by K. M. Shea
“That’s because if I keep a stranglehold on my cup I won’t be able to throttle a certain woman,” Britt said behind a smile. “Back up, will you?”
Once again Britt was a prisoner to her table on the dais, and once again it was Britt, Merlin, Morgause, and her children. Normally Britt would not mind the dinner so much. The past few had been quite passable as Britt was able to converse with Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, and Gaheris when Morgause was not fawning over her.
Tonight, however, the shape of the table had changed, and Britt found herself separated from Morgause’s sons. Merlin was next to her but he was a useless tablemate as usual.
Britt frowned when Merlin briefly rested his warm hands on her shoulders and gave her an encouraging squeeze before he left the dais.
Britt watched him go before she heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Tired, My Lord?” Morgause asked, placing a hand on Britt’s arm.
Britt held her irritation in check before she offered Morgause a brisk smile and shrugged her hand away by lifting her wine goblet into the air. “You seem to ask that question often.”
“The work of a king is very difficult,” Morgause said. “Men have it so hard. We women couldn’t possibly understand.” The queen’s voice unexpectedly hardened as she spoke.
Britt thought Morgause was almost boiling with anger, but she blinked and the queen was back to simpering smiles and crinkled eyes.
Britt considered Morgause as she drank her wine, but her thoughts were interrupted by a clutch of knights that trooped up the stairs.
Britt looked long enough to see that it was Sir Bedivere and two other lapdog knights that, for all practical purposes, belonged to Morgause. Britt sighed and studied her wine goblet with great intensity. Her thoughts returned to King Pellinore, and she wondered if he had started home yet, how he came to have such an expectation of power, and what was a questing beast?
In spite of herself she still heard pieces and bits of the conversation Morgause was having with the knights.
“A harper could not describe your beauty and fragile femininity, for he would lack the skill and the words to give you due credit.”
“I thank you, sir knight. You are generous in your praise.”
“….stand as an example for all women with your soft spoken words and the meekness of your temper.”
“Please, kind sirs. I hardly think I am meek—,”
“But you are, My Lady. It is such a pleasing trait to behold!”
“Your eyes are surely the fairest in the land, truly I do wish you were my lady.”
Britt snorted in her wine cup before she set it down and pushed food around her plate when she felt the rebuking gaze of the serving page some feet away. The young boy had taken an unfortunately interest in her calorie intake.
When Britt looked up again she found Sir Bedivere’s eyes on her. Even though he was speaking nonsense to Morgause—something about her hair being as black as a crow’s wing—his attention was distinctly on Britt. His entire body faced Morgause, and he was forced to uncomfortably roll his eyes to keep them trained on Britt.
Britt wondered why he adopting such a painful stance before she met his eyes and froze.
Sir Bedivere’s eyes were pleading. Although the muscles of his face were relaxed and open, his eyes were saturated with despair and screamed for help. It was almost as if he was a prisoner, bound and gagged, and was wordlessly pleading with Britt to set him free.
In a heartbeat the moment was gone. Morgause leaned across the table, drawing closer to Sir Bedivere and reclaiming his attention. The despair left his eyes, and he was once again reduced to a lovesick puppy.
The damage, though, was done. Sitting in her chair, looking out over the feasting hall, Britt realized all she had done was despair over the effect of Morgause’s enchantment on her. She felt antagonized because Morgause had reduced her knights to salivating dogs, making Britt look like a fool.
Never had Britt thought how the enchantment affected her men. It hadn’t even occurred to her that they didn’t want to be enslaved. She just assumed they were weak minded or fools for a pretty face. But Sir Bedivere’s silent plea… that wasn’t from a fool. That was a knight, asking his King to save him.
Britt abruptly stood, her chair loudly scraping on the dais.
“My Lord?” Morgause said, looking inquiringly at Britt.
Britt tipped her head back on her neck, as though she were considering the heavens. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, dazed sounding as she turned to sweep down the dais.
“Of course,” Morgause said, although Britt barely heard her.
The enchantment was no longer a question of honor, but a movement of slavery. Something had to be done, Britt would see to that.
For three days Britt paced in the privacy of her chambers. A mirror hung on the wall across from her—or at least what passed as a mirror in the medieval ages. It was little more than a large, slightly curved disk of highly polished metal, but it still produced a clear reflection when one drew close enough.
Britt shied from it like a deer fleeing fire, although she occasionally stopped in front of it.
She knew a regular parade of men had stopped outside her doors: Sir Ector, Sir Kay, Sir Ulfius, Sir Griflet, and Ywain. Only Merlin had dared to enter her chambers, and all he did was wordlessly watch her for a few minutes before he went back in the hallway with Cavall and ordered everyone to leave her alone.
Britt had spent all three days pondering and thinking of the ways her men could be saved from Morgause—it could be done. Griflet seemed to have shaken off all traces of his admiration for Morgause, but Britt didn’t really understand how that happened.
As the third day came to a close Britt’s tired mind grasped two concepts. First of all, Merlin would not save her knights. Either he was a total hack of an enchanter, or he had decided for some inexplicable reason that Britt needed to sort out the enchantment herself.
Secondly, Britt knew in her gut that she would have to be the one to rip the enchantment from her men’s eyes. For a time she had entertained the idea of asking Nymue, the Lady of the Lake, to step in. But the memory of young Griflet lurked in the back of her mind.
“Unless it took getting his brains bashed out by King Pellinore, I think clearing the enchantment had something to do with me—as selfish as it sounds,” Britt said as she slowly moved to her mirror as if it were dragging her forward.
Britt studied her reflection in the metal mirror. There were traces of her old self there—the Britt from America. It was the way the tunic seemed foreign on her, as if she were donning a disguise.
Britt reached out and placed a hand on the mirror. “I wonder, if I become the king Merlin wants, the king Gawain thinks I am… will there be any of me left at all? Or will it all be King Arthur?”
Britt closed her eyes against the thought, and was assaulted with the image of Sir Bedivere’s pleading eyes.
“I owe it to him. I swore it in my vows that I would be a true King when they crowned me. But I don’t want to give up all of me and be the Arthur of legends!” she moaned, briefly sinking to her knees.
There came at the back of her mind a nagging thought. What if she didn’t become the Arthur of legends? What if she gave in and finally acted the part of king? That didn’t mean she had to wear the ridiculous shoes and chausses when she could order boots and breeches to be made. Hadn’t she already done as much by asking Kay to have a riding helmet made for her?
Britt grasped this mad idea and fanned the flames. “Even if I went back home, I could never be plain Britt from America again. Change is not a bad thing, and who says I have to give up everything and adopt all details of life here? “
Britt stood and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “Forget King Arthur. I’m King Arthurs. And no one enslaves my men and gets away with it.”
Chapter 6
The Battle for Knights
The throne room was in an uproar. Britt could hear i
t through the door hidden behind a tapestry on the back wall of the dais that her throne was placed on.
A week had passed, an entire precious week. It was necessary for Britt to set her plan into motion. She backed off more than usual, letting Morgause think she had won, and even did her best to occasionally give the queen a calf eyed look.
Kay and a few others had taken Britt aside and asked her to do something—to kick Morgause out of the castle—but Britt refused and Merlin surprisingly agreed with her. Merlin had even agreed to the queen’s request of scheduling a hunting party.
Left completely unchecked, the theatrics and dramatics regarding Morgause had reached new heights. Based on the bits Britt could hear through the door, four of her knights were challenging each other to duels at the top of their lungs over a flower from Morgause’s hair. Two men were quarreling over who should read Morgause their sonnet first, and the rest was lost in the mindless roar of lovesick knights.
It reminded Britt of the fanatical antics of the paparazzi chasing a celebrity.
“I believe you are ready, My Lord,” Ywain said, bringing Britt out of her thoughts.
“So soon?” Britt asked as Griflet polished her left gauntlet one more time.
Ywain’s smile was small, but it went deep. “You make quite the picture, My Lord.”
Griflet shook his head in wonder as he backed up to stand with Ywain. “You look like an ElfKing.”
Britt shifted and moved in her new armor—which the best blacksmiths of Camelot had scrambled to forge for her. “Someone said something similar about me in the battle against King Lot. What on earth does it mean?”
“It means you are a king too fair, just, and brilliant to be human. That you look holy enough to rule over the elves and the faerie folk themselves,” Ywain said with hushed reverence.
“Ywain, Griflet, thank you for your help,” Britt said. Neither of the boys had asked why Britt could not put on the armor herself when she approached them that morning. Their silence was the biggest blessing Britt could ask for.
“It is our honor,” they said, bowing to Britt.
Britt smiled to them before she turned to the door and opened it. She listened to the men roar for a few minutes behind the veil of the tapestry and shut her eyes.
What if this didn’t work? What if her knights remained within Morgause’s grasp after this?
Britt felt the reassuring weight of Excalibur on her hip. “Then I’ll take care of her,” Britt whispered to the air. “Then I will chase her to the end of Britain, and I will make her wish she had never set foot in Camelot until she gives them up.”
Britt turned around one last time to look at Ywain and Griflet.
Ywain bowed with an unfathomably deep smile, and Griflet’s eyes filled with tears as he smiled broadly.
“You make me proud to be your knight, My Lord, even if I’m not any good at it,” Griflet said on an impulse.
“You make me proud to serve you, My Lord. And as I agreed when I took my vows to you, you have my loyalty for all my life,” Ywain said.
Their words gave Britt the last bit of courage she needed to step past the tapestry and onto the dais.
Britt confidentially crossed the dais, stopping at the top stair to slide Excalibur out of its scabbard. She picked up a shield next to her throne that she had planted the night before and adjusted her grip on it before taking a deep breath.
Already a few of the knights at the base of the dais were staring up at her, but silence was what she needed. Stiffened with resolve, Britt extended Excalibur and swung it against the shield. The rattling jar from the shield made her teeth shake, but the sound was unmistakable in the din of the room, and Excalibur flashed like harnessed lightning.
“SILENCE,” Britt thundered.
A dropping hair pin could have been heard in the quiet that followed as all the knights looked up at Britt.
Britt set the shield down and sheathed Excalibur, unaware of the figure she struck.
Griflet had been close when he called her an ElfKing. As Britain had never had a warrior maiden king before, it had never beheld a figure like Britt.
She was tall, for both her time period and the one she was now in, but her narrow shoulders and lack of hulking muscle was made clear from the cut of her armor. Instead of making her appear weak, it highlighted the strength in her posture. Her high cheek bones, dazzling golden hair, and her blazing blue eyes spoke of beauty set on fire when matched with the confidence she held herself with and her beautiful sword form.
Britt took the knight’s silence for surprise, but in truth it was closer to reverence. Had they always served such a splendid looking king? They had. They knew they had. They remembered the way Arthur flew at Lot and the usurp kings like a vengeful dragon when Sir Ector had been unhorsed. How could they forget that?
Britt inhaled deeply before speaking. “I must apologize, because I have wronged you. All of you.”
The silence was choking. Britt had hoped for some kind of reaction, but there was none.
“I did not trust you when you have given me nothing but your confidence and devotion. I forgot so quickly the terrible battle we lived through together. I forgot how you fearlessly rode out and killed for me, how you were injured and even slain for me—a beardless youth,” she said, cracking a slight smile.
No one laughed.
“I forgot that in London it was you who wanted me as your King, and it was because of you that I was crowned. It is altogether too easy to take personal credit for standing up here on this dais, reigning as king, But,” Britt paused and walked down the steps, her new armor gleaming in the light of the throne room. “The only reason I can stand is because of you.”
Britt looked into the eyes of the knights closest to her. She had their attention.
“I have withheld my respect from you, and it is my wrongdoing. So I ask you today, forgive me and please follow me anew. I will not treat your devotion daintily, but with the roughest courage. For your loyalty is not some fragile thing, like glass, but the most solid thing I know. It is blood and it is blades and armor. It is roars in the battlefield and shouts of celebration. It is the very foundation of Camelot, and it is what makes this kingdom great. I thank you, and I beg for your forgiveness,” Britt said before performing a formal bow, bending low at the waist.
Britt closed her eyes to shut herself against reality for a moment as she remained bent. No one said a word, and it was silent… until it wasn’t.
In a glittering wave of chainmail and tunics, the knights of Camelot knelt. They planted themselves lower than Britt and watched her with grave intensity. The air sang with the shings of countless swords being pulled free from scabbards as the knights planted their blades in front of them.
Sir Bedivere was the first to speak. “Hail, King Arthur. Long live the King!” he said, his voice booming like a mountain giant. He repeated it again and again, like a chant. Each time more knights joined in until the mantra was the loudest of shouts and Britt feared they would bring the castle down.
Britt’s eyes burned as she straightened and looked at her sea of knights. It was a beautiful sight, and it made Britt’s heart ache. She had failed them. Britt was too easily persuaded into thinking that her knights were fickle when she should have fought for them.
Never again, Britt vowed as a shy smile crept across her lips.
When Britt lifted her chin and flashed a white smile at her knights they lost it. The shouting and roaring was louder than it had ever been for Morgause as the knights of Camelot celebrated their lord.
Britt looked down the aisle of the throne room, and pinned Morgause in place.
The beautiful queen was rolling her eyes from one side of the throne room to the other. Her expression was unreadable, but her lips tightened. The Orkney queen turned to speak to her sons, but Gawain and Agravain had knelt with Britt’s knights and were shouting with them. Gaheris and Gareth were jumping up and down in boyish glee, yelling at the top of their lungs.
Britt made her move and swept up to Morgause while her back was to Britt. “Please, walk with me, Morgause,” Britt said, forcefully tucking the queen’s arm in hers before pulling her out of the clamorous throne room.
The queen’s face was pale and drawn as Britt walked her out of the castle keep and in the direction of the stables. They walked past them, heading for a tiny herb garden Britt knew the cook kept.
It was abandoned at this time of the day, but it was tucked out of the way and—more importantly—out of sight.
Britt pushed Morgause into the small garden ahead of her and unsheathed Excalibur. The faerie sword flashed in the dim light as Britt held it at her side.
“Give me three good reasons why I shouldn’t be done with you and kill you right now,” Britt said.
While Britt acknowledged she had wrongly judged her men, she was more furious with Morgause than ever before. Morgause’s trip was nothing but an act of war, and she had tried to enchain Britt’s knights and Britt. While she would never go so far as to kill Morgause the Orkney queen didn’t need to know that. Besides, Britt didn’t think Morgause would think highly of the other option—bondage in Camelot’s dungeons as a hostage until her husband paid up.
Morgause widened her eyes and moved to step closer to Britt. “My Lord, why would you—,”
“Not another step,” Britt said, placing the tip of Excalibur’s blade near Morgause’s throat. “I know you have some kind of enchantment up your sleeve, so you had best stop pretending and start talking unless you want me to skewer you.”
“How dishonorable, to lay hands upon a lady with the intent—,”
“You are no lady,” Britt interrupted.
“But a man should never attack a woman, it’s, it’s,” Morgause said, retreating several steps.
“Oh? But it’s perfectly acceptable for you to attack a man, is it?” Britt asked, her smile was frosty like cracking ice.
