Somewhere, coldly, a memory stirred. My mother, standing with her hands held so, facing a man who would have murdered me. “I have a bastard to protect.” I believe that Morgause read my thoughts. The dimple deepened prettily, and the gold-fringed lids drooped.
I did not sit, but remained standing across the window from her. I said, more harshly than I had intended: “You must know why I sent for you.”
“And you must know, Prince Merlin, that I am not used to being sent for.”
“Let us not waste time. You came, and it's just as well. I wish to speak with you while Arthur is still with the King.”
She opened her eyes wide at me. “Arthur?”
“Don't make those innocent eyes at me, girl. You knew his name when you took him to your bed last night.”
“Can the poor boy not even keep his bed secrets from you?” The light pretty voice was contemptuous, meant to sting. “Did he come running to your whistle to tell you about it, along with everything else? I'm surprised you let him off the chain long enough to take his pleasure last night. I wish you joy of him, Merlin the kingmaker. What sort of king is a half-trained puppy going to make?”
“The sort who is not ruled from his bed,” I said. “You have had your night, and that was too much. The reckoning comes now.”
Her hands moved slightly in her lap. “You can do me no harm.”
“No, I shall do you no harm.” The flicker in her eyes showed that she had noticed the change of phrase. “But I am also here,” I said, “to see that you do Arthur no harm. You will leave Luguvallium today, and you will not come back to the court.”
“I leave court? What nonsense is this? You know that I look after the King; he depends on me for his medicines, I am his nurse. I and his chamberer look after him in all things. You cannot imagine that the King will ever agree to let me go.”
“After today,” I said, “the King will never want to see you again.”
She stared. Her colour was high. This, I could see, mattered to her. “How can you say that? Even you, Merlin, cannot stop me from seeing my father, and I assure you he will not want to let me go. You surely don't mean to tell him what has happened? He's a sick man, a shock might kill him.”
“I shall not tell him.”
“Then what will you say to him? Why should he agree to having me sent away?”
“That is not what I said, Morgause.”
“You said that after today the King would never want to see me again.”
“I was not speaking of your father.”
“I don't see — ” She took a sharp breath, and the green-gilt eyes widened. “But you said...the King?” Her breath shortened. “You were speaking of that boy?”
“Of your brother, yes. Where is your skill? Uther is marked for death.”
Her hands were working together in her lap. “I know. But...you say it comes today?”
I echoed my own question. “Where is your magic? It comes today. So you had better leave, had you not? Once Uther is gone, who will protect you here?”
She thought for a moment. The lovely green-gilt eyes were narrow and sly, not lovely at all. “Against what? Against Arthur? You're so sure you can make them accept him as King? Even if you do, are you trying to tell me that I will need protection against him?”
“You know as well as I do that he will be King. You have skill enough for that, and — in spite of what you said to anger me — skill enough to know what kind of a king. You may not need protection against him, Morgause, but it is certain that you will need it against me.” Our eyes locked. I nodded. “Yes. Where he is, I am. Be warned, and go while you can. I can protect him from the kind of magic you wove last night,”
She was calm again, seeming to draw into herself. The small mouth tightened in its secret smile. Yes, she had power of a kind. “Are you so sure you are proof against women's magic? It will snare you in the end, Prince Merlin.”
“I know it,” I said calmly. “Do not think I have not seen my end. And all our ends, Morgause. I have seen power for you, and for the thing you carry, but no joy. No joy, now or ever.”
Outside the window, against the wall, was an apricot tree. The sun warmed the fruit, globe on golden globe, scented and heavy. Warmth reflected from the stone wall, and wasps hummed among the glossy leaves, sleepy with scent. So, once before, in a sweet-smelling orchard, I had met hatred and murder, eye to eye.
She sat very still, her hands locked against her belly. Her eyes held mine, seeming to drink at them. The scent of honeysuckle thickened, visibly, drifting in green-gold haze across the lighted window, mingling with the sunshine and the smell of apricots...
“Stop it!” I said contemptuously. “Do you really think that your girl's magic can touch me? No more now than it could before. And what are you trying to do? This is hardly a matter of magic. Arthur knows now who he is, and he knows what he did last night with you. Do you think he will bear you near him? Do you think that he will watch daily, monthly, while a child grows in your belly? He is not a cold or a patient man. And he has a conscience. He believes that you sinned in innocence, as he did. If he thought otherwise, he might act.”
“Kill me, you mean?”
“Do you not deserve killing?”
“He sinned, if you call it sin, as much as I.”
“He did not know he was sinning, and you did. No, don't waste your breath on me. Why pretend? Even without your magic, you must know that half the court has whispered it since he and I rode in together yesterday. You knew he was Uther's son.”
For the first time there was a shade of fear in her face. She said obstinately: “I did not know. You cannot prove I knew. Why should I do such a thing?”
I folded my arms and leaned a shoulder back against the wall. “I will tell you why. First, because you are Uther's daughter, and like him a seeker after casual lusts. Because you have the Pendragon blood in you that makes you desire power, so you take it as it mostly offers itself to women, in a man's bed. You knew your father the King was dying, and feared that there would be no place of power for you as half-sister of the young King whose Queen would later dispossess you. I think you would not have hesitated to kill Arthur, but that you would have less standing, even, at Lot's court, with your own sister as Queen. Whoever became High King would have no need of you, as Uther has. You would be married to some small king and taken to some corner of the land where you would pass your time bearing his children and weaving his war cloaks, with nothing in your hands but the petty power of a family, and what women's magic you have learned and can practise in your little kingdom. That is why you did what you did, Morgause. Because, no matter what it was, you wanted a claim on the young King, even if it was to be a claim of horror and of hatred. What you did last night you did coldly, in a bid for power.”
“Who are you to talk to me so? You took power where you could find it.”
“Not where I could find it; where it was given. What you have got you took, against all laws of God and men. If you had acted unknowingly, in simple lust, there would be no more to say. I told you, so far he thinks you have no blame. This morning, when he knew what he had done, his first thought was for your distress.” I saw the flash of triumph in her eyes, and finished, gently: “But you are not dealing with him, you are dealing with me. And I say that you shall go.”
She got swiftly to her feet. “Why did you not tell him then, and let him kill me? Would you not have wanted that?”
“To add another and worse sin? You talk like a fool.”
“I shall go to the King!”