THE CURSE OF EXCALIBUR: a gripping Arthurian fantasy (THE MORGAN TRILOGY Book 2) (2 page)

When I walked into the stables, I saw Accolon at the back, fiddling at something on one of the horses’ saddles. I got the feeling from him that he would rather be riding out to war than left at Rheged to oversee Uriens’ household while he was away. He looked like a man built for fighting.

I said nothing as I went in, going over to the nearest horse, and stroking down its long, sleek nose. The horse gave a little whicker of appreciation, and Accolon looked up. Dropping what he was doing, he rushed over.

“My Lady, what are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

In the suddenness of his concern he had rushed close. It was cold outside, but it was warm in the stable from the heat of a fire and the horses, so he was dressed only in his shirt and breeches. His shirt fell open at the neck and I could glimpse dark hair and a muscular chest through the opening. I forced myself to look up at his face.

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep,” I answered absently.

He nodded, but he did not look away, or move back from me. I felt a dangerous flutter of excitement in my heart. Chance had brought me here, alone with him in the middle of the night. I was not sure what I wanted.

“And... you are well?” he asked, carefully. I saw him glance down at my stomach. The shape of me showed, just a little, through the nightdress. Unconsciously, I pulled my cloak tighter around myself.

“Well,” I answered.

He leaned away a little, looking at me, his eyes narrowing with thought.

“Are you happy?”

It seemed a strange question. Women were not allowed to say they were unhappy about children, especially if they were married. I thought I would be happy enough if it were not Uriens’.

“Oh, yes.”

His face crinkled more deeply, as though he were trying to puzzle something out. Something he had been wondering about for a long time.

“So, your marriage was a love-match?” he asked, unable to keep the confusion from his voice.

“No, no. Of course not. No.”

Accolon shifted on his feet, and still looked troubled.

“I would not have thought that a witch from Avalon would have to marry a man she did not love.”

“I did it for my sister’s sake.” As the words came out of me, I realised that they were true. I felt raw, too honest, around him. Part of me wanted to leave, but I was deep in the middle-of-the-night honesty, and it was too late for me to walk away from it. “I did it in the hope that Uriens, or my brother, would kill her husband. Then her husband won’t kill her. She has... she gets herself into trouble. Morgawse has always needed my rescuing.”

He looked shocked.

“Your sister is Morgawse of Lothian?” I nodded. “I would have thought a woman with four sons would have had a happy marriage.”

“You don’t understand much about marriage,” I replied, more sharply than I meant to. He looked at me, as though he suddenly saw me properly. He opened his mouth slightly as though there was something that he was going to say, but he did not. He reached out and, lightly, put a hand against my cheek. I felt my heart race, my blood rush in my veins. The look in his eyes was sudden understanding and, awfully, pity. I did not want anyone to feel sorry for me, but it drew me towards him, the real care I saw for me. If it had not been the middle of the night, if I had not felt vulnerable and raw, perhaps I would have questioned it, but I did not. I leaned towards him, and he leaned down towards me. I smelled the lovely warm scent of the horses nearby, and the fresh hay, and the smoke from the fire. I felt the anticipation tighten through me. I looked up to meet his gaze, his eyes, the dark green of the woods, and he was close enough that I could see the light covering of dark-gold stubble across his lip, his chin, and I let my eyes flutter shut. When I felt his lips against mine, I gave an unconscious sigh of pleasure. His lips were soft and gentle on mine at first, then quickly rough and urgent as, holding my face in his hands, he drew me towards him. It had been so long since a man I had wanted had touched me. I had not felt the loneliness of my body until that moment.

“Morgan,” he murmured, as he moved his lips down, against my neck. I was breathing fast, and I felt the flush spread up through my body. I was hot with it already. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes, letting the feel of his lips, his hands sliding down my back pulling me closer, wash over me. It was overwhelming.

Was I going to give in to it? I still felt bruised and vulnerable from all the betrayals I had felt at the hands of men. I wanted him, but I did not want that again.

Accolon’s lips met mine again, and I met his kiss with an urgent passion of my own, losing my thoughts as I felt the brush of his tongue against mine, and a shock of desire went through me. I ran my hands through his hair, coarse and rough, and pressed my body against his. Through the thin material of my nightdress and his shirt, I felt the heat of his skin. He gave a low murmur of desire in response, and I felt his hand at the lace at the top of my nightdress, pulling it undone. He slid his hand gently inside, and the feel of his hand on me as he pressed to my bare breast underneath made me sigh again. My mind was becoming clouded with it, with his closeness.

No, I didn’t want to. The horrible thought struck me that, like Merlin, he had only been kind to me to get something from me. My body, a magic sword; it was all the same. It was all so soon, so sudden. He was too eager to betray his King – a part of me wondered fleetingly if this might have been something Uriens had arranged so that he could prove to everyone that I was the whore he thought I was. I was not going to fall like a fool again.

I put a hand against Accolon’s chest, prepared that I might have to shove him forcefully off me, but when he felt my resistance, he moved back immediately. I was surprised. I gathered my cloak defensively around myself. My body was still hot, still full of desire. But when I saw him step forward, as though to begin again, I held out my hand for him to stop.

“I have had enough of men,” was all I managed to articulate, but miraculously, he seemed to understand.

“I can wait,” he said, evenly, and he stepped back towards me, putting a gentle hand at the back of my neck. I looked up to meet his eye. “Just know that not all men are like Uriens.”

Chapter Two

Whenever I saw Accolon after that, he was kind and polite as before, but now he was also watchful, waiting for the signal from me that I was ready. I bided my time. A letter reached me from Morgawse, but she had tried rather too hard to be cryptic, and it did not make much sense. Still, I gathered from it that she was safe, and so was her youngest son. I did not think she would be afraid to tell me if he were dead.

It was as spring was turning to summer, and my stomach grown large and heavy before me, that news came, but not in the form of a letter. It came in the form of Arthur, and Uriens and a small band of knights, and worst of all Merlin, arriving at the castle gates. I was standing with Accolon and Elaine as he was talking me through what we had in our stores. He leaned a little closer than he needed to, let his hand brush mine as he pointed to items on the list, but I did not mind. I had been enjoying it more and more, the pleasant tension of expectation growing between us.

We heard the horns that announced the arrival of the castle’s Lord, and looked up. Arthur and Uriens rode at the head of the party. I glanced through the others, but did not see Kay. It was only Merlin, in his real form, wearing a cowled robe of rough black wool, that I recognised in the party. They had a prisoner with them, bound and led on a horse between Arthur and Uriens. At first, I thought it was a small, scrawny man, but as they came closer, I realised that it was a woman. She sat tall and proud on her horse, her hands bound before her, dressed in light leather armour set with battered plates of steel. She was covered in dirt, and dried blood, but she carried herself with haughty dignity. She must have been some great woman for them to have brought her as a prisoner, rather than slain her in the field, or worse.

I stepped forward to greet Arthur. I noticed Uriens hang back. Good, he had learned his place. Arthur kissed me on both cheeks. He grinned, pleased to see me. Had he forgotten how he had treated me? There was no hint in his open, honest face that he knew that I hated him now, for what he had done to me. Uriens was not the only man who had wronged me. But I played the part of the loving sister, and gave Arthur a courteous smile.

“It is a joy to see you, brother,” I told him.

He smiled, holding me by the shoulders and looking down at the hugeness of my belly between us.

“I, too, am glad to see you, and to see you so happy.”

I put my hand on the top of my stomach and gave the easiest smile that I could. Why did all men think a woman with a child must be happy with her husband? I had read a book of Galenic medicine in Avalon that had been full of such rubbish, and had suggested that a woman had to enjoy to conceive. I had thrown it away. It seemed the men of Logrys still foolishly believed such tales.

Arthur moved past me, giving the orders to Uriens’ men to take his horses to the stable. His small band of knights dismounted and followed him. Uriens came over to me, his face a mix of pleasure to see the promise of a child he dared to hope was his, and displeasure to see me.

“Morgan,” he greeted me tersely. I gave him a slight nod.

“Uriens. I am pleased to see my husband safe.”

“Morgan, I would be a very foolish man to believe a single thing you ever said to me,” he said sharply. “Can I trust you to guard our prisoner until we decide what to do with her? Actually…” He looked past me, and saw Accolon. “Steward, come here. I need you to put this prisoner somewhere.”

“No,” I interrupted. “I will take care of it.”

I did not want the woman put in some awful dungeon. Nor somewhere that Uriens could get his hands on her. No one deserved that. Uriens walked back and pulled her roughly from her horse, dragging her by the arm across the courtyard to me. Elaine behind me gave a demure little gasp. I wasn’t sure if she was gasping at the sight of the warlike woman, dressed in armour like a man, or at Uriens’ treatment of her. The woman had an empty scabbard at her side. So she had once been armed like a man, too. She already had the marks on her of a man’s rough treatment. A dark bruise showed against the pale skin of her cheek, high on the bone, and her lip was split. Those were not the wounds of the battlefield. When she was dragged up to me, I saw the animal fear in her fierce blue eyes.

I reached out, and took her from Uriens. He let go of her arm reluctantly. I turned to her.

“Come with me. No one will try to hurt you. You will be safe, as long as you do not try to run.”

Her eyes looked back at me, uncomprehending, and wide with panic.

“She doesn’t speak English,” Uriens told me, with a cruel grin.

“What does she speak?” I asked. He shrugged. I was sure that he knew. “Who is she, Uriens?”

He said nothing, just gave me a mean smirk, walking off. I turned round to Elaine.

“Elaine, what languages do you speak?”

She shook her head, overwhelmed.

“Just English.”

I glanced at Accolon. He shook his head. I knew some French, but not much. I could hardly speak to her in Latin.

In my slow, childish French, I asked her, “Do you understand what I am saying to you?” She nodded, but she did not speak. “I will keep you safe. Just don’t try to run.” She nodded again. There was resistance in her eyes. She did not seem as though she would make a willing prisoner.

Elaine and I led her up to my room. I sent Elaine to fetch a bath. The woman watched me warily. She was measuring me up. She was tied, but I was heavily pregnant, and I could see she was strong. Her arms were bare – caked in blood and dirt, but bare – and I could see that she was leanly muscled. She was a woman who had grown up fighting. I suspected that she was Breton, perhaps even the queen that had come from Brittany with Leodegrance’s army, but I had no way of telling for sure. She didn’t have a crown, or a circlet, or any other mark of royalty on her.

Elaine came back with another serving girl, and Accolon and another of Uriens’ knights. Obviously, she had not felt safe leaving me alone with the woman, but I was not so sure. I could see that after she had noticed my pregnant belly, she had noticed my woaded face.

Elaine set the bath down before her. I waved my hand in the direction of the woman.

“Someone cut her bonds, then you men wait outside.”

Accolon stepped forward and cut the rope that bound her hands with his dagger. I noticed that he was gentle, careful not to cut her, or pull roughly on the bonds. There were men that would have relished a little chance of violence against an enemy woman. He glanced at me over his shoulder as he left, his look one of concern. Before I could scold her, Elaine slipped out with them. I rolled my eyes. The girl was insipid.

I crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned back against my table.

“You can get in the bath, if you like,” I told her, in my slow French. She did not move, but she did rub her wrists, bringing the blood back down to her hands. “Are you Breton?” I asked her.

She said nothing, just regarded me with a wary look. I sighed hard, shaking my head.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to help you.”

She pulled her armour off over her head. Underneath she had a thin, stained vest marked with sweat and dirt and blood. She was wounded. When she moved, I saw the cut, deep into the flesh of her upper arm. She showed no pain, but I was sure she felt it. She pulled off her chainmail leggings and stood before me defiantly in her stained vest and woollen leggings, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You are a witch,” she said, her own French as clumsy as mine. I nodded.

“I can give you something for your wound. For the pain. To stop sickness.” I pointed to her arm. She glanced down at it and shrugged, as though she barely felt it. But then, after a moment, she nodded. As I turned from her to go to my book, and my small collection of herbs, she pulled off her underclothes and stepped into the bath. I could hear the water splashing as she rubbed herself clean. When I had made the poultice for her wound – a simple enough mixture – and turned back, I saw she was gently washing the cut with the water from the bath, and wincing as she did. Her wrists were burned from the rope, and I could see the dark marks of bruises all over her arms. She had pulled her hair loose and soaked it in the bathwater. It glistened a dark auburn-red. She must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. As it was, she was a striking woman now in her middle age, her face angular and proud. She was tanned from the sun, and freckled lightly across the forehead, nose and shoulders.

I knelt down awkwardly beside her, slow with my huge belly. She let me pat her arm dry with the hem of my skirt, and then apply the poultice and wrap the bandage around it. She could not hide the pain of its stinging on her face.

“I am sorry. The sting is healing,” I told her, not sure if my French made sense. She nodded, though, as though she already knew.

I went to my cupboards and brought out for her a clean underdress and one of my old black woollen dresses. I laid them on the table, where she could see them, and left her alone.

When I came out of the door, Accolon and the other knight were still waiting there, and Arthur, Uriens, and Merlin were with them.

“Did she tell you anything?” Arthur asked, as soon as I was out of the door. I shook my head.

Arthur gestured that we should walk together. I glanced at Accolon as I followed them. Arthur led us in to the room beside mine. It was an empty bedroom, set with a simple bed, long unused and dusty. I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, exhausted already and uncomfortable from moving around with the child huge and near its time inside me. I sighed heavily as I sat down leaning back on my hands.

Arthur rubbed his face. “What are we going to do with her?”

Uriens shrugged. “Kill her. Unless you have another use for her.” The look he gave Arthur was narrow and accusatory, but Arthur wasn’t looking at him. He was shaking his head.

“No, no. That isn’t right. Can’t we bargain for peace with her?”

Merlin remained silent, watching the two men.

“Bargain for peace?” Uriens scoffed. “When we’re winning?”

“Peace is better than ever more war, Uriens,” Arthur snapped.

“Who is she?” I asked again.

Arthur shrugged, turning to me. I could see that he was trying to think of a way that meant he did not have to harm her. So eager to protect this woman he did not know, yet so eager to throw his own sister into suffering.

“We do not know,” Merlin cut in, his rasping, unpleasant voice slimy in its tone, “but we suspect that she is the Queen of Carhais, Melita of the Bretons.” I nodded. Merlin gave his skull-like grin, and I felt my stomach turn. I pressed a hand against my belly as I felt the child within move, as though in fear of Merlin. “We cannot learn her identity, for none of us speaks a language that she understands. Or, rather, none of us
seems
to speak a language that she understands. I might remind you all that since she was with Lot’s army, who receive their orders from Lot
in English
it is highly unlikely that her understanding is as limited as she pretends.”

Arthur shook his head again. “But this doesn’t help us decide what to do with her. Can we keep her here?” He turned to Uriens. Uriens shook his head.

“When there is hardly enough food for my own people? Feed one of the enemy? Leave her with my wife, when she is like that?” He gestured carelessly at me. “Imagine the harm she could do here unguarded, and I cannot spare the men to guard her.”

Arthur nodded reluctantly.

“Where is Kay?” I asked, suddenly. The words escaped me. To my surprise, Arthur turned to me, eager to answer my question, a bright smile spreading across his face.

“Kay was
magnificent
.
He slew two of Lot’s ally kings in battle. That only leaves three of them against us, so we match them now. You should have seen him in the field. He is at Camelot now, holding it against the enemy.”

I was glad that Kay lived, but he was not forgiven.

“We have not solved our problem,” Uriens pointed out, impatiently.

They continued to argue back and forth, but I had stopped listening. Arthur wanted to keep her somewhere safe, Uriens wanted to execute her in front of the men. He thought it would be good for morale. I was only concerned with not letting either of them lay their hands on her before she met either fate. She was a brave, proud woman, and she did not deserve that kind of dishonour.

Slowly, I pushed myself back to my feet and excused myself to go back to my room, ignoring Merlin’s nasty, beady black eyes on me.

When I got back to my room, the woman had dressed in my underdress, but had torn the skirt off to wear it like her vest, and had put her woollen leggings back on, dirty though they were, and was buckling her armour back on. I did not blame her.

I sat slowly down into my chair. I felt safe enough with Accolon and the other knight outside. She only eyed my pregnant belly as though she might try to run from me, anyway. Not as though she would try to hurt me. She was of the age that if she had children, they would be almost grown by now. I thought any woman who had known pregnancy and childbirth would never try to take another at the advantage in such a situation.

“Truly,” I asked her “you do not speak English? It would be easier for me.”