Page 48 of The Faerie Morgana

King Arthur had been absent three days when Queen Gwenvere took to her bed with pains in her belly that made her wail for respite.

Braithe had not visited the queen once since Gwenvere struck her, but one of the maids came in search of her, begging her to apply to the priestess for something to alleviate the queen’s misery.

Braithe made the maid come with her to see Morgana.

Morgana heard them in the corridor outside her door, the maid sniveling, saying she was terrified of the witch.

Morgana couldn’t hear Braithe’s response, but a moment later there was a knock on her door, and Braithe put her head in.

“Priestess, one of the queen’s maids has come begging aid for her mistress. ”

“To stop her whining?”

“To ease her pain, she says.”

Behind her, Morgana glimpsed the maid, the same middle-aged, heavy-bosomed maid she had met in the queen’s chamber. She leaned back in her chair. “Tell her to come in, brat.”

“She is afraid of you.” Braithe’s dimples flashed.

“As she should be.” Morgana folded her arms and regarded the hapless woman. “What are you called?”

“L-L-Loria,” the maid stammered.

“Well, Loria, you had better find the courage to come in and tell me about your mistress’s trouble.”

Morgana knew perfectly well what the trouble was, and so did Braithe. Indeed, any who lived in the western tower had heard Gwenvere’s cries. Morgana had said to Braithe that she hoped not to be present when the queen actually gave birth.

Gwenvere had found someone to give her what she wanted, and now she was paying for it.

If Morgana had given her a potion, she would have suffered far less, but Morgana experienced no remorse and felt no sympathy.

Gwenvere was a queen. She was a king’s wife, and she should be proud to bear his child.

It was her duty. She certainly contributed nothing else to the good of the kingdom.

Loria crept through the door, her shoulders hunched as if she feared the priestess might bring a spell down on her head at any moment.

When she was inside and Braithe had closed the door, Loria’s gaze darted around the room, and she seemed surprised that it looked very much like any other bedchamber in the tower except for the herbs and jars and mortar and pestle crowding the worktable.

Morgana saw that Loria, in her ignorance, was truly frightened, and she relented. “Come now, Loria,” she said. “Would you like something to drink? Cider or water?”

The maid shook her head, and Braithe, standing behind her, rolled her eyes. Undoubtedly the woman thought the witch-priestess might poison her.

Morgana suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Very well. Tell me what you ask of me.”

“Something for her belly.” The maid directed her barely audible words to her feet, and the color in her plump cheeks rose and fell. “She—she says the pain is the worst she has ever felt, and she’s bleedin’ awful.”

“Will she allow me to see her?”

That made Loria lift her head, her eyes wide with alarm. “I don’t think so! She’s—she gets so angry, and now—”

“Loria, is it possible she is more angry than she is in pain? I surmise she’s miscarrying, which can be painful, but it is surely very early in her pregnancy?”

The maid’s face went suddenly dead white, very much as if she might faint. “You can’t tell ’im,” she whispered, and she began to tremble. “The king, you can’t tell ’im. She’ll kill me!”

“Loria,” Braithe said firmly, “she isn’t going to kill you. We will not allow it.”

Miserably, the maid mumbled, “You don’t know ’er, Priestess. There was a maid, back home. Lady Gwenvere got mad at her, shoved her right down the stairs. Broke her back. Never walked again.”

Morgana stood up. “All right. In the absence of the king, I will take charge of this situation. Braithe will take you down to the kitchen and see that you have a cup of tea and a bit of a sit, then come back to the queen’s chamber.

I will be with her.” She added under her breath, “Whether she likes it or not.”

“Her pain?” Loria asked in a shaking voice.

“I will deal with it. Where did she find another potion?” The one Morgana had taken from the queen’s bedchamber had been poured into the chamber pot the moment she reached her own apartment.

“She made me pretend it was for me.”

Morgana raised her eyebrows at the idea that Loria, no longer young, might have been with child. Loria didn’t seem to notice her reaction. She said, “There’s a witch lives just outside the wall and she makes ’em. I had to go twice.”

“You weren’t afraid of her?” Morgana said dryly.

Loria hung her head. “She’s just an ordinary old witch. Not a priestess.”

Braithe said, “Come now, Loria, let us do what Priestess Morgana suggests. We’ll go down to the kitchen. She will deal with your mistress.”

Morgana nodded her thanks to Braithe, and as Braithe led the frightened maid out, she found a small jar of willow bark tincture and added a few drops of valerian to it, then corked it.

She took her time on the stairs. The walls rang with Gwenvere’s screams, but they were coming at greater intervals.

The process must be almost complete. There would have been no stopping it once the queen took the potion Loria had obtained.

Morgana had created abortifacients from time to time, when it was the best and kindest thing to do for one of her supplicants.

Such remedies required wormwood and rue, and a bit of mistletoe leaf, which could be dangerous.

She had always insisted that the woman taking the potion stay on the Isle until the process was over.

Her potions contained other herbs to soothe their effects.

She had never known a woman to carry on as Gwenvere was.

She found the queen alone in her bedchamber, having driven everyone away.

There was broken crockery on the floor and a blood-soaked dressing gown by the door.

The room was rank, reeking of blood and sweat and fury.

Gwenvere crouched by the window in her shift, holding her middle.

Perspiration streaked her cheeks and her breast and darkened her hair.

She whirled when the door opened, and when Morgana stepped in, she groaned, “I don’t want to see you! I don’t want to see anyone!”

Morgana barely recognized Gwenvere’s distorted face, her darkened eyes, her swollen lips. “I am told you are in pain.”

“Of course I’m in pain!” Gwenvere shrilled. “I—I’ve had a miscarriage!”

“My lady, I am not a fool. I know what has happened here. What you’ve done.”

“How could you know? Witch!” Gwenvere screamed.

“I will tell Arthur—he will send you away—once he knows what you are—” Her breast heaved with gasping breaths, and she clutched her body as a spasm shook her.

A trickle of dark blood ran down her thigh, but it was not heavy.

The process was all but finished, and the cramping should have lessened considerably.

Still, Gwenvere wept and cried out and pounded her knee with one fist.

Morgana began to wonder if the queen was quite sane. This was not just about pain. This was about temper. Gwenvere had lost control of hers, and of herself, and if Loria was to be believed, it was not at all unusual.

Morgana said, “I brought a tincture for you.” She held up the little jar. Gwenvere got to her feet to hobble across the room to take it, but Morgana held it out of her reach.

“Give it to me!” Gwenvere cried.

“I will administer it. You must take a little at a time. It is not wise to simply swallow it down.”

“The one I took—I did swallow it down. All at once. I will have that woman punished for making me so ill!”

“You will not. It was your own fault, a foolish thing to do.”

Gwenvere scowled at her, but when Morgana spooned up some of the tincture, Gwenvere swallowed it. “More!” she demanded.

“Yes, in a moment. Then you must space out the doses, every hour or so.” Morgana waited a short while, then gave the queen another spoonful.

As Morgana replaced the cork in the jar, Gwenvere straightened. She began to breathe more slowly, and the lines eased from her face. She looked down at herself. “I should dress. Call Braithe to me.”

“I will not do that.”

The Lady Gwenvere seemed to shift back into her public persona, all at once.

The contrast between her angry state and this one was so sharp, so complete, that it was not unlike shapeshifting.

She looked up at Morgana, her eyes now clear green, wide and innocent.

“But why?” she said, in that delicate, high-pitched voice she used when people were about. More specifically, when men were about.

Morgana ignored the question. “I will call Loria back, but first, one more spoonful of tincture. It seems your bleeding has stopped.”

Gwenvere took the spoon Morgana held out and swallowed its contents. She took a deep breath, and then another, one hand on her belly, the other pushing her sweat-dampened hair out of her face.

“Is your pain better?”

“A little.”

“You will want to wash,” Morgana said.

“I need Braithe to help me.”

“Braithe is no longer available,” Morgana said. She walked to the door. Loria was waiting in the corridor, her forehead creased with anxiety. Morgana beckoned to her, and the maid sidled in, her head down. “The queen needs a bath,” Morgana said. “And fresh clothes.”

“And take that thing away,” Gwenvere said, pointing to the bloodstained dressing gown. “The chamber pot, too. I don’t want the king to see it. To know that I miscarried,” she added. She pressed a slender hand to her heart and bestowed a tearful gaze on Morgana. “He would be heartbroken.”

Morgana folded her arms. “True. What you have done would break his heart.”

There was a flash in Gwenvere’s eyes, a reminder of her recent fury. “You will not tell him.”

“I will not, not because I obey your orders—which I do not, and never will—but because my brother has more important things to worry about than to try to understand why the wife he adores would do such a thing.”