Chapter 43
Thereafter, the kingdom fell quiet, unusually so.
Even Belle Garde felt too tranquil as the warmer weather arrived.
After the Midsummer feast, Alys and Tressa went to visit Alys’s family in Llancarfan, and the household grew sparse, with others on journeys or busy with summer concerns: high harvest and its accompanying revels; resting in the heat of the afternoon; hunting the woods for game.
The infirmary saw fewer people in need of healing, the lodges stood unused, no questing knights rode in seeking hospitality or rest. Gawain had been right when he said there would be no more adventures.
He had also told the truth when he said he could never tell Arthur what he had seen painted on my walls.
A year had passed with no rumours of turmoil in the Royal Court, or reports from Elaine of trouble in Arthur’s closest circle.
That the eldest son of Orkney had chosen to protect Lancelot over his own blood and oaths of fealty was astonishing, yet I could not blame him for his conflict when I had hardly been forthcoming in action myself.
As much as I endlessly circled my own thoughts, all I could feel was the overbearing peace around me and the scratch of my own restlessness.
Everything I had started was left unfinished.
Much as I studied, Accolon remained trapped at the lake and I had still not found a way of making him whole.
My honesty with Yvain went unanswered, whether by his choice or under the pressure of Camelot.
Ninianne stayed out of my reach, though her island sanctuary was never far from my thoughts.
“Sometimes, I think I do not belong here,” I told Accolon, as we spent the day together on the eighteenth anniversary of his death. “That I watch this place grow and thrive while I stand on the periphery in solitude. It goes on without me.”
“I know,” Accolon said. “Though I do not believe Belle Garde, or even my absence, has been the cause. I have always loved you for it, but since the day we first met, I have never known your mind or self to be still.”
How well he had always understood me; how easily he accepted every facet of my being without pause or judgment. “Since the day I was born, I have rarely felt settled,” I agreed. “The Lady of the Lake herself told me that I belong somewhere else, and I often wonder if she was right. About Avalon.”
He looked puzzled, as if he too had heard the name but did not know why. “What is it like?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Ninianne offered me a place there, but I’ve never been.”
Yet even as I said it, a vision sprung into my mind’s eye, so I described to him what I saw: a sprawling island in the midst of a deep blue sea; lush forests, groves of apple trees and pale buildings full of books; a profound peace blanketing the air from one golden horizon to another.
Ninianne’s sanctuary as I imagined it, the place that perhaps I had been waiting for, but where I could no longer go.
Accolon regarded me with wonder. “It sounds perfect for you. What you have been seeking your whole life.”
I sighed. “It is, in many ways.”
“Then you should go, Morgan,” he said, but I was already shaking my head. “Why would you not?”
“Because you are at Belle Garde, and I won’t leave you,” I said. “Your shade cannot even come to Avalon as other departed souls do, because I have trapped you here, half made. If this is where you are, then so am I. For all time.”
“You should not promise that, mon coeur. I do not ask it of you.”
“It is what I choose,” I told him. “Where else would I want to be but with you?”
The look he gave me was calm but unfathomable, as if there was much more to say, but he knew I considered the subject concluded.
“Here, at least, we can be together,” I said, and reached for him instead, shifting into his warmth until we were immersed in memories of our first year at Belle Garde.
We had long learned to be artful with his capabilities so he didn’t fade as often, but we were in need of distraction and greedy for one another, until we had done too much and Accolon scattered into stars. Once again, I was alone, my existence paused.
The next morning, I climbed to my study, walked out onto the balcony and met the sight of his empty joust meadow, now reclaimed by the long grass and wildflowers.
I closed my eyes against the view and saw clearly the path of the past quarter century: old joys and later troubles, triumphs and mistakes, riddles yet to solve.
At its centre was the clear but distant figure of Arthur.
My brother had called for our game to end, and there were no more moves I was willing to make.
In all my days spent amidst our various confrontations, I had never expected for us to come to a halt, but now Arthur and I finally stood still.
Our great stalemate, by our own design. All that remained, somehow, was Tintagel’s roaring sea, ever-present in my mind, a connection that made less sense as time and our mutual exile wore on.
A disgruntled cawing opened my eyes: the magpies calling to one another in irritation, flocking into the shielding branches of the beech tree. Above, darkness had fallen in the shape of a long cloud shrouding the sun, blue-black and dense, rain rustling within.
I smiled at the sight. Long ago, the same act of creation had brought me back to the woman I needed to be, but I could not remember the last time such a thing had been involuntary. For the first time in years, my churning thoughts had conjured a storm.
The invitation was too tempting to resist. Raising my hands, I captured the warm air and pushed it into the cloud to meet cool water, growing and shaping the elements until a vast iron entity towered across the horizon. Flickers of white streaked across the grey, lightning waiting to be released.
My gaze shifted to the eastern forest, to an expanse of clear sky above the trees.
Gathering the breeze, I drove the cloud away from Belle Garde until I could see the entirety of my work at a distance, then unleashed the storm.
For hours I stood rapt, my hands flourishing, playing the music of nature until it was a symphony.
I watched it rage as the day flew past, feeling each torrent of rain and lightning strike as power in my blood, thunder rattling through my bones until I felt vital, satisfied.
When I paused, it was late afternoon, and I had hardly felt the time.
In the sky, the clouds had rained themselves out, the last peal of thunder barely audible as the tumult faded away.
Still, it was one of the best storms I had made, and I had always recorded my experiments in writing, so I returned to my study and sat at my desk in front of a fresh sheaf of parchment.
I had just finished my first page when an odd thumping noise came from somewhere below, then stopped just as abruptly.
It was strange, but I thought little of it until the muffled thuds came again, impatiently, before falling silent.
I got up and went to the study doorway as another sound echoed up—a creak of hinges distinct to the main door, but too cautious, more gradual than any of the household. Someone else was entering the house.
I did not fear anything, but intruders were not impossible.
The blood spilled by the Grail Quest meant I had to ride out twice a week now to strengthen the protective charms, as I had intended to do that day, before the storm and my distraction.
The magic should still have held, but things were changing so rapidly perhaps I had left it too long.
On silent feet, I padded down the spiral stairs.
Near the bottom, I paused out of sight and listened to the echo of footsteps just beyond—long, confident strides, halting in the middle of the entrance hall.
Then, a man’s voice came, speaking to no one but clear and commanding, as if it was used to being heard regardless.
“What, is there no lord here?”
The sound rang within me like a cathedral bell.
I rested my shoulder briefly against the wall, steeling myself, then proceeded to the bottom of the stairs. The figure had his back to me, blue-and-gold cloak dripping with the remnants of my tempest.
“No,” I answered. “But there is a mistress.”
My voice was as immediate to him as his had been to me. A slant of yellow storm-light illuminated him as he turned: pale-gold hair and silver eyes, face gleaming with water and disbelief, and a quick, fleeting emotion that I dared not interpret.
“Morgan,” my brother said. “It’s you.”
What remained of my hope leapt at the sight of his stunned expression, a reaction I thought myself far beyond.
“Arthur,” I replied, holding my voice steady. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced back to the open door, as if he couldn’t recall walking through it on his own two feet.
“The storm,” he said. “I was wandering the forest when it came. It was so sudden, so alive, my horse threw me and galloped off. I didn’t know where I was, or where to go, but I ran. When I looked up, I was here.”
In one way, the story made no sense at all, but something inside his telling of it whispered to me as truth. He regarded me with a dawning wonder.
“I think, sister,” he said, “I was trying to find you.”
In his honesty, the words took up a significance that sparked in my being.
He had always known where I was, had come for me many times and failed, but now, beyond magic and chaos and all expectation, my brother was here.
The protective charms had not faded; I had created a storm and Arthur had answered it, riding through the veil without resistance.
We were here because something deep in our cores had called us back to one another.