"Mama?"
"Mhmm?"
"What did you do during your first night as Queen?"
Guinevere turned quickly from flattening down her nightgown which hung on the closet door. She froze for a second, then continued on as she always did, masking her inner feelings. "You mean when I first married your father?"
"No, I mean when you became Queen alone."
Gwen cleared her throat. She thought of the lonely girl sitting with her old dress on, the one she used to wear when she was a servant in the court, and wished for anything to be pulled back in time to when she and Arthur used to look to the future and hope. The future had gone for the girl, and she could not but revert to the happy past.
Gwen settled down on the bed next to her small daughter and took her chubby hands in hers, "I was very sad."
The girl looked up at her mother with sparkling innocent eyes. Oh, how those sparkles would fade, Guinevere thought.
"But you became Queen," her daughter said, "And people say that's good."
And then she just sat, rather stunned, listening to her daughter's words. She had forgotten, being the Queen, for most of the citizens, was good. And then she remembered the girl who had clutched the foot of the royal curtains in the corner of the royal chambers. They were embroidered with golden and red threads which scratched painfully against her face.
Guinevere struggled to find the right words, "I needed to be Queen," she finally managed, "But your father was gone, and I didn't like that."
The little girl wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, "People say you were strong."
Gwen hugged her back, and over her daughter's shoulder, she stared at the corner of the room where she had once crumpled. The knights had just left. Well, whoever was still remaining. They were so hesitant to leave, that had there been others with them as witness, they would've all stayed through the night. But decent men would not have wanted to do anything that could be interpreted in a different way.
She had waited until the door had closed completely, then scavenged through to the very back of the closet. She pulled out a small wooden box of souvenirs: Elyan's handkerchief, her father's old pair of working gloves, a necklace from the Morgana she used to know and serve willingly. And then she found her dress. Her dress, covered with stains, mended over and again, tattered and smelling of stale soap. This was Guinevere.
She knew that whatever was left of that girl had long been long, but she couldn't help but slip into the familiar rough fabric. She grabbed the cloth which the servant had left on the windowsill and started feverishly wiping the table for the royals to return.
"I wasn't used to being Queen," Gwen continued, hugging the girl closer to her chest, "Your two grandfathers had been very different people."
She remembered following the cart that carried her father's body down the main stairs that lead to the castle and through the town square. She had tried so hard to keep up but a night full of worry without a second's sleep had gotten to her head. Her vision had been blurred by streams of tears. She grabbed the back of the cart, where her father's hand hung lifeless, waiting for her to kiss them. The man pulling the body flashed her an annoyed look as if all he wanted was to dump the body and go back to sleep. Burying dead bodies for a living would have had that effect on one's personality.
Gwen also remembered taking care of the man who had commissioned for her father to be executed. She remembered serving him dinner on plates of silver and helping him strap on cuffs of gold. She remembered how her father had been killed because he had, unknowingly, dealt with a sorcerer who had created a bar of gold that seemed worthless compared to the Pendragon's mountains of wealth. But by the time Gwen looked after the old king, he had hung lifeless too, an empty shell of a body whose soul had vacated long ago. Guinevere pitied that man, that king who had fell from the highest point. But to Gwen, he never actually reached the highest point. In fact, he was low, so low that she had to look down a far well just to see the lonely ruler whose fear had engulfed what little bit of goodness in his life. Yes, Guinevere pitied that man.
"It had taken me a long time to get used to your father's way of living. But he had to get used to mine too."
"Is that why you let me play with Charlie from the lower town even though the other girls can't?"
"Yes," Gwen lifted the girl's eyes to meet hers, "And I wish you would stop calling him 'Charlie from lower town', he's just Charlie, regardless of where he lives."
"What does regardless mean?"
Gwen laughed softly and kissed her daughter's forehead, "That means it doesn't matter where he's from."
Guinevere returned to the day when she fell in love with the young prince. Specifically, to that one phrase where Arthur had explained how he dreamed of being a farmer. She knew then that to Arthur, it didn't matter what her job was, or what his was either for that matter. She had always wondered whether he would've still had to die if he had been a farmer. Perhaps farming would've been best for both of them.
"I'm just sad you never got to meet him," Guinevere whispered into the little girl's curly copper hair.
"My daddy, the greatest king of Camelot."
Gwen giggled, "Your daddy, the misinterpreted farmer."