36 #2
Braithe couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She knew she needed food, but she could barely stay awake. She let her lids drop, but before she slipped into the healing sleep she craved, she murmured, “The Blackbird. Our mage. I felt him.”
She managed to open her eyes just long enough to see Morgana’s golden ones glisten with memory. That made Braithe sigh again, and though she was too tired to speak it, the words of a stanza were in her mind as she drifted off:
In the heart of the acorn is a mighty tree.
In the heart of the tree is an acorn.
The circle does not break.
Braithe slept a bit, awakened to drink the broth and cider Loria provided, then slept again.
Morgana watched her sleep, her eyelashes long and fair against her cheeks, and marveled at how different her handmaid had looked as she called up a great wave to save Idhri’s life.
She supposed Braithe might look that way when she was much, much older, when the plumpness had gone out of her face.
After a time Morgana left Braithe in Loria’s care and climbed the stairs to the courtine.
She came to the small chamber that had been the Blackbird’s, now closed and empty.
No one else would dream of using it. She laid her palm on the door and murmured her thanks to her old mentor.
She felt a quiver of response in her breast and allowed herself to believe he had heard.
She climbed the final staircase and emerged into the cool darkness to stroll along the courtine, breathing the autumn perfumes the night breeze carried.
The second cutting of hay was underway, with its lovely cut-grass smell.
Apples and berries were ripening. Greens had given way in the gardens to squash and garlic and onions.
Here, on the top of the castle, she could also smell the lake, with its faint tang of fish.
She walked on to the south-facing bench built into the parapet and sat down, stretching her legs out before her, looking out across the mountains and recalling other times she had rested here.
With a twinge of regret, she reflected that soon she must return to the Isle.
It could be a long time before she visited Camulod again.
She had not scried Mordred’s future. The choice had been deliberate, because if there was trouble ahead for the boy king, she would not be here to help him.
Emerlyn had prophesied that his reign would be short, but Emerlyn had proved to be wrong about many things.
With Braithe and Lancelin at Mordred’s side, Morgana hoped she was wrong about this, too.
She closed her eyes and tipped her face up into the light of the crescent moon.
It was good to be here, in this moment, but she felt the temporary nature of it.
The Isle was her home. The Temple her future.
She would not be sorry to go back, although she thought she might need her handmaid’s approval.
That thought made her lips curve. She even chuckled a little to herself, and the sound of her laughter muffled the sounds of Lancelin’s footsteps as he approached.
“Priestess,” he said. “Your hair is as bright as the moon.”
She opened her eyes, startled. “Lancelin! I did not hear you coming.”
“Nor sense me? I don’t know whether to be glad or offended by that.” He lowered his long body to the bench beside her.
She noticed he took care not to touch her, and like him, she was of two minds.
They had sat together in this place many times, years before.
She had made it clear that her Temple vow stood between them, but she remembered with a quiver in her belly how sweet it had been to feel the hard muscles of his thigh inadvertently touching hers, the warmth of his shoulder brushing her own.
“Would you rather be by yourself?” Lancelin asked. His tone made clear he knew the answer already.
She wrapped her arms around herself, although she was not cold. At this moment, with her entire world shifted—the Blackbird gone, Braithe taking her own path—her resistance to temptation felt as fragile as a shard of winter ice on Ilyn. “I am hardly ever alone, sir.”
He gave her his restrained, always sardonic smile. “Spiders don’t count, Priestess.”
That made her chuckle again, and she relaxed her arms. There were so few people in her life she could talk easily with, and it was good to have a friend. “The thing about spiders is that they are not complicated. Nor are birds, or squirrels, or foxes.”
“You speak with all these things?”
“It would be more accurate to say they speak with me.”
They sat on for a time without talking. It was an easy silence between them, filled with the twitter of the night birds, the stamp and nicker of the horses from their stables, the rhythm of the pennants snapping in the wind.
Morgana breathed it all in and promised herself she would remember this moment when she was on the Isle again, alone and lonely, despite the company of so many women.
Braithe had filled the void for a precious time, but that time had ended, as all things, both good and bad, must inevitably do.
Lancelin shifted his weight against the hard stone of the back of the bench. “Priestess Morgana, I have to tell you something.”
She heard something unfamiliar in his voice, a small tremor of tension, and she turned to face him. The starlight illumined his strong profile and picked out the silver streaks that had appeared in his hair over these past years. “Tell me,” she said quietly.
“The fae man—the one who took Idhri.”
“Skye is his name. Or was. Braithe says he is gone.”
“He is. I watched him drown,” Lancelin said, not meeting her eyes. “Idhri and I reached the boat safely, and I turned to see what had become of the other man.”
“Do you think this will upset me?”
“I don’t know. I wondered if you would be troubled if you knew that I could have saved him. Could have brought him here, let him face the king’s judgment.”
“He was fae. Do you think King Mordred would have put him to the sword?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps he would have deemed it unwise. As it happened, I passed my own judgment and saved the king the complication.”
Morgana looked away, gazing out to the starlit hills. “I failed to dispatch the changeling when I had the opportunity,” she said. “People died because of my hesitation.”
“I feel no guilt over my choice. I only wondered what you would think.”
“I think,” Morgana said, tucking her hands into her sleeves, “that you are a man of battle. A decisive man, and an honorable one. I cannot think of a single reason why you should have risked yourself in order to keep a very bad man alive.”
“I understand he was young Idhri’s father.”
“He was also the murderer of Idhri’s mother, and I have no doubt he would have happily murdered Idhri to win back his place in the White City.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“It is not an easy thing to comprehend. The fae rule themselves badly, with arcane and archaic Rules that some follow and some do not. They claim that half-bloods, like Idhri, are an abomination, and yet they use them as servants. They have a strange hierarchy that has nothing to do with the value of the individual.”
“So you will not be going back there, Priestess?”
“I will not. I will rest here for a bit, and then I will return to the Temple.”
Another silence stretched between them, but this one was not as easy.
Morgana felt the shift in the air as Lancelin decided what he would say.
A tiny thrill of anticipation threaded its way from her belly and up to her heart.
It was accompanied by a vague sense of shame, but she let that drift away on the night breeze.
At least thus far, she had done nothing to be ashamed of.
Finally, he spoke. “I have not forgotten your vow, Priestess, but I want you to know—that is, I want to tell you—” He coughed and shifted again on the stone bench. “Damn, I have no idea how to say this.”
“Perhaps there is no need to say it.”
He sat up very straight and turned to face her.
The starlight flickered in his dark eyes, and he put a hand on her arm.
She looked down at it. His hand was warm and strong, and exceedingly masculine.
She did not pull away. She could have told him she knew what he was about to say, but she did not do that, either. She wanted to hear him speak the words.
“If you should change your mind about your Temple vows,” he began, slowly.
“I will admit to you, sir, that my time in the White City made me question many things I have always believed.”
“Including your vows?”
“I cannot say that yet. I only… I suppose I can say I am still learning.”
“You give me hope. If you should decide to return to Camulod, I would be very glad.”
Morgana’s heartbeat fluttered in her throat, and she wondered if she could bring herself to admit the truth about herself. “Dear sir,” she began. “There is so much you do not know…”
His fingers tightened on her arm. “Priestess. If you think I’m not aware that you’re fae, you underestimate me.”
She caught a breath. “What? Why would you—Lancelin!”
His narrow lips quirked. “I am a seasoned warrior, remember. I have traveled the length and breadth of Lloegyr. I have encountered hundreds of people. The difference between humans and fae is not hard to recognize.”
“But you have said nothing!”
“Of course I have said nothing. I daresay I would be your first protector, should there ever be a need.”
“Sir Lancelin…” Morgana searched for words but could find none. Instead, she put her own hand over his and tucked her chin to hide the golden fire she knew must burn in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “It is an honor to have you as my protector.”