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She waits for something that might happen. She has no way of knowing. There’s only a glance, only a hint, only a hastily set precedent, only a tugging in her stomach that could be intuition or could be wishful thinking.
Still, she waits, and she works as she waits. She pins the hair out of her face, she pinches her cheeks to give them color; she touches her cheek, her shoulder, her leg, to try and decide what it’ll feel like, to try and decide if she wants it to feel like that. She dismisses her ladies but makes sure they hear the click of the lock, her theatrical declarations that she’s just about to go to bed: There is a standard of play-acting, and Guinevere is only too happy to meet it.
Then, when the work is done, Guinevere simply waits. She paces at first, but she quickly tires of that. She tries sitting down, yet that is tedious too, as is lying down. She tries to organize her jewels, and to make her bed—It’s no use! Guinevere can do nothing but wait, and even waiting bores her. She has spent too much time waiting and has crumpled into dust; There is nothing left of Guinevere except for the waiting, which means that there is nothing to Guinevere except the absence of what she wants. Or doesn’t want.
She waits, still. She drifts. Her slippers leave the flagstones, and Guinevere skims over her—Arthur’s—floor. Much later, someone will ask her whether she regrets this, her betrayal or affair or stepping-off-a-cliff that she is doing right now, within the bounds of Arthur’s own castle.
And Guinevere will have to pause and consider it: Does she regret it? Perhaps she will try to explain that someday there will be a stuffy churchman to say that a king is really two men: The one who is alive, and the one who is God. The one who is permitted feelings like watercolors staining Guinevere’s hands, and the one who is the crown and the crown alone.
Arthur was a snot-nosed boy who couldn’t keep up with Kay, and then he was a king with hair touched by light divine. There is the feeling that Guinevere is married to the boy, or she was to be, but there is, too, the feeling that the boy is dead.
That is to say, Guinevere is married to a dead man, or a saint, and dead men and saints are boring. Guinevere wants many things. Guinevere will not be satisfied with a saint and a dead man. Guinevere will not become a saint or a dead man.
Lancelot appeared and he didn’t like her, and this fascinated her greatly because, whatever dislike is or is not, it was not the absence of feeling characteristic of dead men.
Guinevere did what she could. She was flirtatious and cold by turn; she tried to act like the kind of woman he thought she was, though she wasn’t entirely sure what kind of woman that was. She doubted even Lancelot knew that.
But really, there was no need for her to do anything. There was no escaping each other. Guinevere supposes it’s because they’re the only two who don’t love Arthur. No, not, it’s not the love that’s missing, she amends herself. It’s trust.
Arthur is something between a husband and a father, to both of them, and this means that Guinevere needs a secret. She needs to hide something from Arthur, even if it’s something small and inconsequential. Just to keep herself real, intact, untouched by holy light. To keep herself from being taken over.
This is what Lancelot is good for.
Guinevere stands, walks, sits, fidgets, stands up again. Guinevere waits, and no. No, she doesn’t regret it. Not yet.
♥
If you were to ask Lancelot whether he trusts the King, the answer would be a confident Yes. Anything else is treason or will, at the very least, mean that everyone is angry with him. Lancelot would like to avoid both outcomes. So he would say Yes. Yes, of course, and he wouldn’t give a moment’s thought as to whether or not he believes himself.
But you can’t ask him just now, because Lancelot is scaling Guinevere’s tower in the dark. He doesn’t think of whether he should or whether he wants to do things like this—Stupid things, romantic things, fairy tale things—he only sees that he can, so here he is with his dark hair unbound and bleeding into the night as he goes foothold to foothold, ever upwards.
Lancelot has never waited for anything.
He knows only that Guinevere is beautiful, he knows only that he doesn’t like her, or that he is angry with her, he knows only that he is here, now, climbing the tower. He knows this. What he doesn’t know, and what he has never bothered to ask, is Why.
So instead: Lancelot feels cold stones through the soles of his boots and on his bare palms. Later, he will have tiny scrapes on his skin. This will feel good. It will prove something. Later, he will have another secret, and this will make him want to vomit. He will feel like his insides are too large; he will feel like his secrets are bigger than a body—He will feel his body come apart at the seams, spilling everything onto the street.
After that destruction—Who knows? For once, Lancelot will not know. He will only taste fear, and even that will pass through him. When he is truly empty, then there will be only one word left and that word will be Why?
But this has not come yet, and Lancelot does not see it coming. Now, he is silent in the night. Now, he is climbing Guinevere’s tower. In a moment, he will reach the window and tap lightly on the glass. Guinevere will be standing at her table, adjusting some trinket or other. She will look up and smile, as if she has been waiting for this, and then she will come and open the window.