Britt’s fear disappeared, burning like dry twigs from the fire of her rage. “I beg your pardon?”
“If you do not take me back to Camelot I will tell my father that you are a woman. Word will spread around Britain in a year, and you’ll be ruined,” Guinevere said.
Britt could hardly believe it. She had been right to hate Guinevere all along. After she had just saved her from Maleagant the brat had the audacity to make threats? “Do you really think that threat frightens me?” Britt asked. (It did, but it affected the small part of Britt’s mind that wasn’t completely infuriated and thus was easily forgotten.) “I just defeated a duke not only in swordplay, but jousting as well. I singlehandedly drove off an enemy your father was too frightened to confront. I have been through a war, broken off powerful enchantments laid upon my men, and survived an attempt against my life. Do you really think the hissings of one silly girl will move me? Please, I am not your father,” Britt scoffed.
Guinevere swallowed. “I’ll tell Merlin.”
“As if he didn’t already know,” Britt laughed. “He’s a wizard. If you think he doesn’t know you are even more simple-minded than I estimated. No, most of my powerful friends know of my secret, princess. Tell me, have you ever made yourself an enemy out of a faerie enchantress? I’m certain Nymue, the Lady of the Lake you previously referred to, would love to take you on. She dislikes stupidity just as much as I do.”
“I’m not stupid,” Guinevere said, tucking her chin like a mulish horse.
“You are. You are thoughtless, self centered, and your idiocy is in abundance if you think threats will force me to bow to you,” Britt said, taking a step closer to Guinevere.
She towered over the princess, and the distaste in her eyes and the dark tilt of her head made Guinevere stumble backwards.
“Your enemies will care. King Lot, King Urien,” Guinevere said, backing up until her back was flush against the door.
“So?” Britt asked. “I have their sons. And just because you tell them does not mean they will believe you. After all, who will they trust more, the sniveling daughter of a coward or the red dragon who faced them in battle?”
“Please,” Guinevere whispered.
“So now you’ve moved on to begging?”
“Please, don’t leave me here,” Guinevere said, tears filling her eyes. She wasn’t play acting, her face was an unbecoming red color and pinched in the same expression she wore the night Britt found her in the garden.
Britt sighed and turned away. “Leave me, and tell no one of this,” she said.
“You don’t understand. I am the fattened calf my father will use for his ambitions. Can’t you have mercy on me?” Guinevere said, grabbing Britt’s arm.
Britt studied the broken girl. In the legends Guinevere ruined Camelot arm in arm with Lancelot. All her life Britt hated hearing stories about the faithless queen. As far as Britt was concerned, Guinevere never deserved Arthur, and the legendary King was an idiot for never seeing her fickle ways.
Hours ago she took a vow before her men that she would champion women, and she had. She saved a girl she genuinely disliked. But Britt found she had neither the strength of character nor the smallest drop of mercy that would move her to bring this female disaster into Camelot.
“I saved you from Maleagant, that is the most I will do for you,” Britt said, brushing the shorter woman off her arm.
“I’ll do anything. Take me as your servant. I could be a ladies maid, or work as a seamstress,” Guinevere said, her skirts swirling as she cut in front of Britt and grabbed her by the doublet.
“Guinevere, stop your baseless offers. You are not the type to be pleased with working. You don’t even know how.”
“I could learn, I will learn. I would rather be a servant who earns a wage and makes her own decisions than be auctioned off to Father’s best offer and forced into slavery.”
Britt pinched the bridge of her nose. “Getting married is not like being a slave.”
“You don’t know, you wouldn’t know. Maleagant is not the worst man father is considering for me. He doesn’t care what they are like as long as they are rich and will give him a pretty sum of money for me, or he can call upon them to pull up his breeches when he is in need of saving. I am doomed, Arthur, unless you help me,” Guinevere pleaded.
“I already have. Leave me,” Britt said pointing to the door.
Guinevere’s lower lip trembled. “I see now that I was wrong about you. You might be a woman, but you are just as cruel as a man.”
“Your happiness would cost me a kingdom, I don’t even like you so there is no way I will sacrifice my subjects’ happiness for your own,” Britt said.
“How can you say that? Father will not lift a finger against you.”
“Guinevere,” Britt said, her words quiet but sharp like a dagger. “I know what you are like, and I know what you would do. You will have to find another person to save you.”