Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [140]
“Well, now, where were we?” Medraut asked, rhetorically, since she couldn’t answer. She turned her attention back to the ceiling. In a way, since she was forced to listen to these monologues, she was glad even her expression was frozen. At least he didn’t know how revolted she was most of the time by his confidences. And why did he ever think that this would make her care for him?
Maybe because Gwenhwyfach used to hang on his every word?
“Ah, I don’t believe I ever told you how Lot told me that I wasn’t his.” She heard him move a little as he settled himself in the chair. “It was one of those rare moments when he was sulking about being Mother’s pander, rather than gloating about it. Possibly his temper was because she was lying with someone he hadn’t picked himself, and she wasn’t allowing him to watch. So when I interrupted him to show him the results of the sacrifice and blood spell I had done all by myself, he knocked me into a wall and called me ‘Arthur’s unnatural bastard.’ ”
At this point, likely, Gwenhwyfach had been cooing with sympathy to him. Oh, how she wished she could stop her ears. The images that his narrative called up made her feel even more ill. Her imagination—given what her visions had shown her of Anna Morgause and her past—created scenes of Medraut’s mother disporting herself with a lover all too vividly. And it was hardly that she disapproved of lovemaking—though her own experiences were not inclined to make her crave it herself. It was how Anna Morgause had used it: as a tool, a weapon. Even with Arthur. Especially with Arthur.
“I knew better than to move. Lot is entirely unpredictable, and there was no telling how he would react. He glared at me a moment, then stormed off. I went to ask Morgana what he meant.” Gwen couldn’t turn her head to see his expression, but his tone was casual, as if he were telling a tale about someone else. This had probably hurt him—yes, even him—if it was true. If. There was no telling, with Medraut. Perhaps the reason for his casual tone was that it actually had never happened at all.
“She told me that what Lot had said was entirely true. Even the ‘unnatural’ part.” He chuckled. “She explained it all to me, that Mother was Arthur’s half-sister, and that even though the gods themselves often mated with their siblings, or daughter with father and son with mother, small-minded mortals thought this was wrong. A very enlightened woman, is Morgana. None of that really mattered to me, either.” His voice took on a faint tone of gloating. Now this, this she could believe. Very little mattered to Medraut, so long as he got what he wanted. “All that did matter was that Lot, whom I hated and despised, even at so young an age, was not my father. My real father was the man who was King over Lot, who had the Folk of Annwn as his allies, and the Merlin as his servant. My real father was Arthur, the High King. What Lot intended to be the moment of my humiliation became the moment of my release and elevation. That was the moment that I knew that I was destined for great things. I would either create something unparalleled, or destroy it. Either way, my name would never be forgotten.”
She would have shivered at his words if she had been able to move. She believed this, too, believed fervently that Medraut hated Lot and Lot hated him—and that Medraut craved fame or infamy and didn’t care which he got, so long as he had it.
“Mother sensed that I had learned the truth and questioned me about it. I told her, but only in Morgana’s presence, because I wanted Morgana to know I had told, and I wanted Mother to know that we were together on this.” He let out his breath in a long sigh of reminiscence. “Mother was always a little afraid of Morgana, and I didn’t know why at the time, but I felt that with Morgana there, she wouldn’t dare punish either of us. I found out later, of course, just why Mother feared