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

by Lavinia Collins

  But then, down from the far, cold north, my sister Morgawse came. I was stood with Kay in the courtyard – a decorous distance apart since Arthur was there – and Merlin and Ector, to watch the men training. Kay, still, leaned down to whisper in my ear every so often, letting me feel the little thrill of our secrecy, and the delicious potential of his closeness.

  It was Kay who noticed her first, straightening up and focussing his dark eyes on the distance. She came with a large retinue of knights and servingwomen, but she was unmistakable at the head of them. My sister, the beauty. Her long, copper-gold hair hung in glossy waves down to her waist, drawn back at the front in little twists to reveal a broad, handsome face, fair and flecked with pale freckles that were so pale as to be almost golden, and bright, sparkling blue eyes. She had a cloak of white furs around her shoulders, clasped with a white gold pin set with diamonds, shaped like a little bird, and around her head was the dark gold crown of Lothian, wrought in warlike spikes. Beneath the cloak peeped an orange and cloth-of-gold samite gown, and at the low neck of the gown, the curve of her large breasts. Kay, seeing her, whistled through his teeth.

  “This looks like trouble,” he said under his breath. I thought, with a little flash of anger, that the whistle was for her, but when I turned to Kay he was not looking at her any more. He was looking at Arthur. Arthur, in the middle of the courtyard, had stopped his fight with Lancelot and stood frozen, his practice sword fallen with a clatter from his open hand.

  Morgawse jumped lightly from her horse. She moved, always, as though she were about to dance. She still had the easy, pretty grace of her movements that I had envied when we were children. I was tall and gangly, and I knocked things down. Morgawse whispered past everything charmingly, her feet barely brushing the floor. She rushed over to me in a whirl of firs, and kissed me on each cheek.

  “Little Morgan,” she cried. “All grown. You look just like mother. Except the woad, of course.” She laughed, and her laugh tinkled like a little bell. Arthur, I could see over her shoulder, was staring already.

  “Morgawse,” I replied, feeling the shyness that I had almost lost return to me with the memories of how charming and graceful and beautiful my sister was. “It’s so good to see you. Are you well?”

  Morgawse laughed again, her blue eyes sparkling bright. “I am now I am away from that wretched old husband!”

  “How are your three sons?” I asked, unable to get the awkward politeness from my voice. We were sisters. I ought to have been able to chatter with her as I had done the few times I had visited her when I was younger. Out there, before everyone else, I felt awkward and inferior.

  Morgawse wrinkled her face in annoyance. “Four now. I swear that old cretin will never be satisfied. And the more we have the more enthusiastically he wants to try to make another.”

  I was blushing, hearing her talk openly about it like that, but Morgawse had always been exactly like that. Unable to keep anything that ought to be private private. She was utterly, utterly unembarrassable. Had always been. Also, she was being rude. She was supposed to have found out who the King was by now, and greeted him appropriately, instead of standing in the courtyard with her sister complaining about her husband.

  Morgawse’s eyes lit, instead, on Kay, and I saw the little glint of intrigue in them. She had noticed that there was a man beside me who was young and handsome. Go away, Morgawse, I thought, You have a husband. Morgawse liked to see the effect her looks had on men, and push it as far as it would go. I did not think she had had a lover, for she had been always with her husband, under his mean and watchful eye, but she had loved to torment her husband’s knights with flirting, and her husband by letting him watch her do it. Kay, however, seemed simply amused by her, and when he had taken her hand and kissed it, greeting her courteously as Queen of Lothian, he gave me a comforting little wink.

  By now, Arthur had noticed the slight and coughed indignantly.

  “My Lady, Queen Morgawse,” Kay stepped forward tactfully, for I supposed that Morgawse could not be expected to guess that the empty-handed, bare-headed man staring at her was King of Logrys, “might I introduce to you my Lord King Arthur?”

  Morgawse stepped forward towards him, and took the hand he offered her, and curtsied. Arthur, to my surprise, had gathered himself, and kissed her hand and gave her a charming smile, the kind I had not seen him give before. I suppose it was the one he had used on the milkmaids outside Ector’s house. I had thought he would be flustered and overwhelmed, but he seemed in control. Perhaps he was growing used to his role as King, or perhaps it was his comfort in front of women, his trust in his own ability, that gave him confidence.

  “It is an honour to have so fair a queen in Camelot, my Lady,” Arthur said to her, his voice smooth and flattering. I saw Morgawse’s face light up with a mischievous smile, a smile of interest. Why on earth had her husband sent her here on her own? “May I show you around the castle?”

  Morgawse gave her tinkling laugh, and I thought I saw her blush slightly.

  “Of course, my Lord,” she answered, and he led her away before her retinue had fully dismounted from their horses.

  When I turned back to Kay, he was staring off where they had gone, open-mouthed. He shook his head slowly, as though he was shaking his thoughts back in to place. He turned to me.

  “She… is your sister?” I nodded. Kay shook his head again in disbelief. “She’s not much like you, is she?”

  “No,” I agreed, feeling sad, and small, and inadequate. “Not really.”

  Even Kay seemed to see it. Morgawse’s magnetic personality, her sparkling looks. But this was what Morgawse did. Turn up somewhere and absorb everyone around her. Morgawse needed attention. All the time. From all the men. I felt the stab of sisterly resentment deep inside me. Always compared to Morgawse. Kay put an arm around me and hugged me slightly to him, as much as he could in the public space of the yard. He had seen my look of sisterly jealousy, then. I appreciated the comfort of it.

  Kay sighed. “I hope that Arthur doesn’t get too… carried away. He doesn’t want to go starting any wars. He has always been good with girls… I don’t understand it. They all just… want him. It’s worse now he’s King, you know. I think I would be afraid of it, if I were him. Girls chasing me. I prefer the mysterious types, you know.” Kay looked down and gave me a little wink. I felt better, a little warmer inside from the sight of his smile. There was one man, at least, looking at me, rather than at my sister.

  Kay had to go to organise rooms for Morgawse’s huge retinue, and I went up to my room. I thought I might try to read the changing of shapes book again. The sight of Morgawse had made me feel less happy with my natural shape, reminded me of all the reasons I had wanted to change it. But I had just settled down at my desk when the door burst open. I hurried to hide the book again, but I didn’t need to, because it was Morgawse, her eyes flashing with wicked delight. She would not have cared what it was even if she had been able to read the Latin. She had no attention for books. She never had. She was smiling to herself, lightly flushed. She shut the door behind herself and leaned against it.

  “Morgan,” she gushed, “isn’t Camelot exciting now it has a new King?”

  I nodded.

  “And isn’t the King handsome?”

  “He’s ten years younger than you, you know,” I told her sharply. Morgawse’s smile twisted deeper on her face and she gave a flick of one coppery perfectly arched eyebrow.

  “Well, when they said he was a boy-king, that was not what I was expecting.” Morgawse bit her lip lightly, and laughed. “He looks like a man to me.”

  I felt myself becoming more tense, more uptight around Morgawse as she became increasingly carefree and reckless. She made me feel boring and serious, and it made me become scolding and righteous around her. Something about seeing my sister always forced us back into these roles.

  “Well, be careful not to do anything that will get you in trouble with Lot.”

  I heard the
lecturing tone in my own voice, and I bristled against it, but around my sister, I could not help myself.

  Morgawse pulled a face of mock innocence. “But I am only doing as my husband bids me. Oh yes,” she jumped towards me like a cat across the room, crouching down beside me as I sat at the desk, “he sent me on my own so I could spy on the boy-king Arthur. And that is what I have been doing. I have inspected the battlements, taken note of the defences. I let Arthur show me his sword.” She laughed as I wrinkled my face at her. I hoped that she meant Excalibur, though that was bad enough. She leaned closer to whisper conspiratorially, “I think tomorrow I will ask to inspect the royal bedroom.”

  I pushed her away, crying out in disgust. Morgawse laughed. She had always loved to tease me like this, to get a response of shock or disapproval from me. I don’t know why I always obliged. I was not even sure that I cared. Morgawse, still laughing, took my face in her hands and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Sweet little Morgan,” she piped, her voice tinkling with excitement. “I’ll be careful. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Arthur held a feast that night for Morgawse’s arrival, ostensibly with the intention of honouring her lord husband as a loyal vassal king to Camelot. She sat at his side, and neither of them paid anyone else any attention all evening. I sat beside Kay, both of us quiet and darkly watching as Morgawse took the little cakes Arthur offered her between her lips, and giggled, and Arthur leaned back in his seat to cast an appreciative eye on her.

  I noticed that Ector was not at the feast. Perhaps Arthur would have been more careful if his foster-father were there. As Arthur was refilling my sister’s cup with wine, Kay leaned down to me and whispered, “I have written to your mother that Morgawse is here. I hope that she will come soon.”

  I nodded. It would be for the best. Morgawse was not really cowed by anyone, but if she would listen to anyone at all, it would be our mother.

  I noticed, too, that Merlin was gone. He had developed this habit of coming and going silently now that Arthur had established himself properly, and it made me uneasy. I wanted to be sure that if a man burst in to my bedroom it was definitely Kay. It seemed to bode ill to have a missing shape-changer. Still, when I was close I could always tell it was him. I had learned the particular feel of Merlin’s dark power well by now, and I was sure he was not at the feast.

  Morgawse had her bedroom above mine for her stay, and walked back with me when it was over. In that moment, I would have rather she had gone off with Arthur. It would have kept him occupied, and I could have snuck away with Kay. As it was, Kay had bid me goodnight with a kiss on the cheek, lingering close for a moment, which was almost worse. Now I was alone with my sister with the feel of his lips burning against my cheek, and the longing woken within me.

  Morgawse was sighing with contentment as we walked through the courtyard, turning her face up to the stars that peeped through the clear spring night. I supposed she was relishing her freedom from her husband. I had not liked Lot much the few times I had met him. He was a strange, wolfish man with mean eyes and a sharp tongue, and almost thirty years older than my sister. Morgawse’s marriage to him had not been much of an escape from Uther.

  Morgawse did not want to sleep on her own, and asked if she could stay in my room with me. Despite everything she said, I knew that Morgawse did not wholly like being back in Camelot. Not now it was dark, and it looked as it had done when we were children. I dimly remembered Uther shouting at her, and shaking her by her hair. She had been a bold-mouthed girl at eleven, and had made no secret of not liking her new stepfather, but she had not deserved the treatment he had given her. Though I would rather have been alone, I could not turn her away, and we lay side by side to sleep, as we had when we had first come to Camelot, and she had been eleven, and I had been three years old. My memories of it were clearer than those of my first few years in the abbey, because many of them had been tinged with fear.

  When I was half asleep, I heard a little noise at the window, and saw Kay’s head peeping in, but sadly I shook my head and pointed to Morgawse sleeping beside me. Kay nodded and gave a wry smile, and disappeared away again. As I fell asleep, I wondered what Morgawse would make of the things that I had done. I doubt she would believe it. I would always be to her the quiet, bookish sister, who was half-nun, half-witch, but nothing of the world of real men and women. Still, I loved Morgawse as much as I hated her, and I would have given anything to have been able to protect her, from our stepfather, or from Lot. I was more resolved in that moment than ever before that I would not give up the book. I snuggled closer to my sister and closed my eyes. I wished I could have magicked her away with me to Avalon when I had been three. I wished that I could magic away her bad dreams now. I would need to be strong, and brave, and ruthless if I were to be able to defend us both from this cruel, hard world of men.

  Chapter Eleven

  A week passed, and autumn shaded into winter, and Morgawse and Arthur continued to spend their days flirting together. I would come down from my bedroom and see them standing in the courtyard, Morgawse’s back against the wall, Arthur leaning over her, one hand resting at the wall beside her, talking low and close, both smiling. Nothing had happened yet, though. Morgawse still spent every night at my side.

  Then, one day, as I was on my way back up from the food stores, where I had been looking for herbs to make more of the potion that restored blood – Arthur’s knights seemed to have need of it all too often – I saw them kissing. But it was not just kissing, not really. I came up the stairs to see them standing in the corridor, him moving towards her, she giggling, and then he grasped hold of her around the waist, and she pressed herself against him. He pushed them both back against the wall, his mouth rough and passionate against hers, and I heard her small sigh of pleasure. I saw his hands push back her cloak, and then against her breasts, and hers on his hips, pulling him against her. I felt my cheeks flush hot red to have seen it, and I scurried back down the stairs I had come up. I could not walk past them. What was I supposed to do if they wanted one another? Morgawse was sick of her husband, and Arthur was a young, free man and a king. It just made me disgusted to see the lust of others, and besides, I knew that Morgawse would want to tell me about it.

  I waited until I heard silence fall, and crept back up to my room. To my surprise, Morgawse, when she came to my room, said nothing about it, although she pranced about the room with an ill-contained excitement. So it had not happened yet, and she was still skittering around in a haze of anticipation. I decided to say nothing about it. I did not think I could dissuade her.

  I wished that she would just go and do it, and then I might get a night alone with Kay. I barely got to speak to him alone with her always with me, and Arthur always hanging around her. I just wanted to be alone with Kay, to hold him in my arms, and lay my head on his chest, and close my eyes and feel the Otherworld and his kindness and his love.

  I did not have to wait long. Neither of them seemed like they could bear the waiting. The next day, we all went out hunting together, and Arthur and Morgawse rode ahead, talking and laughing together. It filled me with uneasiness to see it, but it let Kay hang back with me.

  As soon as we were in the woods, and the others – for a small party of Arthur’s and Morgawse’s knights had come with us – were occupied with the hunting, Kay pulled his horse close to mine and leaned over to speak softly to me.

  “I have warned him again and again that it will mean war if he does this. Lot will not stand for it.” His voice was full of worry, of dread. They had fought, but none of them had faced real war yet, and Lothian’s army was huge. Lot, too, was known for his brutality.

  “He may not find out,” I offered, but I did not really believe it. Arthur and Morgawse were not exactly subtle. Any one of the knights that had come down with my sister, who had seen them talking, and laughing and flirting, could have sent word back to her husband. Perhaps others, also, had seen them kissing.

  Kay shrugged. He, too
, did not think that avoiding war was likely. Then, he noticed that we were alone, and he leaned over, almost falling from his saddle, to grab my face and kiss me. I felt a sigh of delighted surprise go through me and, holding him by his shoulders to keep my balance on my horse, kissed him back fiercely. He moved away, just about regaining his balance in his saddle, with a smile.

  “I have been longing to do that for a long time.” He grinned, and I smiled in return.

  “Me too, Kay,” I said, softly.

  Then, I heard the hunting horns close, and one of Arthur’s knights burst through the trees across our path, chasing something. Kay whistled through his teeth. We had had a near escape.

  We went on, rejoining the others, but my heart was not really in the hunt. I was worrying about my sister, about what would happen when her husband found out. He would be within his rights by law to have her killed. Perhaps I should not have let it go for so long, should have warned her against it. But, if Arthur would not listen to Kay, I did not see why Morgawse should listen to me. Half the time these days she hardly seemed to hear me anyway.

  It was getting rather cold by the time we returned, and I felt sick and tired. Tired of worrying, tired of watching my sister, tired of being far away from Kay, tired of it being Kay and I who were secret and careful where Arthur and my sister – for whom the consequences were even worse – laughed and held to one another right in front of everyone. Morgawse had always been wild and irresponsible, and always made fun of me for being sensible and well-behaved. It didn’t seem fair that after everything she was having a wonderful time, and I was tense and anxious, and sick of it all.