“The way he moved. His incredible stillness between fights. If he makes it through, the tournament ends with you on a field watered by fairy blood. If I were an assassin fueled by magic, I would come at you in just such a way.”
Arthur seemed reluctant with his next words. She thought it was because he did not want to give up his dreams of a new treasured knight, until he finally spoke. “You are wrong.”
“What?”
“You are wrong. He is not fairy or using magic.”
“But I saw him fight! And I followed him after the fighting was done. A woman gave him an odd package, and then he went to the sheer cliff face on the southern side. He climbed straight down.”
“Really? That is remarkable!” Arthur was again more delighted than concerned.
“I know no human who could do such a thing!”
“I have seen men display feats of strength that seemed magical. It is what I believe in most deeply. The ability of men to be greater than themselves. Everything here is aimed toward building on that.”
“That is all well and good, but—” Guinevere stopped herself. She slowed down, smiling. “That is all well and good. The best. But you cannot say he is n
ot a creature of magic unless you have met him. Have you?”
“I do not have to. I learned from Merlin as well, if you recall. He could not teach me magic—I have no skill for it—but he taught me about it. We spent so many hours together.” Arthur smiled, then squinted. “Who took care of you when Merlin was with me? He spent months at a time instructing me during my childhood, and then he was at my side here for two straight years before being banished.”
Guinevere reached for the memory. There were the birds, and the deer, the creeping sly foxes, the rabbits burrowing beneath the earth. And Merlin. But surely there had been someone else? She would have to use that wretched confusion knot more sparingly. She could feel the spaces of her mind, distant and unreachable through a fog. She shook her head. “Do not change the subject. How can you know the patchwork knight is human?”
“No aspirant is allowed to bring his own sword into the ring. Every sword provided is iron. Even the pommels are made of it. None of the fair folk could hold one.”
“Oh.” Guinevere leaned back in her seat, all her suspicions and her night’s work wasted. Iron bit fairy flesh. Fairies could not stand to be near it, much less hold it and fight with it. “That was very clever of you.”
He laughed. “Do not sound so surprised. I know how to use my brain in addition to my sword.”
“Of course! Of course you do. I am upset with myself, not with you. What about the woman with the package?”
“Doubtless an admirer giving him a gift in hopes of winning his favor.”
“Mmm.” It made sense. If only she could have seen what was in the burlap packets. And why rocks? She could not shake the movement of the patchwork knight from her mind, either. It nagged at her. He might not be fairy, but he was different. Fundamentally. Maybe he was something new. Maybe the fair folk had discovered a way around their aversion to iron and the fear of biting death it brought. She was not done suspecting the patchwork knight. But she would do it in private rather than challenge Arthur and make him think she doubted his intelligence again.
He nudged her knee with his. “You said you had a few thoughts to discuss. That was two. What else?”
She had said a few thoughts. But the last one she had not meant to include in the list. She wanted to know how he had recognized her. How he had found her face even when she was hiding it. It felt precious. A gift of grace in the midst of turmoil. And she did not want to spoil it by pulling it apart like one of her failed knots. She snatched at another issue to bring up.
“Oh, yes. I will need to visit every door in and out of the castle. You have given me the solution I lacked for how to secure them. I need threads of iron, melted and stretched so thin I can twist them.” Those knots would not need replacing. They would ask more of her to put in place, but then she could forget about them. The cost would be paid up front.
“Of course. I will have them made as soon as possible. Do you require anything else?”
“A way to store supplies without arousing Brangien’s suspicion.”
“That is easily done. I will get a trunk for the secret passageway between our rooms.”
She yawned, unable to hide it. Her eyelids were heavy. A touch as light as a moth’s wings alighted on one of her coiled, aching muscles. No. Not a real muscle. Something else inside her. She sat up, alarmed. The knots were all intact. She would know if they had broken. Had she really felt something? Or was she so tired the barrier between sleeping and waking was crumbling?
“Is everything all right?” Arthur asked, responding to her expression. She felt through herself. The space on her scalp where it always felt like three hairs were being yanked out. The tickle of missing breath in her lungs. The dryness on her tongue. The sore ache that never quite faded. All the knots were still tied to her. If something had brushed against them, it had accomplished nothing.
“Yes. I think so.” But she redid all the knots under his patient gaze. She would seal them with iron soon. Bidding Arthur goodnight, she stumbled, exhausted, back into her bedroom and gratefully crawled under the blankets.
She did not see the moth waiting, soft and patient, where it had been carried into her rooms on Brangien’s stolen cloak.
The dark queen has seen this Guinevere, the queen-not-queen, already, carried to her on a hundred wine-tinged dreams. Arthur can seal his people away from her, but dreams and nightmares are still her realm, and she is free to come and go as she pleases.
The queen-not-queen is small, more like a sparrow than a falcon. Her hair is as black as tar and, depending on the dreamer, is worn in a plain braid or a tremendous crown of plaits.