She opened each one in turn. The Iliad and The Odyssey, All Quiet on the Western Front, Kindred, Death of a Salesman, Pride and Prejudice, Beloved, The Stranger, Frankenstein … Vera had read all of them in secondary school or university.
She knew The Hobbit best, so she flipped through the pages of it as she sat down on the bed, scanning for her favorite passages. Everything seemed in place. It was the familiar story she loved, and that she, Martin, and Allison made a tradition of reading aloud together every Christmas season.
Vera shut the memory out as she closed the book and instead paid attention to where she sat. The bed was inviting to her weary body, with space to sprawl out and plenty of pillows—
Her eyes flashed to the wardrobe filled with her clothes, and she scanned the room. There it was.
Another wardrobe. And there were stacks of parchments on the desk, too. A quill lay unceremoniously next to one. Of course. This wasn’t just her room, and it wasn’t just her bed. After Merlin reassured Vera that she was not brought here to bear a child, she’d put it out of her mind. But how had she not recognized before now that she wouldn’t be sleeping alone?
It was like her thoughts acted as an invitation. The door opened. Arthur came in, locked it behind him, and took two steps into the room before he noticed her there. She stood, feeling it somehow imperative that she not be on the bed at this moment. He looked nearly as surprised to see her as she did him, which made Vera feel slightly better on the whole.
His eyes were still glassy, and after the initial rush of shock, his face was once again a sheet of ice. She opened her mouth only to close it.
Arthur didn’t speak either. He collected himself and began walking toward her. Vera instinctively backed away from him, and Arthur stopped mid-step.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. His voice came out in a low rumble even when he spoke quietly. He started walking again, giving her a wider berth as he went to the second wardrobe. He took out a few garments and draped them over his arm as he crossed to the desk and filed through the books. His finger ran down their spines twice before he selected one. Finally, Arthur turned to face Vera. His eyes flicked to The Hobbit, hanging from her hand. Vera held it out to him, suddenly feeling like she’d violated his privacy.
Arthur shook his head. “They’re yours. Merlin brought them for you from your time. He thought they might comfort you.” He looked at Vera’s shoulder rather than her face. “Leave the door to the hall locked through the night unless you need something. Go to Matilda if you need help.” The unspoken was also clear: don’t come to me.
Arthur turned to the door beside the desk, his fingers on the handle.
But she did need help, and she couldn’t ask Matilda. She didn’t know what to say to get his attention. Should she call him “Your Majesty” or “my lord”? Owing to necessity and rising panic that her only source of informed help was leaving, Vera found her voice.
“Arthur,” she said.
When he looked at her, his face was a stone mask of displeasure.
“I—can I drink this water safely?” She hated that her voice shook as she spoke to him. “And I don’t know how to turn off or, um, put out the light. I couldn’t ask Matilda because I should already know …” Her words petered to silence.
Arthur’s expression slipped for a fraction of a second. Vera was nearly certain that something other than blank anger, something softer, rippled through the muscles of his face. He nodded curtly.
“The water is safe. And the light …” He crossed by her to the side of the bed with Vera’s wardrobe and gestured to a marble-like tile on the wall beside the bed. “Hold your hand here until it’s as dark as you like.”
He kept his cold eyes on her only long enough for Vera to mutter, “Thank you.”
Arthur gave another swift nod and stared at the floor as he strode back to the door by the desk, and without another word, he left. She heard the scrape of metal on wood as he locked it behind him.
Vera was certain by Arthur’s response to her and by Lancelot’s carefully couched words that there was far more to Guinevere’s story than Merlin had let on. The looming task of unearthing her memories seemed an impossibility. She’d been naïve to think she was up to the task. An acrid taste rose in Vera’s mouth. She was afraid and felt utterly alone.
Vera downed the cup of water, refilled it, and brought it to the bedside table. She pressed her hand to the marble tile and watched the light fade to black and back up to daylight bright, settling on a dim glow as the darkness of having it completely off unsettled her. She crawled under the heavy covers, lay on her side with her knees curled up by her chest, and, not knowing what else to do, began reading The Hobbit. Vera didn’t notice that, as she read the dialogue, she imagined the voices her father used to perform for all the characters during their Christmas readings. His voices had always delighted her.
And so it was that on Vera’s loneliest night she slipped off to sleep, her hand limp on the open book, with the voice of someone who loved her drifting through her mind.
It was still night when Vera first woke. She only partly noticed that The Hobbit was now on the bedside table and the light overhead extinguished, but she didn’t think to wonder how they got that way before she rolled over and was asleep again within seconds. The next time she woke, it was to Matilda’s hand shaking her shoulder, and it was nearly midday.
There was no jolt, no momentary confusion about why she hadn’t woken up in her bed at the George and Pilgrims. She knew where she was. More importantly, she knew when she was. Her eyes flicked to the door next to the desk, now slightly ajar. Curiosity about what lay beyond purred within her.
“Merlin wishes to speak with you,” Matilda said, “and he insisted it can’t wait.”
If Vera had expected Matilda to do anything other than wait attentively, expectantly, she was sorely mistaken.
“You’ll want to help me get ready, won’t you?” Vera said, and Matilda nodded. “I don’t mind doing it myself, I—”
“Your presence is urgently requested, and this will take much longer without my help,” Matilda said. “Your Majesty, I’m not certain what it is you’re afraid I’ll see that’s any different than it was before. It doesn’t matter to me if you have scars or deformities or … multicolored spots on your skin. If I promise not to say a word or ask a question, will you allow me to help you?”
Vera sighed. “Oh, all right.”
True to her word, Matilda didn’t betray any expression of surprise or confusion at Vera’s knickers as she helped her into a burgundy gown with sleeves that opened dramatically at the wrists, making Vera feel like she had delicate wings when she held her arms out. Matilda combed the tangles from her hair and arranged the circlet crown on her head over a tidy plait. She was ready in all of five minutes.
Under the guise of a detour to put The Hobbit back in its place on the desk, Vera pulled the side chamber door open a few inches more and peeked inside. There was no one there, and the room was all but empty save for a neatly made bed with the book Arthur had taken atop the blankets.
Matilda led Vera downstairs and into another courtyard, this one flanked by the tower with Vera’s room and the one with the rounded roof that didn’t match all the rest. Pipes she hadn’t been able to see in the dark came from the top, tracing their way down the sides and running along the castle walls. She followed Matilda through an arched doorway in the tower’s side. The inside couldn’t be more different from the tower with Vera’s quarters. No stairs climbed up, though there was a much narrower stone staircase descending into darkness. On the wall opposite was a ladder from the floor to the high ceiling, clearly visible because this tower was hollow.