Page 58 of Lady's Knight
Neither of them spoke until they’d left the crowd behind and reached the stables. Then Isobelle released Gwen and whirled around to face her. “What’s happened? Sir Gawain’s name wasn’t there?”
Gwen leaned back against the stable wall, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “It was. The papers went through, no one’s questioning Sir Gawain.”
“Then what? Gwen, talk to me!”
Gwen lowered her hands, and Isobelle gazed at her eyes. Forest green, hints of oak, hints of golden sunlight. Shadows beneath. “They put the old hands against the unknowns,” she said. “So nobody big goes down in the first round. But I thought at least...”
“Gwen!” Isobelle resisted the urge to shake her. “Tell me what’s happened! Who did you get?”
“I’m to face Sir Ralph.”
“Oh, fuck.”
After that, neither of them spoke. Everything was quiet and still, the peace broken only by a horse whinnying an opinion from inside the stable. Isobelle felt as though she were watching herselffrom the outside, a kind of calm numbness seeping through her veins, until she could barely feel her body.
“Well,” she heard herself say, the strain audible through her usual polish. “He’ll have his guard down, won’t he? That’s to your advantage.”
Gwen shot her a look that saidstopas clearly as any words could have done. “Isobelle, don’t,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t try to make it— I was starting to think that maybe,maybe... I’d at least get a few rounds in. Keep them off you for a couple of weeks. Stay with—” She cut herself off, pressing her lips together hard, closing her eyes tightly.
“Stay with me,” Isobelle finished for her, the words barely a breath. She gazed at Gwen, memorizing the details of her face, the placement of every freckle, the swoop of her thick lashes, the firm lines of her brows. She gazed at her as if she might be gone tomorrow.
“I thought we’d have more time,” Gwen said.
“Listen,” said Isobelle desperately, grabbing for her last shreds of optimism. It couldn’t be over. It couldn’t just end. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. Everyone makes mistakes. He’s going to assume the same thing as everyone else—that he’ll sail through. He won’t even give a thought to this first-round match with some unknown knight from nowhere. And that’ll give you a chance. You’ll be focused, be ready. He’ll be daydreaming.”
“What are you talking about?” Gwen burst out, the pent-up words exploding. “There’s daydreaming—which he won’t be—and then there’s delusional. I’ve been trying not to think about it, trying not to let reality poison this... thisfantasyyou have that I could somehow win this thing. But I was never going to beat him, evenif I made it all the way to the final before meeting him. I was never going towin.”
“Delusional,” Isobelle echoed, her whole body sickening at Gwen’s words. “So what was this, then? I thought you were in it with me, as much as I was. I thought...” But she couldn’t finish that sentence. She couldn’t speak her moonlight dream out loud when it was dying here in the sun.
I thought you’d wait for me. I thought you promised that last night. I thought when I was ready, you’d be here. I thought...
“You thought what?” Gwen asked bitterly.
Isobelle wanted to wail, to demand that Gwen acknowledge aloud the change that had taken place between them—instead, she reached for something, anything, to convince Gwen to stay. “I thought you wanted to show them all that you deserve to be here. A knight, in armor you made, with a weapon that’s yours.Theyjust show up and put on the costume.”
“So do I!” Gwen snapped, letting herself sag back against the stable wall, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle. “I practiced in an orchard, Isobelle. If you thought that was going to get me through this, then you live in a fantasy world.” Gwen’s voice was heated and sharp, like a red-hot blade, whipping at Isobelle’s last shreds of optimism.
“Why are you doing this?” Isobelle could feel her cheeks flushing, and to her horror, her voice broke. “You’re just giving up?”
“You want me to do something impossible,” Gwen replied, her snap gone, her fire going out. “You want me to be this white knight, to ride out and save you from the monster, but...” There was a flash of helplessness in her face. “It doesn’t matter how much I wish I could, Isobelle. We always knew what would happen.”
“Idon’t know what will happen,” Isobelle replied, trying to ignore the ache behind her eyes. “But I know that if you don’t face him, then you lose in every way. You lose...”You lose us, said the voice that had discovered itself by moonlight. “If you go out there, and you hit the ground in your armor, then you were still a knight. I want that for you—for you toknowthat you are a knight.” She gulped a breath. “That’s—that’s why you were doing this, wasn’t it?”
Say no, said the moonlight voice.Say you were doing it for me.
“It doesn’t matter why I was doing it,” Gwen said, not looking at Isobelle. “The end was always going to be the same.” She shoved away from the stable wall.
Isobelle reached out a hand to catch her arm, but Gwen deftly twisted away, her reflexes razor-sharp. Isobelle fought the wild urge to sprint after Gwen and catch her, hold her still,makeher believe again—and then the reality of the tournament, Gwen’s heartbreak and disappointment, and her own impending doom all crashed in on her and she could only stand there, arms wrapped across her middle, holding herself together after a terrible, mortal wound.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
You are not the first to ask whether a woman could hold a sword
Lord Whimsitt threw a grand feast that night, celebrating the eve of the first round of the tournament. Gwen knew she should have gone in her guise as Céline to sell the fiction of Sir Gawain before he made his big debut against Sir Ralph the next day.
But Gwen could not bring herself to put on that mask. Layers upon layers of deceit, her head spinning with what role she was meant to be playing and when... Her only consolation and refuge was that at least she hadn’t had to pick a persona to play in front of Isobelle.
And now... now she did.