, dear sister, that you do not hold anywhere near as much power as you imagine.” She leaned close, her dense perfume raising my gorge. “You choose, Morgan. Leave this court, or burn.”