Chapter 15 #3
Nyneve drew in a deep breath, her thoughts running fast as river currents. “Elaine, a man would be a fool not to fall for you,” she said, fully meaning it, but also finding this direction of conversation much more palatable.
“I fear Sir Lancelot du Lac is no fool,” Elaine murmured in return, almost to herself. “Gods, it’s so pathetic, Nyneve. I cannot take my heart elsewhere even though I know he’ll never be able to love me.”
Though Nyneve could recognize Lancelot’s storied position within Camelot’s court, and she certainly understood he was the kind of handsome favored by most, she did not find anything particularly compelling about the older knight.
But Elaine? She was so wise and startlingly funny.
Those hazel eyes saw everything. The healer had a grounded, humble kind of self-possession that Nyneve deeply envied.
“Why not?” she asked, pulling away from Elaine, surprised at how angry she was on the healer’s behalf. “Because of your birth? Your station?”
Elaine said nothing for a long moment, watching Nyneve carefully, like she was waiting for the Druid girl to understand something that was really quite obvious. But before Nyneve could reach any conclusions, Galen burst out of the living quarters.
“Ladies, it is time for the feast,” he said gravely, as though he were escorting them to the gallows.
“Perfect timing,” Elaine said, reserved once again as she pinned a pearl-studded veil the queen had gifted Nyneve into her curls. “Are they still having it out-of-doors with all this rain?”
“The rain stopped some time ago,” Galen replied, peering out the window.
“Perhaps Merlin sent the clouds away.” The physician’s tone was dry and humorless, making Nyneve recall that Galen, too, of course, had a history in this place.
All of them, so rooted here in Camelot. Regardless of her feelings about the citadel, it reminded Nyneve of how she had no real home of her own.
Elaine and Galen chatted about someone she didn’t know as she stood and pulled on her beaded goatskin slippers, another of Guinevere’s gifts.
Then the three of them headed out into the twilight.
On their walk to the feast, Galen made a fuss over Nyneve’s work on Elaine’s hair, and then the Druid girl’s sapphire gown.
Its neckline dipped as low as current fashions dared, the bodice molded close to her waist. Embroidery framed her bust and neck like a precious painting, the sleeves just barely clinging to her shoulders before flowing down to her wrists in wide trumpets, delicate as a butterfly’s wing.
She could admit it was a beautiful thing to behold, but as Nyneve entered the Queen’s Courtyard—a north-facing, centrally located pavilion surrounded by crumbling stone walls—she wished it drew less attention.
Despite being at Galen’s side and entering once the festivities had already begun, a number of gazes swung her way, many of them lingering more than she’d like.
In a hot flash of frustration, she regretted wearing her hair down, the crown of her head covered with a pearl-studded veil also gifted by the queen.
She’d meant to honor Guinevere with her choices, draw the queen’s eye, remind her that Nyneve could be useful.
But she couldn’t find the queen through the crowd, the pavilion lit only by a number of beeswax pillars flickering atop the moss-gowned walls.
Elaine had stepped away to help Molly in the kitchens, so Nyneve stayed at Galen’s side, politely greeting noblemen.
The physician helpfully cleared his throat every time one of them began to speak to Nyneve’s chest instead of her face.
“At the south end,” Galen said to her when they were disengaged, handing her a goblet of mead, “there is a pathway that leads into the Queen’s Green.”
She sipped slowly, her tired mind tumbling as she tried to understand why Galen wanted to bestow this random fact upon her. “Oh,” Nyneve said suddenly, straightening. “Are you sure?”
“Without a doubt, if it will prevent you from spitting at someone like a cat or going for that dagger you probably have hidden in your skirts,” he replied with a wicked little smile.
Then his features softened. “It is a lot to become accustomed to, the intricacies of court. Go, Nyneve. There is a lovely willow tree with a stone bench you would enjoy.”
She hesitated only a moment, holding his gaze, but Galen nodded again.
So Nyneve went, slipping along the courtyard’s ancient stone wall, unwilling to dive directly through the feast’s throng.
She kept her eyes to the ground in front of her feet, searching for the relief of the gardens Galen promised, hoping with everything she had that no dark-haired knight with moonlight skin crossed her path.
As Nyneve drew even with the beating heart of the gathering, one thing did grab her attention: King Arthur with a raised goblet, his garments shimmering with layered, complex, protective magic.
He wore that terrible sword at his waist. It made Nyneve’s teeth hurt.
She hurried along, her soft leather slippers quiet on the stone terrace.
“To Merlin’s return!” the king shouted, making her jump. She glanced over, nearly past the enormous feast table and the knights with richly clad women hanging from their arms like silk pennants.
“To Merlin!” roared the crowd.
Among the court gathered at the king’s feet was a dark-haired knight with moonlight skin who stood a head above the rest. As Nyneve reached the courtyard’s south side and slipped through the garden gate, she couldn’t help but notice that Mordred Pendragon was the only member of King Arthur’s court who did not raise his goblet in the name of the land’s most powerful sorcerer.