MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy

by Lavinia Collins

  So, this was what was to come. Mordred. That seemed the answer to everything. If I wanted to destroy Arthur, I only needed to bring his son to Camelot. I did not know how I would get Morgawse to part with him, but I knew that it had to be done, and I knew – because I had seen it – that it could be done. For the first time in a long long time, in too long, I wrote to Morgawse.

  It was only after, when I lay awake in my bed, that I realised that I had not dreamed at all of Galahad.

  Part III

  The Fall of Camelot

  For Newts, who surprised me.

  And then Queen Morgan said, “Ah, my dear brother! Why have you tarried so long from me?”

  Malory, Le Morte Darthur

  Chapter Forty Eight

  It was time for me to act. I felt strong. I felt ready to begin again on the path to vengeance that I had given up. I had lost everything that might make me vulnerable; Nimue had taken my beloved son, my lover was long dead. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and I coveted revenge against Arthur most of all. Lancelot and Guinevere had begun – or were about to begin – in earnest the love-affair I had almost thwarted. I wrote to Arthur, saying as much, though I did not expect he would believe me. Still, it was worth planting the little seed of jealousy, and letting it grow.

  Morgawse answered my letter quickly, and I moved to join her in Lothian before the snows came. I knew that my revenge had to begin with Mordred, her son and Arthur’s shame.

  As I travelled back up towards Lothian, feeling the cold gather closer around me with every mile north, I could not help thinking of the journey I had made with Morgawse to Lothian all those years ago, when I had been not much more than a girl, and she pregnant with Mordred. I had left Kay behind, thinking that nothing would have changed when I saw him again, but he had brought me back only to offer me to Arthur, for him to sell. Lancelot, too, had begun what had ended with Galahad then, kissing me in the forest, only to deny anything he might have felt for me. That was so long ago. I had been a child. I had not even imagined that Lot, in his anger at Morgawse, would try to harm me as he had. I knew that men did such things, but men like that seemed distant, far away. The adult world of brutality had been something I had only heard of from others. I knew it well enough, now.

  I rode into Lothian Castle with the crown of Gore on my head. I was dressed in thick grey furs and a pale grey and silver silk dress that had belonged to our mother – some of the clothes she had given me when I was married – and I felt pleased in the knowledge of how powerful I looked, how rich, how like a queen. Morgawse, running across the courtyard to greet me with her usual disregard for proper courtesies, laughed when she saw me.

  “Morgan, I thought it was mother back from the dead to scold me, until I saw your woad.”

  I slipped from my horse and kissed her on both cheeks. I did not realise how much I had missed her until I saw her again. The years had treated her well, and she looked beautiful still.

  “Morgan,” she kissed me one more time on the cheek, her tone lightly scolding, “it has been too long since you came. I would have come to you, but you know I cannot leave my son.”

  “Where is he?” I asked. Morgawse wrinkled her nose in motherly annoyance.

  “He’s out with his knights.”

  “His knights?” Surely, they were hers, or at the very least Gawain and Aggravain’s. How old was Mordred now? I thought he must, surely, have still been a child. Twelve years old, perhaps.

  Morgawse sighed and shook her head. “You’ll understand when you see him.”

  I supposed that I would.

  “What’s he like now?” I asked, out of idle, auntish interest as I followed Morgawse up.

  She waved a hand in response. “He’s... high-spirited,” was all she would say. I remembered Arthur at that age, grown to the height of a man, though he had grown taller still, and strong. Boyish and playful. I supposed Arthur could have been called high-spirited. The Mordred I had seen in my dreams had not seemed that way at all.

  She showed me into the room she had had prepared for me. I was pleased to see that she had done it carefully, with a space for me to read and – though richer than I liked – it was less full of silks, and gold and amber beads from the east than her own rooms.

  Still, there was a pile of plump silk cushions in the corner, and she settled down among these, while I pulled up a wooden chair to sit beside her.

  “Morgan,” she sighed, settling down deeper into the cushions, “truly, it is a joy to see you. But you did not bring your son!”

  That was the question I had dreaded her asking. I could not say, as I longed to, my son was stolen from me.

  “Oh,” I replied, with a forced air of casualness, “the lords of Gore will not let him leave without half of them accompanying him. Unlike you, I do not have enough grown sons to bully men into obeying me.”

  Morgawse made a little noise of acceptance. She did as she pleased in Lothian, and it was no secret how her sons were devoted to her. I wondered if that would change when Mordred was grown, or if any of her sons would turn against her. She had not married again – though she was a great beauty, no man seemed to be in a rush to marry Britain’s most notoriously unfaithful wife, though perhaps she had not wanted to, either. Still, without a husband, if the day came when her sons were against her, or gone, she would have no one else to protect her. I prayed that day would never come.

  “Morgawse –” A man burst in, seemingly in a hurry, one I recognised as one of Arthur’s knights, but when he saw me, he blushed and drew back, with a little bow. “Forgive me,” he mumbled, blushing darker. “I shall return later.”

  After the door was shut and he had hurried away, Morgawse released a peal of bright laughter, fixing me with her wicked, flashing eyes. So, that explained what one of Arthur’s knights, a man I recognised as Sir Lamerocke, was doing in Lothian.

  “Oh dear,” she giggled. “He is a shy boy sometimes.”

  She had not been far wrong calling him a boy; of course, he was a man grown, but in comparison with her, of tender years. He had been handsome, with dark golden hair and a masculine face. He had even reminded me a little of Accolon, the lover I had sacrificed to my first attempt to be revenged upon Arthur.

  “He is young.”

  Morgawse laughed.

  “Oh yes, he is young. And he is utterly devoted to me. He has a kind heart,” she peeped out at me from under her eyelashes, the smile curling on her face as she drew us back into our girlhood games, her teasing, me scandalised, “and he is very very thorough in his duties. You would make a much merrier widow, Morgan, if you kept a knight like him in your service,” she informed me, smoothing down the skirts of her dress.

  “I am glad just to be a widow,” I said, softly. Beneath the weight of the memory of lovers I had lost – Kay, Accolon, Lancelot – I barely remembered Uriens at all. All I knew was that I was painfully glad of his death.

  Morgawse stretched out her legs, relaxing back among the cushions and flashed me her wicked smile.

  “You want a young man, Morgan,” she told me, with an authoritative grin. “Half your age, or thereabouts. A young man is eager to please. They’ll do anything that you want. Anything, Morgan.” She gave me a knowing look, but I didn’t know what she meant. Morgawse stretched her arms over her head and gave a contented sigh. “No, a man your own age fucks you and expects you to say ‘thank you, sir’, whether it’s any good or not. A younger man – they’re all eager to please, Morgan.”

  It’s easy for you to go on about the joys of younger men, I thought. Morgawse, though just past forty years old, was still an attractive woman. Like our mother, her looks had changed with age from fresh-faced loveliness to a more subtle and dignified beauty. Morgawse’s hair was still thick and full, and age had faded it from copper to pale gold. Besides all of that she had the wicked spark of desire always in her eyes, and I knew that the men liked that. I, on the other hand, was tall and thin, and painted with woad. Men did not desire
me often; mostly, they were afraid of me.

  “You might be surprised,” Morgawse told me, “what you like.” She, seeing my confusion, sat up a little straighter among the cushions, her smile curling deeper across her face. “You don’t know what you like, do you Morgan?” She laughed her pretty, tinkling laugh, but she was laughing at me, and in my ears it sounded cruel. “You’ve been married, you’ve had a child, but you’re still a little virgin nun at heart, aren’t you?”

  She laughed again. I did not know why she was so proud of herself for having known so many men. Especially since one of them had been her own brother. If I had loved my sister any less than I did I would have pointed that out to her sharply. But I did not.

  “I know what I like,” I said. So, we were back in the same pattern again. I was sure we had had this same conversation – what, nine, ten years ago? No, longer – in Camelot, when she had scurried into my room, flushed and proud of herself from being with Arthur. She did not seem as though she was ashamed of it now. Arthur was the first younger man that she had had, and she did not seem now to consider it ill-advised, or bad luck. I wanted to shake her, to shout at her, to demand from her why she was not more ashamed. But why should she be ashamed? I was angry with her because I was ashamed, and I could not work out why.

  “Most of them are just curious,” Morgawse continued, as though with a different conversation, sinking back into the cushions, and her previous train of thought. “Curious about me. They want to know if there’s anything different about a woman who’s fucked her brother.”

  I felt myself blush.

  “Oh Morgan,” she complained, kicking me lightly with her bare foot. “Grow up, will you? That was fourteen years ago. More. Everyone talks like it was something awful, but for god’s sake, we didn’t know. Anyway, Arthur’s not my brother. Not really. It’s only a mother we share, and we did not grow up together. It was just an accident. I have a son from it, a good strong son, and a son conceived in love, even if his father forgot it – denied it – right afterwards. That’s something to be grateful for.” She sat up again, fixing me with an intense, slightly wild, look. “I’m not sorry for it, Morgan. No one will make me sorry for it. Not even him. Not even Arthur. He will not make me sorry for it.”

  She is still in love with him, I thought. If our mother had never told us the truth, if she had died and taken it to her grave with her, perhaps Arthur would have married Morgawse, and they would have been happy. I would not have had to marry Uriens; Arthur would have killed Lot, and there would have been no war, and Britain would have an heir, rather than a barren queen. And a queen with a lover, who the King refused to believe existed. What good had the truth done any of us?

  “Were you never happy,” I asked gently, tentatively, “with Lot?”

  “Oh,” Morgawse sighed, suddenly dropping in tone. “There was a time – after Gaheris was born – I suppose I was, what, eighteen, nineteen. I wasn't a child anymore, so it didn't hurt, and I was used to it, and him, and I loved my three sons. I suppose I found him handsome enough – he was not yet so very grey, and he was strong. I had not seen him be cruel, not really. I was happy. Fool that I was, I thought I loved him. But then, just when I thought contentment had finally reached me, I found him, in our bed, with some whore. A whore, Morgan. As if anything could have been more disrespectful to me. No, I knew my own worth even then, and I was so angry. Well, I shouted at him. I screamed and called him every name he deserved. I told him I would never have him in my bed again. I was young, and rash, and proud. But worse than that, I was embarrassed. I had believed, for that brief time, that he had felt the same for me as I had for him. I had been, for a brief moment of stupidity, in love.

  Well, then Lot told me that it was his solemn duty as a husband to teach me that it was he who decided whom he fucked and when, and where, and not I. He told me I was a foolish girl if I believed I had the right to forbid him anything. He told me he was doing it for me, because it was better that I learned obedience. He dragged me down into the courtyard of the castle, and called his knights. Gawain was with them. Gawain. He was only eight years old. That was all I could think about the whole time: Gawain should not see this. Well, when they were all gathered, he told them what I had done, and he grabbed me by the hair and forced me down, in front of him. That was how he always liked it. He didn’t like to think a woman might look him in the eye. He – well, he had just been with the whore, so it took a long time. A long time. I didn’t scream or cry. I didn’t want him to think that he had won, but more than that, I didn’t want Gawain to know that his father was hurting me. Then, nine months later Gareth was born, and he is the sweetest and kindest of all my sons. He won’t be a great man, like Gawain, but he will be kind. I’m grateful for Gareth. He makes me think that there might be kindness, somewhere, in this blood that Lot and I have mixed between us. Though, it certainly doesn’t come from him.”

  I did not say anything – I could not say anything – but I moved around to sit beside Morgawse, among the cushions, and rest my head against her shoulder. She reached her arm around me, and smoothed my hair. Morgawse was the one creature in this world who had never let me down, never abandoned me or lied to me, never betrayed me. I had given up the most for her, but I had given it willingly. Here we were, once again. But this was different. We were not hiding from Uther. We were both strong and powerful women ourselves. But still, still we were both afraid.

  Morgawse sighed heavily, shaking her head. “It’s husbands, that’s the problem.” I could see that she had held this all close, all deep inside her. It was rushing out of her now, wild and angry. “Husbands and high-born men. For all his faults later on, afterwards, Arthur was always kind. Of course he was. Before me he had been screwing milkmaids and peasant girls. He couldn’t believe his luck, to have a queen in his bed. Well, he had grown up half a peasant, hadn’t he? Those kinds of girls didn’t owe him anything, he never grew up learning to expect anything, so he was kind, and he was grateful. So was I – no man had been kind to me like that before. Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? As soon as you make a man someone’s husband, he thinks that woman owes him something. He owns her, he’s entitled to her. Lot owned me, body and soul. He liked to remind me, that without him I would be dead. When he felt cruel or I had defied him, he would whisper in my ear that my mother had begged him to have me, before Uther killed me. No, a man doesn’t have to be kind to his wife. Do you think Arthur is kind to his wife? Arthur used to be kind. Well, it’s honour and marriage that makes men cruel, Morgan. It’s pride. I’ll never let a man think he owns me again.” She cast me a narrow look, and I felt the old spark of cruelty light within her. “Your woad didn’t save you either, did it? Though you think it makes you better than me.”

  “I don’t think that, Morgawse,” I replied, quietly. It was so unpleasant, because staring at Morgawse, jaded and ageing, was like staring at myself. But Lot had been far crueller to my sister than Uriens had been to me. Lot had been stronger, shrewder. Morgawse had been a child with no magic, and nowhere to run.

  Morgawse, however, seemed suddenly to shrug her anger off, reaching for an apple, and biting into it, settling back down among the cushions.

  “I am only saying,” she said, “that if one wants a considerate lover, one should choose young, and low-born. Plus,” she flashed me her wicked grin, “men like that have strong hands.”

  Suddenly, the door flew open, and Mordred stepped through it. I recognised him instantly from my dreams, but more strongly from his resemblance to Arthur. He did not look fourteen years old. He could have been a man of eighteen. He came in wearing his hunting armour, and dirty and sweaty from the hunt. I could smell it on him.

  “Mother!” Mordred cried, running over to pull her into an embrace as she stood to her feet, wrapping his arms around her neck and nuzzling his face into the top of her hair in the extremes of filial devotion. Morgawse hugged him back tight.

  “Mordred, my love, this is your Lady Aunt, Morgan,” she sa
id, gently.

  He turned to look at me. His eyes were still so dark as to be almost black. I felt the spasm of guilt within me that I had done that to him, with my dark magic drink. I had hoped that they would lighten to grey, like Arthur’s, and mine, or even to Morgawse’s bright blue, but they had not. He gave me a gentle bow, and cast his dark eyes over me curiously. It was not the curiosity of a child, though. He inclined his head in a gentle bow.

  “Are you the one they call Morgan le Fay?” he asked, his gaze on me, steady. He was not so much like Arthur as he had looked at first glance. He had Arthur’s boyish handsome looks, his large, muscular frame and his golden hair, but his look was sly, like his mother could be in her meaner moments, and his face broader, harsher somehow, with the same pale freckles Morgawse had across the bridge of his nose which did not fit the rest of his looks.

  “Mordred,” Morgawse scolded gently. “That isn’t polite.” She turned apologetically to me, but her tone was indulgent. “Mordred believes every bit of gossip he hears.”

  “I am,” I told Mordred, evenly. I did not mind. I liked the nickname the common people had given me. He did not apologise, or move away, but kept his gaze on me.

  “Here in Lothian, they call me Mordred, son of Arthur, Prince of Britain,” he told me.

  “Well, they shouldn’t,” Morgawse fussed, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at me behind his back. I thought perhaps she ought to take his ambitions more seriously. He was still her youngest child to her, but to the rest of the world he must have looked like a man.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” He rounded on his mother, his anger still retaining a little of the childhood tantrum. “My father has no legitimate children, and I am royal blood on both sides. I am a worthy heir of Arthur’s. He will recognise me. My time will come.”