“Don’t.” Vera’s voice was pure ice. “Not another word.”

He stared angrily at her but remained silent.

“Grady,” she said, continuing to glare at the man, “please ready his horse. It is best if he leaves sooner than later.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Grady’s voice was quiet behind her.

“Sir, you will wait there.” She pointed to a bench halfway down the stable. “And you will not speak to this young man again except to apologize.”

Vera suspected he’d rather slap her than listen. “Do you know who I am?” the man said in a dangerous whisper.

“No,” said Vera, and she turned her back on him.

Grady’s face was covered in dirt with streaks cut through it by his silent tears. He scrambled to his feet, pitchfork and brush still in hand. Vera wished there was something that she could say to him, anything that would make him feel less small at this moment. When she heard the man grumble away to the seat where Vera had relegated him, she reached out to take the brush from Grady’s hand. “I’ll be with Calimorfis.”

He fixed his tearful gaze on the floor.

“Grady.” Vera put her hand on his shoulder and waited until he reluctantly met her eyes. “He is thrice your age and not half the man you are now.”

He was on the brink of tears, his chin quivering mightily.

“Fuck him,” Vera added.

Grady let out a bark of a surprised laugh. He nodded and set his chin before he set off to work.

“Well said, Guinevere,” Matilda said. She stood in the stall door, keeping her eyes fixed on the nobleman as Vera began brushing Calimorfis. Tears burned at her eyes as if they’d passed from Grady to her like a potent virus.

“I don’t care if I have to brush this horse twelve times. We aren’t leaving this stable until that man is gone,” Vera said.

“I quite agree.”

Thankfully, Grady’s work was quick. When Vera heard the man stirring outside the stall, she feigned taking the brush back to the tool shelf to hover near him. Grady walked the man’s horse out, his face set as he passed the reins to him.

“I’m sorry, boy,” the man growled, not at all sounding as if he meant it. Grady bowed his head respectfully before hurrying to busy himself with ropes and tack at the farthest end of the stable.

Vera crossed her arms on her chest, watching the man mount his horse.

“I’d consider finding a new stable boy,” he said as he tugged his riding gloves on, unable to resist vying for the final word. “This stable smells far worse than any I’ve ever visited. It needs a good cleaning. It’s shameful that this is our king’s stable.”

Vera wordlessly crossed to the stack of cleaning cloths, snatched one, and marched back to the man. She held it out to him as his eyes darted from Vera to the cloth and back in bewilderment.

“You have horse shit on your face.”

She was satisfied that the man looked rather like his head might explode.

“When I return,” he said, face crimson with fury, “I will take this up with the king.”

“Oh, please do,” Vera said, and the man road away in a huff.

Matilda had put forth quite the effort to keep the corners of her mouth from turning upward, and from that day on, her guard dropped. Her laugh came readily, and even the time spent helping Vera dress became more punctuated with conversation. In short, the two became friends. She barely protested when Vera insisted on serving her during their evening visits.

“Do I have more blankets?” Vera asked her one chilly evening. Matilda had just gotten a fire roaring in the hearth and settled back into her cozy pouf.

“Yes, in that chest.” She gestured to a trunk behind Vera and started to get up, but Vera waved her off.

“I’ll get them,” she said. Matilda merely smiled and shook her head.

The trunk was filled with heavy blankets, neatly folded. Vera took two in her arms and noticed a corner of thinner fabric sticking out from beneath the blanket pile. She gave it an experimental tug, and something attached to the material scraped against the side of the chest. With a steady pull, out came more fabric attached to a wooden embroidery hoop. The project was barely started: a simple cloth napkin. All that was completed was a thin line of green vines and four flower petals sewn with tidy blue stitches.

Vera added it to her armload of blankets. She dropped one on Matilda and pulled the other over herself as she ran her thumb over the bumps of Guinevere’s stitches, feeling like she held a ghost in her fingers.

“Do you remember how to do embroidery?” Matilda’s voice pierced the trance of this thread between Vera and Guinevere.

“Actually, yes.” It was true, but it wasn’t a recovered memory. Embroidery had had a moment in Glastonbury a few years back. Vera and Allison attended a kitschy sip-and-sew workshop where they’d giggled and shared pinot noir while a grandmotherly woman instructed them on various stitches. Vera had enjoyed it and taken it up as a hobby over the following months until she lost interest. Forgotten embroidery was something that she and Guinevere had in common, for Vera knew she had a partially completed project tucked in a drawer somewhere, too.

“I’d guess you had plenty of time for that sort of activity at the monastery,” Matilda said. Vera stared vacantly at her. “While you were recovering at the monastery,” she clarified.

“Oh! Yes. Right. Erm, a bit.” That’s what everyone had been told; that Guinevere spent the year recovering at a monastery in the farthest southwestern corner of the land, an order devoted to healing.

“What was it like there?” Matilda asked. “I’ve heard the monks like to play games to fill their idle hours. Is it true?”

Vera remained so thoroughly delighted by this newfound friendship that she heard herself reply, “Yes,” even though she knew nothing about the monks who were supposed to have cared for her.

“Will you teach me one?”

“Erm …” Of course, she had no idea what games the monks played (if they played them at all). So, Vera taught Matilda the only one that came to mind. “It’s called rock, paper, scissors.”

After sharing a pitcher of wine in the warmth of a fire with a friend who kept forgetting which beat what at rock, paper, scissors, and falsely proclaiming victory time after time, it turned out the game was rather funny.

“All right, all right. I’ve got it. This time, I’ve got it,” Matilda said confidently.

“Fifth time’s the charm.” Vera laughed. “I believe in you.”

Three slaps of fist to hand followed by the reveal. Matilda balled her hand as rock, and Vera laid hers out flat as paper. Matilda squealed in delight before Vera had a chance to say anything.

“I won, didn’t I?” Matilda all but shouted. Vera couldn’t speak. She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks as she devolved into the sort of laughter that produced no sound at all.

“I didn’t win?” Matilda cried. “That doesn’t make any sense! Those monks are fools.” This only sent Vera further into her hysterical collapse. And then Matilda was laughing, too.

For the moment, the embroidery hoop had fallen aside from Vera’s lap, forgotten, but it had sprouted an idea.

Dinner the following evening proceeded as was now usual. They ate, the performers performed, then Arthur made an excuse to leave. They arrived at his exit like clockwork.

He nodded to Lancelot and then to Vera as he muttered, “Good evening.”

That was one of a few positive shifts. Since the night when he’d been so harsh, he’d at least acknowledged Vera before he departed each evening. She wasn’t sure if this was owed to her new “could not give a shit” attitude, if Lancelot had said something to him, or if he just felt guilty. Once she had stopped seeking Arthur, however, he seemed to relax. He even laughed at Lancelot’s jokes in her presence or forgot to harden his gaze when he accidentally met Vera’s eye, but only ever for a moment.