Sword Stone Table

by Swapna Krishna

Genres: Arthurian; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Fantasy

Synopsis

From the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table, comes an anthology of gender-bent, race-bent, LGBTQIA+ inclusive retellings. Featuring stories by:

Alexander Chee • Preeti Chhibber • Roshani Chokshi • Sive Doyle • Maria Dahvana Headley • Ausma Zehanat Khan • Daniel M. Lavery • Ken Liu • Sarah MacLean • Silvia Moreno-Garcia • Jessica Plummer • Anthony Rapp • Waubgeshig Rice • Alex Segura • Nisi Shawl • S. Zainab Williams
 
A Publishers Weekly Summer Reads pick!

Here you’ll find the Lady of the Lake reimagined as an albino Ugandan sorceress and the Lady of Shalott as a wealthy, isolated woman in futuristic Mexico City; you'll see Excalibur rediscovered as a baseball bat that grants a washed-up minor leaguer a fresh shot at glory and as a lost ceremonial drum that returns to a young First Nations boy the power and the dignity of his people. There are stories set in Gilded Age Chicago, '80s New York, twenty-first century Singapore, and space; there are lesbian lady knights, Arthur and Merlin reborn in the modern era for a second chance at saving the world and falling in love—even a coffee shop AU.
 
Brave, bold, and groundbreaking, the stories in Sword Stone Table will bring fresh life to beloved myths and give long-time fans a chance to finally see themselves in their favorite legends.

Release date: July 13, 2021

Publisher: Vintage

Print pages: 320

Sample

IntroductionSwapna Krishna & Jenn Northington

It was the summer of 2018, and we were sitting in Swapna’s living room. Swapna was pregnant with her first baby, and Jenn was bursting with an idea for an anthology. “Where are the gender-bent Arthur stories?” Jenn asked. “The race-bent retellings, the queered ones?”

We couldn’t easily find them—and we thought it just might be possible that not only did other people want them but also there were folks out there ready to write them, or who maybe already had.

As this collection came together over the past few years (it’s hard to believe we’ve been working on it for so long!), it’s been exciting to discover the published stories we missed and to see that we weren’t alone—there’s been a renaissance of “bent” Arthur retellings that we devoured. Even more electrifying for us are the authors who said yes when we asked, then proceeded to write stories that have blown our minds, knocked our socks off, and made our hearts grow too many sizes to count.

Each writer puts their own unique spin on a bit of Arthurian legend. One of the unexpected joys of editing has been watching the resonances develop among them, especially when none of the writers really knew what anyone else was working on except for barest details (character, general time frame, maybe genre). These stories have cousins and siblings the authors aren’t even aware of.

ONCE

Roshani Chokshi and Sarah MacLean deliver atmospheric stories heavy with longing and bursting with romance, albeit in very different ways, both giving voice to strong women we’ve fallen in love with. Ausma Zehanat Khan and Nisi Shawl bring the wider world to Camelot in ways that blur its boundaries and elevate the storytelling to something larger and more global. And Daniel Lavery and Sive Doyle make us laugh, make us cry, and give us two queer couples that absolutely deserve to be canon.

PRESENT

Then there’s Maria Dahvana Headley, who finds the Arthurian overtones of a muckraker in late-nineteenth-century America. Waubgeshig Rice and Alex Segura both incorporate baseball into their reimagined Arthur but in very different ways: in one, a pickup game on a reservation leads to an amazing discovery; in the other, a washed-up minor-league player finds help where he least expects it. Anthony Rapp finds magic in the throes of the AIDS crisis, while S. Zainab Williams explores that intangible search for belonging through a lonely girl in Singapore. Jessica Plummer and Preeti Chhibber both consider how it might look if a legend made itself known in modern life—with very different consequences.

FUTURE

No Arthurian collection would be complete without a look forward, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia brings us to a near-future Mexico City in a story both eerie and prescient. Ken Liu takes us even farther out, into a universe in which identity shifts from one moment to the next…but past mistakes can haunt you forever. A little closer to home is Alexander Chee’s story, set on our neighboring planet and contemplating public versus private personas, secrets, and games.

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This collection has been a privilege and a joy to curate and has shown us just how much room there is to play. We hope that you’ll enjoy these stories as much as we do, and that these stories are merely the tip of the iceberg for inclusive Arthurian fiction. Everyone deserves to see themselves on the page, and even if you don’t find your specific identity within these stories, perhaps you’ll see some small part of yourself inside these characters and these old, and yet entirely new, legends.

The Once and Future QadiAusma Zehanat Khan

The Qadi was sitting on his prayer rug at his ease when the summons came from Camelot. Even to consider it a summons was a matter of insult, Ayaan thought, but the Qadi from Cordoba, who had grown to renown in Seville, had survived many skirmishes by refusing to respond to the needling of his pride. And patience, after all, was a much-valued quality in a jurist. Now the Qadi turned his well-shaped head up to the moon and waited for Ayaan to place the message in his hand. A man who had once studied with the masters of the Great Library of Cordoba would have no difficulty interpreting the intricate script of the Franks.

He tapped the scroll against his knee, his knuckles rubbing lightly across his beard.

“It is an honor, Qadi, to be invited to the court of the Franks. To ask you to adjudicate in the matter of his queen’s fidelity is a sign of utmost esteem.”

The Qadi grimaced. “When the invitation itself is an insult to his queen?”

The scribe shrugged, an easy gesture that rolled his shoulders. “These Franks think of honor differently to us. Perhaps their women matter less.”

The Qadi rose to his feet with the limber movements of a man who had performed thousands of prayers during his travels, equally at home on a mat spread out on the desert sands or under the white-and-gold cupola of the great Mezquita.

“Yet they pen such pretty odes in tribute to their maids. Their chivalry is coy. This accusation against the queen Guinevere is bold.”

He gave the scroll back to Ayaan, who asked, “Will you refuse the request, Qadi Yusuf?”

Ayaan knew the Qadi as an exacting mentor. Now he put his scribe to the test. “Tell me, Ayaan, what would be the consequences of either acceptance or refusal?”

A leaping light came into Ayaan’s eyes. He was sharp and capable, ambitious to a fault—qualities he knew the Qadi valued. He cleared his throat, giving his answer with no pretense of humility.

“King Arthur extends a great honor by asking you to adjudicate on a matter concerning his queen. This means he knows your name by repute and respects your judgment more than the jurists of his court. Perhaps he trusts in your discretion. Perhaps matters have become so inflamed with respect to his wife that he feels ill at ease with his court. Or perhaps the jurist whose opinion would be sought is away on a Crusade assailing our Holy Lands.”

“Ah.” A wry sound. “More a Christian knight than a jurist, then.”

“Much like yourself, Qadi.” Ayaan was not above a little flattery. “Knight and jurist both.”

“Theirs is a curious court, their religion encompassing more than just the doctrine of Christ. They are poised between their pagan ancestors and their belief in a man’s divinity. They have no notion of our faith—how would they contend with a jurist from Qurtaba, whose rulings are rooted in his creed?”

“Such matters are beyond my knowledge, Qadi. I assume your renown extends to Camelot, though the court may be of a world and time apart.”

“Then you advise me to accept the invitation.”

Ayaan glanced at his mentor with caution. “To refuse would disgrace the reputation of our people. They would call our courage into question. And before these lordly knights?” He shook his head, his tawny curls dancing. “Yet, Qadi, to accept carries its own penalties when you consider you would be judging a matter of great personal import—the honor and fidelity of a queen. This king may not be well disposed toward us, as even by posing the question, he shames this Guinevere. He will be relying on your discretion, and I do not think he will like it.”

The Qadi laughed: a rich, warm sound that lingered on the air.

“So there is no choice I could make that would be sufficient.”

“Qadi, your judgment has always been sound. I defer to your wisdom.”

The Qadi ran a hand over his own dense, dark curls, and Ayaan took a moment to appreciate his patron’s beauty. In the Qadi, all the manly graces were combined. His lineage was distinguished, his bravery keen—though he’d proved fonder of the library than of interminable and frivolous battles. He was a polymath, learned in languages, jurisprudence, theology, astronomy, and medicine, and of greatest delight to the caliphal court at Seville, he was a skilled executioner of the famous ring songs of al-Andalus. His Arabic was thick and rich, curling around the tongue, roughly, giddily beautiful, his use of language the headiest of elixirs.

He was an ornament of the Almohad caliphate—he could lull a listener with the rhythms of his voice, then spear them with his intellect, a sport he reserved for his equals, showing mercy to lesser mortals. Perhaps he was at times remote, lost in contemplation, but like his noble forebears, his judgment was tempered by consideration. He was a great favorite of the Caliph as a man who could be trusted not to curry favor. Though his attitudes were sometimes unpopular, he spoke trenchantly of the incursions of the Franks and the looming reconquest of Iberia. There was danger in such fearless honesty, but the Qadi feared only his Creator.

Ayaan thought again how fortunate he was to be taken on as the Qadi’s apprentice. Consider the adventures they had shared traveling these Christian lands. And now think of the chance. To meet these knights of Camelot whose legend had far surpassed their deeds, and to lay his untutored eyes upon this queen of the Franks.

He let his eyelids droop, afraid that too much eagerness would decide the matter for the judge.

But the Qadi had begun his preparations for travel.

“Come,” he said to Ayaan. “If they do us honor, we should honor them in turn.”

---

—

Yusuf brought his open palm to his chest with a slight inclination of his head. The aging king received him with a greeting of matching civility. He stood tall and proud, his hair flaring silver against the backdrop of a window cased in stone, the green country rising behind him, a ribbon of purest blue dashing a swift path north. A beautiful land, this. Cool and refreshing to the eye, with mists of rain veiling the keep in layers of solitude.

King Arthur, with his regal head and lucid, visionary eyes, had asked to meet with the Qadi privately, Ayaan borne away by a group of chattering interpreters. For himself, Yusuf spoke the tongue of the Franks with a cultured accent. Now, observing the king, he could think of no means to broach the subject of the summons, though he could see the pain behind the effortless diplomacy.

The king bade him sit. Yusuf placed his jeweled sword to one side. He felt an unwilling respect for this king. Though Arthur had no personal guard, he had not insisted that Yusuf give up his weapons. Saying little, the king offered every courtesy.

“This is a matter of some delicacy. I have not accused the queen of wrongdoing, but the charge was made before the entire court, and I am at a loss to answer it.” He paused. “There is a…coolness…between the queen and myself as a result.”

Yusuf caught movement in the antechamber: a glimpse of long fair hair flowing over a gown that enclosed a delicate frame. The king noticed his inattention.

“The queen,” he murmured. “She refuses to be set aside.”

“It is a great thing to be the queen of a noble king who resides in the heart of his people. Difficult, I imagine, to relinquish.”

The king became still, a curious tilt to his head. “You think her affection insincere? You have yet to meet her.”

“It seems to me it is you who doubt her devotion. What happened to make this so, for all lands have heard the tale of the love between King Arthur and his queen?”

The king sighed, a stately lion in the winter of his years, a crown of thorns on his brow.

“She is uncommonly beautiful,” he said, “and many of my knights are taken with her, though I have paid it little mind. I gave her a pin of some value—a swan studded with gemstones.” He sounded impatient with himself. “When I did not see her wearing it, I asked her to pin it to her gown.” His steady gaze dropped to the table. “One of her ladies produced it, and when I asked how she had come across it, the maid was stricken into silence. I turned to find the stony eyes of the queen dark upon her lady, so I asked the maid to speak.”

Yusuf waited, his head angled to keep the flitting shadow in the antechamber within the limits of his vision.

“In the presence of my court, the maid claimed to have found the pin in Sir Lancelot’s bed. The queen denies it, of course.”

The movement in the antechamber halted. Yusuf kept his eyes on the king.

“And who did you believe—queen or maid?”

The king evaded an answer. “Lancelot went down on his knees before the entire court to swear his fealty to me. Never would he hurt me, I thought. For I have loved him like a brother.”

Yusuf allowed the silence to expand, pitying the king’s disillusion. Though he thought it telling that the deeper injury had been caused by the knight rather than the faithless queen.

And finally the king admitted, “Lancelot is comely beyond the reckoning of any of the knights of my court. He is much admired, a regard he is little loath to return. I cannot deny his blood runs hot.”

In what Yusuf guessed was an uncharacteristic gesture, the proud king touched his tongue to his lips, seeking to relieve their dryness.

“I had thought his love for the queen was chaste, but there were other witnesses to the discovery of my lady’s brooch. And the queen herself can offer no explanation.”

“Cannot or will not?” Yusuf was conscious of those delicate footsteps, the quietly listening ears.

The king straightened his back. He rose from his chair, and Yusuf did the same.

“You will see for yourself when you meet her. If she has a fault, it lies in her pride. She will not grace me with an answer to the charge.”

“The charge of infidelity. The charge of congress with your knight.”

For a moment a fine rage flared in the old king’s eyes, and Yusuf felt a stab of satisfaction. He wanted the king to fight, to hold his proud head high. This air of defeat was premature and would earn his courtiers’ contempt.

The king turned his head away from the shadow in the other room. “I hope your inquiry will put an end to this speculation.”

“No matter how things turn out?”

He witnessed the majesty of Camelot’s king in Arthur’s dignified reply.

“It would hurt me to know, but rumor and suspicion are tearing this court apart.” The king watched as Yusuf sheathed his jeweled sword at his hip. “Can you get at the truth?”

“If you permit me to interview the principals. I assure you of my discretion.”

The king indicated the antechamber. “Please begin with the queen. I would release her from her confinement as soon as I am able.”

At first Yusuf thought Arthur a king of great forbearance, but then he caught the bitterness shading the hollows of his face.

“You have already judged her,” Yusuf said.

“You have not seen her with my knights.” The king’s expression betrayed his abhorrence for the subject.

Yusuf brought his training as Qadi to bear. “If she is much admired, surely that is a tribute to the king. You judge your wife’s chastity in the absence of evidence.”

“It is not a question of chastity. Guinevere is my wife. I have bedded her as I choose.”

“As you choose? Does the lady have no say?”

“The queen knows her duty.”

“If duty is all she finds in your bedchamber, no wonder she thinks to stray.”

A terrible silence descended. Yusuf cleared his throat. “Do you know the stories of our Prophet?”

A fleeting surprise crossed the great king’s face. “I know of your desert creed, and I know you claim a kinship to the followers of the Christ. But for us, the old ways are best.”

Yusuf looked out through the window to gauge the failing of the light. It would be time for the dusk prayer soon.

“For us, the only way is God’s. I mention our Prophet, may peace and honor embroider his name, because he faced a similar dilemma. His wife was accused of faithlessness, betrayed by the loss of an ornament of her own.”

The king’s interest was piqued. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his feet apart as he listened. “A pin?”

“In the lady Ayesha’s case, a necklace. She slipped from her howdah to search for a necklace whose clasp had come undone. Then, when the caravan she was traveling with departed, she was left behind, on her own. Her absence went unnoticed, but before the caravan could panic, a young soldier of the Prophet’s army found our Noble One’s beloved Ayesha and returned her to her kin.”

“The lady Ayesha was questioned?”

“The lady Ayesha was accused,” Yusuf said, grim, “of adulterous behavior. The whispers against his adored caused the Prophet unnecessary grief.”

“Did her honorable husband doubt her?”

“Like you, noble king, he took the measured step of waiting for adjudication. In his case, the answer was divine.”

A flush had risen to the king’s cheeks, the line of his shoulders rigid. “And the divine response?”

“ ‘Surely those who accuse chaste, unsuspecting, believing women are accursed in this life and in the Hereafter. Their punishment will be tremendous.’ ”

There was a tinkle of glass in the antechamber. The silent queen had dropped one of her possessions—a trinket, or an object of artifice. Glass glinted on the cold stone floor.

The king’s arms dropped, and a subtle fatigue eroded the strength in his face. To Yusuf he said, “The whispers will not be silenced by your scripture. I hope you have something more.”

Yusuf bowed his head. “My lord, the comfort was meant for you, the inquiry for the others.” And when Arthur still looked grave, he added, “You may rely upon the honor of a just and virtuous wife. But leave the matter with me, and I will determine the truth.”

“You shall have an hour alone.”

Yusuf held up a hand to prevent the king’s departure.

“No, my lord, not alone. Protect your wife’s honor at all costs. I would also defend mine. Send a soldier you trust or a member of your wife’s family.”

Though he knew she was listening, Yusuf did not dare to utter the queen’s name. To take a woman’s name was an act of presumption, an offense against her honor.

But the king regarded his request with suspicion.

“You’ve just told me to trust in a virtuous wife.”

Yusuf spread his hands in wry acknowledgment. “Trust her, but do not allow her honor to be maligned by the whispers of others. Give this gift to your wife.”

---

—

In the presence of the queen’s handmaidens, Yusuf questioned the queen. He was amazed by these bone-colored women, with their hair like bedded-down straw and too much of their skin exposed above the bodice of their gowns. To a man used to the concealed graces of the Caliph’s court—to lustrous-lashed women whose gemlike eyes and burnished radiance shone—these pallid maids seemed close to sickness.

He thought of the edge of a smile caught through a delicate veil. Of the coolness of a woman’s enigmatic expression, of a perfume so subtle that a hint of its fragrance could drive a man to his knees. He thought of his beautiful, dark Lubna, her habitual frown of impatience, and her astonishing eyes—a gazelle captured in flight when he disturbed her attention from her manuscripts.

This glacial queen with her straw-like locks and forbidding demeanor—how could she have inspired such turmoil? A proud old king defeated, a young lion eager to be tested. She seemed frail, fine boned, and angry. But if he’d been passing judgment on the queen, standing some distance away so as not to tower over her, she had been doing the same. For a time she was silenced by the dark sienna of his skin, by his clustered curls and silky beard, by his foreign manner of dress, the sumptuous coat over his qamisa, the elegant winding of his turban, the carnelian jewel on his hand. The queen’s attendants sighed as they gazed at his face, and he flashed them a white smile. They were pleasant enough in their way.

The queen was of a different order. She was dressed in a tightly cinched gown whose deep-blue velvet softened the chill of her eyes, her skin freckled, her hair left free to fall to her waist in a careless spiral of curls. The gemstone brooch in the shape of a swan was pinned to her gown between her breasts, catching at the material. An act of defiance from a woman who would not be accused. Yusuf glanced at it once, then, out of respect, he turned his gaze away.

She did not blush. In a cold, rather clear voice, she asked, “I understand you have been selected to judge the queen of Camelot’s fidelity.”

How strange that she spoke to him as though removed from herself.

“You know I am a jurist, then.”

“Not of any law of Camelot’s.” Such a cool, clean bite to the words, like snowflakes falling on the tongue. He waited, sensing the outraged pride beneath the civil exterior. She bent her head, an effort at courtesy that cost her, the fullness of her mouth drawing tight. “Your name precedes you, my lord. The king’s court is aflutter, eager to catch a glimpse of a fabled Saracen prince. You see the behavior of my ladies.”

His gaze did not leave her face, though inwardly he knew that, regardless of his origin, she had chosen to call him a Saracen as a mark of her contempt.

To know us but not know us, he thought.

“Rather, yours is the fabled court.”

She glanced past his shoulder to the door through which the king had made his exit. When she looked back at Yusuf, pain had smudged her irises, deepening the icy gray to blue.

He was beginning to find her interesting, the tension inside her wound tight, a plea beating beneath the surface, though as yet, he could not deduce its source.

Abruptly she asked, “Are you married, my lord? You spoke of a virtuous wife.”

His attention sharpened. “I do have an interest, but I have not yet taken a bride.”

She considered him with a frankness that would be considered discourteous at the court of Seville. This queen was no hesitant maiden. But he saw the strength in the line of her jaw and deduced that she was a woman who knew herself of consequence and was resolved to be heard.

He sought to conciliate her anger. “This questioning is shameful to you.”

She raised her chin. “When one has not sinned, there is no reason for shame.”

“Still. The whispers must weigh upon you.” He watched her. Examined each nuance of her expression for some sign of unease. Noted the spiteful edge to the coquettish glances of her maids.

The ice queen was unheeding. “Knowledge of virtue must be its own solace.”

And now the swift strike of the Andalusi blade. “Is your husband to have no solace, my lady? No refuge from the whispers?”

The blush-pink cheeks went pale. She sank into her seat, her maids to either side.

“I care for my husband more than you know.”

“And Sir Lancelot?”

Her hands twisted the kerchief in her lap.

“He…admires me. As do all my husband’s knights. You impugn me without cause.”

“I merely inquire, my lady. I cast no allegation to trouble a spotless conscience.”

The pale brows raised, the queen’s expression haughty. But he caught sight of a band of freckles at her throat that struck him as touchingly defenseless.

“Will you use your Saracen tricks to divine my innocence?”

Another insult. To throw him off course or offered simply in the manner of ignorance that characterized these Franks?

“No tricks, my lady. A few questions, that is all.” He returned to the subject of Lancelot. “What form does your knight’s admiration take?”

“He dedicates his victories to me—he wears my token into battle.”

Yusuf’s brows drew together. “And your husband permits this?”

“I had heard some rumor that your customs are enlightened, your women more outspoken. Do I require his permission?”

The full line of his lips slackened, became richly sensual. “It is not a matter of custom. No wife of mine would be permitted to give another man her token. I would see to it she had no reason to allow her attention to wander.”

He smiled to himself as a shiver stole over her sun-dappled skin, for the ice queen had cleverly placed herself in the light. Her eyes were a denser blue now, reflecting her inner excitement. A creature of buried sensuality, this queen of knights. The thought of a man asserting his rights unsettled her…and not only for reasons of propriety.

He ventured further, trying to draw her out. “But as a question of fairness, I would refuse the smallest attention from a woman who was not my wife.”

“But you may have many wives. A harem, if you choose.”

The queen’s handmaids gasped at the thought, rosy with titillation. But Yusuf’s attention was riveted on the queen. A smile graced his sculptured lips, the edges raised and distinct.

He found his heart was racing, his blood heating under her peculiar air of challenge. Beneath the forms of his inquiry, a separate current flowed. “You have fallen prey to rumors. One woman is enough for me, if she is the one my heart desires.”

“Your heart?” The queen sat up straight. “Forgive me, my lord, but it is rare for a man’s heart to be involved in these calculations.”

He laughed softly to bury the jibe. “Do you know this firsthand from Lancelot? Is that how he enticed you?”

He watched her hands curl into fists. For the first time, she dropped her gaze. “I resent this inquisition into my behavior. It is a judgment I have done nothing to deserve.”

“The innocent have nothing to fear.”

“They have everything to fear in a court of intrigue and deception.”

His interest quickened again. “Is that how you name the court of Avalon? Your king’s court? Whence the romantic tales I hear of the knights of Camelot, then?”

“Men boast of deeds that women do not ask for. Is ours only to linger and praise, hoping for their admiration?”

“There is virtue in that. Men need praise and soft arms to return to. Otherwise our deeds mean little.”

“I encourage you, then, to remain idle while others vaunt vainglorious deeds.”

“Surely you mean glorious, my queen.”

“Do I? As you are to judge in all matters, why not judge my meaning as well?”

Very softly he asked her, “You do not enjoy these tributes, my lady? As the rightful due of a queen? You do not encourage them, perhaps? At the court of the Caliph in Seville, the poets vie to recite paeans of devotion to their ladies. Many a veil has fluttered in delight.” Devilment crept into his voice. “Is this not akin to courtly love?”

The queen’s mouth tightened in reproof. “From what I have heard of the ring songs of Andalucía, your poets have a gift for eroticism, whereas a knight of Camelot may admire no more than the color of my hair.”

“There can be enticement in such simple things.” He moved closer to the queen and drew a chair across from her, his handsome cloak resettling around the breadth of his shoulders. Her gaze touched upon his jaw, his mouth, the column of his throat, before she turned her head to the side.

“Are you afraid to look at me for fear I will see the truth?”

“You said no tricks,” she whispered, catching his eyes again. “You allude to impropriety, yet when I affect reserve, you accuse me of dishonesty.”

Yusuf shifted his weight in the chair, a loose-limbed, supple movement. A nervous laugh escaped from the maid seated to the queen’s left.

“Perhaps I wish you to regard me.”

A subtle alteration in the flow of the current. He saw her breath hitch in her chest, the pulse flutter madly in her throat, further evidence to mull. This cold, narrow-eyed queen was fully awakened to herself and not immune to admiration. But oh, how clever she was! She divined his swift conclusion and hurried to attack.

“Do you claim to feel no lust when you gaze upon me, Saracen?”

The title derided him, quashed his pretensions to rank, reduced him to one of a nameless multitude of men, all of them degenerate. How to maneuver this queen to a moment of revelation? He leaned forward. When the handmaids pretended to be flustered by his physical aura, the queen dismissed them, a frown creasing her brow. A new arrangement for the almond-pale dots across her skin, close enough for him to count.

“I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t feel lust, but I am in control of my desires,” he said once they were alone. For the moment he chose to ignore the arrangement contrived by the queen, in spite of his warning to the king. There would be something to learn from this clandestine contest.

“You relieve them in the beds of strumpets, no doubt, as ladies of distinction would dismiss you.”

“They yield their virtue as readily as others,” he said with a private smile. “But that is not the cure for any man’s desire.”

“Pray do not play coy.” She flicked a hand at him without looking up. “In this, all men are the same.” An acrid accusation that he would work to unfold before he decided on whether this queen was betrayer or betrayed.

“My people fast, my lady. I assure you, when a man has eaten or drunk nothing for nigh on sixteen hours, then spends the night in prayer, the cure is more than effective.”

She proved her quickness again.

“Then when your holy season is upon you, your knights are weak in body. Any contest against you would result in your defeat. Perhaps I should pass this secret to our knights who are eager to join the crusade.”

He permitted himself to take offense. “In our holy month, we are strong in spirit.”

She waited. Played with the embroidered square on her lap. Drummed her graceful fingers on her knee. At last she let herself sigh, her limbs swaying like the branches of an alder in slender capitulation. “You came here to test me and have found me wanting. I will please the king through you, as he desires, if you answer a question of mine.”

He gave her a courteous bow.

“This beloved of yours—the woman you would court to put an end to your abstinence, this doe-eyed sorceress of the sands, by what name do you call her?”

Yusuf laughed out loud. For a moment, the queen seemed transfixed.

“She is no seductress with undulating hips. She has no slavish desire to please me.”

“No?” The queen arched a pointed brow.

“She is rather a determined scholar of the court, tedious in her passion for knowledge. Her greatest pleasure lies in mathematics. She terrifies me at times. Her name is Lubna,” he added. “Though I call her my jewel-flower.”

“How absurdly romantic!” The bite was back in her voice.

“Are your knights not so?” His glance was cool, pitying. “I regret that their adoration should be clumsy.”

She made a sound of pain. “So clumsy that it condemns me.”

He gave her a sharp look, settling back into his role as judge.

“How did your pin come to be in Sir Lancelot’s bed?”

When she said nothing, he let his gaze roam her face freely, searching for signs of tension.

“You said you would give me an answer.”

She held her peace, catching her lip between her teeth.

Another enticement? But he would not be diverted. Time to be bolder, then.

“Did he steal it from you in a fit of ardor?”

Silence, jagged and shorn.

“Did you give it to him?”

A thin watery film turned her eyes to glass.

“Did he wrestle it from your body while you lay at your ease in his bed?”

She stood so abruptly that her chair struck the ground.

“How dare you say such a thing!” She turned her back to him, her hands trembling at her sides. “Get out! I have no wish to see you again.”

Yusuf waited, silent as a cat. With no sense of where he was or what he had chosen to do, she turned around again to find him one step closer.

There were no tears on that pale, proud face—just a wretchedness deep within. And that tiny, hammering pulse, beating hard in her throat.

“How did you come to miss your pin?” The question was not cold, not kind. Merely introspective.

Her fit of passion subsiding, her fingers stroked the velvet gown. “I wear it with this gown. The gemstones match its color. I did not notice its absence until my husband, the king, inquired. I did not expect an answer from my maid.”

The current switched again, sharp and galvanic between them, until Yusuf reined himself in. He had used his full battery of tricks. And this queen of the Franks was no longer undisturbed. That in itself would tell him something, but for now he made to withdraw.

“The question should never have been asked,” she said bitterly.

He disagreed. “Someone has to answer it. Consider the pain inflicted on a king weaving to the end of his years, betrayed by a much-praised wife and a knight whose skill and renown would seem to outflank his own.”

But his plea failed to soften the queen’s outrage.

“If the king did not consider me then, why should I care for him now? ...