So while I'm sorry this chapter took so long to post, great news-Chapter 7 is all but finished and chapter 8 is totally done, because this chapter was getting somewhere around 15,000 words and I ended up having to break it into pieces. So the next two chapters will come pretty fast!
In this chapter, the Mage makes new friends-and one enemy.
Once she starts walking about the castle, she quickly regains her strength. The mute guard Silas is there to offer aid when needed and at her request, begins to teach her his sign language. It's both complex and subtly nuanced, rather like knowing a secret language. She spends time outside in the garden in the mornings when weather permits, helping tend the herbs and vegetables. The eagle Sirius frequently joins her, and she tries to reestablish her mental bond with the bird every chance she can get, but to no avail. The raptor knows her as an ally and companion, but she can no longer see through his eyes, or fly with him as one and feel the wind soar through their feathers.
At around noon, she joins in with everyone else in the castle at the Great Hall for dinner, the largest meal of the day. While she does not sit at Arthur's immediate side, there is always a place for her at the main table, a fact that does not go unnoticed by nobles seeking to gain favor with the new king. Fortunately, her seat is usually flanked by either Bedivere, Merlin, or one of the other 'Knights', offering a buffer of sorts from stilted conversation and awkward questions.
After dinner, there are meetings and public audiences throughout the afternoon with commoners and nobles alike. She begins to attend them as Arthur had requested to maintain her ruse of looking for the not-so-mysterious 'other woman'. These sessions are the only time Arthur actually wears his crown, for he is making official rulings as the King of England.
Each audience begins with him hearing petitions from the common folk. Wet Stick, or Sir Tristan as he is now known, gets the dubious honor of filtering through these prior to their audience with the King. The petitions vary and range requests for criminal pardons for themselves or family to pleas for tax relief or mediation between two complianants. Fortunately, (or unfortunately, on occasion) King Arthur has a better understanding of the needs of even his lowliest subjects than probably any king before them. He listens to their requests and rules accordingly.
After an hour or so of this, the barons get their opportunities to do the same, where they argue with each other about everything from border disputes to price fixing and trade needs. As king, it is Arthur's responsibility to preside over all of it, because if the nobles and barons accept judgement from anyone less than the King himself, it results in a loss of face.
Two days of watching their verbal jousting has Nicola wondering if the nobility is really just that petty, or so inept that they can't manage to solve even the most minor of disputes without involving Arthur. Adding fuel to the fire, they keep shoving documents in front of him and strongly urging (but not insisting, because he IS the King, after all), that he sign them to 'cement his bonds' with whoever has presented the parchment for his review.
Every single one is waved aside with one lazy hand, Arthur assuring them, "I'll review them with my advisors after today's audience." The latest 'urgent charter' presented claims to be detailed report on the movement of hostile Saxons into England. The baron producing it claims that with the King's signature he will muster a small force of soldiers to investigate their movements and report back. "I'll get back with you on it," the King in a bored tone and it is set aside without so much as a cursory look.
Her confusion must show on her face, because a dark-haired woman seated next to her leans over to quietly confide under her breath, "They think he can't read."
"Oh." It hasn't really come up but she is not surprised, either by Arthur's literacy or that the barons have assumed he isn't. She darts a quick glance at the other woman and then takes a longer look at the beautifully coiffed hair, the dark kohl-lined eyes set in a heart-shaped face with tawny skin and suddenly realizes she is looking at one of the two servant women who took such good care of her when she'd been incapacitated by the dreamvision.
"No one ever looks twice at the servants," the woman gives her a beatific smile, swirling her cup of wine. "It's amazing what one can learn from listening when you're all but invisible to the nobles and their staff. Besides, did you really think Arthur was going to entrust the care of his Mage to some random servant?"
Nicola frowns. "I am not his Mage."
The dark-haired woman laughs outright at that, earning them a few stern looks from the people seated near. "Sure, dearie," she says, reaching over to give her a condescending pat on the knee. "You keep telling yourself that. I'm Sabina by the way, one of the Poppies—well, one of the few that's left." Her expression changes ever so slightly, from wry amusement to anger and grief before smoothing clear.
It takes the Mage a moment to realize that she is one of the women who raised or grew up with Arthur at the brothel called The Red Poppy. She must have survived Mischief John's purge of the hidden caves at Vortigern's command. In the confusion and mayhem of that attack, she thought they had all been killed as retribution for Arthur's continued defiance of his uncle's rule.
She flounders about for something appropriate to say and settles on, "Well thank you. You took good care of me, I know it must not have been easy."
"Pfft," Sabina regains her cheerful mood, taking a swig of her wine before giving her a saucy wink. "Nonsense, yours is almost certainly one of the finest asses I've ever had the pleasure of wiping and swaddling like a babes."
Nicola turns beet red with mortification, eliciting another giggle from the other woman.
"Seriously though, no need to thank me. Us Poppies would do anything for our boy Arthur, and that goes back to long before he was crowned king. He and Wet Stick are near about the only family we have left, Tabitha and I that is." She gestures toward another woman who is chatting with a blushing youth. She is older than both Nicola and Sabina by a dozen years or so, the barest hint of crows feet touching the corner of her eyes, with ash blond hair and features that are angular but still refined. "Which is why we sit through these audiences every day, dull as they are."
The Mage makes a face, because she too is there at Arthur's request, though admittedly it is her own doing that's led to his request.
Sabina continues, "Anyway as I was saying, they've been trying to get him to sign off on something—anything—for weeks now. I think they're getting desperate now, or they think they're on the verge of wearing him down enough that he'll sign something just to make them go away."
"What sorts of things are they trying to get him to agree to? Surely they're important if they are taking the time to bring them to before the King."
"Oh girl, you have no idea," Sabina responds with droll amusement, sipping from her cup again. "If he'd signed even half of them, he'd have given away all his lands, the whole royal treasury, evicted himself from his own castle and agreed to arranged marriages with no less than twenty-four different women in the process, and at least one of those women is already married. Maybe two, come to think of it…" she corrects, furrowing her brow in thought.
Nicola is aghast. No wonder he doesn't even look at the parchments before setting them aside.
Sabina looks her up and down, shaking her head. "I have no idea how you've made it through all of this without a cup of wine in your hand. Come on, girl, trust me, it makes these idiotic audiences a lot less painful. Honestly I can't believe you made it through yesterday without one, much less through half of today."
The Mage is startled when Sabina presses her own cup into her hand and gets up, "Let me go find you something while you tide yourself over with that."
From that point on whenever she is in the audience chamber, the Poppy takes her under her proverbial wing. They sit together and watch the daily proceedings with wine cups in hand. Sipping the refined liquid really does help more so than tea and water would, but she is careful not to drink too much—too much alcohol always makes her feel like she is on the verge of loosing control, which is not a feeling she likes at all.
Tabitha sits with them, but she is even more of a social butterfly than Sabina herself and gets a fair amount of enjoyment out of rubbing elbows with the same people who would not have deigned to even acknowledge her on the streets before Arthur was crowned. In fact, much to the Mage's amusement, the barons, merchants and other influential families go out of their way to ingratiate themselves to the women they almost certainly despise for formerly being whores but must tolerate to the point of obsequiousness due to their proximity to the King's inner circle. Along with Wet Stick, the women are the closest thing he has to family and they are fiercely protective of him in return.
The Poppies make the most of it, feigning ignorance and naivety in regard to the political scheming so as to learn as much as possible about the true motives of those seeking Arthur's favor, and call it "The Splendid Game." They've even developed a scoring system of some type that Nicola can't quite wrap her head around, other than that it's based on how much information they are able to wheedle out of the pretentious nobility, which they of course report back to Arthur and the other Knights of the Round Table. While she wants nothing to do with the playing of their game, she finds she enjoys it because they enjoy it.
One unanticipated side effect of her spending so much time with Sabina and Tabitha is that she learns more about some of the sexual proclivities of certain court members than she ever wanted to know. For a few days, the two Poppies seem to go out of their way to divulge some of the sauciest details they can, just to see her blush furiously, but lose interest when she is noncommittal. She truly has no opinion, positive or negative, about what two (or more, as the case may be) consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedchambers, or the stables, or closets or anywhere else they may be.
While sometimes the daily audiences will have something interesting that happens, she finds her mind wandering and wonders exactly how she can go about telling Arthur the truth. In her mind, this omission of detail is even worse than the lie she tells every night before she goes to bed, when he comes to her room to ask if she has seen the woman's face yet.
She still wakes up to lingering remnants of her half-finished vision but starts having other dreams in which she is a darker variant of herself, as hungry for power and recognition as Vortigern himself once was, ruling at Arthur's side. Other times he is completely absent, and she rules alone as a Mage queen, which is even more disturbing.
Once again, she finds herself starting a trend she had neither wanted nor intended. Her eagle Sirius killed a pair of fat rabbits and brought them to her to share, as he had done many times in the past. At Arthur's suggestion, she ended up donating her portion of the kills to the kitchens, where they ended up in a hearty stew the following day. Within a week, it seems as though falconry is all the rage. Noblemen and women begin to bring their raptors to the garden to show and hunt. Her eagle Sirius is still a bit of an oddity, for not only does he lack jesses or hood, he is free to come and go as he pleases instead of being kept in a cage or aviary.
Their size alone makes eagles more difficult to keep than the typical falcon or hawk used, and to her surprise, a fair number of would-be falconers come to her seeking advice on how to best care for their birds and improve their hunting prowess. The truth is, she knows little about falconry, but she does know a lot about caring for animals in general, so imparts what tidbits of knowledge and wisdom she can.
One day, Guinevere herself makes her way over to Nicola, a handsome little red-footed falcon on her arm. "He's a beauty, isn't he?" the beautiful woman comments at her admiring glance. "My father bought four of them back with him from Germania a couple of years back. Herric here, and Fatima," she gestures toward the larger female her father carries, "are the only two who made it. He's trying to breed them, but we've had no luck."
"They prefer to nest in old rookeries or crow nests. Perhaps if you put one in your aviary they will take to it," Nicola advises.
"Oh!" Guinevere exclaims. "I'll tell my father. We never even considered it was the nest itself that might be the problem. Thank you."
Nicola cautions, "It might not make any difference. They're a migratory bird and that may have something to do with it as well."
The other woman nods, "Yes, of course, but it certainly won't hurt to try that, especially as it is such a simple solution."
"True. I hope it works."
Guinevere strokes the cheek of her little falcon, and her voice is deceptively casual when she comments, "Some say you knew King Arthur from before, that you were part of the Resistance?"
"Do they?"
"Yes." The beautiful blonde's gaze is shrewd as she continues, "They also say that the reason he keeps you close by his side is because it was you who helped him regain his throne, not Merlin."
"Mmm," is Nicola's noncommittal response.
"I intend to marry him, you know," Guinevere announces in an undertone, as one who is confiding a secret, even though it's fairly common knowledge what her intentions are. "Father says we are a good match. Plus, I can help the nobles restrain his, ah, baser instincts, so to speak."
The notion that anyone would be able to stop Arthur from doing something he has his mind set to do is amusing at best, and nothing more than foolish arrogance.
"If you really know him as well as they say you do, can you tell me, will he remain faithful to me after we are wed, or will he frequent the brothels as much as Sir William and Set Tristan are wont to do?" Guinevere may be one of the most beautiful women in all of England, but right now her features are marred by an ugly sneer.
Nicola has no patience for this woman or her petty machinations. Given her knowledge of this woman's duplicitous future from her vision, the sheer hypocrisy of the question is truly grating. "I am sure he will be as faithful to you as you are to him," she replies with an innocent smile.
A strangled gasp escapes Guinevere, and her face goes beet red. She turns away with such abruptness her little red-footed falcon lets out a startled squawk and has to throw out his wings to keep his balance on her leather arm glove.
It's enough to give her a headache, but there is no way she'll miss the evening meal and give the impression that she is avoiding the other woman. To her amusement it is actually Guinevere who is missing from the supper table later that day.
That night she has a new dream, of long sinuous shapes moving just beneath the murky surface of a shadowed pool. The ripples lessen until the water is still, then a body in a white shroud of a dress bobs up like a cork, stringy black hair spreading out like a death veil around the pale face of a woman she has never seen in her life but somehow knows is Vortigern's daughter Catia. Then those long tentacles burst out of the water, inexorably pulling her down into the muddy depths. You know the price, a barnacle encrusted voice whispers in her ear while she drowns, flailing helplessly.
Nicola jerks awake to find it is already light outside, flailing and coughing to clear her airways of the vestigial traces of phantom water. Shuddering as she recovers her bearings, she furiously rubs at her eyes in an attempt to wipe away the mental image of poor dead Catia. Until now, she like everyone else had assumed that when the princess had vanished in the mayhem of that final day when Arthur finally claimed his birthright, it was because Vortigern saw his end coming and had her sent way to protect her.
You know the price.
She does indeed, and it was paid with his daughter's blood.