Page 113 of The Faerie Morgana
She threw off her clothes and lay down on her bed, though it had no sheets and only a linen coverlet. She plumped her pillow and turned on her side, hungry for sleep. Longing to forget, if only for a while.
But she couldn’t rest. It wasn’t only her sorrow that kept her wakeful. Thoughts tumbled through her mind, making her hands clench. Joslyn, though well-meaning, had brought up Gwenvere, and there was no one who knew better how dangerous she could be than Braithe herself. Lancelin had repented of his connection with her and its cost to his liege. But with Arthur gone, would he change his mind? He was a powerful man, with deep influence in Camulod, and in Lloegyr. He had taken Gwenvere away, as Morgana had asked, but Braithe worried that Gwenvere might recover and wield her particular magic once again. That magic could twist the mind of even the bravest man.
After a time, Braithe gave up trying to sleep. She rose and, still in her camisole, poured water from the waiting ewer into the washbowl. It was foolish, perhaps, as the instances in which magic had responded to her were rare, even unpredictable. But at this moment, she suffered such a craving for reassurance that she meant to try.
She bent over the basin, waiting for the swirling water to clear. When it did, sparkling faintly in the smooth gray stone of the washbasin, she watched it for a moment, her lips a little apart, her heart lifting.
When she was done, she returned to her bed, slipped under the coverlet, and instantly fell sound asleep.
45
When Morgana woke, the shadows of early evening stretched long outside the residence, reaching down toward the dormitory. Acolytes hurried here and there, but they were uncharacteristically quiet, possibly out of respect for the mourning period for Arthur, but perhaps they had been told to let the priestess Morgana rest and recover from her travails. That would have been Niamh’s doing, another change.
She thought of ringing for Braithe, but in hopes that her handmaid was asleep, she dressed herself and brushed her silver tresses smooth, letting them hang over her shoulders. She was just reaching for the latch of the door when a timid knock sounded.
“Come in,” she said.
The door opened, and the thin dark face of Priestess Joslyn peeked around it. “Ah, Priestess Morgana, you’re up. Welcome home.” Morgana said a brief thanks, and Joslyn said, “You have a visitor. I felt certain you would want to see him.”
Him? Morgana blinked in surprise. “Who is it?”
“He says his name is Lancelin, of Camulod. I have never seen him, but I had no sense that he dissembled.”
Morgana stood very still, her palms pressed together before her mouth, her gaze unfocused as she took in this surprising bit of news. She was silent so long that Joslyn said, “Do you prefer I send him away? Is this someone you don’t care to see?”
Morgana dropped her hands. “I do want to see him, Priestess. In truth—there may be no one in the world I would wish to see more.”
“Here?”
“Yes. We will need privacy.”
Joslyn didn’t question this but disappeared down the corridor. Morgana stood in the doorway to her chamber to await her visitor.
She had forgotten how tall Lancelin was, and how dark. His hair, which hung straight and thick to his shoulders, had taken on threads of silver. It must have happened swiftly, she thought, almost as quickly as her own transformation. His eyes were different, too, the lids heavier, the brows permanently drawn together. His had always been a hard face, but now it was one creased by sorrow, drawn into harsh lines, the narrow lips compressed until they nearly disappeared.
“Priestess Morgana,” he said.
“Sir Lancelin. Have you had something to drink?”
“I want nothing but to speak with you,” he said.
“I am very glad to see you,” she said.Alive.She had, in truth, thought he might be dead. In which case, she expected Gwenvere would also be dead.
“May we talk?”
She stood back and gestured for him to come in. As shefollowed him, she saw her chamber as if through his eyes, spacious, airy, well-furnished, the window admitting the sweet evening air, opening on the view of the Isle she had so missed while at Camulod. He crossed to the window and looked out, perhaps thinking that this life of peace was hard to believe. When she closed the door, he turned.
Without preamble, he said, “I could not bring myself to drop her in the lake, though I thought of it.”
“Ah.” She pulled one of her two chairs over by the window, where they could sit and breathe fresh air. He fetched the other one, and they sat in silence for a time. Finally, Morgana said, “I think you must have come to tell me where she is, and what we have to fear from her.”
“I left her with her father, in the western demesnes.”
“Was she made welcome?”
“I don’t know. She was conscious, at least somewhat recovered from what happened to her. I left her there and fled.”
He rubbed his thighs with his palms, a nervous gesture she had never before seen him make. “I make no excuses for what I did, Priestess, but…” He lifted his hands, as if suddenly aware of what he was doing. “I have done bloody things,” he said quietly, as if to himself. “But I have never killed a woman or a child. I believed Gwenvere should die, but I could not be the one to do it.”
