The Space Between Doubt
The clink of their blades was measured between each strike. Where Gwen's footwork was cautious, Isolde's was deliberate and practiced. The lush green training field, illuminated by braziers and a few lit torches on spikes, was empty this time of evening. An occasional passerby would slow and cast curious glances their way.
Fredrick patrolled close to the outer fortress walls, watching them from the clearest vantage. Her personal guard, vigilant and ever protective, was never too far from her. The air of tension between him and Arthur had dissipated and Gwen was happy for that, for he was like a father to her.
"Swing high," Isolde instructed after a parry with her blunted sword.
Women had a right to defend themselves in the art of swordplay; she'd wielded steel in life-or-death situations many times, had practiced with Arthur at an abandoned mill-house. His training had helped to protect herself through her exile, but it wasn't until her encounter with Morgana that she realized she needed to be even better. Her emotions had gotten the best of her then and she'd almost lost her head.
Swing left. Swing right. High counter cut. Parry. Low.
"Good," said Isolde, swinging low to block the counter cut. "Your footwork needs improvement, though. Step lightly, Gwen. Don't force your movements."
Gwen tensed. Parry. Strike. "Arthur calls it sloppy footwork."
Parry. Block. Seeing an opening, she shoved Isolde back with her shoulder and full body weight. Isolde slid smoothly to a stop, losing neither balance, sword, nor poise.
"Well done," Isolde said. "That's an effective tactic that may buy you some time, but that's Arthur's style." They both laughed and then relaxed their stances, dropping their practice swords point down. "Brute force won't work if your opponent is two or three times your size. Here's what I would do with an opening like that. Attack."
Gwen performed a few offensive moves, slowly increasing the intensity of her swings and motions. Isolde defended with ease, using her footwork to evade rather than parry. Feinting left, she side-stepped Gwen's over-extend thrust and slapped the flat of her blade against Gwen's hamstring.
"You're down," said Isolde. "Leaving me open for a kill." She pointed the tip of the sword at Gwen's rib cage near the heart. "I could skewer you as well had I a dagger in my other hand. Here's a vulnerable spot, too."
She quickly repositioned the sword dangerously close to Gwen's neck, her arm steady and eyes piercing, daring Gwen to move.
"Don't give your opponent a chance to strike back. If you have a true and lethal mark, take it."
"In that case, I yield," Gwen said. From her periphery, Fredrick's posture had tensed, but he didn't advance any closer to them. Isolde stood fast, keeping her at bay.
Gwen considered yanking Isolde's long, golden braid in return for her intimidation tactic, but instead simply nodded before Isolde backed up and took a defensive position. She glanced at her bodyguard, who had already returned to his patrolling.
"Okay," Isolde said. "Now, your turn."
They executed a few maneuvers and various forms of final blows. By the end of the session, Gwen's confidence to incapacitate an opponent was high. But she was tired and growing hungry.
"I truly appreciate practicing with you," she said during a short respite. "It's invigorating. Training with Arthur was beneficial, but there were times when concentration on the sword had been far from our thoughts."
"You were both vulnerable then. A perfect opening to take advantage."
Gwen smiled. With her new trainer, there were no gray areas, no distractions.
"I did once," she said, heat rushing to her face. "I'd slipped and fallen. He helped me up, pulled me close to him, staring at me with the warmest eyes I'd ever seen. Oh, how I wanted to kiss him, Isolde. Instead, I slide my sword between us, the point right under his chin."
"Good for you," Isolde said with a genuine smile. She lifted her sword. "Now, en garde."
Their blades clashed again as they danced around each other, sweat pooling above Gwen's lip and down her temples.
"You never gave up hope," Isolde said during a parry, sparring more furiously. "A once-exiled commoner, now queen of Camelot."
Distracted by her words, Gwen cut too high and left herself open. Isolde shoved her with full body weight imitating Gwen's earlier move.
She crashed hard on her back, grunting on impact with the ground. She slammed both her fists down, her chest heaving and cheeks burning.
Isolde stared warily at Fredrick as he strode towards them. "Is he always that jumpy?"
Gwen followed her gaze. Casting a stern glare from her fallen position halted his steps. He hesitated, his lips thinned, and then backed away.
"You did that on purpose," Gwen groaned, coming up on her elbows, dismissing Isolde's question.
"I said it was effective," she said, smiling mischievously. "You must think swiftly; use all your weapons." Isolde reached for her and pulled her to her feet.
Next time, Gwen thought. I will yank your lovely hair. She brushed grass petals from her back side and legs
"How are you?" Isolde asked, watching her warily.
"I'm fine." Gwen said, straightening her buck-skinned tunic. "My pride is bruised, but I'll recover." She scooped up her sword. "Five-minute respite?"
"Sure." They sat next to their sack of gear, Gwen on a bench, Isolde on the grassy ground, one knee propped up. They removed their gloves and then sipped water from their skins.
"You seem happy, Gwen." Isolde swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then corked the water skin. "Are you?"
Gwen fiddled with the leather skin before corking it, avoiding eye contact with Isolde. Her life was like a tempest, fast and furious and churning the turmoil inside her. She would not share her fears.
"I never thought anything would become of it because of our stations. No matter how much we loved each other, we knew that the world would never accept us. But it has, hasn't it?"
"Love finds a way," Isolde said gently.
"He promised me the world, and now he's given it to me. He is my husband and I'm his wife."
"You were destined to be together."
Gwen exhaled deeply and smiled, releasing tension from her knotted muscles. It warmed her to speak of Arthur, her love for him as constant as the stars. She adored him. But he couldn't solve her problems. Gwen bit into her lower lip, her smile faded.
"What's wrong?" Isolde asked.
She put the handkerchief away, rifled around the sack, again evading Isolde's gaze. "I never said anything was wrong."
"Your expression just said that something was."
Gwen clenched her jaw, annoyance tingling her nerves. Isolde stared at her, thick eyebrows raised with expectation.
Gwen thinned her lips and corked her waterskin. Shoulders relaxing, she realized that it was good to have a friend challenge her assumptions again.
"I wanted to be Arthur's wife more than be his queen. I never imagined what it meant to be both. After we married, it finally struck me that I had a great responsibility to respect this position of authority. As frightened as I am as the 'peasant queen', all eyes are upon me, waiting for any misstep." Now keenly aware, she knew that some of her subjects circled like hungry vultures to pick over her left-over carcass, after the wolves had ripped her apart and devoured her flesh.
Yet, during their secret courtship, Arthur allowed her to study the books and scrolls he'd studied. Two years in the library exposed her to a bigger world: literature, art, mathematics, history, farming, infrastructure, even politics. She was fascinated with the subjects and absorbed as much knowledge as she could, even asking Arthur questions about something she learned every now and again. In his way, Gwen now realized, Arthur had been preparing her to be a queen.
"You seem to be handling it well, though I can see a few dark lines under your eyes. Are you sleeping well."
Gwen fidgeted with her sack, averting her eyes before she considered to answer with a half-truth. "Frankly, ruling over so many has given me fitful rest and it's only been a fortnight."
It took effort to dismiss fleeting thoughts of her night terrors emerging during her waking hours. The pain inflicted by Morgana and her weeks enslaved still pursued her in dreams.
Dig the hole. Carry the pole. The sting of the whip master's leather cracked loud, tearing her flesh. His dagger slashed her cheek, the scent of her blood flooded her senses.
Plant the pole. Start a new hole. Sweat from the chase burned into her doe eyes as men hunted her, a fiery bolt piercing her thigh.
Red flowed everywhere and smothered her to death.
These same terrors stalked her each night, a strange, frenetic beat drumming in her ears until she bled out.
She hugged herself, shuttering aside the sudden flashbacks with a shake of her head. All that Merlin's sleeping draughts did was keep her deeper and longer in those terrifying places.
And she was tired.
"Gwen?"
"Hm?" She had drifted again, but grateful she was only in Isolde's presence.
"I said that I don't envy you, but are you sure that's it entirely?"
"What do you mean? Of course, it is," she insisted, resentment in her voice.
Isolde rose from the ground and joined her on the bench. She took Gwen's hands into hers.
"Gwen, you're newly married and you've immersed yourselves into the onerous concerns of monarchy from day the onset. You've hardly had the time to get to know each other intimately. There's so much to be learned in that special time, a bonding that transcends everything. It's really where all the fun begins." Isolde nudged her with a soft shoulder bump and wiggled her brows playfully, her eyes mischievous again.
Gwen relaxed with a laugh, blushing. She'd been terrified for a moment in the bath, but later, as Arthur's hands roamed to places no one else had ever touched, hers hungrily caressed his toned skin and rippled muscles, scars from wounds and calloused hands that reminded her of a servant.
She and Arthur's paths rarely crossed outside council meetings or audiences with people now, but she was sharing them with him. At night, she longed for his touch, opened her desire to him. Blissful sleep came for a short time before deeper slumber summoned her demons. She restrained a shutter and focused her drifting attention back to Isolde.
"Is that what you and Tristan did? Run away and forget all your troubles for a time?" Isolde laughed, but Gwen saw something deeper behind her large, hazel eyes.
"Something like that," she said mysteriously. "That's a story for another time. This is about you and Arthur. Is there any way you could remove yourselves from the burdens of the kingdom and enjoy the newness of matrimony for a short time? There must be someone else around here that can run the place during your absence."
Gwen was shaking her head before Isolde finished. Isolde was becoming a dear friend and she wished she could bring her into the confidence of Arthur and his knights' plans. But the fewer people involved in their dangerous secrets, the lesser the damage if the details of their plans were ever exposed or if they outright failed.
"Not possible. Though I would love a holiday away from Camelot, our absence would send the wrong message. We need to be here with our people especially since magic is lawful now. There's too much ahead of us to do, too much in the balance. We cannot abandon our posts."
Isolde pursed her lips in disapproval, admonishing Gwen with her eyes. "Now you sound like Arthur." She placed a hand gently over Gwen's. "But leadership suits you and I do understand. I still worry for you. Others may not be looking for it because they see a queen, but I see you as a friend, and I know that you are weary, even right now."
Gwen exhaled a quiet sigh. "I am, a little. And I'm hungry. I feel my emotions are rampaging, and it's draining me. Arthur isn't pleased that I've taken so much on myself, and yesterday, I lost my temper with him for insisting once again to hire a maidservant and appoint my ladies in waiting. To be honest, I trust none of the noble maidens in Camelot, at least not enough to bring them into the royal sphere of influence; nor can I depend on any of the commoner maidens, especially those I knew before becoming queen."
Gwen's jaw cinched as she snatched up her gloves, barely resisting the urge to hurl them to the ground. I no longer consider them deserving of my friendship. The bitterness churning in her stomach made her temples throb.
"Anyway, Arthur was remarkably sweet and composed after I snapped at him; said that I was still learning what had taken him his entire life to accept: that I can't do everything myself."
"He's right about that," Isolde said with concern in voice and expression.
"I know," she surrendered with a sigh, relinquishing her anger and plopping her hands in her lap. "I hired a maidservant this morning. She'll be starting in a few days."
"Well, that's good news. Just in time for the coronation."
"I suppose. I just need time to adjust to the idea of her."
She had been selecting random girls each day, measuring their skills and character. The one she finally chose, Sefa, was sweet and modest, and reminded Gwen of herself. Her recent arrival with her father to Camelot also helped her stand out. Gwen sighed again, massaging the bridge of her nose.
Isolde placed a hand on her knee. "Perhaps we should continue in a few days."
Gwen rolled her eyes. She really could use rest and hoped tonight's physical activity would be sufficient to exhaust her body as well as her mind. Yet she wanted to practice a while longer, push through the fatigue.
As she was about to say so, movement to the left caught her attention, as well as Fredrick's, who stood at alert again.
Gwen smiled when two peasant maidens crossed the training field, wooden swords in hands, gowns modestly girded above old, worn boots.
Isolde followed her line of sight, and then smiled as the maidens curtsied to the queen. Chins held high with purpose, the young women gripped their practice swords with white-knuckled intensity.
"I don't think so, Lady Isolde," Gwen said, smiling and clapping Isolde on the back. Standing, she retrieved her gloves and sword. "We must set a good example for Camelot's newest type of warriors. Let's get back to it, shall we?"