Page 81 of The Faerie Morgana
“You can try, Priestess, but I promise you, she listens to no one. And, I am sorry to say, most especially you.”
On the evening of the harvest celebration, Morgana found herself at last with a bit of free time. The king had thanked her for her work and urged her to rest. Braithe took a light supper with her in her chamber and retired to her own room, Arthur’s presence having freed her for the moment from her service to Gwenvere. Morgana, tired but restless, climbed the stairs to walk the top of the courtine.
It was a crisp, clear night, with a sliver of waxing moon and a thousand stars glittering over Camulod. To the north, Ilyn gleamed through the branches of trees that had already given up their leaves. To the south, between the gardens and the foothills, haymows dotted the fields, ghostly mounds against the yellow stubble left by the scythes. Morgana walked slowly, grateful for the fresh air, for the relative silence from the barracks, for the quiet energy of the slender moon overhead.
When the nightjar sang from the boughs of a holm oak growing outside the wall, she bent forward to catch sight of her. “Did you say something to me?” she asked softly.
The bird sang again.
Morgana answered, “Yes, little sister. The snows are coming.”
“You speak to the birds?”
She straightened abruptly and turned to see that Lancelin had come up beside her, his soft boots silent against the stones. “You have left the celebration,” she said.
“Come, sit with me,” he said, pointing to the bench. “And yes. I believe I’ve told you how much I dislike crowds.”
They sat together. He stretched out his legs, sighing, and gestured to the south, where the mountains were silhouetted against the stars. “What do you suppose it’s like beyond the hills? I have never seen the sea.”
Morgana had seen it only from above, when flying as an owl, but she couldn’t tell him that. “Once I had a petitioner from the mountains. She said the sea is endless, and always moving.”
“I would like to see it.”
“You could go, could you not?”
“No. My duty is here.” He didn’t sound unhappy about it.
She said, “Mine, too, for now at least.” She had kept a careful distance between them, but he was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his long body through the chill of the night air. “Tell me, Sir Lancelin. Was it terrible?”
“Yes.” He shifted his shoulders against the stone at his back. “The Saxons are a bloodthirsty people. They don’t hesitate to kill anyone in their path, and they are crude and gruesome in battle.”
“They say it was a great victory for Lloegyr.”
Lancelin lifted his lean face up into the starlight. “We left noSaxons alive to attack our people again, but victory came at a great price.”
“I honor your work with the dead and those they left behind,” Morgana. “I know what a painful task that is.”
“Assuring wives and mothers that their husbands and sons died heroically is small comfort,” he said. He added, his deep voice thickening, “Their pain is so deep I felt I could touch it with my hand.”
“I understand.”
He turned his body enough to look into her face. “Do you? How? I thought, a Temple life… it sounds peaceful.”
She looked up into the stars as she searched for the words she wanted. “At the Temple, supplicants bring me tragic accounts of death, illness, sometimes cruelty. I have learned to let their stories pass through me. I have discovered that if I take them into—into my spirit—I would not be able to do the work.”
“The charm you made for me—is that the sort of work you do there?”
“Your charm is unique, something new for me, but yes. It is what I am trained for.”
As they talked, she realized, they had moved closer together. She felt the hard muscle of his thigh against her own, and the sharpness of his elbow against her arm. Involuntarily, she shuddered, and he turned to her. “Are you cold?”
For one terrible, wonderful moment she thought he was going to put his arm around her. She said, “No. I am not cold.”
He searched her face with his dark gaze. “Morgana,” he began.
She averted her eyes, looking down at her hands, tightlylinked in her lap. “You really should address me as Priestess, Sir Lancelin.”
“Is it not allowed for me to speak to you as a woman?”
