Great was my astonishment, then, when a few moments later he cantered out of the gates again, veered off the wagon track, and sent his pony surging straight up the moor to the quoit stone where I was hiding.
“Go in at once,” he told me.
He was slim and young, maybe twelve years old, and he had addressed me rudely, without a greeting or a bow, as if I were a commoner like he. Still, I saw that he was very handsome, with curly black hair and a comely face and eyes almost as blue as my secret stone—for some reason as I looked up at him I felt aware of the secret stone nestled warm on my chest—and I admired the way he rode his dapple-gray pony, but he had ordered me to go in like a child and he was not that much older and I had not thought anyone knew of my hiding place, and altogether a moil of strong feelings converged in me and turned my astonishment to vexation.
“No,” I said.
“You’re Morgan, aren’t you?” he said, patting his pony’s neck as he spoke. The pony was as handsome as he, but in a pretty, yielding way, with its delicate head bowed and its dark eyes downcast and its forelock lying damp with sweat between them. Part of its mane had fallen over on the wrong side of its lovely arched neck. The messenger boy smoothed it back into place as he told me, “They want you to go in right away.”
I did not move. “Why?”
Most likely he did not know and could not have answered me if he wanted to. Uther Pendragon was a lettered man, not a common king who might entrust his message to a boy, and he made sure that his stewards were lettered also. Only kings and lords and such were allowed to learn to read and write, not women and commoners, and the thought caused the fire dragon to rouse in my chest, for whatever kings and lords had I wanted also. I did not like having things kept from me, and I did not like being ordered around by this curly-haired boy who did not reply to my question.
Nor did his face show me any answer; he just swung down off his pony. He was used to dealing with balky creatures such as ponies and children, I suppose, and they did not bother him. He did not frown.
“Come on,” he said.
“No!”
He wasted no time arguing, but picked me up out of the quoit stone with his two hands under my arms. I yelled like a cottage brat and kicked and struggled, but my thrashings did not trouble him. He placed me on the pony, astride in the saddle just as if I were a boy like he, slipped the reins forward over its sharp gray ears, and led off toward the castle gates.
I sat still and silent in surprise, fear, delight—mostly delight. I had never ridden a horse; no lady ever sat a horse, not even sideward, if she could help it. It had never occurred to me to ask to ride a horse, but I liked sitting high above the ground and feeling the pony swing along under me. I liked the smell of the sweaty animal and the sense of his power carrying me along. I liked the coarse strength of his grizzled mane in my clutching hands. I liked his twitching, black-tipped, fox-pricked ears.
Halfway down the moor I sat silent, and then I demanded, “What’s his name?”
“The little horse? He’s a she. She’s Annie.” The boy said this as fondly as if he spoke of a sister.
I burst out, “Give me the reins. I want to ride by myself.”
Striding along at Annie’s head, he glanced over his shoulder at me and shook his head. But he smiled—there was something very nice about his smile, not as if he were being kind but rather as if we had something in common, he and I. As if he had put me on the pony because he thought I might like it, and he was pleased that I did.
I asked, “What is your name?”
“Thomas.”
I wanted to ask him more questions—how old Annie was, and how old he was, and how had it come about that he and Annie ran errands for the king. But I did not get to ask him anything more, for as we approached the gates Nurse came running out and seized me, swinging me down off Annie herself. I had not known she was so strong. I did not even have a chance to pat Annie good-bye as Nurse hurried me away.
“We’re sent for,” she said, hustling me up the steps of the keep at a trot.
I did not understand what sent for meant. But it was obvious that there had been some great event. “Is Daddy back?”
“No. Hush.”
She did not speak again until we reached our chamber. The door hung open, and maidservants came and went with pitchers of hot water from the kitchen, filling a wooden tub. I was to be bathed? What had happened?
“Is Mother back?”
Nurse took a deep breath and uttered the longest sentence I had ever heard from her. “We’re sent for to Caer Avalon to attend your lady mother and your new baby brother.” She knelt and began to strip clothing off me.
New baby brother? For the second time that day astonishment gripped me. I did not think—
Nurse’s swift hands faltered to a halt. I blinked, looked at her, and saw her staring at my bare chest.
Oh. Oh, no. Until then I had been able to hide my secret stone from her, slipping it under the mattress when my clothing was to be changed. But she had caught me by surprise, and there I stood with the stone glowing bluer than a cornflower on my skinny chest.
I smacked my hand over it, both hands, as if it were my privates and a man had caught me with my drawers down. “Mine!” I cried, terrified. Please, she must not take it away.
She lifted her gaze to my face, her eyes as wide as if she were an ox. She whispered, “Where did you get that?”
“It came to me! It’s mine!”
She fixed me with her round, flat gaze for a good while. I do not know what she saw or what she thought—for she never mentioned my fey mismatched eyes, then or ever—but she nodded. “Yes,” she murmured, “it is yours.”
Something gentle and final in her voice gave me to know that it was so. My hands relaxed their grip on the stone, slipping down so that she could see it again. I whispered to her, “What is it?”
“A milpreve.”
It was not a word I had ever heard before. “What?”
“Druid stone.”
I knew nothing of druids except that they were gone, like the giants. “It’s old?”
“Yes.”
So my mind had told me truth. I had known from the start that the stone was old.
Nurse said, “Powerful folk wore them long ago.” I could see that she was struggling to explain. “Kings of the otherworld. And goddesses.”
Otherworld? Goddesses?
“Eggs of the world serpent, some folk call them.” Nurse shifted her gaze away from mine and set again about the task of taking off my clothes.
I was newly amazed. “A snake made it?”
Nurse gave me a long look such as I had never seen from her before. “I do not know,” she said finally. “No one knows. Such stones go to those who are destined for them. Wear it with blessing and goodness in your heart, little Morgan.”
She had never spoken to me so seriously or so tenderly before.
3
ALL THE WAY INLAND TO CAER AVALON, I SAT IN A trundling wagon and wished that I could ride a dapple-gray pony instead and outstrip the men-at-arms on their tall bay horses. All the way over the moors and down to the plain, Nurse sewed feverishly, trying to prepare finery for Morgause and me to wear to our baby brother’s name-day. All the way, my druid stone rode secret against my chest, while a stone of some emotion I could not name rode hard and sharp in my heart, and Morgause and I quarreled for no reason.
“We’re going to see Mo-ther,” Morgause sang. “Going to see Mo-ther!”
Anyone with sense should know better than to sing out loud like that, tempting fate. I pinched her leg to make her stop.
“Ow!” She kicked me in the shin. “Stop it!” Then, of course, she sang again, “We’re going to see—”
“You stop it!” I yelled.
“Why? I’m happy. We’re going to see—”
I grabbed her by the braids and pulled her head down. She got out only a squeak before I clamped my hand over her mouth. Nurse was doing her best to ignore both of u
s. Knowing better, but hoping in a way, I sang, “We’re going to see Dad-dy, going to see Dad-dy!”
Morgause struggled free from my grip and gasped, “Hush!”
I sang more loudly, “We’re going to see Dad-dy—”
“We are not!”
“Yes, we are! Going to see—”
She smacked me and then started to sob as if I had hit her, not the other way around. “I hate you!” she yelled at me. “Stupid, Daddy’s dead!”
“Stupid yourself! If there’s a baby, there has to be a daddy!”
“Not our daddy!”
“Why not?” My face stung where she had hit me. I stuffed my hands under my skirted legs to keep from rubbing it; I did not want to give her that satisfaction.
Morgause wept harder. “U-U-Uth—that king what‘s-his-name is the daddy.”
“But he is Daddy.”
“You’re crazy!”
I had not seen Mother walk out barefoot to surrender to Uther Pendragon. But Morgause had not seen Daddy walk out of Mother’s bedchamber three hours after he was killed. Small wonder we seldom understood each other.
The wagon jounced on, and despite the canopy and curtains we choked in the dust kicked up by the men-at-arms in the fore, and I sometimes stopped tormenting Morgause long enough to gawk through the curtains at lands such as I had never seen. No sea cliffs and stony moors here. Instead, a vast grassy flatness swept level as a table to meet the sky, and even the sky seemed different, clear blue like my secret stone instead of rainbow misty, and from the surface of the flatness shone glimmers and meanders of blue like the blue of the sky, winding along the surface like the snaky gold veins of the milpreve. It took me a while to realize that I was seeing water—I knew the ocean waves thundering against the cliffs when I saw them, and the torrents dashing down over stones from the moors, but I had never seen such tame, flat blue water. Only when I saw ducks and wading birds in it did I recognize it. Then I felt foolish, and left off looking to tease Morgause again.
Nighttimes we slept on the ground, and it was a miserable business, especially when it rained. Traveling in general is a miserable business, especially bumping along in a wretched wagon, and I soon wearied of it, and of annoying my nurse and distressing my sister, and even of gawking at the strange lands through which we were toiling. A rift of jagged lavender between plain and sky occupied my attention for a while, but Nurse said it was distant tors, mountains, and we were not going there. All else remained the same. I am sure Nurse’s relief was great whenever I grew utterly bored and weary and went to sleep.
It would seem that I was asleep when we reached Caer Avalon, for I remember nothing of it except awakening in a real bed in the morning.
The feast began that very morning.
When Nurse led Morgause and me into the great hall, there was the fearsome red-flame-shining dragon flag hanging over the dais, and there lay Mother all gowned in gold satin on a wine red velvet chair such as I had never seen, almost a bed more than a chair, with a fat bald baby in her arms. Above her heavy gown and her necklace of ox-blood stones, her face seemed chalk white; maybe she was sick, and that was why she had to lie down. She put out one arm and hugged me to her and kissed me, and then she let me go and hugged Morgause the same way, but she did not put the baby away; she held him the whole time. “Morgan,” she said, her voice as soft as rose petals, “Morgause, you’ve grown. You’re almost young ladies now. Such pretty frocks, such pretty hair. You look lovely.”
Morgause said, “Thank you, Mother.” I said nothing, only stared at the baby. His round, sleepy face looked almost as red as the velvet chair. He had a white lace dress on. He looked stupid.
Mother bent over him, her pale face very thin compared with his fat one, and kissed him. “It’s your baby brother, Morgan,” she told me. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
“No.”
Nurse tapped my head with her knuckles to reprove me. Morgause said, “He’s nice.”
I felt the fire dragon burning in my chest. Mother should put that ugly baby away and take me in her lap and hold me and kiss me.
Instead, she reached out and smoothed my hair, already escaping from its crown of braids to flop over my forehead.
“Come,” Nurse said, leading us away. We did not get to sit near Mother. We sat at a table off to one side, with Nurse between me and Morgause, of course, to keep us from whispering and pinching each other. Uther Pendragon sat by Mother in a golden throne; I wondered whether he kept one here or if he had brought it with him from Caer Argent. I wondered why he was here at Avalon, not in his own court. Was this castle more grand than his? It seemed quite grand, with the vaulted rafters carved and gilded into all sorts of strange things: griffins, fierce winged women, fishtail horses, stars and crescent moons, huge lily flowers. All the tables, even ours, bore white linen cloths broidered with gold, upon which stood sconces of many candles. First I stared at the golden carvings overhead, then the candles, then the many people—lords and ladies they must have been—in finery that made my ruffled blue frock look very plain. Such jewels the ladies wore, although Mother’s rubies were the finest. I hoped I would be allowed to wear jewels before I grew too much older. I looked around for other children to see whether they wore finery or jewels, but except for that stupid baby I saw none. Only boring adults sat at my table; there was no one for me to talk with. I watched the candles drip.
After a while a man in red blew a horn, and everyone got silent. Then a lord got up and said things. The edge of my chair was digging into my legs because my feet did not touch the floor. I swung them.
“Sit still,” Nurse whispered to me.
It became a very long day.
Once, we all got up and bowed to Uther Pendragon and he stood and said things in his snarly voice and I rubbed the backs of my legs with my hands. Then I had to sit again. Sometimes servants brought things to eat, and some of them were good and some of them were awful but I had to eat some anyway to be polite. I liked the candied quail and the sweetbreads and the apple tarts and the marzipan. I did not like the spiced roast pork. In between things to eat there were tumblers, and I wanted to get up and try to do somersaults too, but I had to sit still. Sometimes the baby cried and Mother drew him up to her bosom and nursed him and I felt the fire dragon hissing in my chest. Sometimes I watched a nurse carry the baby away to diaper him and then bring him back. Sometimes I stared at Uther Pendragon, who never looked at me at all. Mostly I squirmed in my hard chair.
“Shh,” Nurse hushed me. “Only a little longer now.”
A minstrel in a ragtag tunic stood near the king. From his harp he strummed out a chord that rang like a hundred bells, singing a ballad about True Thomas, who saw a bright lady come riding:Her skirt was of the grass green silk,
Her mantle of the velvet fine,
From every braid of her horse’s mane
Hung fifty silver bells and nine.
She was the queen of Faerie, the otherworld, and she dared him to kiss her, and he did. In my childish mind I never thought otherwise than that the minstrel sang of Thomas the messenger boy I had met. I felt sure that he was true and handsome enough to kiss the queen of Faerie.
And then she told him that he must go with her.
She mounted on her milk white steed,
She took True Thomas up behind,
And when she made the bridle ring,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
They rode up the ferny hillside, the winding road to Faerie.
“Thomas, you must hold your tongue,
Whatever you may hear or see,
For if you speak a word in my land,
You’ll never go back to your own country. ”
On they rode and farther on
And waded through rivers above the knee
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.
It was dark, dark night with no starlight
And they waded through red blood to the knee,
For all the blood that’s shed on earth
Runs through the springs of that country.
My breath caught, and I did not listen to the rest of the song, for I knew now that my father’s blood ran through Faerie. And I knew that it had to be somewhere near where I lived, for they heard the roaring of the sea.
As the last chords rang away, there came shafts of silvergold light from somewhere, from everywhere, and a stir as all those jeweled courtiers turned to look, and—
“The fays!” the herald cried. “Welcome, people of peace!” And he blew a great blast on his golden horn.
They entered through no doorway, from nowhere and everywhere, as if they had been there all along, as if they were made out of foreverness and sun and moon and the light coming out of nowhere, no, coming out of the carved eyes of the golden winged women under the arches, and perhaps I was dreaming.
Uther Pendragon stood up to greet the fays the way we had all stood up before him. Everyone stood. I jumped on top of my chair to try to see.
“Morgan!” Nurse tugged at me.
“Be seated,” commanded a sweet young voice. Folk sat, but the king remained standing and I knelt on my chair, gawking. She who had spoken was a barefoot slip of a big-eyed girl, no more than sixteen, with primroses twined in her masses of chestnut hair even though it was long past primrose season. Her shining filmy frock did not cover either her arms or her legs, but she danced up to the high table just so, not caring who saw her. Behind her hobbled a bent, ancient crone supported by a matronly woman not unlike my nurse—but both had the same unearthly sheen as the girl’s frock. Her skin and hair, I saw now, glimmered with the same fey light. Her lovely face shone with a subtle glow like starlight. In the middle-aged woman and the ancient one I saw remnants of her eerie beauty.
I Am Morgan le Fay Page 3
