Free Gawain by Gwen Rowley

sister told you that.’ Tell me, have you a brother?”
    Launfal. In league with Morgause? No, it couldn’t be; not Launfal! He’d always been such an innocent. But innocence did not last long at Morgause’s court.
    “Happens I do,” Aislyn said, “though it’s been some time since I’ve seen him. He would be about my age, for there was not even a year between us. D’ye think he might have been Somer Gromer Jour?”
    Gawain shook his head. “No, he was a young man. Judging by his voice and bearing, I would guess him no more than one-and-twenty.”
    Which would be Launfal’s age, or near enough. Stupid little nit, how could he have gone over to the enemy? It was difficult to believe that her frail, unworldly little brother had succumbed to Morgause’s blandishments. Aislyn might have done so herself, but she’d always believed Launfal too good to be taken in by evil. Of course, it had been five years since she had seen him and people changed. If he was Morgause’s creature now, he had changed more than most, and at the thought an odd little pain lanced through her, somewhere in the region of her heart.
     
ONCE they reached the gardens, Aislyn cast off her melancholy and flung herself into the queen’s revels with abandon. She refused Gawain’s offer to serve her, but snatched an iced cake from a platter. “A new bride needs her nourishment,” she said thickly, stuffing another morsel into her mouth. Those near enough to hear turned to stare at Gawain in horror, and he went brick red, his eyes narrowing into ice-gray slits. Aislyn met his gaze defiantly as she accepted a goblet of wine from a page. She lifted it in his direction before she downed it in a single draught.
    “My lady,” he began, tight-lipped as she tossed the empty goblet to the startled page and helped herself to another from a passing squire’s tray.
    “Ooh, music,” she cried, “come, Sir Gawain, let us dance!”
    “No,” he said curtly. “Why do we not sit—”
    She lifted her skirts to reveal her spindly shanks and cut a little caper. “Sit? Today? No, no, I’m feeling far too merry!”
    Before he could reply, she spun away into the center of the green, knocking into a knight, who stumbled forward, catching his balance on the nearest lady, who drew back with an indignant squeak.
    “Pardon!” Aislyn called cheerily, elbowing her way into the center of the green. Her dance, she thought, was a masterpiece of buffoonery. As she whirled and capered, the other dancers drew back to watch. Most of the knights attempted to contain their merriment, but in the end, they couldn’t help but laugh. The weepers—those half a dozen maidens who had wailed throughout the feast the night before and were now huddled red-eyed and dejected in a bunch—were reduced to fresh tears, though this time of merriment.
    Gawain simply watched, his face like stone. When Aislyn at last succumbed to exhaustion, he stepped forward, gave her his arm, and led her to a secluded turf bench set beneath an arching trellis overhung with vines. She leaned on him and sank onto the seat with relief. Holy Mother, but her back was aching! And her legs, and especially her feet. Even her toenails hurt.
    “Can I get you—” Gawain began.
    “No.”
    She belched behind her hand, cursing the crone’s weak stomach. All the wine and rich food weren’t sitting very well. And that frolicking about hadn’t helped matters, either.
    Gawain must be praying she would keel over . . . which seemed terrifyingly likely at the moment, for her heart was pounding like a kettle drum. But he gave no sign of the rage he surely must be feeling and merely looked at her with something that in any other man she would have taken for concern. It was a show, of course, a trick. But who did he think he was fooling?
    Not the king, who was looking almost as ill as Aislyn felt herself. Surely not the queen, sitting a bit apart from the others with Sir Lancelot, the two of them whispering behind