Page 63 of The Faerie Morgana
Morgana lay back on her pillows, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling of her bedchamber. The Blackbird was somewhere above her, silent and angry. Did he know of the threat? Would he listen if she tried to speak to him?
She turned on her side and deliberately closed her eyes. She would do everything in her power to protect the true king, with or without the mage. Perhaps, indeed, the Blackbird’s day had come and gone, and it was left only to her.
It was a grim and lonely thought.
26
Time passed, as it relentlessly does, despite the tensions dragging at the pace of castle life. The Blackbird seldom emerged from his aerie, and then usually to disappear into the woods, returning with a sack full of cuttings and roots. Mostly he stayed at the top of the tower, occasionally walking the courtine when the night was fine, rarely coming down the stairs to dine in the lesser hall. If Morgana came into the hall and found him there, she withdrew and fled to her own chamber, or out into the woods around the castle.
She was restive and impatient as she watched spring bloom into summer. She had spoken to Arthur about her wish to return to the Isle, and he had begged her to stay. She could hardly refuse him, but she longed for the solitude of the Temple, for her hours of peace in the herb garden and on the beach, for the soothing lap of Ilyn’s waves against the Isle’s dock. Her only consolation was the time she spent with Arthur in his council chamber, giving advice if asked, scrying when he needed information. Occasionally she used her deep sight to look ahead, to judge the worth of some plan of his, but she was careful not toinclude herself. The Blackbird’s warning about that had been clear.
She was often tempted to shapeshift, to fly free over the woods and hills and rivers, but she kept her promise to Braithe and resisted. When Arthur turned his hand to other work and she left the council chamber, she was often irritated nearly beyond bearing to find the queen glowering in the corridor. Gwenvere seemed to think it was Morgana’s fault the king was busy.
It didn’t help that Gwenvere kept Braithe constantly occupied so that Morgana had almost no time with her. Morgana couldn’t claim that she needed Braithe herself, since she had almost nothing to do, but it irked her to see her handmaid ordered about like a servant.
Once, when she was about to leave the council chamber and Arthur had pulled a basket full of scrolls toward him, she paused before opening the door. It seemed a good time for her to make her objection, with as much diplomacy as she could muster. “Sir,” she began. “Could I have a word with you about something personal? It has to do with Braithe.”
He looked up, one of the scrolls already smoothed open on the desk before him. She could see that his mind had already turned to a different problem. “Braithe? Gwenvere’s companion?”
“Yes.” She faced him with her hands linked before her. “You will recall, brother, she is still my handmaid.”
“Of course.” He made a small, slightly impatient gesture. “Is something wrong? Something troubling her?”
The words of complaint were on Morgana’s lips and she meant to speak them. She opened her mouth to do so, but shecouldn’t. It was as if a hand went up before her face, a slender, fragile hand that froze her lips as if the fingers had pressed themselves to her mouth. She found herself silenced, without her volition.
The door to the chamber opened without warning, and Gwenvere stood in the doorway. She gave her husband a limpid smile, an expression she held when she turned to Morgana, but there was something in her eyes that made Morgana’s neck stiffen.
There was magic here. Despite what Braithe thought she had seen, Morgana had believed Gwenvere had no power except her beauty, which she used expertly. Nevertheless, there was no doubt she had just neatly prevented Morgana from saying what she intended to say. The glint of malice in the queen’s eyes was more than an irritant, the attitude of a spoiled and jealous girl. It was something sharp and dark, a power not in Morgana’s experience.
She would have to take care, and she must warn Braithe to do the same. Gwenvere was not the childish creature she pretended to be.
Braithe found no more peace at Camulod than did Morgana. Gwenvere interrupted her days and her nights again and again with her demands. The queen referred to her as her companion but treated her as one of her maids. Those women cast Braithe glances of sympathy but said nothing. Indeed, they rarely spoke, doing their best not to draw the queen’s attention.
Arthur noticed none of this. The peace he worked so hard to maintain was fragile, too often broken by renewed Roman incursions, even occasional attacks on outlying farms by Saxons in search of plunder. He and his knights often dined in the council chamber, poring over maps, studying lists of armaments and supplies, cataloging the damages done to the farmers. The king and his knights rode out often, armed and helmed, driving back the invaders, bringing injured cottars or their families to Camulod to be cared for, escorting carts full of supplies to replace those that had been stolen.
Each time they returned, Arthur wasted no time before going in eager search of his bride. The courtiers and servants smiled at this, winking at each other in appreciation of the king’s ardor, but it irked Braithe. He had always gone first to the east tower to see to the well-being of his injured men, or to discuss any lame horses with the stablemaster. Braithe thought his ignoring these customs in his haste to see Gwenvere was out of character. Loyalty prevented her from speaking of it, but privately she hoped his infatuation would ease and he would become himself again.
Gwenvere often pretended to have been busy consulting with Bran or instructing the cooks in the kitchen, but it wasn’t true. When she wasn’t admiring herself in a mirror, she was haranguing her seamstresses for new fabrics, new embellishments for her gowns. She changed her dresses three and four times a day and made Braithe arrange her hair in ever more intricate patterns. Braithe had never met a woman so obsessed with her own body, or one so indolent she refused even to wash herself.
It fell to Braithe to renew Gwenvere’s store of cosmetics and perfumes, to see to fresh bedding every day, to oversee the care of her constantly growing wardrobe and her collection of jewels. She didn’t mind those tasks so much, but she loathed the bathing ritual and could find no way to escape it. Her only comfort was an occasional smile from Arthur, sometimes even the touch of his hand, offered in thanks for her service to his queen. It was clear he had no idea how Gwenvere behaved when he was not present.
Weeks passed. Braithe and Morgana chafed at being confined to the castle, but they had promised Arthur, who seemed to take encouragement from their presence. The Romans were nipping at Lloegyrian heels, building camps in sites meant to crowd the eastern and southern borders. They made good use of the ancient battlements that dotted the landscape, left behind by conquerors of ages past. They rebuilt them into forts, entrenching their forces behind their walls, connecting everything with roads and bridges. The forces of Camulod could take no rest in the face of these challenges.
One hot summer morning, Arthur and his knights rode out to quell a flurry of skirmishes on the north side of the Chindl. Several farms had been burned and two cottars killed trying to protect their homes. Arthur took all his men and sent for reinforcements from one of the northern demesnes.
The war party had just clattered out through the main gate when Gwenvere sent for Braithe. She found the queen pacing, her hair disordered, her feet bare beneath her creased dressing gown. Her cheeks were pale, and there were shadows beneath her eyes.
Braithe asked, “Are you well, my lady?”
“No!” In Arthur’s absence—indeed, in the absence of any observers besides Braithe herself—Gwenvere’s voice was pitched lower, with a strident western accent, all pretense of girlishness abandoned. She spun to face Braithe, her hands on her hips, her lips swollen and trembling. “I’m sick, Braithe. Look there, in the chamber pot! I’m ill!”
Braithe took one slow breath through her nose. “I am not the chambermaid, my lady, but I will call her for you if you wish. I can bring you a tincture to settle your—”
Gwenvere stamped one slender foot. “That won’t help! I want—I need—” She put a hand over her mouth and hurried to bend over the chamber pot again, retching.
Braithe brought a cloth from the washstand and handed it to her. When the queen straightened, wiping her mouth, she passed her a cup of water from the table and stood waiting while she recovered. “Better?”
“For now.” Gwenvere tottered to a chair and sank into it. “Braithe, I need you go to that witch and get me something to put an end to this. I need a potion. Or a charm. Something.”
