I Am Morgan le Fay

by Nancy Springer

  “Dead,” I said as gently as I could, and still my voice came out with an edge. “My fault. Ongwynn?”

  Morgause went very still, her wet, weary face trying to spare me.

  Columbine; Ladywater had shown me Ongwynn’s body draped with columbine. And columbine would not be in bloom for a month yet. Ongwynn could not yet be dead. Must not be dead. I asked, “She has taken to her bed, is that it?”

  My sister nodded.

  I reached up and touched the horse in the middle of its forehead to tell it not to wander, left it standing in its gear and strode into Caer Ongwynn.

  It was dim and smoky in there, with the chill salty air seething in the ivy-mantled wind holes just the way I remembered. Peat piled by the hearth, onions hanging in bunches, chickens scratching at the dirt floor—nothing had changed at all. Yet all seemed petty, rude and strange to me, perhaps because I was a fay now and accustomed to the grandeur of Avalon—or perhaps because one thing was greatly wrong. Ongwynn’s bed stood before the hearth, and she lay in it, and the very stones of Caer Ongwynn mutely wept.

  Ongwynn. I stood for a moment by her bedside gazing down at her face—lidded eyes, silent mouth, a face as simple and stolid as a water-sculpted stone. “Nurse?” I whispered.

  From behind me Morgause said, “She can’t hear you anymore.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, put my mouth to my hand and thought a wish to my milpreve and kissed it, then laid that hand to the side of Ongwynn’s still face. “Come, weary one, wake up for a moment,” I murmured.

  Ongwynn’s eyelids fluttered. She opened her eyes and gave me a placid tan look. Her mouth stirred; she smiled at me. “Morgan,” she murmured, “you’re back. Good.”

  From behind me Morgause gasped. “Can you—Morgan, can you heal her?”

  “No.” Ongwynn spoke before I could, her voice like a whisper through dried grass. “It’s my time.”

  Without turning—for I wanted to look only at Ongwynn—I said to Morgause, “Cernunnos has spoken for her. And somewhere a baby girl has been born who will be the next Ongwynn.”

  “And you, little Morgan?” Ongwynn spoke like a breath of west wind. “Who will you be?”

  I knew who I was—Morgan le Fay. But somehow that was not the answer to Ongwynn’s question. I did not answer. I turned to give my sister a look over my shoulder and said, “It is you whom I can heal.” This I knew was true, for I loved her in my way.

  But once again that tearful anger spatted out of her. “I don’t want your pity! And I don’t want to stay here with you. While you have been traipsing about dressed in grand clothes, I’ve been rotting here—”

  “Shhh!” I darted a look at Ongwynn to see how she was taking this. But she had closed her eyes again. Perhaps she did not hear. I hoped not.

  Morgause ranted on. “—an old maid rotting away, year after year, for I’ve lost count how many years—”

  “Hush.” What she was thinking, saying, did not trouble me; like her, I had mostly forgotten why we had fled to Caer Ongwynn in the first place: to hide from Redburke. But surely he had forgotten all about us by now. Morgause could go away if she wanted; fair was fair, and also in accord with my plans— except that I did not want Ongwynn to hear her and be troubled. I stood and laid my hand to the side of my sister’s face. Her eyes opened wide, and her lips softly parted. She hushed.

  An old maid at the age of nineteen? The world might think so, but we of Avalon thought differently.

  “Ongwynn is ready to let go,” I told Morgause softly. “It will not be long now. You will want to stay just a little while longer, won’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “And then you may venture forth to find—to find your heart’s desire.” As I spoke I stroked her face, soothing away the lines; in a moment they vanished as if they had never been. I caressed her hair, and the tangles fell away so that her tresses hung smooth and lustrous once more. I smoothed the worry out of her forehead, coaxed color back to her skin. I smiled, and saw an answering smile put the light back in her eyes.

  “You are very beautiful,” I told her, for it was now true; she was my all-too-lovely sister Morgause again. “Go and rest, think about nothing. Sleep. I will keep watch.”

  And so I did, after I had seen to my horse; I kept watch over Ongwynn throughout the night, for my years at Avalon had accustomed me to going without sleep.

  And during that night, as Morgause slept and Ongwynn lay silent without even snoring, as darkness lay silent and even the piskies tiptoed about their business without chuckling or rustling, during that night of the swelling moon, the plan within me grew to fullness like Epona’s belly and spilled out of my heart into my mind and my hands. And the druid stone yearned Indy blue on my left hand, and the ring Thomas had given me, the ring made of his curling black hair, shone like midnight on my right hand, and my heart yearned, and my mind knew what to do. I got up, took off the ring made of my mother’s hair and placed it on the mantel over the fireplace, for it had grown frail, and I would wear it no more; I would put it in a chest for safekeeping. Then I stood in the middle of the room under the stone dome, and slowly turned so that I faced the North Star, then the sunrise, then the Archer, then the sunset and the North Star again. And as I turned the full circle of the world, I closed my eyes, laced my fingers together over my heart, and with one fingertip I stroked the milpreve and with another fingertip I stroked the shining sleek hair that had come from Thomas’s head. And as I touched the rings I gathered all the power that was in me and gave it forth in a sending.

  For I am Morgan le Fay, and it was in my power to summon him to me.

  I gave forth a sending for Thomas.

  Dying has its own rhythm and its own sweet time, just as living does. During those days and nights of the waxing moon I sat by Ongwynn’s bedside and burned windwort to ease her breathing and rubbed her cold hands and sometimes read to her from the book of threes:In the knot of fate there be three strands:

  One of a blackwing weaving made,

  One of the blackthorn heart of a maid,

  One not to be found in the Morrigun’s hand.

  “What does that mean?” Morgause whispered, kneading bread at the table nearby.

  “Nothing I can say.” The triads meant anything only slantwise, like scrying—and the thought made me put the book aside and pull from my pocket a circle of silver, a mirror. I laid it on the table at arm’s length from Morgause, so that the hearth fire lit it darkly, and I asked her, “What do you see?”

  “Oh!” She gasped with delight and reached for the mirror with her dainty white-floured hand, but I stopped her.

  “You’ll get to admire your lovely face soon enough,” I chided. “What do you see—”

  But there was no need to say more. Her eyes widened, and following the direction of her gaze, I saw the shadows swirl and part, and then I saw a knight riding—no, a king, for above his bearded, dark face glinted a heavy crown. “He,” Morgause breathed. “Riding out of the north.” And indeed the North Star glinted over his shoulder.

  “You have seen him before?”

  “In my—dreams ...” My sister’s voice faltered. Then she blurted, “Is he real, Morgan?”

  “Oh, yes.” The silver mirror showed nothing that was not real—although it might show something long past, or yet to come. I whispered a small spell to keep the vision in place in the mirror, then turned to the hearth fire and picked up an ember in my hand.

  “Morgan!” Morgause cried, grabbing at me to stop me.

  “It’s all right. It does not hurt me.” I placed the glowing coal on the mirror, squarely upon the vision’s kingly face. The ember flared into flame, then flickered out and fell to ash. Under the ashes the king rode on. “Blow upon the ashes,” I told Morgause.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it. Try to blow them off the mirror.”

  She leaned over the mirror and puffed. The ashes stirred, but only to form letters, a name: LOTHE.

  “King Lot
he of Lothian,” I murmured, for I had heard the name. Far to the north his kingdom lay, and like many other petty kings he warred for the throne Uther Pendragon had left empty.

  He rode into the distance, a tiny, manly figure amid soot and shadow, as Morgause gazed upon him. Then the mirror darkened and he disappeared. From somewhere far up in the chimney stones a pisky chuckled, and the ashes swirled and flew in my face, making me cough.

  “Stop that,” I grumbled.

  Morgause picked up the mirror and held it between her two faltering hands as if she feared she might drop it.

  “Yours,” I told her. “Use it in good health.”

  I could tell by her wide, dreaming eyes that she could barely speak. She nodded and clasped the mirror to her bosom as if it were a lover.

  “You’ll be needing some comely gowns,” I teased her. “You can take mine. Or perhaps the piskies—”

  On her warm bed by the hearth, Ongwynn stirred and murmured. I stooped over her and touched her forehead—cool to my touch, like summer stone nestled amid moss and fern.

  “Morgan,” she breathed without opening her eyes.

  She wished to speak. I sat on the edge of the bed, whispered to my milpreve and laid my hand against Ongwynn’s temple to give her strength. Her pebble brown eyes opened and fixed on me.

  “Morgan,” she murmured, “Morgan spreading your wings, beware.”

  Something in the quality of her gaze turned me to a child again. My hand clutched at my chest. “Beware—beware what, Nurse?”

  “Heart of a maid,” Ongwynn whispered.

  “Oh.” Black wings, blackthorn heart of a maid. I breathed out. “The triad I was reading, that’s all.” But at my back I felt Morgause’s utter silence.

  “Playing,” Ongwynn mumbled. “Little Morgan playing with the missing strand, playing with fire. Careful, child. Careful.” Her eyes closed again and she lapsed into stupor.

  “The sheen’s all over you,” Morgause whispered, “and great shadows rising from your shoulder blades.”

  I stood up and shook myself. “Bah.” I strode outside, breathing deeply of the night air. By the spring pool, place of peace, a fallow doe and her two fawns gazed at me with wide shadowshining eyes, then drank on. I sighed and looked up at the nearly full moon and thought of Thomas. When would he come to me?

  Columbine bloomed first. I had said to Morgause nothing of my vision for Ongwynn, but on her own Morgause went forth to the rocky moorlands where columbine grew, then came into the hearth room with her arms full of vines in sweet-scented, soft-purple bloom. Sitting at Ongwynn’s bedside, she looped the columbine into wreaths.

  “Ongwynn, can you smell it?” she whispered, hanging swags of columbine on the bed, the hearth, the chimney. “Can you see it? Isn’t it pretty? Morgan, look! See, she smiled! ”

  I nodded. “She knows,” I managed to say past the lump in my throat.

  The columbine blossoms wilted during the day and closed at dark, but their scent lingered. And in that fragrant moonlit night, Cernunnos came for Ongwynn.

  He did not enter. Rather, one moment Morgause and I sat in a hollow hill, the domed stone room empty except for Ongwynn’s labored breathing, and the next moment—immense, his presence filled Caer Ongwynn, the great tree of his antlers spreading to the walls and ceiling, the white tines scraping the stone. Morgause gasped and whimpered; I grasped her hand to still her. His naked shoulders furred like a stag‘s, Cernunnos looked down upon me without apparent recognition.

  “We are honored, Lord of the Beasts,” I said softly, for folk died commonly but few went with Cernunnos. Most were chivvied by his hounds.

  He gave a curt nod, reached for Ongwynn, gathered her up, blankets and all, as easily as if she were a swaddled baby, and cradled her to his great chest. In that moment the sound of her breathing ceased. In the next moment he faded like fog and disappeared.

  Hauling Morgause by the hand, I darted outside. The moon floated like a water lily in the dark sparkle of starlit sky, and across that great blossom of moon rode Cernunnos upon the milk white mare, his antlers shining, Ongwynn cradled to his chest, his black hounds pacing quietly at his mount’s heels.

  “Ongwynn is indeed greatly honored,” I said. No wild hunt for her, no bared fangs, no snarling beasts pursuing her soul, no pleading and terror. Hers would be an afterlife of peace and rest.

  Cernunnos turned his antlered head slightly, perhaps looking back at us. By my side, Morgause gave a choked sound and fell down in a faint on the ground.

  15

  A WISP OF DECRESCENT MOON HUNG IN THE DAWN SKY. “Like a curl of Ongwynn’s hair,” Morgause said, fastening the packs behind her saddle.

  “Yes,” I murmured, crouching by the spring pool to fill Morgause’s flask for her. Indeed, Ongwynn’s hair had grown wispy fine and moon white those last days, and now everything reminded me of her, the placid face of the pool, the dawn sky translucent and veined with smoky blue like the thin pulse at her temples—

  “Is she really dead?” Morgause asked. “It is hard to believe she is dead.”

  I studied the white sickle floating like a swan’s pinfeather on the dawn-lit surface of the pool, then dipped the flask, scattering the illusion. Even though the day would be fine and hot with a blue June sky, I shivered in the dawn damp and the breeze blowing chill off the sea, as always. “She is gone,” I said. “It is hard on us. But she knows no hardship now.”

  “I should have snipped a lock of her hair,” Morgause said. “Something to remember her by.”

  I remembered how long it had taken me to feel in my heart that my father was dead. No grave, no body to wash, nowhere to lay flowers. That was what it had been like for Morgause the past week or more gone by. There had been Ongwynn’s bed to put away, her few woolen robes to wash and fold and lay in chests, wreaths of withered columbine to be pulled down and burned at the hearth. Then, nothing. Some weeping, some talk, but nowhere to place Ongwynn’s passing and lay it to rest.

  I rose and gave Morgause the flask. “Remember her when you look at the moon,” I said. “Are you ready?”

  Without answering, Morgause turned to scan everything around her: dawn, sea, shore and moor, spring pool and garden and lambs and hens and the ivy-draped dome of Caer Ongwynn. Her horse, the sturdy charger I had ridden here, pawed at the turf, eager to be gone. I had taught her a few clumsy charms to protect herself from knights errant, brigands, anyone who might wish to harm her on her way, simple magics such as even a mouse like Morgause could learn. And the piskies had gifted her generously with provisions, a purse of gold, gowns worthy of a queen; her lovely face looked back at me from under a headdress of velvet and gold and white linen.

  “What is going to happen, Morgan?” she whispered. “What will become of us?”

  I felt myself smiling. A year my elder, Morgause still looked to me for her answers. “I am a fay,” I chided, “not a seeress.”

  “But—but you know so much. Shadows always moving in those star-crossed eyes of yours.”

  “I am not cross-eyed!”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I rolled my insulted eyes and shook my head. I did not like to say anything, for Morgause took my every word as a promise, but to humor her, I said, “I imagine you will find your precious King Lothe. I hope you will like him, especially if he wants to wed you. Or would you rather stay here?”

  “You know I can’t.”

  I knew she would not want to. Nor did I wish it.

  Morgause sighed, smiled, gave me a long embrace and kissed me, then turned to her steed. With my hands I made a step for her to mount by. Then I stood back. “Do you have the ring Mother gave you?”

  “Yes. Next to my heart.” Morgause lifted the reins, arranging them in her kid-gloved hands. The steed danced in place, but still she did not let it canter away.

  “Morgan,” she appealed to me, “are you sure?”

  “Sure of what?”

  “What—whatever mischief is in your eyes! Whatever you
’re going to do, what Ongwynn tried to warn you against—”

  I had spoken to her nothing of my plan, and certainly I had not thought she could see it in my eyes. “Just go,” I ordered her. “If King Lothe comes here before you find him, I will marry him!”

  “You’d better not!”

  “Then you’d better get going, hadn’t you?”

  “Contrary wench. I hope you grow a wart right on the tip of your ugly nose.”

  “It is not ugly!”

  “Is so! My sister the witch!” Smiling at last, Morgause loosened her reins. The steed sprang away.

  “Milkmouth!” I yelled after her. “Dairymaid!”

  She waved, then cantered over the hilltop and disappeared. Even though I could not see her, I stood looking after her for a long time.

  Then I wandered down toward the sea, whirled to spread my skirts around me and sat cross-legged in the coarse grass at the edge of the gravel beach. Most of the day I sat there listening to nothing but the echoes of my own emptiness. At first I drew circles with my fingertip in the gravel and sand. Later I pulled from my head three strands of my long, sable brown hair, each strand so long that by plaiting and weaving just the three of them together I made another circle as slender and shining as a wedding band: a ring for Thomas.

  That evening I sat alone by the hearth and said to the emptiness that was Caer Ongwynn, “Come out, you.”

  I heard a startled squeak, then a chorus of giggling. I did not smile.

  “Come out,” I repeated levelly. “I wish you no harm; I know how long and well you have befriended me. Come out.”

  Now there was silence deeper than the sea.