5.
"Will there be anything else?" Merilinn asked.
Ursula half turned. She was seated at her work table, but had turned the chair towards the fire instead of towards the pile of unread reports and correspondence awaiting a royal reply. There she had sat, staring into the flames, for the entirety of the evening, not moving except to occasionally refill her goblet from the flagon of wine at her elbow.
"Yes," Ursula said. "Get me another flagon. Then you are dismissed."
Merilinn paused. "Ursula - "
Now Ursula faced her, expression impassive, eyes carefully blank. "Is there a problem?" she asked.
Merilinn wanted to take the princess by the shoulders and give her a good hard shake. Yes, there bloody well is a problem!
Ursula held her gaze until Merilinn dropped hers, bobbed a curtsy. "No, my lady."
She closed the door behind her, feeling helpless and angry. She had never seen Ursula like this, like she'd been the past three days running - efficient, emotionless, and dutiful during the day - all "yes, father," and "no, father," and "fetch me some more ink, Merilinn," and "No, I shan't have time to go down to the training fields today" - and silent, wine-soaked listlessness as soon as the sun went down and no one but Merilinn was watching. Angry Ursula she could handle, the Ursula that stirred her embroidery basket into disarray and then blamed Merilinn for it, who sloshed ink about and declared that she did not care if Lord Travers sent her father twenty-five geldings or twenty-five rotten apples, and why was it her job to handle the most boring messages in the kingdom, anyway, and Merilinn, if you drop that scrub-brush one more time I shall have you turned out of the castle. And Merilinn would say, by all the gods, at long last! When can I expect my deliverance, Your Worship? And Ursula would throw a shoe at her and miss on purpose, and everything would be all right.
That, she could handle. Silent Ursula, drunk Ursula, that she could not fix.
And it was all Lord Morgan's fault.
No one was supposed to know or talk about it, which meant that everyone did and everyone was. How Lord Morgan had approached the king and asked for Ursula's hand in marriage, and how the king had not only rejected him, but done so in something approaching horror.
That idiot! Merilinn thought furiously, for the hundred thousandth time. Had Morgan not seen that there were still servants in the room when he'd pressed his suit to King Uther? Or had he taken the king's affirmative answer so for granted that he thought it did not matter? Either way, the damage was done. If Jens had been the only witness, or Merilinn herself, maybe things would have been kept under wraps. But the two attendants in the room at the time had made certain that the entire castle knew in the space of a day.
That idiot! Ursula had been totally blindsided. He what? He WHAT? She had gone white to the lips, so pale that Merilinn had actually darted forward to support her. But Ursula's spine had straightened, and after that one initial outburst she had not referred to the matter again. Instead, that terrible efficiency by day and terrible listlessness by night. Whether it was more because she felt betrayed by Morgan or humiliated by the gossip, Merilinn did not know because Ursula refused to say.
Lost in thought on the way out of the kitchens, she ran into someone and almost spilled the new flagon of wine. "Oh, it's you," she said, ungraciously, as Jens held his own flagon out of the way.
Jens sighed. "You know, things don't have to be weird between us just because our masters are behaving like children."
"Your master is behaving like a child, maybe," Merilinn retorted.
Jens sighed again, longer, beleaguered. "Ye gods, he is," he said.
Merilinn huffed a laugh. She wasn't really angry with Jens, after all. "Is he the sort of drunk to have tantrums at six cups and tears at eight?"
"Is Ursula?" Jens countered.
"No," Merilin said, serious again. "Ursula's a sullen drunk who won't talk."
Jens winced. "To be perfectly honest, that sounds nice."
"Jens," Merilinn said, "what in the name of all the green earth could he possibly have been thinking?"
Jens hesitated. "He hasn't-" he shook his head. "He hasn't been...well," he said finally. "Before this, I mean. He's hardly sleeping. I think...I don't know how clear his thoughts are."
"The nightmares, you mean," Merilinn said, and Jens relaxed a fraction. Morgan's nightmares weren't common knowledge, but being the physician's sometime assistant meant that she was privy to things others were not. She knew, for example, that Gaia compounded Morgan an unusually potent sleeping draught, so potent that she did not like to make more than one dose at once. "But does he really love Ursula? In that way?"
"Yes," Jens said at once, and then, "at least...he thinks he does."
"He could have spoken to her before he embarrassed himself and everyone else," Merilinn muttered.
"Do you know what I think they both need?" Jens mused, as they turned into the hallway that housed the royal family, "they need to fall in love. With other people, I mean."
"I'm up for playing matchmaker if you are," Merilinn whispered, as she reached Ursula's door. Jens only gave her a rueful smile. I meant it! she wanted to call after him.
...
"The princess seems very taken with young master Stephen," Gaia murmured, and something in her tone made Merilinn look at her sharply.
"Is that so bad?" she said. "After this business with Lord Morgan, shouldn't she have some...diversion?"
Gaia hummed, amused. "Diversion, indeed. Believe me, Merilinn, I am not so old as to misremember such diversions myself."
Merilinn tried to think of Gaia as a young woman - a young woman dallying with men - and failed.
"But Ursula is not being very discreet," Gaia continued, "and if she's not careful, I fear she'll be even more broken-hearted than before."
"And you don't trust Stephan and his father," Merilinn said.
"Not even a little bit," Gaia said crisply. "I don't believe their story for one minute. The inscriptions on their staffs are in Ogham, which is used only in the Green Island to the west."
"But they said they were from Tir-Mawr," Merilinn remembered. Her heart sank. It had all seemed so perfect. Merilinn had cajoled Ursula into taking a ride one especially fine spring morning and come across Stephan and his father unconscious in the road, having been attacked by bandits. They'd been granted sanctuary in Camelot while the king dealt with the bandit threat that plagued the forests from time to time, and Ursula had, well, come alive was the best way Merilinn could describe it. No more sulking before the fire. No more wine. Well, less, anyway. Humming - actually humming - while Merilinn dressed her hair. Taking time to choose one particular gown over another. Ranting over the state of her neglected armor.
Merilinn should have known it was all too good to be true.
…
Jens was surprised to hear Morgan's voice as he came around the corner, hard, as if in anger. He drew back, unwilling to interrupt. Who was he talking to? Jens would have liked to have said that he was not the sort of servant to listen at doorways...but if people would insist on having confrontations in the middle of the corridor…
"I don't know what your game is," Morgan said in a furious whisper, "but it stops now, do you hear me? Leave this place. Leave the princess alone."
A snide laugh that Jens didn't recognize. "Or what?" a male voice replied. "You'll run me through? I'm under the king's protection, in case you've forgotten."
"You are a liar," Morgan snapped.
"And you are drunk," the contemptuous voice replied. "Or are you just angry that the princess chose me instead of you?"
Jens stepped out from the alcove where he'd hidden himself in time to see Morgan throw his glove down in front of Stephen, the young man who'd so taken Ursula's fancy these past few days. Stephen looked at it, and then at Morgan. "No," he said, his elfin features twisting unpleasantly, "I won't fight you."
"You dishonorable cur," Morgan growled.
"You wound me, sir," Stephen said. He bent from the waist in a mockery of a bow. "Until next time, my lord Morgan," he said, then turned on his heel and left. He did not look at Jens. Jens was not even sure he had been noticed.
Morgan watched him go, the ungloved hand at his side clenching and unclenching. He turned, wavering a little. Drunk, Jens thought, and then distressed. He darted forward and retrieved the abandoned glove. Morgan looked at him blearily. "Ah, Jens," he said. "Careful. It's not you I want to fight."
The jest was a poor one, and the ghost of a smile that accompanied it only served to highlight how ill and tired Morgan looked. "Come, my lord, it's late," Jens said, ushering him into his bedchamber.
"No," Morgan said stubbornly, standing still just inside his door. "I don't want to sleep."
"I'll have Gaia send a sleeping draught," Jens said.
Morgan shook his head. "Doesn't work." He turned to Jens, who took the motion as an opportunity to move Morgan gently but bodily inside the chamber, closing the door behind them.
"I saw him, in my dream," Morgan said.
"Who, my lord?" Jens asked, pouring new wash water into the basin.
"That boy," Morgan said. "Stephen. I saw him with Ursula. He had her head under the water. He was killing her. I had this dream the day before they came to Camelot. The day before. And every night since."
Jens stared at Morgan. Just how drunk was he? How far could his words be trusted? In vino veritas, or in vino whatever-he-wished-to-be-true? "Are you sure, my lord?"
"He had her head under the water," Morgan repeated, "and she drowned. She sank to the bottom of the lake while I watched." Morgan swayed on his feet and Jens jumped forward, frowning when he could not detect the slight smell of sour wine that had clung to his master for longer than he cared to think. Could it be that Morgan was not drunk at all? And if not, then -
"Come, sit down," Jens said, guiding Morgan to a chair. "I'm going for Gaia."
Morgan startled Jens by taking the front of his shirt in both hands and pulling Jens down to face him. "Don't let me sleep," he begged. "Don't let me sleep."
...
"Jens, you're sure?" Merilinn asked, voice urgent.
"Sure of what?" Jens asked. "Sure that Stephen is going to try to kill Ursula? Of course not. Sure that Morgan's sure? Yes. Merilinn, I've never seen him like this. I'm really worried. If these nightmares don't abate..."
"Exhaustion," Gaia had diagnosed grimly. Exhaustion, not drunkenness. But it was more than exhaustion; it was desperation. Angry as Merilinn had been with Morgan for his role in Ursula's misery, she had been stricken to see Morgan this way.
"Gaia thinks Stephen and his father aren't who they say they are," Merilinn confided. "And if there's a chance they might try to hurt Ursula..."
"But we can hardly tell the king that Lord Morgan had a prophetic dream," Jens objected.
They were both silent, realizing what Jens had said. "Do you think that's what these nightmares are?" Merilinn asked. "Prophecy?"
"I certainly hope not," Jens said decidedly. "My life is complicated enough without someone I know being a secret sorcerer. I'm sure it's just coincidence, but..."
"But it's worrisome all the same," Merilinn concluded. She frowned, thinking of the conversation Jens had overheard between Morgan and Stephen. Stephen had painted himself in quite a different light then the handsome young man sweetly grateful for Ursula's help and attention.
"I think it's time we found out a little more about these mysterious visitors, don't you?" Merilinn said.
"What are you going to do?" Jens asked her retreating back. "Merilinn!" he hissed louder, "what are you - " he broke off with an aggrieved sigh as she turned a corner without looking back. He made a helpless gesture and headed back to Lord Morgan's chambers. Ordinarily, he would spend the night in the servant's quarters, or even back in his father's home in the lower town. But he didn't feel right about doing either tonight. Not with Morgan the way he was. Merilinn would just have to look after herself.
...
Ursula felt...good.
She felt as if several interlocking puzzle pieces, such as she used to play with as a small child, had suddenly come into place to form a complete picture, except the puzzle pieces were inside herself, and the picture was her, whole and entire. And it was all because of Stephen.
Stephen loved her...her, Ursula. Not as a princess, not as Uther's heir, but as herself. She couldn't believe how long she'd lived without him. And she'd be double-damned before she let anyone drive them apart!
She stepped over the unconscious body of her bothersome maidservant and followed her true love out of her chambers, down the steps, out of the castle, and through the gates of the city. She put up the hood of her cloak against the chill air, and the red material in her peripheral vision made her think of something-eyes? Someone's eyes? Why would the color red make her think of someone's eyes? For the briefest of moments, her thoughts returned to Merilinn and her final words-they are Sidhe of the Green Island and if you go with them you'll die!-before Stephen turned and looked at her, smiling beatifically. All other thoughts fell from her mind. Nothing else mattered. She would be with her Stephen...forever.
...
"I couldn't keep him in his chamber," Jens said, voice taut.
Morgan looked dreadful. "Gaia, it's happening," he said. "It's happening. Ursula is going to die. Today."
Gaia and Jens pressed him onto the workbench. "My lord, you must calm down!"
"I can't," Morgan said, attempting to stand again. "I won't! I have to tell the king. I don't care. I have to tell him."
"It's his dream," Jens said helplessly to Gaia. "He's sure Stephen is going to kill the princess."
Gaia, whom Merilinn had already told about the possibly-prophetic dream, feigned ignorance. "Tell me about this dream, my lord."
"It's happening just like I saw it," Morgan repeated. "The old man and the elf-boy. They're luring Ursula into the woods as we speak. Gaia, you have to believe me. I know I sound mad - I - I think I might be going mad - but I'm not wrong about this. Please."
Gaia sat on the opposite bench, looked Morgan in the eye. "I believe you," she said, "I do. But you cannot tell the king about this. His only reaction will be against you, not against Aulfric and Stephen. Do you understand?"
"Then I must go after them myself," Morgan said. "I told you, Jens - I told you - "
"He wanted to follow them in the first place," Jens explained hurriedly to Gaia, "and I was barely able to convince him to come here, instead."
"My lord, you're in no fit state to go anywhere," Gaia said, putting on her authoritative physician's voice. "Do you trust me?"
"I - yes."
"Then I will take care of things. Ursula will be quite safe. Do you believe me?"
"What will you do?" Morgan demanded.
"I'm going to find someone to fetch Ursula back," Gaia said. She tipped her head towards Jens, who approached. "Try to make him rest," she said.
Jens's face was the picture of frustration. "I've been trying," she said. "He refuses to take the sleeping draught."
"Do what you can," Gaia said, and was gone.
Jens turned back to Morgan, who was sitting on the bench with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Perhaps if you lay down here, in these chambers," Jens suggested. "A change of scenery."
Morgan dropped his hands, looked up at Jens. "You think I've gone mad too, don't you," he asked, voice dull.
"I think you are so exhausted you can't see straight," Jens said. "You've done the right thing, coming to Gaia. She and Merilinn will take care of everything."
"Merilinn," Morgan repeated. "She's a clever one. Loyal. You remember, she was the one who tried to warn everyone when that Valiant fellow used magic to cheat in the tournament. "
"So you see, the princess is in safe hands," Jens said.
Morgan looked at him again, and Jens was heartened to see a spark of some emotion in his eyes. "I'm glad you can be depended upon to be as patronizing as always."
"Anything to be of service, my lord," Jens said, putting on the stuffy tones of Bromley, the chief butler. Morgan's mouth twisted into a smile, small but genuine. Then it faded.
"Do you really think she'll be all right?" he asked.
Jens sat across from him, on the opposite bench, looked into his face. "Yes, my lord, I do," he said.
He wondered if he was lying.
...
She'd never killed anyone with magic before.
She'd never killed before.
Stephen and his father weren't just dead...they were gone. They were ex-sidhe.
Ursula, in her sodden gown - the finest gown she owned, cream silk and gold brocade, lace a handspan deep on cuff and hem - sank like a stone, so heavy that when at last Merilinn caught up a handful of material she had to use magic to lift Ursula to the surface of the water. Magic once more to lift the water from her lungs. Magic a final time to push and pull the taller, water-soaked woman into the position Gaia had shown her before, on her side, knee braced against the ground.
Ursula coughed and choked and breathed.
Merilinn collapsed on the ground beside her. The leaves of the trees above her seemed very green; the sky very blue. She filled her lungs with clear spring air, felt her heartbeat slow from its fierce hammering. She turned her head and found Aulfric's sidhe staff lying not half an arms' length away from her.
She remembered the look of shock on Aulfric's face, the horror on Stephen's just before she blasted them apart. She grasped the staff, every instinct screaming at her to be rid of it, to throw it into this thrice-cursed lake where no one would ever lay eyes on it again.
But there was that little voice that said, what else could you do with a staff like this? The little voice that reminded her how her magic had felt when channeled through it, like lightning running through her. Could she use it? Could she stand to use it?
A thought hit her: could she use it to get Ursula back to Camelot?
A choked, almost-hysterical laugh burst from her involuntarily as she pictured brandishing the staff, Ursula's feet hovering six inches above the ground, head scraping the low-hanging branches.
She looked from the staff to Ursula and back again.
Well, after all...desperate times...
…
"And so you see, my lord," Gaia said, "your dream did not come true after all. I can't account for how you came to dream Stephen's face before you met him, but it seems the only ill-will they bore towards Ursula was to entrap her in an unseemly marriage."
There was relief in every line of Morgan's body. "And Merilinn caught them in a handfasting circle? Really?"
"And coshed the princess over the head before she could do something she'd really regret," Gaia affirmed smoothly.
"She must have been extraordinarily stealthy," Morgan mused. "Or Ursula was extraordinarily distracted."
Gaia cleared her throat. "Ah, quite. Now, my lord, I've compounded a new sleeping draught for you, something different this time. If it does not help-"
"Honestly, Gaia, just knowing that these dreams I have are not - well - "
"Prophetic?" Gaia supplied gently.
"Are not prophetic," Morgan repeated, "sets my mind at ease immensely."
Gaia found she had to remind herself, as she watched Morgan leave her chambers, that inaction was sometimes the best - and safest - course of action. That allowing Morgan to believe a lie was, at its heart, a kindness. She thought of the courtyard outside her window, thought of Morgan upon a pyre in its center, shuddered, and turned away. Caution. Caution was the only way.
…
Ursula stood looking out at the courtyard while Merilinn prepared her bath. She was very still, but not in the way that had worried Merilinn, back when Ursula was staring dully into the fire night after night. This stillness spoke of deep thought, of working through some puzzle.
"What I don't understand," Ursula said at length, "is why my father turned down his proposal."
Merilinn's mind instantly went to the ludicrous scene in the hall, in which both Ursula and Stephen had argued for their immediate marriage, with reactions by turns amused, irritated, and then irate from the king. Then she realized that Ursula was talking about Morgan and his thwarted suit.
Merilinn took a moment to sort through Ursula's statement. "Do you mean," she said slowly, "that all other considerations aside, it would be a good match?"
"All other considerations aside," Ursula repeated, with a short laugh that was only a little bit bitter. She turned and looked at Merilinn. "When my father declared me heir, he spoke to me at length about my marriage. Ordinarily, the daughter of a king would be married to a neighboring prince, the better to strengthen existing alliances or to make new ones. Before I was the Crown Princess, my father entertained several such offers, thinking to arrange something of the kind." She turned back to the window. "But things are different now," she continued. "My father explained to me that barring some unforeseen circumstance, I would need to marry from within the kingdom."
"Because otherwise, a foreign prince might lay claim to Camelot for his own country by virtue of being your husband," Merilinn surmised.
"Exactly," Ursula said. She took a deep breath. "Morgan is the son of Gorlois, who was my father's chief retainer before he died. Morgan has a title, you know, with his own lands, though he rarely visits. He has no disadvantage to any other nobleman's son, and a great many advantages. Why, then, did my father react so?"
"But I don't understand," Merilinn said. "Are you saying you do want to marry Lord Morgan after all?"
"No! No. I don't want to marry Morgan. I have never thought of him in that way, and the fact that he went to my father without so much as - " she broke off, shook her head. "I just...I can't shake this feeling that secrets are being kept from me. Motives are being kept from me. It stinks of intrigue in a way I do not care for." She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "And it doesn't help that I can't see Morgan without wanting to bash his brains in."
"If you returned to the training grounds, maybe you could," Merilinn suggested.
"There's a thought," Ursula said, moving behind the screen to disrobe. "Merilinn, hide all the helmets before tomorrow's training session."
Merilinn laughed, even though she was not entirely sure whether Ursula was joking. "May I ask you something?" she asked after a moment.
"Since when, my unbelievably impudent servant, do you ever ask whether you can ask me something?"
Since you started confiding such personal thoughts to me, Merilinn thought, but did not say. "Do you...resent being told who you must or must not marry?"
There was a silence, and Merilinn wondered whether she had overstepped her bounds at last. But it seemed Ursula was only considering her response.
"No," she said, "not as such. It is my duty to marry and bear an heir, preferably a boy, of course, but that hardly seems necessary under the circumstances, does it? I've always known I would someday, and to be perfectly honest I'd rather marry from within the kingdom anyway. At least then I'll be certain of meeting my intended before my wedding day. And my father would never force me to marry someone terrible, or if it was truly against my will."
A soft splashing sound as Ursula got into the bath. "And what about you, Merilinn? Is there an intended back home in...what was it?"
"Ealdor," Merilinn said.
"Ealdor. A strapping young blacksmith's son, perhaps?"
Interesting that Ursula should have hit upon that particular description, Merilinn thought, thinking of Jens. "No," she said, "there isn't. But it's different for us common folk, you know. Everyone knows everyone in my village. Getting married is sort of a matter of waiting for the mouth-breather who delivers the bread from the mill to notice you've got nice-well, you know."
Ursula laughed, long and loud and genuine. "Ye gods, Merilinn," she said. "No hint of the romantic in you, is there? The miller's delivery boy, indeed. Was he handsome, at least?"
Merilinn grinned. "Not even a little bit, my lady."
It was worth the joke at her expense, she thought, just to hear Ursula laugh like that again. Of course, what Ursula didn't know about a certain journey back to Camelot in which the royal hair was twice nearly inextricably tangled in hawthorn spines wouldn't hurt her.
