Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
GWENNA
“Morgan!” I scream so hard my throat burns.
Her head jerks up, swiveling blankly around. “Gwenna?”
“Tais-toi.” The Brother on her left tugs at a chain and Morgan lurches toward him, giving an unearthly cry of pain. Only then do I see what it’s connected to: shackles, inlaid with spikes. Her bare ankles.
“No!” I start crying all over again. God, no, no, no, please, kill me, take me, just don’t hurt my friend, don’t hurt this girl who’s wise and witty and beautiful and nice even when she really doesn’t need to be, please, please.
The Brother at my back shoves me forward.
“Kneel.”
“What are you doing to her?” I try to turn around, but their hands force my shoulders square, to the massive facade of the chapel, the granite faces of saints and the thin pinnacle arching above them.
“What are you doing to her?”
By way of answer, he slams me to the ground, to my knees. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
Now they take the blindfold off of Morgan. And when they do, her eyes are wild, terrified like I’ve never seen them.
Do something, I think. Cast a spell. Hex them. Call down a thunderbolt or something. I know she can’t, know I’m being ridiculous, but at the same time I cannot bear to see her like this, my competent, confident best friend on the verge of tears.
The prior-at-arms sweeps into my field of view, blocking her from sight.
“She will confess,” comes his voice from behind the mask. Me. He means me. “She will confess to all her sins.”
Me. He means me.
From deep in his robes, he produces something: a long sheet of paper, covered in neat rows of text.
“She will answer,” he goes on. “And when she has finished, the witch will be released.”
Okay. Okay. I nod, almost eager, happy to do it. Anything you want.
“Gwenna!” Morgan’s voice ricochets across the stones. “Don’t. Whatever they ask you to—”
The rest of her words are lost in a rattle of iron shackles and a cry of pain.
No. I’ll do it. I can do it, I can say whatever they need me to say. I don’t know what will happen after that or where the four of them are or how much longer I’m even going to live. But if it’ll save Morgan, I can do it.
The prior extends the paper, and, heart racing, I take it.
The words are small. Script, precise but cramped, and between adrenaline and my shaking hands and the pain of my knees on the cold flagstones it’s hard for me to make out exactly what it says.
“She will confess!” the prior says.
“Confess!” The Brothers speak as one, a rumbling chorus of deep voices. “Confess!”
“Just…give me a second,” I cry, a tremor in my voice. I swallow, tense my hands to force them from shaking, and train my eyes onto the top. But I can’t. I can’t read. I’m too nervous, too frantic, too—
The paper is snatched from my hands.
“She shall be read her confession as questions,” the prior intones. “And she will answer accordingly. Is it understood?”
I nod, my throat burning with shame.
"Speak!”
"Yes." My voice is a thread. "I understand."
He glances at the paper. Or I think he does. I can’t see where his eyes are looking, not through the mask, obviously. But when he speaks, he doesn’t look at it.
Like he has it memorized.
"Kingston Pendragon. Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God,” he begins. “Did you lie with him?”
The smoke stings my eyes. Or maybe it's not the smoke.
“Yes,” I manage.
"Did you touch him with your hands?"
"Yes."
“With your mouth?"
God. I close my eyes. I can hear Morgan's breathing a few feet away, quick and frightened.
"Yes." My voice is so small.
"Did you entice him to touch you in the same manner?"
This feels like a trap. I don’t know how to answer. Entice him? Asked him, maybe.
"Did you entice him to touch you in the same manner, knowing full well he was a Knight sworn in devotion to God?”
Then I realize. There’s no other answer. There’s no saying no.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Did you feel pleasure in these acts?”
Shame burns my face. Shame of being stared at by a hundred eyes I can’t see, shame of carving out my thoughts for a hundred people I don’t know.
For the first time, I feel like I want to die.
“Answer!”
"Yes.” It tears out of me. "Yes, I…felt pleasure."
A murmur from the Brothers. The Prior silences it with a raised hand.
"Did you, by means of your body, entice him to profess his love to you and abandon his sacred vow?”
I think of Kingston’s face. The way he looked at me in the dark of that room at St. Ignaty’s. The last moment he had to turn back.
I have nowhere to go that isn’t with you.
"Yes."
Silence. No further questions, I think. Please.
But—
"Kai Pendragon. Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God."
Kai. I see him in the salle, blade in hand, grinning. I see him carrying me from the lake. I see him in my bed, curled against me, unguarded for once in his life.
"Did you lie with him?"
"Yes."
"On how many occasions?"
"I—" I don't know. I don't know how to count it. "More than once."
"More than twice?"
"Yes."
"More than five times?"
"Yes." I want to scream at him. What does the number matter? What does any of this—
But Morgan. Morgan's breathing. I can hear it catching, even as the smoke shrouds her from full view.
"Did you take him into your mouth?"
I flinch like he's struck me.
"Yes."
"Did you do this willingly?"
"Yes."
"Eagerly?"
The word is a slap. I feel my chin drop toward my chest.
"Yes."
"Did you call out to God during these acts?"
"I don't—I don't remember."
"Did you cry out at all?"
Jesus Christ. The specificity. The way he's making me reconstruct it, moment by moment, sound by sound—
"Yes."
"In pleasure?"
"Yes."
"Did you, by means of your body, entice him to profess his love to you and abandon his sacred vow?”
Kai's face again. The way he looked at me when he told me if anyone hurt me, I’ll fucking kill them.
"Yes."
Silence. Ringing. Pulsing. Because now I know what’s coming.
"Callahan Thomas. Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God."
Cal. Sweet, gentle Cal who couldn't hurt anyone.
"Did you lie with him?"
"Yes."
"Did he resist?"
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Did he resist your advances?"
"I—" I'm being asked if I forced him? “It wasn't like that."
"Did he say no?"
"No. He didn't say no."
"He surrendered to you."
Surrendered. Like Cal was a fortress and I laid siege. Like he was pure until I touched him.
"He chose me," I say. "It was his choice."
“You gave him no choice!”
For the first time, the prior’s voice lifts to a shout.
"Did you experience pleasure with him?"
"Yes."
"Did he?"
God. I remember Cal's face, the wonder in it, the way he touched me like I was something sacred—
"Yes."
"Did you, by means of your body, entice him to profess his love to you and abandon his sacred vow?”
Cal. It was so simple. So nice. I love you, Gwenna.
"Yes." The word is barely a whisper.
I tense myself. We’re almost done. We have to be.
"Lanzelin Dell’Acqua. Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God."
Lanz. Who held me as I shook, who kissed me right in that kitchen like we’d never run out of time.
"Did you lie with him?"
"Yes."
"When?"
The question catches me off guard. He didn't ask this for the others.
"I—"
"When did you last lie with him?"
"Recently—“
"Within the week?"
God. "Yes."
"Within days?"
Fuck. “Yes.”
"Did you, by means of your body, entice him to profess his love to you and abandon his sacred vow?”
For some reason, this last time breaks me.
"It wasn't—" I'm crying now, sudden tears hot on my cheeks. “I didn’t entice anyone. He wanted me. They all did. It wasn’t—”
“Did you take pleasure in thus being desired by four men who had sworn themselves to God?”
“I…” I can’t finish a sentence. Can’t finish a thought.
"Speak."
"Yes." It rips out of me. "Yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I wanted them. All of them. Is that what you want to hear?"
The prior does not move. “The truth is all we require. Now.” He looks down at his paper. Looks up at the assembly of Brothers. Looks back at me.
A long moment passes.
What is happening? I think, pulse hammering and tears abated.
"Now," he says again. “She will speak the formal confession.” He pauses. “Repetez. Repeat. I confess before God and this holy assembly—"
I swallow, jumping in a beat late. “I confess before God and this holy assembly—"
"—that I am the whore who corrupted Kingston Pendragon, Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God."
I wince.
"—that I am the whore who corrupted Kingston Pendragon, Knight of the Black Table, sworn in celibacy to God."
The words taste like ash. Like bile. Like death. And it unfolds like a dream. Like something happening to someone else, words said by someone else, a scene I am watching from high up and far away.
I am the whore who corrupted Kai Pendragon.
Who corrupted Callahan Thomas O’Brian.
Who corrupted Lanzelin Dell’Acqua.
I am the whore who delights in the pleasure of my flesh.
I confess that I am a wanton and insatiable creature, undeserving of mercy.
For even as woman deceiveth man, my sin is the greater, for I confess that I did willfully lead men of God from the path of righteousness as an ox goeth to the slaughter.
I confess that with much fair speech I caused them to yield. With the flattering of my lips and the enticement of my body I forced them. I lusted for them. I flattered them. I refused them no office of my body. I pleaded for them and cajoled them, insatiable as a vixen in heat.
Thus does my shame surpass even that of the harlot and the whore: for I think to seek no reward beyond my own base pleasure.
I confess that my house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
"I confess that—” My voice breaks on the last line. It’s harder and harder to breathe, to see, through the burning air, but I know Morgan's behind me. I can sense her, feel her.
Her life in my hands.
“I confess that my house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death,” I finish.
Through the haze, I see the Prior roll the paper. Tuck it into his sleeve.
"It is done." He turns toward the Brothers holding Morgan. "Release the witch."
Relief floods through me—sharp, desperate, so powerful I almost collapse.
It's over. She's safe. It’s over, I did it.
And then Morgan's feet begin to turn…white.
She screams, terrified, but it happens so fast. Crystalline, shimmering white, blooming up from the ground like frost, swallowing Morgan’s legs, her hips, her reaching hands—she's trying to speak, her mouth opening, and then that too is white, is still.
Salt.
Morgan is gone.