The Dark Chronicles Ch. 05

His passion was high. "The best care, Maer. Your kind owe me that, at least. I will not have my sister threatened. Not her life."

"I pledge it, sire, on my own life."

Artur looked at me and his look was cold.

"Good. You pledge that to me, your life, to your King?" Colder still, his look, and my heart shivered. "Much as I love thee, Maer, I love my sister more. I will kill thee with my own sword, if you fail me, if harm comes to the Lady Morgayne, my sister."

"I don't doubt it, sire, I never doubt that."

The next day, I rode to the Isle of Glas to talk to Vyvyane. My life at peril if dread came to the Lady? I could not afford that, not for just looking at her magnificent cunt from a doorway, so I needed better insurance. My life is worth more than a look. A lick, at least, or a taste, but not my life for a look.

Still, I could tell Nym Nymue that her choice of blood to serve the Goddess and the Land was good, young Artur having the necessary testicles to do it. Treatening to kill me, his wizard? Truly, Artur knew where the power in the land lay centred - I was a mere bystander, even though I had helped make the boy.

But the Sisters needed to kill foxes and mix the blood of birds together in a pot, and auger their very best. The free will of the boy's blood, and the equally strong, black will of his sister's blood, both in rebellion to the life blood of the Land? Nobody predicted that.

I predicted blood, and a lot of it. As long as none of it was mine.

I proved right, and sooner than I expected. And it was my hands covered in it; I didn't predict that, not at all. As always, half wrong, never half right. I'll learn one day that I can't throw dice, and don't let me near a coin.

* * * *

Artur summoned Caitlyyn, for she was the best birthing wife known to him, having attended the king and his sister too, and the babes of his younger sisters. It was Caitlyyn, on examining the Lady Morgayne, big with child, who declared the news that the Lady carried two babes inside her. "They hug to each other, I can feel their backs but they sleep a facing."

Morgayne, on hearing she would bear twins, fell silent for twelve long days and shunned all but Caitlyyn and Emmelyne; and I suppose the women spoke best how to manage the birthing, for a babing pair doubled everything that could go bad, including my own life in peril. I contrived to speak to both the serving women at different times, and found some small confidence that they separately told me the same things, and reinforced the best way for the Lady to bear her children.

Twins. I wondered if the Sisters from the Isle of Glas forecast that in their entrails and smoke. An obvious portent, and one hard to miss, I would have thought, but it had never been mentioned. I confess, I was rapidly losing confidence in predictions and prophecies conjured up in a pot, and was increasingly inclined to believe my own eyes and deeds in preference. Keep the black pots for soup and the cooking fire for warmth, and the supernatural prophecies for old priests who count in threes. Perhaps I'm becoming more practical as I get older, depending on myself. One day I might even mend my boots. There's a hole near the toe where water gets in.

Caitlyyn bade young Emmy to collect many flowers and potions, to crush them and rub them into unguents, and I too remembered herbs and liquids and mushrooms that would make dreams and lull pains.

"The birthing won't be easy, Maer, we might need the Lady to be stupified when her day is upon her."

Morgayne herself was uneasy, and would sit and sit with her hands on her restless belly, a look of dread and uncertainty on her face. "They roil and fight already, Maer. It's as if they hate their closeness and want to be apart." She looked up at me, but I could offer nothing.

So time moved on and the Lady grew pale as her belly grew bigger. Two moons passed, and Caitlyyn came to me one night, and said, "Soon, Maer Maerlyn, it will be soon. The Lady will breach soon."

Artur came, and even he could not calm Morgayne. She looked at him and muttered, "It's your seed, brother, we're cursed by our love."

"What will happen, Maer? I'm afraid for my sister."

"I know it not sire, but will do all I can to keep her well."

"Try, Maerlyn. I cannot hold you to my threat. This is beyond us all, but I beg it, do what you can."

I did.

I did it with dread in my heart and shaking hands, for the love of Morgayne. So intimate with her body, so much more than a touch, I held her in my hands, all blooded and trembling. I tremble still at the telling of it. My pen shudders, and the writing paper tears.

* * * *

"I'm restless, Emmy. The children within me are sleeping, but I'm restless." Morgayne was turning about the room, the long feathers of her cape brushing the floor. Her belly was big, but even with it huge, she stood tall. She couldn't not be magnificent, the Lady Morgayne. She took her own dread in her hands, I think, and would not let it diminish her.

Artur came, and bid his sister move to his chambers, which were larger and included a private courtyard and a kitchen. "Caitlyyn tells me a woman will circle and circle around a room when the babies push, and might scream and want silence, so best you be here, in the king's place."

Morgayne looked at her brother, but I could not tell all the meanings in that look; how to count them all up? 'Twould be impossible. But tenderness was there, amongst it all; that I could see.

"Little brother, even if these babes are unnatural and wrong, I care it not. Love made them, Artur, and my love carried them these near nine moons. You will be a father soon, brother, and I their mother." Morgayne reached for his cheek, and caressed him there and her touch lingered. "Don't stay, brother, not while I walk and wait."

Artur kissed her full on the lips. "Gayne...?"

"Go, brother. You are king, not hand-maiden."

I wonder what that makes me? I am never king.

"You are tall, Maerlyn." She read my mind. "When I double over in cramps, I can hang my arms from your neck and keep my body stretched." Morgayne looked at me with a wry smile, and I saw that she was darkly fond of me then, because her eyes smiled. "Caitlyyn and Emmy are no use for that, as they are both smaller than me."

"Ah, I see it now, a rack for a Lady, to stretch her bones. Do you manacle me to your wheel, Morgayne, and turn it like a spit on a fire?"

"Would you burn for me, Maer?"

Would you piss on me, to put out the fire, if I did?

"I'd burn Lady, if it would unfreeze your frozen heart."

"Frozen heart, Maer? These last months, I've not been cold, surely. I thought we became friends. It certainly looked like we were friends, you in your alcove, me in my room."

"Ah, yes but we did not touch, just with our eyes." I looked at her straight. "Why was that, Lady?"

She was silent for ten beats of my heart. "Because I could not bear it, Maerlyn. It is a love and a hate between us, Maer. You know it as I do, yet we are strange friends, I think."

"Yeay, Lady, that be true. You torment me and sweeten me, turn and turn about, and I am like a man on a high ledge, always about to fall."

"Yet you're never at my feet, and I keep looking you eye to eye. Why is that, Maer?" Morgayne seemed as puzzled in herself as to her feelings to me, as I was to her.

This time I was silent, and my heart pattered on. "Lady, if you do not know your mind, it is most unlikely that I do. I am hard at thought to put one foot in front of the other, most of the time."

It was my time for a quiet smile, and perhaps I betrayed myself, for she laughed, delighted with something she saw. I didn't know what it was, but then, I don't know most things and make the rest up. Yet people call me wise.

Of a sudden, Morgayne gripped my arm, and winced. "Ah Goddess, it begins. Maerlyn, walk me back to the rooms. I will get Caitlyyn to inspect the babes and their position. I fear them."

Morgayne does not fear, not Morgayne. What children were these that she feared? I looked at her beside me, her arm linked through mine, and I silenced my own dread. She carried enough within her for the both of us.

* * * *

Morgayne circles and circles, restless, walking. She stops, winces with pain, and walks and walks in restless circles.

I walk beside her and she drags on my neck, arching her back with the pain, and she lets the weight of her body fall. She drags on my neck and I walk beside her.

Morgayne crawls and crawls naked on the ground, her limbs are sheened with sweat, and naked and naked she crawls on the ground.

She screams with the pain, and screams and moans. Birds rise and fly, their wings shuddering, and she moans and screams.

Morgayne is silent, her breath comes in gasps. She grips my arm and her fingers draw blood, and she gasps and gasps but her throat is silent.

She looks at me, looks at me, and begs it to stop. She goes on and on, and the labour won't stop. Her eyes don't see a thing, yet they're black and black with pain. She can't stop.

Morgayne falls to the ground in a swoon.

I call four men to carry the Lady, and they place her on a bed. Caitlyyn comes, and feels the opening to Morgayne's womb, and feels the place of the babes, their limbs, their backs. She feels the beating pulse of Morgayne's heart.

"Maerlyn," Caitlyyn says, "one child will die here, and perhaps the Lady too. One is backwards and blocks the other. I cannot turn the one, else harm the other." She is certain, and tells it. "The Lady is in peril."

Emmelyne comes, and stands by me. "Maer Maerlyn, there is a way. My goats, my nanny goats, when their kids tangle and twist, and climb on each other in the womb. I've cut. My mother showed me how. I've cut the belly, and lifted out the tiny goatlets. I've cut."

I look at the girl. "Does the nanny live, and the little goats too?"

"Aye, sire, I've not lost one yet. I cut, and sew the belly up, just like a bag." Emmelyne is certain, and tells it. "The Lady is in peril, but she carry her babes just like a goat carries her kids and a sheep carries lambs. Cut, sire, and save them."

I think on't, and remember brother Plinius tell of the the Roman Caes, born from a mother and cut from her womb. I think on't and my pledge to Artur, who is my friend like a son. And Morgayne, who has become almost a daughter and a lover both. I have no pledge made with her, but I think on't.

I look at Emmelyne again. "Are you sure of your words, tell me no lie. Can she survive?"

"Sire, if the knife is sharp and the cut certain and true, and hands fast into her and counting quick, one, two, three, four and five. Fast, and a certain hand, sire. Mother Caitlyyn to take the babes to clean and swaddle. I to sew, just like my goats." Emmelyne looks at me and says it. "Maer Maerlyn, sire, you must take the knife...."

I do it.

I take the sharpest knife we can find, all bladed on a stone. I command the men to hold the Lady's limbs, even though she lies a swoon, all still; and I count it, to make myself relentless and never stop.

One. And I cut from left to right across the base of Morgayne's belly. She screams and my hands are red in her blood, and I cut. I drop the knife.

Two. With trembling hands I reach inside her flesh for the first babe, and cradle it small and still. And three, I take the child from Morgayne and Caitlyyn is near and cuts the cord. She takes the babe to clean and swaddle. She whispers, "It is a boy, sire, and by the Goddess he wears the king's mark that Uthur wore. It's no mistake, a clear mark."

Four, and I find the twin child, and Emmelyne passes me a knife for the cord, and five, I pull the squalling thing from its mother and I cannot see its face. "Tis covered by a caul, sire, a witchling born, and it is a girl, born to her mother." Emmelyne whispers too, and knowledge is born in her, because she knows.

"Clean the veil away, Emmy, quick. Tell no-one of the shrouded child. Quick, pink skin to find on the babe."

Six. I reach within Morgayne and no man or woman could be so intimate, I could take her heart in my hands and I'm drenched in her blood. I find the after-births and take them from her, and save them in a jar.

I count quick now, this is too long, and Emmelyne reaches for her needle and her thread, and seven my hands leave the lady's womb alone, and Emmy starts to sew.

I see Morgayne before me and her blood is on my hands, rich red. I hear a cry and echo too, and her children live. I reach down and I do not know it why, I pick up the knife I dropped, and I still don't know why I did it, but I did.

With the sharpest blade against her neck, and Morgayne still dead in her sleep, I don't know why but I did it. I cut the hair from Morgayne's head. I cut her hair, never cut by woman nor cut by man, long and black like a raven's wing, cut cut.

* * * *

I was there.

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

Cut from her head, Morgayne's hair is a black long noose around my neck and I wear it still. I'm anointed in her blood, red blood, and she summons me now with her long black rope, tug tug.

© electricblue66 2018