Page 67 of The Faerie Morgana
The maid shook her head, and Braithe, standing behind her, rolled her eyes. Undoubtedly the woman thought the witch-priestess might poison her.
Morgana suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Very well. Tell me what you ask of me.”
“Something for her belly.” The maid directed her barely audible words to her feet, and the color in her plump cheeks rose and fell. “She—she says the pain is the worst she has ever felt, and she’s bleedin’ awful.”
“Will she allow me to see her?”
That made Loria lift her head, her eyes wide with alarm. “I don’t think so! She’s—she gets so angry, and now—”
“Loria, is it possible she is more angry than she is in pain? I surmise she’s miscarrying, which can be painful, but it is surely very early in her pregnancy?”
The maid’s face went suddenly dead white, very much as if she might faint. “You can’t tell ’im,” she whispered, and she began to tremble. “The king, you can’t tell ’im. She’ll kill me!”
“Loria,” Braithe said firmly, “she isn’t going to kill you. We will not allow it.”
Miserably, the maid mumbled, “You don’t know ’er, Priestess. There was a maid, back home. Lady Gwenvere got mad at her, shoved her right down the stairs. Broke her back. Never walked again.”
Morgana stood up. “All right. In the absence of the king, I will take charge of this situation. Braithe will take you down to the kitchen and see that you have a cup of tea and a bit of a sit, then come back to the queen’s chamber. I will be with her.” She added under her breath, “Whether she likes it or not.”
“Her pain?” Loria asked in a shaking voice.
“I will deal with it. Where did she find another potion?” Theone Morgana had taken from the queen’s bedchamber had been poured into the chamber pot the moment she reached her own apartment.
“She made me pretend it was for me.”
Morgana raised her eyebrows at the idea that Loria, no longer young, might have been with child. Loria didn’t seem to notice her reaction. She said, “There’s a witch lives just outside the wall and she makes ’em. I had to go twice.”
“You weren’t afraid of her?” Morgana said dryly.
Loria hung her head. “She’s just an ordinary old witch. Not a priestess.”
Braithe said, “Come now, Loria, let us do what Priestess Morgana suggests. We’ll go down to the kitchen. She will deal with your mistress.”
Morgana nodded her thanks to Braithe, and as Braithe led the frightened maid out, she found a small jar of willow bark tincture and added a few drops of valerian to it, then corked it. She took her time on the stairs. The walls rang with Gwenvere’s screams, but they were coming at greater intervals. The process must be almost complete. There would have been no stopping it once the queen took the potion Loria had obtained.
Morgana had created abortifacients from time to time, when it was the best and kindest thing to do for one of her supplicants. Such remedies required wormwood and rue, and a bit of mistletoe leaf, which could be dangerous. She had always insisted that the woman taking the potion stay on the Isle until the process was over. Her potions contained other herbs to soothe their effects. She had never known a woman to carry on as Gwenvere was.
She found the queen alone in her bedchamber, having driven everyone away. There was broken crockery on the floor and a blood-soaked dressing gown by the door. The room was rank, reeking of blood and sweat and fury. Gwenvere crouched by the window in her shift, holding her middle. Perspiration streaked her cheeks and her breast and darkened her hair. She whirled when the door opened, and when Morgana stepped in, she groaned, “I don’t want to see you! I don’t want to see anyone!”
Morgana barely recognized Gwenvere’s distorted face, her darkened eyes, her swollen lips. “I am told you are in pain.”
“Of course I’m in pain!” Gwenvere shrilled. “I—I’ve had a miscarriage!”
“My lady, I am not a fool. I know what has happened here. What you’ve done.”
“How could you know? Witch!” Gwenvere screamed. “I will tell Arthur—he will send you away—once he knows what you are—” Her breast heaved with gasping breaths, and she clutched her body as a spasm shook her. A trickle of dark blood ran down her thigh, but it was not heavy. The process was all but finished, and the cramping should have lessened considerably.
Still, Gwenvere wept and cried out and pounded her knee with one fist.
Morgana began to wonder if the queen was quite sane. This was not just about pain. This was about temper. Gwenvere had lost control of hers, and of herself, and if Loria was to be believed, it was not at all unusual.
Morgana said, “I brought a tincture for you.” She held up thelittle jar. Gwenvere got to her feet to hobble across the room to take it, but Morgana held it out of her reach.
“Give it to me!” Gwenvere cried.
“I will administer it. You must take a little at a time. It is not wise to simply swallow it down.”
“The one I took—I did swallow it down. All at once. I will have that woman punished for making me so ill!”
