“There!” he said.
His hands lingered, holding the embroidered wool in place as if to cast away any chill. I reached up involuntarily to take the drapes into my own grasp, but instead of removing his hands, Arthur folded them over the top of mine. A spark of his energy slid through my fingertips and down into my hands, and furthermore, into deeper places within me.
And there it was. That one touch. That whisper of his skin on mine. The one connection that would threaten a kingdom. I didn’t realize that sweet and fleeting gesture would keep me from ever denying him, but it would. Though I was naive about a man’s caress, having only a few stolen kisses from a wandering bard followed some seasons later by more intense and mutual petting from a stable boy—both of whom were off-limits to my position—it wasn’t the touch alone that caused my wits to slide. It was Arthur’s touch. His, and his alone, which stirred an uncontrollable physical response. With any other man, I could have stopped up my desires and stuffed them back down underneath a proper lady’s facade. Push him away. But the moment the King of Camelot touched me, somewhere, deep down inside, I knew I would never settle for just an accidental brush of his fingers over mine again. I wanted more. Even if I could not fathom what “more” truly meant.
Arthur watched his hands cupping mine as if they worked independently of his thoughts. As if he was just as fascinated with their placement as I was. Then his eyes flashed to my own. He pulled back, breaking his connection with me and spoke. “I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. I am usually not so forth-coming.”
“My cousin,” and I avoided Guinevere’s name, “says I am easy to tell troubles to.”
He stared at me, those blue irises flicking back and forth between my own eyes. “Indeed.” Then he pulled himself away and strutted across the room. He grabbed another drapery from the wall, wrestling it from the iron pole. He smiled as he waltzed back to me, hopped on the table and reclined, bunching the drapery like a pillow underneath his head.
He lay there for a long moment without speaking until I interrupted. “I know of another tale.”
“What of?” asked Arthur, his eyes closing to half-mast as if we were the most comfortable of companions.
“It was the Saxon invasion of the House of Anwyl. A blood bath, really. I was eight. My brother and our meager troupes lined the parapet. Father called out orders, but we were a meager house, with little means, and too far from King Leodegrance to expect protection to arrive.”
Arthur rolled his head to the side, opening his eyes to watch me intently.
“Arrows rained down upon our men. My brother fell with them.” Emotions welled inside me as I recalled that day, but I pushed them down like I had been taught. A woman must be stronger than the men she loves, my mother would say. She must have meant it, because I never saw her weep for my dead brother. “And soon, we were overrun. The women and elderly took up arms even though we knew we were no match for the onslaught to come. We watched as they raised ladders to our walls. Then, just as the leaders crossed over, I saw a banner on the horizon—one of a cross and a dragon, and the color of crimson for his fallen mother, followed by a sea of armored men. Arthur Pendragon, the fiercest warlord Britannia had ever seen, came to our rescue.”
“You didn’t have the helmet or the armor you have now. You galloped in on a black courser swinging Excalibur. You must have been around nineteen summers. You saved my family and what remained of the House of Anwyl from those invaders that day. Without you, I would be either dead, or an unwilling Saxon bride.”
“Is that how you saw it? Is that how you saw me?” he asked with an almost childlike disbelief.
“I saw a hero, not a babe born of black magic. I saw the man that will become the savior of Britannia. I saw you.”
I swear his eyes welled at that moment, but he shifted and smiled to cover his emotion. I could feel it though—simmering throughout the room like a sweltering summer day.
But in true Arthur fashion, he chided me. “Oh, if all little girls’ visions were as valiant I might be painted a Saint.”
“If all little girls saw what I saw, then your head would grow to the size of a mountain with the praise.” I smiled back at him.
“Oh, is that right?”
“Conceit is one of your, shall we say, larger qualities.”
“It is, is it?” And he grinned so wide and willingly that I gushed at the sight of him.
“And rightly so. Not just any man can be Britannia’s Shining Golden God and Savior of All.” I giggled.
He laughed.
Our merriment lingered as we flashed our eyes at one another until we settled into a calmer type of speech. I had no idea how long we talked after that—of my brother, of my family, of his sister and mother. The only light remaining was the flicker of torchlight burning against the stone walls. We exhausted ourselves with chatter. Arthur lay back and closed his eyes, and soon, his breath deepened.
I sat and watched him sleep for what seemed like forever. His eyes twitched; his hands tensed—clenching in and out of fists as he dreamed. I wondered if those dreams were sweet, but realized by his movements, they were not. I hoped they weren’t the nightmares Merlin had shown me.
And then Guinevere re-entered my mind. Tomorrow, Arthur and my dearest friend would wed. They would be united by the Bishop and sealed to one another in holy matrimony. An ache tightened my chest.
I took one last look before I inched out of my seat, slid the drape over the back of the chair and left.
My chamber was harder to find than I imagined. Only sentries lined the hallways. It must have been well into the wee hours of the night, and Camelot’s corridors curled like a maze. Once I arrived, I noticed a fire had been lit in the hearth, probably by a servant, which took the chill from my skin, but not from my heart. I undressed, slipped on a night shift, untied my braid and slipped underneath my covers, but I did not sleep. I stared at the quarter moon glowing outside my window. I wanted to pray, but I didn’t know what for. Guinevere and Arthur’s marriage? My own acceptance? The death of my feelings? My mother would scorn this night if she knew how I let go of my emotions.
I was just about to get up to make myself busy to distract my thoughts when the door creaked. I rolled to my side. The hearth still burned with coals, giving off just enough of a glow to make out shapes. The door swayed open. A figure blocked its width. For a moment, I feared Merlin had come back to haunt me, but I knew the man standing there was not the druid.
Arthur stepped over the threshold. Light caught the halo of his blonde hair, giving his ringlets a fire of their own. As he neared, he picked up speed. I could barely see his features, but as he approached, the light caught in his eyes, making the azure turn deep blue. Their intensity sought me. He didn’t speak a word, and neither did I.
No. This was beyond speech.
Arthur hesitated once he reached my bed, and I thought we would both regain our strength—apologize and turn away. Instead, I sat upright. The bed linen slid from my chest, exposing my night shift. I did not even take the appropriate action to pull the covers up and hide my womanhood. I knew my breasts peered from within the laced keyhole as Arthur’s gaze quickly swept downward, then back up to my eyes. How easy it was to be indiscreet with him so near.
He reached for me then. His hands cupped my face. His lips sought mine. Though our bodies remained separated, heat surged from him as palpable as my own. For every battle I’d fought to keep my thoughts away from wanting him, I surrendered as the flesh of our lips touched. Then pressed. Then forced. Despite my inexperience, I wanted him so badly I burned.
This was no ordinary man. This was my hero. My god. My savior. Or perhaps, as Merlin had hinted, my destroyer.
In that moment, with his lips and tongue exploring mine, his hands kneading my back, pressing me closer and closer, I didn’t care.
My breath quickened as if I could not catch it. I felt twinges in the private parts of my body that I had never known before. His mouth, moist and wet,
feathered down my cheek and to my neck. I rolled my head backwards, sinking into his desire. His hands wound through my loose hair as he suckled the skin of my throat.
Pulling together any remaining threads of decency I had left, I managed to whisper, “We can’t.”
His breath laced his response. “I need you.”
“Guinevere,” I said, but I admit, my tone wavered—weak and ineffective. I didn’t even convince myself. I knew this battle had already been lost. I threw up the white flag as soon as my defenses had been breached with that one, seemingly innocent touch so many hours ago.
“Guinevere is for tomorrow. For duty. For kingdom. But you are for me. At least for tonight.”
Every bottled up desire, every denial of my wants broke loose. I thrust my head forward and nipped back at him. His hands, firm and strong, slid down to my rear. He lifted me as my legs wrapped his waist. My wetness pressed into his fine linen tunic as my night shift bunched around my belly—my legs, and what lay between, exposed, indecent, scandalous. I squeezed into him, hooking my ankles behind his back, pressing my soft parts into him, wishing for no barrier to his skin.
Arthur replied by nipping at my mouth, then licking, then thrusting his tongue in to meet my own. I had never before experienced such intimacy. Instead of pulling away, instead of feeling afraid, I struggled for his tunic, snatching it up at each side of his waist, but one hand came around from behind me and caught my wrist.
“Don’t,” he said.
Startled, I pulled back, seeking his face. “Don’t?” I asked, confused. I stiffened and stared, not understanding and for the first time a bit of fear leeched into my desire. After all of this, would he cast me aside? Call me a whore?
But Arthur hugged me harder. He moved my shift with his chin, exposing my collar bone and kissed me with a feathery lightness. His lips teased my flesh as he whispered. “I didn’t mean don’t do this.”
“Then don’t what?” I asked, almost angrily. My breath still came in uncontrolled waves, but I hesitated.
“Don’t look,” he said.
Arthur gently pulled down one side of his shirt by guiding my wrist.
I still held the other side, hefted high. Despite his plea, I glanced down. Beneath the tunic, barely visible in the dim light, I made out crisscrossing scars, long healed but fleshed over with pinkish white ridges.
“I just…” his eyes sought mine. For a moment, he looked like a wounded child. “They’re unbecoming marks left for the battlefield,” he said.
I let down his tunic. I smoothed the fabric, gently rubbing my hand over his ruined flesh but leaving the barrier of his shirt between us. I kissed him softly.
“Nothing about you could ever be unbecoming.” I cupped his face in my hands. “You hear me, Arthur Pendragon? Nothing. Not your birth. Not your scars. Not your soul. Every single bit of you is breathtaking.”
Arthur stared at me for a moment, then seized me with his mouth. This time, his explorations even more powerful—his want passionate, reckless, and just as consuming as my own.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, greedily sucking and biting. I tightened into him. My wetness increased as he strode to the door.
“Where?” I breathed.
“My chamber.” His hands kneaded my rear, sliding around and under my night shift to grasp my bare flesh—so near to my slickness that I involuntarily bucked against him. The linen of his tunic caressed me back with a coarse, hard rub.
“We’ll be seen.”
“Not at this hour.”
“But the guards—”
“I have already dispatched.”
Had he hoped for this moment? Did he plan for it? Of course he had. Though I should have been outraged at his presumption, a surge of excitement rushed me instead. He removed one hand from my bottom to open the door, leaving a cold breeze to catch my skin. Then he strode through the corridor, turned and headed through dark and narrow hallways until we arrived in his own chambers. And true to his word, no one saw us. All the while, I rode him, hanging tightly, nuzzling, nipping and needing what was to come next more, it seemed, than life itself.
***
The glare of sunlight woke me. As I peeled back my eyelids, I beheld the man, King Arthur, sleeping as peacefully as a swaddled babe next to me. His arms wrapped over me, his hand cupping my bare breast. I smiled.
Our night—a sweet dream, it seemed. But as morning’s fog lifted from my mind, more thoughts—thoughts of Guinevere, their marriage, a kingdom, Merlin’s visions—blurred with the memory of our lovemaking. A dread grew in the pit of my stomach.
What have I done?
A knot formed in my throat. Though I hesitated to leave him, I knew I had no choice. I removed his hand from my breast, snuck out from under it and replaced a pillow for my form. Arthur mumbled, smiled and turned, but did not wake.
Oh, Jesu! What have I done? He will be Guinevere’s husband today.
Tears leaked from my eyes. It took all my strength to pull away from him and stand. I wanted to sink to the floor and beg God for some kind of miracle. Some kind of change. Some kind of impossibility that would allow me to stay.
At least now I know what Guinevere must feel for Lancelot.
Though I doubted Guinevere could feel anywhere near what I was experiencing. I have loved Arthur since I was eight. Since he rode into my home and saved all that was dear to me. Guinevere… she’s still a child. A naive and innocent child. A child who will marry Arthur. A child Arthur will bed.
My knees weakened as I crept across the room. Straighten up, I told myself. Be strong. Stronger than the man you love, I heard myself echo my mother’s words.
I grabbed my night shift from the floor where Arthur had flung it after liberating my breasts, after suckling them, after he…
No. Do not think of it, I scolded myself.
But I couldn’t help it. I still felt the ghost of him inside me—a bittersweet soreness. An emptiness.
I slipped on my night shift and ran fingers through my unruly hair as I tiptoed toward the door. Do not look back. Do not.
But I turned anyway. I wished the moment would last a lifetime. Arthur lay with morning’s light shining down on him like a golden god. His lips turned upwards as if in a perpetual smile, even in sleep. The bed linens wrapped around his form, making his figure an enigma, yet the memory of his touch lingered and my skin tingled in response.
Then I spotted my blood stains on the bed linens. There would be no denying what we had done. What I gave. What I had so willingly and recklessly surrendered. And at what cost? To who? For what?
All my years of protection and guidance to Guinevere, who was no less than an adopted younger sister, all of her love and trust on my behalf, and I repay her with the worst sort of disloyalty the night before she weds. I had never imagined it possible to be at once so sweetly happy and so deeply frightened within the same moment.
With effort, I turned, crossed through the anteroom and exited Arthur’s chambers. I thought I would return to my rooms and never breathe a word of my treachery—suffer in silence the loss of a love that never belonged to me in the first place.
But as I entered the corridor, I heard her voice—Guinevere’s—calling my name.
“Elibel? What are you doing?”
My cousin’s gray-blue eyes scrunched. They flitted over me, over my unlaced night shift, and to the ornately carved door behind me. Arthur’s door.
I would never be able to disguise my actions, regardless of how I was at hiding my emotions. Guinevere knew the truth the second she spotted me. And in the same moment that I died inside, I felt as if at long last, my encounter with Arthur had finally, truly awakened me.
*** END OF SURRENDER, A QUEEN'S HONOR SHORT STORY ***
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Acknowledgements
Of course any book requires a team of readers, editors, critique partners, supporters and more. Thank you so much: Lance Matthews, May Hancock, Kate Erikson, Ann Mauren and Mary Endersbe. I am forever in your debt.
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