The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising 1)

“Oh, but I want to see the animals!” Guinevere hurried past the butchers and fishmongers. The fish wriggled in barrels of water. Women haggled, arguing and demanding better prices. There was an entire wooden tub writhing with eels. Guinevere looked hastily away, remembering how they had felt when she touched one from the pie.

The animal pens were wonderful, though. Brangien wrinkled her nose, holding a handkerchief there. Guinevere loved the smell, the intense and warm life of it all. Sheep and goats bleated, horses stamped their feet, pigs basked in the sun as their enormous bellies rose and fell with each breath. A young girl, shouting threats, chased a chicken. It ran straight for them; the girl chased it around Guinevere’s skirts.

At last the girl caught it, then looked up in triumph. Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped when she saw whose skirts she had been trampling around.

“That is a very fine chicken,” Guinevere said. “Does it have a name?”

“My pa calls them all the same thing.”

“And what is that?”

The girl’s eyes grew even wider. “I cannot say in front of a lady.” Then she whispered it, unable to stop herself. “He calls them Shit-for-Brains.”

Brangien coughed. Mordred looked away. Guinevere laughed. “I think that is an excellent name for a chicken. Go and return Shit-for-Brains to where she belongs.”

The girl grinned, gaps where her front teeth should have been. Then she ran away.

“Poor thing,” Guinevere said. “So young to have already lost teeth.”

Brangien frowned. “She is exactly the right age for that.”

“She will go her whole life without teeth!” Was it that common among the poorer classes to have no teeth?

Mordred and Brangien shared a puzzled look. “They grow back,” Brangien said. “You remember losing your baby teeth. The small ones fall out to make room for the big ones.”

Guinevere remembered no such thing. The idea that children were running around with two sets of teeth in their mouths—one lurking beneath the gums, waiting to burst free—was horrifying. She must have lost hers too young to remember. She was glad.

But Brangien and Mordred still watched her. She needed to redirect. She could not explain to them why she had so many gaps in her memories. She shied away from the thought that she could not even explain it to herself.

“Look! Horses.” Guinevere hurried over to them, leaning against the wood planks that had been erected as a pen. “They are lovely.”

She had never ridden a horse before leaving the convent. While the first days had been incredibly painful, she loved the great gentle beasts. A velvet nose appeared, nudging her hand to explore for treats. She rubbed its head, pleased to find that she got a sense of it. It was subtle. Nothing so dramatic and horrible as the eel.

The horse seemed to find her…familiar. There was the slightest hum of kinship. “Hello, friend,” she whispered. The horse neighed in gentle reprimand, fixing one large brown eye on her as if expecting something.

Brangien held out an apple, but the horse paid it no mind. It stared at Guinevere for a few more seconds, then huffed and turned away.

“My queen likes animals,” Mordred said. He was leaning against the fence turned outward, watching the crowds. Anyone noticing him would think he looked bored. But Guinevere saw the way his eyes never stopped moving, never stopped taking in information. He was protecting her. She did not need a guard. Her annoyance at the charade of queendom resurged. She was here as a protector, not someone needing protection.

“I like them very much,” she snapped.

“Me, too.” The horse had begun nudging Mordred’s shoulder. Mordred leaned his face in and whispered something. The horse nuzzled him, pushing gently so that Mordred would wrap his arms around the horse’s neck. Mordred rubbed the horse’s neck, then patted it and whispered something else.

Mordred straightened. “Shall we find something to eat? There is a spice merchant here who sells roasted nuts the likes of which you have never experienced.”

“Very well.” Guinevere let Mordred lead them back through the crowds. Brangien did not trust him, and Guinevere herself felt him a threat. But he had been genuinely loving with the horse, and the horse had seemed to trust him. Animals could sense things where people could not. Perhaps she had been wrong about Mordred. Arthur, too, trusted him. And she could not resent him for protecting his queen. Allowing herself to be guarded was a necessary part of her deception.

Mordred procured the nuts for them. The first one burst on Guinevere’s tongue like sparks of flame. “Oh!” She put a hand to her mouth. She did not want to spit out the nut, but the sensation was so surprising.

Mordred laughed. “I should have warned you. It is not to everyone’s taste.”

“No, I—” Guinevere could not manage to get the words out. Her tongue was burning. Mordred handed her his own leather canteen, and she drank far faster than was feminine.

He reached into her packet of nuts and took several. She passed the entire thing to him. It was an acquired taste, apparently, and one she had no interest in acquiring.

After that, things were different. Easier. Mordred was very good at pretending to be at ease instead of guarding her, so she resolved to pretend, too. Mordred pointed out various merchants he knew. They all seemed to like him, or at least to like how free he was with his purse. Everyone around them haggled and bickered over prices, but Mordred always paid the first price they asked.

“You are being taken advantage of,” Brangien complained as he handed her a length of pretty yellow cloth he had noticed her eyeing. Two women standing in the shadows of a stall were having a furtive conversation. One held something clutched in her hand. Guinevere narrowed her eyes, trying to see what it was.