Cycles of Love (First Cycle: Innocence)
PART III
It was two weeks past when they met again. It was once again not at all planned.
Guinevere was enjoying her new job. Yes, being a servant was hard work, but Morgana was the best mistress she could have ever desired. They really were becoming fast friends. Attending the jousting match together had been so exciting.
She had an important part of her duty to fulfill now though. Somehow.
She’d be in trouble for sure if her Dad saw what she had in her hands right now. Going far behind the castle, into the woods, she unwrapped it from the cloth. It was a lot heavier than the junior one he had. She really shouldn’t have taken this stronger one, but it was for good reason. That’s what she told herself anyway. Part of her service was to keep her mistress protected…always.
Gwen swung wildly, nearly dropping the heavy thing. Oh dear. That’s not how you did it. She swung again, spinning so fast with the force she had to fling it away.
Oh no. Now it was dirty. She brushed away all the forest debris from its shine and lifted it again. Gritting her teeth, she swung for the third time, and concentrating hard, she pushed her shoes deeply into the dirt to keep them steady this time. It only half worked, as she half spun.
“Is that a real sword?”
She dropped it.
Eyes wide, he yelled out with caution. “AH…watch your feet!”
Gwen moved away just in time, far back from the falling sword. It landed with a heavy thud against the ground.
Arthur shook his head, just getting his breath back. The girl was crazy!
He lifted it with experience.
“It is a real sword.”
It wasn’t the puny thing he was forced to train with. This was a legitimate weapon of a knight.
He stared at Gwen. Her curled dark hair was pushed away from her face mostly, except for what looked like a few untamed strands. Funny. The sun was shining right over her nose that got its coloring from the rays. She was wearing that simple yellow thing from the first time. And oh yeah…
She just happened to have a fully fledged sword. And she just happened to have swung it so hard that she nearly killed herself. That’s all. She was completely mad.
“Of course it’s a real sword!” Gwen came back strongly now. “My Dad made it, much better than the one you have.” She backtracked quickly. “Oh…I shouldn’t have said that my…lord. Arthur. Prince Arthur.”
He flexed it in his hands with excitement flashing through his sky tinted eyes. It felt brilliant to hold that he didn’t even care about her nonsensical rambling. “No. It’s a good actually. You’re right. Your dad does do fine work. Wow…it feels spectacular!”
It was her turn to stare. Wearing a blue tunic and brown pants with a light quilted jacket to appease the still left over wintering chill, his whole face looked happy now. She’d never seen him so…pleased. “It’s a bit heavy.” She warned.
“True, eh, but…well…wait a minute.” He stopped completely, lowering the sword to the ground and digging its blade deep into the mud. “What are you doing with it?”
“Practicing.”
He frowned. “For what? It’s not like you know how to use one.”
She fisted her hands at her hips. “You don’t know that!”
Arthur laughed dryly. “Oh…I definitely know that! You nearly dropped it on your foot Guinevere. Before that you practically fell down from holding it.”
“You spied on me?”
He shrugged at her wide eyed question with boyish annoyance. “Nah…I just saw you a bit. I was taking a walk in the woods to get away from the palace.” He didn’t tell her it was really to get away from the young Lady Ysmay. She was staying in the castle for a few days and kept chasing him around, like girls sometimes did. Sure she was pretty, but uh…well it got annoying. It was much more fun getting to hold a real sword without his father around to tell him he was too young and all that.
“Well you can go walk back wherever you were walking…I won’t bother you…my Lord.” Gwen filled in with youthful awkwardness, still not totally comfortable with all the protocol she had to issue him. Not after that first meeting.
“You still haven’t told me why you’re practicing.”
“And I don’t have to tell you.”
He frowned at that. The girl was stubborn, issuing royal reactions and then…practically telling him what he did was wrong. Thinking it, he smiled now, lifting the weapon out of the mud. “Fine, I’ll just go down to where your father’s forge is and see if he recognizes this sword.”
“Oh you wouldn’t.”
“Hmmmm…”
She rolled her eyes at his threat, before relenting. She’d be in so much trouble if he did that. Her Dad would be so disappointed in her too. “Oh fine. I’m practicing so that I can protect my lady. We’re to visit a neighboring kingdom in just a few days. I’m told a friendly one, but still I should be prepared as her handmaiden.”
His sky blue eyes squinted with disbelief, his head slowly shaking back and forth.
“Eh…prepared for what?” He dug the sword back into the mud.
Guinevere jumped at the question. “Well for attack of course! It is my duty to safeguard my lady. From bandits. Or hostile kingdoms. Or…er…wild ferocious animals!”
Arthur laughed hard, golden head of hair swinging in the wind. “You are the weirdest girl Guinevere. You do realize, right, that the guards go with you? They’ll protect both of you.” That wasn’t completely true. Guards looked out first for the noble ones. And he had no doubt since Morgana was the king’s ward, they’d keep her safe primarily, leaving Gwen a bit to her own.
“You’re just saying that because she knows how to use a sword better than you! Ooops…well…well she does.” Gwen continued honestly and yet weakly. He was the prince.
Arthur stubbornly dissented. “So she says…but she’s WRONG. I’m way better!”
Gwen shook her head resolutely. She was set on this. If Morgana knew how to use a sword, then she would have to learn how to use one too. It was her duty to do this.
She was just horrible at it.
“Doesn’t matter. I need to learn how to use it and so I’m going to keep practicing.”
He came in now with the name he often heard Morgana call her. They definitely were close now after just two weeks. Weird. He never got that way with any of his servants. Of course they were always older and so they infuriated him more than anything. “Yeah…sure…and stab yourself in the process Gwen.”
She frowned, pulling at the sword to get it out of the mud, but it didn’t seem to want to budge. “UUUHHH…” She grunted hard.
Arthur shook his head. This was crazy. The girl was a full-fledged nut, but she was definitely persistent. “I can’t let you do this. You’re going to hurt yourself!”
“You care?”
“No!” He answered rapidly. “I just don’t want to hear all Morgana’s crying about it.”
Gwen disagreed with his insulting talk of her mistress. “Morgana’s not like that. She’s tough! My lord.”
“Hah.” Arthur bristled back and pushing her hand away, pulled the sword out of the mud. Taking a look at the small girl, who he knew now was about a year younger than him, he nodded his head with resignation. “Okay. First you need to learn how to hold it in fighting position without dropping it on your foot.”
“Don’t mock. It’s not nice. I’ll learn it.”
She was so set. Her face was so determined. He told her there would be guards and yet she still insisted. This girl was truly strange and yet also truly…
Not a coward.
“You’re right there…you will. Because I’m going to show you how keep it from dropping when you get ready to swing.
Now hold out your hands like this…”
~*~
She had stared at him that day when he said those words. She wondered why he wanted to be her teacher, as he did kind of become that.
Now the second day, she traipsed through the woods to meet him in that same spot.
He had taught her on the first day how to hold the sword in the way needed for fighting stance. It amazed her how long you had to hold it in a certain position just to gain control over it. More it amazed her how much he seemed to know. He told her part of it was the coaching he had received, but too a lot was watching the knights since he was able to walk. It thrilled him to see them fight. He was so restless for the day when he could use a real sword that helping her now with this one, was pure fun actually.
She lifted at the winding tree branch and saw him sitting there, eating some meats and cheeses that he had wrapped in some paper. Her stomach grumbled. Her lady hadn’t given her too much work, but the king had, making sure that the Lady Ysmay’s room was kept in order and that she was tended to during her stay. The girl, the same age as Prince Arthur, was a lot to handle. She was the kind Morgana wasn’t, always wanting her glass filled even when the pitcher was right there. Because of having to serve her for hours, Gwen still had yet to eat anything more than the small bit of fruit she had for breakfast. Now so late after the cock’s last morning crows, she didn’t realize that the day was halfway done already.
Arthur looked up as she came. She seemed a little ragged, more of those tight curls coming out of her hair ribbons. Weird. Shrugging it off with the relaxed mood swings of a young boy, he continued to eat the meat and cheese with a short greeting. “Hello.”
He was sitting on a fallen branch. Gwen sat across from him on a stump, taking it out of its wrappings now. “Hello Prince Arthur.” Standing with the sword, she held it out like he had taught her, fingers in place to keep control of the weapon. Her stomach grumbled again though. She put it down with a frown, noticing all the good meat he was eating, her mouth salivating, before she turned away.
Her stomach rumbled so hard this time that it could be heard.
Arthur lifted his head, noticing how she was holding at the waist of her dress as she didn’t face him. “Was that you?”
She frowned. “Don’t be rude.”
Arthur laughed at her tight response and lifted the last untouched pieces of the meat and cheese. “I’ve eaten enough. You seem hungry. Or…at least your stomach does.”
She shook her head. “No…I can’t…my lord.” Sometimes he didn’t seem like a prince and other times…he was definitely a prince. He wasn’t as bad though as she thought that first day. He did have some…sort of nice things about him.
Arthur grimaced. “Eh…you can’t practice when you’re hungry. You’re just going to drop the sword and if it lands on my foot, I’ll call the guards. So eat it.”
She didn’t look happy about his order, but took the food from him now. She tasted the meat and cheese, closing her eyes for a second. “Mmm…this is good.”
Arthur smiled. “Yeah…Adelaide cut it all up for me. So your mother didn’t make you a lunch?”
Gwen stilled.
“What?”
She filled in soberly. “I have no mother. She died…well years ago. Prince Arthur.”
His face whitened. Biting down on his lower lip, the boy became so much younger, so vulnerably innocent, in his heart. “I don’t have one either.”
Gwen nodded her head. She knew a little, very little. Just that there was…no mother. She had no reason why. How.
“I have memories at least. You know…of my mother.”
He wiped at his mouth with his sleeve, at the moment not caring about his clothes getting dirtied. “I have none of mine.”
Gwen frowned.
“She died…” He lowered his head. “She died the night I was born. My father didn’t want me to know it happened like that, but I found out about a year ago…too hard not to.”
Her eyes widened, her hunger pains and even the great tasting cheese and meats forgotten. “I’m-
“Sometimes I think it’s my fault.”
She stared.
He pushed away at the hurt that invaded his mind now. He didn’t want to look weak or cry or-
“You know…because it happened like that. I did something wrong.”
Gwen shook her head adamantly now, moving forward to sit down on the ground. It wouldn’t be right for her to sit on the log with him, but maybe like this it would be okay. Of course none of this was right, but he still did it. He still taught her. “Don’t say that. She wouldn’t have wanted you to say such an awful thing. You can’t think that. You just…”
What words did a girl have when something was this awful? To have lost his mother like that? To think that? “You just can’t think those things Arthur…I mean…Prince Arthur.” She reached out tentatively, touched at the back of his hand.
He looked up.
She bowed her head. “I’m sorry…um…I know I shouldn’t say your name in a familiar way.”
He actually hadn’t minded all that much. “It’s alright. Just don’t do it in front of the king.”
Gwen lifted her head. She still was touching at his hand. His eyes looked dully unhappy right now. She understood that. It seemed all three of them had dealt with some kind of pain. Morgana lost her father. Gwen lost her mother. And Arthur too lost his, much too early.
Her hand was soft and just a fraction warm. He quickly pushed it away though.
She moved it away.
He got up from the log to pick up the sword and gestured downward. “Finish eating the rest. You don’t want to practice fighting when your stomach’s all grumbly.”
After that order, actually kindly delivered, he walked away some, turned his back to her.
Gwen sighed, and ate the rest of the meat and cheese he had shared with her.
~*~
“Okay, I think you’re ready to practice your swing now.”
Gwen handed him back the sword. For a few moments now after finishing her food, they’d been going over the lesson from the previous day. She watched as he lifted the blade with steely intent now. Standing by, she felt her breath clench some. The wind was ruffling at his golden hair, and yet he paid it no heed, looking at something just beyond.
Making sure she was far enough away, pushing back at her waist lightly as she seemed a little too close, Arthur swung.
Gwen stayed where he directed her to.
The blade whipped with a whistling call, and cut the branch into two. He reacted to it the way he heard the knights do so when they struck a mighty blow.
“Bloody hell that was brilliant!” It felt so free to finally have a real sword in his hands, to deliver a sharp slice with it.
Gwen was as equally impressed that she too used ‘knight’ language.
“Bloody yes!”
Her eyes were alive and bright as his. He started laughing and she joined in. It was fun to be away from all the adults, doing something that maybe they shouldn’t be, having something they shouldn’t have, and sharing the experience together. It was kind of dangerously exciting.
He broke through the fun, attempting to sound like someone still deep in his memory.
“Your turn.” He handed her the sword.
Gwen bit down on her lip.
“Afraid?” His question was oddly not teasing, but delivered with the hint of a supporting smile.
She looked up to his questioning eyes, defiance flashing in hers. “No…my Lord.”
He doubted that her answer was totally truthful, and yet he admired how sobered her face became. She wasn’t as giggling as a lot of other girls, focused instead. “Good.”
She lifted the sword into the holding position that he had taught her, feeling the sun’s rays escaping the bit of cloud cover in the sky, teasing her back.
Arthur raved again about what she was holding in her hands. “That is one brilliant sword. This blade’s cut is so precise. And it’s not that hard to hold. You know, it has a solid grip.”
Gwen nodded her head. “Those are two of the things my Dad says are most important.”
Arthur agreed. He’d seen fancier ones, but it didn’t matter. Those kinds often weren’t made well enough for their true purpose. It wasn’t a decoration, but a part of a knight’s imperative arsenal.
Gwen looked back, seeing him standing there behind watching her with sparks of blue focused on by the sun. “Okay, what do I do now…my…uh Lord?”
She sounded a bit nervous even though he could tell she was trying to pretend she wasn’t. Arthur took a step closer and showed her how to position her hands. “Keep that solid grip, and just try a practice swing, okay. Because the sword’s heavy. So don’t let it trip you or anything. Just try a swing. Here…” He moved away. “I’ll step back…Alright…now just swing Gwen.”
She did as he told her, but the sword was too hefty and her balance had yet to be fully achieved.
Seeing that she was near to falling, Arthur came forward, steadying her arm and getting the sword back from her. “Alright…don’t give up. That’s what Sir Hadrian told me when he was first teaching me how to use one, well the junior one. I was only five then.”
“Sir Hadrian?”
Arthur nodded with memory. “Yes. He was one of the strongest knights I’ve ever seen. He was so brave Gwen. It was like he wasn’t afraid of anything. But he also was a knight in the other way, you know? He was gallant…and respectful. He truly…well…I may be just a boy still, but I knew then, and I know now, he truly was what a knight should be.”
“What happened to him?”
Arthur looked down at the ground, kicking a stone across to hit at the tree stump with a miniature jarring. The cloud cover half shadowed his face. “It wasn’t in battle. You would think a knight like him would go that way. It wasn’t even a sorcerer or anything wildly frightening like that. It was just some reckless man who came to Camelot. He had been married to one of the servant women. He held a knife at her, you know a much sharper dagger than the one I have. Sir Hadrian saw it and stepped in during night patrol, guards all around, but they didn’t hear the spectacle. He saved her easily, injuring the man, he thought fatally. There was a little girl though. She came running across so fast, because the servant woman took care of her when her mother wasn’t around. She wanted to hug her and…”
The boy’s expression was heavy, echoing the thickness of the cloud that huddled over.
“Well everything got bad then. There was no time. To save her, Sir Hadrian stood in the way. He took the flying blade, meant for the woman, but that the girl interfered with. I guess he could have just tried to end the man’s life, but he cared more about the little girl getting caught in the middle. She was fine. And the woman was fine.
He died.”
Gwen frowned with sadness at the story. Too many things like that happened in the villages too.
“Is that why you’re always awful with your servants?”
Arthur shrugged, saying nothing, as he slowly waved the sword down at the ground.
“You miss him.”
It was not a question. The boy lifted his eyes. “He was better than any servant who has tended to me. So much of who he was…made me want to listen. And he didn’t just say yes…or no. He had a lot more to say.”
“Arthur?”
“Hmmm…”
She forgot it again and he didn’t remind her. “Is that who’s in the picture in your room, in that portrait?”
He wondered about her noticing it, but it was a strongly striking pose the man held. “Yeah, that’s him.”
Gwen nodded her head solemnly. More about this boy was starting to make sense to her.
She probably had no right to say it, and yet she did, firmly. She wanted him to remember, to understand what he said about him and how it had affected the prince he was, and maybe the king he could be. “Think of who he was…what he taught you. I know you want to fight with a real sword, but your father is probably just worried about how it could hurt you. Maybe Sir Hadrian understood that…and would want you to be patient. Maybe he knew…
Your time would come…
My Lord.”
Arthur frowned, clearly showing his flawed impatience. “I hate waiting.”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “That’s not all that hard to tell.”
The wind picked up again. They both smiled as it rustled opposite colored strands of hair at their individual foreheads.
“Alright…back to it.” Arthur clapped his hands.
Gwen didn’t try to soften the moment again. She was like him in such way. She didn’t stay sad for very long about anything. Life was too busy even as children.
He cocked his eyebrow now with question. “You know…maybe this is a waste of time. How do you plan to get a real sword anyway? You can’t take this one with you. The guards would see.”
Gwen shrugged. “Well I could snatch one up from one of them if I have to. I just want to be prepared if they can’t help. That’s all. I know the guards will be there, but if anything happens, I want to know what to do. I don’t just want to sit there like some scared little girl. And I want to show my Lady that I know how to use a sword if need be. You may think that’s silly, but to me it matters.”
She lifted her head so high, for a second looking a bit older even than the little girl she was. Maybe she wasn’t like every other dumb girl. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. Then if that’s what you want you’re going to have to keep practicing how to swing without getting off kilter. Now here…maybe we’re trying to get you to hold it to high. Take light swings really slowly, over and over until it feels that you’re not going to fall.”
Gwen lowered the sword a little like he told her, and kept swinging from different positions, until one place at the middle she didn’t feel as wobbly on her feet. She smiled. “There…I swung and didn’t fall!”
He grinned. “Yeah that was good…okay we’ll work with it there then."
Part III continued here
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