A Week with a Prince

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞-𝕺𝖓𝖊

"It's me!" Arthur, seeing the girl ready to shoot, whisper-shouted.

She released her breath on a sigh, then dropped the crossbow, her hands shaking. "I could have shot you," she muttered as he approached her and sat down.

"I noticed." He chuckled. "You are quite the warrior, Lady Gwendolyn, just like the Saxon women, who follow their men into battles with swords and shields."

But Ginny wasn't in the mood to joke; she was still trembling from what she had nearly done. "I could have hurt you! How can you laugh about it?!" she insisted.

"Hush... nothing happened," he soothed her, wrapping his arm over her shoulders and pulling her into an embrace. "It was my fault, not yours."

She nodded into his chest, breathing him in, his scent and the closeness of his body threatening to replace all her thoughts and worries. Yet she replied, "It would hardly matter whose fault it was if you were injured, Sir Lancelot."

He stilled, surprised at hearing her pronounce that name. Lost in the moment, in his fantasy about a life, a world in which this girl could be his, he had quite forgotten their reality. He let go of her, sighing deeply.

"It is my turn to keep watch; you can go to sleep, Gwendolyn."

Ginny missed his touch the moment his arms left her, but she could not complain, she remembered her previous thoughts too well. He surely had his reasons... And yet she heard her own voice say to him, "I want to stay here with you..."

Arthur took a deep breath; she wasn't making it easy for him. However, it made him feel happy. He didn't want her to leave either. "As you wish. But you must try to sleep. It has been a long day; surely you are tired."

She nodded. Lying down where she was by the fire, she curled under her blanket and used another which he had passed her as a pillow.

"Tell me something about Prince Arthur's country," she said, knowing that she would not fall asleep anyway, not with him so close. "You spoke about towns, dragons, battles, the Saxons... I have never crossed the borders of Albion, I have never been farther north than Dudley Castle. But I've heard that Eboracum and so many other towns and places are beautiful."

Arthur looked at her doubtfully. Eboracum, the City of York, which he and Lancelot passed on their way here, had been recently destroyed by the Saxons... She didn't seem to know. Yet again, he noticed how she used the Roman names for the places they talked about and recalled how she refused to believe that the old, pagan myths and legends were true. The girl must have led a sheltered life, come from a Christian family. She might have been schooled in a convent... Arthur, on the other hand, was torn between the faith in the old Druids gods and the new religion brought to the Isles by the Romans.

He said carefully, "These are not times for travelling, I agree with those who kept you in the safety of this part of the country. Any place farther north than Lord John's lands is dangerous, unlike this peaceful spot."

She giggled and moved closer to him when he laid down next to her. "Nothing ever happens here. We're too far south even for the Saxons."

He sighed again, laying his arm around her, leaving her time to protest, then pulling her closer to him and spreading another blanket over them both when she did not complain. She had no idea about how bad the Saxon raids had become, had never seen a plundered village, slaughtered men, women... children. But he was thankful to whoever had kept her safe until now; the war was not for women.

The girl lay still and silent in his arms, and Arthur thought that she had fallen asleep. He pushed a stray strand of hair from her face, then pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders. With her eyes closed, her body encased in his, she looked so young and fragile, trusting and beautiful...

"I don't like your prince," she muttered suddenly, startling him. It was an understatement; she outright hated the man for making her feel guilty for these moments of pure joy she felt when she lay in Lancelot's arms.

He chuckled softly, surprised by her unexpected words. "Why?"

She took a deep breath, hesitating for a moment. Should she tell him? Oh well... "He is a careless gambler, not a man fit to be a ruler. He is arrogant, and his moustache is awful. And I've heard that his sister is a witch." And he dislikes me and likes my cousin instead, she thought to herself.

Arthur laughed, strengthening his hold around her. "Then it's good you don't have to marry him, Gwendolyn. But why would you mind his half-sister being a sorceress when your own cousin could easily be a wizard?"

"All right, I don't mind that," she giggled, the sound morphing into a low sigh as she realised how close they were, and how good, how right it felt... She needed to tell him. It was now or never. "I'm promised to a man I dislike as much as the prince," she confessed in a whisper.

So it was just as he had thought, Arthur mused, unsurprised. "My father wants me to marry a girl I have never met," he admitted, adding his whispered confession to hers, for the night to swallow those unwanted truths, make them disappear.

She nodded in the darkness, then laughed softly. "That's better, I guess, you might still like her when you meet."

He shook his head. Never. Never after meeting this girl would he like another as much. But he didn't want to talk about this anymore.

"What about the dragons, don't you mind the prince being a dragon trainer?" he muttered, changing the subject, his lips mere inches from hers.

"No," she whispered back, smiling. "If that's true, if dragons are real as you say, then I actually like that. I'd love to see them."

Arthur smiled at her, without saying another word. He would give anything he had for this girl... He watched her close her eyes, then drift off to sleep, his ears trained on the silent countryside around them. They were safe here, she had been right. This place was too far south for the Saxons, and they were too far from the old Roman road for bands of brigands lying in wait for rich travellers.

When he heard the girl's cousin coming out of the tent to take his turn to keep watch, Arthur sent him away with a wave of his hand before he could wake her up, repeating the gesture impatiently at Lancelot when he approached them shortly after Warwick had gone back to sleep.

Then he just lay there, holding her, falling deeper in love as he watched her sleep, until the first wan light of sunrise brightened the sky in the east, and he heard footsteps approaching them through the long grass from among the stones of the ancient temple.