So, a while ago I wrote this. It struck a chord with a lot of people, who have been badgering me to write a proper story about Arfa for ages.
A couple of months ago, I started. Then I threw out most of what I’d written and started again. It seems to have flipped into the semi-magic-realist style I used on Jeremiah Crowlock And The City Of The Clockwork Sun, possibly because Merlyn and Jeremiah are pretty similar characters.
Here’s a bit of what I’ve got now:
Everyone was in love with Bedivyr. Maybe it was the way she smiled, or the way a curl of blond hair rested on her forehead like an angel on a cloud, or how whenever she entered a room it began to smell faintly of lavender. She gave her smiles generously, and when she wrinkled her nose men would melt and women would have confusing thoughts.
Only Merlyn seemed immune, in the days after Merlyn came to the castle, because Bedivyr was neither a flying machine nor a convenient way of making things explode, and so held little attraction.
Arfa was in love with Bedivyr, though she wouldn’t let herself admit it. She had been in love almost since she had come to the castle, and Uther had made her Ector’s ward. Bedivyr and her brother Cai, Ector’s natural children, had been there when Uther had taken her to old Ector’s chambers, and said “I want you to look after this one. Girl thinks she’s going to be King.” Cai had looked on confused, and Bedivyr had smiled.
But for Arfa, the love didn’t come from Bedivyr’s smile. It came because when all the other servants who roamed Camelot’s halls had spat at her, calling her a bastard, a moor-rat or worse, Bedivyr had wrinkled her nose and said “They’re just jealous. They’ve served the King all their lives and they still live in shacks outside the walls. But you just turn up one day, and Uther brings you in, makes you the ward of his own seneschal. As if you’re his own blood.”
“Are you jealous?” Arfa had asked.
Bedivyr had shrugged, even that movement one of beauty and grace. Four years older than Arfa’s ten, she had seemed so grown up. “I don’t have much time with my father,” she said. “We’re both working in this castle before the sun rises, and still working when it sleeps. We don’t have much that is ours – all you see belongs to Uther, and he could throw us out tomorrow if he wished. What we do have is our family, and now I’m commanded to share even that, with someone who has done nothing except appear.” And she’d taken Arfa’s hands in hers, and Arfa had been amazed that anyone could have hands so soft. “Of course I’m jealous. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
So, this is only a first draft, but… thoughts?
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