Medraut started violently on seeing her, mouth working to try and form some coherent greeting while his face washed scarlet and his hands trembled.

"Have I come at a bad time?" Covianna purred, gliding across the room to rest a hand against his heart. It was pounding with some violent emotion, terror most likely.

The boy stammered and swallowed hard. "W-what did you want?"

"Poor lad, they treat you contemptibly." She smoothed back his ruffled hair and smiled up into his eyes. "How you remind me of your mother."

His eyes widened. "You knew my mother?"

Covianna laughed softly. "Oh, yes. Marguase was instrumental in my education. Did they never tell you, she taught healing at Glastenning Tor?"

He stared in open astonishment. Clearly, they had not.

"Not officially, of course," Covianna smiled, toying with Medraut's fine tunic and the muscle beneath it, "but Marguase learned the art from the Nine Ladies of Ynys Manaw, and when she came to Glastenning Tor as pupil, she took me under her wing for private tutelage."

Medraut seemed incapable of speaking. A terrible, burning look of longing had come into his eyes, a hunger for some snippet of news about his mother, whom he scarcely remembered, having been so young at her death.

"Sit with me, Medraut," she urged, drawing him to the bed and urging him to sit beside her. "Your mother was a beautiful, brilliant woman, a lady of much education and ambition. The others were always jealous of her achievements—so jealous, they began accusing her falsely."

A jolt ran through the boy, shocked surprise and a wounded look that amused her.

"Oh, yes," Covianna purred, "even then, there were false accusations about black arts and satanic rites. You must be wary of what others tell you, others who stood to gain by her disgrace and death."

Medraut shot an involuntary look toward the door. "You can't mean..."

"Morgana?" she said gently. "I do not accuse her, no. But Marguase was firstborn and half sister to Artorius, who preferred Morgana to her stepsister. Marguase knew her own mind even as a young girl and often was at odds with her half brother. Perhaps your mother was not, after all, suited so well to governance as Morgana. Whatever the truth of Artorius' preferences, you must realize, of course, that to Artorius, the security of Britain is an all-consuming passion. When the accusations of poisonings and black arts began in earnest, it certainly suited the Dux Bellorum to remove her and place Morgana on the throne of Ynys Manaw and Galwyddel."

Desperate hurt and confusion had swamped the boy's eyes. "Artorius has always been kind to me," he protested weakly.

"And why should he be anything else? He does, after all, carry the guilt of having persuaded your grandfather to execute his own child."

Medraut bit his lip. "It's true, then, that Marguase was the child of Igraine and Gorlois? I have sometimes wondered if perhaps Uthyr Pendragon had sired her, as well as Artorius."

"No, she was Gorlois' true heiress. It broke your grandfather's heart to order her bound to the rocks and drowned by the tide. He died soon after, in the fighting when the Irish tried to invade Ynys Manaw, leaving the throne to Morgana. Poor Igraine was dead already, of course, had thrown herself into the sea in her shame at giving birth to Artorius, got on her by ravishment at Uthyr's hands. Morgana was daughter of Gorlois' second marriage, greatly favored by your grandfather in his dotage. As Artorius' stepsister—not half sister, as was your mother—Artorius was free to, shall we say, deepen his friendship with Morgana? Theirs is a close relationship, very close."

The doubt in the boy's eyes was delicious. Doubt and a growing, subtle fear of incestuous feelings for a man and woman who were, after all, not blood kin at all, but whose "deep friendship" would certainly have brought both their reputations down in ruins had Covianna been able to prove anything. Covianna had all but given up hope, but Medraut's current vulnerability presented tantalizing possibilities to explore.

Medraut sat frowning for long moments. "What are you trying to tell me, Covianna? I can't see that any of this changes my situation. My grandfather disinherited my mother, leaving the throne legally to Morgana, not to me. He had that right."

"Yes, perhaps he did," she said softly, reaching down to stroke his hand gently, a gesture which sent a shiver through him and an unmistakable surge through his loins. It was not difficult to guess what had caused his initial arousal and Morgana's ire. The looks between Medraut and Ganhumara had not been lost on her. His passions had been whetted and Morgana had clearly interrupted, leaving him unfulfilled and vulnerable. A situation she could make delightful use of, to be sure. "Yes, perhaps he had the right to disinherit Marguase and, thereby, you as well. But it is a pity, all the same. You have the makings of a fine king, lad."

The look he gave her burned with confusion.

She smiled up into his eyes, then leaned forward and kissed him, gently at first, trailing fingertips across his groin, then with more urgency as he hardened under her hand. The union was fast and furious, as she had fully expected, and cataclysmic for the boy, who apparently was still a virgin, given his awkward fumbling under her skirts and inexperienced thrusts, not to mention the swiftness of denouement. She bit his ear and dug her nails into his back, disappointed in the extreme but feigning excitement as he pumped away. "Ah, such a king you would make," she breathed into his ear. "Such a fine and virile king. You deserve no less."

"Perhaps," he gasped, "perhaps I will... and sooner than you guess."

She unfastened her bodice, drew his mouth down to her breast, reaching down to slow his frantic pace, then murmured between nibbling bites to his neck, "How so?"

"My aunt... she's... she's promised me Galwyddel... if I do her bidding. Unngh..."

The shaking began. Desperate to keep him talking, Covianna tightened down and hissed out, as though lost in the throes herself, "Dear God, lad, how shall this be?"

"D-Dal-Dalriada... alliance... God, oh, Christ..." He shuddered deeply, spending himself into her and collapsing on top, panting and trembling violently.

Covianna exulted, petting him and making him quiver until he slid out and off. She kissed him deeply and hard, bringing him to swift arousal again in order to exhaust him, so that he would be less likely to blurt out his indiscretion, later, in divulging Morgana's plans, then rode him to another frantic release. After which, he collapsed utterly, all but asleep. She left him lying in the ruin of his clothing, trousers disarranged around his knees, not even having bothered to remove them. Covianna pulled her bodice closed, flicked her skirts to order, and murmured, "Come south to Glastenning Tor as soon as you are able, Medraut. I have much, indeed, to teach you, before you wed your Irish princess."

She smiled all the way back to her room, where she retrieved a small packet from her satchel of medicines and brewed herself a cup of tea from the contents, ensuring that any seed Medraut had planted would not germinate in her womb. She had far more important fish to catch than the spewing of a milk-brat who would never be king of anything. Not after Artorius learned of the proposed treason he and his aunt had concocted between them.

During the next week, when the kings of all Britain would be summoned to High Council, to discuss the threat of Saxons in the south, Covianna would have ample time and opportunity to bring her plans to delightful fruition. And to renew her liaison with Emrys Myrddin, as well, who was a far more skillful lover than that little idiot Medraut could ever hope to be, and capable of bringing her even more of what she wanted most from life. She cleansed herself from her basin and laughed all the way to the royal villa of the kings of Rheged, just beyond the fortress walls, to wait for Cutha and his Saxon dogs.