Page 75 of The Faerie Morgana

When Morgana woke, the shadows of early evening stretched long outside the residence, reaching down toward the dormitory.

Acolytes hurried here and there, but they were uncharacteristically quiet, possibly out of respect for the mourning period for Arthur, but perhaps they had been told to let the priestess Morgana rest and recover from her travails.

That would have been Niamh’s doing, another change.

She thought of ringing for Braithe, but in hopes that her handmaid was asleep, she dressed herself and brushed her silver tresses smooth, letting them hang over her shoulders. She was just reaching for the latch of the door when a timid knock sounded.

“Come in,” she said.

The door opened, and the thin dark face of Priestess Joslyn peeked around it. “Ah, Priestess Morgana, you’re up. Welcome home.” Morgana said a brief thanks, and Joslyn said, “You have a visitor. I felt certain you would want to see him.”

Him? Morgana blinked in surprise. “Who is it?”

“He says his name is Lancelin, of Camulod. I have never seen him, but I had no sense that he dissembled.”

Morgana stood very still, her palms pressed together before her mouth, her gaze unfocused as she took in this surprising bit of news. She was silent so long that Joslyn said, “Do you prefer I send him away? Is this someone you don’t care to see?”

Morgana dropped her hands. “I do want to see him, Priestess. In truth—there may be no one in the world I would wish to see more.”

“Here?”

“Yes. We will need privacy.”

Joslyn didn’t question this but disappeared down the corridor. Morgana stood in the doorway to her chamber to await her visitor.

She had forgotten how tall Lancelin was, and how dark.

His hair, which hung straight and thick to his shoulders, had taken on threads of silver.

It must have happened swiftly, she thought, almost as quickly as her own transformation.

His eyes were different, too, the lids heavier, the brows permanently drawn together.

His had always been a hard face, but now it was one creased by sorrow, drawn into harsh lines, the narrow lips compressed until they nearly disappeared.

“Priestess Morgana,” he said.

“Sir Lancelin. Have you had something to drink?”

“I want nothing but to speak with you,” he said.

“I am very glad to see you,” she said. Alive. She had, in truth, thought he might be dead. In which case, she expected Gwenvere would also be dead.

“May we talk?”

She stood back and gestured for him to come in.

As she followed him, she saw her chamber as if through his eyes, spacious, airy, well-furnished, the window admitting the sweet evening air, opening on the view of the Isle she had so missed while at Camulod.

He crossed to the window and looked out, perhaps thinking that this life of peace was hard to believe. When she closed the door, he turned.

Without preamble, he said, “I could not bring myself to drop her in the lake, though I thought of it.”

“Ah.” She pulled one of her two chairs over by the window, where they could sit and breathe fresh air. He fetched the other one, and they sat in silence for a time. Finally, Morgana said, “I think you must have come to tell me where she is, and what we have to fear from her.”

“I left her with her father, in the western demesnes.”

“Was she made welcome?”

“I don’t know. She was conscious, at least somewhat recovered from what happened to her. I left her there and fled.”

He rubbed his thighs with his palms, a nervous gesture she had never before seen him make.

“I make no excuses for what I did, Priestess, but…” He lifted his hands, as if suddenly aware of what he was doing.

“I have done bloody things,” he said quietly, as if to himself.

“But I have never killed a woman or a child. I believed Gwenvere should die, but I could not be the one to do it.”

Morgana said, “Nor could I, when I had the chance. But I should have.”

“She has a certain power,” Lancelin said grimly. “Forgive me for speaking of this to you, but she inspires a kind of lust I have never before experienced. It was irresistible.”

“Indeed.” The younger Morgana would not have believed lust to be irresistible under any circumstances. But she had learned otherwise in Camulod, to her private shame.

Lancelin went on, “It was as if…” He spread his hands, searching for the right words. “Priestess, it was as if she were fae. Powerful, deceitful, wicked. But Gwenvere couldn’t be fae, could she?”

It was a painful moment for Morgana. Lancelin would take comfort in knowing that his betrayal of Arthur had been engineered by the fae, but selfishly, she did not want Lancelin, of all people, to know the truth about herself.

Powerful, deceitful, wicked. That was what he thought of the fae.

She couldn’t bear for him to believe that about her.

She chose her words carefully. “You are right to wonder, Sir Lancelin. I have come to believe that although Gwenvere may not be fully fae, she is, in fact, a changeling.”

“A changeling?” He stared at her, his hooded eyelids lifted high.

“Yes. A creature created by the fae, trained by the fae, endowed with a certain level of dark magic.”

“But how— Arthur—”

“Indeed. My half brother was deceived, as you were, as most of Camulod was. She wielded a powerful magic, and did it well.”

“But why?”

“You are here in the Lady’s Temple. The Lady, while she walked the earth, devoted herself to Lloegyr.

She turned her back on the fae and did her best to expel them from our land.

They hated her for that, and it seems they have long memories.

They still hate her, even though she is no longer here.

The Lady had a plan for Lloegyr, and for Arthur, and Gwenvere was sent to undo it all. ”

“It was revenge, then.”

“That is a good word for it.”

“I should have dropped her in the lake.”

“I should have pushed her from the courtine, but it is too late for such regrets. Now, I am afraid, we have to stop her from succeeding in her task. If we do not…”

“She will destroy us.”

“Yes. Lloegyr will fall to the Romans. It will be the end of the Lady’s plan.”

Morgana stood, gripping her sigil, and leaned against the window to gaze out onto the Isle she loved. This would require the strongest charm she had ever created. It would take every bit of energy she had, every scrap of knowledge and inspiration.

She would need all of the Nine to make it work. She would need the Blackbird, and Braithe. And she would need Sir Lancelin.

She leaned out of the window, seeking help.

It came almost instantly, in the form of a tiny sparrow with a sharp yellow beak and eyes like black pebbles.

The bird hovered before her face, wings a blur in the waning light.

She gazed at the little creature, listening, aware of Lancelin watching in confusion.

Finally, she murmured, “Yes. Yes. Thank you, little sister,” and the sparrow tilted her wings and was gone.

When she turned from the window she found Lancelin on his feet, staring at her. “What was that?”

“That was the Lady.” She reached for her cup of cider, hardly noticing that it rose into her hand before she touched it. “Come, Sir Lancelin, we will go to dinner, and then we will sleep, all of us. We are going to need our strength. We have a great task ahead.”

It took some days to prepare for the ritual of creating the great charm.

First, the Nine had to be convinced, and for this Olfreth’s deep sight was invaluable.

After speaking privately with Morgana, Olfreth spent most of a night casting the stones and studying their patterns.

The next morning she called all of the Nine into the inner chamber to tell them she had seen the danger to Lloegyr in the person of Arthur’s queen, and described to them what Morgana proposed to do, and how they would help her.

Morgana sent word to the Blackbird, carefully phrased so that he would understand but the messenger would not. The Blackbird had to travel from Camulod, after promising Mordred he would return as soon as he was able. He came swiftly, and met with the Nine in the Temple to lay their plans.

Braithe worked ceaselessly, gathering the herbs Morgana needed, collecting pure rainwater from jugs and pails set on the roof of the residence, pouring new candles in the workroom, finding a newly polished silver basin for Morgana to scry in.

The acolytes and servants watched all of this with curiosity at first, then growing alarm.

None of the priestesses said a word to them about what was happening.

No one explained why the tall, dark knight was given a bedchamber in the residence and allowed to take his meals with the Nine, when only the Blackbird had ever had that honor.

Some of the acolytes whose deep sight was already developing were rightly fearful, and it didn’t help that Iffa was fractious and impatient, snapping at them to look to their work, to mind their own affairs.

Dafne made Sir Lancelin’s comfort her special charge, seeing to his bedding and his wash water and sweeping out his bedchamber. Still, every time she crossed Morgana’s path, she touched her throat and narrowed her eyes, renewing her demand to have her voice restored to her.

Morgana spent those days mostly on the shore, sitting on her favorite boulder or walking through the herb garden.

Braithe often found her there, gazing out into the mist that surrounded the Isle.

She was usually barefoot, her braids undone so that her hair fell around her shoulders in shards of silver, her robe unbelted so that it lifted and rippled in the breeze.

And, of course, there was usually a bird, a squirrel, a dragonfly, a fox nearby.

On the last day before the ritual was to begin, Braithe went down to the shore to fetch the priestess for the evening meal. Morgana was standing in the water, her robe wet to the knees, her head bowed, her face nearly hidden by the shimmering curtain of her hair.

Water-born , Braithe remembered. That was what Olfreth had said when Morgana became one of the Nine. Water-born. The Lady’s daughter. Fae.

She stood at the lake’s edge, waiting in silence for Morgana to complete whatever it was she was doing. The dinner bell rang, but Morgana did not move. Braithe made no sound.

Morgana gave a sudden sigh, and, lifting her head, she caught sight of Braithe waiting for her. She stretched out her hand. “Come into the water, my own brat,” she said softly. “You will hear the call. I know you will.”

“But, Priestess, I—”

Morgana interrupted her, smiling. “Don’t tell me again you have no magic, Braithe of the Temple. Your magic has been slow in coming to you, but it has come nonetheless. Here, take my hand.”

Braithe kicked off her sandals and stepped into the lake so she could put her small, plump hand in Morgana’s long, thin one.

The chill of the water surrounded her ankles and then her calves, but she hardly felt it.

Instead, she felt the call of the Lady. It did not come through her ears but sang in her blood, tingled in her bones, made her shiver with the sense of something vital and exciting, terrifying and satisfying.

Morgana said, “You understand?”

Braithe nodded. “I do,” she whispered.

“This will not be easy.”

“No.”

“But necessary.”

“There will be a cost,” Braithe said. “Someone— One of us—”

“Yes, I sensed that also. The ritual may be too much for someone.”

“Do you know who? Someone frail, like the Blackbird, or Niamh, or—someone who knows nothing of magic?”

“You mean Sir Lancelin, I suppose, but I cannot tell you, nor do I want to know, brat. It may be no one, after all. But if I knew who might pay the price for this magic, I might not be strong enough to do the work, and this is a battle we must not shrink from.” Morgana looked down then, taking in the sodden skirt of her robe, the chilled pallor of her skin.

She made a slight sound of disgust and said, “This would have been easier in the shape of a fish.”