Chapter 50
When I returned to Belle Garde the following morning, Alys and Tressa were waiting in the entrance hall, arms crossed like knights waiting to be ordered into action. They knew where I had been and why, but did not expect my arrival to be a harried appearance from the direction of the back kitchens.
“Is everyone all right?” I asked breathlessly.
Alys frowned at my worry. “Of course,” she replied. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, it’s just… ” I paused, unable to quantify the strange concern I had felt as I had ridden back through the darkened forests.
Now I was back in the valley and nothing had changed, it seemed overwrought to describe how I had seen or heard nothing on my journey, but nevertheless felt myself slightly pursued.
“I haven’t had time to check the charms,” I concluded. “And with the news of Arthur’s death spreading—things are changing so fast.”
“But the King isn’t dead,” Tressa replied. “Doesn’t that mean something?”
I shook my head. “Not for long, if Arthur doesn’t appear quickly to prove otherwise. With mass belief and good faith on Mordred’s side, it has the power to eventually become the truth, regardless of fact.”
“What about Sir Mordred’s threats?” Alys asked. “Should we prepare the household to leave?”
“No, we must stay exactly where we are,” I said. “I’ve sent three separate messages to Benoic, so at least one should reach Arthur. Until then, Belle Garde is safe, perhaps the safest place in the realm. All we can do is—”
A heavy pounding cut me off. We turned towards it in unison, only for it to stop as abruptly as it began.
The main door was still shut from the night before, but it had never been locked and no one had seen the barring plank for years.
As we hesitated, another bout of knocking came, but weaker, fading to a faint scratching, like a clawed animal trying to find its way in.
Tressa started towards the door, but I grabbed her sleeve. “Stay there.”
Striding across the hall, I placed one hand on my father’s knife and pulled open the door.
A person in a dark cloak stood stooped and hooded, face concealed.
By the time I realized they were leaning on the doorframe, the figure was staggering towards me, legs buckling.
I reached out automatically, catching them before they fell.
As soon as my touch landed, I felt her.
“Ninianne?” I said.
She looked up at me in relief. “Morgan,” she croaked. “Thank the goddess.”
Steadying herself against my arms, she took her hood down and I gasped. Her face was wan and dirty, hair tangled with twigs and knots, dull as wet rust. Most shocking was her skin; for the first time since I had seen her in childhood, she gave out no light.
“It’s all right,” I told Alys and Tressa. “Go tell the household what we have discussed, and to keep within the valley. I have this in hand.”
They nodded and hurried off, leaving me holding Ninianne upright, her breaths ragged with exhaustion.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“My lake, my home,” she said. “It’s gone. Men came, sowing destruction until my protection, my magic were too weak to hold. I panicked…I could not keep it safe.”
“What about Lancelot? Does he know of this?”
“He’s under siege,” she replied. “King Arthur has him pinned, the battles are frequent. I no longer know who is dead or alive, or who I am supposed to… ”
She trailed off, the first tears I had ever seen in her spilling over like rain.
“You didn’t know how to choose between them,” I said.
She nodded. “My indecision meant I was too late to stop either one. Now it’s a catastrophe…the realm, finished.”
The thought rocked through her like an earthquake, and I barely caught her before she hit the flagstones.
To see the wise, self-possessed Lady of the Lake prostrated like this was a shock I hadn’t expected, the arcane certainty she radiated something I had always relied upon.
If she was no longer in control, what hope was there for the rest of us?
“Come with me,” I told her, gathering my bravery. “We can talk about all of this, but first you need to rest. Everything will seem different after you’ve recovered.”
Taking her hands, I sent a bolt of healing through her until she was upright enough for me to slip my shoulder under her arm. She leaned hard against me, her voice weak.
“I don’t know what to do, Morgan,” she said. “All is ruined. I have nowhere.”
For so many years, the thought was inconceivable, but it came naturally now, like the gust of brisk air before it rains. I drew my arms tighter around her.
“That’s not true,” I said. “You have here.”
*
I took Ninianne to the long bedchamber, where she fell into a troubled sleep.
Since the night Arthur had spent there, I had kept the room open, the tapestries permanently removed to leave Lancelot’s paintings on display—more beauty than danger now the worst had happened. After so many years of my trying to keep its memories at bay, the room felt like part of the house again.
I stayed with her all day, in turns observing and pacing, opening the windows so the spring’s watery music would trickle in and soothe her.
I tried not to think about how I had never seen her this way, how she had always been so vital and in command; how her condition seemed an augury of something too terrible for words.
When she awoke, the late-afternoon light had painted the sky gold. Ninianne blinked slowly as she took in the unfamiliar room, then me standing by her bedside.
“Morgan,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream.”
I shook my head. With unexpected haste, she slung back the coverlet and stood, gliding across to an open window, seeking the spring’s song.
“You should keep to your bed,” I protested mildly. “Even water fairies need rest.”
She ignored me, but did sit down in the window seat. Sighing, I took a jug of water and poured a generous gobletful, clarifying its goodness with the trick she had bestowed for my pregnancy nausea, and I had once used to restore her despairing son.
I handed her the cup and sat down opposite. She took a long sip, a candle’s worth of light rippling across her skin.
“Thank you,” she said. “This water, the elemental magic—it’s near perfect.”
Her compliment made me flush with pride. “I can do more, if you let me lay hands. The boost I gave you in the hall should have lasted longer, but I will try again.”
She shook her head, copper hair faintly catching the sun.
“No matter how you restore me, it will seep out again. Between the destruction, the long journey and the magic of this land fast disappearing, I am doomed to a fate I cannot control. Half a lifetime lived on this land, and this was the only place I could think of to come.”
“I’m happy you did,” I said. “I wouldn’t have you seek sanctuary anywhere else.”
“Still, this care…it is good of you, Morgan. Given our past… ”
“We have long transcended whichever ‘side’ of an argument we were on,” I said. “What matters is you are here, and we are more in agreement than we have ever been.”
Ninianne nodded and turned her face to the glass, Belle Garde’s green hills reflecting in her clearer eyes. I felt her thoughts drifting elsewhere.
“What happened?” I said softly. “To your home.”
She sighed. “A group of soldiers came to my part of Brocéliande. They cut down my trees, filled my lake with sewage, celebrating that they were destroying where Lancelot lived. Never mind that it was my home, my place of safety.”
“Whose soldiers?” I asked. “Surely Arthur would not order such a thing?”
“Of course not. These men were barely an army, in strange livery, but strong in numbers and their hunger for destruction.” She closed her eyes, then looked at the spring again.
“With the damage, the charm concealing the island faded, and the house, the land, my sacred places, became visible. When that happened, they sailed across and tore everything apart. I tried to save it with magic, but I was weakened, the task too great. I had to run. When they set everything alight, I felt it burn as if it were my own skin.”
“I’m so sorry, Ninianne,” I said, though no words were good enough.
She accepted it with a muted nod. “I managed to escape, and used the last of my strength to summon a boat and ask the waterways to convey me here. But I still feel the men in pursuit, as if they want something. I should not have brought trouble to your door.”
“Nothing can reach you here,” I assured her. “If trouble comes, it will have me to contend with. We will wait out this conflict together, until Lancelot and Arthur come home.”
It raised a smile in her, and for now it was enough. I poured another cup of clarified water, and she drank it with a steadier hand, her light rose-pink in the falling sun.
“You do not seem surprised at this new war,” she said.
“I’m not,” I admitted. “In a way, I was part of what started it.”
She looked alarmed. “What do you mean?”
I sighed and rose, gesturing to the room. “It will be simpler if you just see.”
Ninianne followed me to the wall nearest the door, where Lancelot’s paintings began—images of his happy life with her, leading up to his arrival at Camelot.
Light fell in shafts through the windows, making vivid the blues and greens of his landscapes, the golden castles surrounded by red and white, the people in all their vibrant and unflinching detail.
“When Lancelot was here the second time,” I explained, “these paintings are what he did. His truth as he saw and felt it.”
Ninianne said nothing, enraptured by his work, seeing their time together through her son’s eyes. She moved along the walls, lingering at every picture, studying his brushstrokes, her restored light surging with the force of her emotions.
After a while she said, “This started the war?”
I could have said it was too much for her delicate state and spared myself what was sure to be her reproach, but our differences finally felt settled, and maybe she and I needed one another. It no longer served us to keep secrets.