I Am Morgan le Fay (21 page)

I felt myself smiling. A year my elder, Morgause still looked to me for her answers. “I am a fay,” I chided, “not a seeress.”

“But—but you know so much. Shadows always moving in those star-crossed eyes of yours.”

“I am not cross-eyed!”

“You know what I mean.”

I rolled my insulted eyes and shook my head. I did not like to say anything, for Morgause took my every word as a promise, but to humor her, I said, “I imagine you will find your precious King Lothe. I hope you will like him, especially if he wants to wed you. Or would you rather stay here?”

“You know I can't.”

I knew she would not want to. Nor did I wish it.

Morgause sighed, smiled, gave me a long embrace and kissed me, then turned to her steed. With my hands I made a step for her to mount by. Then I stood back. “Do you have the ring Mother gave you?”

“Yes. Next to my heart.” Morgause lifted the reins, arranging them in her kid-gloved hands. The steed danced in place, but still she did not let it canter away.

“Morgan,” she appealed to me, “are you sure?”

“Sure of
what?”

“What—whatever mischief is in your eyes! Whatever you're going to do, what Ongwynn tried to warn you against—”

I had spoken to her nothing of my plan, and certainly I had not thought she could see it in my eyes. “Just go,” I ordered her. “If King Lothe comes here before you find him, I will marry him!”

“You'd better not!”

“Then you'd better get going, hadn't you?”

“Contrary wench. I hope you grow a wart right on the tip of your ugly nose.”

“It is not ugly!”

“Is so! My sister the witch!” Smiling at last, Morgause loosened her reins. The steed sprang away.

“Milkmouth!” I yelled after her. “Dairymaid!”

She waved, then cantered over the hilltop and disappeared. Even though I could not see her, I stood looking after her for a long time.

Then I wandered down toward the sea, whirled to spread my skirts around me and sat cross-legged in the coarse grass at the edge of the gravel beach. Most of the day I sat there listening to nothing but the echoes of my own emptiness. At first I drew circles with my fingertip in the gravel and sand. Later I pulled from my head three strands of my long, sable brown hair, each strand so long that by plaiting and weaving just the three of them together I made another circle as slender and shining as a wedding band: a ring for Thomas.

 

That evening I sat alone by the hearth and said to the emptiness that was Caer Ongwynn, “Come out, you.”

I heard a startled squeak, then a chorus of giggling. I did not smile.

“Come out,” I repeated levelly. “I wish you no harm; I know how long and well you have befriended me. Come out.”

Now there was silence deeper than the sea.

I said, “I wish to see you and speak to you. All of you. Come here before me.”

Silence deeper than sky.

I fingered my druid stone ring and tendered it just a silky stroke or two, like touching a newborn. I told the denizens, “I have no wish to distress you or hurt you. Come out, now. Take your time.” I continued to give the milpreve a slow, soft stroke, then a moment's pause, then another stroke.

Shrill voices chittered, clamoring like mice, and in the corners shadows darted and milled. Little by little, gently, with just the power of one careful fingertip, I gathered them toward me. Dragging their bare brown feet they came, some falling to their bony knees and bracing their knobby fingers against the stone, some squealing like hedgehogs, so that my heart misgave me. But it had to be done if I was to be mistress of Caer Morgana.

At last they all stood before me plain to see in the light of the hearth fire, just a rabble of tiny skinny brown folk, naked, of course—just as a pedlar cannot heal herself, brownies and piskies and the like clothe their betters, not themselves. Naked, dirt-colored, homely if not downright ugly, they pouted at me like bony babies, some of them glowering, some weeping. “Shhh,” I coaxed. “It will not be so very different than before. Tell me your names.”

“No!” cried one who looked like a big-eared lad with a scraggle of brown beard starting on his pointed chin. “No, we canna! You'll make us all your slaves.”

“You'll be my servants,” I agreed, “but cherished, not enslaved. You can tell me your names, or I can give you names. You'd rather be called by your own names, wouldn't you?”

Some, mostly female and less defiant, named themselves to me: Willow, Heartsease, Crimson, Root, Gilly. Others I named: Puck, Wisp, Mandrake, Winkle. As they named themselves or as I named them, I took them one by one in my hands. At my first touch each of them shivered like a baby hare lifted from the nest, but then grew very still, hearkening to my hands as I stroked their small bodies taller to about half human size, stroked their hands and feet and features finer and less brown, more the color of a fallow fawn, then stroked fine blossom-colored clothing onto them. They liked it, I think. “Willow, what color shoes do you want?” I would ask. “Red? Yellow? A green cap? White owl's feather?” And sometimes one of them would murmur a reply. I gave flaxen hair to one. Hazel eyes to another.

When I had finished, they surrounded me to the reaches of the hall, a crowd of servants waiting to do my bidding.

I told them, “True Thomas is coming.”

They faced me soberly, their great brown eyes intent on my face.

“I have summoned him,” I went on. “I feel him approaching.” In my dreams and sometimes in daylight, in a flash of vision, a glimmer in the surface of the pool, an intimation glimpsed in the shadow of a cloud—in many ways I felt him riding nearer. And I felt the hardship of his journey—hunger, nights of cold and rain, sometimes robbers or worse foes to fight. “He is not too far from here even now, even as I speak. But he is very weary.”

They chirruped and murmured sympathy for True Thomas. Of course they knew him. They knew True Thomas perhaps better than I did.

“He has almost lost heart,” I told them. “I want for him only rest and peace and happiness when he comes here. I want to make Caer Morgana into a paradise for him.”

Now they chittered and rustled among themselves, their whispers rising to a clamor of excitement. I smiled. It was as I had thought; what they might do only grudgingly for me they were more than willing to do for him.

“A paradise,” I said. “And a place of safety.” This was the most important part. “It is for this that I have taken you into my hands: I shall make Caer Morgana into a stronghold that cannot be breached. No sword must ever slash Thomas, no pike run him through; True Thomas must never die in some lord's petty war. Never. He must live to be old, older than Ongwynn. I love him.” I was not afraid to say this out loud, although I should have been, I should have known how dark wings flew silently overhead in the night. “I love him truly; I have loved him since I was a child. And this one love of my life I will keep forever safe from harm.”

A chorus of squeaks and squealings rose. Bless the little ones, they were cheering.

 

Within a few days Caer Morgana rose from what had been Caer Ongwynn. Where there had been a hilltop now there stood a domed palace magicked out of honeysuckle and sea foam, sunset gold and my memories of Ongwynn's smile. Witchcraft, thought the shepherd lad who first saw it and ran to tell the distant crofters. Witchcraft, magic, illusion, thought the few hardy villagers who came to gawk—but magic is neither witchcraft nor illusion. True magic is made of love, not witchery, and it is more real than real, more solid than stone, for only a greater magic can breach it. This I had learned during my seasons at Avalon. The onlookers were kept back by walls they could not even see, invisible battlements as stubborn as stone, made of my own willful love, manned by sentries who never slept—black-feathered soldiers all named Rook. And a river flowed down now, my life my love my heart's blood, deep and impetuous it streamed down and embraced Caer Morgana with its protection then plunged into mother sea. Within the encircling walls and white water, the wellspring sparkled brighter every day, the still pool spread wider, the bittern stood motionless and wide-eyed in the rushes by the verge, and the rushes gave forth lavender-and-white blossoms with the sweetest fragrance I have ever known. In the mirroring silver water, the blossoms nodded velvet purple, and where ivy wreathed the dome, in the pool I saw golden filigree.

Ladywater. The very tears of the mother of us all.

Throughout the days of these transformations I sat by the pool, my skirts a circle around me, my fingers stroking the circles of my rings, my thoughts and dreams circling out farther to encompass river and walls and domed keep, and what I dreamed into being, my servants tended and cherished. Only the pool itself I could not and did not change and make my own, for Ladywater flows by the hidden ways from Avalon.

I would not have put a border of amaranth and moonstone around the springwater pool anyway. I loved it as it was.

On the day all seemed completed, I sat by the pool and gazed at the shadowshining water and let my musings make sure that all was ready, my fingers idly fondling the ring made of Thomas's hair, my thoughts eddying like white water, my dreams circling out, out, reaching—

Shadows swirled just beneath the mirroring surface of the pool, and for a moment I stopped breathing, for Ladywater showed Thomas to me.

Just his face at first. His true-blue eyes gazing into mine, a plea in them, and love and grief and pain that pierced my heart like a dagger. Around the edges of the pain, part of my mind noticed that he wore a soft hat of wine-colored velvet, not a warrior's helm. And a velvet cape, and—where was he? What was happening to him? I saw that he was on his knees, supplicating, his hands lifting toward me, and—the misery in his eyes—

Such misery that I could not bear to see. I blinked, shook my head and looked away.

What could this be? I sensed quite surely that Thomas was riding toward me. Very near now.

But—Ladywater did not lie.

And Ladywater was kind.

What was it that I had seen? And when was it?

I drew a long breath and looked at the pool again, but now I saw only the shining surface of the water showing me images of reeds, blossoms, sky, clouds.

I did not really wish to see anything more. What fearsome thing had I scried?

Frowning, I stood up, looking around me—and what I saw sent all thought of the vision fleeing from my mind.

Over the top of the hill a knight came riding. At first I saw only his helmed head, bent, but even then I knew him and began to run toward him.

A knight riding a weary horse, a battered knight with one arm in a sling, his shield hanging from his saddle. Its device, a single heart-shaped green leaf with a violet blossom.

As I ran toward him he lifted his head, and his eyes smiled at me the warmest blue the world has ever known.

L
YING AT HIS EASE ON A COUCH IN THE SUNSHINE, with his head pillowed on cushions scented with rosemary, his hair strewn in shining black curls across the white linen, Thomas smiled up at me. “My sweet lady,” he murmured. “You terrify me.”

“How so?” Although he smiled, his words astonished me. Sitting on a broidery chair to keep him company, in my simplest green gown with my hair in plaits down my shoulders, I could not imagine what had put such a thought into his mind.

He said, faltering a little, for he was still very weak, “You—you commanded me here—”

The summons. He had ridden through rivers of blood to get here. I had not considered, when I sent for him, I had not remembered how the force of such a sending would allow no rest. He had barely slept on his way here. And when combatants had come in his way he had not made shift to avoid them, but had fought his way through, riding on when he was wounded, riding on when he was almost too weak and worn to stand.

“I had forgotten what it was like to be summoned,” I told him humbly. “I am sorry, Thomas. If I had thought, I would have made shift to do it more gently.” The way I had healed him. I had learned, finally, how to use my milpreve with mindful caution, so that we were partners in magic, the druid stone and I, and I could somewhat govern it not to hurt me. I had made shift in that way to heal the worst of Thomas's wounds without wounding myself, letting time take care of the rest: the bad memories, the bone-deep weariness.

“It was as if you pulled me here by an invisible line and a hook caught in my heart.” Thomas gazed into my eyes, all in wonder, not bitter at all. “Such power—it unmans me.”

“More than the clashing power of knights in battle?”