Gwen leaves her jam, covers the fruit with a towel so the flies and bugs can’t get to it, and she dresses hurriedly, not even putting her hair in a nice braid before donning her cap and making for her father’s forge, taking the shortcut that she knows by heart after years of being sent to give her father, and now Elyan lunch, dinner, and water.

“It’s not ready.” She mutters to herself as she goes as quickly as she dares in her nicest dress. “It’s not ready. Father will be so embarrassed.”

She slips into the forge through the back door, and can already hear the King’s party coming.

“Gwen,” her father says, voice high and mouth smiling. “What a lovely surprise. Is the jam-making going well?”

“No.” She shakes her head and tries to pull herself together, heart racing and breath weak from having come as fast as she had to try and outrun their horses. “No, father. The King! I saw his party coming this way. He passed by the house not long ago. Where is his sword?” She is quick, frantic as she speaks. Her heart is racing, her head turning side to side, looking for any sign of the sword her father has spent weeks and weeks making.

“The King? He’s not due till next week.” Father’s voice mirrors her now, as he looks toward Elyan. “Give my that sword, son. It’s not ready, but I can polish it up before he gets here.”

“Hurry, please.” Gwen says, frantic, as Tom is looking for his polishing materials. Maybe it’s the clopping of hooves she hears, or maybe it’s the racing of her own heart, getting louder and louder. King Uther is not known to be patient or forgiving. She is terrified of what might happen if he is displeased in any way. Could he take the forge? Kill her father?

No. No, she couldn’t think like that. She just couldn’t. It would only make things worse, to think like that.

“Elyan, take your sister home. I don’t want either of you here for this.”

“Father, no!” Elyan begins to protest, and Gwen goes to do the same, but Tom’s gaze becomes hard, his mouth set in a firm line that quiets them both.

“I said, take your sister home. I’ll see you both for dinner.”

No you won’t. Gwen’s terrible thought replies, but she pushes it down, pushes it back. Because she won’t believe it. She won’t. Her father will be fine. He crafts the finest swords in all of Camelot, and even if the sword isn’t finished, it is still beautiful, and sharp, and the king will not be disappointed in it. Of course he won’t be.

So then why does the thought feel so much like a lie.

Her brother takes her arm and leads her out with much more authority than he had any right to. He is smaller than her by an inch, though he will catch up to her soon. Guinevere is only fourteen, he only fifteen, sixteen come winter, but mother had predicted that she would grow faster than he would, leaving Elyan to catch up when he was older. Soon he would, she is sure of it.

They dash through the trees, but Elyan stops when he catches a glimpse of the King’s riding party. Gwen stops too, forboding and dread weighing her down to the spot.

“You go ahead. I’m going back with father.” Elyan tells her, and she glares.

“No, we both go home or we both go to the forge.” Gwen hardens her features, standing her ground like Mother always taught her to, and Elyan glared back at her, a battle of wits ensuing.

Eventually, Elyan sighs, defeated. “We’re wasting time. Come on. But you’re to stay outside and out of sight, and if you think they might start looking around, you run back home, do you understand? Men like that, they aren’t kind to women below their station.”

She swallows hard. She knows what he means, and what she is risking, but she will not leave her father alone, and neither will Elyan.

They race back, just barely making it to the forge as the King himself bursts through the door, loud and rude. They watch through the window, obscured by bushes and the curtain father uses to keep bugs out.

“Tom, smith, it is good to see you! I hope I am not too early.”

“Of course he’s too early.” Elyan muttered from their perch at the window, glaring at the king in a way that would be treasonous if he saw. Gwen doesn’t blame him. She’s sure her own gaze is not particularly favorable to the king just now.

“Of course not, your Majesty. I’m just finishing polishing it up, if you don’t mind waiting a moment.” Gwen can hear the tenseness in her father’s usually easy-going voice. The fear in it that the King is probably used to, maybe even delights in by the way his eyes light up.

“Excellent. I’ve heard nothing but good things this about your work. I expect the result to be excellent.”

“I endeavor to please, Sire.” Tom continues polishing the sword as the king looks around the smithy, walks casually, hands behind his back, and examines the walls lined with tools and swords and horse shoes.

“This is beautiful.” King Uther said, picking something up off a table that Gwen can’t see. “I should like it as well.”

“Thank you sire. I was actually making it for my daughter. Her coming of age is soon, but I would be happy to make another just like it, better even.” Tom is smiling, but Gwen can see the insincerity in it, the sweat beads forming at his temple are not just from the heat of the forge.

“No, I won’t be back this way for some time. I’d like this one. Make your daughter another.”

Elyan starts to stand and Gwen grabs his arm, clawing her nails into it and leveling her hardest glare at him. Their father was a competent man, and they would leave him to do what needed doing.

“The metal is from my late wife’s wedding ring, Sire. I would prefer not to part with it, if I could.” His voice is soft, pleading, begging the King to understand, but King Uther is heartless and the whole kingdom knows it.

“Hmm.” Uther carelessly drops whatever it is he is holding onto the table, the clatter making Gwen flinch even as Elyan grips the window seal like he would like to jump through it and give the King a piece of his mind. “Enough of that then. The sword.”

“Here, Sire.” Tom’s voice is soft with relief that Gwen can feel in her chest, a knot unwinding ever so slightly, that will not be fully undone until the whole thing is over and the King is gone.

“Excellent.” The King takes the sword an examines it, head and hand turning this way and that to admire the work her father had done. “That’s 100, isn’t it?”

Tom is quiet for a moment, eyes widening. “Um, Sire, I believe we agreed to 1000.”

“He can’t be serious. Father worked for months on that sword.” Elyan seethes beside her and Gwen finds her own anger is rising, even above the anxiety. She can’t see this ending well.

“1000?” The King scoffs, “What does a peasant need 1000 for all at once? 100. Take the money or you shall get nothing at all.”

“Sire, with all due respect, I can’t take less than 1000. The materials alone are worth more than 100. That handle is inlaid with real gold, precious stones. I have a family to feed, Your Majesty.” Tom’s tone is raising, higher pitched, pleading, not yet angry like Elyan so obviously is beside her. She keeps hold of his arm, not to keep him in line, but to keep herself grounded. This cannot end well for them. It will not.

“I don’t believe I asked about your family, smith.” King Uther adjusts his grip on the sword and places the tip at their father’s breast both, just beside his heart. “Be lucky I offer you 100.”

“Sire, please.” Tom is looking around frantically for anything he can use to defend himself, and his eyes catch on something just beside Gwen. When Gwen follows their path she realizes that he is looking at Elyan. Whether he has always known they were there or just discovered them is unclear, but Gwen read the words on Tom’s lips clear as words straight from a book. “Don’t.” Her father tells Elyan, and Gwen grips her brother’s arm, but it is too late. He is racing around the building, toward the door, and Gwen can’t stop him. She’s wary for her own safety, and her father had begged him not to.

Elyan doesn’t see their father’s death, because he is running around to the door, but Gwen sees it. She has to hold her hands to her mouth to keep a scream from escaping. She has never seen a sword pierce a human before. She’s never seen anything killed before today, so to have the first death she witnesses be her father’s is more than she can bear. She collapses into the bush outside the smithy window, the gurgling sound of her father’s final breaths creeping out the window, but soon covered by Elyan’s roaring yells of “father!”

Their father won’t survive. Elyan won’t survive. What will they do? What will she do? Her limbs are stiff and her lungs are empty, refusing to fill themselves. She hears the clashing of sword, and her brother’s grunts of pain. She is still crying, sobbing, even, but she holds her hands so hard to her face that she thinks maybe she’ll have bruises across her lips afterward. It hurts. Everything hurts.

She hates King Uther. Hates him with a fiery passion, but that is nothing compared to the sorrow welling inside her. Her father is dead. Her brother is dead.

She hears hooves on hard dirty road, the king giving orders to leave, and only then can she gather enough sense to crawl out of the bushes and around the smith to see what damage has been done.

Her eyes are so wet with tears that she can’t see anything but red. Red that turns deep black where there is too much blood pooled of the smithy’s dirt floor. She can hear her father’s choking, gurgling breaths and she collapses again, sobbing. She doesn’t know how to save a stabbed man. The nearest doctor is two villages away. She can’t help him. She can’t save.

“Guinevere.” Elyan’s croaking voice calls to her and she sobs harder, curling in on herself and holding her knees.

“Elyan!” She wails, “Father!” She hates King Uther. She hates him. She hopes he gets caught in a hideous fire, burns alive and has hot metal searing his flesh in his final moments. She hopes he suffers. She hopes he dies.

“Guinevere!” Elyan yells louder, though nowhere near his full strength. “Help me.”

She forces her shoulders to still and her sobs to quiet, wipes at her eyes with her sleeves. Her hand is wet, wetter and stickier than tears would leave it, and when she has cleared the tears from her eyes she sees that she has put her hand in blood. Elyan’s blood most likely. She’s enthralled by it, can’t move anymore, knowing that the king has spilt both her father’s and brother’s blood. She’s only able to move again when Elyan calls her name.

She crawls to him, ignoring the blood staining the worn blue fabric of her mother’s handed down dress, still the finest dress she owned. It was too big for her, and the fabric would have dragged through the blood even if she’d bad the strength to stand, which she didn’t.

She dropped again beside her brother, who laid in the dirt, too weak even to move his head. His foot lays at an odd angle, and his face is bleeding. There is so much blood Gwen thinks he might die too.

“I will-“ Elyan starts to say, but he winces with the pain of his injuries, “I will avenge our father, Guinevere. I will keep you safe.” He reaches up and touches the blood streak on Gwen’s face, brushes it away with the sleeve of his own shirt. She brings her hand up to hold his, tears still tracking down her cheeks and making both their sleeves wet. There father is silent beside them.

“You have to live.” She pleads. Looking over at their father, whose eyes are glassy, wide open, chest unmoving.

“I will. He laid no killing blows. He thought me younger than I am.” Elyan swallowed hard and Gwen squeezes his hand, walking on her knees to take the pitcher of water from the counter and bring it down to the ground with them. She has to help him sit up, and move him to rest against father’s work table before he can drink. He tries not to show how much he’s hurt, but Gwen can see it in the way he tries so hard not to move his left leg, and grits his teeth harder with every motion.

“Elyan, what are we to do?” She whispered once he’d drunk what little water was in the pitcher.

He doesn’t speak for a long while, and Gwen starts to cry silently again, her eyes settling on the wall farthest from where her father lay dead, unwilling to look upon his body again.

“You have to go fetch the doctor, or my foot won’t heal right. I’ll be of no use to you if I can’t walk.” Elyan grit his teeth as he adjusted himself against the table, trying to get more comfortable. “Once he’s finished with me, I doubt we’ll have much money left. I’ll find some odd jobs in the villages, see if there’s a widow needs firewood or something of the like. I’ll keep the forge going at night, prove to people that I’m as competent as father.”

Gwen nods and swallows hard. “The fruit will be bad by the time I get back with the doctor.” It’s the only thing she can think.

“Damn the jam, Guinevere. We’ll make due without.” Elyan’s voice is dismissive, angry, but she knows it’s not aimed at her. Even so she feels herself shrink, frightened by him.

“I’m sorry.” Is all she can think to say. She is sorry that their father is dead. Sorry she can’t think of anything but the jam. Sorry that she didn’t… what, stab the King? If Elyan couldn’t lay a hand on him, what hope did she have? Guinevere was never trained with a sword. She would make Elyan train her now.

That thought centered her as she stumbled to her feet. “I’m going to get the Doctor. I’ll see if The Henricks will let me borrow their horse.”

“Don’t ask them. Their son has eyes for you. Ask the Tailors, down the way. The mother has a soft spot for you.”

Gwen nods, pulling her scarf closer around herself. “She’s always been good to us.” She had taught Gwen to make jam. And to sew, and all the best household remedies and cleaning tricks. Surely they’d spare her a horse.

“She has.” Elyan nods and his eyes focus once again on their father’s dead body. She knows that’s where he is looking, but she doesn’t dare look herself. She’s only just stopped crying and she can’t afford to lose it again. She has to bring a physician back, for Elyan.

“Hurry back,” Elyan says to her on her way out the door and she nods at him, eyes steely and determined. When she passes people and they see the blood on her knees and the tears still glistening her eyes, they put two and two together. None of them stop her or ask her questions, but they leave a trail of gossip in her wake.

She ignores them.

—

The physician sees to Elyan quickly, who’s been moved to their house by a neighbor with a cart and kindness in their heart. Elyan is laid up on their father’s bed, rather than the cot they usually shared, to try and keep some of the pressure off his ankle.

The physician had given her something to help his pain, and showed her how to change the dressings on his wounds. She had taken all the instructions in stride, committing them to memory and never once glancing towards the fruit still sitting on the kitchen table, waiting to be cooked and jellied.

“You’re a very lucky young man.” The physician says as he’s packing up his things. Gwen can’t fathom how anyone could apply the word “lucky” to their situation. “The King has killed boys younger than you for smaller slights. If he had, your sister might be left all alone, and where would she be then?”

Elyan bites his tongue, and Gwen does too. They both know how lucky they are Elyan isn’t dead, but their father is, and they are still too young to be alone like this. It’s cruel of him to torment Elyan so.

Gwen sees the physician out the door, and gives him most of their money as he goes. She doesn’t know what they’ll do when the few coins they have run out, but she will just have to think of something until Elyan is on his feet again.

“Father still needs to be buried.” Elyan said as the sun begins to set. Today had seemed so ordinary only hours ago, but now it feels upside down and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Gwen nods as she tries her best to save the fruit that was left. It would cost too much to waste it now. “The Tailor’s son has offered to come first thing in the morning and help me dig.”

Elyan nods as well, but doesn’t look at her. It must be weighing on him that he can’t dig the grave himself. Guinevere remembers how at just ten years old, Elyan had insisted on helping father dig mother’s grave. Guinevere had braided flowers into a crown for her. Father had told her not to touch mother, but Gwen had always been a stubborn child, and she had snuck over to her mother’s shrouded body, moved the shroud from her face, and placed the crown on her head.

Her mother was cold, stiff, like a doll made of corn husks, but more solid. It felt strange to touch the body and find it completely stiff. The neck wouldn’t give even an inch so she could put the crown all the way around her head, so Gwen had just rested the crown askew, and replaced the shroud. Her father had caught her, yelled at her to step back. Mother had been very sick for a long time. It wouldn’t do for Gwen die as well, now that all of Mother’s duties were hers.

Mother had told her once, that she’d run a home one day. This was probably not how she meant it.

After placing the crown, Gwen had gone inside to finish the day’s chores. It was all she could do. Playing didn’t feel right, and people kept coming to the door, saying how sorry they were and asking when they would bury mother. Gwen fielded these questions as best she could, and finds herself fielding the same ones late into the evening as word of Tom’s slaughter at the hands of the king, and Elyan’s injury, spread through the village. A few of the village men bring Tom’s body to the main house, to keep it safe for the night. Gwen tells them thank you, and when they offer to help during the burial tomorrow, Gwen gladly accepts it.

“You’re too young for this.” Elyan said, with a single candle burning down on the kitchen table and Gwen laid out on the cot by her brother’s side, unwilling to go more than a few feet from him.

In the dark of the night, Gwen feels another set of tears start, and she leaves them, lets them soak the hard pillow beneath her head. “We’re both too young for this. But we’ll make it.”

“Yes, we will.”