The Dark Chronicles Ch. 06

Part Six - The Queen.

I was there.

The day a crown was placed on a young queen's head and she sat beside the king, I was there.

De Grance's little daughter Miryamme was almost the ideal bride for Artur the king, and to be his future queen. Almost, that is, but for the complication of Morgayne his sister and two bastard heirs, born in her blood - am I cursed not enough already? My hands pulled the twin babes from Morgayne's womb, and more intimate with a woman I have never been. The Black Morgayne, who makes my ankle itch, scratch scritch; and teased mine eyes with her lush childing body and her darkened cunt.

Two children ripped from her, and Morgayne all oblivious. I saw too much, and she saw nothing, nothing at all.

Emmelyne's eyes were the only other eyes but mine to see the shroud, the caul, all around the girl child, and I bade her wash it away quick and tell no-one. I knew in an instant that it must be our secret alone, the goat maid and the goat; never to tell, but to know. To know is the best kept thing; to use it, ahh, now that is a much better thing. Dilly, dally, wait Maerlyn, wait, even 'till the end of days. The Goddess knew, of course; but I hoped she would hold her tongue and not chatter to her priestesses and predictors about the cursed child.

As for the Sisters, they were not so clever; not spotting the lust the king had for his sister, nor what Morgayne did with it. They didn't see the girl child, either. Entrails might make good sausage filler up beyond the Wall of Hadrian; but to predict the important things, well, the Sisters really needed to think of something else. Like the stars in the sky, perhaps. The twinkling stars might be more convenient, for if one constellation gave an unnecessary or unsatisfactory answer, the sayer of sooths could wait till dawn and there would be a whole new set to choose from. Truth tell, the whole thing with stars is so utterly unpredictable, I could almost believe in them myself. Twinkle, twinkle.

Looking back it all seems rather obvious, but no-one saw it then. Even the mother who carried them both, was she just a portal bag? But Maerlyn, with a tiny bit of knowledge all his own? Useful surely? We shall see. Hush Emmy, tell no-one, tra la!

But I'm wandering. I know why, quite precisely why. I'm meandering because sooner or later Morgayne always wakes, and when she woke that time, she wasn't her usual self.

"The Lady is delirious, Maer. She runs heat on her brow and her body burns." Caitlynn was concerned and uncertain. "We must wrap her in wet cloth to draw the heat out, and make her drink a coction of wyrm-root to brighten her dreams and slow her heart. It races too quick and I do not like the flutter of it."

I feared for the Lady Morgayne and feared also the king's madness if death came upon her. I remembered Artur's forgiveness of his sword and the pledge of it into mine heart; but thought in his grief his memory might not be so kind. Having only the one heart and keen on it beating on, I vowed for my own life that I would keep dread death from the Lady. My own stupid heart beating for her had nothing to do with it; I fooled myself that much, and fool myself still.

Is that rain, again, on the dry outside, or is it just here in this room, on this page?

We took it in turns, the two birth women and I, to sit by Morgayne so she was never alone. Emmelyne coated the sewn up wound on the cut wide belly with fresh honey from the hive, and she brought a little goatling to suckle at the Lady's breast.

"If she flows her milk, sire, the Lady will heal herself faster, so to feed her own babies. I see it in my sick goats - as soon as the suck begins the nanny forgets to die, for to feed proper her little kidlings. But the Lady, sire, she must be stronger to take two babes on her tit."

Emmelyne found a suckle wife for the two tiny children, a hearty girl from the village with her own toddle near weaned, yet her big fat breasts still a full with milk.

"I'll plump them up," the suckle wife said, "till the Lady be strong enough to cherish her own childs and feed them proper." She took and swaddled up the babies and observed, "Look how the little girl sees about already, the bonny wee thing. She's a lovely one." Her look at the boy was quicker, and she did not lie. "He's an ugly one, certain, with that stain upon his head."

It was true, the boy carried the king's mark clear, that Uthur had worn on his hip and Artur's stain more hidden. But this child was marked with a smear like a bruise on his cheek and brow. Not hid like the king's, but a most definite mark on his face. No doubting the son, there was no doubt at all.

"My son then, Maer, for all the world to see." Artur came and looked upon his children. "His hair, black like his mother's."

"Yeay, sire, the Lady's colour in the boy, and the little girl yours, all fair."

"Aye, Maerlyn; my eyes too, almost."

"Nearly so, Lord, but lighter blue already, I think it." The wee girl looked up at her father, as if to study him hard.

"But she cannot properly see, not yet?"

"No sire. Wait on a month and the babe's look will be proper in her eyes."

Artur reached down and touched his little finger to his daughter's lips, his first kiss, and she but two days old.

"Has my sister seen them yet?"

"No sire. The Lady is still too sick."

"Care for her, Maer. Make her better, I beseech thee."

I beseeched mine own self to do it, and I'll try anything to keep my own heart beating.

"I'll try, Lord."

"I know it, Maer. Your strangest love for my sister, maybe it be enough." His smile was gentle. "May it be enough."

It's all I had, so I gave it to her willingly. Beat, beat. My heart beats blood.

Four days on from the birth, and Morgayne's blood all washed from my hands. Turning them over and over, still seeing it red and running on my wrists; ah woman, your heart was so close to my hands, I've been inside you. Could I know you better?

I was started from my dreamery by the slow warm touch of her fingers on the back of my hand, feeling if I was awake.

"Maerlyn, am I sleeping or do I dream?" Morgayne's voice was low, yet even in her sickness going, it was still enough to lull me still and take me from my senses.

I dared not move, for fear of startling myself. Dare I hope it, Morgayne recovering? Gazing upon her like a daughter now, all caring, my silly lust all gone.... I fooled myself once more; mine own ankle itched and my prod thickened at the sound of her voice and I knew her better, for how else could her spell be so automatic? It was a reflex in me, an instinctive thing, and I think she knew it too.

"Did you save me, heart, my life in your hands?" Her fingers rested on the back of my hand, but I dared not turn it over, for fear she would not hold it. Yet her finger touch, it was so warm, I could not bear it gone. Her fingers drifted away, and I watched them run through the fleece of the little goat as she held it to her breast.

"Is this my child, that lay within me and kicked me so, a little goat?" Morgayne gazed upon the kid, and looked me in the eye, but her eyes were distant and gone and I wondered for her sanity. Had it gone too?

Her focus sharpened. "Why did you cut it, Maerlyn?" Her gaze was impenetrable, and it went straight to the back of my head and pinned me to the wall.

"I had to, Lady, the babes were all backwards and twisted, and would not have birthed, if I did not cut."

"Not my body, Maerlyn." She would not let me go. "My hair, wizard, why did you cut my hair all off, that was never cut before?"

I did not have an answer, for I knew not why I did it. "l know not, Lady. Morgayne, I know it not, and have no story, no reason." I was all helpless before her. "I cannot tell you the truth, I cannot tell you the lie. Both false; and I do not ask forgiveness, for I know you will not grant it."

"You're right, Maerlyn, I will not grant forgiveness, I will not grant forget." And then Morgayne looked at me and laughed. "Tis but hair." And her slow fingers stretched towards me through the air, and it was the slow, dark, mysterious movement I knew so well. My cock hardened and my ankle beat beat with my own blood. "Ah, Maerlyn. Am I better, do you think?"

"Lady, you torment me; so yes, you are recovering."

Morgayne looked at me with her coal black eyes. "But my life, Maerlyn. You saved me. What's the payment for that?"

"I know it not, Lady, I cannot know."

"Must we mint new coin, just a regnum for we two?" She took my hand. "Are we bound together now, Maerlyn, in some strange marriage? A marriage made of blood, my blood?"

I could not answer, for I did not know.

"Bring the braid to me, Maer. I know what to do with it."

I brought Morgayne her own hair, and placed it in her hands. She smiled at me, and it was a peaceful smile, but ahh, was that a tiny glint and was that an eyebrow raised? I knew then she was herself again, laughing in her dark, magnificent glee. She looked at me and asked, "Are you bound to me now, Maerlyn, and me to you, as we live?"

"I think it so, Lady, even if I not planned it." Nor could escape it, even if I wanted to.

"No-one planned it, Maer, none knew it either." Morgayne began to twist and plait her hair, cleverly holding it in the middle of its length, making a rope both ways from that middle. Black it was and a long black rope she made of her hair, all braided from the middle.

Every now and then she looked at me, then down to the rope; and twisted it on some more. Soon it was a good length, as long as my arm, or nearly.

"Take off your jerkin, Maerlyn."

I did, and stood before her, half naked.

"Kneel before me, that I reach your neck."

I did, and Morgayne placed the braided cord of her hair about my neck, and began to plait the ends together so it made a loop, a noose about my neck. She continued to braid the length of her hair and made of it a rope down the front of my chest, down the centre of my gut, till the ends were level with my groin.

"Take off your britches, Maerlyn,"

I did, and stood before her naked.

"Stand before me, that your rod stand before me."

I did, and Morgayne took my prick in her hands, which she never had touched before, and with her long, slow fingers stroked me up full hard. She looked up at me, a standing there, and she smiled and said, "Take your cock and hold it still. I need both hands."

I did, and Morgayne took the dangling ends of her hair and teased it out into little small threads; and with her fingers she pulled and straightened the hair, the greying hair, at the base of my belly, and pulled it up into little small threads. And with her nimble, clever fingers, Morgayne wove together, all plaited and braided, the ends of her hair with the tangle of my cock's nest, and she joined our hair together. All joined together twisted.

And it's twisted together still. The hair on Morgayne's head is all a silver and a grey now, and mine's a snowy white, but her hair about my neck, it's still that . If I tip my head-side down and walk on my hands, I'll hang myself from my cock by her hair. I don't want to hang just yet, so I walk with my feet on the ground.

I cut Morgayne's long black hair, and she gave it to me to keep. I'd cut it again if I could, but I don't trust myself with knives, not any more. My fingers shake too much. Her black silken hair is a rope around my neck and I'm bound to her still.

There wasn't a coin, we didn't mint a new reign. I'll need two for my eyes when the boat leaves, and I've no doubt Morgayne will place them there, a strange bride. Or the other one, with her snow white hair.

I'm surprised they get on, in truth, but they do. Perhaps there's only one key to this room, and they take turns watching over me. I never understood it, I never saw them clear. Did they even love me as I loved them, strangely?

Morgayne, the day she wove herself around me fully, celebrated our strange marriage another unexpected way. But I suppose I'd seen her dark eyes on me as we sent Emmelyne to and fro at our lusts bidding, when Morgayne was growing big; so perhaps sweet Emmy not being in the room yet my cock still making a stand by her cheek, the Lady couldn't resist her inclination, nor her desire. Her long fingers reached for me slowly, and my rod beat to her pull through the air.

Simply this, my cocked length in between Morgayne's lips, that normally uttured her croon and curse? I didn't expect it and I don't think she did either. But she did, and it did me and I dare not complain - who'd listen? Her hand was slow and careful as she placed her mind to the task, and she built me up so slow. Morgayne gazed up at me and how could she smile with her mouth so full? But she did,with her eyes and that's the unusual thing; this woman who had glared black filth and broken coal at me before, yet now her eyes were liquid midnight and lustrous black.

She placed her other hand on my gut like a claw, and gripped me with her fingers like she wanted to pierce my flesh, this Morgayne whose belly I'd bled, mine own fingers most intimate there. Her suck was like a communion, dragging up the seed from the back of my spine, and I was a slow spill into her mouth when she urged me forth. I dared hold her head with her hair all shorn off, as Morgayne drank me down, every drop. Cats and cream could be less lascivious, miaow, miaow.

Her licks lipped, my mind front to back like my words, Morgayne confused me so. I couldn't keep up.

"Keep up, heart, it's not so hard, your love for a Lady?" Even then she read my mind and saw the truth affront of me. Yet her hand was so warm as she held the soft droop of my spent flesh in the palm of her hand, and it was the gentlest touch, so unexpected. For the first time in a long time mine ankle didn't itch.

"It won't last, Maer, this frail mood of mine." She knew herself too well, but her warm palm lingered around me, and Morgayne didn't move the cup of her hand away for quite some time, so perhaps it was enough. "I don't know, Maerlyn, how you did it, but I'll never forget that you did."

I never found out if Morgayne meant the cut of her belly or the cut of her hair, and never wanted to ask.

* * * *

Morgayne summonsed her babes to her arms, and Emmelyne brought up the fair girl child who looked like her father. The Lady showed the child up to her brother, Artur the King, and said to him, "Lilith, I shall call the child Lilith. Kiss your daughter, Artur, that you may know her."

Emmelyne and I looked on and shared us a glance, and our secret know of the child's birth caul was ours alone; waiting, wait. A secret so fine I could taste it.

The suckle wife brought in the ugly boy, and Morgayne looked upon him, her face giving nothing away. "He's not a pretty child, and see how he scowls. Mordant, I name him Mordant. The king's first heir and bastard prince. Look on him Artur, oh my brother, and see your future lying there."

Artur looked down on his son, but did not kiss his brow. Mordant the new prince with his face bruised red, the king's son through the king and his sister's sin. No need to see stars or stare at guts to know the boy child would inevitably do some bad deed or other. What and when was the question. Time would tell, and most like it would pass furious fast.

Morgayne placed her babes one on each breast and they were content, those three. "I shall miss my little goat," she said.

And so the babies were named Lilith and Mordant, a sister and a brother born to a brother and a sister, born to the same mother.

Morgayne dyed her short hair red with vermilion rock, and took upon her shoulders a scarlet cloak, all wrapped around in the memory of her blood, and she became the Red Morgayne.

And the children grew, and in time the blood red witch Morgayne took them down to Tyntangel where she was born and her mother lived, and she reared them there. The children of the Red Morgayne and the children of the king.

* * * *

The little Miryamme was bought to Camlann by her father, De Grance, and fealty made to Artur the king, and a dowry paid too.

Miryamme was thirteen when she first came to court, and met again the man who would make her his queen. Artur was a good man and kind, and he knew the fear in the girl, for he too had been ripped from his mother and his sister too young, and taken far away. So he treated Miryamme like a brother or a father would, as a young girl first coming into her older years, but still so very young.

"Miryamme can wait six years till she be a woman, Maer. I'll not wed her earlier. She must grow to be a woman like any other girl."

As always when he needed wisest counsel, Artur turned to the magickian for advice, for he knew the old man played the fool but wasn't a fool at all. Besides, Maerlyn had saved the life of his beloved sister Gayne, so Artur knew his old friend's heart was pure - trapped as it was in the strangest love for the king's sister, just as Artur was trapped in his own love for his sister, his Gayne. The Red Morgayne and her men.

Artur knew too, that he needed to see his sister's face fade from his own heart, and place her somewhere unreachable, so time could ease away his pain. Innocent Miryamme didn't deserve a dark shadow over her sweet, young world, so Artur vowed in his own head to try to love her for herself. Time was the thing. Artur's own dowry to the girl was that - a period of innocence where Miryamme's world would be as normal as he could arrange it.

"Is there someone you know, Emmy, who could friend the princess, someone close to her in age?"

Emmelyne remembered her own dreams of the handsome young king, how she would run to her mother, gleefully telling her, "Mother, the king remembers my name and is interested in my goats!"

"Yes sire, my cousin Elayne; she is a year older than the princess, and knows her words and numbers too, and is a sensible girl. Could she be the maid to the princess, but be a friend too? Is that what you ask?"

Emmelyne immediately spotted the advantage in such an arrangement, for if her cousin grew friendly with the princess, she'd stay friendly with the later queen. Emmelyne had learned quickly the importance of a quick ear and a silent tongue in her conspiracies with the Maer Maerlyn and the Lady Morgayne. And she held the future knowledge of the caul over the king's daughter, which only she and the Maerlyn knew, and her own hands washed it away.

So Elayne was announced, and met the princess Miryamme. Over time the girls became affectionate friends, even if Miryamme was a shy girl, and delicate strange in her ways.

"She walks in her dreams, Emmy, and whispers to herself, words after whispering words. But during the day, I don't think she knows she even do it." Elayne paused, remembering something. "She washes her feet, to keep them clean, but doesn't know why she do it."

"Don't wake her, cousin, when she walks; but listen close to her whispers, let's know what she says. We'll talk to Maer Maerlyn. He'll know, and what to tell the king."

And so the world turned beneath Miryamme's feet, and she was surrounded by a conspiracy of strangers who watched her; and in time watched over her, for she was a sweet girl and innocent too, and drew love to her like softness in a kitten's fur draws fluff.

"Miryamme," said Artur one day, "show me your pretty doll, that you hold so close. Her hair is flaxen gold, like yours."

Miryamme shyly smiled at him, her own hair long and tumbling, golden fair in its waves. She stroked the straw hair of her doll, and it was smooth and rubbed from her constant fingers. Emmelyne would take the doll away sometimes and braid new straw to its head, counting those times by the moon.

"See, Artur, my doll is pretty, but she has no eyes, she cannot see."

"Do you want her to see, Miryamme?"

"Oh no. She sees too much if she see."