Page 54 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

“That’s what we’ve been trying to work out. But it’s not the end of the world. He could take in a ward. Adopt. There are options. Oakley and I have been trying to talk to him about it.”

Even from the little Bridget had seen of Lady Oakley, she seemed a force to be reckoned with. “You like her? Oakley?”

“Oh, she’s incredible,” Gwen gushed, perking up. “We meet every day. She’s just so clever, and she knows exactly how much of that cleverness to hide and how much to give away,depending on her audience. She never takes no for an answer but she’s so good at tricking people into believing things weretheiridea. Gabriel is a bit frightened of her, I think, which is great. My mother hates her more than anyone else in this world. If I even mention her name, polite conversation is dead in the water.”

“Why?”

Gwen shrugged. “Because we’ve never got on that well, I suppose. She thinks I’ve chosen a new mother I prefer. I said one too many nice things, I should have pretended I was only tolerating her. I just… I don’t have time to play these silly court games.”

“No,” said Bridget. “It seems you’ve been busy.”

Gwen raised her eyebrows and put back her shoulders. “Well, what did you expect? That I’d mope and pine after you? Waste away, sitting at the window, lamenting?Oh, when will my knight return from the tourneys?”

Chastened, Bridget said, “No.”

Gwen’s posture wilted a bit. “I did, a little. Not sitting at the window, but I thought about you. I missed you. But then I just… got on with things.”

“I thought about you all the time.”

“Oh, yes? Just not enough to write.”

Ouch. But she deserved that. “I tried not to think about you, because if I did, you were all I’d think about. And then I’d think about Camelot, and last year, and everything got… complicated.” It was like she was making sense of it as she spoke. “But I felt horrible for not writing. The more I put it off, the more guilty I felt. And after a while… it was almost like you weren’t real. A princess in a castle, waiting for me to come back? Yeah. Right.”

When she looked at Gwen, Gwen was looking back at her, eyes cool and steady. “Well. I was.”

Bridget felt a stab of fear, and spoke without forethought. “I’ll make it up to you. I swear I will.”

Gwen looked away. “It’s all right.”

But Bridget knew of course that wasn’t true.

Twenty-Four

And so the King came upon the Green Knight, and threw down such a great challenge that the Green Knight was sore afraid to die, and they met upon the bridge to exchange but a single blow, and when the Green Knight saw the King was full of the might of chivalry, he cried mercy.

—FROM AN EARLY DRAFT OFTHE QUESTS OF KING GABRIEL AND HIS ROUND TABLEBY SIR FLORIAN ARDEN

They rode hard for another four days, making camp each night beneath the trees, gathering by the fire to listen to the Wizard’s philosophical musings, or tales of Sir Bowen’s days at war with France, or Sir Leonard’s early success on the tourney circuit. Gabriel rarely made it past the first story before he excused himself to bed, and the others didn’t fare much better, staggering off to their tents soon after the sun slipped away.

Riding for so long, as it turned out, was horribly hard work. They’d decided against a carriage for the optics, but as a result, Gabriel now had sores in places that had never seen the light of day. His back hurt, he smelled perpetually of horse, and his sleep was better than it had been for months, by dint of thefact that his body was so exhausted it barely waited until his head touched the pillow.

As they approached their destination on the ninth day, all conversation turned to the Green Knight.

Gabriel knew he was traditionally considered a legendary figure who was unbothered by trivial wounds like decapitation, residing in a large estate, and only venturing out to issue challenges that tested a knight’s honor and loyalty—for example, by tricking them into kissing his wife.

There had been not a peep about him for hundreds of years, aside from the old stories, until now; back at Camelot, Lady Oakley had presented a report to Gabriel that a man purporting to be the Green Knight had been living under a bridge, challenging people to strike him, and generally making a bloody nuisance of himself. The problem would have resolved itself with a simple defeat, but apparently everybody was too afraid to fight him.

“I suppose nobody wants to take the risk,” said Sir Hurst. “He might be dangerous.”

“Or perhaps,” said the Wizard, “they are afraid that if they hit him, he’s going to make some assessment of their moral character, and send them home with a new awareness of their failingsandthe threat looming over them that he may some day strike a blow in return.”

“He’s dressed himself all in green, daubed his hair, and keeps waving his sword at innocent bystanders,” said Cardinal Richards. “I think they’re all just afraid he’s an ungodly madman with nothing to lose.”

It was only a few hours farther to the town nearest to said bridge, and Gabriel spent the rest of the ride in blessed silence. He supposed the others might think he was doing lotsof regal, serious thinking about the tasks ahead of him. Instead, he was thinking about kissing.

Namely the fact that he’d probably forgotten how to do it. His body was a dried-up husk, good for nothing but carrying books and hiding in cupboards. It was considered good manners for kings to kiss a lot of people to convey love and the acceptance of loyalty and fealty—on the lips, if you were serious—but Gabriel had drawn the line there. On the occasions when he really couldn’t avoid it, he’d go for hand-kisses instead, which were still repulsive but not quite as harrowing as exchanging saliva with a member of the council or a lord who was practically a stranger.

It was incredible how something that had once been second nature could come to feel like a lost language, and that both states felt permanent. Like how, when you were full, you couldn’t imagine ever being hungry again, and when you were hungry, you knew for certain you could eat and eat forever and remain utterly starving.