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It was winter when Gwen's mother died, which was, on the whole, not surprising. Gwen's mother had never liked Camelot, finding it too wet and rainy, a land of grey people and grey plants and grey clothing.
She had one bright purple cloth, which she kept in a chest and showed no one but Gwen in the depths of winter. Purple was reserved to the nobility.
It was a fine cloth, made of a slippery-slidy fabric Gwen could only touch when her hands were very clean, and it was worked with lines in white and gold, swoops and dots and curves her mother said was a poem about love.
Maryam had died in the cloth, claiming it made her feel the warmth of Majorca as she shivered and shook, ashy and blue. They buried her in it, as well.
It was spring when her father took her to the castle. He didn't say anything about what was happening or why, but she knew she was leaving. How could Gwen not know, when he had packed all her things in a small bag, and made her wash very clean everywhere, and put on the dress her mother had made her to wear to church?
The castle was large and cold and grey, and her father took her to a large, grey woman, with a very loud voice. The woman looked at Gwen like her father looked at an ingot. Being assessed in that way made Gwen flush and tremble a little and grasp even harder at the manners her mother had taught her.
Since she could curtsy and knew the use of please and thank you and called the grey woman 'Mistress' instead of 'My lady', the woman said to Tom, with a smile that was unexpectedly kind, "I think Guinevere will do quite well here."
And Gwen was dragged away from her father, floating along in the grey woman's wake, up and up and up in the castle, until they reached a room with a fireplace and a rug and a bed with curtains, which Gwen had never seen before. There were chairs in it as well, and in front of the fire place sat a girl, perhaps a year or two older than Gwen, who was engaged in the slowest and sloppiest sewing Gwen had ever seen.
She didn't notice any of that really, she remembered it all later that night, as she slept beside the bed on an unexpectedly comfortable pallet.
What she saw was the girl's dress, a glowing purple of the same slippery-slidy stuff as her mother's. It lacked the writing, but was decorated with little leaves and flowers worked in a very pale blue. And Gwen was moved to talk without thinking. "My mother had a cloth like that," she said, just above a whisper, but pitched so the girl in the chair would hear it.
And the grey lady frowned, and smacked the back of Gwen's head, and said, "You mustn't tell lies to impress the Lady Morgana, Guinevere. It's wrong and—."
"She's not lying," said the Lady Morgana. "Leave my servant alone."
The grey lady's mouth pulled tight into a little square, and she curtsied, and said, "As you like, M'Lady."
Morgana rose from her chair and walked slowly towards Gwen and held out one hand. "If you are my lady's maid, you must listen to me first and always tell me the truth and be loyal to me all the time."
And Gwen curtsied and nodded and said, "As it please you, My Lady," but she meant, "I will love you forever." And she took her hand.