* * *
An arrow whistled past Guinevere and lodged in a tree behind her.
“Down!” Lancelot shouted, drawing her sword and maneuvering her horse between Guinevere and where the arrow had come from.
“The patchwork knight?” a woman shouted. “Is that you?”
“Yes!”
“Sorry! Sorry! No more arrows.”
Lancelot rode forward warily, sword raised, keeping Guinevere behind her. A girl materialized from behind a tree. Guinevere recognized her from her last trip to the village. She was the one who had helped draw the Dark Queen’s poison from Guinevere’s veins. Guinevere did not remember her name.
“What was that about?” Lancelot demanded, scowling.
“I missed! On purpose,” the girl added, slinging her bow over her shoulder. “I could have hit either of you.”
“Ailith could only hit a target if she was trying not to,” a young woman said, stepping out from behind a gnarled oak. “Come on, both of you. Your timing is terrible.” She stalked through the trees and Guinevere and Lancelot followed, exchanging a worried glance.
The tiny village, once neat and orderly and clean, was in chaos. Women were shouting as they tossed things to one another, packing a cart. The fires had burned down to ashes. No one was cooking or talking or even sitting. Rhoslyn, her dark hair streaked with gray, seemed to have aged several years since she and Guinevere had last seen each other, during the summer. She ripped down a woven mat from where it served as a door to a hut and rolled it up.
“Rhoslyn?” Guinevere called, dismounting.
Rhoslyn frowned as she tried to place Guinevere’s face. “The spider-bite girl?” she asked. “And our patchwork knight. Not our knight any longer.” She nodded toward King Arthur’s crest on Lancelot’s tunic. “What are you doing here?”
“I need your advice,” Guinevere said.
“I am afraid this is a bad time. Gunild, pack it tighter or it will bounce loose!” Rhoslyn gestured to a bundle in the back of the cart.
“Are you leaving?” Guinevere asked, following Rhoslyn’s gaze. The young woman who had escorted them, her sturdy build contradicted by gentle eyes, did as Rhoslyn instructed, pushing a bundle down and wrapping a rope around it.
“We are.”
“Not because of the king!” Guinevere could not imagine Arthur had told them to leave. He banished them out of necessity, but wanted no harm to come to them. Surely he would have told
her if he had decided to push them out even farther.
“No, he does not care about us. But there are men in the forest who do. We made the mistake of refusing their offer to let us buy our place here with our bodies.” The fire in Rhoslyn’s eyes burned bright with hatred and anger.
“But they do not own this land! You are doing nothing wrong.”
“We are existing independent of them, and that is enough reason for some men to hate us.” Rhoslyn’s narrow shoulders fell slightly, but she recovered. “So we will exist somewhere else.”
Lancelot scanned the trees. “Are they coming soon?”
“They said they would be back tonight. We are not going to wait and see if they keep their promise.”
“Come to Camelot,” Guinevere said. “I can speak to the king.”
“Why would he listen to you?”
Guinevere grimaced. “Because I am the queen.”
Rhoslyn stared at her, openmouthed with shock, before recovering. “Well. That is interesting. And I appreciate your generosity, but I have been driven from Camelot once and managed to do so with my life only because of Mordred’s kindness and your knight’s intervention. I do not want to see what Camelot would do if I returned.”
“This is my fault,” Guinevere said. “If I had not taken Lancelot from you, then—”
“Then Lancelot would not be a knight, and that would be unfortunate.” Rhoslyn smiled fondly at Lancelot, who had taken up a position at the edge of the huts where she could see into the trees better. “In the end, if we cannot keep ourselves safe, we will not be safe. And we cannot keep ourselves safe here any longer, so we will leave.” She glanced up at the position of the sun. “Where is he?”