THE CURSE OF EXCALIBUR: a gripping Arthurian fantasy (THE MORGAN TRILOGY Book 2)

by Lavinia Collins

  “How do you intend to prove this, Morgan?” he asked, but I could see that he believed me.

  “Go and see for yourself. She hides it well, but it is there.”

  “What a secret, Morgan. What a secret.” He pulled down my dress over my shoulder, still loose from where he had untied it, and traced a line of blue with his finger across my shoulder, swirling across the top of it. He pressed his lips lightly against my skin, and I felt myself shrink away inside with disgust. He looked up at me again. “So, this is the exchange you offer?”

  “It is,” I said, softly.

  He gave a brusque nod. “Well, Morgan, the deal is done.”

  He moved away from me, to sit in the chair before me. I had hoped that he had gone to fetch something for me, some book he had hidden, but he had nothing. He just sat back in the chair, looking at me with a smile on his face.

  “Now, Morgan, as a show of good faith in our agreement, I will have you. You can consider it a down payment on the secret knowledge you covet, until I get my hands on the child. Take off your dress.”

  I pulled my dress back up over my shoulder.

  “Merlin, I am not your whore,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. Merlin stood back swiftly to his feet, stepping over to me, grasping hold of me at the hair again, his other arm wrapping around my waist so that I could not back away from him. I could not escape anyway, since the strength had left my body under the pressure of the dark Otherworld power coming off him.

  “Are you not, Morgan?” he hissed, pressing his forehead against mine. “You have received payment from me in return for your body before. Don’t you remember the first exchange we made, for my book of Macrobius?”

  “You took my sword,” I hissed back, only more angry in my powerlessness. “That was the exchange, unfair as it was.”

  Merlin laughed, low, touching his nose against mine, letting his lips brush against mine as he whispered.

  “So it was. And yet you gave yourself to me anyway, didn’t you? You wanted it, you wanted me.” He made a little movement as though he were about to kiss me, and under his power I felt my mouth open slightly in response, in anticipation, but the kiss did not come. “I felt it from the moment I saw you. I could feel your hot little virgin body quivering with desire whenever you saw me. But you gave yourself away cheaply, didn’t you? Even I was shocked how willing you were. A few cups of wine, and that book before you, and you melted into my hands. Ector’s Otherworld boy was not much on your mind that night, was he? Did you tell him it was I who had you first? Did you tell your husband?” He kissed me then, and though my mind fought against it, my body responded. My breath quickened under his eager kiss, and I even felt a flush of heat run through me, though in my heart and mind I felt nothing at all. At last he released me.

  “It was not much of a choice you gave me, Merlin,” I said flatly, staring up at him. “I thought you had brought me that book out of kindness, or out of interest in my studies. I feared that if I refused you, you would take the book from me, or perhaps you would have forced me and taken the book away anyway. I see you are not above forcing a woman.”

  “Oh Morgan, you make me sound like such a monster.” He moved away, releasing his grip on me, and slipping back into the ugly bald-headed form that I knew. His expression was strange. “Very well, I shall come to collect the rest of my payment when my work is complete. Then – only then – will I give you my knowledge.”

  Before I could object, he disappeared before me, into nothingness. What have I done? I thought again. What have I done?

  I waited for news as spring began to break around me, and the snows around Rheged thawed. My heart still felt cold. I dreamed of Accolon at night; over and over again my mind played back the first night we had spent together when he had pulled back the curtains of my bed, and put his rough hands on me. In my sleep I felt them tangling through my hair, still, I felt his hot mouth against mine, I felt his stubble graze the skin of my neck, and then I would wake and pull back the bed curtains, and the room would be empty, and I would remember that he was dead.

  I tried moving my room, to sleep in Uriens’ bed, but that was worse. I dreamed there of Uriens on top of me, his hand over my mouth, or worse, of pushing him off, and him being be limp and dead, his dull eyes unfocussed. I went back to my own bed.

  The only news that came to Rheged was that the Emperor Lucius had finally given in to his fear of Arthur and was beginning to invade the vassal territories in France. He had attacked Carhais and taken it. He had killed its King. News, too, came to me that my mother had died and that Cornwall had come not to me or my sister, as it should have, but to one of her cousins, Mark. I wrote to Arthur protesting this and received no reply. I hoped and did not hope that this meant that Merlin had succeeded.

  I received, too, a letter from Morgawse which read:

  “Dearest sister, sad news about mother. I hope you are well. Also, I heard that you are a widow, too, now. I am sure you mourn your husband just as much as I do. Lothian thriving. Gareth almost of age to become a knight. Wish he was a girl. Morgawse.”

  I certainly intended to mourn my husband as Morgawse mourned hers, but after the loss of Accolon I did not feel ready for another lover. Not right away. I thought of Morgawse and all her sons. But if she had had girls, they would have been sent away to be married at the same age or younger. Every child must leave its parent, and she still had Mordred. I did not even have the son I had, not really. He was always with his nurse, and he seemed happy and healthy enough. I wished that I had loved Ywain. I would have had something left, then.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next news that came to Rheged was from Nimue, but it was not a letter. I had been with the new steward of Rheged, who was a dull but efficient man of middle age, and some of the local Barons, giving my instructions for the spring. We needed to decide how many men we should prepare in case Arthur sent to Gore for men for his army to march against Lucius. These duties completed, I walked back to my room to find Nimue standing there when I opened the door.

  She did not speak, but reached out and took both my hands in hers. Instantly, I felt the room quaver around me, and a light-headedness pass through me. The room dissolved, and instead a high windswept cliff came into focus above me, and on it, towering over the rocky bay below, was the castle that had been my childhood home, Tintagel. It was black against the bright white cloud of the spring day, rising sharply up over us. I had not lived there since I was three or four years old, but I recognised it well. Why had Nimue brought me back to my father’s castle? It was Mark’s castle now. I hoped for a moment that she had brought me back to return my castle to me, but when I glanced at her, she was not looking at me.

  She was looking the other way, across the rocky bay, to the other side where a dark, deep cave led off into darkness. There was a big rock at the mouth of the cave, and I could see the figure of a man lying slumped on top of the rock. From where we were, I could not tell who it was. She turned to me, her pale blue eyes bright with a wild anger.

  “You need to see this, Morgan. You need to see how I deal with those who cross me, and who harm those under my protection.”

  I could feel the power coming off Nimue already, and she was as dark as Merlin. She must be deep in the Black Arts by now. So, Merlin had taken up her offer rather than mine. But, when I followed her closer, I saw that the man slumped on the rock was the young Merlin. He was breathing quickly, as though he was in pain, his eyes open but unfocussed and looking up at the sky. Nimue climbed nimbly up onto the rock to stand beside him. I hung back, wary.

  Nimue was talking to him, but I could not hear what she said. But, when she leant down over him, I saw him flash through his forms; the young man, the ugly bald man, an old man with a long grey beard, a child, the brown-haired girl, over and over again, as though he was trying to wriggle away from her magic by changing his shape. But there was nowhere for him to go. I felt a wave of dark power come from Nimue, and it turned my stomach. Then,
fast after, came a blinding flash of light. When I opened my eyes, Merlin was gone, but from deep, deep under the rock, I could hear him, screaming and screaming and screaming. Nimue, seemingly unfazed, jumped down off the rock beside me, and without a word, took me by both hands and the landscape melted around us.

  When my room rematerialized around me, I was on my own. I felt cold and sick and clammy. So Merlin had given all his secrets to Nimue, and now she meant to threaten me to protect Arthur. I supposed that meant that, at least, no child had died. But that night I dreamed dreams that were filled with blood.

  I thought it was best at least to behave as though Arthur had my support, and I wrote to him asking what I could do to help with his war with Lucius. He meant to march out soon. I suggested that he might need my help as a healer, and suggested that I might leave Ywain in the care of his Queen. I thought that if she had an infant child, then it would be suitable enough. I did not say so, though. I offered the help of Gore’s armies, and expressed all the sisterly affection I was able. It was easy to pretend.

  Arthur wrote back quickly, though I suspected that it was actually Nimue who penned the letter, since it was neatly written in fine script and I had seen Arthur squint and struggle over his books as a boy. The letter thanked me for my offer of help, and accepted it, but said that I could not leave Ywain in Camelot since Guinevere was riding out to war with him. Did that mean she had lost the child anyway? Or that Merlin had taken it? Had he begun whatever he had been planning?

  On the back of Arthur’s letter, Kay had scrawled three words: “Go to Benwick.”

  Benwick was the dead King Ban’s castle in the south of France. Lancelot would be there, and I was glad to go, but I suspected that Kay had suggested that because he wanted me far from Arthur. I ought not to have blamed him for his care for his foster-brother, but I did.

  I made the arrangements for my armies in Gore to ride with Arthur’s to Brittany, and left before them, alone, with only my books and the essentials I needed for my medicine and magic. The journey was long and tedious, and I hated travelling across the sea. It made me sick. I had never been to Benwick before, so I could not wish myself there, and I had forgotten how long and uncomfortable and tedious a ride across country could be. I was safe enough riding alone; my woaded face kept the robbers and rough men away.

  I was glad when, after a week of travelling, Benwick Castle emerged over the horizon. It was different from the castles that I knew in Britain. Not tall and sharp like Lothian Castle, or Rheged, or huge and grand like Camelot, Benwick was small and squat, round-towered but encased in a square wall that looked dangerously low after the sheer towers of Rheged. It had, at least, a moat around it, but it did not seem to me as well-built for siege as Britain’s castles were.

  The drawbridge was lowered for me as I arrived, so there must have been someone in the castle who knew who I was.

  It was Lancelot who had commanded I be let into the castle. I recognised him instantly, standing in the middle of the courtyard in his armour, his helm in his hand. If anything, he was yet more handsome than when I had seen him last. Warfare suited him, like it suited Arthur, though in a different way. It made Arthur hearty and bold where it made Lancelot watchful and thoughtful. He greeted me with a nod, and came forward to take my horse’s reins as I rode into the courtyard and slipped from my saddle.

  “Lady Morgan,” he greeted me softly, “Kay wrote to say I should expect you. Are you well?”

  “I’m well,” I answered.

  “Kay told me you lost your husband. I’m sorry.” He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, looking down. Why was he uncomfortable? I wondered how much Kay still wrote to Lancelot, how close they still were. I did not know what to say. I was not sorry at all, nor did I really know why Kay had told him. Of course, this meant that Kay had also told him that I had tried to kill Arthur. I didn’t care.

  I made some noncommittal noise to accept his sympathy and he led me up to the room he had for me. He talked on the way of the plans they had for the war, and he seemed far more comfortable talking business with me.

  “You have come at the right time, Morgan. In less than a week we will ride north to meet Arthur when he arrives at Calais.”

  I was glad when he left me alone in my room. It was small and plain, but I did not mind. It was a welcome change from a room seeped in memories. But nonetheless, when I slept I dreamed strange dreams. I dreamed that I lay in my bed in Rheged, and a hand drew back the bed curtains, but it was not Accolon, it was Lancelot, and he took me in his arms and we had the same desperately tender love we had had in my dream long ago, and I woke still warm with it, with the feel of his kiss against my lips tingling around me, like the kiss of a ghost.

  I dressed in the black jewelled dress, and the crown of Gore. It was best to look as powerful as I was. Lancelot came in the morning to bring me to his counsel. When he came, the memory of the dream was still close about me, and I felt nervous. He seemed distracted with thoughts of war and he rushed ahead of me to the small room where he met with the others who commanded his army under him. The others were already there, and among them I recognised Ector’s brother, Bors. He bore little resemblance to Ector, or to Lancelot with whom he shared only a father, being stocky and short with sandy-brown hair and an angry, square face. I wondered what he made of being under the command of his younger half-brother, but Lancelot had a quiet authority and I had never known a man question him. When Bors saw me, he started back.

  “Lancelot, you are not bringing a witch to counsel, are you?” he asked.

  Lancelot looked innocently between us, and his brow crinkled slightly in confusion.

  “You’re not afraid of her, are you Bors?” he asked.

  Bors blustered back, shaking his head, upset at having been accused of being afraid of anything.

  “Morgan is wise from her time in Avalon, and she has the knowledge of healing. She will be very helpful to us,” Lancelot explained.

  He turned and gave me an encouraging smile, and I felt my stomach flutter slightly. I felt angry with myself for being vulnerable to my desire for Lancelot. I was not a shy little virgin anymore, a simple country girl to be flustered by the attention of handsome men. I ought not to be pleased to have a smile from him. He had been rude to me. I was a grown woman, brave and powerful. I knew the Black Arts and I had killed a man. I would not be made weak but one knight who had kissed me in the forest.

  It was only two days later when the army began its march north. It was a short march, and Arthur had not yet come, so Lancelot’s army set up its pavilions to wait for him, on the borders of the land Lucius had taken. I stayed mostly with the camp, with the local women who followed behind either to heal with what limited magic and knowledge they had, or to give their comfort to the knights any other way they pleased. I knew what war was like, and I was not surprised to see men I knew as honourable knights take the peasant women that followed the camp as they chose, but I was pleased that Lancelot was not among those that did so. The camp grew as the men set up pavilions in preparation for Arthur’s arrival – one in white and blue-green with Uther’s woad-blue dragon flying from the top of it for Arthur, and one in Lothian’s dark blue for the sons of Lot, and others, more and more besides to await the arrival of the rest of the army.

  Injuries were few whilst we were waiting, and I had little work. I avoided Lancelot. I felt a little lonely, a little lost among all the men. At least people either respected me – the blue of my face, my knowledge of healing – or they were afraid.

  When Arthur’s army came, there was great celebration and feasting, though there were fewer of them than I had expected. I had dreaded their coming, for that was when the war would begin in earnest. They were young men, still, only tested in the small wars of Britain. Arthur and his men were about to throw themselves against Europe’s mightiest force, Rome. I was not sure we would survive it, but it was either that or sit in our castles in Britain and wait for Lucius and the armies of Rome to come and crush us
.

  Arthur had, at least, brought healing women with him. There were a couple from Avalon, but they were before their woad and I only knew they were from Avalon from overhearing them talk. Among them, too, were the two Breton women who had come over with Guinevere. I wondered how much healing they truly knew. I joined the healing women, glad for female company. The two Breton women kept mostly to themselves, I noticed.

  Then the first battle came. We stood in the centre of the camp, the other healing women and I, waiting for when the first injured man would come. I had put away my crown and my jewelled dress, and had returned instead to plain black wool. I did not want to speak to Kay, or Arthur, and I was happy to stay innocuous. A few of the women chattered, but most of us were quiet and tense. We could not see the battlefield from where we were, only the crowd of pavilions and the short, scrubby grass around them. There was something vulnerable about the pavilions made in rich silk. Beautiful, but strangely unwarlike. When Arthur had fought with Lot, the men had slept wild, in the dirt, in the forest, in caves. Already, Britain and France were powerful enough and rich enough to wage war in luxury. There was something perverse about it.

  Only a few injured men came, and I was glad. Everyone returning seemed pleased, flushed with victory. I did not rush forward to any of the injured men, since there were plenty of us, and no one I recognised was injured. Instead, I wandered through the camp towards the dark blue tent that would house Lot’s sons. It was right by Arthur’s, and I did not want to run into him or Kay, but I wanted to see my nephews.

  I was pleased to see Gawain, Aggravain and Gaheris standing outside their pavilion. They all greeted me warmly, but Gawain made a quick excuse to leave. It seemed that he was commanding a wing of Arthur’s army. I imagined Aggravain would be jealous; his twin brother had won Arthur’s favour fighting at his side in the war with the five kings, and he had been left behind.