Vera’s eyes flicked to Merlin, wondering if he’d had any hand in this. He smiled encouragingly.
From how Arthur was seated, angled toward Lancelot, who sat in the chair on his left, Vera’s approach around the table had her facing him. He kept his eyes on Lancelot, who was talking animatedly.
“And it wasn’t the only way we might have—” Lancelot stopped midsentence, diverting his attention to Vera as she stepped into his view. “Good evening, Your Majesty,” he said, and it forced Arthur to acknowledge her presence, too. He turned in his seat and inclined his head in a bow of greeting, stiff and formal.
As soon as she sat down, though, he bodily turned to Lancelot, his back an impassible wall that shut her out, leaving Vera to soak in her frustration—but not for long. As the meal was being served, a trumpet blared, and a melodic voice took command of the room.
“Our king welcomes this evening, for our courtly entertainment, the North Wind Players, performing The Most Tragic Tale of Dorchester.” The castle’s herald stood at the back of the hall and took a great step aside as he opened the door with a flourish, and an acting troupe entered to polite applause.
The room went silent as the actors took their places in the open space between the two tables. They held their poses for nearly too long, and precisely when the first antsy audience member shifted in his seat, they all began moving. The two on their knees in front pattered the floor with their fists. An enchanting woman in all grey with streams of fabric tailing behind her swirled through the room, and as she passed, a true sound of wind, the kind that meant rain was coming, followed in her wake. One actor jumped atop a table, holding a glowing yellow orb high above his head before he heaved it down at the floor. It shattered not into shards but with a final bright flash and a puff of vapor. The accompanying sound was the real rumbling crash of thunder. The vapor swelled and rose, darkening and expanding until the great hall’s ceiling was covered with a blanket of storm clouds.
The clouds continued to rumble above their heads as a scrawny girl emerged from the chaos and began to spin the tale. She was the lone survivor in a village massacred by a young mage gone mad.
As she told the story, the actors performed around her, bringing the sad tale to life with striking beauty. The entire audience was captivated, more than one with tears on their cheeks as the young girl was hidden by her brothers in their animal feed trough before watching them be slain by the mage through cracks in the boards. It was a fairytale trope, one with a moral lesson pasted on at the end, lauding how Arthur’s rule brought unity and an end to violence against the people. They held their final poses in perfect stillness. The clouds above sank toward the audience’s heads.
Since they were seated higher than everyone else, the blanket of clouds first reached the royal table. Vera glanced at Arthur, who was grinning as he reached up and touched them with his fingers. Like he’d sensed her gaze, he turned to her. His eyes didn’t have time to darken, and Vera knew her expression mirrored his amazement. Her skin prickled. It was almost intimate—and gone in a flash as the descending clouds reached their foreheads and obscured Vera’s vision entirely.
A murmur rose around the hall with surprised oohs and ohs, and a scant few who sounded genuinely frightened. After the clouds reached the floor and faded, leaving only the faint smell of rain, Vera noticed that the acting troupe had risen and arranged themselves together under the cover of the descending storm clouds. They bowed, and the court followed Arthur in his enthusiastic applause.
“That was most impressive,” Arthur said when the applause dwindled. “I’m honored by your telling of my part in this. Forgive me for my memory, but the massacre of Dorchester was twenty years ago, was it not?”
The ensemble looked at one another and nodded.
“I was a boy of ten and, humbling though it is to admit, probably convincing my father I was more likely to create havoc than ever unite any kingdom,” said Arthur modestly.
The actors’ eyes flitted back and forth among one another until the troupe’s leader, the woman in grey who could make the sound of wind with her body, stepped forward with a flourish and bow. “My liege, we believe the spirit of the crown moved among us before it found you. But it was you all along.”
The gathered court applauded once more.
“That’s lovely,” Lancelot said graciously to the performers. Then, leaning forward so Vera and Arthur could see him, he spoke much more quietly. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
Arthur was more equipped to absorb his friend’s humor. His lips merely curled up further on one side, and he inclined his head in a bow to the departing performers. Vera, on the other hand, snorted with laughter. The nobleman to her right glared at her. She quickly turned away from him to find Arthur watching this exchange, the glint of a laugh in his eye. No sooner had Vera caught his gaze than his eyes flitted downward, and he was rising from his seat.
“Pardon me,” he said. Without a nod or bow or another word, he abruptly walked away. She was left staring at Lancelot, his eyes wide and the corners of his mouth dipped into a frown.
“I take it that’s not normal,” Vera said.
“Er.” His eyes followed Arthur as he exited the hall. “No,” he said.
Vera let out a single, ridiculing laugh.
After a long moment, during which Lancelot twiddled his fingers and scrunched one eye shut with his mouth in a nearly comical grimace, he looked up at her brightly. “So,” he said, “Do you want to run tomorrow?”
Now fully outfitted, rising before the sun to run was the one constant between Vera’s life before and her life as Guinevere now. This time, though, she had company. Like tonight, Lancelot would confirm at dinner whether they’d run the following morning, and most days they did. They met at Vera’s door, ran for the better part of an hour, flopped onto the grassy hillside by the castle’s back wall, and talked until the sun rose.
Routine took its course in many aspects of Vera’s life in the early days of her new normal. Run with Lancelot. Household duties with Matilda. Dinner. It was the ample amount of idle time in between that prodded Vera’s anxiety awake. Merlin was scarcely around the castle. He was almost constantly in a neighboring village, fixing their magical problems. Vera was eager to begin the work of recovering Guinevere’s memories. She couldn’t possibly pull off this ruse for long—a nobody draped in the body of a queen. But when Merlin summoned her to his study after nearly two weeks, her relief was short-lived.
“What are you—?” Vera started, but it was obvious. Merlin already wore his traveling cloak as he carefully tucked potions into his saddle bag. “Why are you packing?”
He sighed as he glanced up at her. “There is trouble in Exeter.” At Vera’s blank stare, he explained further. “It’s a two-day ride from here. Larger towns have mages. In places like Exeter, however, they rely on the gifts of the many, pooling the collective resources of all born with a gift in that area. Exeter supplies grain to Camelot and the next four towns. But the reason they could claim that role was down to the gift of a woman who crafted a rather ingenious irrigation system.
“The complex turbine system that rerouted the water came from her magic. She died shortly after its construction, and, for the most part, the town’s folk have been able to maintain it and repair it when it broke. But now the whole system has stopped. There’s no water flowing, no one with a suitable gift nearby that can fix it, and the late harvest is in imminent peril without intervention. So …” He shook his head as he continued shoving tomes and bottles into his bag.
Crestfallen, Vera dropped into the same chair she’d sat in during their first conversation. “Why did it stop working?”
“When a person has made something with their gift, they obviously can’t sustain it once they’re gone.”
“The magic dies with them?”
