“Is your name Alex?” Guinevere asked, continuing the little game she had been playing with the silent boy.
The boy shook his head, his eyes steady on the queen as if she was his tether to this world. His grubby little fists hadn’t left her skirts since Gawain had helped her down from his horse earlier and the boy had outright refused to sit with anyone other than her.
“Alex?” Gawain remarked, “Of course his name is not Alex, what sort of name is that?”
“It’s a perfectly normal name!” Guinevere insisted with a sniff, her little note wrinkling at the teasing from the alpha. “There are lots of Alexes where I’m from.”
“There is none that I know in Logres, your majesty,” Gawain shot back, his eyes dancing in the firelight.
It seemed that the younger lad had quickly grown accustomed to his role as our queen’s favorite, even going so far as to hold out a bit of dried jerky for her which she gratefully took and split with the little boy.
“Fine,” Guinevere said with a huff. “I guess I’ll try more ancient sounding names then.”
She then started to rattle names off around a bit of jerky.
“Claudas?”
Shake.
“Galahad?”
Shake.
“Gorlois?”
Shake.
The little boy seemed a bit frustrated and he opened and closed his mouth several times before sighing.
“Perhaps he will tell us when he feels comfortable, your majesty,” Bedivere called out to her, making her brown eyes shift in our direction for the first time since we had gathered around the fire.
She looked at me for a blink before her gaze turned completely to Bedivere. “But what are we supposed to call him if we don’t know his name?”
“Urchin.”
The word left my lips before I could stop it and all eyes panned to me once again.
Guinevere’s shoulders stiffened and her face flushed with anger as she shook her head roughly. “What is wrong with you? Did someone shit in your Cheerios this morning or are you always like this?”
Every person around the fire seemed taken aback by the queen’s rough language as she got to her feet, grabbed the little boy’s hand, and stomped off into the dark.
“Do not go far,” I called.
She held up her middle finger over her shoulder. “Go suck a dick!”
Silence reigned over our little group for a few minutes accompanied by the odd crackle of the little fire here and there.
“Our queen is definitely…” Bedivere trailed off slowly, his silver eyes seeming to glitter in the dim firelight. “Odd.”
“I have never heard of such language coming from a lady, much less a queen,” I muttered under my breath as I slid my sword back into its sheath.
“I like it,” Gawain said, a grin on his face as he continued to stare off in the direction that Guinevere had disappeared in as if he were a lovesick dog.
“It is not for you to like,” I told him pertly, gripping the hilt of my sword as my thumb traveled the well-worn path of the decorated pommel as I had done thousands of times in my life.
“Why not?” Gawain asked, his brows drawing together as he held his lute close to his chest, not actually strumming the instrument as any sort of music could draw unwanted attention, but like my thumb with my sword pommel, Gawain had his own comfort objects.
“She is our queen. The wife of our king. Your eyes may look upon her as a servant, but you should not look at her like you have been any longer.”
