MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy

by Lavinia Collins

  But I was forced from my dream by the feel of Uriens’ rough hands on me. Still slow with sleep, with the dream, still hot and full of longing, I tried to push him off me, but my mind was hazy still, and my limbs heavy. He did not move. I felt him force his hand up between my legs. He felt my desire there and could not believe that it was not for him. I kicked at him, and I opened my mouth to shout, but he clamped his hand over it before I could get the noise out, covering my nose as well so that the strength left me with my breath. He rolled on to me and, pushing up my nightdress, went hard inside me. I screamed against his hand, but it ate up the sound, and I had already lost the fight. It did not hurt the same as it had before, but I hated the feeling of his heavy body squashing down on top of me, his unkind grip over my mouth, and the other hand wrapped around my wrist. I would see the marks of his fingers against the white and blue of my skin tomorrow. The woad would hide them, but I doubted I would get any sympathy from anyone anyway. A wife’s duty. I felt sick. Thankfully, it was over fast, and he rolled away into the darkness. I felt the hot tears of my powerlessness prick at the back of my eyes, and I held them back.

  When I was sure that Uriens was asleep, I slipped from the bed, smoothing my nightdress down and wrapping a cloak around my shoulders. I had not been wrong to hope that Morgawse would be in her old room. I could see a light from under the door, and I opened the door without knocking. Morgawse was sat, fully dressed still, even wearing her crown, cross-legged on her bed. She had the little boy Mordred on her knee and was fussing his fine strands of golden hair while he giggled and kicked his feet in delight, but when she saw me come through the door in my nightdress she slipped from the bed and set him in a wooden crib. She walked over to me, took my hand, led me into the room just enough to shut the door and bolt it behind us. She gently pushed the loose hair back from around my face and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Marriage as you described,” I whispered, and as I said the word, and acknowledged the depths of my unhappiness to my sister, it broke in me, and I could not hold the tears back. Morgawse held me against her, and hushed me gently. I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face in her hair, which smelled of wood-smoke and spices as somehow it always had. When I felt calmer, I pushed gently back up off her shoulder. “I thought he would not try to… hurt me in Camelot. I thought he would be ashamed to in a castle full of people.” I shook my head, fighting back the tears again. Morgawse took off her crown, shushed me again and, taking both of my hands, led me towards the bed where we lay down together side by side. I closed my eyes. We could have been girls again.

  Morgawse did not put out the candles, but they guttered out as we fell asleep. When I woke in the morning I did not remember where I was for a moment, but I did know that I had slept beside Morgawse, and I woke feeling safe. It was only when I was fully awake that my mind flashed back to Uriens with his hand over my mouth.

  I did not have to wonder long why Morgawse had not come out to greet me the night before. She woke before me, when she heard the first little murmurings of wakefulness from Mordred. She was already dressed in a different dress, as rich as the one she had worn before, a deep plum purple and edged with fine white fur around the neck and sleeves. She looked beautiful, still, after everything; far more beautiful than I would ever be, despite the fact that she was seven years older than I.

  She smiled when she saw me awake.

  “Morgan, you’re awake. When I woke up this morning and saw you there, it made me think of when we were girls.” She shook her head with a gentle smile of disbelief, shifting the weight of the little child in her arms. “So much has changed, eh?”

  I climbed out of the bed and wrapped my cloak around myself. I would have to go back downstairs, to Uriens, to get my dress. Morgawse set the child down on the bed when I got out, and turned to me, crossing her arms in a gesture of anger and frustration.

  “Do you know Arthur is refusing to see me?” she said. I shook my head.

  “I don’t know why he is angry with me,” Morgawse raged. “I ought to be angry. My sons were born princes, and now they’re just his knights; he won’t acknowledge his son, and he refuses to talk about it, like he thinks I did it to him!”

  She seemed to have, strangely, forgotten the worst; that Arthur had tried to have their son killed. The little boy sat on the bed staring at his mother, quiet and still, but his eyes following her attentively. Under the bright lick of fine gold hair on his head, he had a curiously serious face for a child that did not seem to come from either of his parents. Absently, Morgawse walked over to the bed and picked him up in her arms again. He grabbed hold of her long, thick hair and rested his head against her breast, closing his eyes. She stroked his head gently. I saw the look of love she gave him, and the deep happiness she got from even this cursed, ill-fated child, and I felt the raw stab of jealousy.

  “He is a strong boy. Any other father would have been proud.”

  “Do you tell him,” I asked warily, “who his father is?”

  Morgawse looked up at me, in disbelief. “Of course! Well, it hardly did his father any good not knowing who his parents were, did it?” I supposed that she was right.

  “Should you have him here? Isn’t it dangerous?” I asked.

  Morgawse spoke gently, still gazing down at her child, but her words were harsh. “It is safe enough. I wrote to Arthur before we came saying that I was bringing him. I told him, if he ever tried to harm any of my sons again, I would let it be known throughout the whole land that it was he, not Merlin the witch, who played Herod to all the little boys in Lothian, and then he would have war on his hands again.”

  I was glad that she had found a way to be safe.

  There was a knock at the door. I gathered the cloak more tightly around myself as Morgawse walked over and opened it with one hand. But I didn’t need to; it was our mother. She kissed Morgawse on the cheek brusquely, casting her a look of disapproval as she came into the room and Morgawse closed the door behind her.

  “You brought the child with you, I see,” she said, her tone thick with distaste.

  “Yes, mother, I brought my child with me. I had to, because I was afraid that his father would try to have him killed again.”

  Mother ignored her, and came over to kiss me on both cheeks and take my face in her hands.

  “Little Morgan.” Her kind eyes crinkled into a smile. “Not little Morgan any more, but a wife and a mother.” She kissed me on the forehead. “It suits you well.”

  I did not think it suited me at all. Then my mother’s face turned to confusion as she looked at me properly.

  “Morgan, why are you here so early? Why are you in your bedclothes?” She asked, her tone halfway between concern and reprimand.

  I opened my mouth, unsure of whether to tell her the truth or not. Morgawse stepped in for me.

  “She slept here last night,” Morgawse told her, firmly, striding over to stand beside us, Mordred still in her arms. He seemed to be sleeping.

  “Why?” Mother asked softly. I glanced at Morgawse. She was as unsure as I was. I did not think I could bear a speech about duty.

  “Uriens has been hurting her. Look.” Morgawse grabbed my wrist with her free hand, holding it up in front of our mother’s face. I had not thought she had noticed the blue-black marks of his fingers through the woad, but she had, and I was grateful. I did not know why I was surprised; she had felt them herself.

  My mother sighed heavily and gently took my wrist from Morgawse. She laid her fingertips against the marks lightly, as though trying to soothe it better.

  “Men can be rough. Perhaps I was wrong to send you to the abbey. Marriage must have been a shock for you. Just,” she sighed again and drew me into an embrace, pressing a kiss to the top of my head as though I were a child, “Try to do what he wants. Marriage does take some getting used to. And don’t listen to your sister too much. She frightened you about it, didn’t she?”

  “I told her the truth,” Morgawse shouted. Mordre
d woke in her arms, and began to scream.

  “Oh!” My mother said, suddenly moving me back from her, holding me by the shoulders. It was as though she thought the matter entirely dealt with. “I forgot – I came to tell you that Arthur and his knights are meeting the new Queen at Dover today, and the wedding will be tomorrow.”

  I nodded. I didn’t care.

  “At Dover?” Morgawse asked as she shushed Mordred quiet again, seemingly utterly distracted by this news as my mother was. “So it’s a foreign princess. Isolde?”

  My mother shook her head.

  “He didn’t want Isolde. She seemed like a lovely girl to me, but Arthur didn’t take to her. She was Merlin’s choice.” My mother made a little noise of disapproval in her throat. I was not sure if she disapproved of Merlin, or of Arthur ignoring his advice. “Anyway, we should make ourselves ready to welcome this new Queen. Now,” she turned to me and took my hand, “you had better go back to your own room, Morgan. To your husband.”

  I cast a plaintive look at Morgawse, but I went willingly with Mother. When I reached my room, I was relieved to find that Uriens was gone.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  There were serving women waiting there for me, and though I did not like being fussed by them, I was grateful for the warm bath they brought, and grateful to close my eyes and feel my hair being brushed. I dressed in one of my mother’s old dresses that she had given me at my wedding, a simple grey and silver brocade dress, and pulled my woollen cloak on top.

  I found Merlin where I sought him. He had a room in the same tower as Arthur’s bedroom. It was dark and smoky, and I was sure he kept it stuffed with bizarre herbs and animal parts in jars in order to scare people. Nothing he had in that room looked particularly useful or felt particularly powerful to me. On my way up the stairs, when I was sure no one was around, I closed my eyes and imagined myself as Nimue. I had done it once before, so it came easily, and I felt my limbs change, grow smaller and lighter, and my shape become hers. I wondered if Merlin would be fooled.

  I pushed the door open, and for a moment he was, but then a smug smile gathered on his face.

  “Ah, Morgan. Have you come to reconsider my offer?”

  I strode into the room and jumped up to sit on the table, resting my feet on the chair beneath me. I did not bother to allow my shape to change back.

  “Why didn’t Arthur marry the woman you suggested?” I asked. My boldness sounded strange in Nimue’s soft voice. I wanted to distract him so that I could look at the spines of his books, see if there was anything I knew I could not get anywhere else.

  Merlin scoffed and shook his head. “Your Seneschal lover told him that Isolde is a simpleton. It is the truth, but simpletons make good wives. The woman he has chosen instead is Leodegrance’s daughter. Many of the Bretons are still pagans, and the princess grew up without a mother’s guidance. The girl is half-wild.” He shook his head again. “He has insisted upon her because I told him that she has the blood of the witch-queen Maev of Cruachan in her veins. That was meant to dissuade him. Queen Maev cursed two of her husbands with her blood, and with one of them she took as her lover his finest knight. He seemed to think I was recommending the girl because of it. His god has cursed him for that bastard child he got on his sister. I have seen it. I warned him of his bad destiny. I warned him that the child would bring his death, but he has got this idea in his head that this princess of Leodegrance’s will give him an Otherworld child that will protect him from his god. It’s ridiculous. Destiny cannot be escaped. But he has set his heart on her, and where a man sets his heart he will not be dissuaded.” Merlin said this last sentence in a funny little voice, as though he were trying to imitate Arthur.

  I saw something on the bookshelf that caught my eye. A thin leather book with macrobius printed along the spine. It was too thin to be either of the volumes I knew about. It must be the third volume, where Macrobius described how to change things other than oneself.

  I pointed to it.

  “Is that the Theory of Dreams?” I asked. Merlin gave his skull-like grin.

  “I hoped you would notice that. I am open to an offer of a fair exchange, Morgan.”

  “I did not think that was the Theory of Dreams.” I climbed down from the table, still in Nimue’s shape. I crossed my arms. “You will not have the sword.”

  “Ah, Morgan.” He pressed his lips together in disappointment. “Then you shall not have the book.”

  I leaned closer to hiss at him, “That is what you said to me last time.”

  And then I left. When I was on the empty stairs, I allowed Nimue’s shape to slip from me and became myself again. I had got information from Merlin, and I had seen his books. I knew what he had, and I had nothing with me in Camelot that he could steal in return that was worth anything near as much to me as that book.

  I spent the night before Arthur’s wedding in Morgawse’s bedroom again. I did not think our mother would come back. Like Arthur, she spent her time pretending that Mordred did not exist, and so avoided seeing him at all costs. The day of Arthur’s marriage, Morgawse and I got ready together, as though we were girls again. I sent the serving women to get my jewelled dress from my room, and Morgawse plaited my hair. She still wore hers as my mother did, according to the Cornish fashion, drawn back simply at the front, and loose at the back. I would not have been allowed loose hair in the abbey, and I had grown used to the fashions of Logrys now, so much so that I felt naked when my hair was not neatly plaited away.

  I made an excuse not to go down to the wedding in the chapel. I wanted a moment on my own, in my own room, without being afraid that Uriens would come in. I had not actually seen him since I had left in the night. I was sure he would be angry. I waited in Morgawse’s room until I heard the noise in the courtyard fall quiet. I wondered what the Breton princess was like. I thought of the Breton queen that I had failed to save at Rheged. She must be this girl’s mother, but she had talked about her like she was a child, and the princess Arthur had chosen was of roughly his own age. Did mothers always see their daughters as little children? I supposed Morgawse still saw her huge sons as children. My mother still called me little Morgan. Did this princess even know that Arthur had killed her brothers and had her mother executed? Oh, I doubted that anyone would tell her. I wondered if she was afraid. What if she had come over without a word of English to be given into the hands of the man who had killed almost all of her family? If she was like her mother, she would be proud and defiant. I wondered if it was better to be that way, or to be simple and compliant. Simpletons make good wives.

  When I got down to my room, I at first thought I was alone, and was relieved. I walked in and shut the door, but as I went to sit in the window seat, Uriens stepped out from behind the bed where the bed curtains had hidden him.

  “Been hiding from me, Morgan?” he accused, striding over to me. I ran a few steps back from him.

  “Don’t touch me,” I half-shouted.

  “Morgan,” he sighed, rubbing his face. “I don’t do anything to you that I... shouldn’t. I have been a good husband to you. I do not beat you. I have not told anyone that you were not a virgin when we married, or tried to shame you. I do not keep other women indiscriminately, or take whores. I have let you have your freedom, to write to whom you please, to move about the castle, to control some of the gold at my disposal, to organise your part of household. I have been good to you. You have to try. Do you think this is what I want? That I find it easy? I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I don’t like your pagan woad, and we do not have any real affection for one another, but I have made efforts in my duty, and you have made none. We would both be a lot happier if you accepted that this is what marriage is. This is what married men and women do.”

  I could not even speak. I was too angry. The way he was with me was awful. I could feel his disgust, his stolid duty, and I didn’t want it. I thought we would have both been happier if we agreed instead to live separate lives.

  “Ur
iens, you force me. You put your hand over my mouth. That isn’t kind.” I gave one, desperate attempt to explain to him that what he was doing was not reasonable for a husband to do. I was as much his property as a dog might be, but people still spoke with disapproval of men who kicked their dogs, or beat them. He should not have been violent with me.

  “I have to. Do you think I want other people to hear your screaming? It is not my fault that you do not enjoy it.”

  “Yes it is,” I shouted.

  “All of the other women I have had have enjoyed it,” Uriens said, crossing his arms in front of him.

  And all of the other men I have had, I have enjoyed, I thought. I did not say it. I did not want him to hit me or call me a whore again. I drew myself back, against the door.

  “I hate you,” I said, very softly. Uriens shrugged.

  “How you feel is of no importance in the matter,” he answered.

  I ran back up to Morgawse’s room and locked the door. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. The room seemed oddly quiet without the little burbling of the infant Mordred, but I was grateful for the peace. Uriens did not come looking for me, or if he did, he could not find me. No one tried the door until Morgawse came back from the chapel. When she rattled the handle and found it did not move, she knew it was me, and called out for me to let her in. I opened the door to see that she had all her sons with her, and the whole lot of them rushed into the room. They were all dressed alike in Lothian’s dark blue, and on the surcoats of Gawain and Aggravain were sewn Lot’s two-headed gryphon in gold thread. Morgawse herself was gorgeous as usual in a dress of dark orange embroidered in lovely patterns with gold that shone like her red-gold hair, and she had a necklace of amber beads around her neck, resting against her pale breasts where they swelled at the neck of her dress. She put Mordred tenderly in his crib and, placing a kiss on his head, came over to take me by the hand. There was a slightly sad look in her eyes as she squeezed my hand.