Page 19 of The Faerie Morgana

Morgana, once convinced that Arthur would fully recover, began to yearn for the Isle.

She kept thinking of the women making the difficult journey to the lake to apply for assistance.

They would brave the voyage across the water and then wait, sometimes for hours, to be admitted into the dim room where their petitions would be heard, and judged, and answered.

She had been away for months, and she felt the tug of their need as a force in her breast. Camulod’s bustle irritated her, and the trivial chatter of the courtiers made her head ache.

Many times she fled into the woods around the castle, searching for solitude and for peace.

She often knelt on the forest floor to allow the birds and squirrels, even the occasional fox, to visit her.

They soothed her restlessness and connected her to a world in which no one cared about clothes or jewels or who was bedding whom.

Summer had come gently to Lloegyr, the days warm and sweet, the nights cool and refreshing.

The gardens outside the courtine burst with life, flowers becoming fruits and vegetables, roots delving deep for water to counter the heat of the sun.

Morgana imagined the gardens of the Temple doing the same, and she longed to sit on the stone bench and breathe the energy of their abundance.

She did not particularly miss her sister priestesses, but she would not be sorry to see Niamh again, with her sunburned face and earth-stained hands, and she would welcome a smile from Joslyn.

Braithe, she could see, felt differently.

On one lovely clear day, the two of them guided Arthur down to the keep.

He sat in the healing sunshine, accepting the diffident greetings of the dairymaids, the lackeys, the horsemaster, and other servants, who paused in their duties to bend the knee and stammer good wishes for his health.

Braithe ran up the stairs for a hat to keep the sun from Arthur’s eyes, then back again for a cushion to soften the hard bench for him.

She knelt on the ground beside him, eager for some other service she could perform.

Morgana thought her eyes were painfully bright as she looked up into the prince’s face.

Braithe would not welcome their departure from the castle, and Morgana thought it would be best for her handmaid if they left very soon.

They sat for some time in a pleasant silence, watching clouds of swifts dart across the sky and a little group of children playing together.

The Blackbird appeared from somewhere and lounged against the sun-warmed wall, his chin on his chest. Morgana had just drawn breath to broach the subject of returning to the Isle when a voice shrilled from outside the main gatehouse.

Everyone snapped to attention as another voice called for help, then another.

Several men-at-arms ran from the barbican, hands on sword hilts, ready to spring to the defense of the castle.

Someone was banging on the farmer’s gate, the narrow gate that allowed supplies to be brought into Camulod.

The gatekeeper approached it warily, but when it swung open, he stood aside.

The men-at-arms fell back, lowering their weapons.

Morgana jumped to her feet, shading her eyes to see what was happening.

The Blackbird stood beside her as tension suddenly gripped the busy keep.

A bedraggled group of people filed through the gate.

They were old men, a few children, women of every age, some with babes in their arms. They looked as if they had been traveling all night.

Two of the old men walked in front, and several more trailed behind the women in a valiant effort to protect them.

All were hollow-eyed, exhausted, and some had tears running down their cheeks. Two of the babes wailed steadily.

Arthur pushed himself to his feet, but his legs were still unsteady. He kept a hand on the wall for support as he demanded of the nearest manservant, “Where are my father and his men?”

The servant, who Morgana thought was a kitchen worker who had been harvesting garden greens, shook his head in bewilderment. “Don’t know, my lord,” he said. “Shall I find the steward for you?”

“Yes, and quick!”

Morgana marveled at how much in command Arthur suddenly was, though still weak from his illness. Even dressed in only a loose tunic and leggings he was regal. He managed to stand very straight, and though his face was youthful, his jaw was firm and his eyes glinted with authority.

Bran, the steward, came running, and he bowed briefly to Arthur.

“They’re from a village along the north fork of the Chindl, just above the bridge.

The Romans sacked it, they say, though it might have been Saxons.

They’re only peasants and can’t tell the difference.

Whoever it was slaughtered all the men and most of the boys. These poor folk are all that’s left.”

“And the king?”

“He and his knights went south, where the scouts said the Romans were on the march.”

“We still have scouts in the barracks, do we not? Send two after the king. And gather the knights who are still here. Tell them to be ready to march.”

The steward bowed again and trotted off toward the barracks. Arthur said, “I must dress. There is work to do.”

Morgana said, “Arthur, no! You’re not strong enough yet.”

“We can’t let this go unanswered, Morgana. In my father’s absence—”

“He will return soon enough. He is still the king, and this responsibility falls to him.”

The Blackbird said, “Priestess Morgana is correct, my lord.”

Morgana didn’t wait to see if Arthur would heed the warning. “Braithe, I’m going to see what I can do for those people. Stay with the prince.”

“Yes, Priestess,” Braithe said. She took up a stance before Arthur as if she would physically stop him from moving.

Morgana doubted Braithe could deter him on her own, but the Blackbird took Arthur’s other side, and she hoped that would be enough.

She spun, making her robe swirl, and set off toward the lower level of the castle, where the band of refugees had been escorted.

She found them huddled in one of the windowless storerooms below the kitchen.

There were kitchen maids and house servants bustling around them, offering ale and bread, trying to make them comfortable.

The small space already smelled of unwashed bodies and the tang of blood.

At a glance, Morgana saw that most were unhurt, only tired and hungry, but there were two—a boy of perhaps eleven, and a girl of about sixteen—with visible injuries.

The boy had taken a blow to the head, and an old woman was doing her best to soothe the bloody gash with a stained rag.

The woman was sobbing silently. The boy stared into space, as if he didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him.

When Morgana came close, the old woman looked up with thin, weary tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.

“He tried to fight’m,” she said. “Tried like a man, he did, and him only a lad.”

“Let me see, grandmother,” Morgana said. She carefully peeled the blood-soaked cloth from the wound and picked up a candle burning nearby so she could get a good look.

The cut was not deep, but it was bleeding freely. She called to one of the kitchen maids to bring her a fresh cloth. “A clean one!” she ordered. “And a bit of lint.” To the old woman, she said, “The wound is not serious, but he will have a scar to boast of.”

“But he won’t talk!” the woman cried. “Wouldn’t move ’less I dragged’m!”

Indeed, the boy still gazed at nothing, his lips slack, his eyes without life. “He has had a shock,” Morgana said. “Something too terrible for him to understand. I will send a potion for him, something to help him cope.”

The old woman suddenly focused on Morgana.

Her eyes widened, and her sobs abruptly ceased.

“You’re a—you’re one of them , yah? The Nine?

” she whispered. The woman next to her hushed her.

Both fell silent, but they shrank away from Morgana as if there was danger in her touch.

She stifled a sigh at their reaction to her, but she understood.

In the farthest outposts of Lloegyr, many believed the Nine were fae.

Morgana took the things the kitchen maid brought. She pressed the lint into a pad and tied it against the gash with a clean cloth wrapped around the boy’s head. “Keep it there,” she told the old woman, taking care to speak gently. “Don’t let him pull it off. I will return later.”

With the old woman still goggling at her, she moved to the girl, who lay limp on the floor, her head in another woman’s lap.

The girl’s breathing was rapid and shallow.

Her eyes were closed, and her lips were white with pain.

The woman who was holding her said bitterly, “Bastard killed her husband with a sword, and she went after’m with her kitchen knife.

He knocked her down, kicked her, nearly killed her, too. ”

Morgana knelt beside the injured girl. She didn’t touch her, but her hands hovered over her body, her chest, her stomach. She exhaled slowly through pursed lips as she let her gaze blur.

What she saw was terrible. She felt the girl’s agony in her own body, felt the blood pooling within, the torn tissues burning with pain, the girl’s chest growing tighter with every breath.

She blinked her eyes open. “I have a poppy tincture,” she said, her voice low and hard. “I’ll fetch it for you now.”

The woman lifted her gaze to Morgana’s. She wasn’t much older than the wounded girl. “She’s dying, yah. My friend.” It wasn’t a question.

Morgana had to harden her heart against the grief in the woman’s face. She said evenly, “The tincture will ease her way.”

“No magic to fix her?”

“I’m very sorry, sister. No magic can fix this.”