THE CURSE OF EXCALIBUR: a gripping Arthurian fantasy (THE MORGAN TRILOGY Book 2)

by Lavinia Collins

  I reached out a hand for him, and he took it. I could feel from the way he pulled on it, it was difficult for him to stand already. I led him towards the bed, and he went willingly, a look of sleepy excitement on his face. He thought Elaine had changed her mind. I pushed him down on the bed, and he fell back with a smile spreading on his face. I climbed to sit over him, pressing my hands down against his chest and looking down into his eyes. He put his hands around my back, and murmured Elaine’s name again. I leaned over him, looking right into his eyes. I could see him struggling through the sleepy haze to focus on me.

  Very close, I whispered, “I have to do this. I don’t want people to hear you scream.”

  His mouth formed the word, what? But I had let myself turn back to my real form over him, a grin spreading across my face. Revenge was sweet. As I saw his eyes widen in fear, I grasped the pillow beside him and forced it down over his face. He tried to push me off, but there was no strength in his limbs and his hands fell heavy and powerless against me. I pushed harder and harder, feeling the joy of relief break deeper and deeper over me with each breath I drew, and each breath that came weaker and weaker to him. How many times had I felt weak under his hands? How many times had I lain underneath him, vulnerable and afraid? I hoped in his last moments he was repenting his cruelty to me. I hoped that he was understanding how it felt to be powerless under another’s strength. I would never feel that again. I would never be vulnerable again. I would never be afraid again. I would destroy everyone who had ever made me feel afraid.

  I waited until I could no longer see his chest moving before I took the pillow away. I leaned down to feel for his breath against my cheek, and felt nothing. His eyes looked glassy and vacant. I gently pushed his eyelids closed. I wanted people to believe that he had died in his sleep. I supposed that if I had to do that, I would have to undress him, too. With distaste, I pulled off his shirt and breeches. I tried to look away as best I could, until I could throw the covers over him.

  I folded the clothes and set them on the chair. The vivid memory of our wedding night came back to me, when he had folded his clothes so carefully as he had taken them off. I had been an innocent then, really. I would never have thought of killing a man. Well, I had tried to be kind, and people had been cruel to me, and I had tried to be trusting, and people had tricked me, and I had tried to be loyal, and people had betrayed me. Instead of all those things, I only needed to be strong. That was the only way to protect those I loved. My sister. Myself. Accolon.

  That night, when Accolon came to me, I told him it was done, and he grasped me to him in the rough, desperate passion of relief. I felt the relief, too. I was free of Uriens, free of fear. I sent him from me in the middle of the night, as soon as our passion was spent. I did not think it would look well for me to be found with a lover in my bed the morning my husband was found dead.

  I woke in the morning to the sound of Elaine screaming. I slipped from my bed and into one of my mother’s old dresses, a light dress for summer of pale moss-green. I did not think it would do to look too funereal.

  I rushed to Uriens’ room when I was called, and I cried with the rest of them to see him. They were real tears, but they were tears of relief. I would never feel him on top of me again, never feel his hand over my mouth, him forcing himself inside me. I closed my eyes and the tears shook harder through me. I was free.

  The funeral arrangements were long and tiresome, but eventually dispensed with. I could not tear my eyes away as I watched his body burn. I demanded to be made Queen Regent until my son came of age, and since I had the support of Uriens’ steward, the rest of the household gave in. I took the dark gold crown of Gore in my hands and set it on my head in front of Accolon in the great throne-room of Rheged. It was deep in the night, and in the autumn midnight dark torches burned low in the sconces on the wall, casting long shadows through the room. I wore my black jewelled dress, and the long shadows made me appear taller, grander, more powerful. I had seen myself as such a queen. I sat in the throne that I had never seen Uriens sit in during my whole time in Rheged, and beckoned Accolon to me with one slender finger. He came to me, and I stared into his eyes as I pulled open his breeches, and watched his need for me overpower him. He murmured my name and I pulled him down to me in a hungry kiss as I felt him grasp hold of me, throwing back my skirts and pulling me hard on to him. I wrapped my legs around him, and we came together, hard and fast, rough and eager, against my husband’s throne, and I with his crown on my head.

  I dealt, too, with Elaine. I knew that she was hiding from me, and I let her hide a little while longer before I dragged her from her room by the hair. I did not care about Uriens, but it had been an insult to me. I shouted at her until she cried, calling her a whore, shouting through the castle what she had been to my husband. I sent her back to her father, weeping and ashamed. I was not sorry to see her go.

  “What now?” Accolon whispered to me, as we lay curled together naked in the darkness.

  “Now,” I whispered back, winding my hands through his hair, “I steal my scabbard back, and I bring it to you, and you will kill Arthur.”

  He gave an eager murmur of assent, and I rolled back on to him as our mouths met.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The task of stealing the scabbard meant that I had to go back to Camelot, and without Arthur knowing, but I knew how I would do it. I had given Nimue the book of Macrobius, but I still remembered its secrets. I practised a few times first, closing my eyes in my bedroom and imagining myself in the stables, feeling a light-headedness pass through me, before I opened my eyes and was where I had pictured myself. Accolon was there, and he smiled to see me, as excited as I was now about the prospect of Arthur’s death. Beyond the initial satisfaction of revenge also glimmered the hope that I might have Logrys for myself; but that was dimmer, and more distant, and I was not sure how it could be done. All I knew was that the more power I felt in myself, the more I wanted, and the more I needed to be sure that no one could hurt me again.

  When I was sure of myself, sure that I could go from place to place without losing or damaging myself in the thin mist of black magic I passed through to get there, I closed my eyes, and pictured my room in Camelot. When I opened my eyes, blinking away the delicate dizziness of my journey, I saw the familiar room with wonder. It had seemed easy enough to move through Rheged on a wish, but I had come far across the land.

  Well, I could not move through Camelot as myself without alerting suspicion. Besides, I wanted to get into Arthur’s bedroom to get a hold of the scabbard. I was sure he would keep it there. I thought the safest option was Merlin, but when I tried to become him I watched in the smudgy surface of my hammered mirror as my form flickered alarmingly between the young man, and the bald grinning man, and an old man with a long white beard, and a little child with shiny black eyes like a beetle. Did Merlin truly have no real form? Or had I never seen it? Or perhaps his black magic had eroded him so much at the centre there was nothing of him anymore for me to anchor to; inside he was just dust and darkness.

  That left me with two options: Arthur, or Guinevere. I did not want to be mistakenly snatched up and manhandled into bed by Arthur, so I decided that it was his form that I should take rather than the Queen’s. Safer, by far, to take the form of a strong man. When I remembered what Gawain had said about the Queen, I was even more sure of my choice. But, first I had to find some men’s clothes. Morgawse’s room above mine was empty, too, and some of her sons’ clothes were folded away there. I dressed in a shirt and breeches of Gawain’s – I imagined – and closed my eyes to imagine myself as Arthur. I was surprised how clearly I could picture him; the kind, open face, the broad frame, the gold hair, and my mother’s – our mother’s – grey eyes. My own, also. The clothes were a good fit, and when I peered at myself in the window, I was pleased with what I saw. I felt my heart flutter with excitement; my victory was close.

  When I moved through the castle, wary of running into Arthur every time I tur
ned a corner, or opened a door, I was not bothered by anyone. People simply inclined their heads respectfully as I passed, or smiled affectionately. Much as I hated him, I could not deny that he was liked by the people of Camelot.

  I came into Arthur’s bedroom to find, to my surprise, it was not empty. Guinevere was there, standing at the window, dressed as though she had just stepped in from the outside, a light flush from the cold on her cheeks, and a cloak of dark furs around her shoulders. From beneath, a dark green dress sewn in gold peeped, and in her hands she held a large square of parchment which seemed, from across the room, to be a map of Europe. She was looking at it attentively, and with her dark red hair gathered in a thick plaited knot at the nape of her neck, I could see the white skin of her long neck, soft and inviting as fresh snow, beneath. I had forgotten how enchanting she was.

  When she heard me, heard Arthur’s heavy footfalls at the door, she looked up, and smiled. I realised I had not seen her smile properly before; it broke across her face like dawn. She loves him, I thought. How could that be? Had everything I had dreamed about her been wrong? It was all so confusing, and all unfair.

  “Arthur,” she said. She ran the few steps across the room to meet me as I walked towards her. Her movements were lithe and light; she had the easy strength and grace of a woman who knew her own body well, and still the same impulsiveness with which I had seen her flick water from her bath. She held out the map before me and turned around so I could look over her shoulder as she held it out, pointing with a slender finger. “I've been looking at this map, and Arthur, look – here beside Carhais, it's not marked, there's some thick woodland. From here, if Lucius' forces come north, we would have cover to defend our own lands. We would avoid an open battle, you'd need fewer knights, fewer losses. You should send men to Carhais now, try to prevent open war.”

  She was not just beautiful, then; she was also clever. Or at least shrewd and careful in the workings of war. She was talking about the Emperor of Rome. Word had come to us as well that he was not pleased that there was a King of Britain, and that he was planning to invade Arthur’s allies in France. I remembered what Arthur had said, about wanting a wife who will be useful as a queen. He had got everything that he wanted. It was so unfair.

  As she spoke, I leaned over her shoulder a little to follow the trace of her finger, and felt her lean back into me just a little. It was a small movement of marital intimacy, of tenderness, but I noticed it. Her hair smelled of roses, and as I leaned nearer I noticed that she had tucked old dry rose petals from her garden into her plaited hair.

  I felt her sink further back against me with a little murmur of content, almost too soft to hear. She let the map slip carelessly from her fingers, taking one of my hands and tucking it inside her cloak to rest against her stomach. She had been hiding herself under the layers of winter clothes, afraid of too many people knowing, I supposed, but I felt her secret. Under my hand I felt the small but unmistakable swell of a growing child. Not much, perhaps three months, but there. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, I saw before my eyes as clear as the dreams from Avalon, the image of a girl – tall, golden-haired and grey-eyed like Arthur, but with Guinevere’s proud high-cheekbone features, mounted on a horse and clad in armour like I had seen the Breton queen wear. Her hair streamed down around her, shining in the sun, but she was dressed for war, with a sword at her side. I blinked the image away, but it stayed with me. Arthur would have been hoping for a son. That would have made sure his kingdom never went to Morgawse’s child.

  Guinevere slipped her hand on top of mine, and leaned back just a little more against me. I felt the body I had borrowed respond, and it shocked me. It was not like my own awakening to desire, and it did not touch me with it, but I felt it go through the body like a flash of lighting. It was not like my own slow heat, it was a flash of sudden fire. Was that what it was like to be a man? It was powerful enough to stun me for a second, but when my mind and the borrowed body did not accord, it passed away as quickly as it had come.

  I reached up with my other hand and lightly brushed my fingers against Guinevere’s neck. I could make Arthur suffer now, if I wanted. There was strength enough in his hands that I could have killed her right there. I could feel her pulse against my fingertips. But I could not bring myself to do it. I too had known what it was like to bear a child inside me, and Arthur’s Queen had not harmed me.

  She turned around in my arms and laid her hands against Arthur’s chest.

  “Did you decide not to go hunting in the end, then?” she asked gently, her brow crinkling slightly in confusion. Good, I thought, Arthur is out hunting.

  “No,” I replied, unsure of how he was used to speaking to her when they were alone. I had never really overheard them talk, or even heard them talk at all. I had often seen him touch her. “I had matters to attend to here. Guinevere, where is my sword?”

  She gave her low, gentle laugh, moving away from me to beside the bed, the far side from the door. I would not have seen it coming in to the room.

  “Arthur, it is right here where you always leave it.”

  She leant down to pick it up, one hand resting on her stomach still. She had to move it away to lift the false sword with both hands, and there it was, my lovely jewelled scabbard, just a few steps across the room from me, and coming closer and closer. I expected her to hand it to me, but she came right up close and reached around me to buckle the scabbard on to me. She let our bodies press together. I felt strangely about it, but I knew I could not move away without her suspecting that something was wrong. She turned her face up, her lips met mine in a soft, loving kiss. She moved away swiftly once the kiss was given. It was the casual, soft kiss of a loving wife, of one who was sure of another. How did Arthur have this already? They had not even been married a year. She was supposed to hate him. Everyone else hated their husbands.

  She walked back over to the map to pick it up off the floor where she had dropped it. She turned back over her shoulder once she had it in her hand.

  “Arthur, I will see you tonight?” she asked.

  “Tonight,” I agreed, giving her a nod, and rushing out the door.

  As I went down the stairs, flushed with victory just a little, I noticed that the door to Merlin’s room stood slightly ajar. I tentatively pushed the door further open. It seemed to be empty. I didn’t trust Merlin not to be hiding in there, but I thought it would be worth taking the risk. I stepped boldly into the room, and there it was, just on the shelf, Macrobius’ final book. I rushed over and was just reaching for it when I heard the voice I had been afraid I would hear, close behind me.

  “I thought I would be seeing you again, Morgan,” Merlin laughed behind me. I turned around and there he was, in the form of the young man. He had pushed the door shut behind him without my hearing it. It looked as though the door was bolted. That didn’t matter now that I knew I could disappear back home in a moment. “So, you’re prepared to renegotiate for Macrobius?”

  He stepped forward, putting his hand around the scabbard at my waist. Under his touch I felt the borrowed form slip away from me, and I stood before him in men’s clothes, hanging loose on my slender frame. I pushed his hand from the scabbard, but he did not let go. I drew the sword with both hands and he jumped back, but I did not intend to strike him. I placed the sword on the table beside us.

  “Arthur can keep his sword, and he does not care for the scabbard. The scabbard stays with me. I leave Arthur his sword, you give me Macrobius.”

  Merlin grinned broader across his face, moving towards me again, backing me into the bookshelf until I felt it bump against the base of my back. I could smell the old leather of the books, and the dust. Merlin reached up over me, leaning closer, so close that I felt a glossy brown curl of his hair brush against my cheek and our noses touched, to pull Macrobius off the shelf. I reached to snatch it off him, but he lifted it up out of my reach. I reached up and wrapped my hand around his wrist, trying to pull his arm back down, and it was in that touch that I
felt with a shock that passed right through my body, the full power of his dark magic strength. I gasped. It was not just the Black Arts, not just dark knowledge, but a natural power beyond that that had been turned to blackness through it. How had I not felt it before? We had been this close. Closer. He had been hiding it before, and now he wanted me to feel its fullness, to know how weak my negotiating position was.

  While I was still reeling from it, he pressed his mouth against mine, dropping the book to the floor to grasp me with both wrists and hold my hands over my head against the bookcase, pinning me in his grip. I tried to pull away, but he only kissed me harder.

  “What do I care whether Arthur has his sword or not? No, I want the same exchange as before. Excalibur for Macrobius,” he whispered. I shook my head. I kept my face cold and aloof. He would not think he could intimidate me with this. I had killed Uriens. I had destroyed what had made me afraid, and I had the strength in me to do it again.

  He did not move back. I felt one of his hands release my wrist and slide down my arm, and over my breast through the thin fabric of the man’s shirt. He was distracted by his lust, I realised. The men’s clothes showed my shape, and through the thin white shirt the patterns of the blue woad beneath. He threw himself at me again, his kisses wild and rough, his hands pushing the shirt up as I tried to push it back down. I felt his hands force themselves inside, and I was disgusted by his touch. I pushed him back hard, and, surprised and distracted, he stumbled back. I seized the moment as it was given to me and snatched up the book from the floor, closing my eyes and holding it tight against my chest, picturing bright and clear as I could in my mind the stables at Rheged, desperate to disappear before he got his hands on me again and I was under his power.