Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Nyneve
The guard ushered Nyneve into a large antechamber, its ceiling like the underbelly of some great stone creature that could devour her at any moment.
She’d been delighted to leave the suffocating bustle of the entry hall behind, but the austere hush of the antechamber proved equally disconcerting.
Tapestries of conquests hung from the walls: boars with knives buried in their throats, wolves with flanks torn to tatters by spears, a bleeding dragon pinned to the ground by a knight’s armored foot. Her stomach twisted.
At least there were other peasants here—an elderly couple who looked like farmers, a young woman with a small child on her lap, his leg in a splint—and a few men she thought might be merchants based on their fine-but-not-extravagant clothing.
She settled into one of the sturdy wooden chairs that lined the walls, folding her hands in her lap.
The air smelled faintly of polished steel, cold stone, and nervous sweat.
“Shouldn’t be too long of a wait, my lady,” the guard told her with a brief bow. “Many folks have chosen to wait until the next moon, when the king and his men hear petitions.”
She thanked the guard, holding her tongue.
But when the man turned away and disappeared back into the stone hallway from which they’d come, Nyneve let herself sneer at the ground.
Of course this hall would be full of petitioners if it were the king or his men they’d be meeting with—but the queen?
How fascinating that interest waned so dramatically when they’d have to beg at a woman’s feet.
Nyneve let out a long breath, shuttering the flame of anger curling around her intestines.
Instead, she tried to recall what she knew of Guinevere.
The frost queen, some people called her, despite her father’s homeland of Al-Andalus.
The barren queen, she’d heard as well. The Druid girl smoothed her skirts, the discomfort of her twisted ankle louder now with fewer distractions.
The anxiety thundering through her blood only beckoned her mind closer to the pain.
Biting down on her lip, she considered that the queen’s rumored infertility could be a useful angle.
Failure to produce a pregnancy was often due to issues with the male partner, Nyneve knew, but in cultures like Camelot’s, the woman was always blamed.
And the Druids had ways of promoting fertility that she doubted were accepted here in the citadel.
She picked at her nails, watching as the young mother and small child were ushered through massive double doors lined with guards.
Outing herself as a Druid to Camelot’s throne was a risk, but well worth winning over a queen.
Nyneve slipped one hand into her rucksack, which sat on her lap, fingers brushing the jar of willow bark.
Agony sang out in her ankle, clambering up her leg with sharp claws.
She shoved the willow bark farther into her bag and pulled her hand out, crossing her arms instead.
Perhaps the pain would sharpen her. It would certainly make her seem more sympathetic.
When the herald finally called for Nyneve, she accepted the help of another guard to limp into the throne room. The physician wasn’t available at the moment, she was told, which she knew meant no one wanted to expend resources on a girl who hadn’t proved her claimed noble bloodline yet.
So Nyneve set her jaw and limped into the throne room.
The enormous chamber was the heart of the castle, nestled deep within its winding walls and towering ramparts.
White banners stained with woodsmoke hung like dead doves from the rafters.
Blood-red dragons reared on each one, their jaws open and ready.
Knights in full mail, helms obscuring their faces, ringed a wide dais in a half-moon.
Two thrones crowned the raised platform, both made of some kind of gilded wood.
The unoccupied one—much larger, its carved back reaching toward the distant ceiling—sat in the center, with its smaller counterpart settled off to the side.
Upon the smaller throne sat Guinevere. Gwenhwyfar ferch Gruffydd by birth, Nyneve knew, but women gave up everything in marriage, even their names.
So Gwenhwyfar became Guinevere, made more romantic for courtly intrigue with a Frankish spelling.
By Nyneve’s estimation, Camelot’s queen fit in perfectly with its storied court.
Tall and regal, Guinevere sat perfectly straight, her hands folded in her lap.
A pale green surcoat with cream trimmings highlighted the rich brown of her skin and dainty freckles dappling the bridge of her nose.
Her gaze was dark, appraising, and dangerously keen—far too keen.
The queen pinned Nyneve to the stone floor with that sharp gaze, and suddenly all the Druid girl’s preparations for this crucial moment felt utterly insufficient.
“Your Highness,” Nyneve murmured, sweeping into a curtsy, gripping the guard’s forearm so hard that her fingers trembled. Her mind raced desperately for what she should say next, sweat prickling her lower back.
“You are injured,” Guinevere called, rising from her throne. “There is no need for formalities.”
Nyneve straightened, trying to hide her surprise as Guinevere descended from the dais, coming to a halt within mere paces of where she stood clinging to the guardsman.
The queen’s gaze went to the guard, her face a mask of hard intensity.
Ignoring the violent drum of her heart, Nyneve took a deep breath and reminded herself of what failure would cost.
“Has she been seen by a physician?” the queen demanded before Nyneve could speak, one of her ebony eyebrows lifted, her mouth in a severe line.
“No, Your Highness,” the guard said, his eyes cast toward the ground. “We thought it best for her to petition first.”
Guinevere scoffed. “Look at me when you speak to me, please,” the queen said to the guard. “You should have sent for Galen at once.” She glanced at Nyneve, her brows drawing together, and then back at the guardsman. “Since when is this how we do things in Camelot?”
The queen set her jaw, closing her eyes for a few seconds, as if to clear her mind.
Nyneve tried not to stare, her blood pounding in her ears.
Her mind felt like a leaf tossed about on the wind, pain clamping its jaws tighter around her ankle, the entire conversation wrested out of her grasp before she could say more than a few words.
“What do you seek today?” the queen asked, pushing one long, fluted sleeve farther up her arm with a flash of annoyance.
Unease twisted in Nyneve’s belly. Was her mere presence irritating the queen? She would keep this quick, then. Clean, simple, straightforward. In truth, she was too nervous to do much else.
“I seek wardship,” she said, keeping her voice meek, though she forced herself to meet the queen’s gaze despite the frantic fluttering of her heart.
“I am a daughter of the House Or’Afon. Your ladyship might recall my noble father was killed in a Saxon raid at our home.
My mother sent me out into the night during the attack, hoping I would find safety. ”
Nyneve hoped she’d rehearsed the lie enough.
She hoped no one would recall the particulars of what had happened five-and-ten years ago—that her father had cast her out of his home two moons before the raid, her mother already taken by the fever.
No one should. Most of her father’s peers were dead or retired to their country holdings.
She was fairly certain the entirety of her old household had perished in the raid, so there should be no aging nursemaid who recognized her face and recalled the past in sharp enough detail to slice Nyneve’s ambitions into ribbons.
But she was not sure—not with the Druids’ disinterest in the cities of Roman-blooded men and their suspicion toward written records.
“Go on,” the queen said, almost kindly, though her expression had not softened.
Nyneve didn’t permit herself to feel any relief that Guinevere had not called for the guards and commanded them to drag her away.
Not yet, anyway; this queen seemed more likely to let Nyneve tie the knot of her own hanging noose.
But there was little other choice, and she’d come this far, so she took another deep, shaky breath and continued.
“I was taken in by a nunnery in the west,” she explained.
“Fearing retribution from the Saxon raiders, the sisters hid my background and family seal until I came of age.” She paused, summoning the slimmest, silkiest Thread of her power to put weight into her words.
“But now I come to seek my place in the halls of my father.”
She paused again, desperately trying to assess if Guinevere believed anything she was saying.
But the queen simply waited, hands clasped, the Pendragon banners hanging from the rafters framing her straight shoulders, an unneeded reminder of her might.
Nyneve hoped she’d made Camelot sound familiar and dear to her—a touchstone, a birthright, not a threat on the horizon.
Because that’s all this court was to her and her people: a threat.
Neighboring clans to the south spoke of Arthur’s knights riding through their villages in the name of peacekeeping, which was a bold claim to make when Arthur’s long-held desire to unite the Isles under his throne was well-known.
The Pendragon’s men even brought offers of protection and supplies—if the clans ceded their land to his rule.
That’s what kings never understood. The Druid-led clans did not own the land they lived on; it was theirs to steward, not hand over like a sack of grain.
But as little as King Arthur understood about Nyneve’s people, the Deceangli Druids probably knew even less about him and his court—which was why the Elders sent Nyneve into the thick of Camelot’s court instead of the mists of Tintagel.
And to punish her, of course.