THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) Read Free Page A

our party rode through Camelot’s gates and arrived in its great courtyard, night was almost fallen, and at the edges of the sky I could see the little white stars peeping out, and the ghost of the moon in a sky that was still indigo with night. This is the last moon I will see as a free woman , I thought. I slid down off my horse and handed Sir Kay the reins. Our hands brushed as I passed them and our eyes met, but this time I saw that I had been mistaken in what I had seen in him before. The look he gave me was not one of lust – as I had thought before – but something more complex, softer. A look of kind interest, but also of strange affinity, as though he knew me already, and as he brushed past me to take the horse by the nose and lead it away I felt a power that I recognised, and I understood that Kay was one of the Otherworld, and he had seen it in me too. My father had told me that I would meet others like us at Arthur’s court, and this giant of a man – for Kay stood head and shoulders above me, and I was tall for a woman – left some strange vibration in the air that was at once unexpected and deeply familiar to me. I felt I would be pleased to have him around.
    The other knights had not introduced themselves. Lot’s son had jumped down from his horse, leaving Margery stranded on the back of the charger, clinging on to the saddle, unable to get down, terrified and unable to ride or jump down safely from a horse so large. I made to walk to her and help her down, and Kay put a gentle hand on my arm to hold me back. I felt it then for sure, the warmth of knowing, of the same Otherworld blood in our veins. I wished harder that it was he, not Arthur, that I would wed. One of my own. What would a man with no magic in his blood do with my father’s Round Table?
    “Gawain, help her down,” Kay scolded patiently. Now I had a name for Lot’s son, and it was the one whose reputation on the battlefield had already reached me. The second of them, I thought. I wondered if the other sons, too, were at Arthur’s court. He strode back over and plucked Margery down from the saddle, his hands around her waist, and placed her lightly on the floor. He didn’t look at her or say anything, and he disappeared down a stone hallway into the night.
    “Don’t mind Gawain,” Kay said, his gaze following where Gawain had gone, his tone distracted for a moment, before he turned to me. “He is not usually so uncourteous. His mother blames him for bringing his brothers to Arthur’s court. She thinks he should have stayed in Lothian. She’s worried that all his brothers will follow him here. They probably will.” Kay turned back with a smile, less serious, and I was glad. “He usually wouldn’t pass up a chance to put his hands on a fair lady, such as your Margery.”
    Kay gave Margery a gentle little nod of a bow, and she seemed to relax. He had an easy charm about him; another gift from the Otherworld, I supposed.
    The knight Kay had shared his horse with trotted over. He was a large man, muscle-bound like an ox. I could see it in the way he moved, with an easy, muscular grace. He had a tanned, handsome face and a ready smile, and his golden hair was scruffy from the ride. He looked like an overgrown boy, flushed with excitement, and eager to get off to some game or other. I wondered if he were Kay’s squire. He jumped down from the horse and handed the reins to Kay.
    “Sir Kay, I hope you don’t mind taking the horses.” He turned to me and inclined his head. “My lady, Princess Guinevere.”
    I inclined my head in return, and the knight strode away. Marie and Christine had been helped from their mounts and were looking anxiously to me, uneasy about what we should do. I did not know either. It was not my country. They were not even speaking my native language. My head hurt already from the effort of speaking it, of understanding, and I just wanted to go to sleep. I had no idea what I was meant to do, did not know the