I peered around the massive trunk of the tree they were behind and found Guinevere crouched in front of the boy, dipping a scrap of her dress into the sliver of a stream that cut through the forest and scrubbing at his face with it.
“What about Theodore?” she asked, not giving up.
The boy’s nose scrunched as he shook his head again, trying to pull his face from her hands.
I did not wish to scare the omega or the boy, so I purposefully stepped onto a stray branch on the ground, the snap of it making Guinevere turn to look over her shoulder at me.
“I suppose you’re here to make me apologize for my ‘coarse’ language?”
I frowned. “Why would I do that, your majesty?”
She leveled a look at me—a reminder of our earlier conversation before the hells had broken loose and I hurried to correct myself. “Why would I make you apologize, Gwen?”
Guinevere shrugged her shoulders, turning back to her task of trying to wipe away what looked to be weeks or maybe even months of grime from the boy’s face. “The maids got into the habit of scolding me when I accidentally let the occasional F-Bomb fly.”
“F-Bomb?”
From her profile, I could see her plump lips pull up into a wry smile. “It means ‘fuck,’ I also nearly made my poor maid faint when I accidentally stubbed my toe and sort-of let it all fly. Turns out the words shit, fuck, god damned, ass, and cunt are not appropriate for a ‘lady of my stature.’”
I had to hold back the bark of laughter that was threatening to emerge at her words and Guinevere’s expression grew more mischievous. “Do you think a lady like me shouldn’t say the word‘fuck’?”
Every woman that I knew would rather have been hung by their toes than utter such vulgar words, but they seemed to roll off of Guinevere’s tongue with a practiced ease that made them seem almost natural.
“I would not dare to tell you that there is any one thing you cannot do, Gwen, you are my queen after all.”
This seemed to please the omega and she straightened, her studious scrubbing of the boy’s nearly clean face pausing for amoment as she grinned at me. “Well, at least there aresomebenefits to being queen.”
Turning to the boy, I found his face to be completely full of golden freckles that were splattered across his nose and forehead. He would need a full dunking in water to come completely clean, but Guinevere had done the lion’s share of revealing the boy’s face.
“Boy,” I said, keeping my voice soft so as not to scare him, “Do you have parents back at that village?”
The boy shook his head.
“Were you an orphan?”
This time there was a nod.
“Do you remember ever having a name?”
The boy shook his head hard.
It was as I had expected. Many times the Saxons razed through villages and the children were left to fend for themselves.
This child was far too dirty even for the child of a farmer which meant that, while the people of the village had likely fed the boy and let him sleep in their barns, he was not their child.
“I see…” I reached out and gave the boy’s dirty hair a pat. “Gwen, why do you not come up with a name for the boy?”
“Me? But I’m not his mom,” Guinevere protested, her brown eyes wide. “Wouldn’t that be wrong especially if someone in Camelot takes him in?”
“Perhaps, but would you rather us keep calling him the boy or—as Lancelot suggested—Urchin?”
Guinevere shook her head, her cheeks filling with another angry flush.
“Then let us give him a name as he will be traveling with us to Camelot over the next few days.”
Guinevere leaned back on her heels thoughtfully, her eyes returning to the boy. “Did you like any of the names I suggested?”
The boy shook his head, his fingers fiddling with the patchy, dirty tunic he was wearing.
