Page 75 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

‘Art,’ Gwen said, as she leaned clumsily into him and rested her tired head on his shoulder. ‘I know we didn’t get off to the best start – don’t laugh at me, I just want to say something, and you’re not to interrupt.’ She felt Arthur nod, and gathered her thoughts before continuing. ‘Before you came here … I spent a very long time feeling confused. I didn’t know why I was feeling the way I was, or what it meant, and … you were the first person who knew. And all right, you used it toblackmailme, which wasn’t ideal, but I suppose it was in self-defence … What I’m trying to say is, you knew, and it made perfect sense to you even when it didn’t to me. I didn’t have to try to justify it to you, or begfor your understanding – it wasn’t something that even needed explaining. I had no idea how much that would mean to me. When I talked to you about it, even when you were being a bit of a nightmare, you always made me feel like it was … completely ordinary. Something I should be allowed to want and to have, without question. And this might sound foolish, but it felt like you were somehow on my side, even when you hated me. It … it made me braver. That’s what I really want to thank you for.’

Arthur didn’t say anything. When Gwen lifted her head from his shoulder to squint up at him she could have sworn that before he casually swiped at them with his sleeve, there might have been tears in his eyes.

‘We’vebothgone soft,’ he said, his voice a little scratchy. ‘What sort of a marriage is this going to be? One of us has to wear the metaphorical breeches. Oh, here – I have a gift for you.’ He rummaged inside his jacket pocket and then dropped something small into her lap. ‘Should have given it back ages ago, but … anyway. It’s all there, even the parts we tore out. I checked.’

Gwen looked down at the diary in her hand, all that childhood longing and sadness andlonelinesspressed between a few hundred pages, and then back up at Arthur.

‘Good birthday?’ he said, and she smiled, turning to watch as Sidney did indeed try to lift Bridget off her feet; Bridget stopped him with a very serious look and one hand held up in warning. Adah had managed to pick up Elaine, who was shrieking happily, while Agnes threw her head back and laughed at them all.

‘Thebest.’

After her birthday, Gwen seemed to vanish from Arthur’s life.

He ascertained that she had been swallowed whole by wedding planning, which had yet to touch him; apparently for ladies it was an all-consuming occupation. He occasionally caught glimpses of her being frogmarched somewhere by her mother, and caught up with her at dinner once or twice, but she wasn’t free to entertain him in her room by night or watch the tournament by day. Arthur and Sidney attended the latter frequently, Sidney pretending not to know that Arthur was primarily there to try to catch glimpses of Gabriel, who had been studiously avoiding him; unfortunately the men of the royal family were also busy, locked away in endless conference as their soldiers marched north, and Arthur was getting antsy.

‘What the hell is going on here today?’ he said one afternoon, feeling short-tempered, as he and Sidney wandered the busy courtyards, having already attempted to go into the city for lunch and found it so packed with people that it was entirely unnavigable. He was convinced that it had never been like this in the summers of his youth, althoughhe had to allow for the fact that he had been quite small and not particularly observant.

‘There’s some … thing tonight,’ Sidney said reluctantly. ‘According to Agnes. A parade of England’s most eligible daughters, specially imported for the prince to ignore.’

‘Right. Well. Fantastic,’ Arthur said, pushing a door open so hard that it made an ominous cracking sound against the wall. ‘Good for him.’

‘So you’re going to come to the orchard with me and Agnes, right?’ Sidney said doubtfully, following him through the doorway. ‘And we’re going to play cards and frolic and enjoy ourselves, andnotget all pissed off and punchy and do something foolish. Right, Art?’

‘Mmm,’ Arthur replied distractedly.

‘I need you to say it.’

‘Ah – actually,’ Arthur said, gazing down the corridor as if he might find some solution to his restlessness at the end of it. ‘I’m going back to the rooms. To get changed.’

‘Of course you are,’ Sidney said with a sigh as Arthur departed.

Lucifer had been sleeping on Arthur’s bed at least every other night, and he had apparently been making himself at home in their absence; when Arthur entered he discovered that there was a smear of fresh blood on the flagstones by the window, probably the last remains of an unlucky mouse, and the stacks of books and papers that had been sitting on the sill since they had been delivered from Maidvale had been tipped unceremoniously on to the floor.

‘Bastard cat,’ Arthur griped, leaning over to pick them up. The heaviest and most dull-looking of the obscureArthurian books Mrs Ashworth had included in the package had fallen open, some of its ancient pages bent beyond repair, and when he lifted it a few fell out and fluttered to the floor.

He was just going to leave them where they’d fallen, but his eyes landed on a beautifully scrawled line of Common Brittonic. He started translating despite himself – and then froze, staring down at what he was sure he must have misread. He gathered up the rest of the pages, his heart thudding in his chest, then spread them out on the bed and hunkered down to read.

An hour later, he was doing exactly what Sidney had been trying to warn him against.

It was none of his business, of course, if Gabriel wanted to ignore him and to go along with this charade, maybe evenmarryone of the poor girls. Arthur could hardly hold it against him, with his own wedding on the horizon. And besides, Arthur had done this before – had found himself caring too much about somebody, somebody who thought the only thing they could be together was a mistake – and look where that had landed him.

Completely,utterlynone of his business … so it was difficult to say why he was still walking towards the Great Hall. He wasn’t dressed for dinner, but he didn’t care; he felt hot and itchy all over, determined to rid himself of this mood by taking a more direct course of action.

Peering through the doorway, he found the trestle tables full of the usual motley assembly of lesser nobles, although there were far more women present than usual. He had toargue quite sternly with the guard to even be let in, as apparently there was some sort of guest list that he definitely wasn’t on.

Gwen wasn’t sitting at the royal table, which meant he couldn’t really approach it.

Gabriel was.

He looked beautifully exhausted in light, silvery blue, his curls combed and carefully arranged, a hand wrapped so tightly around his goblet that it looked as if his knuckles might be about to rupture. He didn’t look up when Arthur entered, so Arthur just stood there and watched him – saw him duck his head and nod seriously as a pretty young brunette in violent shades of crimson said something in his ear, observed the way his brow furrowed and his teeth caught on his lower lip as he tried his hardest to look interested.

‘Well,’ Arthur said to nobody in particular. ‘Great.’

He sat down and found himself looking at an unattended cup of wine; he hesitated for a moment, thinking of Gwen’s remonstrations about his drinking habits, but one glance back over at Gabriel obliterated his self-control.

‘Bad night?’ said a rather reedy young man sitting next to him, sounding glum. ‘Join the club. That’s Lady Clement of Lancaster sitting next to him. She was supposed to bemybetrothed. I’ve known her since we were children. I used to write her poems.’

‘Chin up,’ Arthur said, knocking his cup against the morose lad’s. ‘Perhaps he won’t want her after all, and you can – you know – snuffle up his leavings.’