Page 7 of The Faerie Morgana

Morgana felt as if her entire body were stretched taut, as if her muscles were ropes being pulled, her flesh a fabric pressed too thin.

She watched the Blackbird enter the priestesses’ residence, and Dafne shut the door firmly behind him.

She stood for another moment, gazing at that closed door, then spun toward the lake and her favorite short beach with its litter of gray boulders.

She needed to stretch her legs, swing her arms, gaze upon the natural things that gave them all their strength—trees, water, plants, birds, fish.

She felt Braithe’s presence just behind her, and she breathed a bit easier.

Braithe had become the little sister she had never had, filled a void she hadn’t known was there.

She barely knew her half brother Arthur, and there was an even younger brother, little Mordred, born to Uther’s second wife, but she had never laid eyes on the boy.

She had resigned herself to being alone, until Braithe came along.

When she had stepped in to help Braithe, remembering how hurtful Iffa’s criticisms could be, she had been delighted to find the girl bright and eager, the perfect apprentice. Seeing Braithe grow in confidence and ability had eased her own painful memories of those early days on the Isle.

Morgana didn’t look back at Braithe until they had passed through the sparse woods beyond the herb garden.

At the lake’s edge, she kicked off her sandals, leaving them on the pebbly shore, and lifted the hem of her robe to wade ankle-deep into the frigid water.

With her skirts looped over one arm, she turned and beckoned. “Join me.”

Braithe’s dimples flashed as she slid out of her own sandals. She pulled up the skirts of her robe and stepped gingerly down into the water. “Brrrrr. It’s cold!”

“It is perfect,” Morgana answered. “I feared I might burst into flame.”

Braithe shivered, but she didn’t step back out of the water. “You mustn’t worry,” she said. “They can’t possibly choose anyone else.”

“Your confidence is touching, Braithe, but I have not been politic in my dealings with the priestesses. Iffa has always disliked me, and that may be why.”

“Priestess Iffa hates everyone,” Braithe said. “She is even mean to the little ones!”

“I know,” Morgana said. It was something she intended to repair when she took a priestess’s chair. There was nothing to be gained by being cruel to the acolytes, especially the very young ones. “Preela resents me, too, and I have made it worse.”

“She’s stupid,” Braithe said. “All the acolytes know it.”

Morgana wiggled her toes in the icy water. “You are good for me, little Braithe.”

Braithe grinned up at her. “When you are one of the Nine, I will be your servant!”

“Priestesses do not have servants.”

“You will be no ordinary priestess, Morgana. You will be a real priestess, with real abilities. Everyone knows the real magic has returned with you, after sleeping for so long.”

Morgana supposed she should demur, but it could be that Braithe was right.

Somehow, for some reason she could not fathom, she had been gifted with abilities that no other priestess in her memory had possessed.

She had seen her mother’s death, and it had come to pass just as her vision predicted.

Objects obeyed her whims, lifting into her hand when she wanted them, moving to where she needed them to be.

None of her charms ever failed. Her deep sight was the same, when she employed it—clear and true.

She could pretend modesty about these things, but she and Braithe both knew it would be false.

Braithe went on. “I could see you have no need to waste time on little things, Morgana. Your clothes, your meals, your messages! I could set you free to do your real work, the work the Lady brought you here to do.”

Morgana’s heart warmed at the younger girl’s generosity. She said, “Come, now, my little brat, your toes are turning blue. We will sit on that boulder and toast our feet in the sun.”

When they were settled on the smooth rock, and Braithe had turned her freckled face up into the slanting sunshine, Morgana said, “How is it that you are always so happy? You were sent away as a child, just as I was.”

“Yes, though not so young as you.” Braithe flexed her toes in the warmth, watching the color return to them.

“But it was different for me. My mother had too many children in a house with only two rooms. There was never enough food, and my clothes were always handed down from the sisters ahead of me.” She laughed.

“When the Temple gave me a new robe, with no smell of someone else on it, no stains, no tears or threadbare places, I was thrilled! I had never had new clothes in my life.”

“A small thing to give such pleasure.”

“It didn’t seem small to me, but then, I was not the daughter of a queen, was I?” She pointed a plump forefinger at Morgana and laughed again. “My life at the Temple is far easier than the one on my mother’s croft. And I have a pallet all to myself. No sisters to jostle me all night!”

“It was the opposite for me,” Morgana said. “My bed was huge, and I felt lost in it. I used to wish for someone to share it with, perhaps a sister to keep me company in the dark of night. But then my brother came along. My half brother, I should say.”

“The true king,” Braithe murmured.

Morgana bent to rub the last of the lake water from her soles. “I didn’t know that then. Or that the arrival of a son meant I would be banished.”

“How did you know your half brother was the true king?”

“That is rather a long story.”

“I think we have time.”

Morgana shot her a look and saw her dimples flash. “You mean to tease me, brat?”

Braithe’s dimples faded. “Oh, Morgana, I didn’t mean—”

“Hush, hush. I know you did not. You were right. I fear we have more time than we would like.”

Braithe nodded and tucked her cold bare feet under her robe.

Morgana leaned back on her hands, feeling the warmth of the granite beneath her palms and the benediction of the afternoon sun on her hair.

“You will be disappointed in the story. It is not a tale of the fae or a bogle, or anything entertaining.” She shifted her gaze to the vista of the lake, the water glittering sapphire, the green willows posing like dancers at the lake’s edge.

When she narrowed her eyes to soften her vision, the willows’ drooping boughs could be faeries in disguise, come to drink the clear water and spy on the women of the Temple.

The idea appealed to her, that the fae might visit the Isle of Apples.

That they might, indeed, have something to tell her.

Braithe gave a small, encouraging humming sound, and Morgana opened her eyes again. “Very well. I will tell you how I came to understand that Arthur is the true king of Lloegyr.”

“And the most beautiful of all kings,” Braithe murmured, with relish.

Morgana gave her a sidelong glance. “My half brother is pretty enough. But all kings?”

Braithe laughed and shrugged, and Morgana tipped up her face again, remembering, speaking almost to herself.

“The Blackbird has always watched me. Even when I first arrived, when I was crying myself to sleep at night and huddling in a corner of the workroom, missing my home and my mother, I felt his eyes on me.

When I lost my temper with one of the other acolytes and caused a jar to fall on her head—without having touched it—he stopped the acolyte mistress from punishing me.

From that day forward, he was my only teacher.

“The other acolytes were jealous. They pinched me when no one was looking, or put flies in my bed, or pulled my hair.”

“Oh!” Braithe exclaimed. “Nothing that mean has happened to me—well, Priestess Iffa is quick with a slap if I’m slow in answering, but no one else troubles me.”

“I am glad of that. Such cruelty is pointless, but children…” Morgana waved one long-fingered hand, as if to brush away everything she had just said.

“I wish they had not treated you so.”

“Ah, well. It is far behind me now. In any case, the Blackbird tutored me himself, and when he found that I remembered everything he taught me, he worked me harder. I have learned Latin, some Greek, even a bit of Saxon. I could converse with those Romans who threaten to overrun Lloegyr. I could curse the Saxon barbarians in their own tongue.” She grimaced, and her voice hardened.

“I would quite like to do that one day. They are everything evil in the world.”

A dragonfly, as blue as the lake, as delicate as a single willow frond, descended from the holm oak and hung, wings aflutter, in front of Morgana’s face. Morgana tilted her head, watching him. The little creature came closer, so close his fragile wings nearly brushed her nose.

Morgana whispered, “I am fine, little brother. Thank you. Off with you, now,” and the dragonfly flitted away, circling once before ascending back into the holm oak.

Braithe’s mouth hung open as she watched his progress. When he was gone, she blinked in amazement at Morgana. “How— What just happened?”

“The dragonfly? He came to calm me. Because when I think of the Saxons—” She spread her hands and blew out a breath. “And now I am calm.”

“A dragonfly ? I don’t understand!” Braithe cried. Two spots of uncomfortable pink appeared in her cheeks.

Morgana put a hand on her arm. “It is nothing to be afraid of, brat. Nothing for you to worry about. When one is such as I, these things are not uncommon.”

“When one is such as you!” Braithe repeated. “Where is there anyone such as you?”

Morgana fell silent as she pondered the question. “I have no idea,” she said, at length. “I have always known I was different. Odd, even. Strange that I should be the only one.”

“You’re not alone, though,” Braithe said stoutly. “I am here beside you.”

“I thank you for that. It mystifies me that I should have been made this way. In any case, I have strayed from my tale, have I not?”

“The true king.”

“I never met him until that day in the Temple.” She turned her gaze out to the lake once again.

“Though I knew he existed. My mother nearly died bearing him, and then she did die with her next babe. The babe did, too. I understood my half brother would one day inherit my father’s crown, but that was all.

Then, when the Blackbird brought me to the lake for my first lesson in scrying, we both had a surprise.

” She paused, remembering. “I had been scrying for years without knowing it.

“The mist was heavy on the lake that day.

We were on that flat bit of beach on the other side of the garden, the one with those thick roots growing up through the earth.

We sat on one of those roots, and it curved so high my feet barely reached the ground.

The Blackbird had to lean on his staff to lower himself to it.

“He pointed his staff at the mist. ‘Now, Morgana. When I concentrate, I see things against the fog, and I hope you will learn to do that. It’s called scrying. Right now, I see—’

“I interrupted him, although I had not meant to. ‘I see a boy on a horse. He carries a spear and a sword, and he wears a crown.’

“The Blackbird nearly dropped his staff, and those gray eyebrows flew up his forehead. He said, ‘What?’

“I answered, ‘Is that not what you see, sir?’

“He stared at me for a long time before he said, ‘It may be. But your vision is your own.’

“I asked him what it meant, and he answered, ‘Only the scryer can say its meaning, Morgana. Gaze at the scene, and try not to think too hard about it. The answer may come to you.’

“And it did, Braithe. It came to me clearly, although I did not grasp how important the answer was.”

Braithe gazed at her, rapt. “What was it? What was the answer?”

“Words came into my head. They were not my words, and they were spoken in some way only I could hear, so I repeated them for the Blackbird. ‘The one true king. Arthur Dragoun.’

“The Blackbird turned as white as that rock.” She pointed to one of the pale stones strewn about the boulder they sat on. “And that was the end of that day’s lesson.”