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Gwen's shoulders are heavy and her throat is tight. Her eyes are burning with her frustration. She can still hear the chittering of the ladies of the court, can still see how they looked at her out of the corner of their eyes.
Don't worry my lady, they'd said when she misstepped and served herself at banquet, holding their amusement between their teeth, we understand you were raised under... different circumstances. Cruel, evil women, all of them. She felt no taller than a worm when she stood by them.
Worse, still, is that there was no defense for her. There was no muttered comment in her ear that they were a lot of brainless harpies from Averil. There was no exclamation of disbelief at their behavior by Osmond when she entered the hall. Because these women were nobles, and they were meant to be her friends. And you do not insult a noble woman's friends.
She has never felt so alone, in her entire life.
Gwen enters her chambers as silently as she can. It is late, and Arthur should be sleeping. Should is the key word, because as she glances over the room she finds her husband at his desk, reading over reports by candlelight. That may have meant something to her at a different time. She might have remarked to herself how much this man has grown before her very eyes, from the immature prince of their youths to the burdened king she sees now. But she doesn't have the sense of mind to do so.
"Did you enjoy the banquet?" he asks absently, cutting a line through something with his quill. "My apologies for leaving so early, I just can't stand those..." and his voice trails off when he looks up at her. She curls her arms over herself. She can't imagine how dreadful she must look, red in the face from holding back her tears and her hair frizzed from running her hands through it. "My lord, whatever happened?" he asks, and Gwen's chin trembles. She can't stand it.
"I--" she stops, unable to articulate what she wishes to say. She doesn't want to sound ungrateful. She loves Arthur so. She loves him for the risk he has taken in marrying for love, for defying every tradition just for her. But god, does it ever hurt. She takes a breath, but it catches in her throat, and comes back out in a sob. She presses her hand to her face to hide how it crumples.
"Oh, dear, come here," he says gently, and pushes back from the desk to allow her room. He makes to stand, but she hitches her dress up in her hands and sits directly on his lap. She wraps her arms around his middle and soaks up his warmth, and he rubs his hands so firm and reassuring on her back. She sucks in rasping breaths as she cries, deep in her chest and ugly, her mouth open and downturned with a line of saliva connecting her teeth, her face fever hot and red and wrinkled.
"I can't do this," she cries, "I can't, Arthur."
"Can't do what?" he asks in return. His chin is tucked over her shoulder.
"This, I can't deal with those--" she breathes in so hard that she coughs-- "those witches in your court with their snide remarks and stupid, mean looks, I just don't fit in with them," she says, her voice warbled and high pitched.
"Of course you don't," he says, and kisses her shoulder with reverence, "I love that about you. It's what makes you a good queen." She presses her lips together and gives a miserable little hum. "You don't need those women anyways. What about all your friends, the servants?" That starts her up crying again.
"It's no different!" she wails. "None of them treat me the same. It's like I'm a completely different person. Like I'm waiting to smack them down, or put them in the stocks." She buries her face in his shoulder, her tears and her snot soaking his tunic, her voice muffled when she says, "I don't have anyone!"
"I'm so sorry, my love," he says.
"And these dresses are too hard to get out of!" She continues, something in her broken open and gushing with every little upset that has plagued her. "There are so many buttons, and it takes too long to put them on and take them off, and I'm going to die with my arm stuck in one of those dreadful sleeves!"
"That sounds awful," Arthur says, a tinge of amusement in his voice and his lips curled in a smile where they touch her neck. He rubs her back one last time and pulls away, only slightly. He holds the end of his sleeve in his hand. "I'll tell you what we'll do," he says, and begins to wipe her face. He dabs around her eyes first, then drags his sleeve softly over her cheeks and chin, and lastly wipes her nose and upper lip. "Firstly, I'll put a kingdom-wide ban on all buttons." She manages to laugh, if only a little, the action pulling forth a last round of tired, easy tears. "Then," he says, his voice softer and more serious, "I'll tell every last one of those lemon-faced courtiers that they have no right to speak to their queen in poor taste."
Gwen takes a breath in, finally calmed of the storm that raged within her, and cups her husband's face in her hands. Oh, how she loves him. She rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones. She hopes that it comes through, with every look, and word, and second spent in his company, how deeply that love is felt. She would spent every night in a room full of those awful women if it only meant she could have him as her own, her love.
"In the mean time," he says, "let's have a bath." She dips down and presses a kiss to his lips.
"You'll have to give me a moment to undress," she says.
And Arthur reaches for the dagger in his boot, and turns it in his hand, and presses the sharp tip to the fabric of her bodice. "I have no intention of waiting that long," he says with a grin, and it is Gwen's laughter, rather than her tears, that slip through the cracks of their chamber doors.