THE WARRIOR QUEEN (The Guinevere Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

not loose how I had always had it, but plaited into two thick ropes that she wound together into a bun at the base of my neck and pinned in place with the jewelled pins and net of gold that had been left by the husband I would acquire today. She placed the delicate golden circlet I had brought from home, made to look like an ivy-strand twining around, on my thick, red curls. The dress Arthur had chosen fitted well, its sleeves long and close down to the wrist where they ended with a point that reached almost to the knuckle of my middle finger, its bodice tight and embroidered all over with little gold leaves of ivy. He must have known the traditions of my father’s people. I was pleased with that, and with the swish and flow of the silk skirt around my legs. It was a well-made dress, truly. But, it was the dress of a princess, who stood still and was looked at. If I had wanted to run in it, I could not have done. When I was dressed in the green silk dress, and the emerald jewellery, they brought me before the mirror. I had been told, always, that I was beautiful, but all the young marriageable daughters of lords were told this every day, and I was not interested in being beautiful, so I had shrugged at it, and turned away, bored. I had been expecting the fairness of my youth, and the brightness of my hair, but dressed as I was I looked like the queen I was about to become. It was a fierce beauty I saw looking back at me, grand and aloof. I looked proud and cold, and I was pleased with it. I did not want this boy king to think that he had a defeated princess in his grasp. I was still strong, and proud even if my father’s people were defeated and gone.
     
    Sir Ector came to fetch me to Arthur, when it was time that we were wed.
    “My Lady Guinevere.” He took my hand and kissed it lightly. His manner was fatherly, and I was glad to see him. “You have the beauty of a true queen.”
    “Thank you, Sir Ector.” I dipped in a slight curtsey.
    “And your ladies, they are lovely little stars beside your radiant sun.”
    The three ladies bobbed in thanks. It seemed to be all talk at Camelot. Perhaps I would get used to all of these little politenesses, or perhaps they would stop once people had got used to me. I could not say I liked them; they seemed artificial to me. My ladies were dressed in matching gowns of pale blue that I had had brought over with us, all embroidered in silver with little flowers. It best suited Christine, whose dark hair, ice-blue eyes and pale skin made her seem every bit the fairy-woman in her dress. There would be many eyes on her, too, this day, although she was the oldest of us.
    Sir Ector offered me his steady arm and I took it, and he guided me down the stairs of the tower, and out across the open courtyard of Camelot’s keep, to its small chapel. I ought to have had my own father there, but I knew why he did not come. He was too old to leave his home. Too old to suffer the final grief of watching me be handed away. Outside the chapel stood a man dressed in a plain black habit whom I would have mistaken for a monk, were his shaven head and face not patterned with the ugly bruise-blue of woad in beautiful swirls and whorls like the depths of the sea. He measured me with black, beady eyes. I suppressed a shiver down my spine and turned my gaze away.
     
    Inside, the chapel was decked with red roses, and white roses, and white wildflowers all through. But these paled beside the gilded decorations within, pictures of the god of the Christians emblazoned in gold all around; or rather, not their god, but the man who reminded me of our Hanged God, but who I knew was not, but who hung there all the same, made in gold and on a gold cross. I think, like the Hanged God, he too had come back from the dead. So I was to be wed in the sight of Arthur’s gods, not my own. I don’t know why I should have expected anything else. Arthur’s strange Hanged God would be my god now, too.
    Everything in that