Had her body betrayed her? For as he came to his climax, she too arched her back and groaned through clenched teeth. My body quaked as well, over and over. Five or six Times I brought myself to rapture. I sucked on my fingers to taste the slimy cum. Finally, I had tasted of my Mother’s Well…
Ever since that Night, it has always been the vision of my bitch Mother Igraine’s body quaking over Uther that has enflamed my lusts. I offer no apologies for my luscious depravities. Men, women, children and even a few beasts – it mattered not to me – have I seduced into hours of sensual pleasures.”
The next few pages disintegrated when I touched them... Her writing became legible again several pages after:
“…Days came to an end. When my son Mordred was to be born, I summoned a local Midwife. I would not trust her to pour safe wine to dull my pains, so I mixed my own posset and drank it before she touched me. I threatened her on pain of her life, that if anything go wrong, I would kill her myself. She looked terrified and began to leave, but I then continued – ‘However, if you do your part very well, I will give to you gold, enough to build a new house and barn.’
She stayed...
My pains were hard and long – too long. Something was amiss! Finally, the woman said; ‘Here it comes, but feet first. Push harder!’
‘I am pushing, you idiot!’
Of a sudden, I thought my back would break. I felt a sliding... Then I heard a cry.
‘Is it a boy?’
‘No, my Lady, she’s a girl.
I kicked her.
‘What do you mean, a girl? I have seen my son in Visions.
I gasped... The hard pains were building again.
‘Oh, my Lady, here comes another...
I could barely catch my breath. The pains were fast and furious. I felt a searing pain and a tearing. I waited to hear my son’s cry...
‘Oh, Gods! He is... He is a... His limbs are not right.’
Before I had Time to comprehend her meaning I felt a sliding again, along with the most pain I have ever experienced in my life.
‘Am I going to die?’
Then I heard all three crying.
‘No my Lady,’ she smiled, ‘you are going to raise three babes. The bleeding will stop soon and you will be alright. Just rest now while I sever the cords. Then I will clean the babies and wrap them in swaddling cloths.’
I did and she did.
An hour or two later I awoke. The woman was still there, kneeling on the floor beside the pallet she had made for the babies. She was humming a tune to them. Had I heard that tune somewhere before?
‘Here, let me see them.’ I began to get up. But sounding alarmed she said:
‘No, my Lady – rest there – I will bring them to you.’
I looked first at the girl. She was small and dark. Her skin was all wrinkled and ugly. She looked like Morgan had when she was born. What need had I for a girl? Next she showed the last born, the fine looking boy I had seen in my Visions. His skin was fair but his hair was a reddish brown. I suppose I said it aloud: ‘No, he has to have golden hair.’
She chuckled, ‘Oh my Lady, babies are not born with the colour of hair – or eyes neither – that they will have later.’
Then she hesitated...
‘Here is the first boy.’
She placed the bundle in my arms and then stepped away. It was a horror. Even its head was bent and twisted... Yet, it lived.
‘Take it away. Go now and drown it in the creek!’
‘But...’
‘Do not “but” me! Take it away from my sight!’
She began to refuse. I got up from the bed, walked over to the central hearth Fire, picked the poking stick up, turned and stabbed her in the neck. All this so smoothly that she seemed not to realise what I was doing. She let out a blood-curdling scream. I stabbed her again and again, until my strength gave out. I could leave no one to tell that I, Morganna Le Faye, had given birth to a distorted monster.
My stable boy ran into my cottage.
‘Are you alright? Oh! What has happened?’
Then he noted that I was naked, with only a woven cloth covering me and that I had delivered a child. It was well known, even by stable boys, that the birthing room was no place for a man. He just stared at me – not knowing what to do…
I yelled – ‘Quickly, take this loathsome woman from my sight! She went to steal my baby and when I objected, she tried to kill me. But I got the better of her. Now I will be accused of murder!’
‘No, my Lady Morganna, I will protect your name! Here, let me bury her now, behind the field of Barley. I will pile Rocks upon her grave so that none will know she be there.’
‘Yes, yes, quickly! And never a word of this to anyone.’
‘Of course...’
I knew that I would have to kill him too.
I looked at the three babies and then looked to see if anyone else was about. There was not. So I wrapped the twisted thing in a blanket, thinking to run with him to the swiftly flowing, deep creek nearby and there to drown and float him downstream.
I had kept myself hidden past the Time that my belly got too big to hide the fact that I was pregnant, so no one would suspect me.
My plan had been to disappear from this place, with my son, as soon as I could after the birthing. Then it occurred to me that travelling with two babies would be very difficult. Could I find a wet nurse with enough milk to keep my son strong and feed the girl? …the girl that I had no need for and did not want, anyway? Certainly, I could not bring two nurses along with me. So, I determined to take the little, red faced, crying girl to the Creek as well – but she would not be quiet. I put my hand over her mouth but that did little good – she cried louder. So I strangled her. Then she was quiet.
That seemed to me a more efficient way of handling this problem, so I strangled the crippled thing as well. It was easier going from then on.
I laid the still bundles to the side, washed and dressed myself in a plain cloak, pulling the hood far forward over my head – just in the event that someone meet me on the path to the Stream and recognize me.
I had to leave Mordred – for that is what I named Arthur’s son – by himself. I dared not leave him with my third beloved Wildcat, Terror, for he was past seventeen years old and almost completely blind. I feared that he might kill the child. So I led him along with me to the Creek. I would have to watch Terror carefully from then on.
On my way back was the cottage of a young woman who had given birth to a boy two years before. I stopped there and asked her to travel with me, as Mordred’s wet nurse, to Lesser Briton, where I had land holdings. She – who had no possibility of ever being offered a fine life by anyone other than me – delightedly accepted. I instructed her to be ready in a week.
I knew that I must wait-and-see how it would be travelling with two children. But there was no other way – for to become a wet nurse, a woman must already be nursing a child.
As to the Stable boy, in the end I decided to bring him along instead of killing him. He was, after all, handsome and could prove to provide some pleasurable distraction along the way. Besides, he was obviously smitten with infatuation for me and would probable protect me with his life if that were what it would take.
Now I had my son – the Britons’ next High King! I had been a very clever girl again...”
She signed it with lavish strokes – Morganna Le Faye
Morgan’s Note...
I think that my hand might have been led by the Spirits to find these scrolls in that secret cupboard. For, if ever I had felt and allowed my empathy of my ‘poor, demented sister’s plight’ to soften my anger toward her memory, this scroll was to prove to be the undoing of that possibility!
No one but me has ever known of its existence, yet now – with this copying of it – it has become part of my histories. No other lasting trace of her warped thinking and Visions of grandeur remain – or so do I fervently pray to the Goddess.
Morganna, wherever y
ou are, do you just hate that?
Chapter 47
What of Morganna’s Daughter?
Morgan
So it was that all of my suspicions of the nature of the inside-out Magics of the Land of Naught were confirmed. Upon Morganna’s Death, her Spells of forgetfulness and invisibility had un-wound. The house that had been unseen was now visible, and what is more, the folk who had lived in it with Morganna, upon her Death, forgot all that had been.
But what of Morganna’s daughter?
She was born within these Spells and lived her whole life under them until the Night of her Mother’s Death. Thinking of all I had learned in my journey to the Land of Naught, I was convinced that my niece, Morganna, had no memories at all. In this I was to be proven correct – yet, that left unexplained why her Magic remained in the Cloak, for it truly had been bound in the Land of Naught.
It took more and more Time to find the old man of the village and, as with the Merchants, he was afraid and hesitant to speak of the girl, but finally, with his heart softened and his purse filled with gold, he relented.
“I cared for the girl, I did – like a daughter. At first it was only I needed help, an’ she needed food an’ a roof over ‘er head, but then she was a kind girl with a sweet smile an’ way about her. I felt sorry she could remember nay a thing. I thought sure she was a fine Lady, but what could I do? So when the rich man came and wanted to take ‘er, I thought it would be best, for ‘er, I mean. It was nay only for the coin I let ‘er go, but then what could I have done to stop him anyway? Please, if you see the girl, tell ‘er I cared about ‘er.”
The searchers said that they would.
I sent to him some Carpenters and Thatchers to keep his hut from falling in upon him and to keep him dry. I also sent two Goats, some Chickens, a work Horse, a plow and a wagon. From the Order’s stocks I sent honey, Grain, mead, and a heavy woolen blanket with my thanks. Oh, yes, and great bales of fleabane for to scatter upon his dirt floor and the outside of his doorway – this done, of course, once the workmen had cleared out the old infested straw. I also sent some living plants and seeds from our gardens, so that he could plant a garden of his own. My guess is that that was the gift he appreciated most.
There was one more thing that he had asked of me; this was to have someone bury him near to his wife and son, whenever he died and to have a simple marker of some kind for all three of them. He had never been able to place one for his wife or son. For that, he said, he still grieved. Of course I agreed and would see it done when that Time came.
I felt so rewarded. We were getting close – very close.
While awaiting further word, I visited my kin deep in the Wood of the twisted old Trees and the Sacred Caves and rocky shorelines of the Western Sea.
I had come to ask when and why my Mother Igraine had had the two circling black Snakes tattooed upon her hands – for only some of their layers of symbolism had been revealed to me when I had received them upon ankles at my Enchantress initiation. Even as I became a Wise Mother and then one of the council of The Nine spiritual leaders of the Order, even as I became Lady of the Lake, I had yet to be taught the full depth of their Mystery. However, when I traversed the perils of the Land of Naught, I began to become more enlightened as to their meaning.
I was brought into the presence of the eldest Tribal Grandmother, and, after the expected greetings and words of salutation, she took my hands, looked at me and asked:
“So you have been there, too? You have earned the Seven Keys?”
I smiled. “Yes, I have.” She smiled back.
“Then you now truly ‘understand’ the outside and the in, the making and the breaking, the fullness and naught...”
The seven of my kin sitting around the central hearth Fire repeated: “We understand.”
No further explanation was expected or given.
A man of years beyond counting, perhaps one hundred – or one hundred and ten – took what looked to be ancient, but clean, tools used for tattooing out of a crude but elaborately painted rolled sack.
I sat upon a pile of dried leaves, which covered a log on the ground and laid the back of my hands across an Altar Stone, where he punched the black dye, one strike at a Time, into the palms of my hands. Of course I had been given a Mushroom to eat aforetime, to somewhat numb my sense of the pain. When he was finished, an hour later, the Serpents were seamless, pristine, perfect, and almost alive. One circled Sunwise and the other contrary to the course of the Sun. Never in my life have I been so thrilled to receive a gift as I was then.
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
I kissed the old man in the manner of Tribal custom. May I gift you in return?
“I need nothing.”
His answer was traditional, but it was also tradition to give an exchange of energy. I removed a silver band from my finger...
“May this always keep us close, Grandfather.”
He nodded his head, accepted the gift, and walked away. Now I was prepared for whatever lay ahead.
What a rich journey is life! Just when I had thought that mine had settled into monotonous duty, with a simple joy here and there, I find myself on an adventurous quest to find and save my beautiful niece.
“Be careful Morgan, be careful Morgan...” the Voices whispered.
It did not take long after that to find Morganna’s daughter. There were not as many wealthy, finely dressed men in the environs of the West as had there been in Roman Times. There were only a few great fortresses left by that Time. One of them was the fortress that The Merlin had designed and overseen the building of – which had once been Vortigern’s and then Princess Rowena’s.
The Weavers are ever surprising. After questioning villagers and other farm folk, we heard of the beautiful dark bride – of six years now – of Rhodri, the former husband of Ribrowst, Princess Rowena’s daughter.
“She came to him a head empty of memory. She was from the Old Dark Tribes, like you My Lady… Eyes like pools of black Water. She must be filled with the Magics – I thought when I first saw her. But she is a good Christian now. She is just a sweet thing, a good wife and Mother.”
“Mother?” I questioned.
“Why yes, a daughter, must be past five year-turns by now.”
“A daughter!”
My stomach was churning, as though a hive of my Bees was in it. Would my old age be blessed not only by a niece, but a child of my family? A girl child! I, who had never had children and therefore never had grandchildren... I had to be calm, to make myself remember that things may not come out the way I wish for them to.
Their introduction to me must be handled very cautiously. What reason would I state for my visit? I dared not mention Morganna, though surely everyone still remembered that I was her sister. Did Rhodri know who his wife was? He was, after all, a Christian.
Finally I settled on a small deception of sorts. I would not allow him Time to make an excuse, so I simply showed up at his fortress and begged admittance, on the merits of my having been very close to Princess Rowena as well as to The great Merlin, who had designed this wonder-filled place. I had instructed my messenger to say: “Lady Morgan, Lady of the Lake, would be very happy to be within its walls once more. She would also be grateful to meet Lord Rhodri and his sons – Princess Rowena’s grandsons.” It would have been a disgraceful discourtesy to refuse the Lady of the Lake, even though he had left the Old Ways to become a Christian, for the Order still held great political sway.
Rhodri – charmer that he was – and I mean that in the way of his good looks and charismatic veneer – opened the great gates. My company and I were welcomed with pomp. I was in.
How beautiful it was. I stood in the great hall taking in the spectacular architectural feat, which had been embellished by all the graciousness and style of Princess Rowena.
My thoughts travelled backwards to when our world was fresh and new – to the Days of Arthur’s crowning. How beautiful and intelligent Rowena had been as she offered “
The Golden Chalice” of her sister Gwenyfar to Arthur. How young we were and how innocent. But it was not only Princess Rowena’s ghost who haunted my heart regarding the perfection and grandeur of that Night so long ago and the spectacle of Arthur’s crowning...
My thoughts flew to the Night of Arthur’s wedding Gwenyfar. That splendidly arranged event had taken place in another great hall – that of my dear Mother, Igraine, in Dumnonia. Did I feel her hand caress my hair? “Oh, Mother – no girl could have ever been blessed more than I. You showed your Love for me in every way. I still miss you so...”
Rhodri was speaking... “Lady Morgan, would you not sit by our great hearth and warm yourself from your travels? Here, my servant girl has brought Apples, Nuts, and warm spiced wine for you.”
“Oh, I am sorry; I did not mean to ignore your warm greetings. I was just deep in thought of the long-ago past. Yes, that would be nice.
“I have heard, of course, that you have remarried after all these years and am glad for you. I remember Ribrowst as a precious and intelligent golden haired young woman. Such a beauty was she. I was very sorry for your loss when I heard of her fatal accident. But let us not dwell upon sad events. I look forward to meeting your new Lady wife.”
“Yes,” replied Rhodri, “she will come down soon. She sings our daughter to sleep each Night.”
“How Enchanting,” said I, “I mean lovely... Will your sons be here in the next few Days, Rhodri?”
“Gildas, my youngest, lives at a Monastic settlement to the South of Gwynedd, in the Monastery of Llan-Illtud, where he is being taught by the revered Monk and Wise Man named Hildutus – in Latin – or Illtud in our tongue. When Gildas finishes his studies there, he will be a Teacher and Cleric.”
This, he said with great pride.
“I am not sure that he will be able to come.
“My second youngest is also a Monk. He lives nearby with our friend, the Bishop.
He spends his life in prayer and duty to the Church.”
“My oldest son is hunting with his friends. If he does well, we will feast on fresh Boar or venison whilst you and your company are here. The hunting is good now that the leaves are falling and it is cooler.”
Voices of the Stars Page 63
