“Lady Morgan, a thousand welcomes.”
Guinevere’s warm tone was completely at odds with the frigid watchfulness in her eyes. She took hold of my elbows, planting a kiss on my cheek so dry and cold it would have made Judas seem sincere. A cluster of her women watched from the ladies’ table, and I wondered what would happen if I pulled her into an embrace and called her “sister.”
Sir Kay hovered nearby, observing our exchange. Behind him, Merlin’s life candles still stood on their stands in a spiky wall, but darkened now, their wicks dead as the demon himself. There was less triumph in it than I had hoped for; the damage the sorcerer had wrought could never be undone.
Kay’s eyes flashed in encouragement, so I smiled at the Queen, polite, accepting. “I am honoured by Your Highness’s invitation.”
My voice was not without edge, but Guinevere didn’t seem to notice. She gestured to a chair at the end of High Table. “Please, do sit. There are a few faces I’m sure you’ll be interested to see.”
She glided off and I frowned at her retreating golden back. Despite Sir Kay’s correct prediction, her taking such great pains to acknowledge me publicly was still strange. There was no need for her to try this hard, given we despised one another.
I sat in my allotted seat and surveyed the room. Sir Manassen was nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t much care; he was the least of my plans. A wine page filled my goblet and I picked it up; the gold sides were engraved with images of Julius Ceasar, defying his wife’s pleas to stay at home on the Ides of March, part of a set sent to Arthur by the Pope himself. I recalled the day my brother received them, our private meeting where he worried aloud that the gift was a bad omen, a warning of his fate.
I put the cup down without drinking and pushed it away.
“Temperance indeed? That isn’t like you.”
The voice was male, familiar, and accompanied by a looming shadow, huge across the table. Hatred flared deep within me, vicious and unforgotten. If I didn’t look up, then it couldn’t be true.
“What, no warm greeting?” he said.
In the end, the Devil’s temptation proved too great. I raised my eyes to look upon King Urien of Gore.
He was still a magnificent brute, still undeniably handsome, frame broad and powerful and swathed in green-and-gold silk. His hair was glossy and teased as usual, chestnut beard tightly clipped along a hard jawline resisting the ravages of age. Not much had changed in him, but for the pointed white scars along the left side of his face, in the shape of the flames I had burned him with. Proof of my loathing, my vengeance, and the fact I had escaped him.
As I gazed upon my work, the scars shifted and my estranged husband smiled.
“My darling wife,” Urien said smoothly, and sat down in the chair beside me as if we had never been apart.
I caught the clove scent of his beard oil and shock shot through my gut at his sudden proximity. Why had no one thought to tell me he was here?
Catching hold of my breath, I looked along High Table. The Queen sat among her favoured ladies, delicately peeling the shell from a boiled robin’s egg. Sir Kay had been busy pointing pages in various directions, but now stood stock-still, arrested by the sight of me and my husband side by side. I stared at him in question, and he shook his head; not a single happening occurred in Camelot’s household without his knowledge, but this had eluded him.
Urien reached for his goblet and raised it towards the thrones, drawing Guinevere’s gaze. She nodded with only slight acceptance, but the subtle smile of triumph on her face was absolute. This was a punishment, a courtly test; a game I hadn’t come to play but could not afford to lose.
I snatched up my cup and took a long drink.
Urien chuckled. “That’s the Queen of Gore I know.”
“Your Queen of Gore doesn’t exist,” I retorted. “Maybe she never did.”
“Oh, you did, my Queen, much as you may try to forget.” He reclined comfortably in his chair, tilting his body towards mine, his expensive scent once again filling my airways. “You were there in all your hunger, every time I wanted you. You pulled me close, you lay down for me, you cried out my name.”
“And yet,” I said, “never once was I thinking of you.”
His self-satisfied smile dropped several notches, which pleased me, even if my assertion wasn’t altogether true.
“If you say so, my lady,” he said. “Regardless, I am still the only man who can lay claim to you. Do not forget that.”
Suddenly, his hand pinned mine to the table, his fingers pushing between my knuckles. An ordinary marital gesture to the rest of the world, but his forceful presumption made my blood froth.
“You will tread carefully or know the consequences,” I said, sending a flash of fire along the inside of my fingers. “Do not forget that.”
Urien pulled away, cradling his scorched hand. “I should have known I would not find you changed. Though seeing you has lent an interest to proceedings. I find it an unexpected pleasure to look upon you again.”
“I cannot say the same,” I said in a bored voice. “Why are you here, Urien? Camelot is hardly where you belong.”
He picked his goblet up and took a casual swig. “That’s where you’re wrong, my sweet. Since your departure I have frequented Camelot more and more, and the High King and I share a far greater regard than when your poison stood between us. Indeed, after your fall from grace, I believe he finally understood what I endured.”
“So you say. Regardless, there’s no justification for springing yourself on me like this. We have no reason to speak.”
“That’s not quite true, is it?” he said. “We are married, after all.”
I snorted. “There’s nothing that means less in this world than the lie that is our marriage.”
I picked up my goblet and found it empty. Urien snapped his fingers for the wine page, placing my cup on the tray alongside his. The gesture of husbandly authority chafed, his every move shouting of possession, testing my promise to refrain from trouble.
He handed me my refilled cup. “So you say, my darling wife, but there are still ties that bind us. One I’m sure you would not deny.”
He flourished a large hand into the softly lit depths of the Great Hall, towards a small table tucked beside a pillar. Keen-eyed women, kerchiefs ready at their belts, occupied most of the seats—nursemaids, sat amongst their young charges. Behind the pillar, a pair of boys were surreptitiously duelling with two long-handled spoons.
I recognized him immediately, and my heart took a freefall with nowhere to land.
“Yvain,” I whispered, like a benediction.
He was both the child I had nursed, laughed with and held while he went to sleep, and also different—tall and long-limbed, his movements rangy and confident. I had marked his eighth birthday at his apple tree beside the lake; old enough now for cup-bearing, his own master-at-arms and the start of his knightly education.
His face still held the ghost of sweet babyhood, but had grown leaner, defined, the bones of his father prominent, but made finer by echoes of my mother, and therefore his High King uncle. His head of curls had softened into waves and been cut back, but retained the dark-gold shade from the day he was born. I could not see if his eyes were still mine.
“Yes, there he is. Our son.” Urien’s voice was brisk, but I could feel his focus on the side of my face. “What do you think of him?”
I knew it was manipulation, for some purpose I was not yet aware of, but I could not look away from my son, his newness and familiarity, the wondrous surprise of his movements and his radiant, playful joy.
“He’s beautiful,” I said.
“Impressive, isn’t he?” he replied. “Strong, healthy and handsome. Charming beyond his years. The High King quite agrees. King Arthur has been a very diligent uncle, overseeing his education, speaking of his intention to make Yvain a great knight of Camelot. He has often praised the way Yvain is being brought up—with a constant, loving parent who has his best interests at heart.”
I knew that wounding me was his intention, but still felt it in my abdomen like a poison arrow. “I should speak to him,” I said. “I’m his mother. He needs to know I’m here.”
I started up from my chair; Urien grabbed my wrist like a striking cat.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “Good God, woman, what are you thinking? You cannot simply appear and declare you’re his long-lost mother. He’s a child—he will be upset, confused, overwhelmed. Do you wish to frighten your own son?”
His peacock eyes flashed with genuine concern, and somewhere in the annals of memory, I recalled Alys telling me that Urien was an undeniably good and careful father. Even monsters have other faces, she had said, and his protectiveness now, along with the sight of my thriving, happy son, did not contradict the claim.
“Of course I don’t,” I snapped. “So this is why you came here tonight—to taunt me with my son. That is the King of Gore I know.”
He released my arm and sat back. “In truth, it was more of a test. To see if your reaction proved you worthy of Yvain even learning who you are. As it stands…”
“Do not tell me how it stands.”
I shot up, not caring whether the meal was over, if Sir Kay was viewing me with concern, or if Guinevere was taking note of every move I made. It was all utterly meaningless until Arthur returned. “I know you, Urien. You were never going to let me do more than look at him.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he replied. “I am a fair and reasonable man. If you tread carefully, and learn to behave in an appropriate manner, who can say—there may yet be an arrangement to be made between us.”
Resisting the urge to cover him in wine, I took another longing glance at the children’s table, hoping for one more glimpse of my son before I left. Yvain was seated with his back to me, still jostling his vanquished companion, his perfect profile barely visible in the shadows.
“And if I don’t behave?” I asked.
Urien made a quick hooking gesture with his hand, and the nursemaids jumped up, ushering their charges out of the Great Hall, secreting Yvain away where I could not reach him.
“Do as you wish, my lady,” he said. “Just remember which one of us holds the power.”