(no subject)
The day after Arthur receives Guinevere's letter, he goes walking through the castle at the center of his land. It is a small kingdom, and strange. The farmers and cooks, the builders and artisans and the ancient smith, do their work for love alone. Without them, there would be no shortages. None ever wants for food, with the cauldron of plenty in the center of the hall. The mead flows endlessly, and the wine barrels never run dry. Hunters and hawkers ride daily through the woods, but there is always the same number of deer in the forest.
In the courtyards of the castle, men and women make music together. A few scholars pore over books in the library. A half-dozen women embroider a tapestry in the solar. When Arthur enters each room, the people within it rise to their feet or bend their heads in quick courtesies. He leaves them quickly, so as not to disturb their work.
Eventually, Arthur finds himself before a door he knows. Behind it, a suite of rooms that has never been occupied collects dust. The king opens the door and looks into the outer parlour. Entering would be an obscure kind of intrusion, he feels; the space was not built for his use, after all. Arthur closes the door again softly and returns to his own apartments.
It is a strange thing. For the last years of his reign in Britain, after the abbey walls closed around Guinevere, Arthur hardly let himself think of her. There were occasional reminders, of course. The queen’s name and her doings were waved about as a pretense for disaffection among the young. Arthur ignored the whispers, or treated them with the disdain they deserved. When the disaffection grew into outright revolt, and that into unwinnable war, and nothing was left to do but sail north on Pridwen, into a new kingdom beyond the reach of trouble and Time… well, there was no need to remember Guinevere at all, after that.
Since Bran’s letter reminded him of her, Arthur has not been able to forget Guinevere again. She was very young when they married, all faith and pride and the kind of perfect beauty that did not know itself to be beautiful. Then she committed her single act of betrayal. (Was it only once? The king had never permitted himself to wonder.) When Arthur learned of it, he shut his chambers against her. He spoke to her only in public, only when necessary. The king’s advisors learned quickly to copy his icy tones when addressing the queen. No wonder that Guinevere took her husband’s son so far away, so quickly, before the babe was even born. No wonder that she fled to Amesbury and let the cloister protect her there.
Thinking of all this, Arthur sits in his office, inks his pen and sets it to parchment.
In the courtyards of the castle, men and women make music together. A few scholars pore over books in the library. A half-dozen women embroider a tapestry in the solar. When Arthur enters each room, the people within it rise to their feet or bend their heads in quick courtesies. He leaves them quickly, so as not to disturb their work.
Eventually, Arthur finds himself before a door he knows. Behind it, a suite of rooms that has never been occupied collects dust. The king opens the door and looks into the outer parlour. Entering would be an obscure kind of intrusion, he feels; the space was not built for his use, after all. Arthur closes the door again softly and returns to his own apartments.
It is a strange thing. For the last years of his reign in Britain, after the abbey walls closed around Guinevere, Arthur hardly let himself think of her. There were occasional reminders, of course. The queen’s name and her doings were waved about as a pretense for disaffection among the young. Arthur ignored the whispers, or treated them with the disdain they deserved. When the disaffection grew into outright revolt, and that into unwinnable war, and nothing was left to do but sail north on Pridwen, into a new kingdom beyond the reach of trouble and Time… well, there was no need to remember Guinevere at all, after that.
Since Bran’s letter reminded him of her, Arthur has not been able to forget Guinevere again. She was very young when they married, all faith and pride and the kind of perfect beauty that did not know itself to be beautiful. Then she committed her single act of betrayal. (Was it only once? The king had never permitted himself to wonder.) When Arthur learned of it, he shut his chambers against her. He spoke to her only in public, only when necessary. The king’s advisors learned quickly to copy his icy tones when addressing the queen. No wonder that Guinevere took her husband’s son so far away, so quickly, before the babe was even born. No wonder that she fled to Amesbury and let the cloister protect her there.
Thinking of all this, Arthur sits in his office, inks his pen and sets it to parchment.