Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [62]
Ailis still felt guilty, but a stubborn glint was in her eyes when she looked up. “No. I want your word that they’ll be safe here.”
Morgain let out an undignified snort of laughter, and for a moment she looked barely five years older than Ailis herself.
Ailis could almost see Morgain’s brain working. After even this short time, she was beginning to understand how her teacher thought. Were the boys enemies? Or potentially useful allies?
She had let them into her fortress, so she did not fear them. But Morgain was nothing if not complicated, and she surely had hidden reasons for what she did. What was important was that she not reject them out of hand. Because if Morgain thought they were a threat, spies sent to report back to Camelot on her plans, that would be altogether different.
“Gerard and I have been friends for a long time. He was concerned about me. Now that he knows I am content, there is no cause for alarm. Right?”
She focused intently in Gerard’s direction, willing him to pick up on her cue. To her surprise, however, it was Newt who responded.
“It does seem as though we came all this way to rescue a fair maiden who needs no rescuing,” he said with a laugh that sounded too forced for Ailis’s comfort.
“I’m sorry that you came all this way for nothing,” she responded, still wishing Gerard would stop standing there like a lump and join in—to show that he understood that there was no need to confront Morgain. If he would just play along, Morgain would not hurt them.
“Done and done. If they are that dear to you, and you to them, then of course the boys may stay as long as you wish them to.” The sorceress paused, her expression growing stern again. “And not a moment longer.”
“Thank you, Morgain.” Ailis heard what the boys might not have, that the option was not to let them go, but to kill them. Ailis was the valued pawn here, not them.
“And you are not to allow them to interfere with your studies.” The threat in Morgain’s voice was clear this time. So long as Ailis remained obedient, the boys would be well-treated. “If they must practice their weapon skills, I will have a teacher come in.” She cast a thoughtful glance at Gerard, clearly remembering the fact that he had managed to defeat her in armed combat the last time. “In fact, I think I will insist upon it. The witch-child’s is not the only talent I cannot bear to see wasted by the closed minds of Camelot.”
“Even knowing that I might eventually use those skills against you, Lady Morgain?” Gerard asked. Ailis drew a sharp breath of alarm.
The sorceress laughed. “Even so, young squire. Who knows? Like my young apprentice here, you may begin to understand more of the world around you, see that there is more to it than Camelot, and Arthur-says-so, or Merlin-says-so.”
Gerard was feeling a little like he had the first time he was knocked off his horse during a tourney practice. The world was spinning slightly askew. He knew something was going on around him, but he couldn’t quite focus on it. This all seemed very…wrong. He knew it was wrong, that he wasn’t supposed to be agreeing to all this. But it also seemed practical and reasonable. Ailis was safe and healthy. Morgain was agreeing, in effect, to a truce while Ailis made up her mind. It wasn’t as though there was anything back at Camelot for them to rush back to, either.
Or was there?
The Quest. Right. And they were here for a reason. Information. They were supposed to be gathering information—to find out what Morgain was planning, why she seemed so dead-set against Arthur’s Quest. He remembered that now.
Somehow, though, seeing Ailis’s smile, and Newt’s fascination with the griffin…and yes, he admitted it, the thought of learning some of the moves, perhaps, that Morgain had used when they fought, sword-strokes different from any he and the other squires were being taught back home, was appealing.