Promised to You

by Gina Cole

  “Yeah, it’s feeling a little rushed - but in a weird way – it’s perfect.”

  “Verily, you have the strangest language at times wife,” he said with a smile. “Now, prepare yourself. We shall wash up before breaking our fast and must hurry or the camp shall head on without us.”

  They travelled for several days in the same pattern. Get up, ride horseback for an ungodly amount of time, get off said horse, work like a dog preparing food for the massive group of soldiers, and then fall into Gawain’s loving arms every night before falling asleep. She was getting quite tired of this nomadic pattern and understood why people revered pilgrimages as a badge of honor.

  It was for the birds!

  If she had to do this for years?

  She’d dig her heels in and refuse to leave – saying as much to Gawain over dinner this evening as they sat together on the little wooden stools that seemed to be a favorite of several of the higher born. Others would sit on the ground, fallen trees, or large rock.

  “This is tiring. Don’t you want a home of our own?”

  “We are headed to Tintagel on the coast.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Another day’s ride from here. We are in enemy territory and we will not tarry here long. They…”

  A loud horn blasted through the air and Gawain shot to his feet in alarm. He reached forward and yanked Gwen up, almost painfully, by the arm.

  “To battle, wife! Take heed and hide!” he bit out, pointing at Guinevere and the other women that were turning to run towards the embankment for shelter.

  Gwen wasn’t stupid – and didn’t have to be told twice.

  She watched as Gawain drew his sword, running forward into the oncoming nightmarish fray. The men charging at them seemed to be almost animalistic and heathenish. Their faces and bodies were streaked with mud and paint, their waists covered in furs and hides. She had no idea who these people were, nor was she about to stick around and introduce herself.

  Sliding down the steep embankment, she plastered herself against the earthen wall as much as possible at seeing several arrows imbed themselves just opposite of where she was. The sounds of battle were deafening. The loud clanging of swords, screams of men dying, and sheer violence being inflicted were nauseating. She’d never seen or heard anything remotely like this back in her own time.

  “Doesn’t this just get your blood pumping?” Eve said suddenly, making Gwen jump in fear at the unexpected appearance.

  “I’m going to put a bell around your neck, woman!” Gwen snapped angrily. “There’s a very real possibility I could resemble a pincushion from the amount of arrows flying out there and you are playing peek-a-boo!”

  “I see you,” Eve sang playfully.

  Gwen gave her a dry look before glancing up at the grass that seemed to be clinging to the edge of earth above her. It was symbolism at its finest. She clung to what she knew and everything hung on the fact that she wasn’t about to get dislodged once again.

  If Gawain died today…

  No.

  He couldn’t! There would be stories, tales, and legends of the Knights of the Roundtable… wouldn’t there?

  “Maybe,” Eve shrugged nonchalantly, inspecting her fingernails.

  “He has to be okay, doesn’t he?”

  “Time is fluid and dynamic. You go with the flow and sometimes the drain gets stopped up so you just grab the plunger and move on.”

  “My life is not a toilet.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Not really,” Gwen gaped at Eve’s indifference. “I’m starting to wonder now…”

  “Sooo, did Gawain ever marry in your history books?”

  “You tell me… ohhh my gosh…”

  Gwen looked at Eve in dawning horror and comprehension. He had married someone because he had sons, but nothing was ever said about any other children or wives that she knew of.

  Was Eve trying to tell her something?

  Does Gawain die and she’s pregnant?

  Did she die?

  Gawain slid down the embankment with several barbarian men.

  “Here comes all your answers, honey!” Eve crowed. A bag of popcorn appeared in her hand and she began snacking on it. “I love this part of the movie but it has a tendency to make me cry sometimes. Do be a dear and fetch a napkin for me?”

  “You are gonna have to wait a long time for those paper napkins!” Gwen snapped, backing up, and allowing room for the sword to swing freely in the crevice of open earth they were hiding in. Several of the women began screaming and pushing at Gwen’s back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that they were being cornered and now trapped. Gawain was frantically swinging, hitting the men with his sword. His face was covered with sweat and blood, taut with effort… to protect her.

  She saw the fear in his mercurial grey eyes, realizing there was a chance they could lose this battle. He wasn’t worried about himself or injury – he was thinking of her and her safety.

  And she had never loved him more in this moment.

  “I love you,” she said suddenly, aware that this might be her only chance to say it to him. If one, or both of them fell today, she would regret never having said the words. She would miss their moments of laughter as they made love in that ratty little field tent. The sweet sighs of happiness and stolen kisses.

  “I am always yours, my love,” he bit out, hacking at the nearest man, turning away from her. She knew he would protect her with his very life.

  “Isn’t the heat of battle sexy?” Eve said loudly.

  “Not really… oh…”

  Gwen started as she felt something sharp pierce her side. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she saw Gawain’s broken gaze meet hers. A raw ragged cry tore from his beloved lips as he moved to her side, instantly killing the man that had broken through the line. Gwen looked up to see some of the other knights jumping into the fray to help the battered people that had taken cover.

  Gawain sank to his knees, holding her against him.

  “Gwen, you must… I cannot…”

  “Shhh…” she breathed, reaching up to touch his beautiful face only to see that her hand was covered in blood and trembling. He reached for her hand, uncaring, pressing it against his cheek as tears streamed down his face.

  “You cannot leave me,” he whispered brokenly.

  “You can’t rescue me forever,” she teased, tasting blood in her mouth as it bubbled up. Sir-sticks-alot must have knicked something major to have this sort of reaction from a sword wound.

  “I would always want to be at your side,” he vowed softly. “It would be my honor to champion you always, my sweet wife.”

  “AWWW here’s where I cry,” Eve wailed indelicately, fanning herself wildly before shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth. Gwen couldn’t even comment at this point, she felt like she was drowning, and the pain was worse than any bee sting she’d ever suffered. Every breath she drew was agony… but every tear that fell from Gawain’s devastated gaze hurt even worse.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered, hating the gargle in her words as blood fell from her lips. “I will wait in the stars for you, husband.”

  “I will meet you there, beloved,” he pledged tenderly, kissing her lips, heedless of the blood. Gwen felt herself slip away as her eyes closed uncontrollably. The last thing she heard was Gawain’s broken cry of despair.

  Help him, she beseeched, fading quickly.

  Chapter 8

  “Miss? Miss? Are you alright?”

  Gwen heard the voice ask her forcefully several times and winced as the stab of an injection right into her thigh burned like wildfire. Stupid epi-pen! Her eyes shot wide open as she realized that there were absolutely no epi-pens to be found in fifth century England.

  Hanging baskets dangled from plastic hooks above her head and a bright blue sky glistened above with one single wide water vapor trail from a jet plane bisected her view. Plants spilling over the black plastic trays lined the wooden table
s, just as it had when she’d gotten stung and collapsed onto them.

  “Where am I?” she wheezed.

  “You are at Kelly’s Garden Center. Do you remember getting stung by a bee? I think if someone hadn’t come upon you so quickly, you might not have made it,” the paramedic said kindly. “We are going to go ahead and take you in to make sure everything’s okay. It’s a good thing you had one of these pens with you and were wearing an ID bracelet to let us know.”

  “Eve? Gawain?” Gwen called out, her throat whistling from the swelling.

  “Is that your children? A friend? Family member we should call?”

  Gwen looked around and saw that she was alone.

  All alone.

  She felt tears well up and burn at her eyes. Shaking her head negatively, she remained mute, afraid that she would blurt out the story of her beloved husband and her time in Britain. They would lock her away for sure, knowing she’d thumped her head a little too hard on the ground this time around.

  “It’s alright. I know you aren’t feeling good but we’ll get you some help in just a bit. Just try to rest,” the paramedic said politely as they lifted the gurney and began to roll her out of the garden center. It wasn’t that she just felt bad… no…

  She felt broken – like she was torn in two, never to heal again.

  “Gawain,” she whispered, feeling the tears she’d been holding back let loose. A handkerchief was shoved in her hands and she barely noticed it. She craved the little field tent or a chance to see his smile once again. She would give anything to know he was safe, happy, and whole.

  Even if her life was falling apart at the seams, if there was a chance that he’d lived a full life of his own and became a legend, she could read of him and picture him. He would live on in her mind until she could rejoin him again.

  Feeling a pinch on her arm, Gwen realized that they’d started an IV drip on her. A wave of dizziness hit her as something was injected into the line.

  “This will help you sleep a bit and make you comfortable.”

  A month later, several tissue boxes later, and an unknown amount of ice cream… Gwen was numb. She spent hours and hours online searching for stories about him. Where had he been? What was real and what was myth? She found herself studying drawings and paintings – only to realize that none of them showed his sweet dimple on his cheek when he smiled or how his eyes sparkled when he laughed.

  Gawain was gone.

  She had never felt such a keen sense of loss before in her life like this. It felt like her soul had been eviscerated – that the most essential part of her was torn from her very essence and she was forced to pick up the pieces.

  Eve was blessedly absent during all of this. It was probably healthier for her to be – because Gwen did not look good in prison orange – and she would be tempted to inflict bodily harm on the woman that had given her heaven and then abandoned her to this hell.

  What else could knowing love and losing it be described as?

  She woke in the middle of the night several times, sweating and crying out Gawain’s name. Those precious moments they shared played over and over again in her mind, in her dreams. The legend of the knight was there in the history books – but no word of happiness.

  Did he miss her?

  Did he cry like she did?

  The stories said that Gawain went to Arthur about Guinevere’s infidelity. She could only imagine the hurt, betrayal, and jealously he might have felt. They’d been happy and in love…

  Guinevere had that same love and threw it away… for a slime ball!

  She took heart in knowing that the stories got exaggerated and twisted over time. Lancelot had been portrayed as a noble hero torn between his king and his love for a woman. The dog couldn’t keep it in his trousers… yet that was left out of the tales.

  The tale of Le Morte de Arthur, it described his death. There were so many different tales, so many different versions, but in each one – it talked of his passing due to a wound at the skull. His beautiful soul, snuffed out, and waiting for her somewhere.

  That is what hurt the worst.

  She would wait another forty, fifty, or sixty years and said prayers daily for them to be reunited on the other side… yet Gawain would have waited centuries upon centuries.

  Yet, she knew he would be there, somehow, deep in her soul.

  She would see him again.

  Today she was taking a moment for herself. She needed something to take her mind off of things and hopefully make her heart feel a little better. There were just some moments that just hurt so much… indescribably so. A coworker had mentioned a new exhibit at the local museum and she hadn’t indulged in anything like that in ages – probably not since she was in grade school. Art just wasn’t her thing. She read books, did puzzles, or liked to feed the ducks at a pond near her house.

  Smiling politely at the cashier behind the Plexiglass, she slid her money under the small cut out and accepted her ticket. Dutifully, she held open her purse for inspection before entering the building and instantly felt glad she had come.

  Massive soaring ceilings were decorated with art glass chandeliers that cast a beautiful glow on the floor where she stood. As she slowly stepped forward in awe of the beauty of the building, she saw several paintings to her left. Turning, she walked down the first of several exhibits. Large oil paintings were illuminated along the walls by tiny lights that were angled to highlight the scene incredibly.

  Turning to walk down the next aisle, she stopped dead in her tracks and caught her breath. There was a stunning oil painting at the end of the hallway that washed away all thought and filled her soul with longing.

  The painting was of a knight and a woman. The placard beside the painting was labeled as untitled and painted almost a hundred and seventy years ago. It wasn’t the fact that the painting was lovely beyond belief – it was the subjects captured in that moment of time.

  The knight was in an armor suit, which seemed out of place because Gawain never wore armor that she saw… yet the man’s face was his beloved profile. His dark head was bent and she knew deep in her heart that the subject’s eyes were grey and warm with love for the woman kneeling at his feet.

  Brown hair cascaded down her back as her neck was arched, looking upwards to her knight. A simple gown hung from her frame and her hand was clasped on his. You could see the love and need in their expressions and it brought tears to her eyes.

  Oh man, she missed him.

  Gwen stared, unable to tear her eyes away.

  “She looks a lot like you,” a woman said kindly. Gwen quickly turned to her, to see if it was Eve popping up once again out of thin air. The woman had the best and absolute worst timing ever. Instead, she saw a woman sitting on a bench, staring up at the painting.

  Gwen sat down beside her, almost gingerly, wondering if this was some sort of trick her mind was playing on her. The woman was staring at the painting with the same expression, almost wistfully.

  “I had a love like that once,” she admitted, smiling. “I had to make a choice and I think I made the wrong one. It was right at the time but it still hurt. The pain and memories fade, but you never forget that feeling – do you?”

  “No, you don’t,” Gwen said thickly.

  “How long ago did you lose him?”

  “Too long,” she answered, feeling a tear spill onto her cheeks.

  “My Arthur has been gone for years on end and I wish I could tell him how sorry I truly am for my actions.”

  Gwen stared at the older woman’s visage, searching the wrinkles and age spots for what she already suspected somehow. Faded blue eyes turned to her, now pale with the years, but the knowledge and hurt lurked deep inside. There was no denying who sat before her, misplaced in time.

  “Milady?” Gwen whispered painfully, her throat thick with heartache and her heart hammering wildly.

  “He missed you, you know,” she admitted, laying a delicate hand on Gwen’s where it lay on the small bench between t
hem. She gave a little pat and smiled before turning back to the painting.

  “He was never the same, nothing was, after you died,” Guinevere confessed, staring straight ahead. “We all mourned in our own ways, made mistakes, and were led astray – but Gawain never stopped loving you.”

  “I never stopped loving him. I feel so lost, broken, without him beside me and I don’t think that will ever change. I left my heart back there, milady…” she gasped raggedly, crying unabashedly. “I’m lost without him.”

  “I know you are – and I understand.”

  “Does the hurt ever fade away?”

  “Is that the question you really want to ask me right now?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Guiding you.”

  “Are we going somewhere? Are we going back to Gawain?”

  “No.”

  Gwen reared back as if slapped. She didn’t realize she’d been leaning forward, clenching the frail hands, desperate for hope, only to have it dashed away. She released them and stood, feeling the urge to run. She couldn’t stay here and look upon Guinevere knowing that this woman was here and her beloved husband was not.

  “Where’s Eve?”

  “Clever girl,” Guinevere said slowly, smiling at Gwen.

  “I want to go back,” Gwen said firmly, wiping her eyes.

  “That isn’t the right question to ask,” Eve said smugly, her appearance changing magically from the older woman to the black-haired woman she recognized.

  “I don’t want to play games anymore with you. You abandoned me and tore us apart. What stupid question are you trying to get me to ask you now? How are you wanting me to phrase a question to humor your little mind games?”

  “We aren’t going somewhere…” Eve said with a serene smile, staring at the painting ahead.

  “Then who’s…” Gwen snapped and then stopped midsentence.

  “My clever, clever girl,” Eve said tenderly, patting the seat beside her. Gwen collapsed numbly, staring at Eve. “I’m always impressed by the tenacity a soulmate exhibits once they discover love. It’s all encompassing and simply magical, don’t you agree?”