Part 7 (1/2)

”No mercy,” I told him.

”No mercy,” he agreed, with a single nod. I let go of Excalibur, and he slid the sword into its scabbard. He turned back to me and, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulled me against him and into a deep, pa.s.sionate kiss. I melted against him for a moment, then gently pushed him back, taking his face in my hands and looking him deep in the eyes.

”When you return,” I promised, giving him one last, lingering kiss.

I climbed up to the battlements to watch him ride off into the distance. He would go to Camelot, and bide his time in secret nearby until Arthur rode out on his hunt, and he would kill him.

I was not concerned when a few days pa.s.sed and the snows began to fall. I expected Accolon to have to wait, to be a little wary, before he struck. Besides, I was occupied with the final book of Macrobius which, as I had hoped, described the changing of other things at the touch, and the changing of the self into other objects. The book was as simple as it was slim. There was no new potion to be made. One simply had to be born with the gifts of the Otherworld and know how.

It was in the very depths of winter, when the Christmas festivities had pa.s.sed me by un.o.bserved in Rheged, that news came to me. I was sat in my room beside the fire, the book of Black Arts secrets open on my lap, when one of my knights knocked on my door to announce that a lady had arrived at the castle, and a knight had been seen on the horizon who seemed to be riding towards us. What kind of lady preceded her knight?

I should have known. It was Nimue. In the bright, cold winter sun, she had a stunning, brittle beauty about her. She had a cloak of thick pure-white furs thrown over her pale blue dress of gems, and her plaited hair shone almost white against it. She had a cold, tense look on her face. She strode up to me.

”Morgan,” she began, and I could hear the cold fury in her voice, ”I must speak with you.”

I gestured her inside with me. I took her up to my bedroom, and slid the bolt on the door behind us.

”A knight from Rheged Castle has tried to murder Arthur,” Nimue began, her voice sharp. ”What would you know about that, Morgan?”

Tried, I thought.

I shrugged.

”How do you know it was a knight from Rheged?” I asked.

Nimue took a step closer, and I saw the anger in her eyes, and her voice lowered to a deadly whisper.

”Because, as he died, he was begging for forgiveness, and he told me that he was your lover, and he had done it for you.”

It took a moment for her words to hit me, but when they did, I staggered back under them. I could hear an awful rus.h.i.+ng in my ears, and the desperate beating of my own heart. I gasped for my breath. As he died. I had been so sure we would not fail. But he had died, and with his final breath he had betrayed me. Nimue watched me, impa.s.sive.

”Arthur killed him?” I choked out through my gasps, in disbelief. He had had Excalibur, and the scabbard. He should not have spilled a drop of blood. Arthur. Arthur again. All of my suffering came from Arthur.

”No, Morgan,” Nimue answered, cold. ”You killed him.” Nimue stepped forward to me again, and her voice became low and threatening. ”Let this be the last time you try to harm a man under my protection.”

”Under your protection?” I cried out. ”What about me? Am I not under your protection?”

”No, Morgan.” Her eyes were fierce. ”You are under your own protection.”

And she wheeled around and left.

Accolon was gone. Was I to blame? Had I really killed him with my l.u.s.t for revenge? I closed my eyes as the memory of him washed through me, of the first night we had been together, his hand tugging rough in my hair, his hunger, his need, his utter devotion to me.

Suddenly the door opened again. I could have screamed. I was desperate to be alone. Kay stepped through the door dressed in his black armour. One of my knights, behind him, stepped apologetically up behind Kay.

”I am sorry, my Lady; we could not stop him.”

I waved an impatient, dismissive hand at my knight, and he scurried away. Kay slammed the door behind him. He rubbed his flushed face with his hands as he stood before me, his eyes wide as they fell on me, but I did not care. Kay had told me he loved me, and then gone to my sister's bed. Kay had never forgotten Lancelot, but he had swiftly forgotten me. He had been weak. He had given in. He had not been brave enough to love me as he should. He had loved Arthur more.

”Morgan, what happened to you?” He stopped before me. ”I don't even recognise you anymore. I mean you tried to kill Arthur. Arthur. What is wrong with you?”

I drew myself up to my full height and crossed my arms.

”You abandoned me, Kay,” I said.

”Abandoned you?” he shouted in disbelief.

”You let Arthur give me to Uriens and you forgot me.”

”Morgan.” Kay stepped forwards towards me, and I saw the flush of anger against his neck, and I felt the raw power of his rage, and the Otherworld beneath it. ”I let you go because I loved you. Morgan, what do you think happened? I begged Arthur not to marry you to that man, but I couldn't change his mind. When you married him I had to let you go how do you not see this? Did Uriens seem like a kind man to you? A forgiving one? What, do you think if he had known it was me when he dragged you in front of Arthur after your wedding he would have spared either you or me, or left Logrys without a war? We are not children anymore, Morgan. It is not just you and me. Arthur is the King and you are his sister and many many people's lives were at stake. I didn't want to follow you and put you in danger. How do you not understand, Morgan? If I had followed you here and Uriens had caught us together he would have killed you.” The anger washed out of him in a sudden wave. I felt the steel within me weaken, and bend. I was weak with the loss of Accolon, and I had missed Kay. I was angry with him, so angry, but in him was everything sweet and innocent that I had lost. I could not deny that in that moment, I wanted it back, desperately. I wanted to step forward to him, to ask, Can't we all go back to the beginning? But what he said to me stilled me where I stood. ”You thought I had abandoned you? You thought I had forgotten you? What, because I spent one night with another woman? Don't you know what it's like to be lonely? To make a mistake? Could you not have imagined what it was like for me, seeing you with him? I never cared for another woman. Do you think I don't know about everything else that you have done? Your lover you sent to kill Arthur? I knew about him before. And Lancelot. And Merlin.” Kay paused, reeling under his anger. I was too drained to be shocked that Kay knew every little way I had betrayed him. Together we had destroyed the wonderful thing we had had. I did not know how, but it was gone now. ”But I didn't care. I never knew anyone else, I never loved anyone else. I never forgot you. I knew you. Or I thought I did. No, Morgan stop.” I had stepped forward towards him. Turning his face down and away from me, Kay stepped back. ”Whatever there was between us, it is over now. Over.” He looked back up and I could see still the tears that were there, s.h.i.+ning as he held them back. ”You didn't trust me. You have become a creature without trust, without love, without kindness. I heard what your lover said oh yes, because though I knew you had a lover, I still did not forget you when he died.” He paused, and I knew what was coming. He hissed it out, shaking with rage. ”As you love me you will show Arthur no mercy. No mercy. Morgan, no mercy? Who are you? The Morgan I loved was a good woman. She loved Arthur as a brother. She loved me, too.”

I had nothing to say to him. How could I defend myself against the rawness of Kay's truth? I had not trusted him. Every step I had taken to defend myself had been a step that had taken me further from the good love that had once made me whole, and now this last step had robbed me of the two men who had loved me, Kay and Accolon. I was finally alone. Alone, and once again robbed of my sword. I could not turn back. I could only go further into the darkness.

”I will do you one last kindness, Morgan,” he said softly. ”I will not tell Arthur it was you that took his sword.” It is my sword, I thought, but I held my tongue. ”But, Morgan, do not try to harm him again.”

I fixed him with a sharp look, drawing into myself, drawing all the power I had about myself. I could see him feel it, though he tried to hide it.

”Tell Arthur what you please. You and Arthur and all the knights of Camelot could look for me all over G.o.d's earth and not find a trace of me if I did not wish it. I am not afraid of Arthur's vengeance; I will do much more than this, when I see my time.”

Kay sighed deeply, and I saw it go through his whole body. He rubbed his face one last time.

”Morgan, please,” he said.

I neither moved nor spoke, unwilling to a.s.sent. Kay might not have forgotten me as utterly as I thought he had, but Arthur had, and if Kay was with Arthur, then Kay too must be my enemy. Kay and I were finished, and he had declared his place at Arthur's side. The coldness and absoluteness of the end of it all cauterised me against any of the pain I felt, for Kay, and for Accolon, and I did not cry when he left.

Chapter Fifteen.

They brought his body back to Rheged, but I could not look at it. Among the armour they stripped from him, I found the scabbard. It had not saved him. The belt was sliced through, as though Arthur had cut it from him in battle, but he must not have known it was his own scabbard because he had not taken it with him. It was caked in mud, and I only knew that it was truly Excalibur's scabbard from the feel of it in my hand. But I could not bear to keep it. I had no need of a magic scabbard. I had my own ways to protect myself, my own potions to stop myself spilling a drop of blood.

I stood on the battlements to watch the smoke rising from the pyre as they burned Accolon. Even he had abandoned me at the last. He had not even left me with a child.

When the smoke stopped rising, I called for my horse, and took the scabbard, and rode to the sh.o.r.es of Avalon. I would return the cursed thing to where it had come from. Night was falling as I arrived, but I did not care. A thick mist rose off the lake, and I hurled the scabbard out into it. I did not hear it fall into the water, but I knew it was gone. I climbed back on my horse and rode back to Rheged, fast. The ride was long, and I did not get back until the depths of the night, but it had cleared my head, and when I lay in my bed that night, I felt colder, calmer, more resolved than ever to make myself invulnerable.

I knew it was time to make a final, desperate effort to get Merlin's knowledge. I was afraid, now, that Nimue would not bring it to me, and I was determined to have it. I wrote to Camelot, asking him to come to me.

I did not have to wait long for Merlin after I sent for him. I thought that he would be intrigued. It was a bright evening, early spring, and I stepped into my room to find him leaning against the window-frame, in his young, handsome form. He had, then, come to negotiate. I closed the door behind me, and drew the bolt.

”Good, you came,” I said, briskly, walking into the middle of the room to face him. He was only wearing a s.h.i.+rt and breeches, though the chill of winter still lingered in the air. He regarded me with an amused interest, leaning back against the window, his elbows resting on the sill.

”What do you want with me, Morgan?” he asked.

”I want the rest of your secrets. The rest of the Black Arts,” I told him.

”That is interesting.” He stepped forward, walking right up to me. I did not back down. I was not afraid of Merlin, and I knew the price. I was prepared. I would give anything in my possession for the rest of Merlin's dark knowledge. He reached out and laid his hand lightly against my throat. I could feel my pulse quicken under his hand. He had not left, so he was considering it. ”And what do you possibly have of equal value?” He let his hand trail down, over my breast, down my stomach, and then around my waist, to pull me against him. He whispered close, his voice lower, more threatening, more unpleasant. Though he was still young and handsome in his form, I felt my skin crawl as it had when I had looked on his true shape. ”You have lost the sword, you have lost the book, you have thrown away the scabbard.” He leaned closer still to whisper in my ear, and I felt his lips brush against my neck. I did not push him away. I was prepared to get the knowledge from him by any means necessary. ”If you were hoping you could get my secrets from me by offering me your body again, you should know that Nimue has matched your offer.” I felt his teeth, lightly, at my ear, and he pulled me closer against him. ”But,” he continued, his hands reaching up my back to pull open the lacing at the back of my dress, ”Nimue is a lovely young virgin, and you have had many men before. So, you will have to offer me something more convincing, like the child.”