Page 103 of The Faerie Morgana
“It’s all right, Loria.” Braithe put her small hand on the older woman’s arm. “No one thinks you were spying.”
“She always made me watch the corridor for anyone coming, but I fell asleep sitting on the floor. When I woke up, the king was backing out of Lancelin’s bedchamber, looking as if—as ifhe had been in a battle.” Her lips trembled, and her eyes were full of sorrow. “As if he had been in a battle and had lost.”
It was a long speech for Loria, and she fell silent when it had tumbled out of her. Braithe said, “Did Gwenvere follow him? What did she do?”
For a long time Loria didn’t speak. Finally, staring at the floor, she mumbled, “Laughed. She laughed.”
Morgana did her best. She sat beside Gwenvere’s bed all through that first night, dabbing a tincture of lavender and goldenseal on her forehead and temples. She took Gwenvere’s cold hand in hers and tried to hear her thoughts, to know if she was aware. All she sensed were threads of anger, erupting as if from nothing and collapsing back into nothing, like water spouts on a lake.
She thought of Arthur, betrayed by both his wife and Lancelin, going off to war with despair in his heart. She could hardly bear to think of it, or her part in all of it. She should have tried to tell him the truth about his queen. She should have insisted he listen.
She tormented herself all through the dark hours with these thoughts. When morning broke, she thought of the Blackbird, who also tortured himself, also having done what he thought was best, only to see matters go awry. She sat beside Gwenvere’s bed, exhausted, sad, reproaching herself for not preparing her half brother for this moment. Gwenvere lay without the slightest response to anything Morgana tried.
When Braithe came to ask how the queen did, Morgana said, “The illness is in her spirit. I know no remedy for that.”
“So she will die?”
“Perhaps. She has taken a terrible blow from a power far stronger than her own.”
The Blackbird had come into the chamber behind Braithe. He stood a little way from the bed, his gaze not on Gwenvere but on Morgana. She felt it and glanced up to take in his sympathy and his worry for her.
“I am all right, sir,” she said. “My concern is for the king. If the queen revives, they could talk, reach some understanding. I know little of marriage, but it seems to me if Gwenvere does not waken, he will live his life wondering why his love for her was not enough.” She stepped back from the bed. “And he will be doubly wounded by Lancelin’s betrayal.”
Braithe said, “Sir Lancelin apologized.”
“What?” Morgana turned a fierce gaze to Braithe. “How do you know that?”
“Loria told me. Lancelin came out into the corridor and fell to his knees in front of Arthur, pleading madness, begging forgiveness.”
Morgana had difficulty imagining Lancelin kneeling.
“She said the knight wept into his hands.”
Morgana could not picture it. “He is proud to a fault. I wonder that he could humble himself in that fashion.”
“It would have been shame,” the Blackbird said. “Literally bringing him to his knees. He made a terrible error, and I can imagine that hearing Gwenvere laugh at Arthur, his liege, was a shock. He knew what he had done was wrong, no matter how persuasive the woman. He came to his senses.”
“A bit late,” Morgana said sourly.
“Very,” the Blackbird responded. “But people do sometimes change.”
“Some do, I suppose.”
“And some never will.”
Braithe burst out, “I wish we could know the difference!”
“Indeed,” the Blackbird said. “That would be a gift indeed.”
Morgana was to think of this conversation many times as she came to understand how much she herself had altered. She had often suffered accusations of arrogance but brushed them off, thinking they came from envy. She understood differently now. And when she saw Lancelin again, she understood how profoundly a person could be transformed by life. Selfishness could become empathy. Disdain could become understanding. Arrogance could become humility.
She thought of one of the stanzas. Braithe had quoted it once, but she had barely listened at the time. That, she supposed, was proof in itself.
Sea-foam is not the boast of the sea.
The gardener takes no credit for the flower’s perfume.
Pride owns no part of wisdom.
