The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [175]
"You know as well as I do that he will be King. You have skill enough for that, and -- in spite of what you said to anger me -- skill enough to know what kind of a king. You may not need protection against him, Morgause, but it is certain that you will need it against me." Our eyes locked. I nodded. "Yes. Where he is, I am. Be warned, and go while you can. I can protect him from the kind of magic you wove last night,"
She was calm again, seeming to draw into herself. The small mouth tightened in its secret smile. Yes, she had power of a kind. "Are you so sure you are proof against women's magic? It will snare you in the end, Prince Merlin."
"I know it," I said calmly. "Do not think I have not seen my end. And all our ends, Morgause. I have seen power for you, and for the thing you carry, but no joy. No joy, now or ever."
Outside the window, against the wall, was an apricot tree. The sun warmed the fruit, globe on golden globe, scented and heavy. Warmth reflected from the stone wall, and wasps hummed among the glossy leaves, sleepy with scent. So, once before, in a sweet-smelling orchard, I had met hatred and murder, eye to eye.
She sat very still, her hands locked against her belly. Her eyes held mine, seeming to drink at them. The scent of honeysuckle thickened, visibly, drifting in green-gold haze across the lighted window, mingling with the sunshine and the smell of apricots...
"Stop it!" I said contemptuously. "Do you really think that your girl's magic can touch me? No more now than it could before. And what are you trying to do? This is hardly a matter of magic. Arthur knows now who he is, and he knows what he did last night with you. Do you think he will bear you near him? Do you think that he will watch daily, monthly, while a child grows in your belly? He is not a cold or a patient man. And he has a conscience. He believes that you sinned in innocence, as he did. If he thought otherwise, he might act."
"Kill me, you mean?"
"Do you not deserve killing?"
"He sinned, if you call it sin, as much as I."
"He did not know he was sinning, and you did. No, don't waste your breath on me. Why pretend? Even without your magic, you must know that half the court has whispered it since he and I rode in together yesterday. You knew he was Uther's son."
For the first time there was a shade of fear in her face. She said obstinately: "I did not know. You cannot prove I knew. Why should I do such a thing?"
I folded my arms and leaned a shoulder back against the wall. "I will tell you why. First, because you are Uther's daughter, and like him a seeker after casual lusts. Because you have the Pendragon blood in you that makes you desire power, so you take it as it mostly offers itself to women, in a man's bed. You knew your father the King was dying, and feared that there would be no place of power for you as half-sister of the young King whose Queen would later dispossess you. I think you would not have hesitated to kill Arthur, but that you would have less standing, even, at Lot's court, with your own sister as Queen. Whoever became High King would have no need of you, as Uther has. You would be married to some small king and taken to some corner of the land where you would pass your time bearing his children and weaving his war cloaks, with nothing in your hands but the petty power of a family, and what women's magic you have learned and can practise in your little kingdom. That is why you did what you did, Morgause. Because, no matter what it was, you wanted a claim on the young King, even if it was to be a claim of horror and of hatred. What you did last night you did coldly, in a bid for power."
"Who are you to talk to me so? You took power where you could find it."
"Not where I could find it; where it was given. What you have got you took, against all laws of God and men. If you had acted unknowingly,