Page 48 of The Faerie Morgana
When her handmaid appeared, carrying a tray of broth and bread, Morgana was already washed and dressed in her black robe.
“You’re feeling better!” Braithe exclaimed. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes shone as bright as a spring sky.
Morgana said, “I feel quite well, and you certainly look in the peak of health. Let us return to work.”
Braithe set the tray on the table and flashed her dimples. “Eat first,” she said. “Unless you want to breakfast with your sister priestesses.”
“I think not,” Morgana said. “I prefer this.” She picked up apiece of bread and dipped it into the broth. “I see the king has left the Isle.”
Braithe’s freckles drowned in a sudden flush of red. “Yes, I believe he and his knights left this morning.” And she added, “Early.”
“No doubt my half brother has pressing duties.”
“I suppose he must.” Braithe busied herself smoothing Morgana’s bed and tidying the few things she kept beside it. “Shall I braid your hair for you, Priestess?”
“Thank you, yes.”
As Braithe’s small, deft hands brushed Morgana’s long hair and began to plait it, Morgana did her best not to notice that her handmaid smelled differently from her usual scent of soap and candlewax and lavender. It was a subtle but distinctive perfume, the fragrance of tilled earth and dark woods, of the lake in summer, the bed of thyme in the fall. It made Morgana’s stomach contract, a response she found strange.
She needed to distract herself. “Braithe,” she began.
“Yes, Priestess.”
“Thank you for keeping my secret.”
“You mean about—about the cat? The owl? Those things?”
“Yes.”
“I did wonder that you didn’t want to tell your half brother.”
“When I understand why I have that particular gift, I may tell him. In the meantime, I like having an ability no one knows about. It was useful in dealing with the assassin, and I may need to use it again.”
Braithe tied off a thick silver plait of Morgana’s hair and laidit neatly over her shoulder. “I wish you would not,” she said, her voice vibrating with sincerity. “I truly feared this time you might die.”
“I know.” Morgana stood and shook out the folds of her black robe. “But in my place, with Arthur’s life at risk, would you have had me do nothing?”
“No!”
The denial was so sharp, so heartfelt, that Morgana startled. “Braithe,” she began, but her handmaid had turned away.
“No.” Braithe spoke in a more disciplined voice. “No, of course not, Priestess. You had to intervene, by whatever means you could. I understand that you’ve devoted yourself to protecting the true king.”
“It is my purpose in life,” Morgana said. She took up the thong that held her sigil and slipped it over her head. “In truth, it is a purpose greater than my life.”
Braithe had stood at her own window to watch Arthur and his guards float away into the mist. Her body felt both tender and painful, tremulous from the shock and the ecstasy of giving in to her desire. She relived every whispered endearment in her fevered memory of the night just past. She recalled the sensation of Arthur’s smooth skin against her own, at the satisfying hardness of his muscles and the gratifying force of his desiring her. She marveled at the startling intimacy of opening herself to him. The sense of abandoning all precautions, all promises, in favor of that experience was a heady one. She would never be the same again.
When the ring of mist had swallowed the king’s boat, she turned away from the window and went to gaze into the mirror that hung above her washstand. She was startled to see that she looked no different than she had the day before, except that her eyes were brightened by an unnatural shine. She pulled off her nightdress and stood on tiptoe to see her naked body in the glass, but it looked no different, either. She put one hand on a breast, remembering Arthur’s hand there. She traced her belly with her palm, where his palm had been just hours before. She hugged herself, wishing she could distill the sensations of their time together, bottle them as if they were a potion or a tincture, something to be uncorked and poured out when you wanted to taste them again.
She would ache with longing for him. She knew that. Her longing would be in vain, and she knew that, too. Braithe had a firm grasp on her station in life. She was a country girl. She would not tell herself that Arthur loved her or allow herself to daydream that a king would choose someone like her as his queen. It would have to be enough that he had wanted her, that he had shared something intense and personal with her, that he had made herfeellike a queen, though she could never be one.
As she pulled on her shift and tied her robe around her waist, she told herself these things as firmly as she could. She said aloud, as she braided her hair, “You are no one, Braithe of the Temple. He is King Arthur of Lloegyr, the true king of Camulod. You are no lord’s daughter, no princess. You are a handmaid, and a lucky one at that. You must remember.”
But she couldn’t quench the spark of hope that flickered in her heart.
Morgana’s relief at being able to return to her Temple duties, to hear supplicants, to provide what aid she could to them, was tainted by her grief over the rift with the Blackbird. He had sent her no message, either to repeat his accusation, to apologize, or even to ask after her health. He must know she had been ill, even if he didn’t know why.
Her sister priestesses asked her about him, because they were known to be close. Everyone understood that the Blackbird favored her. Some resented it. Others envied it. No one questioned it.
