Page 8 of The Faerie Morgana
Braithe’s dimples flashed as she slid out of her own sandals. She pulled up the skirts of her robe and stepped gingerly down into the water. “Brrrrr. It’s cold!”
“It is perfect,” Morgana answered. “I feared I might burst into flame.”
Braithe shivered, but she didn’t step back out of the water. “You mustn’t worry,” she said. “They can’t possibly choose anyone else.”
“Your confidence is touching, Braithe, but I have not been politic in my dealings with the priestesses. Iffa has always disliked me, and that may be why.”
“Priestess Iffa hates everyone,” Braithe said. “She is even mean to the little ones!”
“I know,” Morgana said. It was something she intended to repair when she took a priestess’s chair. There was nothing to be gained by being cruel to the acolytes, especially the very young ones. “Preela resents me, too, and I have made it worse.”
“She’s stupid,” Braithe said. “All the acolytes know it.”
Morgana wiggled her toes in the icy water. “You are good for me, little Braithe.”
Braithe grinned up at her. “When you are one of the Nine, I will be your servant!”
“Priestesses do not have servants.”
“You will be no ordinary priestess, Morgana. You will be arealpriestess, with real abilities. Everyone knows the real magic has returned with you, after sleeping for so long.”
Morgana supposed she should demur, but it could be that Braithe was right. Somehow, for some reason she could not fathom, she had been gifted with abilities that no other priestess in her memory had possessed. She had seen her mother’s death, and it had come to pass just as her vision predicted. Objects obeyed her whims, lifting into her hand when she wanted them, moving to where she needed them to be. None of her charms ever failed. Her deep sight was the same, when she employed it—clear and true. She could pretend modesty about these things, but she and Braithe both knew it would be false.
Braithe went on. “I could see you have no need to waste time on little things, Morgana. Your clothes, your meals, your messages! I could set you free to do your real work, the work the Lady brought you here to do.”
Morgana’s heart warmed at the younger girl’s generosity. She said, “Come, now, my little brat, your toes are turning blue. We will sit on that boulder and toast our feet in the sun.”
When they were settled on the smooth rock, and Braithe had turned her freckled face up into the slanting sunshine, Morgana said, “How is it that you are always so happy? You were sent away as a child, just as I was.”
“Yes, though not so young as you.” Braithe flexed her toes in the warmth, watching the color return to them. “But it was different for me. My mother had too many children in a house with only two rooms. There was never enough food, and my clothes were always handed down from the sisters ahead of me.” She laughed. “When the Temple gave me a new robe, with no smell of someone else on it, no stains, no tears or threadbare places, I was thrilled! I had never had new clothes in my life.”
“A small thing to give such pleasure.”
“It didn’t seem small to me, but then, I was not the daughter of a queen, was I?” She pointed a plump forefinger at Morgana and laughed again. “My life at the Temple is far easier than the one on my mother’s croft. And I have a pallet all to myself. No sisters to jostle me all night!”
“It was the opposite for me,” Morgana said. “My bed was huge, and I felt lost in it. I used to wish for someone to share it with, perhaps a sister to keep me company in the dark of night. But then my brother came along. My half brother, I should say.”
“The true king,” Braithe murmured.
Morgana bent to rub the last of the lake water from her soles. “I didn’t know that then. Or that the arrival of a son meant I would be banished.”
“How did you know your half brother was the true king?”
“That is rather a long story.”
“I think we have time.”
Morgana shot her a look and saw her dimples flash. “You mean to tease me, brat?”
Braithe’s dimples faded. “Oh, Morgana, I didn’t mean—”
“Hush, hush. I know you did not. You were right. I fear we have more time than we would like.”
Braithe nodded and tucked her cold bare feet under her robe. Morgana leaned back on her hands, feeling the warmth of the granite beneath her palms and the benediction of the afternoon sun on her hair. “You will be disappointed in the story. It is not a tale of the fae or a bogle, or anything entertaining.” She shifted her gaze to the vista of the lake, the water glittering sapphire, the green willows posing like dancers at the lake’s edge. When she narrowed her eyes to soften her vision, the willows’ drooping boughs could be faeries in disguise, come to drink the clear water and spy on the women of the Temple. The idea appealed to her, that the fae might visit the Isle of Apples. That they might, indeed, have something to tell her.
Braithe gave a small, encouraging humming sound, and Morgana opened her eyes again. “Very well. I will tell you how I came to understand that Arthur is the true king of Lloegyr.”
“And the most beautiful of all kings,” Braithe murmured, with relish.
