Chapter 29
After Ninianne left, I took the Shroud of Tithonus up to my study, removed it from its reliquary and lay it across my desk.
I was still staring at it when Alys and Tressa marched in and asked me what in Heaven was going on.
Torn from my reverie, I was surprised to find the room almost entirely dark, only a violet haze drifting through the balcony doorway.
“You missed the evening meal,” Alys said. “Why are you sitting with no light?”
I snapped my fingers and lit the candles, gathering myself. It had been hours with only the intensity of my thoughts, and that morning felt a hundred years ago.
“Ninianne came,” I told them. “I contacted her and said I held Sir Lancelot prisoner. She came to answer his ransom.”
Alys crossed her arms in exasperation. “Morgan of Cornwall,” she said.
“Alys of Llancarfan,” I retorted with a smile. “I know it wasn’t particularly honest to let her believe he was still here, but it was worth it. Look.”
I picked up the folded fabric and they crowded curiously behind the desk. Alys said, “Is that…?”
I nodded. “The Shroud of Tithonus. Merlin’s last resurrection object.”
Alys put her chin on Tressa’s shoulder and they both gazed at the Shroud as if they could see the magic shimmering within.
“So the Lady of the Lake had it all along,” Tressa said.
“Of course,” I replied. “Or knew where it was. She played her game perfectly until I found where she is weakest. Her son.”
Alys tutted at my nonchalance. “What did she say?”
“Many things. Disapproving words about my behaviour—how acting this way wasn’t in my nature. Then, true to her paradoxical self, she asked if I was the one who betrayed Arthur, and seemed to accept it when I said I was not.”
“She believed you?” Tressa exclaimed. “After all this time?”
I shrugged. “Who can say for certain what she thinks? She asked if we could speak and shared a great deal. How magic is waning here, and eventually she and her elemental ilk will have to leave. She spoke of a mystical island, where those touched by fairy magic can go to seek knowledge, expand our wisdom for eternity. Ynys Afallach, it’s called. Avalon.”
“Our wisdom?” Alys queried, and inside I cursed. I had not meant to mention the offer to go to Avalon ourselves, but she was far too astute.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Ninianne said she would take us with her, if we wished. Our experiences with fairy magic, along with our scholarship, mean we would all be welcome.”
Ever practical, Tressa asked, “Are we going?”
“No. I mean…I haven’t considered it,” I said. “We have a home here that you have worked hard to make. I would never ask such a thing.”
Alys reached out and took my hand. “We will go anywhere with you, cariad,” she said. “You know that. Your future is always our future.”
I smiled at her, absorbing the comfort of her love and loyalty, before drawing away. I could not think about any of that now.
“I highly doubt Ninianne was serious about allowing me of all people onto her wondrous island,” I said dismissively. “We did not conclude on friendly terms. She lost the means to prevent Arthur’s death today, even if she could not have used it.”
Epiphany lit Alys’s face. “Does this mean…Sir Accolon?”
The air changed in an instant, as though a ghost had drifted through the wall. I placed the Shroud back in its reliquary and closed the lid.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Such a feat requires much more than this piece of cloth. If I cannot raise a bird, how could I begin to consider using it?”
“But you did raise a bird,” Tressa said. “The magpie.”
“Maybe, though I couldn’t find the reason why, and never succeeded thereafter. Whatever force brought the magpie back, it wasn’t from my formula.”
Alys frowned. “So you’re not going to try?”
I made no reply, but instead picked up the reliquary and went to the alcove, placing the blue glass vessel carefully on the top shelf, beside the silver box containing Accolon’s singing heart.
The Hecate tapestries fell back into place and I regarded the witch goddess for a moment, wondering what she would do.
When I turned back, Alys and Tressa were still waiting for an answer, but there was none I could give.
I am asking you, for your brother’s sake, not to use the Shroud, Ninianne had entreated me. Do not take away the kingdom’s future.
I didn’t want her voice in my mind, or this responsibility that was never mine to carry. But I could not shake the one desperate word, brief and powerful, that I had rarely, if ever, heard pass her lips.
Please, she had said.
*
So the Shroud of Tithonus remained on my alcove shelf, dead and alive all at once. Midsummer arrived, with its usual noisy joy and quiet grief, then a few weeks later Belle Garde’s unspoken but much felt anniversary. Our twelfth, without Accolon.
At intervals, my women would enquire about my plans, but after a while with my doing nothing, even Alys stopped asking. Sometimes, when alone, I would draw out the Shroud and contemplate what it meant that I hadn’t used it, or sought to find a way.
Summer’s abundant green transformed into autumn’s burning gold; deer season turned to boar season, and first frost dressed the meadows in crisp white, until the ice thawed and crocuses peeked through the earth once more.
Trees budded, shyly at first, then burst forth into spring bloom, birdsong accompanying a chorus of new life.
Then May Day again, a year since my journey to Camelot and first laying eyes on its champion knight.
Occasionally, I thought of him—Lancelot, in all his shining beauty and inner turmoil, his yearning for miracles and penchant for sin—before forcing my mind away from our time together.
In any case, my plan had worked. Elaine reported Yvain’s success in finding Lancelot along the Cymri road, and their return to the Royal Court triumphant.
My sister heard of my son less than before, but mined every seam of information for my sake. Tales of his questing home and abroad, his courage and confidence, made my heart grow, the thought that I had found a way to smooth his path, restore his self-belief.
Thereafter, more missives came, as another year passed, and another.
Your son rides with a lion now, she wrote. The story is he rescued the wild cat from danger, and it follows him everywhere, quite tame. This and his knightly success have brought him fame in the Royal Court.
The stranger details I could not quite fathom, but my son was making his good name and was happy. I tried not to think about how, before his lion, his restoration in Camelot, he had stood at the cusp of my valley and turned away.
I threw myself back into my usual days: healing in the infirmary; making sure the household saw me at mealtimes; study and work with Alys and Tressa until our writings filled volumes.
More seasons came and went, with more self-made distractions from everything I could not face.
Accolon was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years gone.
Every so often, when restless, I bestowed an act of chaos upon Camelot: a week of rain to disrupt Pentecost celebrations; an eminent knight seduced and sent away a rebel.
When Arthur did not deign to retaliate, I became bolder, taking the Shroud from its reliquary more often, running the cloth through my fingers, absorbing its symphony of life.
I left it on my desk while I read, imagining its power alone might be enough to force my decision.
“If you don’t use it, then you may as well not have it at all,” Alys liked to say. “The time, the scheming, the effort—what was it all for?”
She was right, but only because I had not told her everything that passed between Ninianne and me.
Alys knew something was amiss, but my secrets were ingrained, a form of protection for us all.
Still, I took the Shroud out often and sent Camelot my renewed vengeance.
Occasionally, I would enchant a drinking horn with a “faithfulness in love” spell, and send them to the court as anonymous gifts, so Guinevere would spill wine down her white gown and reveal herself.
Not that she ever did; luck was always with her, a different faithless spouse who drank first and ensured her escape.
Nevertheless, when heralds were reported riding across the boundary bearing Arthur’s red-and-white standard, I assumed sanctions were on their way.
I waited on the front green with my arms crossed as the main herald dismounted and approached. “Lady Morgan,” he said with clerkish indifference. “I bring a message from my lord King Arthur, which he conveys to you in regret and sadness. May I proceed?”
Their polite arrival was strange enough, even odder his request I consent to hear it. “You may,” I said cautiously.
He bowed. “Your mother, Queen Igraine, formerly of All Britain, has died. Gone to God in peace and comfort. The High King sends his deepest condolences. Your brother wishes it known you are not alone in your great sorrow.”
I stood motionless: that my mother had died was no shock—Elaine had told me of her fading health, after many happy years spent in Ireland, and I had come to terms with the eventuality.
However, I expected the news to come from my sister, not a brother who could not bear the thought of me.
That Arthur had done this, with such ceremony and deference, brought a confusion far beyond the grief I felt at the news.
The herald cleared his throat. There was more.
“His Highness also tells you that a rose garden is being built to honour your lady mother, with a memorial stone bearing her name and that of her children. If my lady agrees, you may choose your own style.”
“I agree,” I said faintly. “Style me as…Morgan of Cornwall.”
It seemed the most apt, how my mother had herself named me, and who I was when we spent the best of our years together.
“It will be done, my lady. Any return message for the High King?”