A CHAMPION'S DUTY (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 2) by Lavinia Collins

Author:Lavinia Collins [Collins, Lavinia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Not So Noble Books & The Book Folks
Published: 2014-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Kay led me up to Arthur’s council room, and when Arthur saw me he leapt from his chair and came around the Round Table to pull me into his arms for a swift kiss. Gawain and Aggravain were there, too, but comfortingly at the back of the room stood Nimue. I wished I had worn her armoured dress today. But I was glad she was there. Despite her woaded face, I was coming to trust her. She was always gentle and quiet. Besides, she was smaller than me and it made me feel better to be in a room with at least one person who I did not think could have killed me with their bare hands, if they had wanted to.

“I have been looking for you,” he said gently, smiling. I didn’t trust myself to speak and I laid my head on his shoulder in response. He stroked my hair. “Oh, you’re upset.” He sounded sad but not surprised. I supposed he had heard about Lynesse as well, but that seemed like a distant sorrow already to me, the morning an age ago. He kissed the top of my head. “It’s alright, I know.” I heard the loss in his voice as well. If only that was what could have happened, that I could have found my way to him and we could have comforted one another. “Go and lie down. We will be finished soon.”

I nodded and left, closing the door behind me and leaning back against it, pressing my head hard into the wood, trying to clasp all of the disintegrating pieces of myself into a whole. Then, through the thick door, I heard voices. I pressed my ear against it. It was Aggravain.

“I know what I saw.” I heard the crash of a fist on the table. So it was already heated, and I knew it was about me.

“You were mistaken,” I heard Kay say, evenly.

“You were,” Arthur agreed. “I saw this ‘kiss’ that was bothering you, at the feast. That’s just Lancelot’s way, the way of the French. It’s very common for a queen and her champion to show favour to each other in public. It’s not the way of Lothian, I know, but it is not necessary to make conflict over this.”

“I kissed her just now,” Kay said, unhelpfully.

“Don’t bait him, Kay,” Arthur scolded, stern. He thought Kay was joking.

There was silence for a moment, that must have been Aggravain saying something quiet, because the next thing I heard was Arthur’s voice, raised in an anger that I had not heard for a long time.

“You be careful what you say about her, Aggravain; she is my queen. Come to me again when my queen births a black-haired child and I’ll take your quarrel to Lancelot. I won’t have my knights starting fights among themselves about nothing, about idle gossip. Do you think I haven’t heard it before?” That struck me hard. Who had he heard it from? “We have a hard-won peace. Don’t

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