Page 61 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

‘Right, right. Plied with me tea and had your way with me and now you’re done and I’m dismissed.’

‘You plied yourself,’ Gwen said. ‘And it wasn’t with tea.’

‘Oh, bore off,’ said Arthur, getting up too. ‘I’ll send Agnes in, shall I?’

‘If you can find her. She’s probably run off to find Sidney and nurse him in his time of need.’

‘Ah, yes. They’re truly disgusting, aren’t they?’ Arthur made his way to the door and then paused. ‘Night, Gwen.’

She gave him a small smile in return. ‘Goodnight, Arthur.’

Having already been unconscious once that evening, Arthur found himself in no hurry to do it again. He stood outside Gwen’s chambers for a while, listening to the distant sounds of the guards talking to each other in low voices, and then suddenly made up his mind – instead of heading for the stairs, he continued further down the corridor towards the rest of the royal bedrooms. He didn’t know exactly where Gabriel slept, but took a chance on the next door he came to, knocking softly with ill-gotten bravado and hoping he wasn’t about to come face to face with the king in his nightclothes.

It took a while for the door to open, but when it did, Gabriel peered uncertainly through the crack, his bright hair mussed and pushed back from his face.

‘If you tell me to go away, I will. I’ll go at once,’ Arthur said, holding his hands up in pre-emptive surrender. ‘I want to talk to you about your sister.’

Gabriel sighed, his hand on the door, seeming moments away from shutting it again – but then he stepped back, letting it open wider. ‘Come in.’

Gwen’s rooms had a couple of large bookshelves by thefireplace, but Gabriel’s seemed to be made entirely out of books; shelves obscured the walls, and stacks of tomes and papers cluttered every surface. There were yards and yards of used parchment on a desk by the window; Arthur couldn’t see into the bedroom, but he imagined it too would be more paper than furniture. There was an apple on the table with one bite out of it, the flesh browned, as if Gabriel had noticed his hunger for long enough to acquire it but then immediately become distracted.

‘Why are you ever in the library if your rooms look like this?’ Arthur asked, picking up the piece of parchment at the top of the nearest pile. ‘Siege supplies in the Battle of Badon, 501.Scintillating stuff.’

‘The books in the library have been passed down through generations,’ Gabriel said, rubbing his eyes and sighing. ‘They belong to the crown. These are mostly my own.’

‘I can see why you never sleep,’ Arthur said, sitting down in an armchair. ‘I too would lie awake worrying that my bookshelves would buckle, and I’d be buried alive by books about the proper amount of flour to bring to a siege.’

There was a sudden trilling and a blur of orange fur; Lucifer had clearly been sleeping, but he came rushing over to greet Arthur, who bent down to administer enthusiastic scratches behind the cat’s frayed ears.

‘What do you want, Arthur?’

‘I’m touring the castle giving advice to every member of the royal family I meet who has a conundrum,’ Arthur said brightly, as Lucifer headbutted his knuckles. ‘Lucky you, you’re next. If I’d bumped into your father, I’d be talking to him about tax evasion.’

‘Oh,’ said Gabriel. ‘So – so you’ve spoken to Gwen recently?’

‘I have,’ Arthur said heavily. He leaned back in his chair and the cat seemed to abruptly give up on him, padding over to the far wall instead and then leaping up on to the windowsill. Arthur watched its tail lashing, fiddling with the makeshift bandage on his arm as he considered delicacy and decided against it. ‘Gabriel. I know about her.’

‘What do you know about her?’ Gabriel said stiffly.

‘I know whatyouknow, even if you’re pretending you don’t.’

Gabriel turned away but seemed to have no idea where to go next. He stopped by his writing desk, with his back to Arthur. ‘She doesn’t really know what she wants.’

‘Er – who does? I’m not talking about what shewants, I’m talking about who sheis. She’s confused and trying to work things out right now, and you’ve made her feel like some kind of – well, like she’s done something dirty and wrong.’ Gabriel didn’t reply. ‘Come on – the two of you have always been irritatingly attached at the hip. Whatever you’re feeling right now, this isn’taboutyou. She told you something big – something important – and you turned it against her.’

‘I didn’t say she’d done something wrong,’ Gabriel said quietly.

‘It doesn’t matter what you actually said,’ Arthur said, raising his voice more than he had intended. ‘Jesus, Gabriel – why are you punishing her for who she is because you’re scared of whoyoumight be?’

The silence from Gabriel suddenly seemed extremely loud.

‘I’m just saying,’ Arthur continued, ‘you should be happy that this is something you two can share. Not everybody gets to have family who might actuallyunderstandthem.’

‘I don’t want her to understand,’ Gabriel said finally, his voice shaking a little. ‘I don’t want this for either of us. Not with our titles – what’s expected of us. It’s too difficult, it’s too—’

‘Well, hard luck,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m sorry it’s so abhorrent to you, so disappointing that you might be likeme—’

‘I could never be like you,’ Gabriel said, turning to him, and Arthur was surprised by his furious expression. ‘You don’t … There are so many things about this that you can’t comprehend. My father trusts me with his legacy. He has worked so hard to win over the hearts of the people of England, to prove himself a worthy heir – everything he does is a careful balancing act, in the hope that he can create the kind of monarchy people can believe in. That’s the only future there is for me, because otherwise – otherwise we might loseeverything.’