Title: A Lady's Favour
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gwen/Lancelot and implied Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Very mild spoilers for 1x05 'Lancelot'
Summary: Lancelot may never have Gwen's hand in marriage, but he will always have her heart.
A/N: Written for merlin_las for the prompt of Gwen and Lancelot

 

A Lady’s Favour

Gwen tripped and stumbled over her tongue the first time they met, though her hands were quick and deft as she took Lancelot’s measurements down. She was perhaps no match for her mistress with her striking beauty, but her eyes were bright and lively, and when he bowed over her hand a pretty blush spread high across her cheekbones.

‘I am no lady,’ she had said, but then Lancelot was no knight himself, and not so easily discouraged.

Even so, when he left Camelot he thought it was done. He returned years later, just in time for Morgana’s disgrace; riding in through the high white gates he saw her riding out, pale on her dark horse, hair unbound and twisting in the wind. She sat straight as a razor in her saddle, proud and pitiless and fearful in her beauty unsheathed, head held high. He caught Gwen amongst the silent crowd, eyes red-rimmed with grief. She too stood straight, shoulders unbowed, hair straying loose. Though her mouth was drawn, her eyes were fierce; when she saw him, she smiled, and it was brave and strong and glorious. He returned to find that while many things had changed, some had not.

Even after she became Arthur’s queen, Gwen did not think herself a lady; her gowns were cut from the finest silk and her throat was bright with jewels, but her eyes were brighter still and whenever Lancelot knelt in fealty before his sovereigns, Arthur and Guinevere side by side, her blush was every bit as pretty as before. ‘Guinevere’ his lips named her, his queen; ‘Gwen’ his eyes called out, cutting warm and intimate through chambers dense with ceremony and courtly manners.

They trysted in fragrant gardens and shadowed walkways in the moonlight, furtive and heartfelt. He treasured the sight of her, eyes wide, cheeks flushed dark, breathless under the stars. They exchanged their own vows in impassioned secrecy and she smiled and laughed as she never did within the thick walls of the castle, stifled in the heavy finery of the court. Guilt curled hot in his stomach at every glimpse of Arthur, but his treacherous heart would not be stilled.

The first night he came to Gwen’s chambers, Arthur was there. Husband and wife stood at opposite walls looking pinched and tired but strangely content. Lancelot was frightened then of what he might have done, but Gwen came into his arms and kissed him; Arthur watched with kind eyes.

‘Take care of her,’ he said,’ that’s an order from the King.’ The corner of his mouth lifted in wry humour and he clasped Lancelot’s shoulder as he left. Lancelot did not understand and Gwen did not explain – she took him by the hand and led him to her bed, and his worries were lost amidst the whisper of white sheets against honeyed flesh.

 No one ever spoke of it, not Arthur or Gwen and certainly not the court, not where anyone might hear, and so Lancelot kept silent also. Arthur treated him as a friend, an ally, no matter where Lancelot spent his nights, but then again Lancelot had his own suspicions as to what Camelot’s king did with his time; the pendant that Arthur had always worn against his chest as a prince hung now boldly round Merlin’s neck, stark atop the midnight robes of Court Sorcerer. Thinking back to those times when he had first met the prince and his servant, he had to concede dryly that even less had changed than he thought.

The seasons turned and Lancelot rode out to war at his king’s right hand, foremost among the knights of Camelot; Arthur wore his wedding ring, gleaming as coldly as his armour in the morning light, but it was Lancelot who kept Gwen’s favour tucked beneath his clothes, pressed soft and warm as her fingers against his skin.