Page 22 of The Faerie Morgana

As Morgana passed Arthur’s chamber she heard the gentle murmur of Braithe’s voice.

She hesitated, but she told herself if Arthur wasn’t feeling well, Braithe would surely come for her, so she walked on, hurrying now.

Uther wanted the charm before he and his knights rode out at dawn.

If she decided to make it, it would take time.

If she decided not to… In truth, she had no idea what she would do, but she hated the idea of one of her creations, which held so much of her spirit, hanging from his thick neck, touching his skin.

She lit the candle in her room, then drew the cup of stones from the bottom of her basket, where it had lain beneath the stores of herbs she had brought with her.

She had a few leftovers from the making of Arthur’s charm that she could use.

The Blackbird had given her another amulet to fill, and she was gratified to see that it was not silver or magical, just an old iron locket, plain and striped with rust. She laid the ugly thing beside her basket to await her decision.

The table in her chamber was too crowded for divination, so she crouched on the wooden floor to scatter the stones.

They poured from the cup, a stream of black and white, shining dully in the candlelight.

She bent over them to read the pattern they had made, breathing in, breathing slowly out through pursed lips.

It was not easy. The stones appeared to have fallen randomly, as if perhaps the uneven floor had skewed their design.

Several had skidded off to the side, where they had been stopped by a roughness in one of the floorboards.

Others huddled in the center, without creating the usual whorls and curves.

She gazed at them with tired eyes, searching for the sense of their message, calling on her deep sight to pierce her reluctance and show her what she needed to know.

Finally, she rose and went to her scrying bowl to peer into the candlelit surface of the water. When the vision came, it shocked the breath from her body.

Uther stood before a man in Roman battle dress, helmeted and armored in an arrangement of iron plates fastened with bits of leather.

He wore a woolen tunic and hobnailed sandals, as did the dozens of men behind him, but his stance and the quality of his armor—and the elaborate hilt of the sword at his belt—signified wealth and importance.

Uther wore his coronet, but not his sword, nor did he carry his usual leather shield.

He bowed to the Roman and touched his fist to his chest, the gesture of fealty.

In exchange, the Roman presented him with a fat purse and a new sword that glimmered in the sunlight when he slid it out of its scabbard.

Morgana’s stomach turned as she grasped what this ceremony meant.

If this future came to pass, Uther would secure his crown by ceding Lloegyr to Rome.

Morgana pressed both her hands to her chest, flattening the sigil into the folds of her robe.

She squeezed her eyes closed, doubting what she had seen, questioning her own deep sight, although it had never once misled her.

When she opened her eyes, she returned to the floor to gaze at the pattern the stones had made; nothing had changed. It was true.

Her heart thudded as she scooped up the stones and cast them once more.

The pattern, or the lack of it, was precisely the same.

She did it a third time, in the vain hope something would change.

She could not make a mistake. The import of what she saw, of what it meant for Lloegyr, for Camulod, even for the Temple, was profound.

And the decision she had to make was both simple and awful.

She stood up, went to the table where her basket waited, and began to sort through the ingredients.

Braithe came in just as she was filling the ironwork amulet with her mixture. “Priestess!” Braithe exclaimed. “If you needed me…”

“I did not,” Morgana said, a little more brusquely than she had intended. She had no intention of ensnaring Braithe in this turn of events.

“But is this the charm for the king? Did you not need more monkshood? I only brought one blossom but I could have gone for more.”

“No. No one is going to poison Uther. This is a charm for battle.”

“And you had everything necessary?”

Morgana closed the amulet and held it in her palm as she turned to Braithe. The girl’s cheeks were flushed and her hair disordered. An uneasy qualm fluttered in Morgana’s heart, but there was no time now. She said only, “I did.”

“What happens now?”

“I will take the charm to the Blackbird. He can bestow it on the king.”

“I will go find him if you like.”

“No, thank you, Braithe. I know where he is. Go to your bed.”

Morgana found the Blackbird sitting where she had expected, on the bench beneath the rowan tree.

The summer sky was brilliant with stars, and the evening breeze had died down, leaving the warm air sweet with the scents of the fruit trees in the castle gardens.

As usual, the Blackbird had dropped his chin to his chest and was leaning on his staff as if asleep.

Morgana wondered if he ever actually lay down to rest. She sat down quietly, hoping not to disturb him, but found he was awake after all.

Without straightening, he turned his head to look a question at her, his ragged gray eyebrows lifting. “Is it done?”

“It is.”

“Will you give it to your stepfather?”

“I could not bear to touch him, sir.”

“Morgana, upon occasion you have to put aside your pride for the greater good.”

She held out the amulet on her palm. “I cannot in this case, sir. I have done all I can bring myself to do.”

He sat up then, pushing his hat back a little and wriggling to ease his back. “The war party rides out in two hours.” He took the amulet from her and dropped it into the pocket of his cloak. “I will give it to him then.” He gave her another searching glance. “You understand why this is necessary?”

She only nodded. She never lied, and she would not lie to the Blackbird. Silence was her only solution. She had done what was needed. It was pointless to indulge in regret. “Are you going with them?”

“Uther thinks he may need my Latin, rudimentary though it is.”

“You will be careful.”

“Do you fear I will fall from my horse?” His beard twitched as he regarded her, a glint of humor in his black eyes.

She could not smile. “No. I fear betrayal, sir.”

He sobered, saying, “Always a risk in times of war.”

The Blackbird disliked riding since his bones had grown so stiff, but he had loved it once.

In the far distant past, when he was young, when his flesh was malleable and his muscles forgiving, he had ridden at every opportunity.

He had owned one particular steed, a fleet, well-mannered creature with a beautiful coat like polished silver and enormous black hooves.

He had called him Cloud, and they had covered many miles of forest and valley together.

No other horse had made him feel so strong or so free.

Sitting atop Cloud had made the young Blackbird—not that anyone called him that at the time—feel as if he owned the sky.

It was Cloud who carried him into fae country, commanded by the Lady. That had changed everything. The Blackbird wondered what had become of Cloud after he left. He could only hope someone in the White City treated him well and appreciated what a grand horse he was.

Now Uther’s horsemaster had provided him with a palfrey, a docile, plump little creature with a coat the color of mud.

One of the lackeys assisted him to mount, and the Blackbird stifled a groan as he adjusted his frame to the saddle and silently cursed the pains of great age.

Around him the knights in their armor clanked and rustled as they climbed into their saddles.

Uther was already mounted, his coronet glinting dimly beneath his helmet, his sword belt cinched with the symbol for Lloegyr.

He rode up to the Blackbird, towering above the palfrey on his black warhorse.

“Do you have it?” he snapped.

For answer, the Blackbird held up the ugly iron amulet, dangling on its chain. Uther seized it and dropped it over his own head. “There,” he muttered. “Safe.”

The Blackbird’s belly quivered with nausea when Uther said that.

He wondered why. It could be, he supposed, his alarm at seeing Uther refuse to bend the knee to the priestess.

The violation of tradition, the disdain for the authority of the Temple, made him uneasy.

Unity was key if Lloegyr was to survive.

He had not wanted to follow Uther and his warriors to confront the Romans.

He had met Romans in the past and found them irritatingly condescending, as well as ruthless and frequently treacherous.

They possessed no sense of honor that he could detect, which went against every tradition of Camulod.

He understood that the Roman triumphs to the north and east had convinced their leader, a man called Claudius, that Lloegyr would be an easy addition to his empire.

When his army failed to dominate Lloegyr, Claudius was furious, dispatching entire legions to put down the resistance, employing Saxon mercenaries who were not loath to kill for money.

The Blackbird feared that the brutality the Romans had shown to the peasants was only a threat of worse to come.

It was the Lady’s plan, laid long, long ago, that Uther Dragoun should hold off the invaders until Arthur came into his majority.

The Blackbird had no regard for Uther’s skills, as either the king or the leader of a war band, but so long as he survived to fight off this incursion, Lloegyr would be safe for the moment.

And when he was victorious in this skirmish, the Blackbird meant to force him, by whatever means he could find, to make obeisance to Priestess Morgana.