Book Two. The High Queen

1

Far to the north, where Lot was king, the snow lay deep on the fells, and 'even at midday there was often no more than a twilit fog. On the rare days when the sun shone, the men could get out for some hunting, but the women were imprisoned in the castle. Morgause, idly twirling her spindle-she hated spinning as much as ever, but the room was too dark for any finer work-felt an icy draft from the opened door and looked up. She said in mild reproof, "It is too cold for that, Morgaine, and you have been complaining of the cold all day; now would you turn us all into icicles?"

"I was not complaining," said Morgaine. "Did I say a word? The room is as stuffy as a privy, and the smoke stinks. I want to breathe-no more!" She pushed the door shut and went back to the fire, rubbing her hands and shivering. "I have not once been warm since Midsummer."

"I doubt that not at all," said Morgause. "Your little passenger in there steals all the heat from your bones-he is warm and snug, and his mother shivers. It is always so."

"At least Midwinter is now past, the light comes earlier and stays later," said one of Morgause's women. "And perhaps in another fortnight, you will have your babe with you ... ."

Morgaine did not answer but stood shivering near the fire, chafing her hands as if they ached. Morgause thought that the girl looked like her own ghost, her face sharpened and fined to deathly thinness, her hands bony as skeleton sticks contrasted with the huge bulging of her pregnant belly. There were great dark circles under her eyes, and the lids were red as if sore with long weeping; but in all the moons Morgaine had been in this house, Morgause had not seen the younger woman shed a single tear.

I would comfort her, but how can I, if she does not weep?

Morgaine was wearing an old gown of Morgause's own, a faded and threadbare kirtle of dark blue, grotesquely too long. She looked clumsy, almost slatternly, and it exasperated Morgause that her kinswoman had not even troubled to take needle and thread and shorten the dress somewhat. Her ankles, too, were swollen so that they bulged over her shoe tops; that was from having only salt fish and coarse vegetables to eat at this time of year. They all needed fresh food, which was not easy to come by in this weather. Well, perhaps the men would have some luck at hunting and she could induce Morgaine to eat some of the fresh meat; after four pregnancies of her own, Morgause knew the near-starvation of late pregnancy. Once, she remembered, when she was pregnant with Gawaine, she had gone into the dairy and eaten some of the clay they kept for whitening it. An old midwife had told her that when a pregnant woman cannot keep herself from eating such strange things, it is the child that hungers and she should feed him whatever he wishes for. Maybe tomorrow there would be fresh herbs by the mountain stream-that was something every pregnant woman craved, especially in late winter like this. Morgaine's beautiful dark hair was tangled, too, in a loose braid-it looked as if she hadn't combed or rebraided it for weeks. She turned from the fire now, took down a comb that was kept on the shelf, picked up one, of Morgause's little lapdogs and began combing it. Morgause thought, You would be better occupied at combing your own hair, but she held her peace; Morgaine had been so edgy lately that there was no speaking to her at all. It was natural enough, so near her time, she thought, watching the younger woman's bony hands pulling the comb through the matted hair; the little dog yelped and whined, and Morgaine hushed him in a softer voice than, she ever used to anything human these days.

"It cannot be long now, Morgaine," Morgause said gently. "By Candlemas, surely, you will be delivered."

"It cannot be too soon for me." Morgaine gave the dog a final pat and set him on the floor. "There, now you are decent to be among ladies, puppy ... how fine you are, with your hair all smooth!"

"I will make up the fire," said one of the women, whose name was Beth, putting aside her spindle and thrusting the distaff into a basket of loose; wool. "The men will be home, surely-it is already dark." She went over to the fire, tripped on a loose stick, and half fell on the hearth. "Gareth, you little wretch, will you clear away this rubbish?" She flung the stick into fire, and five-year-old Gareth, who had been pushing the sticks about prattling to them in an undertone, set up a howl of outrage-the sticks were his armies!

"Well, Gareth, it is night, and your armies must go to their tents," said Morgause briskly. Pouting, the little boy pushed the array of small sticks into a corner, but one or two he put carefully into a fold of his tunic-they were thicker ones, which Morgaine, earlier that year, had carved into the crude likeness of men in helmets and armor, dyed with berry juice for their crimson tunics.

"Will you make me another Roman knight, Morgaine?"

"Not now, Gareth," she said. "My hands ache with the cold. Tomorrow, perhaps."

He came and scowled, standing at her knee, demanding, "When will I be old enough to go hunting with Father and Agravaine?"

"It will be a few years still, I suppose," said Morgaine, smiling. "Not until you are tall enough not to be lost in a snowdrift!"

"I'm big!" he said, drawing himself up to his full height, "Look, when you're sitting down I'm taller than you are, Morgaine!" He kicked restlessly at the chair. "There's nothing to do in here!"

"Well," said Morgaine, "I could always teach you to spin, and then you need not be idle." She picked up Beth's abandoned distaff and held it out to him, but he made a face and started back.

"I'm going to be a knight! Knights don't have to spin!"

"That's a pity," Beth said sourly. "Perhaps they would not wear out so many cloaks and tunics if they knew what toil it is to spin them!"

"Yet there was a knight who did spin, so the tale says," Morgaine said, holding out her arms to the little boy. "Come here. No, sit on the bench, Gareth, you are all too heavy now for me to hold you on my lap like a sucking babe. There was in the old days, before the Romans came, a knight named Achilles, and he was under a curse; an old sorceress told his mother that he would die in battle, and so she put him into skirts and hid him among the women, where he learned to spin and to weave and do all that was fitting for a maiden."

"And did he die in battle?"

"He did indeed, for when the city of Troy was besieged, they called on all the knights and warriors to come and take it, and Achilles went with the rest, and he was the best of all the knights. It was told of him that he was offered a choice, he could live long in safety, then die an old man in his bed and be forgotten, or he could live a short life and die young with great glory, and he chose the glory; so men still tell of his story in the sagas. He fought with a knight in Troy called Hector-Ectorius, that is, in our tongue-"

"Was it that same sir Ectorius who fostered our king Arthur?" asked the little boy, wide-eyed.

"To be sure it was not, for it was many hundred years ago, but it might have been one of his forefathers."

"When I am at court, and one of Arthur's Companions," said Gareth, his eyes round as saucers, "I will be the best fighter in war, and I will win all the prizes when there are games. What happened to Achilles?"

"I remember it not-it was long ago, at Uther's court, I heard the tale," Morgaine said, pressing her hands against her back as if it hurt her.

"Tell me about Arthur's knights, Morgaine. You have really seen Lancelet, have you not? I saw him, that day at the King's crowning-has he killed any dragons? Tell me, Morgaine-"

"Don't plague her, Gareth, she's not well," said Morgause. "Run out to the kitchens and see if they can find you some bannock."