“Elaine, what languages do you speak?”
She shook her head, overwhelmed.
“Just English.”
I glanced at Accolon. He shook his head. I knew some French, but not much. I could hardly speak to her in Latin.
In my slow, childish French, I asked her, “Do you understand what I am saying to you?” She nodded, but she did not speak. “I will keep you safe. Just don’t try to run.” She nodded again. There was resistance in her eyes. She did not seem as though she would make a willing prisoner.
Elaine and I led her up to my room. I sent Elaine to fetch a bath. The woman watched me warily. She was measuring me up. She was tied, but I was heavily pregnant, and I could see she was strong. Her arms were bare – caked in blood and dirt, but bare – and I could see that she was leanly muscled. She was a woman who had grown up fighting. I suspected that she was Breton, perhaps even the queen that had come from Brittany with Leodegrance’s army, but I had no way of telling for sure. She didn’t have a crown, or a circlet, or any other mark of royalty on her.
Elaine came back with another serving girl, and Accolon and another of Uriens’ knights. Obviously, she had not felt safe leaving me alone with the woman, but I was not so sure. I could see that after she had noticed my pregnant belly, she had noticed my woaded face.
Elaine set the bath down before her. I waved my hand in the direction of the woman.
“Someone cut her bonds, then you men wait outside.”
Accolon stepped forward and cut the rope that bound her hands with his dagger. I noticed that he was gentle, careful not to cut her, or pull roughly on the bonds. There were men that would have relished a little chance of violence against an enemy woman. He glanced at me over his shoulder as he left, his look one of concern. Before I could scold her, Elaine slipped out with them. I rolled my eyes. The girl was insipid.
I crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned back against my table.
“You can get in the bath, if you like,” I told her, in my slow French. She did not move, but she did rub her wrists, bringing the blood back down to her hands. “Are you Breton?” I asked her.
She said nothing, just regarded me with a wary look. I sighed hard, shaking my head.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to help you.”
She pulled her armour off over her head. Underneath she had a thin, stained vest marked with sweat and dirt and blood. She was wounded. When she moved, I saw the cut, deep into the flesh of her upper arm. She showed no pain, but I was sure she felt it. She pulled off her chainmail leggings and stood before me defiantly in her stained vest and woollen leggings, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You are a witch,” she said, her own French as clumsy as mine. I nodded.
“I can give you something for your wound. For the pain. To stop sickness.” I pointed to her arm. She glanced down at it and shrugged, as though she barely felt it. But then, after a moment, she nodded. As I turned from her to go to my book, and my small collection of herbs, she pulled off her underclothes and stepped into the bath. I could hear the water splashing as she rubbed herself clean. When I had made the poultice for her wound – a simple enough mixture – and turned back, I saw she was gently washing the cut with the water from the bath, and wincing as she did. Her wrists were burned from the rope, and I could see the dark marks of bruises all over her arms. She had pulled her hair loose and soaked it in the bathwater. It glistened a dark auburn-red. She must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. As it was, she was a striking woman now in her middle age, her face angular and proud. She was tanned from the sun, and freckled lightly across the forehead, nose and shoulders.
I knelt down awkwardly beside her, slow with my huge belly. She let me pat her arm dry with the hem of my skirt, and then apply the poultice and wrap the bandage around it. She could not hide the pain of its stinging on her face.
“I am sorry. The sting is healing,” I told her, not sure if my French made sense. She nodded, though, as though she already knew.
I went to my cupboards and brought out for her a clean underdress and one of my old black woollen dresses. I laid them on the table, where she could see them, and left her alone.
When I came out of the door, Accolon and the other knight were still waiting there, and Arthur, Uriens, and Merlin were with them.
“Did she tell you anything?” Arthur asked, as soon as I was out of the door. I shook my head.
Arthur gestured that we should walk together. I glanced at Accolon as I followed them. Arthur led us in to the room beside mine. It was an empty bedroom, set with a simple bed, long unused and dusty. I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, exhausted already and uncomfortable from moving around with the child huge and near its time inside me. I sighed heavily as I sat down leaning back on my hands.
Arthur rubbed his face. “What are we going to do with her?”
Uriens shrugged. “Kill her. Unless you have another use for her.” The look he gave Arthur was narrow and accusatory, but Arthur wasn’t looking at him. He was shaking his head.
“No, no. That isn’t right. Can’t we bargain for peace with her?”
Merlin remained silent, watching the two men.
“Bargain for peace?” Uriens scoffed. “When we’re winning?”
“Peace is better than ever more war, Uriens,” Arthur snapped.
“Who is she?” I asked again.
Arthur shrugged, turning to me. I could see that he was trying to think of a way that meant he did not have to harm her. So eager to protect this woman he did not know, yet so eager to throw his own sister into suffering.
“We do not know,” Merlin cut in, his rasping, unpleasant voice slimy in its tone, “but we suspect that she is the Queen of Carhais, Melita of the Bretons.” I nodded. Merlin gave his skull-like grin, and I felt my stomach turn. I pressed a hand against my belly as I felt the child within move, as though in fear of Merlin. “We cannot learn her identity, for none of us speaks a language that she understands. Or, rather, none of us seems to speak a language that she understands. I might remind you all that since she was with Lot’s army, who receive their orders from Lot in English it is highly unlikely that her understanding is as limited as she pretends.”
Arthur shook his head again. “But this doesn’t help us decide what to do with her. Can we keep her here?” He turned to Uriens. Uriens shook his head.
“When there is hardly enough food for my own people? Feed one of the enemy? Leave her with my wife, when she is like that?” He gestured carelessly at me. “Imagine the harm she could do here unguarded, and I cannot spare the men to guard her.”
Arthur nodded reluctantly.
“Where is Kay?” I asked, suddenly. The words escaped me. To my surprise, Arthur turned to me, eager to answer my question, a bright smile spreading across his face.
“Kay was magnificent. He slew two of Lot’s ally kings in battle. That only leaves three of them against us, so we match them now. You should have seen him in the field. He is at Camelot now, holding it against the enemy.”
I was glad that Kay lived, but he was not forgiven.
“We have not solved our problem,” Uriens pointed out, impatiently.
They continued to argue back and forth, but I had stopped listening. Arthur wanted to keep her somewhere safe, Uriens wanted to execute her in front of the men. He thought it would be good for morale. I was only concerned with not letting either of them lay their hands on her before she met either fate. She was a brave, proud woman, and she did not deserve that kind of dishonour.
Slowly, I pushed myself back to my feet and excused myself to go back to my room, ignoring Merlin’s nasty, beady black eyes on me.
When I got back to my room, the woman had dressed in my underdress, but had torn the skirt off to wear it like her vest, and had put her woollen leggings back on, dirty though they were, and was buckling her armour back on. I did not blame her.
I sat slowly down into my chair. I felt safe enough with Accolon
and the other knight outside. She only eyed my pregnant belly as though she might try to run from me, anyway. Not as though she would try to hurt me. She was of the age that if she had children, they would be almost grown by now. I thought any woman who had known pregnancy and childbirth would never try to take another at the advantage in such a situation.
“Truly,” I asked her “you do not speak English? It would be easier for me.”
She shook her head.
“How did you understand messages from Lot?” I persisted.
“My sons. They knew English.” Knew. She looked up at me then, her eyes steady and cold. “I had three sons. Your King Arthur killed them all. The youngest was no older than you. He had a wife your age. When we left Carhais, she too was with a child inside.”
So, she was indeed Leodegrance’s Queen. Or at any rate, an important woman at his court. So, she looked at me and thought of the son she had lost, the grandchild she would probably never see. I remember Arthur’s talk of marrying Kay to the Princess of Carhais.
“You have a daughter?” I asked. She nodded. “Does she fight?”
The woman laughed then. I had not expected that. I sat back in my chair, and wrapped my hands around my belly. I could not help smiling in return.
“She wishes. She thinks she is a warrior. She is still a little girl. Already they all talk about marrying her to some prince or another. That nasty boy of Lot’s who rapes the girls who go with the camp. No, that is not for her.” The woman shook her head. “She will marry a boy from her home, and be happy. I have made sure.”
I felt a sudden rush of warmth for this woman. My mother loved me, I knew that, but as much as my mother saw me as her daughter she saw me as a princess with a duty, and with sacrifices to be made. This woman didn’t care about that. She just wanted her daughter to live happily. It seemed to me that there would be little chance of that. If all the girl’s brothers were dead, then whoever won this war would marry their son to her to get hold of Carhais. It was not rich, it had no treasures and its lands were small, but it had the Hundred Knights of Carhais, and that was enough for any king to covet. If I kept this woman alive, she might protect her daughter, might hide her from the men trying to snatch her up. I wondered if the girl would like Gawain, if it came to it. I wondered if Gawain would even survive.
I was not afraid to go to sleep with the woman in the room. I found her proud, quiet presence more calming than the fluttering Elaine. I heard her looking through my things. Perhaps she was looking for a weapon, but there was nothing for her to find.
Chapter Twenty Four
The next day they took her away from me. I think it made Uriens uneasy to leave me alone with her. I think he suspected that we plotted against him. I barely knew enough French to ask her if she was alright, to ask her to show me her wound again. I might have tried to conspire with her against him if I had known enough, if communication had been easy.
They came to take her away when I was wrapping a new bandage around her arm. Uriens with two of his knights, and Arthur lingering behind, looking uneasy. I suspected that Uriens and Merlin had talked him into it. Uriens stood before the woman as she turned her proud face up to stare him in the eye. Uriens took hold of her chin roughly. I could see her skin go white under the force of his grip. She showed no pain, no fear.
“It is death for you, my Lady,” he said in loud, slow English. She gazed back evenly. It seemed a painfully small gesture of kindness, in light of this, that I had tried to heal the wound in her arm.
“May your wife curse you,” she replied coldly, in her uneven French. It was for my benefit, for Uriens looked at her without understanding. However, I thought I saw Arthur’s attention catch. He must have learned some French, enough to understand what she said, in his short time as King. “A man without mercy deserves no mercy from the gods.”
Uriens, further angered by the language he did not understand, dragged her from the room. She did not look back at me, and I felt as though I had let her down, though I did not know what else I could have done. Arthur lingered behind as all the others left. I wished that he would leave as well. I wanted to be alone. He pushed the door gently shut.
“Morgan...” he began uneasily. I thought he was going to ask me to absolve him of that woman’s murder, but he would not have that from me. To my utter astonishment, he unbuckled Excalibur in its scabbard from around his waist, and held it out to me. “I must ask something of you. I need you to guard my sword in your safekeeping until I return for it. I am always afraid someone will steal it while I sleep, and the jewelled scabbard attracts too much attention on the battlefield. We’re sleeping in ditches, in the mud, in caves – I can’t have a sword like this with me. Even if one of the enemy did not try to steal it, we would have bandits on us in the wild lands around here. I will take an ordinary sword from Uriens’ armoury, but will you look after it for me? I know I can trust you with it.”
My heart raced, and I stepped forward for it. Was this really happening? Was Arthur really doing this? Was he testing me? Tricking me? I reached out a hand and laid it against the scabbard. A wonderful, overwhelming sense of belonging, the strength of the Otherworld, the deep connection between me and my sword, rushed through me and I could not contain a smile.
“I would be glad to, Arthur,” I breathed.
Was it to be so easy? Had the sword come back to me of its own will? Arthur pressed it into my hands, and I held it close to me, feeling its Otherworld strength fill me, feeling the lightness of its steel as I held it. I would have pressed the hilt to my lips if Arthur had not been there.
“Thank you, Morgan.” He leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. “I will be back for it when we have finally defeated Lot. We depart again today. I am sorry that guarding this prisoner has kept you from your husband the little time he has been back, but I shall return him to you soon.”
How little Arthur understood about marriage, and about me. He left, and I hid Excalibur, not beneath my bed where I had left it in Avalon, but at the back of my cupboard under my dresses. That had been safe enough before, with the book. Now all I had to do with the time I had was figure out a way to keep it for myself when he came to claim it back.
I lay in bed, my eyes closed, to listen to the crowd in the courtyard baying for blood as they executed the Breton Queen. I heard them roar with delight when they cut off her head, for I knew that was what they would have done. She was an enemy captured in battle. At least it was a warrior’s honourable death for her. I thought of her daughter, far away, who did not know she had lost her protector. That girl would be sold now, to whoever was the highest bidder.
When the noises of the crowd had died down I listened to the horses’ hooves as Arthur and Uriens and Merlin rode away again. I was glad that they were gone, and more glad than I could say that Arthur had left Excalibur behind with me. I know I can trust you with it. How little Arthur truly knew.
It was high summer when the child came. Uriens’ sister arrived to attend the birth, and only just in time. She was a squat, ugly woman, with the same craggy ill-tempered face as her brother, almost the very image of him, only shorter and fatter. Elaine stood hovering around the room, worrying out loud about anything and everything. I had drunk deeply of the potion for pain I had given Morgawse, and I lay back in its haze, letting them fuss over my body as I moved away from it.
Though I had prayed and prayed the child would be Kay’s, the boy came out sandy-haired and dull-eyed like his father. Unmistakable. I didn’t want to hold him. I remembered Morgawse’s rapturous joy at the sight of her son, and I looked at mine and felt nothing. I didn’t want to hold him and feel my own hollowness. I told myself it was the drink for the pain, but Morgawse had smiled still, and held her baby to her breast. I waved mine away, and groggily ordered them to send for a nurse for him, before I sank into a heavy sleep.
I didn’t leave my bed for a long time. I did not feel like getting up, and I did not want to see my son. Uriens, when the news reached him, c
ame back from the battlefield. They must have been winning easily, then. He was obviously happy for the boy to be nursed by someone else, for no one brought him to me, and I was glad of it. It felt like a betrayal by my own body, that it had chosen Uriens over Kay. My breasts grew heavy with milk, and sore, but it quickly passed as my body realised that I was not going to nurse my child. When a week or so had passed, and I felt like getting out of my bed, I made a drink from my book of medicines to make sure the milk stopped. I was sick of being sore, sick of being bored and powerless.
I sat at my desk and wrote to my sister, and Nimue. I asked Nimue to come as soon as possible with more of Merlin’s Black Arts knowledge. I called for a bath, and washed, and dressed in my black dress of gems. I plaited my hair carefully. Elaine fluttered around me, constantly trying to help, but I didn’t like being fussed. I wanted to just take care of myself.
When I was properly dressed, I went to find Uriens. I did not really want to speak to him, but I did want news of Arthur’s war. I wanted to know how long I had to work out how I could keep Excalibur for myself.
When I found him, he was in his bedroom, holding his son. Our son. No, when I looked at the boy, I could not picture him as my child. Though he had lived in my body, in his father’s arms he seemed unbearably distant. How had I been denied the comfort that Morgawse had found from her child? I supposed that Morgawse had wanted Arthur, before she knew he was her brother. But she loved her sons by Lot as well. Why was everything that was effortless for Morgawse denied to me?
Uriens looked up at me as I came in. He was dressed in his shirt and breeches, his arms around the little baby, whose small pink fist grasped one of his father’s fingers. His look was one of gentleness that I had not seen before, but he sat up and back a little in his chair as he took in how I was dressed, how I had come not to hold our child in my arms, but as his Queen.
“Morgan,” he began tentatively, “I am glad to see you up and well.”
MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy Page 21
