The Problem King Page 3

  He cursed something under his breath, and Rinwell shifted in the shadows. Ewen took hold of his crossbow as the faint light glimmered off something metallic, and—

  Gawain put out his hand to stop, and Rinwell eased back into darkness.

  “I will see which of your old servants are left at Lothian, and send them back to you,” he said, bitterly. “Though they are much happier where they are, I’m sure. But if the lady is certain—”

  “She is.”

  He ran his tongue along his teeth, bowed once more. “Then I take my leave.” He stormed out the back, kicking wood across the room over as he went.

  Rinwell floated on the periphery a while longer, then followed his master like a demon on the prowl. His footsteps made no sound, so Ewen stayed on guard several minutes longer, until he was sure they were alone.

  “That went well,” Guinevere said, sitting herself at the bottom of the marble staircase, and letting the tension loose.

  Ewen checked through the vines blocking the east windows, sniffed anxiously. “That’s one less friend on Council, you know.”

  “I was never going to be his friend,” Guinevere sighed. “I’m a tool, at best. A hollow ally to prop up whatever position he foresees being in his own best interests.”

  “You might’ve turned him,” Ewen said, undoing his cloak and wrapping it around her, to fend off the creeping cold of the early April night. She shrugged.

  “It’s funny,” she said. “In our childhood games, he remembers me as a prize to be won... but I was the one commanding the dragons he scrambled to defeat. I wonder if he realizes he never managed to save me, because I didn’t want to be saved.” She sighed. “He hasn’t changed a bit: overflowing with passion, but lacking in smarts.”

  “In a boy, that’s amusing,” said Ewen, watching the shadows, warily. “In a man, it can be dangerous.”

  Five

  Guinevere rolled over in her sleep, and fell off the bed. Not that it was much of a bed: some hay, wrapped up in the clothes she’d brought from Paris, bundled into the underside of a table to keep it contained. Still, it was enough of a fall that when she hit the stone floor, it was jarring.

  She lay there, staring out a ragged hole in the roof, at the starry sky above. Beautiful, but cold. The wind blew through, whipping stray leaves into a frenzy, and then gradually fading away. The silence was terrifying, most of all; in Paris, there was always someone moving, something going on. Here, now, she felt like she was standing at the edge of the world, about to fall off.

  “What am I doing here?” she whispered to herself.

  Bang! Something scratched and skittered across the floor, in the darkness. Small, with claws and a frantic way about it. She sat up, tried to see, but it was too dark.

  “Ewen?” she hissed, and scrambled onto the bed, back against the wall. The scratching had stopped, but she could feel it in there with her, still. She held her breath, trying to—

  The door opened: “Guinevere?” said Ewen, voice low.

  “There’s something in here,” she said.

  She heard him walk forward, pause. “Weasels, maybe. This place is full of holes.”

  Again, silence. Pure, deafening silence. Maybe the creature had escaped out another way. Or maybe it was trying to hide. Or maybe something else entirely. She moved to speak, but Ewen beat her to it:

  “I’ll light a torch to be sure,” he said, and ducked back out.

  Once he was gone, she heard the sound again; quieter this time, more tentative, and coupled with a kind of... a belaboured breathing. Raw, angry, scared. She pushed closer against the wall, tried to tell if the sound was getting closer, or if it was just her imagination.

  She heard flint strikes, a flare, and then a beam of orange light from beyond the door. Ewen came in, sword in one hand, torch in the other, and froze. She followed his gaze, across the room, where a weasel was indeed cowering in a corner... and covered in blood. It was wheezing, desperate to escape, watching them both like they might strike at any moment.

  It had tracked a trail of blood across the room, starting back near Guinevere’s makeshift bed. Had it fallen through the hole in the roof? As she looked up to see, Ewen’s attention shifted to her, and he moved in, quickly:

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

  She looked down to see her skirts were covered in blood. Glistening in the torchlight, and suddenly a shocking smell in her nose, all at once. She jerked to her feet like she could escape her own clothes.

  “I’m fine. I’m...” she looked up, squinting at the hole in the roof. Ewen raised the torch, and— “Good God,” she whispered.

  There, impaled on a broken shingle, was a hare. Blood was trickling down from its belly as it hung there, twitching the last of its life away. Ewen yanked Guinevere off the bed, turning back and around again with the torch, checking for enemies.

  “What is this? A warning?” she asked, and he shook his head gravely.

  “That’s not the warning,” he replied, then held his breath as they both heard a low, slow growl from above. Wolves. “That’s the warning.”

  “Should we—”

  A savage jaw snapped through the roof, grabbing the hare by the haunches and tearing it free. A second wolf grabbed the poor animal by the neck, and, fighting for supremacy, shredded the hare in two. Half the body landed at their feet, spraying more blood.

  The wolves watched their lost opportunity, then their eyes fixed on Guinevere and her dress.

  “Don’t move,” Ewen said, barely audible.

  They were panting, fur matted and marked with scars; obviously starving, and desperate for a meal. She wanted to strip off her skirts, throw them as far as she could, and run... but she knew that would only make things worse. The torch would keep them at bay, so long as no one—

  The weasel let out a horrified wheeze and dashed across the room, right underfoot.

  The wolves snarled and ducked out of view. Their frantic claws erupted along the roof, in chase.

  “Now we move,” Ewen said, and pulled her back through the door. His gear, including crossbow, were on the far side of the room, near the—

  A wolf burst through the window, scrambling to catch its footing just paces from Ewen. He lurched back, swinging the torch out. The wolf barely reacted; it was going to feast, risks be damned.

  Guinevere pressed her back into Ewen’s. “Go back the way we came?”

  “It’s a dead end,” he said.

  “So’s this.”

  He shrugged, carefully moved back towards the door, sword and torch ready to strike. The wolf closed the gap with them, moving side to side, eyes locked on its prey.

  Guinevere grabbed the door, reaching for the handle so she could slam it shut the second they were inside. Ewen jabbed the torch at the wolf, warning it back so there’d be room to manoeuvre. She could almost reach it...

  The other wolf fell through the hole in the roof, landing with a crash on her bed. It spasmed a second, then dragged itself up to its feet — injured and angry. It snapped at them, snarling.

  Ewen froze. “New plan. Run!”

  She dashed for the door. The first wolf snatched at her dress, but Ewen swatted its neck with the torch, breaking it free. She fell into the wall, but kept running, scrambling down the hallway towards the dining room. Behind her, metal hit stone and beasts howled as Ewen did battle against a nimble and dangerous foe.

  Guinevere glanced over her shoulder to make sure Ewen was still alive — and her foot caught the edge of a broken cabinet, sending her sprawling. She slid through debris, colliding with the wall. Her shoulder exploded with pain, but she couldn’t focus on that. Without the torch to help her, she was left to desperately feel around in the darkness; bits of wood, too small to use as weapons, trash and rope...

  Ewen made a dash for the door, trying to outrun the wolves
. One caught his foot, and he fell, hard, onto the stone floor. The torch skidded across the room, and suddenly a constellation of dry leaves caught fire, right at Guinevere’s fingertips. She pulled back as the bigger pieces started to burn, too.

  Ewen kicked and kicked at the wolf until it let go, then swung a desperate blow with his sword, smashing its neck open. It coughed, horribly, and collapsed against the wall.

  Ewen tried to stand but couldn’t put weight on his damaged ankle. He glanced to Guinevere — you’re not injured? — and she nodded back, filtering out the pain for now.

  The second wolf stepped around the body of its comrade, circling away from Ewen and his sword, around the growing fire in the middle of the room.... Its eyes were locked on Ewen, but it was clearly angling for Guinevere.

  It had blood around its face, limping from its fall earlier, but she had no doubt it could kill her with ease. The only question in its mind was the best time to strike. She kept herself frozen, sucked in her panic and tried to think of some way to escape. The wolf twitched its head like it was trying to dry itself off... and that’s when she noticed the figure standing in the shadows.

  Gawain’s man, Rinwell, with a curious grin on his face.

  The wolf growled, hunched back, and leapt—

  —and was met with a sword in the gut. Ewen had thrown himself into the flames to stop it, and his clothes were starting to catch fire from the effort. He rolled free, waiting until the wolf slid down his blade, jaws snapping in slow motion as its life left it — and then swatted at his legs, his torso, until the flames were out.

  He coughed, bit back whatever discomfort he was feeling, and turned over to face Guinevere. She was still staring into the darkness, searching for Rinwell... but he was gone.

  Ewen frowned when he saw her expression. “What? More?”

  “No,” she said, not quietly at all. “It seems you were right about Gawain. Stupidity can be dangerous.”

  Six

  What she remembered most from that day was the door handle: old pitted iron, almost burrowed into the wood of the Council door. It was cast like a face, mischievous eyes and a droll mouth with tiny sharp teeth, grinning at all who entered. She wondered if it would try to bite little girls’ hands, like hers. She didn’t want to find out.

  A large ring was hung from its button nose, slightly crooked and shiny from all the hands that had passed through, over the years. She spread her fingers wide, still couldn’t cover the whole thing. Maybe when she was older.

  She stood there in impatient silence, eye-to-eye with the door handle, while her father bargained with the Master of the House. After what seemed like years, they were let into the empty Council chambers, the door closed firmly behind them.

  Her father stood by the Round Table — thick, raw wood on the underside, polished discipline on the surface — and seemed almost sad, somehow. He scratched at his beard, shaking his head, face full of tension and regret. Even a seven-year-old could see it.

  “Are you alright, papa?” she asked, perched obediently away from anything important.

  He flinched, shook off whatever thoughts he’d had the moment before. He walked to the table, pulled aside one of the heavy-set chairs by its impossibly-tall back, and motioned for her to join him.

  “What’s it say?” he asked, as she got closer to the table. It was almost at eye level for her, and seemed too vast to comprehend. Right in front of them, etched into the wood and highlighted with gold leaf, was a phrase written in Latin. She thought a moment before reading:

  “Find light in shadows,” she said, then looked up to her father. “Like a candle?”

  He smiled, stroked her hair. “Aye, lass. Like a candle.”

  He walked away, towards a massive embroidered map of Camelot on the far wall, like he was somewhere else entirely. Guinevere pushed and angled and managed to get on her toes long enough to see more of the artwork on the table before her. Vines and branches crawling upward, wrapped around a crest painted in red, gold and white. The Lyonesse seal.

  “Is this your seat, papa?” she asked, and he half-turned away from the map, like he wasn’t sure of the answer himself, and had to look, to see.

  “It was, for a while,” he said, voice low.

  “Can I sit there?” she asked, eyeing the massive chair beside her. She could fit two or three Guineveres there, easily. She couldn’t imagine being big enough to fit properly. “When I’m older?”

  Her father smiled, nodded. “You can, and you will,” he said, a little louder, like he was speaking to a crowd in an empty room. “That’s your birthright, Guinevere. Never surrender it to anyone.” He stared at the closed door. “Never.”

  She stood on her toes again, looking across at the seal, reached out her hand—

  —and traced the edges of the fading crest with adult fingertips. She pressed her palm down, closed her eyes, tried to hold on to the memory a little longer.

  “Excuse me, milady,” came a gruff voice, and a middle-aged man squeezed into the seat on her left.

  The world burst back into focus, all around her: men shouting over each other, attendants rushing this way and that, riotous laughter that seemed to fill every available space in her mind... it was like all her memories, everything she’d seen or heard from that day to this, were being compressed into a single space, all at once.

  She lifted her hand from the table, from the flaking red and gold and white paint, and re-read the words carved there long before she was born: Find light in shadows.

  Looking around the room, now, she had a startling sensation that this is where she belonged. All the years away in Paris, she’d been preparing to slip back into the Great Council of Camelot, to take her family’s seat like they’d never left.

  She recognized things from her father’s stories, growing up. His lessons on how to belong. Decorum and procedure, obviously, but also the subtler functions that no one would suspect she’d understand. She tested herself, tried to put faces to names of people she’d only ever heard about, read about...

  There, to the left of her, white haired and feeble-boned, were the “First Line” noblemen. Contemporaries of Pendragon himself, they’d long ago given up their firebrand status, their legendary passion for adventure. Now they were old men hunched in their chairs, agreeing to whatever opinion held most favour in the moment.

  Next to them were the war heroes of the “push-back years,” when neighbouring kingdoms tried to pillage the newborn Camelot — a fragile city-state with no standing army of its own. The result was an irrefutable sales pitch for Camelot’s weapons, as two hundred men laid waste to thousands. Some soldiers, like Bors, grew into savvy businessmen with a taste for luxury; others, like the strikingly-absent Lord Cornwall, reveled in their own legends. They made their names defying the First Line, but as the years went on, it became harder and harder to tell the two groups apart. They sat at well-spaced chairs, preening with confidence, trading off-colour jokes and hearty guffaws.

  The youngest members of Council filled the periphery in pocketed conversations, their multitude of attendants rushing from corner to corner to relay vital intelligence. They were the beating heart of Camelot now, handling the minutiae like every whisper could upend the world. To them, rumours were the ultimate currency, secrets like sharpened knives, scandals the Holy Grail. But given how Guinevere and Gawain were both of this generation, the only thing that seemed certain about them was that there was no certainty at all.

  One youngster, across the way, whispered in Bors’ ear, and they looked over at Guinevere in unison. Bors nodded to her, in greeting. She dared not respond.

  A loud clanging rang out, and a young man with a bell called the Council to order. “Take your seats, gentlemen! Take your seats!”

  The crowd shifted as servants filtered to the back of the room, and the noblemen sought out their place at the table. The chair to her left was occup
ied, so Guinevere turned to her right, only to discover that seat was taken, too. In fact, aside from the gold-crested chair reserved for the king, and the rough-and-weathered seat for the absent Lord Cornwall, every seat at the table was now taken, with no room for more.

  “My lords, my apologies,” she said, projecting her voice and hearing it echo around the chamber. “Where might I find the seat for Lyonesse?”

  The conversation boiled up again, urgent chatter thrown back and forth. “Lady Guinevere,” said an elderly man with a fat, white beard. “We are most pleased to see you, back in Camelot.”

  There was a murmuring of assent. Guinevere smiled, as warmly as she could, and perched her fingers on the table before her.

  “I’m pleased to be back, as well, my lords. Only upon my return did I realize I’ve been away from Lyonesse for too long. There’s a beauty to this land, where brilliant civilization meets the raw power of nature. Sometimes a little too close for comfort, but...”

  From the right, she heard a chortle. She caught sight of Gawain, covering his mouth. She had cleaned herself thoroughly in the morning, so he’d have no satisfaction from his little endeavour. Still, she wanted to make it clear she knew who to blame. She nodded at him, politely, and the whole room shifted in their seats to figure out why.

  “Well,” said the fat-bearded man, “it is most pleasing to have you home again.” There was a stamping of hands on the table, by way of applause, and then he continued: “Now as a first order of business—”

  “Excuse me, Lord...?” Guinevere said, and the whole table stared at her.

  “Rhos,” he said, with a suddenly-thick accent, dripping with misgivings. He gave his title, not his name, to set the stage for what came next. A stalwart of the First Line, and the lead architect of Camelot’s constitution, outlining the tricky confederacy that overtook the feudal system of old. He was a legend, though not in the best of ways. Rhos, as a district, was never the most flamboyant, or the most aggressive. They marched to a beat so constant, the rest of the kingdom kept time by it. He was not going to miss a step for her, for any reason.