THE WITCHES OF AVALON: a thrilling Arthurian fantasy (THE MORGAN TRILOGY Book 1)

by Lavinia Collins

  Merlin came behind me, close, and held the candle over my shoulder as I opened the book and traced the lettering, feeling the slight bump of the ink on the vellum, on the first page. The book was smaller than I had expected, but that was all to the good. It would be easier to hide. Despite the fact that I knew my Latin, I only half-recognised the words on the page, both familiar and alien in their ancientness.

  “We should read it now,” he said, and I turned to him and saw he had a skin of wine. I did not much like the taste of wine, nor did I really want to stay up all night reading with Merlin, but this might be the only chance I got to read Macrobius’ book, and besides Merlin had poured two cups out already and handed one to me, saying, “It is best to read a book such as this in this way.”

  He sounded so authoritative, and everyone knew him to be wise, so I set the book down on my desk, and the candle beside it, and took the wine from him. I turned back to the book. I had the strength for the darkness within it. The wine was strong, and filled with delicious heady spices. After a few drinks from my cup, when I looked down again at the words they did seem to make more sense. I felt Merlin come close behind me, and follow the words on the page with his eyes as I read them. He reached around me every so often to point at words on the page, to explain their meaning softly, or where they had come from, or where I could find a certain herb. I was aware of his closeness increasingly, though I only realised how long we must have been reading when Merlin poured the end of the skin of wine in to my cup and I saw the last few little drops fall out. It was delicious, after all, and the more I drank the more I seemed to want, and the less the lateness of the night worried me, and the fact that I knew I would be woken early on little sleep. I just wanted to taste more of the wine, and read more of the book.

  It was when I reached the page about transforming back that I felt Merlin lift my long, loose hair gently away from the nape of my neck, and felt his lips against my skin as he wound an arm around my waist and drew me back towards him.

  “Merlin, no,” I whispered. I was thinking of Kay, and the woodland, suddenly, and how good it had felt to have Kay touch me, and to be close with him. I didn’t want anyone else. With the wine swimming in my blood the memory of it came back to me strong, overwhelming. I half-thought I could smell the lilac tree above me, and taste the sweet juice of strawberries in my mouth. This changed in me with the warmth of the wine from wanting no one but Kay to wanting someone. I tried to push the thought, push the desire away.

  “Morgan,” Merlin whispered in my ear, as he pressed his lips there, too, “You still have much to learn.”

  I wanted to say that I already knew it, that Merlin did not know all about me like he knew all about everything else, but my head was reeling and when he moved his hands around to my breasts… Merlin was wise and powerful, and I admired that. I didn’t want him to leave. So, this was to be the exchange. Me for the forbidden book. I was not unwilling – I thought Merlin handsome enough – and I knew the price better than Merlin thought I did. If I did not throw myself into this chance for the book, then I might never get to finish it. Besides, I wanted it now, with his hands on my body and the wine strong in my blood.

  I turned over my shoulder to meet Merlin’s eye, and, sliding his hands into my hair, he drew me into a kiss. He was eager, slightly forceful, different entirely from how Kay had been, but I could not have said that in that moment I did not like it. I felt his hands untie the lacing at the front of my nightdress and slide inside. The sensation of a man’s hands against my bare skin made me give an unconscious shudder of delight and anticipation, and the warmth of his touch spread through my body with the wine and I was filled with a glow of desire. He turned me around roughly to face him, and pushing the book out of the way, lifted me on to the desk. I heard the book fall to the floor, and dimly hoped both that it was not damaged and that he would forget it when he left. I felt his hand light between my legs until I gasped, then harder until the breath came ragged from me and I felt the heat rise up within me, mixing with the wine, drowning out the thoughts in my head of the lateness of the night, the book, even of Kay. No, it was not that I forgot my thoughts of Kay, but that they merged with the feel of Merlin, the hardness of his lips on mine, the insistence of his passion, and perhaps I foolishly imagined a tenderness that was not there, because that was all I had known with Kay. In that moment, I did not care. In the guttering light of the dying candles, full of secret knowledge and dreaming of power, I wanted Merlin, and I cried out when he went hard inside me, holding me tight against him, his mouth hot against mine. The feel of him against me, inside me, filled me with a bright heat that spread slowly through me, and deepened, and I swam with it, with the feel of his lips on mine, his hands on me, my memories of Kay. I held tight to him, my hands tangling through Merlin’s thick curls, until he grasped me by the wrists and groaned with desperate relief.

  I slid from the desk into his arms, as the heat and desire drained out of us both. Though he lay down on the narrow bed with me for a little while, he was gone before I had fully sunk into sleep.

  It was only in the morning, when I heard the bells for prime – so Merlin’s wine had made me sleep too late – and looked around the room, scattered with the disarray of the night before, that I realised what the real reason was that he had come to me last night, what I had really exchanged for that forbidden book.

  Excalibur was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  I went to have my woad, burning with rage and resentment at Merlin for having tricked me. Still, I had his dark book wrapped in my mother’s old fur cloak at the bottom of my bag. I looked for him in the halls of Avalon, ready to demand my sword back, but he was not there.

  The ritual of the woad took place in a building high on the tor which was like a chapel, except empty of any decoration and open to the air that whipped through it, cold, from four huge open windows, and gaping rooflessly open to the sky. Inside stood the Lady of Avalon, and Nimue at her side – whom I was pleased to see, and who seemed to be swiftly earning herself a powerful position on the isle despite her youth – and a man I had not seen before with eyes dark black as coal, shaven-headed in a black cowl and tattooed all over his bald head, and the hands that peeped from his long, wide sleeves, with the blue-green woad. I could not guess his age from his strange looks, his grim too-pale skin beneath the woad, his teeth that peeped skull-like from his grin. I felt a quiver of fear within me at the sight of the strange man, but I supposed he must be some ancient practitioner of the ritual.

  I had been prepared for this moment, at least, by the description Nimue had given me of it, and I was not alarmed when the Lady instructed me gently to remove my dress. I stood naked before the three of them, the cold wind of winter whistling through the empty building raising the fine dark hairs on my skin, and giving me goosebumps. I thought those women that came in summer had by far the better deal. Still, I would not have put off this moment for anything in the world. I unwound the plait of my hair and felt the long, thick glossy rope of it fall loose around me, all down my back. The Lady stepped forward with a cup of something that she pressed in to my hands. I drank it in a single gulp. I knew from Nimue that it would taste thick and acrid, and I knew from the Lady’s book what was in it. The same foul herbs that gave the mists of Avalon their smell, and those who breathed the mists their vivid dreams of the future.

  I felt it cloud my mind, fast, and I felt myself slip away just as gentle hands lay me down on the ice-cold stone, and the far-off prickings of the tattooing needles, and smelled the earthy scent of the woad, but I was moving away from it already.

  I saw myself first, though I barely recognised myself. I was a woman deep into adulthood, the woad faded on my face like the Lady’s, but still visible in swirls and whorls of blue-green against my pale skin. I did look like my mother, though where age had made her grey eyes soft and kind, mine looked intelligent, yet harsh. I was not displeased with that, though I was alarmed to see a crown of dark gold on my he
ad, twisted into points like a thick rope of thorns, and set with blood red rubies. I did not know that crown, but obviously I had been married to a king. I stood at the top of a spiral staircase in a dark stone castle, unfamiliar, but there was one thing familiar, and that was the sword drawn in my hand. So, I would get Excalibur back. As the vision of myself stepped towards me, it faded, and I saw myself with Excalibur in my hand again, standing on the shores of Avalon. I was older still, middle-aged, my hair striped through with grey at the temples, and my head was bare, my hair loose, and I was dressed in the black of mourning. Beside me was the red-haired woman I had dreamed of before. Her face was smeared with dirt, and through the dirt ran the tracks of tears. She was dressed in some strange dress that looked to be half rich green samite, half armour, with greaves up to the elbow and an armoured bodice. That vision faded fast, before I even had time to work out what I was seeing, who the red-haired woman whom I had seen with Kay, and with me, was, and I saw myself again, standing before a knight I did not know with Excalibur in my hand. I was younger there than I had been in the other visions, but before I could work out what was going on, that too faded and more and more images of myself rushed past me again and again. I saw myself with my sister, her hands wrapped around a huge pregnant belly, the two of us lying side by side on a bed I did not recognise, and tears running down her cheeks. I had never seen my sister Morgawse cry before. We looked young, in that vision. So, that would be soon. I saw the strange skull-faced grinning man beside Arthur, grown to a man and dressed in splendid armour. I saw Kay ride up to me on his horse and pull off his helm only for me to see it was the red-haired woman dressed in his armour, and all of these faces – Kay, Arthur, Morgawse, the skull-faced man, the red-haired woman, Nimue, myself, the Lady of Avalon, Kay again, Lancelot – all rushed past my mind in a sickening swirl. The last thing I saw before I plunged into darkness was Lancelot standing over Arthur, whose helm had rolled away and whose head was bare, his sword raised and ready to strike.

  I had no idea what any of it could mean.

  When I eventually woke again, I was back in my own room. I felt gloriously rested, and through the lovely fog of sleep it took me a while to remember all of the disturbing visions of the future I had seen. I supposed I had seen the futures of the men I knew; I did not see otherwise why so much of Arthur and Lancelot would have come to me in my dreams. Or Kay, though I was not surprised that I had dreamed of him, since I thought of him often. I wondered again who the woman had been, fierce-eyed and red-haired. And the shaven-headed man who had been there when I was woaded. Nimue had told me it was best to put them away, to think nothing of them, and wait until they made sense. I had to decide to do that. But I had seen much of Kay, and I thought with guilt about what I had done with Merlin. I was not sure if I should tell Kay, if I should confess to him. Kay might have found another woman by now. He had not written to me again, though I had not written to him.

  I touched my face lightly. It was still slightly hot, slightly sore. I peered at myself as well as I could in the glass of my window-pane. I liked it, the blue of the woad. I looked frightening and mysterious, as a witch should.

  I checked under the bed again with little hope. Merlin had not returned Excalibur. However, when I felt in my bag as I dressed and packed the last of my things into it, Macrobius’ book on the changing of shapes was still unmoved. It was not a fair exchange, I thought, but it seemed to be considered a done deal by Merlin nonetheless.

  I was not looking forward to seeing him when he took me to Camelot. He had tricked me and I was both furious and powerless to have any kind of revenge.

  When I walked out with my bag and wrapped in a wool cloak to say goodbye to the Lady and Nimue at the little dock, I noticed that Merlin was still not there. Instead, the bald woaded man stood beside them. And in his hands he had my sword. Though I knew it was not likely to be so, I hoped that he had come to return it to me.

  I thanked the Lady, and kissed her on the cheek, feeling the hot of my newly tattooed skin brush her cheek, cool from the winter breeze, and wrapped Nimue in to an embrace. Neither of us had expected me to do it, since it was neither of our manner, but after an autumn and winter of growing close, I would not have felt right leaving without it.

  I looked around. Still no sign of Merlin.

  “Where is Merlin?” I asked the Lady, keeping half an eye on my sword in the bald man’s hands.

  The bald-headed man grinned broad.

  “I am Merlin," he said. I felt sick. Where was the handsome young man? The Lady’s words rang in my ears, dark things have been done with that book. How had I not suspected that Merlin the shape-changer would have changed his ugly form to get what he wanted from me? This man was middle-aged, slightly bent in the back. His lips were blackened from taking some herb or another. He was repulsive. Of course I would never have touched him, or let him alone in my bedroom to read with me. I felt the resentment burn deeper within me. I had been tricked, too, into thinking I ought to be honoured by it. That he was a young man, a handsome man, a great man of wisdom and power. He was powerful, of course, but I hardly thought his nasty deceptiveness could co-exist with wisdom, and I was certainly not grateful. I suppressed a shudder. I felt suddenly cold, and clammy, and disgusted with myself.

  The Lady met my eye, and I saw in there her understanding, and her sympathy, but also the warning that this was the danger, the darkness of the changing of shapes.

  If I could have, I would have run from Merlin then. But it was too late.

  My feet followed him into the barge, while my breath was frozen in my lungs. I wanted to cry out against it all, to scream to Nimue for help, or for revenge, but I went, obedient as a lamb, because I could think of nothing else to do. So I would go with the man who had tricked me to the castle of the stepfather who had threatened me and sent me away, to kneel before his bastard rape-child. I felt the disgust all over me. Still, I had tucked in my bag both the Lady’s book of medicines and potions, and Macrobius’ book on the changing of shapes. I was not vulnerable any more. Besides, I had seen that I would get back my sword.

  Beside Merlin in the barge, I tucked my legs up and wrapped my arms around them, trying to make myself as small and as far from him as possible. He grinned at me. I felt sick.

  “So, is this your real shape?” I demanded, resentfully.

  “They are all my real shape,” Merlin replied archly. “When I want something from a pretty young girl, I go as you saw me before, and when I want something from a warlike old king I come as a white-haired old man, and when I want something of an eager young king, I come like this. You will learn, little Morgan, that it is as well to frighten people as to seduce them to get what you want.”

  “Give me back my sword,” I demanded again, though I had no room to bargain with.

  “Give me back my book,” Merlin countered, with a deepening grin. I did not assent. I had seen myself with the sword in the future, and I had not yet finished with the book. Defeated for the moment, I slumped back against the edge of the barge. Merlin clicked his tongue. “That sword is not meant for you. Its destiny is with the new King, and the new King’s destiny is with it.”

  He was a fool. The sword was made for me. It did not belong to anyone else. We passed the rest of the journey in a resentful silence. I felt sick at the sight of Merlin. I was sure this ugly shape was his real shape. It was the woad. He had not had the woad when he had been the young man. The thought of his hands on me made me shudder, and I wished that I was brave or strong enough to shove him from the boat to drown in the water, but who knew the depths of the Black Arts that he knew? Besides, he might have taken the sword in with him, and then I would never get it back.

  I wished that I had never left Ector’s house. All those visions I had had of Kay had only made me miss him more. I decided I would not tell him, though, about Merlin. I was sure I could not explain how I had done what I had done for the sake of a book of black magic without making him hate me. I would keep that to myse
lf, and only hope that he had not found a different girl. I did not know, though, how long it would be until I saw him. The thought suddenly struck me that Kay might have been killed. I pushed that thought from my mind, quick as it came.

  The journey with Merlin was slow, because the snows had come. We did not get far each day, and had to stop often, so it was almost a month before we reached Camelot, and when we arrived, Camelot was almost empty. Everyone, they told us, was in the great Cathedral in London, watching Uther’s boy prove his right to be king by pulling the sword from Merlin’s magic stone.

  So, we rode on. We reached London as spring did, and I was glad that we would finally be somewhere. Merlin and I travelled together in an inimical silence all the way from Avalon, only speaking when we needed to, and each jealously guarding the sword and the book.

  Pavilions had been set up around the great Cathedral, huge with thick swathes of silk flapping in the spring breeze. I could hear sounds echoing inside, too, of shouting and cheering. This son of Uther’s must have spent all winter putting the sword in and out of the stone to prove himself. Now at last Merlin had come to claim him. I wondered what Merlin would do to the boy. It seemed to me more Merlin’s lust for power than his desire to see the right man on the throne that had brought him here. He had made Uther King, after all. Was that because he had wanted to control him? But once Uther was King, he had all but disappeared, until Uther was on his deathbed. What did Merlin want with Uther’s bastard son? I was not sure I wanted Uther’s son to be my king, not if he was anything like his father.