I Am Morgan le Fay Read Online Free PDF Page A

otherworld. And goddesses.”
    Otherworld? Goddesses?
    â€œEggs of the world serpent, some folk call them.” Nurse shifted her gaze away from mine and set again about the task of taking off my clothes.
    I was newly amazed. “A snake made it?”
    Nurse gave me a long look such as I had never seen from her before. “I do not know,” she said finally. “No one knows. Such stones go to those who are destined for them. Wear it with blessing and goodness in your heart, little Morgan.”
    She had never spoken to me so seriously or so tenderly before.

3

    A LL THE WAY INLAND TO CAER AVALON, I SAT IN A trundling wagon and wished that I could ride a dapple-gray pony instead and outstrip the men-at-arms on their tall bay horses. All the way over the moors and down to the plain, Nurse sewed feverishly, trying to prepare finery for Morgause and me to wear to our baby brother’s name-day. All the way, my druid stone rode secret against my chest, while a stone of some emotion I could not name rode hard and sharp in my heart, and Morgause and I quarreled for no reason.
    â€œWe’re going to see Mo-ther,” Morgause sang. “Going to see Mo-ther!”
    Anyone with sense should know better than to sing out loud like that, tempting fate. I pinched her leg to make her stop.
    â€œOw!” She kicked me in the shin. “Stop it!” Then, of course, she sang again, “We’re going to see—”
    â€œ You stop it!” I yelled.
    â€œWhy? I’m happy. We’re going to see—”
    I grabbed her by the braids and pulled her head down. She got out only a squeak before I clamped my hand over her mouth. Nurse was doing her best to ignore both of us. Knowing better, but hoping in a way, I sang, “We’re going to see Dad-dy, going to see Dad-dy!”
    Morgause struggled free from my grip and gasped, “Hush!”
    I sang more loudly, “We’re going to see Dad-dy—”
    â€œWe are not!”
    â€œYes, we are! Going to see—”
    She smacked me and then started to sob as if I had hit her, not the other way around. “I hate you!” she yelled at me. “Stupid, Daddy’s dead!”
    â€œStupid yourself! If there’s a baby, there has to be a daddy!”
    â€œNot our daddy!”
    â€œWhy not?” My face stung where she had hit me. I stuffed my hands under my skirted legs to keep from rubbing it; I did not want to give her that satisfaction.
    Morgause wept harder. “U-U-Uth—that king what‘s-his-name is the daddy.”
    â€œBut he is Daddy.”
    â€œYou’re crazy!”
    I had not seen Mother walk out barefoot to surrender to Uther Pendragon. But Morgause had not seen Daddy walk out of Mother’s bedchamber three hours after he was killed. Small wonder we seldom understood each other.
    The wagon jounced on, and despite the canopy and curtains we choked in the dust kicked up by the men-at-arms in the fore, and I sometimes stopped tormenting Morgause long enough to gawk through the curtains at lands such as I had never seen. No sea cliffs and stony moors here. Instead, a vast grassy flatness swept level as a table to meet the sky, and even the sky seemed different, clear blue like my secret stone instead of rainbow misty, and from the surface of the flatness shone glimmers and meanders of blue like the blue of the sky, winding along the surface like the snaky gold veins of the milpreve. It took me a while to realize that I was seeing water—I knew the ocean waves thundering against the cliffs when I saw them, and the torrents dashing down over stones from the moors, but I had never seen such tame, flat blue water. Only when I saw ducks and wading birds in it did I recognize it. Then I felt foolish, and left off looking to tease Morgause again.
    Nighttimes we slept on the ground, and it was a miserable business, especially when it rained. Traveling in general is a miserable business,