“She was a bitch,” Gawain said, but he sounded sulky and defeated.
I could hear Gaheris talking, but I could not make out his words. His voice was lighter than his brothers’, his tone more careful. He was the handsome one of the brothers, and I supposed that Lot must have been handsome in his youth, before his cruelty came out in his looks. I did not find my affection came as easily for Gaheris as it did for my other nephews, and it was because of his resemblance to his father.
I decided that I had to see the new Queen for myself. Properly, and up close. She seemed to have three women who were with her every day, two Breton, one English. There was no way that I could turn myself to the shape of the Breton women, for then I would be stuck if anyone spoke to me, or if I was expected to speak, in the Queen’s own language. After a couple of days, I got used to their patterns of movement, their comings and goings, and I thought I could take the English girl’s place to have a better look at the Queen. I avoided Uriens, spending the nights with Morgawse, dreading the time – which would be soon – when I would be sent back to Gore with him. I could not hide from him so easily there. I avoided Kay as well. He did not come back for Morgawse again, nor did she seem to expect it. She never mentioned him again.
I stopped the English girl at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the Queen’s rooms. She seemed afraid of me, flustered by the sight of my woaded face and strange clothes. She was a simpleton. I sent her to the village market to buy some things. She would be gone all day. I waited until I was sure that Uriens was out of my room, and I snuck away from there one of my plain woollen dresses. I found an empty room, and changed into it, and then closed my eyes and imagined myself as the dull-witted English maid: the mousey hair, the soft, pretty features. When I opened my eyes and peered into the window pane to look for my reflection, I seemed to have done it successfully.
The girl had been fetching water when I had sent her on my errand, and had been too flustered to finish the job. I picked up the heavy bucket, walking slowly with it and sloshing it all over my feet and legs, looking through all the open doors until I came to the very top of the stairs. My mother's old room. The Queen’s chamber. I tried the door, and it opened. I felt a flutter of excitement. I would finally see this woman up close for myself, see what she was really like. I might hear, too, what she truly thought of Arthur.
When I stepped through the door, I could hear the two other women chattering in Breton with the Queen. The room was filled with the bright light of the spring morning, and the sound of laugher not just from the Breton maids, but the Queen herself. Her laugh was low and soft; reserved, shy almost, though I did not think from her striding through the courtyard in her hunting clothes that she could be shy. The curtains on her bed were pulled right back, and she was sat up in bed, holding the sheet against her front; but her back was bare, and I could see her pale skin, white as milk against the dark red of the hair that spilled free and wild down her back. I could see now why it had captured Gawain’s attention. I should have liked to grab a handful of it, too, though I was sure not for the same purpose as Gawain.
Her eyes still a little foggy with sleep, though it was past prime, she was talking with her women in Breton. I could not understand what she was saying, but I recognised among her words Arthur’s name. The elder Breton woman appeared to be asking her something, and in response, she stuck out her bottom lip and puffed out a breath that made the coils of hair resting on her forehead rise and fall in a little dance. She was annoyed.
“What is wrong?” I asked, suddenly. I expected the older Breton woman to scold me, but she did not.
“Oh, Margery, I did not see you there. Is that water for the bath? Come and put it in the tub.” I stepped forward with it. I dipped my hand into it tentatively. It was not as hot as it had been when I had taken it off the other girl, but I thought on the warm spring day it was hot enough. There was already some water in the tub that was steaming, so I thought it would do. I poured it in, and as I did, to my surprise the younger Breton woman, who was little as a bird with bright, pretty eyes and a sweet, girlish face, answered my question with a wicked little giggle.
“Guinevere is complaining that she has not had enough sleep.” I realised that until now I had not known the Queen’s name. It was a strange, foreign-sounding name, but I thought it pretty.
The elder woman clicked her tongue at the girl, but her look was indulgent. These women all seemed very close; I would not have spoken to any serving women I had known like that, nor let them giggle about me in front of them, but Guinevere was smiling slightly to herself. She yawned and stretched her arms up over her head, and I was shocked to see that she let go of the sheet, and let it fall down around her waist. It was as though she was unaware of her own nakedness. Her hair fell over her breasts, which were small but full, and a soft, pale pink at the nipple, which I saw when she scooped her hair back with one hand as she stepped from the bed to get in the bath.
She slipped into the bath water, splashing a little as she got in, letting her hair trail out the back of the bath and sinking back into it with a murmur of pleasure, closing her eyes.
The young maid said something to her in Breton, and a slight smile played about Guinevere’s lips in response, though she did not open her eyes. The elder women clicked her tongue.
“English, Marie,” the older woman scolded. “It is not fair for Margery.”
I sat beside the young woman, Marie, next to the bath. No one seemed to mind. The older woman sat at its foot in a chair, sewing carefully at something. She was attractive still, about of an age with Morgawse, I thought, or a little older. Dark, dark, black hair and pale skin, with sharp blue eyes.
The young girl, Marie, looked a little flustered at being scolded.
“Sorry Margery. I was just saying that I am amazed that Guinevere can spend so long in bed, and get so little sleep.”
She looked embarrassed to say it to me, as though Margery were a prude, or that she was only used to teasing the Queen in Breton. Without opening her eyes, Guinevere lifted a hand in the bath to splash Marie with some of the water. Marie squealed.
The older woman made a shushing noise.
“Margery doesn’t want to hear your crude jokes, Marie.”
Suddenly, without warning, Guinevere slipped down in the bath, sloshing water out of the sides, to dunk her hair through the water. When she came back up from the water, she pushed the hair back off her face, and flashed her slight, reserved little smile at me and Marie, pulling her knees up close and wrapping her arms around them. The water dripped from her thick hair onto the wooden floorboards with a soft tapping noise.
There was still something childlike about her, though she had obviously grown to womanhood. Marie had begun to comb through her wet hair, and Guinevere wrinkled her small, pointed nose with discomfort every time Marie tugged at a knot.
“Marie, you will tear out all my hair,” she said, half-laughing. I realised that this was the first thing that she had said. Her voice was soft and low, reserved without being shy, like her manner, and rich with her Breton accent.
“I am not the one who tangles it up,” Marie quipped with a smile. Guinevere splashed her again.
“Marie,” the older woman scolded, glancing warily at me. Were they afraid that I would tell someone how they talked? Or was Margery truly as shy and prudish as they acted as though she was? I had heard my sister talk far more candidly. But they were talking about it as though it were something happy, and Guinevere still wore her half-smile of secret amusement.
It suddenly felt painfully unfair that I was so unhappily married, and yet Arthur had summoned a woman whose family he had slaughtered to be his wife, and they had found some kind of tentative new-married happiness. I could not believe that she would have wanted Arthur as much as he wanted her, and yet there was no hint in anything anyone said that he had been forceful with her. Had I misunderstood so much? Had my own experience of marriage made me believe that everyone was unhappy?
“To speak with the woman from Avalon.”
Guinevere made a small noise of assent, as though she barely cared, or as though she was thinking something that she would not say. I hardly thought that Arthur would desire Nimue in return. She looked like a child still, and the woman who was newly his wife had the strong, full body of a woman. Suddenly, looking at her made me feel my own inadequacy, my thinness, my plainness. But perhaps it was better. No man would ever talk about me in the awful way I had heard Gawain and my own husband talk about Guinevere.
When she waved me and Marie away to fetch her clothes, I heard her speaking to the older woman in Breton, faster and bolder than her English. I thought about what Arthur had said, that she had threatened to kill him. I could not make any sense of it.
I made an excuse to slip away, and when I was alone, I returned to my own form. That night, sleeping beside Morgawse, I dreamed a strange dream about Guinevere, the Queen. I dreamed of a man like and yet unlike Arthur, holding her down on the floor in her bedclothes while she struggled and kicked, and then the same man, who might or might not have been Arthur, in the same place, still on top of her, but she kissing him, wrapping her arms around him, and pressing her body against his in hungry desire. The dream was sharp and clear, like the dreams from Avalon, but it did not make any sense. If it had truly happened, it would have already taken place. I did not think the dreams could show me the past. But it left me nervous and unsettled, and the dream stayed with me long after I had woken.
Chapter Thirty Two
The next day was the day I had to return to Gore with Uriens. I had not spoken to him, really, the whole time we had been in Camelot, and once we were back at his castle, I would not be able to hide from him with my sister. I asked her to come with me, but she had to return to Lothian with her two youngest sons. She was afraid to leave it too long, in case one of her barons tried to seize it from them. With Gawain and Aggravain in Camelot, there was less of an incentive for them to hold back from trying to seize power from her, and she did not like leaving her kingdom long.
When I had kissed her goodbye, and her two youngest sons, and they left, I sat down on the edge of her bed, the bed we had shared like children for the past few weeks, and let out a sigh. I should have brought some kind of protection with me, some weapon, some magic, but all I had was my power to change my shape, and I could not hide from Uriens forever.
There was a soft knock at the door, and I was afraid it was him, but it was not. It was Kay. Nervous and awkward, he stepped through the door and shut it softly behind himself. I had never seen him look so uncomfortable, but I was not about to ease his discomfort. He stepped towards me, and I stood to meet him. I wanted to look him in the eye.
“Morgan, I hoped I would find you here, before you left,” he said gently.
“So you were not looking for my sister, then?” I demanded.
“No, Morgan, listen.” He stepped forward again and tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away. “Morgan, that was a mistake; I was drunk, I –”
I crossed my arms over my chest, against his pleading look. I could see that he was sorry, but I was not ready to forgive.
“Morgan –” He began to speak again, but the words seemed to freeze in him, as though they were not enough. I reached out to slap him, but, quick as a cat, he caught me by the wrist. I tried to pull away, to strike at him again, but he held me fast, and as I stepped back away, I felt the bedpost at my back. He stepped towards me, and I felt the fire of anger in me turn suddenly to the heat of desire as he, fired with the same potent memory of our past passion, pulled me against him and kissed me hard. When I felt his lips against mine, all of the wonderful memories seemed to rush fast around me; lying together in the sunlight, the first time, Kay falling to the floor with me and tearing through my dress in a haze of passion, the night before I was married, when he had told me he loved me. I was drowning in the memories and I ran my hands through his hair, pulling him tighter against me.
I was about to slide my hand up under his shirt, when I heard the door open suddenly behind us. We jumped apart, both still hot and breathing hard. It was Uriens, and I saw the dark rage flash across his face. He had seen. Good. He stood warily back from Kay. The shadow of the bruise still lingered green-yellow against his jaw, and he remembered all too well which man had given it to him. I saw him notice, too, that Kay’s sword hung around his hips, his hand resting on the hilt.
“That’s my wife, you know? Not a boy, though I know she looks like one,” Uriens sneered at Kay. Kay turned around to face him, but said nothing. Uriens’ eyes fell on me. “Come, you nasty little whore. It’s time for you to go home.”
Kay drew his sword as Uriens made to stride across the room to seize me. Uriens stopped where he stood, but I could see in his eyes that he would make me suffer for this when he could. Kay could not stand there between us forever.
Uriens held out a hand towards me, and Kay stepped suddenly towards him, and Uriens jumped back.
“What’s the matter, Uriens?” Kay demanded, his voice edged with cruelty. I was glad, at least, that he seemed to hate my husband as much as I did. “Are you jealous? Do you want me to fuck you as well? You might enjoy it. I know what men like.”
Uriens looked terrified for a second, as though he really thought Kay meant it. He did not seem to follow the point that Kay was trying to make. Flustered and afraid, Uriens turned back to me.
“We are leaving. Now,” he spat, and turned and fled from the room. Kay put his sword back in his sheath, letting the breath sigh out of him. He ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully, before turning back to me. He looked sad. I missed the bright laughter of his eyes. I would have thought he would enjoy frightening Uriens more than he seemed to. He walked back over to me and, taking my face gently in his hands, kissed me softly, deeply. I hated it, because it was so wonderful, and because I knew it was a kiss goodbye.
It was only when I was on my horse, riding away from Camelot, that I remembered how angry I had been with Kay. He had been with my sister; he had kissed her like he had kissed me, he had touched her like he had touched me. And he had kissed me as though that made it all go away. It did not make it all go away. I knew I had no right to be angry since I too had another lover, but the thought of Kay and Morgawse was unbearable. Morgawse got everything that she wanted. But I could not hate her.
Uriens and I rode a long way in silence, side by side. It was only when the sun began to sink in the sky and I knew that we were near to Rheged that he spoke.
“I suppose you did that to spite me, Morgan,” he growled.
“What?” I snapped.
“Your little play at being lovers with the Seneschal. Only because you know how much I dislike perverse little men like him. I do not know why you make it your life’s aim to cause me humiliation and suffering.”
“I cause you humiliation and suffering?” I cried. He had not experienced true humiliation. He had been embarrassed in front of Arthur a couple of times. That was all. He had never felt his own awful weakness underneath the hands of man.
“You know, Morgan, it makes me very angry the way you treat me. You are no good wife to me, and no good mother to our child. If I could, I would take another wife, and send you back to the abbey. That you continue to refuse me when I have been a good husband to you despite your shortcomings as a wife makes me very very angry, Morgan.”
I turned to look at him. He was red in the face, slightly spitting his words. I could see the vein bulge angry with blood on his forehead. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away again, gazing off into the distance.
“Well, Uriens,” I said, “how you feel is of no importance in the matter.”
I did not need to look at him to know that his anger was great enough to choke him into silence, and I was glad.
I thought he would try to punish me when we reached the castle. I expected him to grab me by the hair in front of his men, and drag me off with him, but he did not. He was too angry even for that, and he jumped from his horse and stormed off as soon as we arrived. It was late in the night, but still mild with late spring warmth. I was happy to linger in the courtyard once I had slipped from my horse, tired and sore from the ride. There were a few knights milling around in the courtyard, but I could not see Accolon. Surely he had not left?
I had not thought of him much while I was in Camelot – that felt like a different life entirely – but now that I was back in Rheged, I knew I had to see him.
I took hold of my horse’s bridle and led it to the stable. When I stepped inside, I saw him there, as though he had come at my wish. I froze in the doorway with the bridle in my hand, and as though he sensed me there he turned around. I had forgotten how much I liked his rough, handsome looks.
“Morgan,” he breathed, stepping towards me as though in a dream.
He took another step forward to take the horse from me, and our hands brushed on the bridle. I felt the touch of it go through me, strong and delicious. I saw it flash through his eyes, too, and I knew that he wanted what I wanted. I let go of the bridle and grasped hold of the front of his shirt with both hands, pulling him against me, pressing my forehead against his. I felt every beat of my heart rushing the hot desire through me.
“I have been too long away from you,” I whispered. He gave a low groan of lust and kissed me, hard and eager. I felt the relief at his touch flood through me. Still, I pulled away for a moment.
MORGAN: A Gripping Arthurian Fantasy Trilogy Page 27