The heavy oak doors of the eastern tower corridor gave way to the back landing of the Great Hall, and as any sensible soul who had ever spent a winter in Camelot knew, step one of attending a court feast was surviving the sheer thermal shock of the threshold.
The cold, drafty stone of thirty minutes ago vanished instantly, swallowed by a wall of radiant heat—the suffocating press of five hundred beeswax candles burning all at once in the high iron chandeliers overhead.
The familiar smell of damp granite and old dog-rushes had been soundly evicted.
In its place was the cloying sweetness of crushed lavender and wild thyme scattered across the floor, competing furiously with spiced hippocras, roasted venison fat, and the heavy perfumes of three dozen noble families all trying to out-scent their neighbors.
Mordred stopped two paces past the threshold.
Her right hand twitched automatically to smooth down a skirt she wasn’t remotely used to carrying, only for her fingers to tangle clumsily in the heavy, layered folds of moss-green cotton.
She froze.
Below them, the Great Hall had vanished.
It hadn’t just been decorated; it had undergone the sort of radical, overnight transformation that usually required three weeks, two architects, and several exhausted royal squires.
Where the long, bare oak trestles usually sat—where Mordred sat every single morning eating boiled oats and quietly dreading the day’s drills—the floor had been cleared into a vast, glowing expanse of polished slate.
Long, heavy banners of crimson wool, fine bleached linen, and deep indigo felt hung from the timber collar-beams, sweeping down to frame the lancet windows and dulling the harsh gray twilight outside into a warm, amber haze.
Near the high gallery, a dozen musicians in wool tunics were tuning harps and small wooden pipes, performing that timeless medieval ritual of plucking strings endlessly until they sounded slightly less sour.
Across the floor moved a crowd that barely resembled home.
Knights had shed their usual doublets for long tunics of fine combed wool and fur-trimmed mantles.
Foreign merchants from the western ports huddled by the tall hearths, their dark wool coats heavy with silver filigree, while church representatives in pristine linen albs spoke in hushed, measured tones to minor lords from the southern marches.
Ladies drifted between them like strange, colorful birds, their embroidered hemlines sweeping over the rushes, their faces hidden behind lacquered leather, polished horn, and stiffened linen domino masks.
Mordred’s chest tightened.
Her eyes darted anxiously across the floor, taking in the sweeping trains, the effortless poise of the southern ladies, and the sheer, terrifying complexity of proper courtly etiquette.
‘I am going to trip,’ she thought, the tight weave of the bodice pressing hot against her ribs.
‘I am going to take two steps, catch my heel in three yards of raw cotton, and fall flat on my face in front of the entire court.’
For someone who had taken Gawain’s Noble Phantasm directly to the helm and walked away with little more than a ringing in her ears, a length of green fabric was currently proving to be the most formidable opponent of her career.
‘What if the magic doesn’t hold?’ Her mind immediately leaped back to Maeve’s parting jab in her chambers.
‘What if the leaves unravel?
What if I’m left standing in the middle of the Great Hall in my linen shift while Kay is trying to drink his cider?’
Beside her, Maeve didn’t look worried about hems, magic, or social ruin.
She stood with her hip lightly brushing Mordred’s arm, her dark green wool tunic blending smoothly against Mordred’s gown, watching the sheer, wide-eyed dread on Mordred’s face with the quiet satisfaction of a cat near an untipped bowl of cream.
“Easy,” Maeve murmured, her voice barely carrying over the sound of a lute being tuned directly below.
“Nobody is looking at your feet, Mordred.
They’re too busy worrying if their wool matches their mantle.”
“There are too many rules,” Mordred muttered back through her teeth, her fingers clutching nervously at the fabric of her skirt.
“Which side am I supposed to hold a fan on?
Do I curtsy before or after a lord speaks?
What if I step on someone’s embroidery?”
“That’s why you keep your mouth shut and smile,” Maeve said, a slow grin spreading across her lips as she took Mordred by the elbow.
“Now lower your chin three inches and stop standing like a fence post.
You look like you’re about to faint.”
Before Mordred could adjust her posture, the crowd near the lower stairs parted.
If there was one universal truth in Camelot, it was that Sir Kay possessed an uncanny ability to materialize precisely when one least desired his company.
He stepped straight out from behind a stone pillar, carrying a silver goblet in one hand and brushing pastry crumbs off his sleeve with the other.
He wasn’t wearing a full mask—just a narrow band of stiff black leather across his brow that did absolutely nothing to hide his heavy jaw, his crooked nose, or the faint grease stain on his lapel.
He walked with the heavy-footed stride of a man who had already consumed two measures of cider and was actively hunting for someone to complain to about the local price of hay.
He was coming straight for them.
Mordred’s entire body locked.
‘He’s going to notice,’ she thought, her spine going rigid as iron.
‘He’s going to look right at me, realize who I am, and ask why I’m dressed up like a marcher lady—’
“Don’t move,” Maeve whispered, her grip tightening on Mordred’s elbow just enough to keep her from bolting back up the stairs.
“Breathe.
Relax your shoulders.”
Kay reached them.
He didn’t slow down.
His eyes swept over Maeve, flicked to the slight, green-clad woman standing rigid beside her, and registered a heavy, high-collared gown, a pale face framed by blond waves, and a pair of wide, terrified eyes behind a simple leaf-patterned mask.
Kay gave a brief, utterly disinterested nod—the exact brand of empty courtesy a senior courtier reserved for minor distant relations he had zero intention of engaging in conversation—and veered left toward the wine trestles, grumbling aloud to himself about the draft coming from the east window.
He kept walking.
He didn’t turn back.
Mordred stood frozen for three full seconds, holding her breath until her ribs hurt.
Slowly, her shoulders dropped half an inch.
She turned her head, watching Kay’s back disappear into a cluster of cloth merchants.
“…That actually worked,” she breathed, the words coming out in a tiny, stunned puff of air.
“He looked right at me.
He talks to me every morning in the yard!”
Maeve didn’t look surprised.
She let go of Mordred’s elbow, her dark green eyes dancing with quiet, sharp triumph.
“Of course it worked,” Maeve said softly.
“The steel armor was never your disguise, Mordred.
Everyone else’s assumptions were.”
She leaned in slightly, her breath warm against the shell of Mordred’s ear.
“When you’re in that suit of plate, you look broad, heavy, and imposing.
Add the thick leather layers, the raised pauldrons, and the iron helm, and people’s minds fill in the rest.
They assume Sir Mordred is some hulking brute.
Out of the steel, you’re just a girl the same height as Arthur.
You could stand in front of Kay stark naked with a red ribbon in your hair, and his brain would still tell him you’re someone’s cousin from the marches before it let him see a knight.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Mordred looked down at her calloused hands, the gold leaf clasp catching the candlelight at her neck.
‘He really didn’t see me,’ she realized.
There was a profound, almost absurd hilarity to the realization: the most impenetrable shield in Arthurian Britain was simply the collective blindness of men who only saw what they expected to see.
“Right,” Maeve muttered, snapping her back into the present with a sharp poke to her ribs.
“Lesson one.
Do not walk across the floor like you’re dragging heavy timber behind you.
Small steps.
Let the skirt swing.”
“The skirt has three yards of cotton,” Mordred grumbled, trying to take a tentative step forward without catching her shoe in the hem.
“Then move your knees, not your heels,” Maeve shot back, falling into step beside her as they descended the last three stone stairs into the main hall.
“Lesson two: stop staring at the high gallery like you’re trying to hide from your responsibilities.
You’re supposed to be admiring the tapestries or looking coy.
Lesson three: feet.
Put them together.
You look like you’re waiting for someone to push you over.”
Mordred hastily pulled her feet inward, nearly knocking her knees together.
“This is wildly uncomfortable.”
“Lesson four,” Maeve continued rapidly, her eyes flicking across the crowd.
“When someone speaks to you, do not say ‘Aye.’ Do not say ‘By your leave.’ Do not say ‘Understood.’ You nod, you smile, and if you don’t know what to say, you say ‘How charming.'”
“I am not saying ‘How charming,'” Mordred hissed.
“I’ll sound like an absolute fool.”
“That is the goal!” Maeve hissed back.
“Fools don’t start arguments at court!
Fools don’t spend three hours doing heavy work in the bailey!
Now stop grabbing your waist, the dress isn’t going to fall off!”
Mordred’s hand snapped back to her front like she’d been burned.
A young servant bearing a shallow wooden tray of roasted almonds stepped into their path, pausing to offer the bowl.
As he held it out, his eyes lingered on Mordred for a second longer than usual—taking in the fitted green bodice, the smooth curve of her neck, and the blond waves tumbling over her collarbone.
Mordred’s stomach dropped.
In the yard, men only ever watched her sword hand or calculated her balance.
Under the boy’s brief, admiring gaze, a fierce heat surged up her neck and flooded her cheeks.
‘Is he…
looking at me?’ she panicked, the heavy cotton gown suddenly feeling entirely paper-thin under the warm candlelight.
‘He’s just staring right at me.’
She ducked her chin into her chest, snatched a small handful of nuts without looking, and took three quick, awkward steps backward into the shadow of a pillar.
The boy blinked, slightly confused by the noble lady’s sudden bashfulness, before bowing politely and moving along.
Maeve leaned over, her shoulder pressing against Mordred’s.
“You don’t have to hide from the nut boy, Mordred.
He was just admiring the dress.”
“He was looking right at me,” Mordred muttered, staring down at the almonds in her palm as if she didn’t know how they got there, her chest tight with embarrassment.
“I felt like I wasn’t wearing anything at all.”
Maeve’s eyes softened with warm affection.
“Welcome to wearing a gown.
Get used to it—you look lovely tonight.”
On the opposite side of the Great Hall, near the high curtained archway leading to the council chambers, a figure stepped quietly from behind a woven tapestry.
Arthur wore no elaborate feathers, no gilded beak, and no sweeping train.
Her mask was a narrow strip of dark grey leather, molded cleanly to the bridge of her nose and cheekbones, leaving her mouth and strong jaw entirely uncovered.
Her dress was simple—dark blue wool, cut close at the shoulders to allow free movement, stripped of any royal crest or gold embroidery.
To a casual glance, she was merely another noblewoman of minor standing, taking a quiet moment away from the dancing.
Arthur moved through the crowd with quiet purpose, stepping past Lancelot—who was currently trapped near the hearth being aggressively bored by a baron’s daughter—and drifted straight toward a knot of five men standing near the wine casks: three southern wool merchants in heavy sheepskin coats and two minor bailiffs from the Welsh border.
“…three pence on the stone,” one of the bailiffs was saying, his voice thick with the flat accent of the lower Severn.
“That’s what the King’s men demanded at the ford.
Three pence!
For raw fleece!”
“It’s not the King’s men,” a wool merchant spat, leaning in over his goblet.
“Arthur’s scribes are back in the fortress counting iron nails.
It’s the march lords.
They’ve put their own men on the bridges between here and Gloucester.
You pay their toll, or your wagons sit in the mud until the wool rots.”
Arthur stopped two paces away, pretending to examine an iron candle-sconce mounted on the pillar.
She didn’t interrupt.
She didn’t write anything down.
She simply absorbed the complaint—the march lords taking extra tolls, the blocked wagons—and tucked it away.
She moved on.
Ten yards further down, near the lower hearth, three squires in the livery of a western baron were talking in low, excited whispers over a shared pitcher of ale.
“…forty horses bought up in Bristol last fortnight,” the youngest squire was saying, his eyes wide.
“All heavy stock.
Not plow horses, mind you.
Destriers.
Good northern blood.”
“Who’s paying?” another asked.
“Gold coin.
Old coin, too—not the new silver Arthur had minted after Badon. Get faster updates on g.com.
Heavy stuff.
My uncle says the crates came off a cog from the south, but the silver didn’t have no king’s mark on it.”
Arthur’s green eyes narrowed slightly behind her mask.
Forty destriers.
Bristol.
Old silver.
It turns out that if you want to know what is actually happening in a realm, high council meetings are largely useless compared to four drinks and a room full of chatty squires.
The masquerade was doing exactly what she had hoped.
Meanwhile, near the northern gallery pillars, Mordred was discovering a whole new side of court life.
For as long as she could remember, her existence in Camelot had consisted of cold morning drills, heavy iron, rough linen, and people stepping out of her way with nervous, tight-lipped respect.
When she walked into a room, conversation muted.
Squires stared at the floor.
Arthur watched her with thoughtful, searching eyes.
Now, standing in a moss-green gown with a piece of twisted gold wire in her collar, she was completely, wonderfully invisible.
A group of three young noblewomen in fine wool dresses were standing less than four feet away, fluttering painted parchment fans and whispering into their sleeves.
“…he doesn’t even take his helm off for meals,” one of them—a girl in a yellow dress with pale blue ribbons—was saying in an urgent tone.
“My brother’s squire saw him in the lower yard!
He said Sir Mordred’s arms are as thick as oak trunks and covered in hair like a boar!”
“Shh!
Lower your voice!” the second girl hissed, her eyes darting nervously toward a shadow by the archway.
“What if he hears you?
If he’s half as terrible as they say, he’ll challenge your brother before midnight!”
“Oh, nonsense,” the third girl chimed in, tossing her dark curls with a small, dismissive huff.
“My cousin talked to him when he brought horses from the west.
Said Sir Mordred was actually very polite—a bit quiet, maybe, but perfectly nice.”
“Polite?” the first girl scoffed, fanning herself faster.
“He probably just wasn’t hungry yet!”
Mordred, who was currently trying to sip politely from a pewter cup of spiced cider, choked.
She coughed violently until Maeve slapped her hard between the shoulder blades.
“Careful, my lady,” Maeve said in a loud, pleasant voice for the benefit of the girls.
“The cider is quite sharp tonight.”
‘I don’t have boar hair,’ Mordred thought furiously as the girls turned away, clutching her cup so hard the metal groaned.
‘My arms aren’t hairy at all!
And I am polite!’
“Shh!” Maeve hissed, her shoulders twitching with suppressed laughter.
“Listen to the knights!”
Two minor knights in wool tunics had stepped up to the nearby wine table, completely oblivious to the two women standing in the shadow of the pillar.
“I’m telling you, he’s seven feet tall if he’s an inch,” the first knight said, leaning against the timber frame.
“I watched him in the yard last month.
He hit Sir Lucan so hard with a wooden practice sword that Lucan’s horse went down on its knees.
They say Arthur keeps him locked in the lower cellars beneath the iron gate when there’s no work to be done.”
“Locked up?” the second knight asked, wide-eyed.
He instinctively glanced over both shoulders, his voice dropping into an urgent whisper.
“Quiet down!
What if Sir Mordred is here tonight?”
The first knight scoffed, though his eyes darted nervously to the crowd.
“In a mask?”
“That’s the point of masks, you idiot!” the second knight hissed back.
“Anyone could be behind leather and horn tonight!
For all we know, he’s lurking right behind us!”
“He’s not locked in a cellar,” a young squire pouring their wine muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
“I brought him his dry tunic after drill on Tuesday.
He’s not seven feet tall, and he actually said ‘thank you.'”
“Exactly!” the second knight whispered triumphantly, jabbing a finger at the squire.
“That’s how he gets you to lower your guard!
He acts polite, learns your face, and then—bam!
Feeds on raw mutton and spring water while planning his next strike!
You think a monster like that walks around normal halls?
He’d break the chairs just sitting down!”
Mordred stood frozen two feet away, her mind reeling.
‘I am literally holding roasted almonds,’ she thought, staring down at her greasy palm in absolute, unadulterated disbelief.
‘I am wearing three yards of moss-green cotton and praying I don’t spill cider on my chest, and you two think I’m a cellar monster lurking in the shadows?!’
‘I ate boiled turnips at the Round Table four hours ago!’
It is a strange and wondrous thing to discover that your public reputation is ninety percent goblin-story and ten percent wild exaggeration, invented entirely by men who have clearly spent too much time drinking spiced wine next to open hearths.
Beside her, Maeve had completely turned her back to the room.
Her forehead was pressed flat against the stone pillar, her knuckles shoved into her mouth as her entire body shook with silent, uncontrollable laughter.
“If you laugh,” Mordred whispered, her face burning so hot she felt like she was standing in front of a forge, “I am going to push you into the fish pond in the lower courtyard.”
Maeve turned around slowly, her face red, her green eyes streaming with tears.
“Watch out, gentlemen,” she wheezed softly, leaning near Mordred’s ear.
“The seven-foot mutton-eater is planning her revenge.”
“Shut up,” Mordred growled, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted copper, while desperately trying to keep her heavy green hem from catching under her shoes.