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Eventually, she has to admit to herself that what some are saying is true. Prince Arthur is, indeed, staring at her, or after her, quite often.
Gwen had thought it a nice little fantasy while it lasted, but she always knew nothing could come of it. She wasn’t surprised when he eventually came to her, with the serious look on his face she recognised from when he put duty over his own feelings, and told her that his father - the King - would never understand, and that they couldn’t be together.
She had known, of course. What prince courts a servant girl? He’ll be expected to marry for the betterment of Camelot, and put any potential feelings aside. Even if he actually truly had loved her, which she can’t quite imagine he did, it was never going to last. So she agreed, and if her heart might have broken a little bit in the process, that is no one’s business, really. She knows that if she doesn’t guard her heart well, from now on, she might end up unhappily pining after someone she can never have, so she will try not to think about it too much - but nevertheless, she cannot regret her brief time with Arthur.
But even though she tries not to look, and even though she tries to act like any other servant around him, apparently he doesn’t feel the need to do the same, and she knows what some say downstairs and in the attics and she’s felt the glances from the cook and once even from the steward.
Arthur stares at her, and the other servants have noticed.
“He’s looking again”, Floree says, barely moving her lips and studiously not looking at Gwen, nor at Arthur, nor at anyone else in the half-filled banquet hall.
Something in Gwen’s stomach twists. “He’s just looking this way, is all”, she says, but she doesn’t look up to see whether Floree is right or not, because even though nothing will ever happen between them, the fact that he might be looking still sends a thrilled warmth through her, and if Floree is only exaggerating, she doesn’t want proof.
“And had you been over there, he’d been looking that way”, Floree says drily and nods towards the far corner.
“Don’t be silly, Floree”, says Gwen, adjusting her grip on the half-filled wine pitcher. “I’m a servant. Of course he isn’t looking at me.”
Floree snorts. “You should hope not. But you’re wrong.”
The assurance in her voice is extremely gratifying, but then her words catch up with Gwen, and she cannot stop a frown. “What do you mean, I should hope not?”
Floree is at that moment called to the table to refill someone’s ale from her own pitcher, and so she doesn’t reply.
Gwen doesn’t get the chance to talk uninterrupted to Floree again that evening, and the next morning, she doesn’t find a chance to bring it up in casual conversation, and after that, she almost forgets Floree said anything about it at all.
But she starts checking more often, whether Arthur is indeed looking her way, and it seems Floree was right. She knows it is never to be, but it warms her, nonetheless.
“Is all this for me?” Gwen asks, looking at the three large - and heavy-looking - baskets with a sinking feeling.
Etta, sleeves rolled up over her elbows and red in the face from the steaming heat in the room and her own exertions, shrugs unconcernedly. “You’ll manage.”
“I’ll have to take them one at a time”, she thinks aloud, picking one up to test the weight. Yes, unfortunately, that will probably be the case, she decides. She was already hungry, and hadn’t quite given herself time for three turns back and forth. Oh well, nothing to be done about it.
“Not my problem the lady changes shifts about twice a day”, Etta says and pours new hot water from a kettle into the huge laundry tub in front of her. “You should ask’er to be a bit more economical. Save both our backs.”
Gwen grimaces. “She just likes being clean, is all.”
“Imagine that would be nice”, Etta agrees amicably, already scrubbing another noble’s underthings in her tub.
Gwen carries first one basket, then another, the long, windling way from the laundry to Lady Morgana’s room, folds shifts and rolls napkins and socks and puts them in drawers, and carefully hangs the fragile silk shifts that are made to be seen through dresses and surcoats in the wardrobe, before deciding she can be allowed a small break to find a bite to eat before taking the last of the laundry up. She stacks the basket, one in the other, and leaves for downstairs.
The kitchens are busy enough that she decides to leave the baskets by the door before entering. Cook is yelling at some poor kitchen hand over a pie lid sprinkled full of ash, as she sneaks between fast-turning skirts, avoids hot trays and pushes past someone with a “sorry, sorry”, to reach the pantry. She decides against staying in the bustle and noise, and instead grabs a pear, before zig-zagging her way out of the kitchens again.
Baskets under one arm and busy eating the fruit with her other hand, she pays too little attention to where she runs up the stairs and turns at the top.
“Oof”, someone says, and she drops the pear and loses her balance with a startled: “Oh!”, and she might have fallen back down the stairs again, if not for the firm hand gripping her elbow to straighten her.
“Thank you!” she says, almost breathless, and looks up. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Watch where you run”, Arthur says teasingly. “You almost knocked me out.”
“Yes - I’m sorry”, she says again, then, without thinking: “Did I really?”
He laughs, not unkindly, and doesn’t dignify that with a response. “You in a hurry?” he asks instead, and finally lets go of her arm. It tingles where he grabbed her, but not unpleasantly.
“Not really”, she says, but even as she does so, she feels herself wanting to be on the move again. “I’m just - I’m really hungry”, she admits with a self-decrepitating laugh. “And I still have another load of laundry to carry before I can get something proper to eat.” She regretfully looks down at her now crushed pear on the stone floor.
Arthur looks as well, then at her, then at her baskets, miraculously still under her other arm. He reaches out and takes them from her, and says: “I’ll follow you there. It’s the least I can do for ruining your food”, he adds with raised eyebrows and glittering eyes, with a nod to the pear.
She huffs a laugh, and gives him a mocking half-curtsy. “Very generous of you, my lord, I’m sure.”
They walk next to each other down the hall, then down another, and Gwen’s shoulder that’s barely an inch from Arthur’s arm tingles with warmth. He even follows her down the set of stairs to the laundry room, and Etta startles to her feet as they come to stand in the doorway with a half-choked: “Sire!”
He hands Gwen the baskets back, once they’re down, and she receives them with the same half-curtsy from before and a smile that she can’t help, and repeats: “Very generous indeed.”
“I’ll see you around”, Arthur says, smirks, and disappears.
She allows herself to look after him for a brief moment, allows her heart to flutter wildly for just a little while, before turning to smile brightly at Etta, who stands behind her laundry basin with her dripping arms now folded on her chest, an unreadable expression on her face.
Gwen puts down the empty laundry baskets in the pile next to the door, then lifts the last one destined for Morgana’s chambers with a groan. “This is heavier than it looks. Truly, Etta, I don’t know how you manage.”
Etta frowns, making her many wrinkles deepen. “You’re careful, aren’t you, love?”
Gwen smiles. “Oh, that’s kind of you, but there’s no need to worry, really, it’s just me complaining. Lady Morgana is good to me.”
Etta shakes her head slowly. “That’s not who I’m worried about, love.”
“Oh?” Gwen hoists the basket higher on her hip. “Then I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Etta looks at her, as if she’s looking for something in Gwen’s face, but eventually, she seems to give up. She sighs. “Of course you don’t. Never you mind, lass.” And then she continues under her breath: “All children must play with fire at least once before they learn it burns them, I suppose.”
Gwen gives her a confused look, but Etta turns back towards her basin, purses her lips, and is clearly done with the conversation.
Gwen leaves feeling unsettled, but doesn’t know why.
“Guinevere!”
She startles from her thoughts, having half-run down the stairs to the courtyard with her head on her very long list of things to do before she needs to dress Morgana for dinner, but she already knows who has called her name when she looks up to search for the source.
Only one person in Camelot calls her by her full name, and he is standing in the middle of the courtyard, holding a horse in one hand, letting his other rest comfortably on the hilt of his sword.
“Sire”, she says in greeting, when she’s come down the last of the stairs and come closer, and if the title is maybe warmer than it should have been, no one should notice.
Arthur looks at her, though, as if he noticed, and gives her a hint of a smile in reply. “We’re leaving for the Northern Plains”, he says, and glances backwards to encompass six or seven knights in his we, who are all already on their horses and studiously not looking at them. Merlin, on the horse at the very back, gives her a quick smile and a small nod, before looking away as well - his version of giving them privacy, she assumes.
“I see”, she says, and tries to sound neutral. She always worries, when he leaves the city of Camelot.
She must have let some of it on in her voice, because Arthur assures her: “We’ll be gone a week at most.”
“I wish you the best of luck, then”, she says, because she can’t very well say please be careful and or inquire as to what they will be doing, when other people are listening, and she doesn’t quite know what else to say.
It seems that Arthur doesn’t either. “Hold my horse for a moment, will you?” he asks after a stilted pause, and hands her the reins.
“O- of course.”
Gwen’s discomfort at his leaving her standing there with his horse, fully saddled, and six or seven knights carefully not staring at her, is surprisingly strong. She feels exposed, and so raises her chin slightly to counteract the feeling. She’s been asked by the Prince to do something, and so she should, and so she will. But she wishes Merlin had been closer, so she at least could have talked to him.
She catches the stable hand - Ben, she thinks his name is - glaring at her from his post by the water trough, and surprised, she meets his eyes.
She doesn’t think she imagines his disapproving shake of the head, but she must have - she can’t imagine what he believes she’s done wrong. He can’t have heard their conversation, and even if he had, they didn’t say anything improper. For that matter, it isn’t really a stable hand’s place to disapprove of a handmaiden, but Gwen has never really put stock into such hierarchies and isn’t about to start now.
Thankfully, whatever Arthur’s errand was, it doesn’t take long. “Thanks”, he says quietly, and her heart jumps unbidden when his hand brushes hers, when he takes the reins back. She can’t help a small smile, and is gratified to see one on him as well.
“Anytime”, she whispers, before backing off towards the water trough, to be out of the way.
Arthur sits up on his horse, looks around at his little patrol, and announces: “Well, we should be off. Everyone ready?”
He is met with a general sound of assent, and they follow him out the gates. Arthur doesn’t look back at her, and she didn’t expect him to. Still, she lets herself stand and watch until the last knight has left the courtyard, before she sighs, preparing herself for a week of worry and longing, on top of her normal work.
The stable hand on the other side of the water trough, who she is almost entirely convinced is called Ben, shoots her a look, when the courtyard is entirely cleared. “You shouldn’t encourage him”, he says, and she can feel him reeking of disapproval.
Gwen stares. “Encourage him?”
Ben scoffs. “Don’t play daft, you know full well what I’m talking about.”
Beginning to feel annoyed, she shakes her head. “I don’t, but I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
Ben shrugs. “Don’t say nobody warned you. He’ll tire of you soon enough, and then you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
He walks off, leaving her staring after him, completely speechless.
And then, slowly, with a sinking feeling in her guts, Gwen puts together the stable hand’s disapproval with Etta’s worry and Floree’s peculiar comments at the feast, and sees for the first time what they must see, when the Prince of Camelot looks at a servant girl.
The problem is that a week of Arthur’s absence gives her far too much time to think. Not only that, but her realisation in the courtyard has made her extremely aware of the other servants’ stares, whispers, and disapproving looks, and now she sees them everywhere, and she sees them for what they are.
They don’t see a romance, when they look at the stares Arthur sends her - oh, no. They all believe Guinevere warms Arthur’s bed.
And now when she is aware of it, any stare or off-hand comment that might once have made her heart flutter from the thought of Arthur being interested in her, now instead makes her feel ashamed and exposed. The disapproving stares she can handle, at least somewhat. They tend to break off and shake their heads, if she stares back - the more defiantly, the better, she learns. The insinuating comments, however, make her face heat up and she can never think of anything to say, which she knows is taken as confirmation of everyone’s suspicions.
Worst of all are the pitying looks some of the older servants give her, who clearly believe she hasn’t given herself to the Prince entirely voluntarily - who knows that one can only deflect, or make sure to be unavailable, but never outright refuse, if a Prince were to ask you to come to his chambers at night. Servants obey orders, after all.
And Arthur is away, which gives her respite in some ways, but in others…
When she walks home late at night, her shawl drawn tight over her shoulders, her thoughts turn against her. What if everyone’s right in what they’re thinking? It would make more sense than what she’s been thinking so far. It really would be so much more reasonable to think Arthur had turned what might once have been an infatuation, or a crush, into want, or desire. The Prince of Camelot and a servant girl? Ridiculous, as far as love stories go, but not unheard of, not even uncommon, if one were to say that said Prince had only taken the servant girl to his bed.
He’d said they couldn’t be together, and she’d agreed, because of course they couldn’t pursue their feelings for each other. But… what if the reason he stared so at her now, was because he’d realised he didn’t have to… abstain… entirely?
It is more than likely, she realises, and her heart feels like it’s sinking. It is probable. Yes, that must be so. Arthur has given up on her as a possible wife, and queen - as he should - but he has not given up on having her by his side. In his bed.
Gods, she wishes she could talk to Merlin.
But then again, she reflects, when she has changed into her night shirt and climbed down into her bed, she wouldn’t know how to breach the subject with him, even if she dared, and even if he wasn’t also traipsing along with Arthur across the Northern Plains, at the moment. And what would she say, anyway? That the other servants are staring, and it makes her uncomfortable? That she worries Arthur might lust after her, and she doesn’t know what to do about it? No, she can barely imagine that conversation with Merlin, and it makes her shudder in embarrassment just to think about. She will have to figure this out for herself.
And Arthur wouldn’t make her, Gwen tells herself, and turns on the other side in her bed, staring into the darkness. He is an honourable man, despite his occasional lack of insight into the ways of the commoners. He wouldn’t ask anything of her she doesn’t want to give.
So, she thinks, it really boils down to this: now she has to figure out how much she does want to give, and if she can stand being without him entirely, if she were to refuse him.
She closes her eyes. She has some four days, before he is to return.
She has time to figure it out, before then.
There were rumours, a few years back, about a seamstress from town. She was called Etilda, and she was very skilled. Gwen never saw anything as beautiful in her life, as what Etilda could make with needle and silk thread, and Etilda must have liked the attention and the company of the girl, because she allowed her in. As a child, after her mother died and she didn’t quite know what to do with herself, Gwen got to sit in Etilda’s workshop and watch her carefully handle the expensive fabrics imported from lands far beyond the Camelot borders, which she measured carefully and cut with a huge, sharp pairs of scissors that always hung next to the table. Gwen knew then that she wanted to be a seamstress, like Etilda. The court, or so it was said, came to know about Etilda’s skills, and she was called up to the castle more and more often, and she came back to her house glowing with pride and with new orders for new garments several times a month.
Eventually, or so they say, King Uther had heard so much about this new seamstress from the lower town, that he wanted Etilda to make something for the young lady Morgana. Etilda did, and both the young lady and the King were very pleased with her efforts. Gwen knows, since she was there for some parts of this story, that it was during one of the dress fittings that the King looked at Etilda and asked whether a young lady of Morgana’s age perhaps should benefit from having a little handmaiden of her very own, to help her dress in the new grown-up dresses she now received. Morgana had been overjoyed, Etilda told Gwen afterwards, to be seen as an almost grown woman. Etilda had agreed, because of course one agrees with the King, and dared to venture a suggestion that she knew of a girl that might just suit the role perfectly, if the King would permit her to try.
And as such, Gwen’s hopes of being a seamstress were crushed at the age of eleven. She couldn’t be unhappy about that, though, only grateful, when a woman she looked up to as much as she did Etilda had managed to secure her employment as a real lady’s handmaiden. It was almost too good to be true - and sorely needed, as they had been somewhat lacking in funds, ever since her mother died the year before.
Etilda’s success at court was complete, after that first dress for lady Morgana. King Uther wanted a jacket for himself, and then yet another dress for Morgana. Seeing as she was favoured by the royal family, other nobles which had previously spurned her as a newcomer now suddenly wanted a garment of their own, made by her.
Gwen was too young to understand it all then, at least at first, but the whispers truly started when the King offered Etilda a set of rooms to have her workshop in the castle, instead of in the lower town. To save her the trouble of walking back and forth every day, said the kind voices, isn’t that generous of the King. The people who scoffed and had something nasty in their voices instead said that’s convenient I’m sure, and Gwen didn’t dare ask what that meant.
All she knows is that Etilda accepted the king’s offer to move into the castle. Not long after, the whispers turned into jealous comments about the jewellery she shouldn’t be able to afford which she must have acquired in other ways, giggles whenever it became known that Uther called for a private fitting, or faces that turned away as Etilda slowly began look more and more harrowed, with darker circles under her eyes than before, and surrounded by a quiet resignation Gwen didn’t remember from the proud woman with her very own workshop in the lower town. By then, even a twelve-year-old Gwen knew exactly what Etilda was to the King - it was common knowledge downstairs. Gwen doesn’t think anyone who mattered at court then - certainly not Morgana or Arthur - knew, but the servants definitely did.
Etilda stayed on as the castle seamstress of Camelot for another year, and then she left from one day to the next.
The rumours say King Uther had tired off her by then - there had been no more private fittings for months.
The rumours are undecided whether Etilda truly was grateful to the King for offering her a place at court; for taking an interest in her; for touching her cheek tenderly when they thought no one saw; for inviting her to his chambers.
Some say she accepted the invitations because she couldn’t refuse the King - because who could, or would, refuse a King? - and that’s what made her leave in the end - that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be the King’s whore anymore, and that she’d never wanted it in the first place. Some say she truly did feel something for Uther, but that she couldn’t stomach the way that every servant around her knew, and would whisper and judge her for her opportunism behind her back, but wouldn’t say anything to her face. Some say she left because the King didn’t want her anymore, and she couldn’t handle the heartbreak of it.
Gwen never asked her. She was a child, who didn’t quite understand, but understood enough to realise that if she wanted to stay out of trouble, she should avoid being seen with Etilda. And so she did. They had been close, once, but Etilda didn’t say goodbye when she left, and at that time, it didn’t surprise Gwen that she hadn’t.
Now, she desperately wishes she knew where Etilda was, and that she could ask her advice.
Four days, which turns to five days, it turns out, is not a very long time in some ways, but almost an eternity, in others.
When Gwen hears the first comment of “The Prince has returned” in the corridors of the castle, her heart jumps, and then she feels like she can breathe properly for the first time in eight days. He is alive. He is fine. He has returned. He was just a little late back, is all - that’s normal.
At the same time, something in her belly lurches unpleasantly. She is nervous, she realises - and she’s never been nervous around Arthur before. Exasperated, annoyed, confused - but not nervous.
What is wrong with her? This is Arthur. It’s just Arthur.
“Hear that, Gwennie?” Roland, a servant just a year or two younger than Gwen, nudges her with his elbow and winks, as he passes her in the corridor, a pail of steaming bath water in either hand. “The Prince is back. Shouldn’t you go welcome him?”
He doesn’t stop to hear her reply, so she can’t even say “My name’s not Gwennie”, (because she despises that nickname) much less say anything about his insinuations - and she’s mostly grateful, because she doesn’t know what she would have said anyway.
She’s also grateful he left, since that means he doesn’t see her turn around and head directly for the courtyard.
The rumour mill of Camelot usually works fast, but it is not instant, and so Gwen hasn’t reached the doors yet when she meets Arthur, who must already have passed his horse off to someone else (Merlin, most likely) and said goodbye to his party, because he is headed up the stairs to the west wing, towards his chambers, alone.
He looks weary, but not unhappy, and his face brightens when he sees her on the top of the stairs. He takes the last steps two at a time, takes her hand, and says under his breath: “Come with me.”
His hand is warm in hers, and she follows where he leads without thinking, her heart beating faster because oh how she’s longed for him.
Arthur takes a quick look around, before turning them both into a small hallway leading to some of the smaller guest rooms that few people ever use, seemingly confident this will give them privacy. Gwen suspects he’s right.
“Guinevere”, he breathes, and her heart soars. How could she ever have doubted his affection for her? It’s not to be, it’s never to be, but it’s there, all the same.
“Hi”, she whispers back.
“Have you missed me?” he says with a smile just bordering on arrogant, leaning against the wall, but still holding her hand oh so gently in his, his thumb making a small brushing motion over her knuckles - ever the contradiction.
She knows she must let go, she knows she must go - but she finds she doesn’t want to, not just yet. And so she doesn’t.
“It seems you’re the one who missed me”, she says and raises one eyebrow, at last letting the smile break out on her face which has threatened to do so since she saw him on the stairs. “Since you’re the one who dragged me off.”
Arthur doesn’t look the least bothered by her calling him out. “I did”, he confesses easily. “Do you know how boring these patrols can be sometimes? Every knight present was at least fifteen years older than me and refused to say much else than yes sire or no sire or don’t go that way, sire, everyone knows that brook always floods this time of year. How on earth am I supposed to know that if no one tells me? The only sensible conversation I’ve had for a week has been with Merlin, and that should tell you something.”
Gwen giggles. “It doesn’t sound very fun”, she agrees.
He smiles again, kinder this time, but then he sighs, and looks apologetic. Regretful. “I should report back to my father. I just… wanted to see you.”
“I’m glad you did”, she says, and finds it to be true. “And I’m glad it was boring. That probably means you were only in danger of dying once or twice, not the entire time.”
Arthur snorts. “Well, you’re not wrong.” Then he hesitates, searching for something in her face, before tugging a little on their joined hands - a hint, a suggestion - and she hesitates too, because she hadn’t thought - hadn’t expected - but maybe she should have - and she steps closer all the same.
This is new territory. Her body hums, with his so close - tingles, where their hands still touch - and while that isn’t new - they’ve touched before, they’ve kissed before - but what is new is that they had agreed they could not be together, because his father would never understand, and yet -
He leans down slowly, looking searchingly at her all the while, and then kisses her with soft lips, intertwining his fingers with hers, and her eyes close involuntarily at the sensation.
For a moment she is only feeling and not thinking. Everything is Arthur, everything is how his lips move against hers and the heat that’s sent in shivers down her spine, everything is how his chest feels under her hand, which she must have lifted to put there at some point, and how she can feel it moving with every breath.
And all the while there’s a weight in her belly, and she doesn’t want to figure out why.
He breaks off far too soon. “Was that -”, he says, clears his throat, then starts again. “I should - I should go.”
“Yes”, she whispers, because she knows that he should.
With regret clearly written on his face, he lets go of her hand. It falls to her side and she takes a small step back, to allow him to pass her, because she knows he will have to.
He only comes as far as the end of the hallway, and turns back towards her before moving out back into the main corridor. “Come see me, later?” he asks, and she doesn’t think she imagines the vulnerability in his eyes, the carefully neutral tone. “Tonight. We could - talk. Some more.”
The weight in her belly hardens. We could - talk. Some more.
Talk - or kiss - or more? What does he mean - and what would she say, it she knew what he meant? What could she say?
But how can she say anything but what will give her more time with him?
“I will”, she promises, and if she’s ever felt more conflicted, she doesn’t remember it.
Arthur’s face brightens again, and he nods at her, then turns around the corner and walks away with purposeful steps.
The narrow hallway is silent but for her swirling thoughts - until she hears an outburst of stifled giggles from the door behind her, and it turns her to ice. She swirls around and to her horror, sees the door the slightest bit ajar. When she swings the door open, she comes face to face with Floree and the scullery maid Aida next to pails of coal from newly-raked fireplaces, red in the face and with their hands over their mouths, and at the sight of her, the giggles turn into peals of laughter.
“Talk”, Floree gasps between laughs, “maybe - maybe you can talk some more?”
Aida snorts loudly, and slaps her hand back over her mouth and nose at the sound, which makes Floree laugh even harder.
Cheeks flaming, tears burning behind her eyes, Gwen stares at them for a second in utter mortification. Talk some more, he said - only that, nothing else. And now they’ve made it filthy. Shameful. “How dare you?” she whispers, but her voice breaks.
Aida makes a visible effort to try to stop laughing. “Oh no, please Gwen, don’t be mad! He was just -”
“- so sweetwith you”, Floree says and wipes her eyes. “Like…” she shrugs, grins, and stifles a new giggle.
Like you’re equals, Gwen’s mind fills in. Like he likes you. Like you’re a noble. Like it matters what you think, or want.
It truly is laughable, when you think about it.
Then she gets a grip on herself, and before she can either hit one of them or start crying, she turns her heel and storms off.
“Gwen!” Floree calls after her. “Don’t be like that! Gwen!”
“Is she very angry with us?” she barely hears Aida ask the more senior maid, as she flees around the corner in the opposite direction that Arthur just went.
She wipes her eyes with jerking motions as she half-runs down the corridors, not looking up to see whether she meets anyone she knows.
No, she isn’t very angry with either of them. She is angry with herself.
She enters the kitchen several hours later, and a hush falls over the servants already seated at the table for the evening meal when they look up to see her. They start up their conversation again just a breath or two later, but her face has already heated up and she doesn’t know where to look or where to go.
She wonders what they call her, behind her back.
She grabs a bowl and spoon on random from the table, helps herself to porridge and an apple from the counter, and sits down on the stool by one of the hearths, instead of by the table, pretending to stoke the already steady fire to avoid everyone’s eyes.
She eats in silence.
It is quite possible, she thinks, as she looks into the dancing flames, she is miserable for no reason. That Arthur really does just want to talk. That she is unfair to him, for even considering anything else. That she should just get herself together, go on with her business, and ignore the way people talk, because she knows and Arthur knows that there has been nothing… untoward between them.
It is also quite possible that even if he does want more than just talking, that it will feel natural, and right, and that it will make her very happy to share his bed. She knows well what she feels when she kisses him, and if only that could make her feel so happy, what wouldn’t more do? People in love do that all the time - otherwise there would be no glowing brides with bellies proudly protruding from underneath their surcoats, shooting adoring gazes at their somewhat sheepish husbands-to-be in front of the smiling and smirking wedding guests.
But then again, there wouldn’t be any smiling and smirking wedding guests, or no wedding at all really, if she managed to end up with child. There would be someone discreetly managing to remove her from the castle, most likely - perhaps, if she was very lucky and if the king allowed it, to be set up in a cottage somewhere with an allowance to live on.
Or, she would keep feeling conflicted, not wanting to say yes but not wanting to say no either, and Arthur would not see that her smile might tremble because he wouldn’t want to look for it, and she would slowly turn more and more harrowed, and shamed, and flinch at the comments from the other servants, until one day, she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore, and might have to decide to just… leave.
A noise behind her makes her look up.
“Is it true what they say, dear?” says Cook quietly. She has a kettle filled with water she puts on the hearthstone in front of Gwen, and with slow, deliberate movements, she begins to hang it on a hook over the fire. She doesn’t try to meet Gwen’s eyes, and she’s thankful for it.
“What do they say?” Gwen asks into the fire, too tired to bother with subterfuge or getting angry.
“Aida and the other lasses say the Prince might be waiting for you. That you’ve been asked to see him.”
It doesn’t feel worth it to try to explain the details, so in the end, Gwen just nods.
Cook sighs. “I see. And you’re not very keen.” It’s not a question.
“No, I - it’s not that,” Gwen starts, but doesn’t know quite what to say next.
Cook shakes her head and saves her from having to continue by drawing up another stool next to Gwen and sitting down with a small groan. “And that’s why you’re hiding by the hearth in the kitchens. That’s not really a long-term strategy, you know. But don’t worry, dear. I won’t tell on you. You sit, for a little while.”
And so they do - for a little while, and Gwen is pathetically grateful for the silent company - a balm to her frayed nerves, as her thoughts keep swirling, swirling.
Eventually, the water in the kettle boils, and Cook rises with another groan, and takes the kettle off the hook with her thick woolen apron wrapped around her hands for protection against the heat, with her usual brisk effectiveness.
“There now, lass”, she says, and her words are matter-of-fact but her eyes are kind, “better not keep royalty waiting.”
And Gwen nods slowly, and rises too.
Her heart in her throat, she knocks twice.
“Come”, comes Arthur’s voice from inside.
She opens the door, willing a smile on her face. “It’s me”, she says, after a quick glance around the room to make sure they’re alone.
“Guinevere!” Arthur looks up from the papers on the table in front of him, and his concentrated frown turns into pleased surprise as he rises. “I thought - well. I thought you might be too busy.”
It is indeed quite a bit later than she intended. Almost improperly late, to show up in someone’s private chambers and to close the door behind her. She shrugs, and decides a white lie can be acceptable in this situation. “I was. Busy, that is. But I’m here now. You wanted to - talk?” She manages not to stutter, but only barely.
Arthur must pick up on something in her voice, or in her face, because he looks searchingly at her again before slowly saying: “Not if it’s… inconvenient to you? I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
She almost laughs at that, a desperate and spontaneous laugh because surely, surely he knows what kind of trouble he’s already gotten her in? - but manages to stifle it. “It’s not inconvenient”, she says instead, because that is, after all, also true.
Arthur looks at her and doesn’t speak. The silence turns long, then awkward, because she doesn’t know what to say either. She can’t think of a single thing to ask that is something she really doesn’t want to know the answer to.
“I can’t help but notice”, he says eventually, in the voice she usually hears him use when he’s in a tricky political situation, and it sends a pang of hurt through her, “that you don’t seem very pleased to be here. I thought -”, and he breaks off, looks away, and when he looks back she can see he’s trying to hide that he’s hurt, or that his pride is hurt, but he doesn’t quite manage, - “I thought we understood each other.”
“So did I!” Gwen says without having planned to, something burning in her throat.
“I kissed you today”, Arthur says cautiously. “And you kissed me back.”
“Yes”, she whispers.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you still… you do still have feelings for me, don’t you, Guinevere?”
Her eyes burn. “I do.”
Arthur makes an exasperated gesture with one hand, swiping across the room to encompass it all - him, her, the space between them. “Then why are you still standing by the door as if you’re ready to run away?”
She is, she realises. Far too late, she takes a step, then two, into the room, because she needs to be brave. “I think”, she forces herself to say, heart pounding, “that maybe we’ve understood different things.” And by all the gods she hopes that is true, because her heart might break if they’ve understood the situation the same.
Arthur sits back down in his chair, looking annoyed, but then visibly decides not to say what was first on his mind. Instead, he settles on: “Will you explain?”
And sitting by the table, hair tousled from running his hand through it, waiting if not patiently then at least attentively for her to do so, he doesn’t look remotely like the Prince she’s built up in her mind over the past week.
He just looks like Arthur, who came to her cottage trying to cook her dinner, because he thought she deserved something nice.
She sits down at the table opposite him, and feels something within her settle. “I just… I think I don’t know quite why I’m here.”
Arthur frowns. “Because I asked you to.”
“Yes, but why did you ask me to?”
He looks flustered. “Well. Because - well. Because I like - your company.”
That makes her smile briefly. Because I like you. Then she draws a deep breath, and wills the warmth in her stomach from what he just said to dampen her anxiety. “And if I hadn’t wanted to, could I have said no?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” he says immediately with a raised eyebrow, and she sees two things. The first - that he honestly believes what he just said, which means the foulest versions of him drawn up in her mind cannot possibly be true versions of him. And the second - that he doesn’t understand the situation at all.
The relief of it almost makes her cry. “Because generally”, she says instead, “when a Prince asks a servant to do something, it is not a request, but an order.”
Arthur looks indignated. “You know I don’t see you as… as only a servant, Guinevere.”
She nods slowly. “I do know that”, and she does. “It’s just… hard to remember, sometimes, when everyone else…”
She trails off.
Arthur’s jaw clenches. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I thought you didn’t either.”
That sparks something in her, because by all the gods, it is not he who will be most affected by whateveryone else thinks. “Do you even know what they’re saying, Arthur? Have you considered what everyone will think, when the Prince asks a maidservant to his chambers in the evening?”
Arthur looks confused for a split second, then his face reddens. “I - they - Guinevere -”
She feels her own cheeks heat up. She forces herself to say it anyway, because this past week with all that’s been implied, or hinted at, and never outright stated, has been outright awful. “They all think I’m… sharing your bed.”
“Yes, I gathered that”, says Arthur, still very red in the face. “And - uhm, and they’ve - the other servants - they’ve been giving you… trouble?”
“Not really”, Gwen hedges. Because no, not really.
“They have. And -”, Arthur starts, then looks away, looks down, and when he looks up again, he looks very carefully neutral and says very blandly: “And it made you wonder.”
“Not really”, Gwen repeats. She doesn’t know what kind of expression she wears, but it makes Arthur wince, rise from the table and start pacing the room, and so she quickly continues: “It’s just - we said - and we agreed - and your father - but then you kept looking at me - and maybe I kept looking at you -”
“You were”, Arthur mumbles.
“- and I just… don’t - understand -”
“I gathered that too”, Arthur says heavily.
To her horror, her mouth doesn’t stop running there. “- and it just would make more sense, if -”
She finally manages to break off, but Arthur has already stopped in his tracks with wide eyes, looking incredulously at her. “If - what? - if I was trying to - to get you to sleep with me? Or makeyou sleep with me?”
Gwen feels frozen.
“That would make more sense?” he asks, and she hears he is hurt.
“Well”, Gwen fumbles, leaning forward in her chair towards him but not daring to rise for her shaking knees, “not - not maybe if one knows you - but they don’t - so they all think -”
“I’m honoured to hear my future subjects have such a high opinion of me”, Arthur says drily, but he looks pale and shaken.
“I’m sorry”, she whispers, because the weight in her belly feels quite a bit like guilt, now.
Arthur doesn’t say anything for a while. “No, I’m sorry”, he says eventually, and he looks tired when he sits down opposite her again. “You’re right. Nothing has changed since we… since we agreed. I can’t - I can’t offer you anything, Guinevere. Not - not now. And it made you… vulnerable. And I’m sorry for that.”
She reaches across the table for his hand. Takes it and holds it. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Not that they say it, not that I… let it get to me. Which I shouldn’t. It just… is.”
Arthur squeezes her hand back, but then lets it go. “I will be more careful”, he vows. “I don’t want to be the reason you’re in trouble. I - I’ll stop looking, stop seeking you out. We won’t meet alone again.”
Her breath catches. “That’s not - that’s not what I meant”, she tries, all the while wondering what she actually hadmeant for him to understand, but knowing when he says it that she doesn’t want him to stay away.
Arthur looks away. “It seems like the easiest solution.”
She doesn’t argue, even though she doesn’t think there’s anything easy about it. “I just -”, she starts instead, takes a deep breath that shudders only a little, and tries again. “I want to be with you, Arthur. I want to be able to meet alone, because I want to talk to you, be your… friend, if nothing else. I don’t want to lose this over - over silly gossip.”
Arthur doesn’t say anything for a long while - an eternity, or so it seems to Gwen, who feels her heart beating all the way up her throat for saying so much, far too much. Eventually, he sighs. “I don’t either”, he admits eventually, and Gwen can breathe again. “But…”
And she sees But I don’t know what to do in his eyes when he turns back to her, and she knows he can’t say it because he’s a Prince of Camelot and the son of Uther Pendragon, but she sees it anyway and what’s more - she sees that he knows that she does.
The small smile breaks out on her face naturally. “If you won’t mind the talk, then I won’t mind it, from now on.”
Arthur looks sceptical. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Well. She’s decided not to mind it, at least. That’s more than halfway there, as far as she’s concerned.
“What about your, erhm.” Arthur clears his throat and blushes all the way up to his ears. “Your… reputation?”
Gwen’s cheeks burn, but she raises her head and shrugs, purposefully nonchalant. “And what of it? No one I’d care to marry would care more about my reputation than my word.”
And one day, I might even marry you, and that would solve both our problems, she definitely does not say, but from the way Arthur chokes on what must be air alone, he might hear some of it anyway.
It does make his eyes glitter with something like amusement, however, and she feels her own smile widen.
“You’ll tell me, though? If - if we need to. Erhm. Stop being… friends. For a while. To let you - to give you a break, or something.”
She considers this, for a moment. Would she? But he’s in earnest, and it makes her heart swell again, and so there really is only one possible reply.
“I don’t think it will come to that”, she says, and is surprised to find that she believes it to be true. “But yes, I will.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt because of me”, he says, and some of it is his knighthood pride, and some of it is boyish stubbornness, and some - a not inconsequential part - is care. For her.
“I won’t”, she assures him, and then lets herself sit more comfortably in her chair. “So. Tell me everything about the flooded brooks and whatever other dangers you found on your patrol?”
And when he smiles, all is right with the world.
When she comes down what must be over an hour later, the kitchen is still, with only the embers in the hearths lighting the room and filled with the odd, expectant silence only found in places normally filled with bustling and noise. She isn’t surprised - servants rise early, and as such, whoever can will also retire early, and whoever can’t will be in their masters’ and mistresses’ rooms to tend them. She is surprised, however, to still find Cook on a stool, with a small mountain of beets in the process of being peeled in front of her.
Cook looks up when Gwen enters, but doesn’t say anything. She only nods, and Gwen nods back, then moves to retrieve her shawl from the hook on the wall.
“Goodnight”, Gwen murmurs when she passes Cook, on her way to the back door and from there, back home.
“You all right there, lass?” Cook says quietly back, as if she, like Gwen, wants to avoid disturbing the peace in the room.
Gwen stops. Takes a breath, and decides she’d rather cut to the chase of it. “He’s not who you all think he is”, she says, and she tries to make her voice as earnest as she can, despite the low volume.
Cook looks up, and seems to look for something in her face. Then she smiles, and it’s a kind smile. “Well, that’s all well and good then. Goodnight, Gwen. Sleep well.”
Gwen says, feeling grateful to her bones: “You as well.”
“You seem unusually happy today”, Merlin remarks with a small, knowing grin, the day after, when they pass each other in a corridor - each on their way in the opposite direction, to whatever duties await them next. “Nothing to do with a certain clotpole being home safe and sound, I’m sure?”
“Not really”, Gwen says breezily, but cannot hinder the smile breaking out again.
“You absolutelysure?” Merlin calls after her, teasingly, and she turns halfway, still walking down the hall, and allows herself to innocently shrug, knowing all the while Merlin will see right through her.
It doesn’t bother her at all.
“Just a few misunderstandings cleared up, is all. Amazing how many problems can be solved just by talking about them, don’t you think?”
She’s still smiling as she starts heading down the stairs.
“I’m sure”, she thinks she hears Merlin saying softly behind her.