Chapter 6
Sir Manassen’s presence settled upon the household like a soothing tune.
In the two weeks before Accolon’s celebration, he amused at mealtimes with tales of our Gaul’s early jousting career, offered himself up for practical help regarding the feast and rode out with the huntsman and his lads, bringing his knightly skills to the chase.
Most of all, he continued to spend time with Robin, running the tilt field and practising sword drills, or taking him on long, refreshing rides. Robin began to stand tall again, the verve back in his loping gait.
Sir Manassen and I too found we had more to speak on, and engaged often in companionable discussion on the balcony or walks along the river, keeping me from the obsession of my failures. With him, I ceased to be haunted by Camelot’s laughter.
However, Arthur’s hunting party was imminent, and I wasted no time in taking control.
I rode Belle Garde’s edges, casting more protective threads, weaving them closer, until they were tight-knit and strong as a mail hauberk.
Three days later, the huntsman brought the first news of Camelot’s knights spotted in the wood with horses, hounds and attendants, but by then, the fairy veil was enough to withstand any army.
There wasn’t much of a shared boundary before the valley sides rose up and enclosed Belle Garde, yet the hunting party rode through that particular stretch of forest every day.
There were no sightings of a High King among them, but the proximity of gold-spurred men felt pointed. In time, he too would come.
On the seventh morning, I awoke restless from yet more dreams of the raging sea against battered cliffs, wild blue waves alive in my blood as I climbed to my turret. A week was enough; I refused to withstand the suspense any longer.
Once the knights had done their usual noon parade along my borders, I stepped out onto the balcony and called the magpie matriarch from the beech tree. The golden mark on her breast was fading, but our connection had remained strong.
“I know he’s there,” I told her. “Find him.”
I had no way of knowing it would work, but she tilted her head as if she understood, then gave a summoning caw that brought another five magpies to her side.
The flock took off at once, soaring towards the east and curving down into the trees like a clutch of arrows.
I closed my eyes and saw as the magpies did, my vision swooping between crisscrossed branches and falling leaves.
Sounds came through their hearing—other birdsong interpreted, the rustle of potential predators and, at a distance, what I sought: the steady rhythm of hoofbeats and the alien sound of male voices.
I could not understand their words from within a bird’s perspective, but felt the magpies’ caution, their reluctance to fly too close. Men were hunters, and dangerous.
Soon enough, we spotted the party pacing through the trees, hooves of a vanquished deer just visible, tied to a pole. The magpies settled on a branch farther back than I wanted but with good reason: the falcons on their saddlebows were unhooded, still alert.
Distance didn’t matter—I saw him like a shaft of sun. A golden figure sitting impossibly upright upon a red bay horse, riding ahead.
King Arthur, set apart from all other men.
As quickly as I had seen him, his image slipped into a bolt of fiery sunlight, and flashing hawk wings set the magpies scrambling up through the trees. I pulled back from the connection and found myself on the balcony again, my body ringing with avian impulses.
Briefly, I wondered if I had seen Arthur at all, or if it was an illusion brought on by my overtaxed mind. Yet the air in the forest had felt like him, and I had sensed his keen instincts, sharp on the breeze. He was looking for me, as much as I was looking for him.
No matter, anyway; this victory was his. Wherever my brother truly was, he resided exactly where he had intended—in my head.
This could not stand. To do battle with mine and Arthur’s entire history, I needed more weaponry.
Charging back into my study, I went to the alcove, shoved back the Hecate tapestries and pulled out the gold-covered Book of Prophecies.
Knowledge had always been my fortress, and now it must be my sword and shield.
It did not take long for me to find what I sought. In fourth place, bordered in gold crowns like the rest, was the prophecy that had secured the downfall of Morgan le Fay.
“Betrayal of the High King,” the heading said. Then, in the sorcerer’s spidery script:
“The Crowned Lion of All Britain shall not fall to the dragon, unless deceived and made weak at the hands of the crowned serpent and the leopard, in great betrayal.”
I read it again, and again. I turned the page to see if the stars had yielded anything beyond these bare two lines, words vague and incoherent, but there was no context, no explanation—just the next prediction important to Arthur’s alleged destiny.
Nowhere did the stars spell out “Morgan” or even “sister.” There was nothing to identify me at all.
For this, I had been exiled from my brother’s world.
For this, the sorcerer had declared me corrupt and dangerous, causing Yvain to be sent permanently to his father in Gore.
For this, Arthur had slain Accolon to punish me because he believed my possession of Excalibur’s scabbard was a scheme to destroy his kingdom, rather than what it truly was: a mistake, a stubbornness, a disagreement between two fire-hearted siblings that went too far.
No wonder they had laughed at me in Camelot. I had accepted the destruction of my entire life over words on a page that could mean anything.
Furious, I slapped the pages back to Arthurus Rex, Prophetiae, and read the rest.
Some events were clear and recognizable—the account of Arthur’s birth, his receiving Excalibur, various battles and their outcomes—but woven around these threads of sense was a tapestry of confusion: lists of animals with no obvious counterparts, vague allusions to relationships, miracles, alliances and conflicts.
Arthur was a lion, a dragon, a bear; his life’s path certain until it would suddenly turn back on itself.
Unnamed players shapeshifted as beasts, friends and foes until it was impossible to track any consistency at all.
Here was the shadowy language of prophecy in full force, its meaning decided by a sorcerer said to be sprung from the loins of a demon. None of this was worthy of the power it held over a High King and his entire realm.
For my sanity, I should have stopped reading but I could not, fury and disbelief growing with every word.
Upon turning the last page, I went immediately back to the first to start all over again.
Sunset passed into evening, then night into morning, as I read hungrily, heat building in my limbs until I was sure I would combust.
An errant gust danced over my skin, raising my head, and I saw the room was cast in a dim grey pall.
Above me, the windows in the circular walls had darkened, though the day had not long dawned with clear blue skies.
A sensation rippled through my muscles, tugging me out of my chair and onto the balcony.
The breeze as I emerged was cool but restive, gaining in strength.
Overhead, a thick, steely cloud had formed, scudding around the turret roof and into the beech tree, the air sharp and smelling of life and danger.
I looked up into the cloud’s dark belly and an instant, full-bodied recognition jolted through my bones, alive with duelling forces: warmth and cold, water and wind, creation and destruction.
Focusing my mind, I reached into the cloud’s depths and felt the rain, ready to fall but holding back. Waiting.
The air too was heavy with anticipation, and I realized this was not the first time I had felt it.
When I visited Robin’s carnedd, the sky had been just as clear, but upon returning to my study, upset and frustrated, a cloud of the same iron grey had shadowed the land.
Both then and now, my emotions had been heightened with no release, before rain had come.
In wonder, I understood: of the tumultuous skies, I had been the cause.
Tentatively, I raised my arms and took hold of the swirling elements.
All of my failures faded behind the tension in my limbs, the rapture of power reverberating through my body.
When I shifted my hands, so the cloud went.
Another flourish brought down a brief shower of water, so easily it made me smile.
Toying with the weather now, like a common witch? Merlin’s voice sneered in my mind, sudden and unwanted, as it had too often. That isn’t even a storm. It’s a rain cloud at best.
Anger surged in my blood, my oldest, most primal power.
I thought of the Book of Prophecies on my desk, its lies seeping into the air, and captured the feeling in my chest, sending it through my muscles until my entire body vibrated with its force.
Snatching up the air, I drove the heat of my fury up into the cold, pressure increasing as the cloud fought with its changing state.
I held firm, exhorting the elements to fulfil their deadly potential.
Then, amongst the pillowy grey came a flash of white light, and a ferocious crashing growl. Lightning and thunder; one following the other as it should.
Wind at my fingertips, I sent the cloud eastwards, a flashing, growling shadow over the treetops.
When it was a mile away, I eased the tempest to a halt and drew down the rain, feeling the water descend as a force from the core of my being.
I imagined my righteous golden brother, wet and furious, he and his marauding knights chased from my borders, no longer the hunters, but the hunted.
“What say you now?” I screamed into the tumult.
No answer came but the roar of the wind and rain, the sorcerer’s voice silenced in the wake of my creation. As my howl of defiance echoed across the valley, with it went my failures, leaving me cleansed. Unleashed.
There had not been a storm in Belle Garde’s valley since Accolon had died, but somehow, I had made one.