The Dark Chronicles Ch. 05

Part Five - The Screaming Blood

I was there.

When the witch Morgayne's belly was torn open and a child dragged screaming from her, I was there.

That day was eight moons off when Artur and Morgayne, sister and brother born to the same mother, descended the plank from their boat. Returned from De Grance, fealty done and good trade besides.

"A good mission, lord?"

"Yeay, Maer, 'twas well done, and a resting time too. All well here?"

"All well, the grand hall near built. And you an uncle, now. Your sister, the Lady Claryyne, has birthed a boy. A message come from Tyntangel, five days gone. Lancilet, first prince of Uthur's blood." Maerlyn paused. "Your heir, sire, until you father blood of your own."

"Aye, Claryyne was a good size the last time I saw her. Her birthing wife, who was that?"

"Caitlyyn, sire, who supped you when the Lady Ygraine grew tired. A good woman, the best child-wife I know." A fine bottom too, where oft I lodged my rod, she liking it there and me all undecided.

"And I, brother, I was the first child birthed by her skill."

My skin bumped up like the skin of a goose, hearing that dread low voice pouring honey into mine ear so smooth. The honey of a wasp could be no worse, yet her voice thrilled me so. My rod thickened, betraying my mind but obeying my soul, forsaking me. I turned, and my cursed ankle twisted.

Morgayne's slow stretching fingers crept through the air all slow, a landing on the back of my hand, leaving a little stroke there, tormenting me. Her fingers were warm when they should have been cold. When I turned and saw her look, her black eyes were like cold ice at midnight. Her lips smiled at me but her eyes did not.

"Maerlyn," black honey, drip drip in mine ear, "did you miss me, wizard, did you dream of me every night?" Morgayne sowed seeds, knowing it so and not caring, and I the cursed farmer; grow, grow. "Your ankle, Maer, is't better, or does the cold affect it?" She opened her mouth in a pouting kiss, showing the sharp little teeth that nipped and bit me when she was small.

"Morgayne, don't play. Enough. You tire me." Artur said it plain but no favours. None given her and none me. "Fight battles if you must, but not around me."

"I harmless be, brother, I just make jest."

At my expense, and I'm not the court jester. But I was surprised to see her let it go so quick, wondering if something ailed her head, that usually niggled at me. As Morgayne walked on, I saw the Lady's hand against her belly. Queasy from the sea perhaps? She did not look sea-rocking pale to me. She looked back at me over her shoulder, colour high on her cheeks, but I could not read her.

Artur followed her with his eyes, and of a sudden I saw the love in his eyes for his sister was something deeper. His eyes were black with lust, and his eyes undressed Morgayne as she walked away. I made a note in my head of last night's moon, for to start a counting, if I guessed right. I might play the fool, but I seldom guessed wrong. Not when it mattered.

I quickly looked to my feet, to hide my curious glance. Even so, I was too slow.

"New boots, Maer, that you look at them and admire your toes?" Artur's comment was wry and I knew I was discovered in my speculation. "I can depend on you, Maerlyn. I won't doubt it."

"Never doubt me, sire." I will do that for the both of us, I had no doubt of that, in the years ahead. I resolved at some time to visit the Sisters in the Isle of Glas, to see if their auguries knew of this turn. Or was it just a stumble, a tumble, just a man and a woman with a cock and a cunt and nothing in between?

Sure enough, Morgayne fell sick in the mornings and it wasn't food that made her so. I suggested to Artur that the young Emmelyne was a good, reliable girl who would shut her mouth when told, but practical too. The king agreed and the girl was appointed. To my surprise and probably hers, Morgayne accepted the interference and made Emmelyne welcome. Perhaps it was the girl's acceptance that being made big with babes was as natural as the world turning; perhaps it was her knowledge of primal beasts and their instincts, but whatever it was, Morgayne let her stay.

"She treats me like one of her goats, no different," Morgayne complained to her brother, but in good nature, a laugh in her voice. Artur told me of it, and I glanced askance at him, scarce believing my ears and my good chance. I collected nettles and took them to Morgayne, hoping she would accept the jest.

"Maerlyn, do you bring me flowers from the fields? Heart, I never thought it true." She looked at me, and her face was pale and her smile was weak. And of a sudden she was human and in the strangest, strangest way that little smile touched me, and despite myself, I looked upon her differently.

"Aye, Lady, I picked each prickle away with my very own fingers." I lied, of course, every prick and prickle was still on every stalk, and I handled them as gingerly as I handled my own words with Morgayne.

"How far can I throw you, Maerlyn?"

"You can't, Lady. I fly less than an inch."

"Ah, good, it is still as I thought, between us. You don't believe a word you say, and I don't either. So we understand each other still."

"I think, Lady, we always did understand each other, too well."

Morgayne smiled at me, and her teeth were white and small, and her lips were berry red. My cock beat with my heart and my ankle hurt. Her long, slow fingers grasped at the air between us, and I pulled myself back from her call.

I pondered Artur's admission of his love for his sister, and considered the timing of her moons. Were her breasts bigger, fuller already? She wore a loose gown, I could not truly tell. I know I cannot tell truthfully, but some things eventually cannot hide.

"Tis remarkable, how a woman's body changes, don't you think, Maerlyn, when she grows big with child?"

I forgot. Morgayne finds minds the easiest things to read, and mine befuddled like rocks on a beach just makes a loud clatter, and I am transparent. Shine the sun through me in the mornings and I could be a window in a chapel built by stupid priests. I looked at her and did not know how to answer.

Morgayne had the slightest smile on her lips, and did I see the slightest crease in the corners of her eyes? "Come by again, Maer. I tire of the prattle of goat maids, my brother entertains state and makes treaty and cannot attend me. You at least amuse me, and you amuse yourself, so perhaps we can play chess and talk about the weather."

She called me by my title, Maer. That's not like her. "Am I your knight, Lady, or your priest?"

Her laugh was joyous, delighted in my jest. "Oh, Maerlyn, you know the smallest pawn always stands before the king!"

And the queen. This can't go on too much longer, Artur cannot keep this pretence of his sister by his side.

Morgayne glanced at me. "You're right, Maerlyn. Clever pawn. I have it managed. De Grance's girl, Miryamme, she will suffice."

I grasped it immediately. "Good fealty also, Lady, binding the south to Artur." My thoughts rattled on, oblivious of Morgayne in my head listening close. "But she is young. How to convince the king to wait?"

Morgayne looked at me with her black eyes, and ran fingers through her hair. "Oh, I think my brother will listen to me. Don't you?"

I didn't doubt it, and resolved to ride to Glas on the morrow. How much of her was predictable, and how much predicted? I didn't know.

"Go, Maerlyn. I'm tired."

I looked at her, and Morgayne was pale, her hand moving in a settling motion on her belly. On the way out, I found Emmelyne and asked her to take broth to the Lady.

* * * *

So it went. I was foolish, and Morgayne charmed and flattered me, she let me think she enjoyed my company or at least tolerated it. Maybe she did, an intelligent woman who grasped the power of the Goddess and turned it to her own ends, and I a circling, dancing fool who knew nothing.

But there was more that kept me close to the witch Morgayne. The auguries, entrails and other predictive things used by the wise Sisters of Glas, priestesses to the Goddess - all those predictions and portents had failed utterly to predict the simple love between a brother and a lost sister, two lost children torn apart, all tiny and small; and our plan the unmaking of them.

Vivyane, Nymue, and I, Maer Maerlyn. Fools and simpletons, all of us. Unpredicted by all, contemplated by none; the most powerful man in the land, conjured up in a bad plan years ago, had contrived with his half sister to make an heir before he even had a queen.

"Maerlyn, Artur at least trusts you. His sister Morgayne trusts no-one, but we cannot allow harm to her." Vivyane voiced the collective view. "We will need to watch closely in order to know all events, and hopefully guide them. Or at least, not be unravelled by them." She turned to me. "Maer Maerlyn, you will need to hold her close..."

* * * *

"...as an enemy holds a man closer, Maerlyn?" Morgayne knew, of course, that she was unknown, and therefore an agent of chance. "Tis a pretty pickle, Maerlyn, is it not?" She laughed, with a genuine glee. "I can do what I please, since nobody knows it. Come, we will play the gammon board. We can practice dice." She shook two dice in a cup. "Oh look, two sixes! Here, you shake."

Predictably, two ones was the best I could do. Morgayne was delighted, and her fingers as she took the dice were warm against mine. Her eyes even smiled. I wasn't used to that, not at all, and it unnerved me. It still does, and I fall for it every time. Curse this wind rattling the window. It makes me look up and I lose my concentration.

Where was I?

Yes. The black Morgayne, slowly filling with child and not enjoying the mornings of it. Emmelyne would take her a hot cloth, boiled up in a hanging cauldron over the kitchen fire, and bathe the Lady Morgayne to ease her discomfort. I'd pass Emmelyne in the corridor and receive a warning of the Lady's temper for the day; and prepare myself to be her toy, her plaything when she was capricious. Or she would be kinder and greet me well, and Morgayne would be content. I dared not call myself a friend to her, but I might have been. As always with a friend, I'm my own worst enemy. I can't predict myself, not any more. I certainly couldn't predict the Lady.

On occasion, Artur would visit, and for several days after Morgayne would be gentle with me; but then her mood would return, and I could settle myself for the more familiar world where I was her cruel whim one minute, her confidant the next. Hers was a creeping fear, I think.

One morning I arrived early. Emmelyne was still with the Lady, and I heard low voices. For some reason that was more than curiosity, more than idleness, I quietly edged down the corridor, keeping to the shadowed wall until I reached a dark alcove opposite the door to Morgayne's chamber. I skulked back into the shadow, and saw the Lady sitting on a bench, her head over a bucket, her legs spread wide. The folds of her simple linen gown fell between her legs and I saw nothing there. But the folds of cloth fell open about her body, and I saw the hang of her pale breasts like drops, long dark nipples rich and firm at their tips. And all around, Morgayne's long, black hair was coiled all around.

Emmelyne with her steaming cloth was wiping Morgayne's white face, then rubbed the cloth around the Lady's neck, and down between those breasts, lifting them up towards her body. Whilst it was practical and the motion of a maid washing her mistress, there was a firm caress in the way Emmelyne curved her hands over those breasts that was both intimate and allowed. I saw Morgayne's eyes close, and saw her lean forward just a fraction, dropping the fuller weight of her breasts into Emmelyne's cupped palms. As I watched, my old prick thickened and my nipples jabbed behind my chest. And as I watched, I saw Morgayne's eyes slowly open and look in my direction. I thought I was in shadow, but couldn't properly tell if she saw me.

A tiny smile curved on her mouth, and I thought I was probably seen.

"There's a draft, Emmelyne. Pull the curtain across the door."

I knew then that I was found, spying my eyes upon the Lady. She mentioned nothing of it later, when I called upon her properly. Her gaze was just as steady, her dark eyes penetrating my old mind and me all defenceless, and she could do with me what she wanted. Morgayne turned away from me, and her fingers dallied on my arm, dragging off my flesh slowly, trailing two fingers down over the back of my hand and away into the air. It was all I could do to bunch my hands into fists, or I would have foolishly reached after her fingers with my own.

"Come, Maerlyn, come sit by me at the window and we'll watch the world go by." Was it just mine ears, or did I hear a teasing emphasis on the word 'watch'?

"Are you feeling better, Lady, your sickness in the mornings?" I could not help myself, my words might just as well have been my legs, walking me forth into the light to make it obvious I had watched.

Morgayne looked directly into my eyes, and her brow crept up so I might know I was her game. "Aye, Maerlyn, it is near on three moons, and Emmelyne assures me that the sickness usually does not make four." She turned away and looked out the window, her hand resting on the swell of her belly. "Especially if it's a boy, Emmelyne says."

"I have heard that, Lady. I remember Caitlyyn saying it once. Your mother was long sick with you, yet stopped the sickness sooner with your brother."

"My brother. Little Artur. He did not torment his mother, then?"

"Not as Caitlyyn says it, Lady."

"Did I torment my mother, Maerlyn, do you think?"

I'm not your mother, Morgayne, yet you torment me.

Her eyes did not leave mine, but she was impenetrable, and it was I who looked away.

The next morning, I did not look away, and Morgayne did not want me to. She bade Emmelyne stand behind her as she bathed her Lady with the cloth, and again I was treated to the drop of Morgayne's breasts into the cup of the maid's hands. It was a treat for mine eyes, and my prick rose hard but I did not touch it. This time, Morgayne commanded Emmelyne to help with her chemise.

"Slip it over my head, Emmy, and wash down my back."

Morgayne stretched her arms high in the air, and showed me her naked torso, her swelling breasts, and the bones of her ribs. The pits of her arms were dark and haired, and the hollows were like two tight cunts before my eyes. Morgayne's eyes were closed, but she knew I was there, watching. I could see her nipples tight, and it might have been Emmelyne's fingers tugging or it might have been the knowledge of me. Emmelyne's eyes were closed as she washed her Lady's breasts and back, her lips slightly open, shiny with the lick of her tongue. My prick throbbed hard at the watching, but I did not touch it. And all around, Morgayne's hair coiled and fell all around.

Yet when I went away and came back all a proper visiting later on, with my hey derry down, all merry ding dong in the dell, all good cheer, all that balls of the dog and we both knew it; despite all that pretence, we pretended nothing happened in the morning light either. And Emmelyne was part of the secret and we all kept pretending nothing happened, but kept on doing it. All three of us doing nothing at all; and in that strange way the Lady and I kept a curious distance between us, as if we both of us dared not get too close, for fear of what it might mean. The black Morgayne and the grey Maerlyn; the land did not want such a combination and we both knew it, so this looking was how we channelled our lust.

Over time young Emmelyne became a shared messenger between us, because the morning bath slowly revealed more of the Lady Morgayne. Each day she would shed another article of clothing there before the bath, and Emmelyne would lasciviously wash the Lady down over her ripening belly and her bigging tits. And one day the long shift fell completely from Morgayne's waist and Emmelyne ran her hot cloth high up between the Lady's thighs and over her lush, dark haired cunt, and Morgayne spread wide her legs and I saw the same purple red crease of her that I saw that day she crawled down the rock at Artur's pulling of the sword. Morgayne was that same black witch who spat and crept like a spider, and scooped the spill of my cock and smeared it to the dark cloy of her anus, that dark sacred place, and anointed herself there with my juice.

Emmelyne came away from that bathing ritual with her fingers a sliding dip into the Lady's cunt all sticky and wet. Morgayne whispered in her maid's ear, all the time looking straight at me; and Emmelyne came to me and proffered those fingers to my lips and bade me suck. She whispered in my ear, "From the Lady." My prod reared and Emmelyne took it and stroked me into the palm of her hand until I spilt seed there, and she took it back to the Lady who spread it on her belly and I don't know why Morgayne did it but she did.

So it went on. As the weather warmed and the pattern of the morning adjusted with the rising sun turning higher with the spring, Morgayne's childing body grew and her belly got bigger. Her morning bath with Emmelyne was no longer to sooth the Lady after sickness, for her vomit stopped and her food stayed down. It was clear now that Morgayne had truly accepted Emmelyne as her birthing maid, and the girl likewise saw the Lady as a physical, breeding creature all her very own, to kiss and caress, to stick her tongue and fingers into, all unashamed.

They let me watch, and Morgayne was content to let Emmelyne suck on my prick with her mouth that not long before had suckled on the Lady's cunt; and for me to suck on the girl's cunt that had not long since sat on Morgayne's face, for they supped upon each other. I sat and watched but never entered the room, and Morgayne stared and stared at me with her black, black eyes. Her berry red lips opened and she darted her tongue; and her fingers spread apart all the colours of her cunt, heavy red and pink and brown, for my eyes, my eyes, my staring eyes. An owl could not have been more wide eyed.

And her fingers, so warm on my arm when I greeted her at the midday day bell, all properly clothed and the earlier sights forgotten; her fingers in the morning would peal back her folds, clefted dark in her black haired cave, and flutter her red flesh slowly, so slowly. And my rod always rose.

"Lean over Maer's shoulder, Emmy, with your tight tits dropped in his hands, and grip his prick and make him spill, while I watch and diddle my own best place." And Emmelyne would neatly toss and twist my prick and take the spill cupped in her hands to the Lady, and Morgayne would cream her silvering stretching belly or her heavy breasts with my juice, and rub it all in. But never did my hands touch her naked flesh, nor hers mine; just Emmelyne our willing emissary, for we both would please her, taking turns a lapping at her cunt.

The closest we ever got to each other, Morgayne and I, was one hot day around her sixth month when she lay on her back, her legs spread wide and her belly big and heavy, with Emmelyne's mouth on the Lady's cunt and my tongue in Emmy's forbidden hole, pushing her into the Lady. When off a sudden, Morgayne stopped her writhing and placed both hands on her belly, and she cried out in a massive wail.

"Get dressed, Emmy. Maerlyn, get thee gone. The baby's kicked, by the Goddess, kicked, and hard inside. I've felt a swimming before, but never a kick. Ohh, Goddess, there again. Unnhh."

I dressed, and to Artur went.

"The Lady, sire, she reports the child's kick. It thrives. I think your sister is startled by the movement and is afraid."

"Is it time to summon Caitlyyn, Maer; or to send my sister to our mother?" Artur gazed centrally at me and was certain. "I want the best for her, as she enters her last triangle." His eyes were sharp, and his lips set. "The child is wrong, Maer, unnatural and I know it; but the blood, 'tis mine, and the mother of it is my Gayne, my sister when I was sent away."