WOMEN & GIRLS, MOTHERS & SISTERS
He is standing in the snow, alone.
Footsteps crisp behind him, someone puts a hand on his shoulder. He turns round, glimpses brown hair swept across a grinning face with a shaggy beard.
- "MERLIN!"
Arthur's high pitched voice jerks him awake and he blinks, lost and dazed.
He does not know where he is, or why.
His ears suddenly open and the din of the battle rushes in, deafening, while the crackling flames blaze over the palisades in the night, erasing any trace of the white mountains he was dreaming of. Men are fighting around him; swords are clashing; people are belching in pain and rage, everywhere.
Ah. Right. Camelot is besieged and he must watch over Arthur.
He sways on his long legs, reaches out to lean against the stone wall, strangely cold in the furnace.
- "Wake up, for heaven's sake!" the king roars, breathless, grabbing his shoulder. "If you can't stay focused, you'll get yourself killed! Merlin! Merlin, are you listening? You're too tired, go back to the caves!"
The servant immediately shakes his head to protest, but his vision blurs again. His head is throbbing, he feels like he is going to faint.
- "Merlin!" Arthur yells in his ear. "That's an order! Go back to the hospital!"
The blue eyes plead, but the king does not yield. He was too spooked on seeing his friend remain perfectly still, apathetic, while a hail of fireballs and arrows was strafing the ramparts.
- "Now, shift! You'll be more useful to me down there, I swear!"
Merlin hobbles down the stairs through the soldiers and warriors, after a last look at his master, and Arthur sees him disappear in the dark gray fog with a heavy heart.
Gone are the rhetoric, heroic resolutions. At this point, he is ready to do anything to save those he loves, even betray the promises he made to them. He will not let Merlin die. Never.
Another explosion scorches up the palisades and Arthur, face bathed in sweat, brow smeared by tallow, clenches his hand on his sword and returns to the fight.
The night is stifling and all the stars have been swallowed by the thick black smoke billowing over the walls.
The drawbridge was taken, hours ago.
Boulders shatter the towers, strewing rubble and dust all over the place. Arrows tear up the curtains, notch in the walls. From time to time, a window cracks and breaks, and scintillating glass bits shower the fighters. The service quarters are burning despite the efforts of some carrying buckets of water, sheltering under shields and boards.
The guards courtyard is littered with dead and wounded and the battle rages there too.
Merlin makes his way amidst the combatants, using both his rangy limbs and his sword. Lips pursed, his angular chin proudly held up and his big ears popping from under his too small helmet, he strikes relentlessly the yellow and black uniforms. His lanky figure avoids the blows of enemies by mere luck maybe, but it is not clumsily that he attacks them.
Gwaine made sure of it, Merlin knows how to handle a sword, almost as well as a knight.
- "On me!"
Sir Leon's voice dominates the tumult and the servant rushes in the direction of the stables where another fire is glowing. The charred beams threaten to collapse on the horses neighing in terror, rearing, pulling on their ropes. Sparks crackle in an unbreathable red murk. Tyr, the groom who has round cheeks lined with a black beard, gawks falling to his knees and dropping his pitchfork, his hands pressed on the wound in his plump belly. Merlin gets rid of the soldier who killed him, but does not have time to stop: Sir Leon is alone to contain a group of men at one of the accesses to the citadel.
Others saw the danger and rush to help. Among them is Will, the rebellious young squire, puffing and whirling his blade in the air in a not so effective way, but who does not hesitate to hurl onto the enemy, screaming and swearing.
- "To the gates, they need reinforcement!" Sir Leon orders when they have killed the soldiers who had spotted this weakness and have left the stables ceiling crumble in front of the service entrance.
Merlin frees the horses and Will slaps their rumps to disperse them in the courtyard, then they both hurry to the great white arch. Moans and bawls are wracking the night, arms are stretching for help in the orange glow of the flames in the nightmarish set of broken barricades.
Merlin hears the hissing arrow and throws himself to the ground, but a cry of pain hatches next to him.
- "Will!"
Sir Leon slows down, but the tottering squire's urges him to keep going.
- "The gates, sir!"
Will falls to one knee, pitches forward and collapses, fingers clutching the arrow protruding from his chest. Merlin gets up and crawls up to him, pulls him under an overturned cart while the knight disappears in the haze of smoke and dust toward the hammering shaking the castle.
The servant cradles the squire who is sputtering a reddish foam.
- "I ... I ... I never ... thought I-I'd... ... be fighting – alongside… you ... some day ..."
The teenager arches, tears spilling on his dirty cheeks as he struggles against the pain.
- "Y ... you're pretty good… with ...a sword - it hurts ... oh, gods - Merlin ... it... hurts ..."
He coughs and moans, his nails sinking into the arms of the young man who holds him like a little brother.
- "If that kid ... Mordred... makes it out… alive… tell him ...it's worth it... ... living in Camelot ..."
He pants, his eyes are becoming glassy.
- "I… was glad… t-to meet him … tell him ... it's not ... being b-bastards ... that defines us ... "
His body slumps and Merlin, heart broken, closes his eyelids respectfully, before laying him carefully on the cobblestones. Then he grabs his sword and hastens again to the main courtyard.
Percival carries lengths of timber in the havoc of battle, Sir Leon is among those who defend the group massed behind the gates, nailing boards and wedging iron bars to consolidate them. If they are smashed, most of the troops will enter the castle and the battle might end there, when dawn is still far.
The walls vibrate at every blow of the battering ram and the arms of the workers are painful, their muscles knotted by the shock wave. Percival's tiny wife is among them, busy handing nails and hammers, her short dagger at the girdle of her cerulean tunic, encouraging them relentlessly.
Merlin limps across the square, climbs up the wide stairs. He turns before going into the citadel, looks back and it is then that it happens.
Suddenly the world seems to slow down.
In the courtyard blued by the night, a huge flame swells up and the wooden gates splinter as a storm of heat and destruction engulfs the white arch.
Percival's wife turns to him and gives him a last loving smile for a short moment suspended in time.
Then all sounds come back at once and the fragile body of the young woman is flung into the air, with dozens of others who worked by her side. Her braids unfurl like a sail of gold silk - and she crashes on the courtyard cobblestones like a broken puppet, under the horrified eyes of her husband.
Merlin staggers as the battering ram's blazing mouth bursts into the breach with hundreds of soldiers. He shakes his head to get rid of the dizziness. His stomach is churning, but he wipes resolutely the blood and tears trickling down his neck and runs down the stairs leading to the vaults with only one idea in mind: warn Guinevere.
They're coming!
He barges into the hospital where Gaius is pulling a sheet over Sir Elyan's still face. Next to the table, the knight's son is wrenched by sobs, his head hanging low and his hands clutching his dead father's sword.
- "They'll be here any minute! Lock the doors! Don't let anyone in!"
Georges shares a quick glance with his rival, then lets him out before pulling the heavy gates of the vault and locking them. Then, his brow flooded by a cold sweat, he picks up a mace and prepares to hold the fort, soon joined by a few men able to stand up, their arms in slings or a bandage on their heads.
- "Don't make such a face, Braassy Boy. One might believe you're scared", sneers a grating voice.
The perfect servant, whose armpits soaked his shirt, shots a furious glance at the Dolma who is now standing beside him, holding a quarterstaff.
The nurse looks fierce and ridiculous, with the graying blond strands threading out of her wimple and her apron tied up under her sagging breasts, her protruding chin and slightly hunchbacked figure dressed in black.
- "Just a look at you and they'll run away screaming", Georges retorts, frowning under his red bob of hair. "It will be a crushing victory."
The woman narrows her lemon green eyes and her lips curl up into an amused smile, showing her bad teeth.
- "I've always been good aat playing roles of witches with bubbling cauldrons", she smirks. "Let's see whaat I'm worth in real life. Probaably not much, I guess."
Gaius comes to join them in heavy and hesitant footsteps, his gnarled fingers wrapped around a spear.
- "Don't say that", he mutters, throwing back the white hair falling on his wrinkled face. "You are important. Each of us is."
- "So don't get any stupid ideas, paunchy old owl", she snorts. "No sacrifice. We all make it."
Georges smacks his lips.
- "There's going to be a lot of cleaning up to do tomorrow", he sighs gloomily.
oOoOoOo
Downstairs, the last explosion shook the walls and cries of fear stirred the crowd of women and children holed up in the caves.
Guinevere wipes one after the other her clammy palms on her thighs and clasps again her sword with both hands. Her hazel eyes are watching anxiously the narrow stairs coming down to the vaults.
Merlin is standing behind her with Mordred whose eerie blue eyes seem to glow in the dark.
Clamors and metal clashes resound above.
They are closing in.
Under the glittering black stone ceiling, the refugees are huddled, terrified. A lady presses her lips on the forehead of the toddler she holds in her arms. An old lancer kisses an amulet then slips it back into his tunic.
The staircase suddenly illuminates and shadows dance on the walls, as if demons were spurting from the stones. With a battered scrap din, a dead knight tumbles down the steps.
Then Odin's soldiers barge into the vaults like a howling tide.
Everyone scatters away screaming and nothing anymore is organized, beautiful or making any sense.
Guinevere fights like a fury, as if she could protect everyone, but she cannot.
Mercilessly, the men in yellow indiscriminately massacre those trying to resist and those falling to their knees to beg.
Her legs still weak from her recent delivery, the candle maker stands in front of her baby and a soldier pierces her with his sword. She collapses and the baby begins to wail shrilly, while his mother's blood pools on the dark ground and soaks his swaddling clothes.
An old man tries in vain to defend a small granny and falls without a cry under the heavy blows of the enemy.
The minstrel is slumped over the stone in which was sheathed the sword of legend and crimson drops are dripping from the rock on the broken instrument at his feet.
Mordred wipes the blood streaking down his forehead, a little dazed. There is no trace of the eleven years old child on his hardened, spoiled milk white face.
More soldiers keep coming and Guinevere, desperate, pushes deep in her brain the idea that there is nobody to stop them, up there.
Are Arthur and the others dead?
No. No, no, no.
There were thousands of men under the city walls, it's just normal they can't prevent them all from going down to the vaults ...
Arthur is still alive. She knows it, deep in her heart, like the gentle and warm presence of a bird nestled in her chest.
Yes, but she did not feel a thing when Lancelot died so far from Camelot, so maybe it is her imagination, a stupid trick she plays with herself to maintain her courage, to give herself strength to continue to fight.
She bites her lips and keeps raising her sword and shouting.
The hare fur lining her vest is engorged with blood and sweat, the cream linen of her sleeves has turned pinkish, her long dark hair is entangled and there is a gash across her chestnut satin cheek.
- "Guinevere!"
She spins on her heels, looking for the voice.
Merlin waves at her from the back of the great hall and it takes her a few seconds of exhausted stupor to understand what he means.
They must flee.
Get out of the underground room, scatter in the corridors of the castle, play on a field they know to escape their tormentors. They were hiding in the caves for protection from the hail of fireballs and arrows, but it does not matter now.
They can die holed up in here or die seeing the sun rise over the white towers of Camelot ...
She rips off one of her gloves and sticks two fingers into her mouth to whistle sharply.
The leaders she has designated pass around the signal and the fights change imperceptibly to facilitate the escape of the weakest.
Guinevere hustles up women and children through the hole in which had slipped Albion, then guides them to the stairs. In the maze of the vaults, panting and frowning, she only stops to lash at the soldiers bumping in their way.
Merlin follows her, holding Albion's hand, and behind him are Morgana and Mordred who watches their back.
When they straggle to the top, the queen gasps at the apocalyptic scene that appears in front of their eyes. The castle is burning in the night, shiny pieces of glass are shimmering like stars in the black rubble, death and fighting are everywhere, red capes twirling and strangled groans, spears thrusted in corpses, curtains devoured by fire, broken tiles, overturned furniture in the hallways filled with smoke and blood dribbling down the immaculate stairs.
Arthur is in the courtyard with a hundred knights and fights like a madman, the glint of flames dancing on his armor, his blond hair tousled, his face tensed, handsome, terrifying and majestic - the once and future king, her friend and her husband.
Guinevere's heart leaps in relief and she smiles despite everything for a second.
He is alive.
Her courage comes back, she turns and disperses the people who followed her.
May everyone survive as they can until morning.
Merlin dashes down the stairs, forgetting her, wielding his sword to protect the king. The young woman spots a service corridor and quickly calculates that it will lead them to the bell tower.
If she could ...
A piercing scream interrupts the course of her thoughts.
Standing on the doorstep, Albion contemplates the courtyard, paralyzed. Her blond fluffy curls halo her horrified little face. Her amber eyes widening, her chin trembling, she is watching the war ravaging her childhood world - her father killing with no mercy.
She holds in one hand her tiny dagger and in the other her teddy bear.
The night wind plays with the hem of her blue woolen tunic.
She wants to be the brave princess who bears the name of a land and of a dream. She wants to be as strong as the king, honor him, make him proud, fight like a lion and defend the people she will someday rule over.
But she's only seven.
She is just a little girl with a wobbly baby tooth, who believes in fairy tales and loves to dress in pink silk, who is missing her cat and is afraid of thunder.
So she drops the dagger that clatters to the ground and hugs dearly her teddy bear, frozen as soldiers are pouncing over to her.
- "Mummy!" she yowls, big bright tears brimming on her chubby cheeks. "Mummy! Mummy, come save me!"
Guinevere shudders and slashes her way through, swoops up the child and settles her on her hip while retreating.
Albion nuzzles the young woman's shoulder, hiding her fear in the sweet smell of the queen's skin, tying her little arms around the neck of her stepmother.
- "Mummy, mummy, mummy", she sobs.
- "I'm here", whispers Guinevere in the clamor of the battle. "I'm here, you're safe ..."
Mordred jumped in front of her to protect them and now pushes her in the service corridor, hushing forward Morgana who casts a bewildered look on the blazing castle.
They run down the hallway, avoiding debris, climb panting the spiral staircase. Odin's soldiers are on their heels, like a blood-thirsty beast.
They barricade themselves in the room under the bell, at the top. Guinevere puts Albion down and helps Mordred to lift the heavy iron bar to block the door. Then, out of breath, she looks around.
- "This won't last long", groans the child with eerie blue eyes.
- "I know."
She goes to the window, squints to look at the horizon through the dark clouds of smoke stuffing the night, desperately seeking a silver lining in the darkness.
- "If we could just stay alive until morning ... if dawn could come faster ..."
- "It won't change a thing", snaps Mordred.
She tidies a loosen curly strand behind her ear, shivers when her sleeve touches the gash in her cheek, smiles sadly.
- "It will change everything, on the contrary", she says. "Tears of the night fade at dawn. Hope always comes when the sun rises. Men are like that, Mordred. They need light to believe in miracles."
He snorts incredulously.
Albion moved closer, tugged at the queen's tunic. She snuffles softly, holds tight her teddy bear.
- "Really?" she asks in a small trembling voice. "When it's morning, it'll be over?"
Guinevere kneels and smiles at her, strokes her hair and cheeks, gives her an affectionate flick on the nose.
- "Yes", she promises. "At dawn, it'll be over. There'll be no more fear. There'll be no more meanies, no more screaming. We'll hear the nightingales chirruping in the garden of roses and there'll be dew drops on the leaves for the fairies' breakfast."
Albion snuggles up in her arms and yawns, laying her head on the queen's shoulder.
- "I wish it'll be dawn already, then ... will Sir Pellinore be there?"
- "Yes", Guinevere lulls. "Yes. He was sulking, but he'll be hungry and will surely demand a bit of your bacon, purring like a blacksmith's bellows. And your father will scold him, but he'll be the first to give him a piece of buttered bread, as usual."
- "As usual", sighs the half asleep child.
Guinevere buries her chin in the light blond curls and closes her eyes to hold back the tears welling up in her hazel orbs.
- "Sleep, my love. Mummy watches over you."
Mordred looks at them, pursing his lips, his sword in his hand. Morgana tilts her head to the side, in the strange silence absorbing the distant clamor of battle, the steel rattling and heavy footsteps going up the stairs, the rustle of the flames consuming Camelot.
It is the darkest hour.
It is a little cold.
The wind comes in as a breath refreshing their foreheads…
Ax blows suddenly hit the door and Albion jerks awake with a sharp cry of terror. She clings to Guinevere but the queen firmly puts her on the ground.
- "Protect her", she tells Mordred. "I'll be counting on you, knight of Camelot."
The boy nods gravely, grabs his cousin's hand and pushes her behind him.
- "You have my word, Your Majesty", he answers proudly.
Guinevere smiles, then she goes to stand in front of the door, ready to face the soldiers who will soon barge inside.
She inhales deeply.
Lancelot, Mithian, Arthur ... lend me your strength ...
The timber splits, splinters fly, flashes of metal spark in the dark, rough voices call out on the other side.
A tepid drop of sweat slowly trickles down her spine.
Then the door gives way and four men scramble in, panting and grunting like animals. Guinevere knocks out the first, sets back the second and monitors the third while parrying the blows.
The fourth strikes her side, tampering her to the ground when she cries out in pain, unbalanced. She is blinded by sweat and fear, her sword slips out of her clammy hand, she hears Albion shrieking and struggles against the unconsciousness threatening to overcome her.
Long dark curls cascading wildly, a black gown whirling around. A man falls to her right, another is hurtled against the wall.
Guinevere blinks and manages to focus enough to understand what is happening.
Morgana picked up her sword and she is fighting alone against the soldiers.
A touch of pink tints her discolored lips and her pale cheeks are slightly blushing. Her quartz eyes are glistening and a somewhat ironic laughter bubbles in her throat.
She is dancing.
Nimble and feline, she undulates, dragging her sword like a cutting ribbon in the night, bends and arches, swirls, still smiling wryly and Guinevere remembers the skillful young girl who could disarm Arthur, years ago.
Mordred gapes at his mother, his eyes wide with admiration and amazement.
She is beautiful, she is young and she is free, at last, from her prison.
She fights for her son, for the country in which she was born, for the right to die standing.
She is Morgana, Princess of Camelot, daughter of Uther Pendragon.
Her long black curls are shining in the light of the flames devouring the castle.
When the last man falls, she stands in front of the door with her scarlet dripping sword and wipes her face splattered with blood, looking just like her son.
- "Not bad for a girl, isn't it?" she chortles, turning to them.
It is a stylish laughter, but her eyes are sparkling with savagery.
Then she chokes, doubles over and collapses.
Mordred rushes towards his mother.
Guinevere crawls toward her, stifling a whimper of pain. Her wound is soaking her shirt and the room is spinning.
- "Mother", rasps Mordred, not daring to touch her. "Mother, are you hurt? Mother, please ..."
Guinevere drops heavily next to them. She feels the corset, the black satin pleats, seeking for a hitch, and finally finds the injury, on which she crumples the dress.
- "Morgana", she stutters. "Morgana, come back to your senses. Don't fall asleep. Come on, fight this!"
Her voice breaks.
- "My lady! Please!"
Albion's small hand squeezes her shoulder.
- "My lady", calls softly the little girl.
Morgana's eyelashes flutter open, her clouded gaze settles on her niece and she smiles.
- "Morgause ..." she blows.
- "No", says the little girl gently but firmly. "I'm Albion."
Morgan smiles again. Her hand weakly goes to the child's face and strokes her cheek.
- "I saved you", she whispers. "Are you proud of me?"
Albion nods gravely.
- "You didn't need to prove anything", hisses Mordred. "I was there to watch over you, Mother!"
His blue eyes have darkened.
- "No", soughs the young woman. "It should have been me watching over you... Mordred. All these years ..."
The boy's mouth twitches in an ugly and terribly sad grimace.
- Don't speak. It'll only hurt you more", he mumbles.
Morgana's silver eyes look at him for a long time, then shift over to Guinevere.
- "You're there, too", she says thoughtfully.
- "I'm here, my lady", answers the former maidservant.
Morgana cries in pain as she tries to settle in a more comfortable position. Albion slides her teddy bear under the nape of her aunt, then kneels beside his cousin and takes his hand without saying anything.
He does not seem to notice, tense and furious, staring at his mother.
- "Guinevere ..."
- "Yes, my lady?"
- "Things could have been different, isn't it?"
Guinevere bows her head, a lump in her throat.
For a few moments, in this room littered with debris, at the top of a tower, there are only two young girls who were crowning each other with wreaths of bluebells as they played, who used to giggle and dress up with veils and sequins, who were sharing secrets and hugged when the thunder roared, who loved each other like sisters despite their difference in status.
- "I hated him", Morgana mutters. "He cried but never said a thing…"
She is weakening, withering like a flower left too long without water.
- "Guinevere?"
Her voice is but a breath.
- "Do you think he will open his arms for me?"
Guinevere leans over and kisses the princess' forehead.
- "I'm sure he will, my lady. Your father is waiting for you. He forgave you long ago."
A smile brushes Morgana's pale lips, then she sighs.
- "Thank you, Guinevere ..."
Her eyes close slowly. A transparent pearl slithers on her delicate cheekbone and falls to the ground.
- "NO!" bellows Mordred like a wounded animal. "No, Mummy ... Mummy ... please ... please, don't leave me…"
Albion grabs his arm and does not let go despite his fierce struggle to get rid of her. Tears are streaming down the little girl's cheeks, but the boy's face is perfectly dry.
Guinevere is crying silently.
Outside, the battle still rages, but they are alone at the top of the tower, under the black mouth of the bell.
Mordred finally stops rocking madly and slouches, motionless, his eerie blue eyes fixed on his mother.
Albion is still holding his arm and dozes against his shoulder.
Guinevere takes off her hare fur lined vest and lifts her shirt to clean the wound and apply a makeshift bandage.
It's a little clearer and smoke suffocates them less. A fresh wind creeps under the pointed roof.
Mordred gently undoes the hands of his sleeping cousin who does not stir, stands up and walks slowly to the window. For a moment he stands there, looking outside, his face impassive, then he suddenly turns round and rushes out.
His steps soon vanish into the spiral staircase. Guinevere has had no time to stop him.
Albion woke up. She gets up drowsily and stumbles to the stone windowsill.
- "Oh", she cries.
She looks at the queen and Guinevere's heart swells in hope seeing the childlike joy in the amber eyes of the princess. She painfully hauls herself on her shaky legs, uses her sword as a crutch to hobble to the window and, there, gasps too.
On the hills surrounding the great plain of Camelot, in the fleeting mist fading like a golden muslin, hundreds of thousands of horsemen have appeared. Dew glistens on their helmets and their spears in myriads of droplets as bright as diamonds. There are the blue and silver banners of Mercia, the blond panaches and deep green pennants of Nemeth, the black and red guidons of Essetir.
- "They came", stammers Guinevere with a smile trembling on her face smeared with blood and smoke, throwing back her matted curls.
A clamor resounds, stronger than the clatter of shields and the rumbling of hoofs trampling down the slope, the powerful roar of thousands of united hearts.
- "FOR THE LOVE OF ALBION!"
Guinevere giggles and sobs at the same time. The child contemplates, amazed, the charge coming from all sides, magnifiscent and terrifying, encircling the trapped army of Odin.
- "They're yelling my name!" tweets the little girl.
Vibrant, sweeping all other sounds, the breath of the dragon suddenly fills the scarlet sky, echoing to the ends of the earth, telling everyone that help in on the way.
- "Mordred", breathes the queen.
Dawn is seeping in the white rubble and golden sunbeams caress Morgana's porcelain face, hemming her delicate features.
- "Is it over, now, Mummy?" asks Albion.
- "Yes", warbles Guinevere, leaning over to kiss her forehead through her tears. "Yes, it is over."
In the plain filled with light, death and glory, Camelot's allies are trumpeting their pledge.
TBC
So... well, it happened again. The story wanted some more time for this moment... So there is STILL two MORE chapters to go. But I don't think you'll mind.
Next chapter : FLOWERS CUT TOO SHORT
It's awfully late and the day was terribly hot, so I hope there won't be too many mistakes... I'll triple check tomorrow morning. Until then... don't hold a grudge : I cried just as much as you did, couldn't see my screen by the end of the chapter.
That'd explain some of the bugs, now that I think of it...