“Arthur has a wife now,” she said.
I nodded. I supposed that he was the only man who had treated her kindly, at least for a time.
“Is she beautiful?” I asked, idly.
Morgawse shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. She’s covered in jewels. Mother’s old jewels. He must have sent them to her.”
“I think she is quite beautiful,” Gaheris, who was just coming of an age where he might notice such things, said. “Her hair is very lovely. Red.”
“You didn’t see it.” Gawain beside him groaned, clearly overcome at the memory of his sight of the Queen. “When we met her at Dover, she had it loose. She looked like a savage, like a barbarian, but I couldn’t stop staring at that hair. There is so much of it. I wanted to just grab a handful and –”
Morgawse gave a little scolding cough, and Gawain gave her a sharp look, but he did change his tack.
“Well, she is a fitting Queen for Arthur, who is the finest King this land will ever know,” Gawain said.
It seemed a strange statement for a seventeen year old boy to make, but no one disagreed with him. I was not sure I agreed, but then I could not think of any kings I knew of who I thought had been particularly fine. From the sound of it, they were all brutes.
Aggravain made a low, derisive noise. “It’s a mistake for a king to have a wife that other men covet. But she is not so beautiful. She looks somewhat ordinary to me.”
“Aggravain, you did not see her hair,” Gawain insisted.
It seemed as though no one but Gawain was sure of quite what to make of her.
They milled around me, getting ready for the feast. Morgawse took Gareth and Mordred off to the bedroom that Gareth and Gaheris slept in, and I heard her instructing Gareth to watch his little brother carefully while she and the eldest three were gone. I had heard that Gaheris had just pledged into Arthur’s knights as well. Morgawse was running low on sons to keep her company now that she was a widow in Lothian Castle.
When Morgawse returned, she checked the clothing of her three eldest sons and kissed them all on the cheek. We were ready to go. Even though Gawain and Aggravain towered over her, she still treated them like boys. Morgawse would never tell anyone who was the older of Gawain and Aggravain. She had told me that she feared the younger one would feel cheated of his birthright, and by refusing to tell she had made it so the twins shared Lothian Castle and its armies between them. I followed them out, through the courtyard, and to the great hall, where I could hear that the feast had begun already.
Chapter Twenty Nine
When I saw the girl that Arthur had married, I felt a shock go through me. She was the woman in my dream. The same deep red hair and white face; the same small, angry red mouth twisted into a little tense knot that was still, somehow, unbearably beautiful. I did not think she would have looked so beautiful were she not so angry. It gave what might otherwise have been a placid face a kind of power. I could not tear my eyes from her. It seemed, as I had hoped, that she was angry and defiant as her mother had been. It did not, however, bode well for Arthur. I wondered why he had set his heart so firmly on her, until, when I came up to the table after my mother to greet Arthur with a kiss on the cheek, I felt the unmistakable feel of the Otherworld all about her. It was not how I had felt it before, though – not with the ladies of Avalon, or Kay. This was an Otherworld foreign in its quality to me. Something about it felt ancient, and portentous. I remembered, suddenly, what Merlin had said to Arthur about the witch-queen Maev. I didn’t entirely believe it, but there was some powerful destiny hanging about this strange, angry girl. She was in my dream. I would one day stand with her on the shores of Avalon, with Excalibur between us. We were all tangled together, all of us, around her, around Arthur, around the sword Excalibur. This was the beginning of it all.
Uriens was already sitting in the seat beside the one meant for me, and I ignored him as I sat down. Morgawse was right behind me, and Arthur greeted her awkwardly. He did not want her there. He would not kiss her on the cheek. When she came to sit by my side, she leaned down and hissed in my ear.
“I don’t fancy Arthur’s luck tonight.” Her eyes were on the new Queen. No, I did not either.
I kept my eyes on her, and on Arthur. I could hear her speaking to my mother. She was definitely Breton; I could hear it in the rich tones of her accent when she spoke – thick, though her English was good. So, it was as I had suspected, and this girl, who had been meant for a simple life of happy marriage in her home country, in the wishes of her mother, had been summoned by Arthur across the sea to be his wife and protect him from his bad destiny. I wondered if she even knew how it was Arthur himself who had slain her brothers in battle.
Her Breton accent was pretty enough; the English words sounded richer and crisper on her tongue than they did on native speakers’. Her English was very good, and she seemed very comfortable speaking it. I supposed that was a mercy since I knew that Arthur did not speak a word of Breton. She looked uncomfortable, still, though I could see my mother was trying to be kind. I noticed, too, that she drank a lot of wine, until a red flush came high on her cheeks. Perhaps Arthur would be luckier than Morgawse thought. As the evening wore on, and she became flushed and bright with anger and wine, she was all the more enrapturing. Half the men’s eyes around the table were on her.
My gaze fell on Arthur. I had seen him look with desire before, as I had seen him look on our own sister, but the look he cast on his new bride was something else entirely. He looked at her as though there were nothing else in the room. Surely a dangerous way for a king to look on any woman, I thought. Especially one who was yet, it seemed to me, to look on him at all.
Arthur left the feast early with his new wife, to the cheering of his men, especially Gawain. Gawain’s eyes followed Arthur and the Queen out of the room. He was the least able of the men around that table to hide the fact that they were all picturing themselves leading the new Queen to their own bedroom. I thought uncomfortably of Gawain’s wish for a fistful of her hair.
“To Arthur the conqueror,” Gawain cheered, raising his cup. The men cheered lewdly and smashed their cups together, except Kay, whose eyes I felt on me. He had not been sat far from her. He must have felt the Otherworld, too. When I caught his eye, he stood from his seat to come and stand behind Morgawse and me. He gave a sly smile.
“What do you think of our new Queen?” he asked, archly. He had obviously drunk enough that he had forgotten to be nervous and awkward around me.
Morgawse, beside me, shrugged, and the wine that filled her cup sloshed out the side a little. With my eyes on the Queen’s cup, I had not noticed that my own sister’s cup had been filled and emptied many times, too. I supposed that this could not have been easy for her.
“She seems angry,” Morgawse said, slurring slightly.
I turned over my shoulder to look up at Kay. He was gazing off where Arthur had gone. I had hoped to find him sharp and alert as always, but either he was drunk or even he as well was picturing himself with his brother’s new wife.
“And well she might be,” Kay answered, thoughtfully. “When we picked her up at Dover yesterday, Arthur was with us, but he didn’t reveal himself to her. He told me it was because he wanted to be sure she had Queen Maev’s Otherworld blood in her. I think he just wanted to check she wasn’t ugly. Well... I think she’s even more lovely than Arthur hoped. Beautiful.” Kay’s tone was odd, worried. Morgawse, beside me, hiccupped. Kay put a gentle hand on the top of her head, a gesture of comfort.
“Poor Gawse,” he said, softly, and she turned to give him a bleary smile.
Uriens beside me, whom I had been doing my best to ignore all evening, leaned over to join the conversation. He stank of ale and I could see from the lack of focus in his ugly, dull old eyes that he was drunk as the rest of them. I hoped he would continue drinking, and be too drunk to stop me slipping away to sleep side by side with Morgawse.
“You know, they say that red-headed women like her,” he jab
bed his finger clumsily off after where Arthur had gone, “and your sister Morgawse here…” He jabbed his finger in her direction, narrowly missing catching me in the face. “They say that red-headed women love to be fucked by a man.”
“Be quiet, Uriens,” I hissed at him. People were looking already, but he carried on, droning with all the loud, drunk crassness he could muster.
“I bet that Breton girl squirms like an eel when Arthur fucks her tonight. Oh, of course she looks angry, but it’s the angry ones that want it, really. Except Morgan, of course. You’re always angry, aren’t you? And you never want to be fucked. Funny, isn’t it, how the King fucks all the best women, and leaves me with you? You’re hard and dry as an old twig, aren’t you Morgan?” I refused to look at him, gazing off across the table at my mother whose face was turned away, and who was making polite conversation with Ector beside her, but who I could tell was listening. She should have come over and silenced Uriens. She was still a queen. Uriens had leaned across me to leer at Morgawse now. “All you red women love the feel of a man, don’t you?”
Beside his mother, Gawain banged his fist on the table and made to stand; the only thing stilling him was his brother Aggravain’s hand on his arm. I was sorry for it. I had hoped that Gawain would strike Uriens. Gawain was strong enough to kill him, I thought, with a well-judged single blow to the head. I would have been grateful for that.
Aggravain spoke, low and threatening, not lifting his hand from his brother’s arm, and the harsh, cold sound of his voice seemed to sober Uriens a little. “Be careful what you say, Uriens. Our mother is your sister by marriage now, so any shame you say to her is shame upon yourself. Besides, do not think because our father is dead that Lothian has lost its strength, and will not crush those who dishonour Lot’s blood. You are drunk, sir, and have been foolish. But remember this: the next time you insult the sons of Lot or our lady mother – who is Queen of a realm ten times the strength of yours in arms – will be the last time.”
Uriens reeled back in his seat, flushed with ale and impotent rage. I supposed that he had barely noticed Aggravain until then. Morgawse, happily, was too drunk to have paid the whole argument any attention, and simply sat leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed and a slack smile on her face as she rested her head against Kay’s hand. He lightly rubbed her hair, as though he were scratching a little cat. She murmured happily against it.
“Still,” Uriens began again, bracing himself against the edge of the table and blinking hard as though trying to steady himself, “I know what women like her...” It was unclear which of the several women he had been variously insulting he was talking about. “I know what women like her like. What they all want.”
I glanced up at Kay, and saw the annoyance tightening across his face, dragging him away from whatever thoughts had held him distant and staring off after his foster-brother.
“You don’t know what women like as well as you think you know, Uriens,” he snapped, and there was a new note of deliberate cruelty in his voice that I had not heard before. “Just go to bed.”
Uriens stood to his feet, pushing his chair back and squaring up to Kay. Neither of them had spoken to each other, or even, it seemed, acknowledged one another before, and Uriens was a little thrown off balance by Kay’s sudden familiarity, and insult. I hoped someone was going to hit Uriens tonight. As he stepped forward, Kay lifted up his hands, showing his palms in a gesture of peace-making. “Uriens, just go to bed,” he said.
Uriens grabbed Kay by the front of his surcoat. “What would you know about what women like, eh? Don’t pretend you know anything about women. I know what people say about you. I’ve heard. So don’t pretend that you know what women like when every man and woman in this room knows that you’re a sodomite.”
Uriens did not see it coming. His eyes were on Kay’s right hand, over his own hand on Kay’s surcoat, prising his fingers away. But Kay was mirror-handed, another gift – he had told me once – from his Otherworld mother. Kay’s fist struck him out of nowhere, hard on the jaw, and he collapsed to the ground. Kay stared down at him, wincing and shaking out his hand.
“I probably should not have done that,” he said.
Aggravain shrugged. “I saw nothing,” he said, drinking from his cup again.
I turned around in my chair to peer down at Uriens, sprawled on the floor behind me.
“Is he dead?” I asked softly.
Kay prodded him with the toe of his boot, and shook his head. “He’s breathing. I didn’t hit him very hard.” Morgawse moaned and rubbed her face beside me. She was beginning to move from the pleasant oblivion of wine to suffering with it. Kay noticed, and sighed. “Can you get someone to take Uriens to his bed? I’ll take Morgawse.”
I nodded. Kay leaned down and wrapped his arm around Morgawse’s waist, pulling her up with him. She slumped against him, but looked happy again. If I could have done, I would have left Uriens lying on the floor. As it was, after he had finished his cup of wine, Aggravain offered to take him, and threw him over his shoulder. I was pleased that he would not be handled gently. He did not deserve it.
I lingered a while, thinking Kay might come back. I had had enough wine to feel daring, and for my anger at Kay to feel fuzzy and distant. I remembered the feel of his hands on my body, of his thick, soft hair between my fingers, and his mouth on mine, and I wanted to feel it again. It would be just a moment’s escape back into our childhood innocence. I supposed it was taking him a long time to drag Morgawse to her bed.
I didn’t want to go back to my room to lie down beside Uriens’ unconscious body. I walked to Morgawse’s room. I hoped that she would not be too sick from the wine for me to sleep beside her. I really, really did not want to have to sleep in my own bed with Uriens.
When I reached her room, I hung back, for Kay was still with her. Kay was trying to open the door with one hand while holding her up with the other. He must have been a little drunk, too, because he fumbled against the latch for a long time before the door swung open, and when it did he gave his low, soft laugh.
“Goodnight, Gawse,” he said, kissing her clumsily on the forehead.
“Come in with me,” Morgawse, who seemed a little recovered from the walk to her room, but not greatly, replied in tones of teasing pleading. She took hold of the front of Kay’s surcoat in both hands and pulled him towards her, and the open door.
“Morgawse,” Kay replied gently, trying to release her grip on his surcoat. “I don’t think that’s such a good –”
But Kay did not finish, for Morgawse leaned forward suddenly, and kissed him. I saw him reel back under it for a moment, as though he was going to pull away, but then he seemed to yield beneath it, wrapping his arms tight around her waist, and responding to her kiss. I wanted to shout out to stop them, but it was too late. Morgawse pulled Kay through the open doorway with her, and he reached out a hand behind himself to slam the door as they stumbled through. The sound of it seemed to resonate through me, sending an awful shock through my bones. Though I had a different lover now, it still felt like an awful betrayal. I was not sure which of them I was the more angry with. Kay. It was Kay. Morgawse did not know. But Morgawse knew why I did not want to sleep in my own bedroom. Now she was in there with Kay, I had nowhere to go.
I supposed there was one other woman in the castle who, that night, would have nowhere to hide from her husband. The Breton princess was far from her home, and tonight she would have to go to bed with her conqueror. The thought didn’t comfort me very much.
Chapter Thirty
I wandered down into the courtyard, cold without the cloak I had left in Morgawse’s room before the feast. It was a pleasant, clear night and, though I was feeling very tired, it was soothing to stand under the open sky and look up at the stars.
Across the courtyard, I saw Ector striding towards me.
“My Lady Morgan,” he called to me, and ran over the last few steps. I could see that he was worried. “Morgan, have you seen Kay?” he asked,
breathless.
Unsure of whether to lie for him – whether I needed to, or whether I wanted to – I decided on the safest truth.
“Last time I saw him he was taking Morgawse to her bedroom.”
Ector nodded, with understanding. He had been at the feast too, after all.
“He is supposed to be taking the first watch outside Arthur’s chamber. Just in case.” Were they afraid that the new Queen would try to kill Arthur? “He will have to take the second one, for I have set Percival at it now.” He shook his head. “Kay manages to disappear whenever I am looking for him. Oh.” His brow crinkled with concern. “Morgan, I am sorry about your husband,” he whispered very low. It was the first time anyone had said it, anyone but Morgawse had acknowledged that he was not a good husband and not a good man. I could have wept with relief, and with love for Ector, but I did not. I just wrapped my arms around him in a tight embrace.
I decided that I was not going to go and try to get Kay to his watch. I didn’t want to see him, and I wasn’t sure if I cared if Arthur’s new wife murdered him in his sleep. In the end I went to my mother’s room and crawled into bed beside her. I expected her to shoo me away and send me back to Uriens, but she did not. Nor did she ask me why I was not with Morgawse.
In the morning I went back to Morgawse’s room. I was glad that I did not run into Kay. I knew he had been drunk, but I did not think I could have kept myself from slapping him. When I got to Morgawse’s room, it was still before prime, and she still lay in bed, in her nightdress. Her hair, loose and wild, spread around her across the pillows and over her shoulders. She was smiling and there was a light flush on her pale cheeks. I had thought she would be sick from all the wine, but she just looked pleased with herself. Kay had left, but his surcoat lay forgotten in a heap beside Morgawse’s bed. He must have gone in a hurry.
MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy Page 25
