Matilda suppressed a grin and pushed a curl back from her forehead. “I don’t personally know the man, but it was not unsatisfying.”
The door to the room swung open, and Percival hurried in. Lancelot fetched a chair for him, and he dropped into it, barely winded though he must have run the whole way to the armory and back.
“The troops are making ready,” he said. “They’ll depart this afternoon.”
“Good.” Arthur looked at all of them in turn. “We need to do what we can here. This is our first crisis since my rule began. Fear is potent, and panic spreads like a plague. Everyone in our realm remembers how it felt to go hungry during the wars. They must feel certain their children will not starve over the winter. Matilda, can we tap into our food stores to bridge the gap? A show of abundance between now and the harvest’s arrival could help ease fears.”
Matilda cast a furtive glance at Vera. The question should have been asked of her, but she wouldn’t have known how to answer anyway. “Yes, Your Majesty. The queen can make that order today.”
“Good. We need our soldiers on board, and we need ambassadors to make trips to the other towns impacted as we send supplies. The damage will be worst here, though. Our town’s troops need to know what to say. And the two of you,” he said to Lancelot and Percival, “should stay visible to reassure our people. I’ll do the same.”
“What about a public address?” Percival asked.
“I think that would be wise. And the queen—” Lancelot began, but he stopped short as Arthur glowered at him. God, how he must hate her. “We need her, Arthur. If you want a show of solidarity to boost morale, she can’t be absent when the whole city knows she’s here.”
“What do you think?” Arthur asked Matilda. She glanced at Vera, her lips set in a thin line before answering.
“I’m fairly certain you know what I think, Your Majesty. It would be beneficial for the queen and me to be present at supply pick-ups, as it has been for her to resume her duties and be at meetings with castle staff. Lancelot is right. It’s good for morale. I would guess it’s done damage that we weren’t doing it sooner.”
“What do you think?” Percival asked Vera.
She didn’t know much about Percival, but with his earnest eyes set on her, awaiting her answer while the others had talked around her, Vera liked him already. She noticed just how young he was simply by the contrast of sitting next to Lancelot. It was clear that Percival was strong, but he had more the body of a teenager than that of a man. His shoulders were narrower than Lancelot’s and his facial features softer, not as sharp as either Lancelot’s or Arthur’s. He couldn’t have been any older than her, and if he’d fought in the wars as Vera suspected from the scar across his face, that meant he’d been at battle in his teenage years.
“I’ll do whatever you need,” Vera said.
Arthur sighed. He likely had the same hesitation that Vera did; the concrete knowledge that it was a farce, and that she couldn’t possibly fill the queen’s shoes.
Taking swift action had been wise. The atmosphere of Camelot changed overnight, with panic threatening to boil over at any given moment. Arthur’s public address went well, and the soldiers did their part with impressive dedication. Lancelot and Matilda had been right about their instinct that Vera should also be involved in the campaign. The three were greeted like heroes by most as they had the pleasant task of accompanying the food relief deliveries into town. Matilda and Lancelot smiled, passed out supplies, offered reassurances, and played games with children. Having decided she’d already caused far too much trouble with Lord Wulfstan, Vera did her best to be visible while engaging as little as possible.
Hopeful gratitude marked the first few days. But it did not last.
Despite Arthur’s reassurance, coupled with his and Vera’s constant presence throughout the city, there were struggles at every turn. Ruthless merchants thought to profit off insecurity and gouged their prices. They had to be tracked down by the troops and set right. Some with the resources to do so stockpiled more food than they needed for fear that there soon wouldn’t be enough, which temporarily created a legitimate shortage and left the poorest in the city without a way to buy food. Arthur put ration limits on how much each household could buy. While it ensured no one went hungry, it did nothing to improve the people’s spirits.
A cold front slinked into town in the early morning on the sixth day. And with frost lingering on the tips of every tree came a chilling amongst the people, too. Vera didn’t expect anyone to continue throwing parades of gratitude as their anxieties ballooned. The frequency of tense encounters with citizens felt reasonable, but she kept catching Matilda and Lancelot sharing worried glances when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.
They’d been at their morale-boosting work for nearly two weeks when what Merlin was able to save of the harvest began to arrive. Prices started righting themselves, and while it wasn’t the economy of abundance the kingdom had grown accustomed to, fears of shortage abated. But like the colder weather, which seemed to have gotten comfortable and planned to stay awhile, the chill remained in the people, too.
Lancelot had adopted a casual way of keeping his hand on the pommel of his sword at all times. He accompanied Vera and Matilda on every excursion into town now, and though he’d join in on their conversation, his eyes continually scanned their surroundings.
They were picking up firewood for the week when Lancelot distractedly grabbed at empty air before finding Vera’s hand to help her down from the seat of the horse-drawn cart. They’d stopped at the end of a long line, the equivalent of half a block from the woodcutter. No sooner had Matilda clambered down from her seat than four more groups tucked into line behind them.
Lancelot glanced at the newcomers, his lips pressed hard together. It was no bigger a crowd than the one at the pit on Vera’s first day, but size wasn’t the problem. The happy sounds of laughter and excited shouts to friends across the square had been frequent before. They’d have felt foreign and inappropriate now. People stood together in clumps, talking in low voices and casting uneasy glances at anyone outside their groups. It was alarmingly different. Lancelot was like a dog with his ears pinned back—and clearly displeased that he couldn’t watch everywhere at once.
Voices raised from near the front of the line, accompanied by a rippling murmur of discomfort.
“We need guards posted here.” Lancelot looked around in exasperation as if one might appear. They’d never needed to have soldiers posted through town before. This was all fresh territory. More voices joined in what had boiled over into an argument near the front.
“Go help,” Vera said. “Babysitting me is certainly the lesser of your duties. That’s actually your job.”
He sighed, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll be right back.” He and Matilda shared that worried look over Vera’s head before he disappeared into the crowd.
“What?” Vera snapped. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Do you honestly not know?” Matilda asked.
“I know everyone’s a bit on edge, but—” She stopped at Matilda’s look of pity. “What?”
“Lancelot and I started noticing it about a week into all this. People aren’t just on edge, they’re treating you poorly.”
