Fic: She Has Heard a Whisper Say

[jinny09]

She Has Heard a Whisper Say

Summary: One night, Gwen gets a warning about the future.

Author's note: This happened quite unexpectedly one day when I came across a line from Alfred Lord Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott'. As you may have guessed, it was the line I burrowed for a title. Usually, I'm not a big fan of alternative endings ... this being the exception to the rule, it seems. The second ending was necessary (because we believe in happy endings) and the first inevitable, so there they are. I hope one of them works for you, dear reader!

Rating: PG, just in case
Beta: sternenlichtx ...And great many thanks to you!
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, the Great Dragon, mentions of Merlin and Lancelot
Warnings: Spoilers for S2 up to episode 13.
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine. They all belong to the BBC and the realm of legend.

- - - - -

‘Why is the measure of love loss?’ - Jeanette Winterson

Tonight, the castle was eerie in the almost-darkness of the moonlight.

Gwen hurried through the hallways with a shawl around her shoulders, clutching at it with chilly fingers, her hair loose and aimless in the draught.

She didn’t usually mind being in the castle at night-time. It was a safe place, like a second home despite all, every nook and cranny familiar after all her years of serving here. There were guards and gates and thick walls, and most of the time nothing to fear.

Tonight, it was eerie.

There was a coldness in her bones that seemed to laugh at the sultry summer night, her fingertips numb in the woolly folds of her shawl and her panting breath feeling warm against her cool lips.

The silence in the deserted corridors amplified every sound she made into something ripping at her nerves, she kept looking over her shoulder and almost stumbling at each unexpected alcove, fearing discovery.

She was not supposed to be here. Not with Morgana gone, and not at this time anyway. And she did wish herself back into her bed with all her heart, back into the slightly rough, but warm blanket, the lingering smell of a crackling fire and lavender, the contained silence of her home. Most of all, she wished herself to sleep.

She had tried to go back to sleep at first. Decided that the whispering voice belonged to the realm of dreams and would fade quickly with the brief spell of wakefulness. But it hadn’t. It was still there, saying her name over and over, like a chant or a magic formula.

She had tried sleep, had tried pacing, sewing, a mug of water, light and darkness, singing, a walk through Camelot even, but the voice lingered. In the end, it had begun to frighten her so deeply that she had started to follow it.

It was something she had learned from her father, and possibly from living in Camelot, city of knights and great deeds. If something frightens you, face it.

So she followed the voice, and now it was leading her through the grey, shadowy hallways of the castle, tiptoeing furtively, half distracted by the fear of being apprehended, and wondering all the while why it was so cold in the middle of summer.

She was on the ground floor, where no one was at this time of night except for the occasional patrol, but all the servants were in bed and what noble insomniacs there might have been, traced their sleeplessness further up in the castle.

At some point, Gwen had lost her way a little. That is, she turned corners she recognized, passed tapestries she knew as though she had woven them herself, but something tore at her composure so thoroughly, scattered her thoughts again and again, that she wasn’t certain anymore if those things were indeed the things she knew, or if she had somehow stumbled into a place that lay beyond what was real and safe.

She pulled harder at her shawl and stifled a sob, feeling foolish and all of a sudden a little angry at herself.

Voices in the dark, she thought, what nonsense. It was her own fault if she followed them, and refused to turn back.

Only she couldn’t. She had tried. Stood in the middle of a cold hall, surrounded by a patch of gleaming moonlight, her arms hanging by her sides and the scarf almost slipping off, and tried to turn around. She could have climbed through the window, if needs must.

She found she couldn’t. The voice had said her name warningly, daring her to turn around. She had known then that she’s never sleep again if she didn’t continue.

The dungeons couldn’t be far now. There were muffled sounds, the scrape of a stool across the stone floor, the clanging of a lance against the wall and laughter. The guards at a game of dice, comfortable in the light of torches and the warmth of wine, if watered-down. No voices but their own surrounding them.

The voice inside Gwen’s head grew louder now, she was getting closer. For the second time, she stopped her rushed steps, uncertain.

Perhaps, she thought, it was a sorcerer. Perhaps Uther had a sorcerer in one of his cells, and he was trying to escape with Gwen’s help.

How a sorcerer would have known her name?

Well, who could tell what these people knew? Gwen wasn’t so terribly afraid of them. Her father had never openly spoken to her about magic, but in his silences whenever conversation had turned to the subject at a friend’s house or the inn, Gwen had heard his thoughts. He never believed magical folk were all evil to the core. It wouldn’t have made sense to him, and so it didn’t make sense to Gwen.

Of course, that didn’t mean some of them weren’t bad.

She bit her lip and listened to the voice. Listened closely for the first time, a faint glow of torchlight curling around the hem of her skirt from a doorway. Dice were rolling just below her.

No, she decided. The prisoners were all asleep or too frightened to stir. None of them were calling to her.

She hurried on, as silently as she could, around another corner and down a short passageway until, suddenly, she knew she was there.

A pitch black hole was gaping in front of her, spitting out coldness and clammy air.

Very good, the voice said. Very good, Guinevere.

Gwen disagreed. This wasn’t good at all. This part of the castle, she had truly never been to, and she did not know what was beyond that mouth of blackness. Somehow, she could tell that the space beyond was leading downwards, below the city, below the earth like a grave.

Not a grave, the voice said, amused. Quite the contrary, you might say, in some way. Don’t be afraid.

There was something hot and stinging, and Gwen tried to blink it away. She wouldn’t cry now.

Don’t cry. There’s no reason yet. There never will be, if you listen to me.

When she bit her lip this time, she tasted blood, and the sharpness of it somehow helped. It told her she had no choice, really, no matter what her head said or her heart. There was no way but downwards, so she swallowed her tears and went.

The darkness was complete behind the doorway, like death or hatred. Gwen grasped at the nothingness until her hand met stone, and then she slowly felt her way onwards, step by step along the damp, cool, crudely hewn rock.

The descent felt endless. There were only the soles of her thin shoes on the sandy stairs and her unsure breathing, sounding as close to her ears as if it were someone else’s.

With each minute in this nothingness her sense of reality seemed to slip further from her, everything she had still been certain of at the top beginning to feel like illusion, until her heart began to race at the thought of breath perhaps not being her own after all, the stone being quicksand and the air water - and then there was a weak sheen somewhere ahead, the lifeline again which she had been clutching before, and she stumbled on faster, almost slipping more than once.

Careful, Guinevere.

Finally, she could see enough to walk steadily again, one hand just about trailing along the wall, her shawl which she had forgotten brushing warmly against the other.

A few more steps and she suddenly stood on a ledge, a gigantic cave opening up around her, illuminated with silver moonlight that glinted on the moist rock and shone like glass on still water below.

Gwen blinked a couple of times, trying to brush the darkness from her eyes, and then stumbled backwards against the jagged wall with a scream.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ the dragon said quietly. ‘I will not hurt you.’

She pressed herself against the hard rock as though it might give and enclose and protect her. It didn’t, so her hands scrambled for support until she found some stability. She pushed herself away from the dragon, trembling and careful, scared to move too fast.

‘Guinevere,’ the creature murmured warningly. ‘I will not harm you but you must stay.’

She took another step back, but while her thoughts were racing and screaming run at her, she didn’t. She hesitated, like an animal torn between instinct and curiosity. It was stupid to obey, stupid to stay, but she felt spellbound. Perhaps she was. Dragons are magical creatures, aren’t they?

The dragon smiled, if that was what dragons did. ‘So,’ he said. ‘This is the girl Prince Arthur loves.’

Gwen stared, then she frowned. ‘What?’ Her voice was a jumble of confusion, fear and breathlessness.

There was a sound that was probably low chuckling, but it caused the air around her to vibrate, like little earthquakes. Gwen stayed still.

‘Oh, you know it well enough, don’t you?’

The rock cutting into her back was very real, and so was the damp, musty air filling her lungs, and the chill in her limbs. She wasn’t dreaming.

Slowly, Gwen pushed herself away from the wall and took a small, small step towards the huge creature. She said nothing, afraid of what might follow.

‘You’re right, of course,’ the dragon said after a while. ‘His love for you is not why I called you here.’ He paused and inclined his mighty head, staring sharply into Gwen’s eyes. ‘It is your love for him that I must speak to you about.’<

Gwen swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. ‘What do you want?’ she whispered, not daring to speak any louder in this vast space. She felt as though the towering cave might crack and tumble all around them if she did.

The dragon’s eyes turned hard, like amber in the pale light. Those eyes, Gwen thought without knowing why, saw everything. There was no use lying to that creature, no use denying and no use trying to hide. They would pierce every defence conceivable.

‘I want you,’ the dragon said slowly, ‘to bury it.’ The words quivered in the emptiness between them for a moment, then the dragon’s head plunged towards her, so close that she could feel its breath stirring her skirt, brushing against her skin. It was warm, but she shivered anyway. Bury it, she thought, dazed. ‘Forever,’ the dragon said, ‘as deep as you can.’

Suddenly, something in Gwen sparked. It broke or tore and her body forgot about the impossibly chill night and numb fingertips and erupted in heat. ‘What?’ she demanded.

She didn’t even know where she found the courage to snarl at a dragon, the last of the dragons, fire in its lungs and nothing thicker between them but a vague dampness and her sudden defiance.

‘Careful, Guinevere,’ the dragon warned. ‘Fury will not change anything. Listen to me.’

No, Gwen thought. Whatever this creature with its seeing eyes had to tell her, she would not hear it. How odd, something in the back of her mind remarked idly. For months she had done nothing but ignore her feelings, tell herself and Arthur that there was no future for them, that there were no bridges that could be built between him and her, and now, with amber eyes staring at her and telling her she must not love Arthur, she was ready to fight for her love with all she had.

‘Listen to me,’ the dragon repeated. ‘I have chosen you to tell this to because I know that Arthur would not heed my words. If I were to tell him where the path you are on will lead you, he would still take it. He would sacrifice everything for you.’ The great eyes blinked, slowly. ‘But maybe you will not sacrifice him.’

Gwen started at the creature, fighting for breath. ‘What?’ she said at last, again. ‘What do you mean?’ She would not listen, could not.

‘Arthur will not marry until Uther is dead, and after that, he will marry you.’ The dragon shifted on its rock, digging deadly claws into the stone as though it were wood, leaning closer to Gwen. ‘But you must not.’ The words were a rush of hot air, smelling of smoke and fire, against her body. It choked her.

There were stillness and silence for a moment, then the dragon retreated, allowing a distance of cold twilight between them again.

‘If you marry him, you will betray him and that will destroy everything. Arthur will fall, and all of Albion with him.’

Gwen stared at the dragon, trying to force his words back into unsaid, trying to remember that they were only words and why should this creature know these things with any certainty? She wouldn’t listen, couldn’t.

‘No,’ she said, wondering why her voice didn’t sound angry at all. Only desperate. Desperation, her father used to say, is for those that know all is lost.

‘No, I would never do that. I would never betray Arthur.’

‘Oh, you will,’ the dragon replied, in a matter-of-fact tone that was infuriating after all. He looked at Gwen with those disgustingly knowing eyes, contemptuously. ‘His name is Lancelot.’

That was when coldness flooded Gwen’s body again, drowning out all heat and leaving behind only numbness. Lancelot. The one that would be better for her, a villager for a servant girl, even if his heart was a knight’s.

‘Yes,’ the dragon agreed thoughtfully. ‘He would be better for you. Make the right choice once, Guinevere, and the future will not crumble around one act of adultery.’

Gwen stared at her hands. A servant’s hands. Calloused and wearing stains that would still be visible in weeks, scars that would still be there in years, marks that would never fade. Not a queen’s hands. She thought of Igraine, whom she had never seen, but she was certain her hands had been white and immaculate. Arthur’s mother. Morgana’s hands.

Lancelot, she thought, Lancelot who loved her as well, who was noble and selfless, fearless and gentle. To whom she would never have to feel inferior.

And Arthur, risking more for her than she could even imagine. Whom she did not know as well as she knew Lancelot - not in terms of time spent together; it was just that Lancelot was an open book of goodness.

And Arthur, well, Arthur was an infuriating jumble of characteristics she didn’t like. But at times he took her breath away with his devotion to his people - his people, not the kingdom - with his capability of being entirely selfless when he truly had every excuse not to be. With the gentleness that would sometimes be in his eyes out of nowhere, and his willingness to learn. With what he sometimes risked.

What you risk reveals what you value.

Gwen lifted her head and met the dragon’s gaze steadily. In this chilly place, at this unreal time between one day and the next, face to face with a creature she had believed to inhabit more the realm of magic and legend than her own world, her heart had made its decision.

‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘You’re wrong, and I will prove it.’ The dragon hissed and stared at her through yellow slits.

‘Listen to me, Guinevere,’ he warned. ‘I have seen the future.’

Gwen smiled. Oh, the future, she thought. ‘I love Arthur,’ she told the dragon, her voice soft like a summer day in the icy cave. ‘And you’re wrong. The future isn’t set in stone.’

The dragon drew breath to reply, but Gwen lifted a hand with a confidence she couldn’t explain. ‘You’ve warned me,’ she told him simply. ‘I know what’s at stake, I know what danger I’m in. I’ll never submit to it. I’ll never hurt Arthur. You’ll see.’

‘Guinevere,’ the dragon began, but Gwen pulled her shawl around her shoulders and turned around, walking slowly back up the pitch black staircase, not listening to the voice calling after her. She was afraid for a while that it would creep into her head again, but when she stepped out into the castle hallway, the calls faded, and faded on until, when she passed the clicking sound of rolling dice and watered-down wine-mugs being thumped on the table, it was gone altogether.

The future wasn’t set in stone, she thought as she hurried back home. She would make sure of that.

~~~~~~~~

Years later, she lay awake all through a long, heavy night, feeling Lancelot sleep beside her.

She thought of the dragon, long gone now, the eerily cold summer night and her burning love. She sought Arthur in her heart and couldn’t let go again.

In the end, it had been so much easier to live the story that had been written out for them from the very beginning.

Fate had proven to be so much stronger than she had once believed, far too strong for her. She was, after all, only a servant girl, but however often she had told Arthur that servants did not become monarchs, that she was neither made nor meant to be a queen, he had never listened. He had thought her perfect.

His faith had disarmed her and in the end she had given in. Of course she had. The worst was that she would do it all over again.

She would never love anyone as much as she loved Arthur. That had been true from the start and she knew it would always be, and now she knew it more than ever. What she had not expected was that it would not matter, and make no difference.

There was a legend written in stone and it was not within their power to live in another way. Hard to believe, what with how they had changed the world, all of them together.

She had begun to feel fate’s bleak fingers curl around her limbs when she would not get pregnant, and felt its grips bruise her when Merlin said quietly, carefully, to Arthur that he could help them, if there was no other way.

It was first and the last time Gwen ever saw Arthur truly furious at their friend.

After that, Gwen had been certain that nothing could hurt them. Because Arthur would not risk her life even if it meant she would never give him an heir, even if the chances of his mother’s story repeating itself over were so very slim, Merlin said.

She blinked, her eyes tearing, even the first tendrils of dawn twilight seemed too bright now.

There was her shawl, draped over a chair by the window, she saw it first thing when she her vision steadied. She had none of her old dresses now, none of her old shoes or cloaks. But she still had the shawl, woolly soft and white, warm, flowers stitched along the hem. She had kept it because it was that summer night’s promises, to the dragon and herself, and although he hadn’t known it, Arthur.

The covers brushed over her naked skin as Lancelot stirred beside her. The future had been a sword in a stone.

No one had had the power to wrench it free. Not this time.

- - - - -

And alternative ending for my dear sternenlichtx ... and my conscience:

On her wedding day, Guinevere tried to shake the feeling of profound awkwardness as someone else pinned up her hair, tied the laces on her dress, fitted a veil to her curls, and heard the dragon’s words from years ago whispering quietly through her thoughts again.

At some point, Merlin had told them what had truly happened. That the dragon wasn’t dead, only gone.

So now she wondered if the creature knew where she was, what that ring on her finger meant and what day it was. If he was crouched on some mountain ledge, roaring at the sky with fury, cursing her for not listening and watching the future unfold.

She looked at her servant’s hands and whispered, ‘I will prove you wrong.’

She stood as still as she could while flowers were woven into her hair, and finally admitted to herself that she was scared. What if, she thought. What if all those fiery, smoke-breathed words had been true, and everything she did from this day onwards would take her one day closer to breaking Arthur’s heart?

What if she saw Lancelot again, and for some reason, for some inconceivable and monstrous reason, she would do what the dragon had prophesised?

She did not know how she might be able to do such a thing. When she tried to imagine, all she saw was Arthur, and all she felt was her love for him, and everything else was an impossibility.

But what if?

‘Done,’ an excited voice said behind her, and suddenly she was free to move, to take a step, to leave everything she knew and begin that future that was, allegedly, so cursed and doomed.

Turn back, she wondered. Believe a creature that has seen the future, hurt Arthur now but then never again, and save something?

She realized then that that, too, was an impossibility. Turning back, walking away, remaining where she was. It had been in impossibility all along, perhaps forever, because whenever she tried to remember when she had fallen in love with Arthur, she never could tell. Maybe in Ealdor, maybe when she had almost lost him, maybe long before that, when Fate and Destiny had sat together on the last eve before the beginning of everything and decided all those things that would be meant to be.

Gwen married Arthur that day, and promised to her people and to her king that she would learn to be whatever she needed to be. Silently, in her mind and heart, she also promised Arthur that some things were meant to be, but others weren’t, not matter what the great lizard thought.

The Lancelot returned, and in every glance he gave her Gwen saw his love for her, gentle and devoted, unfailing and growing ever stronger, but all she could ever see was Arthur.

Still, she was scared for a long time. Scared to stumble and make everything dark and terrible she had ever heard from the dragon’s mouth, come true. What if, she thought?

Cracks began to show in the solid ground beneath her feet after three years, three years and no children.

What if? A kingdom needs and heir, and what if?

Then Lancelot came to her one night, returned from somewhere, and Arthur was gone.

They talked easily for a while, he told her, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be back with you soon,’ and the love in his eyes was brighter than the candlelight and warmer. He took her hands. It was a familiar feeling, warm and like safety, like long ago in Hengist’s castle.

Lancelot was here, he wanted her more than he feared the consequences, despite his abiding love and loyalty for Arthur, and all she would have to do was to let him give her the comfort she maybe needed just then. She looked into his eyes then, and all her heart could truly see, was Arthur, whom she never wanted to hurt, no matter what.

After that, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

It was also then that she finally stopped worrying about whether a servant girl could truly be a queen, because she suddenly understood that it had never mattered where she came from or who she was. The only thing that was of any importance was that she was the woman Arthur loved, and that she returned that love.

She had a daughter the next year, and a little son another two later. She could feel the stone of that inescapable, solid-built future crumble to dust like a bad lie, and for the first time felt sorry for that great, old dragon.

What a life he must be living, immortal, and stranded in this world without faith in love.

When she could finally bear to leave her children for longer than an hour at a time, she rode with Arthur to visit another kingdom and, straying a little from the camp one evening, found two huge amber eyes staring down at her from beneath a canopy of stars.

‘I’ve looked into the future,’ the dragon told her quietly.

The Queen smiled. ‘And what did you see?’

The giant creature blinked, its gaze still frightening, but strangely softened now. ‘Lancelot and Guinevere ,’ it said. ‘You will forever be the stories. Stories of betrayal and destruction.’

Gwen looked back through the trees, towards the glow of fires and the sound of voices. ‘Oh, the stories,’ she said. ‘They may tell what they like. What does it matter? This is the truth, and it is mine.’

Many years later, it broke Guinevere’s heart when Arthur died, but she never broke his.

FIN

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