Page 87 of The Faerie Morgana
“Yes.”
“And Lancelin—he has betrayed the king.”
“Yes.”
Morgana scattered the stones with her fingers, then scoopedthem into their cup. She set the cup down with a thump. Bitterly, she said, “He is not the man I thought he was.”
“Gwenvere has a strange power, Priestess. She may call you witch, but I vow, if there is a witch in Camulod, it is she. I would not be surprised if she put a curse on you. I feel certain Sir Lancelin is bewitched. And, of course, the king.”
“How do you know all this, Braithe?”
Braithe decided she was done keeping the secret. Morgana was the one person in the world she hated to deceive. What could the Blackbird do to her, in any case? These were things Morgana should know.
And so, pouring it all out in detail, she told her.
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Morgana let several days pass while she pondered the betrayal of Arthur by the queen he adored, berated herself for her own weakness for the treacherous Lancelin, whom Arthur also loved, and puzzled over the odd fear the Blackbird had expressed, that Gwenvere was in some way a danger to Morgana herself.
She thought hard about Braithe’s accusation that Gwenvere was herself a witch. She thought about the Blackbird and took comfort in knowing he worried about her. Cared about her still, despite his conviction that she had made a great error.
She let the days pass while she strove to recover her usual poise. She made herself a tincture of vervain and blackberry leaves. If she had been magicked, the tincture should help her purify and restore herself. The idea troubled her, though. No one on the Isle was strong enough to magick her, even if they had wanted to. It seemed impossible there would be someone at Camulod who could do it.
She resisted the urge to seek out the Blackbird, telling herself he would come to her when he was ready. She tried to persuadeBraithe to stay away from Gwenvere, but Braithe had taken the Blackbird’s mission to heart. She always wore the charm he had given her, and Morgana knew she often left her bed in the night to follow the queen.
She made Braithe a different charm, a simple one of protection, the kind she had so often created at the Temple. She made her promise to keep it in her pocket, to guard her from Gwenvere’s worst inclinations.
Through it all she wondered endlessly about Gwenvere herself, about her bursts of violent temper and the apparent enchantments she wielded so easily. The need to do something about the queen burned in her, but she didn’t know what it might be.
The winter snows began that week, spatters of flakes at first, and a thin glaze of ice spreading near Ilyn’s shore. Soon the snow fell in earnest, muffling the sounds of horses’ hooves and chickens’ cackles, blanketing the keep in crystalline white that sparkled in competition with the glittering of the courtine. Snow drifted in streamers of white like bride’s ribbons around the towers. The layer of ice on the lake expanded, and only the most intrepid boatmen braved the crossing.
Morgana would have liked to stroll the courtine, wrapped in the cloak of thick fox fur Arthur had given her. She loved watching tattered sheets of snow soften the landscape and frost the tree branches. On the Isle she had often gone out to walk in it, smiling at the dark winter birds flitting across the cold whiteness. She would stop to brush snow from the tops of plants in the herb garden. She would breathe the icy air, lettingit refresh her mind and soothe her spirit. Her nose and cheeks grew cold, but the solitude and silence of such winter forays had been worth the discomfort.
Now she resisted indulging herself for fear of meeting Lancelin. She considered the greater part of the blame to fall on Gwenvere, who was after all betraying her husband. But Lancelin had betrayed Arthur’s trust as well, and she couldn’t bear to face him. Had it not been for her own weakness, her own shame, she would have challenged him on his faithlessness, but she had stained her own honor in the most disgraceful and humbling fashion. She had forfeited the right to reproach him.
In the end, she decided the only thing she could do was confront Gwenvere herself.
She chose a night when Braithe’s charm warned her that Gwenvere was leaving her chamber. Braithe, who had been brushing her hair before helping her to bed, tossed down the brush and turned for the door.
“No,” Morgana said. “Stay here in my room, brat. It is my turn.”
Braithe hesitated in the doorway. “But, Priestess, the Blackbird—”
“I remember his warning. I will take care.”
Morgana took up her fox fur cloak and swirled it around her shoulders as she hurried out and down the stairs to the level of the royal apartments. She was just in time to see the queen coming out of her bedchamber.
Gwenvere was alone, her hair loose around her shoulders, her voluminous white nightdress flowing to the floor, a diaphanous dressing gown over it. She had passed the turning of the corridor that led to Lancelin’s room when Morgana, long legs carrying her faster than Gwenvere’s shorter ones, caught her up. Gwenvere had not reached Lancelin’s door when Morgana’s long fingers gripped her slender wrist.
The moment she touched the queen and felt the unnatural heat emanating from her body, she knew. Braithe’s instinct had been right. Her own anxiety had been well-placed, and with the surge of fury that filled her, she broke through the constraints Gwenvere had managed to place on her, constraints no one in the world should have been able to enforce.
Gwenvere tried to tear her wrist free, but Morgana’s hand was strong. “What—” Gwenvere gasped.
“You are not going in there, my lady,” Morgana said in a low voice. Her own blood ran hot, with both anger and relief, because now she understood.
“How dare you!” Gwenvere cried in a fierce whisper. “Release me!”
“I cannot stand by while you betray my half brother,” Morgana said.
