Page 1 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

When Gwen woke up, she knew she’d had the dream again – and that she’d beenloud. She knew she’d had the dream because she was feeling exhilarated, loose-limbed and a little flushed in the face; she knew she’d been vocal about it because Agnes, the dark-haired lady-in-waiting who slept in the adjoining chamber, kept biting her lip to keep from laughing and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

‘Agnes,’ Gwen said, sitting up in bed and fixing her with a well-practised and rather imperious look. ‘Don’t you have water to fetch, or something?’

‘Yes, your highness,’ said Agnes, giving a little curtsy and then rushing from the room. Gwen sighed as she stared up at the bed hangings, lush velvet heavy with embroidery. It was probably a mistake to send her away so soon – she was young and flighty, and would likely be off gossiping with anybody she encountered. At least Gwen’s nocturnal exploits wouldn’t stay top billing for long. Today was no ordinary day; tournament season was finally upon them. Any mortifying morsels Agnes slipped the other ladies-in-waiting would be forgotten in all the excitement by noon.

When Agnes came back with a pitcher of water Gwen stepped out of bed, raised her arms above her head so that Agnes could remove the thin tunic she slept in, and then stood yawning and blinking in the early morning light as she was scrubbed and oiled to within an inch of her life. Agnes was just easing a new shift over Gwen’s shoulders when the door was nudged open and a tall, pale, copper-haired young man walked in, his head buried in a stack of parchment.

‘Have you seen this?’ he said, not lifting his eyes from the page.

‘Er. Gabriel,’ Gwen said, looking at him incredulously. ‘I’m not dressed.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Gabriel looked up and frowned at her briefly, as if she had removed her clothes just to inconvenience him. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘The Greeks wrote a lot of plays about this sort of thing,’ Gwen said, as Agnes rushed over with a dress to cover her, her fair skin flushing a delicate pink. Her blushes were probably less to do with the impropriety of the situation and more to do with the fact that almost every woman at court harboured a persistent crush on her brother. Many had tried to catch his eye, and so far, all had failed. He wasn’t really one for talking at all, unless it was to Gwen. She had always held this as a point of pride.

‘The Greeks wrote a lot of plays about putting on dresses?’ he asked now, brow still furrowed, as Agnes yanked the dress inelegantly over Gwen’s head.

‘No,’ Gwen said, emerging with quite a lot of her hairstuck to her mouth. ‘You’re missing the … Are you even listening to me? You walked intomyroom, you know.’ He turned over the piece of parchment he was reading to peruse the other side, not acknowledging that he’d heard a word. ‘Gabriel.Gabe. Can you hear something? The sound of a spectral voice upon the air? It almost sounds like I’m talking.’

‘Hang on, G,’ he said, raising a hand to indicate that he needed a moment. Gwen considered this, and decided he hadn’t earned it. ‘Ow.’

Gwen had taken one of the brocade slippers Agnes had offered to her and thrown it at him with considerable force.

‘Please arrive at the point with haste.’

‘Ah – fine,’ Gabriel said, still rubbing his head. ‘Father is having me look at the accounts with Lord Stafford – costs for the tournament season mostly, but I also sawthisand I thought …’ He trailed off, handing her the parchment so she could read it for herself.

Agnes started expertly weaving Gwen’s long red hair into braids as Gwen’s eyes skimmed quickly down the page, taking in an extensive list of assets. Chests full of silks and damask, an ancient jewelled dining set, endless porcelain vases; all marked to be leaving the crown’s coffers in the coming months. Comprehension dawned as she reached the end of the page and the entry denoting the enormous Biblical tapestry of Ruth and Naomi that currently hung in her chambers.

‘This is my dowry,’ she said slowly. ‘Gabe. Mydowry.’

‘I suppose it’s that time already,’ Gabriel said, with a sympathetic grimace.

‘Shit,’ said Gwen, sitting down heavily on the end of the bed.

‘Shit,’ Gabriel agreed.

In theory, being betrothed since birth could have been a comfort to Gwen, especially as it was to somebody so close to her own age. It meant there would be no nasty surprises; no new political alliances to forge with elderly, ornery nobility through marriage. Better the devil she knew, et cetera.

Unfortunately, this was encapsulated far too literally in the man she had been sworn to marry. Arthur Delacey, heir to the title Lord of Maidvale, was – in Gwen’s opinion – the devil incarnate.

They had met for the first time on the day she was born, barely more than a shrimp and already promised to him; he’d been two years old, shuffled into Camelot along with his parents and hundreds of other families courting favour with the crown. She could just picture Arthur’s affronted little face, scowling down at her in her cradle, disappointed already. She had often wondered if her parents had considered committing wholly to the bit and calling herGuinevereto match him, but had chickened out just in time and chosenGwendolineinstead, the uncomfortable legacy of the former’s extramarital affairs with roguish knights staying their hands.

Her first true memory was of Gabriel giving her a piece of warm, fragrant honey cake, sneaking it to her outside the kitchens before dinner to calm a tantrum.

Her second memory was of Arthur taking it from her. It had been sixteen years, and she was still angry about that honey cake.

Among other things.

He had pulled her hair at mass. Mocked her relentlessly at feasts. Tripped her in the courtyard in front of every petty lord and lady of the realm, and then stepped smugly over her as she lay sprawled on the cobblestones with a skinned knee. The first stirrings of summer meant that a visit from Arthur was nigh, and so she learned to dread brighter mornings and hawthorns in bloom. On her ninth birthday, she had tried to get ahead of him by setting a trap outside his chamber, enlisting Gabriel’s help to stretch a thin length of twine across the doorway; he had stumbled spectacularly over it and broken his wrist in two places. The guards had apprehended him a week later trying to push a feral cat through her bedroom window one-handed.

That September, the queen had politely suggested that it might be best if they were separated for the time being. Gwen had been so happy when she heard the news that she had skipped around the castle all day, buoyed by the prospect of Arthur-free summers. Her skipping had ended abruptly that evening when she heard her father refer to Arthur as her ‘betrothed’.

‘Gabe,’ she had said, seeking him out in his favourite corner of the library. ‘What’s abetrothed?’

‘It’s the person you’re going to marry,’ Gabriel replied, looking up from his book.

‘I was afraid of that,’ she said glumly. ‘Who’s your betrothed?’