A quick rummage through the wardrobe produced a tunic shirt, heavier and more blousy than the one Lancelot wore, and a pair of thick brown trousers. Neither was ideal, but Vera was so desperate for the release of a run that she’d have gone in her nightgown if it was all she had.
They left through a back gate in the castle wall, an ordinary and underwhelming wooden door (that didn’t at all match up with the rest of the main gate’s defensive measures), and set out.
The sun had not yet risen, and the trail they ran on was dark, but Lancelot’s orb bobbed along between them. Their pace was easy and left air in their lungs for conversation, which came rather effortlessly.
Vera nearly ran Lancelot off the trail in panic when a squirrel burst out of the bushes near them, prompting him to yell out an overly loud warning for any animal he saw after that. “Bird!” he’d shout and point, even if it was high in the sky. But his dedication to the joke served him poorly when he was mid-point and stumbled on a root that stuck up in the path, only barely avoiding a face-first wipeout.
Vera grinned to herself in the darkness, patiently waiting for her moment as they ran on. Then she saw it lying in the path ahead.
“Stick!” she shouted when they came upon it, a puny thing no bigger than her arm. Lancelot jumped at her voice and then had to full-on stop to recover from his laughter.
She’d started hundreds of mornings running. This was like every one of those runs, except this time, she wasn’t alone. Vera was so grateful she didn’t even think to complain about how heavy her clothes were and how quickly she was drenched from head to foot in sweat.
After about an hour, Lancelot guided them to the back gate where they’d started as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. He flopped down on the grass outside the wall and held out his hand as his orb zoomed back to him and shrunk in his palm.
“Is that your magic?” Vera asked, nodding toward his light as she sat down next to him.
“What? Oh, this?” He spun it in his fingers before pocketing it. “No. No, I don’t have a scrap of magic. Merlin provides all the lights … well, most magic for Camelot, truth be told.”
“And what about Arthur? Does he have magic?” Vera asked, making a great effort to sound casual.
“That,” Lancelot said emphatically, “is a much more interesting question altogether. Not explicitly. But when the invasions began, and Arthur started uniting the people … I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been there. So many things had to come together just right for us to stand a fighting chance. And we’d have been thoroughly fucked without the mages, but,” his eyes clouded with admiration, “I don’t say this because he’s like my brother, but this country and this peace—none of it would exist without Arthur.”
“He sounds remarkable,” Vera said, feeling like something leaden had dropped into her stomach.
Lancelot smiled sympathetically at her. She could read in his face that he knew far more than he was willing to share.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, more bluntly than she meant to.
“Ah,” Lancelot leaned toward Vera so that his shoulder pressed lightly against hers. “It’s … not my story to tell.”
Fiercely loyal. Vera heard Merlin’s words in her mind as Lancelot shook his head and picked at the grass near his feet. “You should talk to him, though,” he told her.
She scoffed. “He’d have to be willing to be in the same room with me first for that to happen.”
He set his jaw and an unspoken exchange passed between them as their eyes met. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but Vera felt like, at least in this matter, he was on her side. He reached up to pat her back but quickly pulled his hand away. “Gross. Gods, you are dripping in sweat, aren’t you?”
Vera laughed as the wave of tension broke between them. “This shirt is so damn heavy.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Then let’s get you better clothes.”
It was only two mornings later that Lancelot led her through the cobbled streets of Camelot straight to the armory. Vera had expected some royal seamstress or a clothing shop. Instead, they were greeted with a sharp glare by the scruffy middle-aged man (who Vera felt unreasonably sure would ride a motorbike if he were born thirteen hundred years later) deftly weaving tiny metal circles into chain mail. He set his work down in front of him and scratched his mostly grey beard with thick fingers as his eyes searched Vera. She felt he could read every lie she was living as if it were written plainly on her face.
“Your Majesty. Lancelot,” he said, more grunt than words. He rose and picked up a neatly folded pile of garments and pressed them into Vera’s hands. Right to the point. She could appreciate that. “Change over there.” He pointed to a makeshift changing curtain in the corner.
After struggling to untie the strings of her dress, Vera pulled on the startlingly comfortable garments. The trousers were rust-brown with loose-fitting legs and buttons just below her knees to keep them from flapping about while she ran. The long-sleeved shirt was more fitted than the tunics she had seen but made of the same soft fabric as the trousers.
“How does it feel?” Vera started at Lancelot’s voice as her fingers fumbled with her new trousers’ buttons.
She stepped out from behind the curtain. “They’re perfect.”
It was no surprise. Lancelot had filled her in on their walk over.
“He made garments for me? In all of two days?” Vera had asked incredulously. “How did he know my measurements?”
“That’s Randall’s gift,” Lancelot had said. “It’s a sensory power. He’s never needed to take your measurements. He saw you at dinner the first night and instantly knew them. He can hear better, see better, smell from farther, and he’s got this thing with his hands, too. He has these massive sausages of fingers, but he weaves the finest, most intricate armor. Quickly, too. It was all dead useful in battle, even the smell part. He’s a bit rough about the edges, but don’t let him fool you. Randall’s one of Arthur’s most trusted knights, and he might be the sweetest man to walk this planet.”
Vera couldn’t speak to the armor nor to Randall’s sweetness, but Lancelot’s assessment of her new running kit was certainly true. Randall made a circle about Vera, eyeing her as he rubbed at his beard. “The shirt’s based on what our soldiers wear underneath their chainmail. The whole set’s a wool and silk blend. It should handle moisture well.”
