She didn’t think any of the wounds were serious enough right now to kill him. But the wounds needed the right care.
She wasn’t surprised to find the queen at her side, calling for more help from the other women. Thankfully, they all knew how to clean and sew.
“I will need fresh, bleached cloth and alcohol. Touch the cloth as little as possible. Germs,” she added for the women’s curious looks.
“Germs?” the queen asked.
Genevra smiled and waved her hand. “A Welsh word.”
Fin remained in the room, keeping off to the side while they worked. Within a quarter of an hour, the boy opened his eyes.
“Keep it short, Commander. He’s exhausted.”
He nodded and kept his eyes on her when he came to the bed. “You seem and sound different. Are you certain you are well?”
Without answering, for she didn’t want to lie to him again, she stepped aside and away from the bed.
Alric came to long enough to tell Fin that Leofric had Camelee and Hild, and her mother and he had men guarding a small part of the forest, beyond the two crisscrossed trees.
Before Alric finished, Fin dispatched men to find his brother and give him this information. He left the keep soon after that.
“Come, rest in my chamber, Genevra,” Queen Emma urged. “Sleep for a bit. You look weary, dear friend.”
“I will remain here with him,” she said and fell into the nearest chair. She couldn’t tell the queen she’d gone mad. She couldn’t tell anyone any of it.
She sat by the bed for a long time after everyone left. The room was quiet, haunted by Hild’s laughter and Camelee’s voice.
Who was the man who she’d seen in her vision? The man who called her Guin? Whoever he was, he made her heart almost come to a full stop when she looked upon his face. Was she sharing someone else’s thoughts? How could it be? But Camelee claimed to be from the future. Did her future have the man Genevra had been waiting for her whole life?
She shook her head at herself and thought about how Camelee didn’t want parents, nor did she want to be one. It was because of her. She was the one who had given Camelee up. She wasn’t sharing someone’s else’s thoughts. These werehermemories. This was her pain she was feeling having her babies…both of her babies taken from her because of—what? She didn’t know. She didn’t remember. Was the man Camelee’s father? Had they come from the future? Is this what she couldn’t remember?
Feeling more insane than before, she left her chair and paced before the bed. She wondered if Viviane had something to help her splitting headache.
She stopped pacing. Who in the blazes was Viviane? Oh, she wanted to just…fall apart. For the first time in her life, the part she was aware of anyway, she wanted to let go and fall apart. She wanted to scream and shout for the years she’d spent alone, making up excuses to others because she lived alone and did not marry. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry and have children. Her heart wouldn’t let her. She pined for another. A man she did not know.
Now she knew what he looked like. Who was he? She would go mad if she didn’t find out. She couldn’t live this way!
Panic overwhelmed her. She threw her hands to her head and began to cry.
Guin. Guin. Who was she? Fin had called her Gen. She shook her head. What had she forgotten all these years?
She stopped crying for a moment and remembered Camelee telling her that she was named after King Arthur Pendragon’s castle, Camelot.
Camelot wasn’t a person, but a place. Camelee’s name was a symbol of who she was and where she came from.
They had given her the name to carry that night at the orphanage. She and Camelee’s father. Who was he?
*
“Move your arsewhen I tell you, Whore!”
Leofric the Merciless, as he was called and loved reminding Camelee, took a handful of her hair and yanked her to her feet. Hild, who had been sitting beside her with her mother, began to scream. Leofric glared hatefully at the child and pulled back his fist to strike her.
Camelee hauled back her foot first and kicked him in the groin as hard as she could. He went down in a writhing ball.
Without haste, she picked up Hild and took Frida by the hand. “Run!”
They ran for about ten meters when Leofric’s men took off after them. They weren’t going to get away. Dear God, don’t let this be real!
