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chapter twenty-one
a dark rider approaches
I spent
the next week tending to Merlin who mostly slept and when he wasn’t sleeping,
he was eating, trying to gain his strength back. All the time, a worry knotted
in my belly from what he had told me. He had told Arthur everything—apart from
my connection to Lady Morgan, which he avoided by saying that he had gone
because of certain rumors he had heard and wanted to see for himself if they
were true. There were many long discussions at the Round Table about what
Morgan la Fay might be planning, and the inevitable war ahead that seemed to be
more and more likely to turn into more than just rumors. I wanted so badly for
everything to just come to a head and be done with, whether it took me with it
or not. It seemed the waiting was always so much worse. I had been suffering
for so long that when things finally seemed to be coming to some sort of end,
the agony of anticipation seemed only all the more bitter.
One day, after seeing to Merlin who
was starting to get up and about again, I decided to go and talk to Arthur. I
wanted to know more about what he had to say of Morgan la Fay. I had rarely, if
ever, heard him mention her before these troubles had come up, and I knew that,
for a time at least, they had been raised together, and indeed, she was his
half-sister so he must have known something of her. I feared it might be a sore
subject, and part of me didn’t want to open what old wounds might be there, but
I figured that with the impending war, any old wounds there might be were
already reopened, and it was as good a time as any to show my curiosity for the
subject. Besides, I was interested to see what rivalries might have been
between them so I could better understand why Lady Morgan was so determined to
see Arthur dead.
I found Arthur alone in his study
looking over papers on his desk with a weary expression. He seemed to be overly
tired of late, the trying circumstances weighing heavily upon him, and I assumed
he had not been sleeping well. I very nearly turned around right then, seeing
him such, or made some other excuse as to why I was there, but I needed to
understand things too, and he had already turned a tired smile my way and
beckoned me in.
“Ah, Mordred, can I help you with
something?”
I came in and sat in the chair
across from him at his desk. “I didn’t mean to intrude, I just, well, I had a
few questions. I hope it doesn’t seem impertinent.”
Arthur smiled again and got up to
pour two glasses of wine from a sideboard, handing one to me before he sat down
again. “You know you can talk to me about anything, Mordred. It’s an open
invitation.”
I took a deep breath before I
continued. “I was just wondering about Lady Morgan. Why she seems so bent on
war. I…I know very little of her.” It was true enough, though I still cringed
at the deception. I did know very little of her. For I was never certain who
she really was under all her guises. Certainly the Morgan la Fay I had met in
the beginning was nothing like the Morgan I knew now. She had never told me,
either, about why she was so bent on Camelot’s and Arthur’s destructions apart
from the fact that she thought she deserved a place on the throne as was her
right by birth.
Arthur looked somewhat reluctant by
my choice of topic, but he set his cup down on the desk and looked across at
me. “I suppose you know that she is my half-sister?” he asked and when I nodded
confirmation, he continued. “Well, she actually is older than me by several
years. You see, like Guinevere, everyone thought that my mother was barren,
though she actually wasn’t, as was later to be seen by my conception. But in
that time, my father grew…contemptible of my mother and had other relations
with certain women of the court. And that was where Morgan came from. At first,
he made to raise her as his daughter, despite what my mother thought, and maybe
to spite her. But then it was discovered she was pregnant, and when I was born
and found to be a male heir, the council thought it wise to be rid of Morgan,
finding it inappropriate that an…illegitimate child be brought up in the
palace.” He cast an uncomfortable look at me, thinking on the story I had told
when I first came. I nodded slightly to put him at ease.
“However,” he continued, “my father
knew he couldn’t just cast her out so he saw to it that she and the mother were
well taken care of, though the woman was a noble in the first place and not by
any means destitute, and Morgan was to be called ‘niece’ to the king in public
instead of admitting she was his daughter even though everyone knew the
difference. She and her mother frequented the palace much in my younger years
and we got to know each other as cousins would, but there was always a
bitterness on her part that has never truly gone away. I think she always felt
that I had stolen her chance at the throne, and as can sometimes happen, that
bitterness grew into hatred, and drove her to darker things. Eventually, after
her mother died of fever, she went away and we saw her only rarely when she
came back for holidays to gloat and spread her bitterness to make sure we never
forgot. It was in that time of her long absences that she learned the art of
sorcery. I know not what else she was doing in that time.” I swallowed hard,
knowing very well indeed what Lady Morgan had been doing in that time. She had
been raising a boy to turn assassin when she felt the time was right to rid the
world of her noble half-brother.
“It is sad how bitterness and hatred
can drive someone to such things,” Arthur said and looked into his wine glass
as if seeing something far away. “My father was not a kind man, Mordred, I
understand that, and while I think what he did was wrong, taunting my mother
so, I can’t help but wonder if everything would be different if he had pleaded
with the council to keep Morgan on and raise us together as brother and
sister.”
I took a deep drink of the wine,
unable to help myself from the words that came out of my mouth. “Sometimes,
some people are just born evil, just like others are born good. It doesn’t
always matter how they are brought up, or whether anything bad even happens to
them. Perhaps Morgan la Fay is just the shadow to your light.”
Arthur gave a small, bemused smile
at that as if he weren’t quite sure what to think of it, and was surprised it
had come out of my mouth. “You see things in a very unique light, Mordred. You
remind me of Merlin in that aspect. I like to try to see the best in people,
but sometimes, you are right, there is little or none to be found.”
I felt bad then, for what I had
said. I knew Arthur was anything but naïve, but I had been through so much in
my life, so much cruelty, whereas he had lived in relative comfort, that he
truly could not understand the darkness that so often frequented people’s
hearts even where one was least expecting it. I felt sick to my stomach as I
began to wonder whether I too would show him what darkness lay inside me that
Morgan had put there and betray him when he least expected it.
“Everyone deserves a chance to be
redeemed,” I told him kindly, trying to soften the blow I had given before. “Perhaps
she too will see sense in the end.”
Arthur smiled kindly. “It is nice of
you to say so, Mordred. But I fear you were right the first time. I do not
think it is in Morgan’s interests to be redeemed in my sight. She only wants my
blood and my throne.”
I didn’t really know what to reply
to that, but had no more time to think of it, for there was shouting out in the
courtyard, and Arthur and I exchanged a look before we got up and hurried over
to the window, looking down to see what the commotion was about.
“Gawain, what is it?” Arthur called
down, leaning out of the window and catching sight of the knight.
Gawain looked up, his hair whipping
back and fourth in the winds that had come up, indicating a storm on the
horizon. “There are riders approaching, sire!”
“Can you tell where they hail from?”
Arthur asked.
Gawain looked straight up at Arthur
and there was none of the usual joviality in his features. “They bear the Lady
Morgan’s pennant, sire.”
“Arm yourselves to meet them, but do
not attack until we find out what they want, I will meet you at the gate.”
Arthur pulled back from the window
and turned to look at me. “It seems that things are going to happen quicker
than I thought,” he said. “Go fetch Merlin and come out to the gate to meet the
entourage.”
I nodded, trying to hide my fear as
I rushed off to Merlin’s room to fetch him. I had a feeling as dark and foreboding
as the coming storm about this meeting. I did not know what it would bring, but
I knew in my bones that it would be nothing good.
©Copyright 2014 by Hazel B West
Thank you! I wondered about the back story there, and now we have it:)
ReplyDeleteAbigail
=) I didn't really think it was the kind of thing that she would have told Mordred in great detail. Even then, it probably would have been pretty biased.
DeleteSomewhat :P
ReplyDelete