For The Love Of A Pendragon.

Chapter Two...The Marital Dilemma...

Arthur's & Nimue's Point of View

Chapter Two….The Marital Dilemma...

I waited for Nimue until even the servants had retried, feeling senselessly abandoned I settled down to an uneasy sleep. There had been much I needed to tell her that evening but she had not come and so the morning’s visitor was to be a terrible surprise for her. My mind reeled as I lay there, the following day I was to welcome my future father-in-law, his daughter would not come to this banquet, the woman in question is not needed for a simple engagement contract ceremony. Nimue had known the day would come she had seen it, both in her dreams and written on papers left by my father concerning the ruling of Camelot after his death. We had hoped that we had escaped my fate of being married off by being joined in union ourselves before the battle, but with her suppossed death it had been declared over.

                Guilt seemed to be consuming me like some ancient dark demon, I would lose her and be forced to marry this, Gwenivere, a woman I knew nothing about and had never met. Ever since Merlin had died the world as I knew it had been thrown into turmoil even though outwardly the beginning of my reign seemed to be strong and smooth inside I was a raging torrent of water torn between what was true, what was right and what was expected. I couldn’t be happy and live up to expectations the two things were impossible to combine and this tore my heart in two.

                I needed Nimue by my side not only as the king’s advisor but as a lover. It didn’t matter about the physical but the emotional bond between us which was stronger than any lust or love any other couple had ever felt for one another. Weather our love, our true undying love was built more strongly because of our years together, our shared experiences, the days we had fought side by side, I did not know, all I knew was that I loved her in every aspect, with every piece of my soul. But now I was to be engaged and shortly to be married to a woman who my father had chosen for me at birth and who I shared none of these intense and infinitive feelings with.

                Although I knew I could not change the future I still needed to talk with her, to hold her in my arms and whisper reassurances. I would always love Nimue nothing could ever change that not even a marriage to another woman. I had contemplated it for a long time, of course it was not right to deceive any person especially ones wife but I would never be able to part from Nimue even after my vows. That is what I had wished to talk to her about that night, what exactly we were going to do? One day I hoped that she would be able to shed her disguise and that then at last we could once more celebrate our union. But once tethered to the Lady Guinevere I would never be able to unbind myself and re-marry the woman of my dreams. I shivered with self-loathing at the thought that I would actually give in and allow myself to marry while maintaining the relationship with Nimue, which once I was married would make her my mistress. Kings had done it before, most men had and I knew it. My birth was just one example of it but still I hated myself for planning to deceive my wife from the first night of our marriage. That was the other issue, however many woman other men took I was not like them, one woman was enough for me but I could hardly marry the Lady Guinevere and then not consummate our marriage. I was caught between two difficult paths, one of sin where I would selfishly take two women to my bed, one remaining ignorant of the others existence while the other would have to live with the knowledge that another woman pleased  me and that the children of that ladies as sired by me were the legitimate heirs of the land. The second path was the Christian path, abandon my lover as I should have never entered such a sin in the first place, marry my betrothed and father as many sons as possible by her. This was the path my foster mother, Lady Drusilla would advocate but she did not know the truth. Nimue and I were already bound in marriage, I could not forget her.