‘Good morning!’ the king said to Gwen the moment she sat down at breakfast a few days later. He looked exhausted but was smiling through it, his usually all-consuming stack of correspondence resolutely untouched. ‘Glorious day for a hunt.’
She knew that her father was trying to reframe the day’s hunt as an opportunity for family bonding because they’d seen so little of each other of late; in reality, it was a political exercise, a way to entertain an influential duke, who was visiting with his household. Nevertheless, she tried to smile back at him, even though her heart felt leaden in her chest every second she sat opposite Gabriel, with the chasm between them enormous and impassable.
She missed the easy rituals of past breakfasts, before her parents had become so busy and her life had started to crumble. The fact that her father knew how much she liked sour fruits, and would push the bowls of gooseberries and cranberries down to her end of the table. The way he would glare down at some list or ledger until she plucked it out of his hand and handed it to Gabriel, who would make sense of it at once. She even slightly missed the way her mother would tut over Agnes’s handiwork and insist on replaiting Gwen’s hair herself.
‘We’re hunting?’ Gabriel said, looking up from what he’d been reading.
‘The Duke of Lancaster is coming,’ said the queen. ‘He’s bringing his son, a young Lancelot, I believe – and his three daughters.’
She looked meaningfully at Gabriel; under usual circumstances, Gwen would have met her brother’s eye, united with him against their mother’s attempts at matchmaking.
‘Right,’ said Gabriel, looking back down at his book. ‘Very well.’
‘You’ll come too, of course, Gwendoline,’ said the king, and Gwen pulled a face.
‘To entertain his parade of daughters? You know I’m absolutely no good at that, Father.’
‘Not just his daughters,’ said the queen. ‘We’ve invited many of the other families visiting court, too. There will be lots of young people in attendance.’
‘Oh,’ said Gwendoline. ‘I see.’ She waited for what she hoped was a safe amount of time, taking a long sip of lemon water to stop herself from speaking too soon. ‘Will, er … is Lady Leclair going to be there?’
She saw Gabriel’s hand slip from his book out of the corner of her eye.
‘Yes,’ the queen said with a sigh. ‘I suppose she will.’
‘Oh. That’s … good.’
Gwen didn’t enjoy hunting. She liked a brisk walk as much as the next person – unless that person happened to be Gabriel, in which case she enjoyed them far more – but hunting involved a lot of waiting around, and long, dull conversations with whichever of her father’s friends’ daughters she had been brought along to accompany.
Normally if she and Gabriel suspected a set-up, she might have amused herself by intervening on his behalf; interrupting private moments, stepping very intentionally on the handkerchief that some viscount’s daughter had conveniently dropped for her brother to retrieve. They felt very far away from all of that right now.
They had never gone this long without speaking – had never really argued beyond gentle reproval from his side when Gwen was feeling particularly irascible, and tough love from hers when Gabriel was sleeping in the library and forgetting to eat lunch – and every second that it continued, Gwen felt it gnaw at her insides.
Really, she had no idea how to proceed when he had hurt her, because he had never done it before. It was completely unprecedented. There was only one thing she knew for certain: if she had to wait for him to work out exactly how he felt and approach her to talk things through, she’d likely be waiting a very long time.
Gwen’s father had finally given in and picked up the first letter on his pile; as Gwen watched, his expression grew puzzled.
‘What is it?’ she said. Gabriel looked up too, his gaze flickering from the king’s face back to the letter in his hand.
‘My cousin has been sighted near Skipton Castle,’ her father said, exchanging a look with Gabriel. ‘We’ll never hear the end of this from Lord Stafford.’
‘Why?’ said Gwen, her fork hovering.
‘Stafford raised concerns,’ the king said carefully, ‘that somebody might take advantage of the northern cultist uprisings to rally the discontented. He’s been keeping a close eye on any unlikely movements. Skipton is a little too far north for comfort, and certainly nowhere near Willard’s lands.’
‘You think Lord Willard is up to something?’ said Gwen. ‘But you made peace years ago!’
‘I don’t think he’s up to anything,’ the king said, sighing. ‘He wrote to me recently, in fact, to warn of unrest near Carlisle, and thanks to him we were able to nip it in the bud. For all we know he has friends in the area and was simply invited to dine at the castle – but Stafford has been near-obsessed with the north lately, and this certainly won’t improve matters.’
‘He’ll want to meet before the hunt,’ Gabriel said reluctantly, closing his book.
‘Yes,’ said the king. ‘Well. Off we go, then. And Gwendoline – please see Rowan about your bird before we depart. I saw the poor man yesterday, and apparently it’s gone rather … feral.’
‘He doesn’t like me,’ Gwen said, eyeing the agitated-looking merlin with great trepidation.
‘That’s because you never visit,’ said Rowan, the tanned, brusque middle-aged Head Falconer who always looked pained the moment he saw Gwen approaching. ‘Birds like to get to know you. He hasn’t seen you for six months, you’re practically a stranger to him.’
‘Right,’ said Gwen, nervously extending a hand. ‘Hello, Beowulf.’ She had named the bird after a long visit from a travelling bard; the name seemed ridiculous now, attached to this small and furious bundle of feathers, but it was too late to change it.
‘No sudden movements,’ said Rowan disapprovingly. ‘I’d keep your fingers out of reach, if I were you.’
‘Great,’ said Gwen miserably. ‘Is there any part of me I should allow close to him?’
The falconer considered her. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You can take one of my boys with you. They’ll fly him for you.’
‘Fantastic.’ Gwen didn’t feel any affinity with animals, unlike Gabriel, and her interest in falconry had started and ended with choosing her new bird when she was fourteen. As soon as she discovered that they required rather a lot of training, as well as the ability to cope with sudden, incomprehensible bursts of violence, she had given up.
The visiting nobles were starting to fill the courtyard, and Gwen sidled into the shadow of a wall so that she wouldn’t be dragged into conversation with somebody unforgivably dull before she absolutely had to. She saw an overdressed man who must have been the Duke of Lancaster talking to her father, and three dark-haired, pretty girls all dressed in various shades of red and pink trailing after; Gwen immediately glanced over to see if Gabriel had noticed them.
Her brother was at the other end of the yard, Edith the peregrine falcon perched on his gloved arm; he was talking to her in confidential tones, his expression serious. Usually the sight would have made Gwen smile.
‘Your highness,’ somebody said, very close to her ear; Gwen jumped, and turned to see Bridget’s friend Adah from the Morgan’s Day party smiling expectantly at her. ‘Sorry – were you hiding? I can pretend not to have seen you, if it helps.’
‘Oh,’ said Gwen. ‘No. I mean – yes, I suppose I was hiding.’ Adah was wearing something as functionally unlike a dress as possible while still technically being one; she had heavy leather gloves on her hands, and a feather stuck to her shoulder. A brief look of recognition passed across her face, and Gwen suddenly remembered that the last time she’d seen Adah, she had been pretending to be Bridget’s distant cousin.
‘Right,’ said Adah. ‘Winifred.’
‘Er … Yes,’ said Gwen, giving her an apologetic grimace.
‘Well, you did a really awful job of pretending,’ said Adah cheerfully. ‘I knew you weren’t really Leclair’s cousin. Anyway – yours is the merlin, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Gwen said. ‘He hates me.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Adah said, smiling again. ‘He hates everybody. Equal-opportunity loathing. I’ll fetch him, and we can remind him that you’re the keeper of the snacks.’
She went in search of Rowan to claim Beowulf; left alone, Gwen was equal parts relieved and terrified to see Bridget walking across the yard towards her, looking distinctly uncomfortable in a simple, dark green dress. Somebody – surely not her squire, but then, who else? – had braided most of her hair, so that it was pulled back from her face.
‘Good morning. Feeling sore?’ she said, immediately upon reaching Gwen.
‘What?’ Gwen said, startled.
‘From the training yard,’ Bridget said slowly. ‘You must ache.’
‘Oh! Oh, yes,’ Gwen said, extending her hand and making a small circle with her wrist. ‘A little.’
She had ached quite a lot, actually. Muscles she hadn’t known existed seemed to have been torn asunder by just an hour or two of activity, leaving her stiff and wincing for days. But each twinge had reminded her of Bridget’s hand on hers – Bridget raising an eyebrow and granting her small smiles when she had done something right, Bridget’s swordpoint kissing her chin – so Gwen had treasured them as souvenirs.
‘You should stretch,’ Bridget said, reaching for Gwen’s hand and then pausing at the last second. ‘May I?’
‘Er,’ Gwen squeaked. ‘Yes?’
‘Like this,’ Bridget said, gently bending Gwen’s hand back until Gwen let out a hiss from between her teeth. ‘Sorry. Does that hurt?’
‘No,’ Gwen lied. ‘It feels good.’ The second part, at least, was true.
‘I was told I could acquire a bird,’ Bridget said, letting go of her hand and glancing over at the falconer’s assistants, who were bringing out various disgruntled-looking hawks and matching them to temporary owners. ‘Well. I was told knights could acquire a bird. They most certainly didn’t mean me, but I have them cornered on a technicality.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Gwen said. ‘You can fly mine. He hates me.’
‘Enough with the dramatics,’ said Adah; she had returned with Beowulf on her arm, and Gwen took a step away from him instinctively. ‘Morning, Leclair. Listen, your highness – he’s a bird. His only requirements for feeling absolutely neutral towards you are that you feed him, and you’re not a much larger bird who might try to kick his arse. He doesn’t hate you.’ Delivered by anybody else, this may have felt like a scolding, but it was all said with warmth and good humour. Beowulf, on the other hand, was looking decidedly less friendly.
Over in the centre of the yard her father was comfortably supporting his enormous gyrfalcon, Viviane. He must have given some signal to the gathered crowd, because all at once they started making their way towards the drawbridge across the north side of the moat, led by the exuberant hounds. At a different time of year they would have been able to begin their hunt from almost right outside the castle walls, but the tournament grounds and the large area set aside for visiting participants and spectators to camp had split the land beyond the castle; a copse of trees, which expanded into a proper forest the further they travelled north, formed a natural barrier between the campgrounds to the left and the open meadows to the right. The falconer and his men were trying valiantly to keep the birds happy and calm as they walked towards the woods; Beowulf seemed perfectly content to sit on Adah’s arm and glare.
‘I’ve never seen so many people come for the tournament,’ Gwen said, nodding towards the spectators’ camp through the trees.
‘Me neither,’ said Bridget, frowning at the closely packed tents thronging with people. She looked pinched, as if in pain; Gwen wondered if she had slept poorly the night before, or if it was just her natural reaction to wearing a dress. ‘I wonder what has made the difference.’
‘I don’t know,’ Gwen said, shrugging. ‘Perhaps it’s all for Gabriel. The older he gets without being betrothed or married, the more fascinating he seems to be. Everybody wants to catch a glimpse of him.’
‘Perhaps they come to catch a glimpse of you,’ Bridget said, and Gwen snorted.
‘Right. Because I’m so fascinating.’
It dangled in the air between them, but Bridget didn’t take the bait; she seemed suddenly distracted, her jaw tense.
‘They’ve come to see the first woman to win the whole damned thing,’ Adah said, and Bridget flashed her a quick smile that Gwen wished she could have earned instead.
When they reached the dark, mossy hush of the deeper woods, Adah was just trying to convince Gwen to put on a glove and fly Beowulf herself when the queen appeared at Gwen’s side, putting her hand gently but firmly on her shoulder.
‘You’re needed, Gwendoline,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said Gwen, ‘but – Mother, Lady Leclair is just going to borrow my bird—’
‘That’s fine,’ said her mother, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘She can borrow the bird, and I can borrow you.’
Gwen grimaced at Bridget, whose face remained politely blank, and then allowed her mother to guide her away towards the Duke of Lancaster’s daughters, who were whispering together in a tightly knit flock. Gabriel was as far away as possible, talking to their father.
‘Hello,’ Gwen said awkwardly, after her mother had patted her on the shoulder and walked away. ‘I’m Gwendoline.’
They all curtsied briefly and introduced themselves: Celestina, Clement and Sigrid.
‘Do you like hunting, then?’ Gwen asked desperately.
‘No,’ the youngest said firmly.
‘Sigrid!’ said Celestina, shooting daggers at her. ‘That’s not how you speak to a member of the royal family.’
‘Ah. Sorry,’ said Sigrid. ‘No, your highness.’
‘Oh, that’s all right – I don’t much like it either,’ Gwen said, encouraged.
‘I don’t mind the birds,’ said Clement, who was by far the prettiest. ‘But I like rabbits, and I can’t stand it when they catch one. They’ve got no fight in them, you know. They’re cowardly little things – they just want to survive.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Gwen, who hadn’t put much thought into the motivations of rabbits.
‘Does your brother like to hunt?’ Sigrid asked, attempting and failing to sound casual.
Gwen didn’t have the heart for her usual mischief, and felt strange discussing Gabriel at all at the minute. ‘I don’t know. He loves Edith, no matter how awful she is to him. Edith is the falcon,’ she added by way of explanation, when all three girls looked confused.
‘Ah,’ said Celestina, and they all turned to look as Rowan released Edith from his arm and she flew elegantly to Gabriel’s fist, where she immediately and savagely started tearing into the dead mouse that was waiting for her there, spraying blood as she did. ‘How … lovely.’
Gwen rolled her eyes. The very best of luck to them in gaining his attention; they’d just need to sprout wings and talons first.
‘Is your friend all right?’ said Clement, staring past Gwen’s shoulder.
Gwen turned, confused – and then she was stammering excuses, rushing to Bridget’s side without a backwards glance.