As much as Agnes had protested that the event wasn’t a party, there was a sort of makeshift bar at one end of the cultist cellar, stocked with enormous cauldrons of a mysterious beverage that tasted strongly of liquorice and peppermint. Gwen and Agnes backed themselves into a wall to drink, entirely anonymous in all the hubbub.
‘How did you find out about this?’ Gwen asked. ‘And why is it secret? Surely everybody knows that my father encourages freedom of beliefs by now. Doing it covertly just makes it seem … suspect.’
Agnes looked suspiciously as if she were wishing that Gwen had decided to leave with the others.
‘From another lady-in-waiting,’ she said miserably. ‘I was meant to meet her. And – I suppose it’s all part of the fun.’
Despite the fact that Gwen had never voluntarily sought out Agnes’s company, her obvious disappointment stung. Just moments ago Gwen had felt like one of the gang, sneaking around the castle grounds together in the dead of night – but suddenly things were right back to how they always were. ‘Well. Don’t let me hold you back.’
‘I can’t leave you alone,’ Agnes said, wide-eyed and a little too hopeful.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gwen said stiffly. She didn’t actually want Agnes to abandon her, but it was better than feeling as if her presence were being suffered. ‘Nobody here knows who I am – I’m quite safe. Go.’
‘Well,’ Agnes said, having the good manners to look briefly torn. ‘If you insist.’ She was off across the room looking for her friends a moment later. Gwen stood clutching her cup, catching snatches of conversation and laughter all around her, focusing solely on finishing her drink. Once it was done, she pulled her hood more securely around her face and went to refill it; she only managed to take two steps back towards the cauldrons before she felt a hand on her arm, insistent fingers pressing into the jut of her elbow.
‘Could you not find them?’ Gwen said, expecting Agnes – but when she turned, she almost dropped her empty cup.
‘What,’ said Lady Leclair, ‘are you doing?’
‘Um,’ said Gwen, hearing her voice jump almost a full octave. ‘Getting a drink?’
‘No,’ Bridget said, ‘I mean, what are you doing here?’ She gently steered Gwen back into a dark corner. She was wearing an inky-blue formal jacket, her hair pulled half up and secured with an ornate hairpin that was easily the grandest thing Gwen had ever seen her wear. ‘Your cloak isn’t quite the disguise you think it is. I’d call you your highness,’ Bridget continued in a low voice, ‘but I’m not sure that would be wise.’
‘I’m here with – well, what are you doing here?’ Gwen said. Or, squeaked.
‘I’m here with friends,’ Bridget said. Gwen felt immediately envious of these friends, whoever they were. Somehow, she hadn’t pictured Bridget having any at Camelot, but of course she did – who wouldn’t want to be friends with her? ‘You didn’t …’ Bridget started to say, but she broke off, looking uncomfortable.
‘Didn’t what?’ said Gwen.
‘You didn’t follow me here, did you?’
Gwen gaped at her. ‘Follow you?’ she said. ‘What? I wouldn’t – how would I even—’
‘All right,’ Bridget said, holding a hand up. ‘My apologies.’
‘Why would you even think of that?’
‘Uh,’ Bridget said, glancing around the room before answering. ‘I thought I’d noticed … Well, I’m just surprised to see you here. And – to be honest, it’s not like it would have been the first time somebody’s done it.’
‘People just … follow you around?’ Gwen said incredulously.
‘Girls … follow me around,’ Bridget said. ‘Not often, but. It happens. Tournaments make minor celebrities of those who take part, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.’
‘Right,’ Gwen said stiffly. ‘Well. I’m sorry to have given you that impression, I thought we were just … Actually, I did want to tell you something, but I certainly wouldn’t have followed you anywhere to say it—’
‘What did you want to tell me?’ Bridget said, cutting cleanly through what Gwen was sure would have been quite an extensive bluster.
‘Oh. Er. I wanted to say – that it was very brave, what you did at the tournament,’ Gwen said in a small voice. ‘I’m not sure the Knife – Sir Marlin – in fact, I know he wouldn’t have done the same for you. And I’m sorry you had to do it at all.’
Bridget nodded. ‘Because you could have said something.’
‘Well,’ Gwen said defensively. ‘It’s not actually that simple, but …’ Bridget was looking at her expectantly. Gwen sighed. ‘But, yes. I suppose … I should have said something.’
She was rewarded with a dangerous little half-smile. If she were an artist, she would have rushed home later that night and attempted to commit it to canvas; embroidering it would probably lose a lot in translation.
Bridget went to speak, and Gwen thought she might be about to receive some sort of praise – was, quite frankly, desperate for some acknowledgement that while cowardly, her behaviour had been redeemable in Lady Leclair’s eyes – but instead, Bridget’s face smoothed over into something more neutral.
‘Keep your head down,’ she said.
‘What?’ Gwen said, confused – but a moment later she was ducking her head as two young women descended on them.
‘This stuff tastes like pigswill,’ one of them said, handing Bridget a cup. She was tall and Black, with deep dimples and closely cropped hair.
‘Great,’ said Bridget, squinting doubtfully at the drink. ‘You needn’t have bothered then.’
‘Who’s this?’ said the other woman. She didn’t wait for an answer before handing Gwen a fresh cup of her own. She looked, Gwen thought, a bit like a mouse; colourless blonde hair and a fair, pointy face.
‘Er,’ said Bridget.
‘I’m – Winifred,’ Gwen said quickly, hoping she sounded convincing.
‘Adah,’ said the first woman, shooting her a grin.
‘Elaine,’ said the second. She had quite a lot of long necklaces on, and they clicked when she moved.
‘Adah works in the mews,’ Bridget said, ‘and Elaine in the kitchens.’
‘Oh,’ said Gwen. ‘The mews – with the falcons? How is it I’ve never seen you before?’
‘Well, I’ve only been there a year,’ said Adah, shrugging. ‘Took a bloody age for them to come round to the idea that I might actually be good at it. Why? Where do you work?’
‘Oh,’ said Gwen again. She could think of no logical reason why she’d have business in the mews if she didn’t house a bird there, and was struggling to come up with a lie. Door-cleaner? Or, perhaps – feather-collector? Was feather-collector anything close to a real job?
‘She … doesn’t work here. She’s my cousin,’ Bridget said. Both of the other women looked from her to Gwen and then back again – Bridget, dark-haired and muscular and brown-skinned, Gwen willowy and red-headed and white – and then seemed to accept this explanation in good faith.
‘Come to see Leclair crush the competition?’ Adah said, grinning as Bridget rolled her eyes.
Gwen noticed that they seemed very comfortable with each other. As Bridget knocked back the contents of her cup, her nose wrinkling in exaggerated disgust, Adah clapped her on the back and laughed – and then left her hand there, resting easily on Bridget’s shoulder blade.
Gwen was instantly, irrationally jealous.
‘Have you thought about what you’re going to say?’ Elaine said, and it took Gwen a moment to realise that she was being addressed.
‘Say? When?’
‘During the ceremony,’ Elaine said. ‘Your offerings. You offer Morgan le Fay a strength and a weakness. It’s all about … duality of self, you know? All your facets.’
‘Elaine,’ Adah said, ‘is very into duality of self. And Morgan le Fay. And facets.’
‘Are you a cultist?’ Gwen asked Elaine; she smiled beatifically and nodded. ‘Are all of you cultists?’
‘No,’ said Adah and Bridget at the same time.
‘But – you know that about Leclair, of course,’ said Adah, raising her eyebrows. ‘As she’s your cousin.’
‘Distant cousin,’ said Bridget.
‘So you believe in magic?’ Gwen said to Elaine, desperate to change the subject.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said breathily. ‘If you think about it, some variety of magic turns up in the story of every country and kingdom in the world. It goes by different names, but it’s always there. Other religions have their own magic words – their own rituals. It seems unlikely that magic never existed, and yet everybody came to the same conclusion of their own volition.’
‘So you think … King Arthur will rise again?’
‘Yes,’ Elaine said brightly. ‘When the right vessel comes along. Morgana will sort it all out. Merlin will help.’
‘Where are Merlin and Morgana now then?’ Adah said, goading her in a way that was obviously habit.
Elaine considered this for a moment. ‘On sabbatical.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Adah. ‘Glad I asked.’
‘Honoured guests,’ called the woman who had greeted them at the door, clapping her hands together importantly. ‘Gather, please. It is time.’
A wave of excited muttering rippled through the room, and everybody moved towards the fire and the enormous statue above it. Gwen wanted to get a proper look at it, to gaze into the stone eyes of Morgan le Fay and see what all the fuss was about, but to do so would have meant exposing her face; she watched Bridget’s back instead, noticing that Adah had fallen into step next to her.
‘We are gathered here to celebrate the night that our lady Morgana’s spirit claimed her body; she was born from magic, and to magic she returned. When the time is right, she shall once again grace us with a mortal form …’
Gwen felt somebody tap her on the shoulder; when she turned, Elaine nodded in triumph and mouthed, ‘On sabbatical.’
‘… but until that day, we are the guardians of her legacy, here on this plane. To that end, we present our offerings in the knowledge that we are unfinished and imperfect; that we are ever-growing and inconstant, but always striving to become more ourselves with each passing year.’ The woman smiled around at the crowd. ‘Who will be first to honour our lady tonight?’
‘I will,’ said an elderly woman at the very front, taking down her hood; she shuffled forward without hesitation, her expression open and eager, and their host pressed something into her hand and then stepped aside to make space for her by the fire. ‘To my lady Morgan le Fay,’ she said in a clear voice, holding her slightly shaking hand out in front of her, ‘I give my vanity.’ She opened her fingers and dropped whatever she had been clutching directly into the flames; there was a brief, strong smell of something herbal, burned quickly to bitterness. ‘And I give my love for life.’
Everybody clapped, and a few of the more spirited guests whooped as the woman stepped aside.
‘Who will go next?’
Two people stepped forward at once; there was a slightly awkward moment when neither of them wanted to back down, and the woman at the front laughed.
‘There’s no rush,’ she said. ‘Everybody in this room will take their turn.’
Gwen’s mouth suddenly felt very dry. The woman’s tone hadn’t allowed for argument, but there was no way she was going up there; for one thing, they’d recognise her as the princess, and for another … she simply didn’t want to. Bridget turned around, frowning, as if she was having similar thoughts.
‘I think it might be time for you to leave,’ she said quietly.
‘What?’ whispered Elaine, looking disappointed. ‘But – but it’s the whole point of the festival! You can’t leave now.’
‘I’ll walk you out,’ Bridget said in a low voice, putting her hand on Gwen’s arm; the contact made Gwen’s breath catch. She couldn’t quite pinpoint why this felt like being claimed, and why being claimed felt so explicitly good, but she wanted the walking-out to be extended as long as possible – far beyond the length of the room. She tried to make herself small and inconspicuous as she broke away from the group, Bridget falling in behind her, but at that exact moment the crowd parted to let somebody else come forward.
‘Ladies,’ said the woman at the front. ‘Surely you aren’t leaving without making your offering?’
‘I wasn’t aware that participation was mandatory,’ Bridget said immediately; she had turned to face the others and taken a small step backwards towards Gwen, as if trying to obscure her from view.
‘Come now,’ said the woman, disapproving. ‘That is not in the spirit of the day. Make your offerings now, and then you may leave at once.’
‘Or,’ Bridget said, crossing her arms, ‘we could skip straight to the part where we leave.’
Now that sneaking away without being noticed was off the table, Gwen realised that the longer this confrontation continued, the more likely it was that she was going to be recognised. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to Bridget. ‘Let’s just do it, and then we can go.’
‘Very good!’ said the woman at the front, instantly all smiles, clapping her hands together. ‘Come forward into the light, ladies, and tell us what you have for Morgana.’
Gwen thought she was a bit too cheery for somebody who was press-ganging them into a magical party game, but she walked forward anyway; she kept tugging at her hood, trying to get it to cover more of her face without obscuring her eyes entirely and leading to an unfortunate fire-pit accident.
‘Here,’ said the woman, pressing a soft handful of something into Gwen’s palm when she reached the statue. When Gwen opened her fingers, she saw that it was a pile of dried sage leaves, twisted together and crumbling around the edges.
Her mind had been halfway out of the door, and now very suddenly had to snap back to where she was actually standing – in front of a crowd of expectant faces, waiting for her to impart some deeply held truths about herself that she hadn’t yet identified.
‘Er …’ she said, holding her hand out in front of her as the other women had done. ‘So it’s – one good thing, one bad?’
‘Ascribing “bad” and “good” to parts of ourselves isn’t helpful,’ said the woman, in a slightly condescending tone. ‘Perhaps – one thing that helps you, and one thing that you feel hinders you.’
Gwen thought this was just a dressed-up way of saying ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but she had reached the end of her stalling; her thoughts were a blur as she tried desperately to think of something good to say about herself. She was – punctual? Organised? The crowd was getting impatient now, and in her panic, Gwen spoke without knowing what was going to come out of her mouth.
‘I’m – I’m consistent with my embroidery,’ she said, throwing the handful of sage into the fire and then coughing when it spat out a dark plume of smoke in return. She was still keeping her head firmly down to avoid detection, but she didn’t need to look up to know how that particular observation had landed. ‘And,’ Gwen said, looking back into the flames and taking a deep breath, ‘I’m – I’m a coward.’
A few people clapped, but the reaction was fittingly lacklustre.
‘Well,’ said the grey-haired woman, holding out another handful of sage for Bridget. ‘You are actually supposed to do it the other way around, but I suppose—’
‘I’m stubborn,’ Bridget said, immediately tossing the leaves into the flames. ‘And I know who I am. Come on.’
She took Gwen by the arm without another word, and they slipped from the glow of the firelight into the welcoming shadows beyond.