The Exile

-Guinevere Alone-

   Chapter 4: The Bear, the Bird and the Bandit

          Shaking in every limb, Guinevere wanted to merely collapse where she stood. But it was early yet, and she would not sleep as well on the bare forest floor as she would on a bed of grass and leaves. In the fading evening light, she ripped tufts of grass from the ground and stripped leaves from bushes. As she did so, Gwen scanned the forest flint rocks and edible leaves. By the time full dark came she had bed several inches high, mint leaves to chew, flint, and lavender leaves. With her bed made, she crushed lavender and spread it round her bed. The strong scent would discourage most predators. She'd also made her bed at the base of a tree just in case she needed a quick escape. With her bedding arranged Guinevere got to work on a fire. After a short while she laid down to sleep in cheery orange light.        

              Bunnies were the cutest animals surely, Guinevere thought to herself as she watched two cottontails, no more than a month old, hop over each other. One thumped the other in the head, and her mouth quirked up a bit at that. She knew she should be on the move, making her way back to the road; she should be walking south getting out of Camelot. Gwen put another mint leaf in her mouth and watched the puffy white tails disappear into the forest.

"All right, Guinevere, time to start your day." She pushed herself to her feet and fell back against the tree she'd based her camp at- legs watery-weak, eyes closed against the world's spinning. Gwen slid down into her bed of grass and sat unmoving until the nausea in her stomach subsided. She cracked one eye open and saw thankfully that the world had stilled. Her limbs continued to tremble, though, and Gwen knew she wasn't going far just yet. The ordeal on the river had been more draining than she realized. Tomorrow she would go on the road, now Gwen shut her eyes and let herself drift off into sleep. 

Hours later, she awoke, parched and made her way back to the river on shaking feet. Guinevere drank her fill of the chill spring water and headed back to her little camp. As she walked, Gwen spied a patch of strawberries she had somehow missed yesterday. She didn't have much of an appetite, but the would-be-Queen knew she needed to eat something.  The young woman filled her cape with a feast of berries.

              She woke late on the second day, feeling no more inclined to stir than she had on the first. Still, Gwen forced herself from her wilted bed and made her way back to the river for water, thinking. She really didn't know where she was, where she was going or what she might do when she got there and she'd lost just about  everything. The lethargy she'd woken with on the previous morning seemed to have gotten stronger. Guinevere listened to blue jays sing and tried to braid her tangled, matted hair.

              On the third day, she managed to throw a rock and kill one of those adorable bunnies that seemed to enjoy hanging about. It felt mean, but she was hungry. Quickly, she skinned, spitted the animal and set it above her fire to roast. While it roasted, she scraped the fat from the skin and set it to dry. The entrails, organs and such she buried several feet from her camp. When the rabbit was done roasting she ate it with several handfuls of berries. She should be on the move, but who would ever know she was here? Perhaps she could just stay here in the woods. Maybe she didn't have to choose.

              Guinevere opened her eyes. Why did her foot hurt? She looked down and saw her foot in the mouth of a large brown bear with a torn ear. Without thinking, Guinevere screamed and kicked the bear with her free leg. The bear looked up in puzzlement.  She screamed again and leapt to her feet. She absolutely had to get away! Thankful she'd placed her camp at the base of a tree Guinevere turned and shined up the tree's trunk until she was high, high in its branches and hopefully out of the bear's reach. The bear seemed to agree, as it didn't attempt to climb the tree, but sat back on its haunches and let out a roar. Metallic taste in her mouth body trembling with reaction the young woman stared at the bear and tried to think. 

              "Go away!"

The bear merely looked at her and then it stood up on its hind legs and leaned its bulk against the tree.  She screamed as her perch began to sway. How could she make this bear go away?

 A nest perched precariously in the branches above caught her eyes.  Guinevere pulled herself up as carefully as she could and found several eggs in the nest. Before she could question the wisdom of her next action, she forced her thumb through the top of one egg, made a hole and sucked down the contents. Then she lobbed one of the eggs at the bear who caught it, and as she had done a moment earlier cracked and drained it. Perhaps it could get full on eggs. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Guinevere began throwing the eggs at the bear. The bear seemed to think this was a great trick for it stopped shaking the tree and began chasing the eggs, catching and eating them with relish. The she heard a sound she'd been dreading, the call of an angry crow. With trembling fingers, Gwen yanked her hood up and dipped her face toward her chest. Not a moment later pain lanced through her scalp as she felt the bird's claws closing into the fabric of her cape. Gwen closed one hand around a tree limb and tried to think. Her knife belt! She didn't think she could stab the crow, but she might be able to swing the belt and strike it with the hilt. Ignoring the pain in her head, the girl fumbled her belt off and swung it up over her head. Her first blow struck home and the startled bird released her and flew upwards shrieking with rage.

Fearing to do so, but knowing she had no choice, Guinevere raised her head and felt her mouth go dry. The crow -black beak gleaming- was coming at her in a dive. Somehow, she kept her face upturned and waited-

-She had to hit it the first time. There wouldn't be a second chance. The crown came into sharp clear focus, drew nearer-

-She swung out, her aim more true than she could have ever hoped. Guinevere never knew if she stunned the bird or worse, but it dropped suddenly falling with the weight of a stone right into the outstretched paws of the bear. The bear, of course, found this to be an even better bounty and Guinevere heard the sound of bones snapping as ursine jaws closed round the crow's neck. She hoped he would be satisfied with her unintended gift.

The bear devoured the crow in a few bites and just as suddenly as it seemed to have come; it lumbered off into the woods. Still sitting in the tree Guinevere pulled off her boot and checked her left foot there were only bruises- no blood.  She sat a while in the tree and when the bear did not reappear, slid down to the ground. She looped the satchel across her body and took off at a brisk march, feeling more energetic than she had in days.

              Rather than going toward the road, Guinevere made up her mind to head south for the next four days. That would bring her well out of Camelot; the forest would provide everything she needed. On the fifth morning she would head west until she found the road. From there Gwen decided she would find Ealdor or some other village.  The moon rode full and white in the sky making it possible for her to travel well into the night. Still feeling the burst of energy from the morning's encounter Guinevere he did not make her camp until what must have been well past midnight.

              The following morning the extra strength that had come to her seemed to be gone again. But she had a plan now and Guinevere forced herself to continue forward. She stopped at a more reasonable hour and got her camp laid by sundown. Perhaps tomorrow she would rest.  In the morning, she woke to the sight of the bear with the torn ear sitting calmly beside her exhausted fire.

              How long she'd been running for, Guinevere had no idea. The bear didn't seem to be following her; in fact it hadn't seemed particularly dangerous, but she didn't want to take any chances. She'd always been told not to feed bears. Did this one expect just that? She'd fed it once already. Could she still be in its territory?  She'd just keep moving sooner or later she must leave it behind.

              On the fourth morning Guinevere awoke to something far less pleasant than a bear. She opened her dark eyes and meet a pair of cold green ones staring down at her from grinning face of a bearded man. Gwen reached instantly for her knife and her stomach twisted sickeningly as he waved Elyan's knife at her. He crouched at her side.

              "You're a nice friendly girl, ain't ya?" She felt the sting of the blade pressed against her throat. "Ain't ya?"

              "Yes," Gwen whispered it, as still as she'd ever been in life.

              "Good, now you just lie there."

              The man straddled her, dispelling any hopes that she'd had that he was simply a thief.

              "You're pretty, too."

              For some reason this statement made her angry.

              "You just finish your business and get out of here." If he was going to rape her, he was going to rape her. She was not going to let him pretend that this was some sweet little fantasy. The man growled and punched her.

 Perhaps it was supposed to quell her, frighten her, it didn't. Instead Guinevere felt rage well up from somewhere in the pit of her stomach. Rage for kissing Lancelot, rage for losing Arthur, rage for being turned away from Bayberry, rage for losing her home, rage for being attacked by bears and crows, for being abandoned by her brother. For every shit thing that was her life rage fired her fist into the bastard's face. He seemed to be stunned by her resistance.  Guinevere shoved him off of her and got to her feet. He did too. He lunged at her and she didn't care. He was stronger than he looked, but she fought him anyway, flailing with fist and feet, biting if he got a hold of her. Somehow though, he got her down again and put a rough hand around her throat. That was when the bear came lumbering out of the woods with a roar. The man stared in shock. Gwen didn't. She punched him in the throat, rolled to her knees and shoved him straight toward the bear. Guinevere grabbed the satchel Gwaine had given her and took off for the boarder at run, never happier to leave Camelot.

Later, when she caught her breath- when she took a moment to rest, she'd bring her slender fingers to rest just below the pulse at her throat, looking for the comfort that laying a hand against Arthur's ring brought. That would be later and she'd find no comfort in that gesture.

 The ring was gone.