She had just finished tracing the knots on the window when the sitting room door opened. She hoped it looked like she was trying to see the view through the thick glass.
Brangien bowed neatly. “Everything is ready, my lady.”
Ravenous, Guinevere followed, eager for breakfast. Instead, she was greeted by a tub of steaming water in the center of her sitting room.
“No!” she exclaimed.
“My lady? Did I do something wrong?” Brangien was standing next to the tub. A table held various tinctures and soaps, a soft length of cloth, a scrubbing brush. Brangien’s sleeves had been tied back, her pale arms exposed.
“What is this for?” Guinevere looked everywhere but at the bath. She had seen something reflected on the water. Something not in this room. She did not want to know what it was. Water was the best tool for seeing, better than any of her paltry tricks. Water touched everything, flowing from one life to the next. With enough patience and time, water could lead a skilled magician to any answer.
But it could also lead them astray. Water shaped to whatever container held it. Not all containers were benign. The Lady of the Lake had long ago claimed water magic as her own, and it all flowed back to her in time. The Lady of the Lake had been Merlin’s ally against the Dark Queen, but she was ancient and unknowable, and Guinevere could not risk invoking any of her power within Camelot. Better to be small. Contained. Knotted.
She could justify it all she wanted to, but magic aside, the bath was water. Guinevere would not climb into it.
“I think the temperature is pleasant, but if it is not to your liking, I can change it. Shall I help you undress?”
“No!”
Brangien flinched, wounded at the vehemence of Guinevere’s response. Her face turned scarlet and she stared at the floor.
“It is perfectly customary, my lady. I have bathed many women before you. And you need not put your face under if it frightens you.”
“It is not that.” Guinevere scrambled, grasping for a reason why this ordinary task for a lady’s maid would not—could not—ever happen. “At the convent they taught me that my body is only for my husband. Even I am not to look at myself while naked.” It sounded reasonable for a society that forbade her from showing her wrists. “I could not bear if anyone else saw me. You are a fine lady’s maid—the best I could hope for. But I must bathe myself.”
Brangien frowned, but at least she no longer looked wounded. “I have only recently become Christian. I have not heard this.”
“I think it is particular to the convent where I was instructed on how to be a wife. There are so many more ways for a queen to sin.” She tried not to grimace at all the falsehoods coming out of her mouth. Certainly in her three days at the convent, she had learned a great deal about sin and guilt, which seemed a powerful type of magic in its own right. A magic of controlling and shaping others. The nuns wielded it deftly, experts in their craft. They were also kind and loving and generous. Guinevere would not have minded more time among them, trying to understand this new religion that was pushing back the old in much the same way men were pushing back the forests.
Arthur had embraced Christianity, too. She would have to learn it. If only Merlin were here to place it all inside her head like he had the knot magic.
“So,” Guinevere said, “I would like to bathe myself. When I am finished, I will call you and you can dress me—and care for my hair? You are much better with it than I am!”
This seemed to placate Brangien, or at least make her less afraid for her position. She nodded. “I will retrieve your undergarments. If you need any help getting into them, please call for me.” She hurried to the bedroom, then brought the linen undergarments in and set them gently on the table beside the other supplies.
Guinevere smiled until Brangien left again. Then she dropped the smile with a shudder as she dropped her nightclothes. She did not look at the bath. She could feel the water there, steaming, promising magic she did not ask for and would not explore.
She stepped out of the ring of her nightclothes. Her feet were bare against the stone floor and she curled her toes, missing the soft give of soil. Luckily, Brangien had left a candle on the table. Guinevere breathed it into life. It was a dangerous trick, but the wick contained the fire before it could escape.
Fire magic was Merlin’s specialty. Not hers. She needed the limits of knot magic, the security of the loops and ties. But she had to get clean, and she could not bring herself to sit in water.
She put her finger to the flame, whispering. It jumped from wick to flesh, stinging just shy of burning. She spun in a circle. The flame followed the path of the circle to form a shimmering ring, encompassing her. It took all her concentration to hold it, to forbid it from the chaos that was its nature. Unlike water, fire had no master. No lady or queen who could rule it.
It rushed over her hot and hungry and dry, devouring anything unclean. When she could no longer stand it, she pushed away the air so the fire had nothing to feed on. It reluctantly faded and died.
It left her skin itching and her whole body tired. But she was clean and the water left undisturbed. As difficult as it was, fire magic was relatively safe. It devoured whatever it touched, leaving no evidence of itself or its user. And when it was extinguished, it was gone. It could not carry news of her magic to anyone who knew where to look.
The first time she had tried a cleansing, Merlin had to extinguish her. She had been seconds away from being devoured. She frowned, as stung by the memory as by the fire itself. Merlin had found it hilarious. She wished he could see how well she had handled it now. But at least he had given her the tools she needed to avoid water. It was uncharacteristically thoughtful of him.
She pulled on her underclothes and surveyed the room. The table of bath supplies was undisturbed. Chagrined, she broke off a piece of the petal-pressed soap and tossed it into the water behind her. She took the brush and backed closer to the bath, carefully dipping it in without looking at what she was doing. Then she hastily replaced it on the table. The other supplies she rearranged messily, assuming a princess would never worry about neatness with so many people to be neat on her behalf.
Her hair was dry, but hair was washed infrequently. She would figure out how to trick Brangien when the time came.
Now all she had to do was wait a reasonable bath period. She sat on the floor so the surface of the water was above her eye level and she could not see it and the lies it told. When the steam finally stopped drifting, she called for Brangien.
Brangien did not notice anything amiss about the unused bath. She undid Guinevere’s hair, redoing the braids and carefully removing the jewels Guinevere had not remembered to take out the night before. Brangien placed them into a gilded box, which was then closed and locked.
“I have the key, unless my lady would like to hold it herself.” There was a challenge in Brangien’s voice, as though daring Guinevere not to trust her. The bath rejection had done damage. Guinevere needed to repair it. She could not have someone in such constant contact suspect or dislike her.