Page 43 of Warrior Queen
She stared at him over the blade, her cold, pale face seemingly unmoved. Did she care so little for her own safety? Or did she think Merlin incapable of killing the thing he loved?
She didn’t scream, though.
Arthur released my hand and strode from the doorway into the room, his own sword naked in his hand, the sword from the stone. His sister’s eyes followed it greedily as he positioned himself beside Merlin, and raised the sword until its tip, too, rested just beneath her chin. “Go on,” he said to Merlin. “See your child.”
Morgana started in fury, and the sword tip indented the skin where her jaw met her white throat. “Don’t,” Arthur hissed. “He might hesitate, but I won’t.” Over the sword she glared at him in impotent fury. Good thing she didn’t have the power to strike someone dead with her gaze.
Merlin sheathed his dagger and went to the crib. He bent over it, for a moment hovering, uncertain. Then he reached in and lifted out the child.
I left the doorway and moved closer to see her for myself. This Nimuë. This child with a name of destiny that carried such weight.
She wore a long white sleeping gown, her hair a tangle of dark curls. He cradled her in his arms, even though she was big for doing that with, and she gazed up at him out of limpid brown eyes.
A hiss of indrawn breath came from Morgana, and Arthur pressed harder with the tip of his sword. Blood trickled down her pale neck toward her heaving breasts.
I’d have expected a baby of this age to be frightened if a strange man picked her up from her bed and held her in his arms. But this child wasn’t afraid at all. Her small, chubby hand came up and fingered the ties on Merlin’s grubby tunic front, her mouth a perfect rosebud smile. She was pretty, I’d give her that, with something her mother lacked. Humanity, perhaps. She giggled, gazing up into her father’s face, her laughter musical in the tense atmosphere of her nursery.
“She knows me,” Merlin said. “She knows her father.”
How that could be, I had no idea, but it looked as though he was right. This was the child of two people who possessed the Sight– anything was possible.
Merlin reached into the crib with his spare hand and gathered up her blanket. “We’ll take her with us.”
Arthur’s gaze shot to his face, but the sword never moved from Morgana’s throat. “What? Are you mad? We can’t.”
“Don’t you dare,” Morgana spat. “She’s my child, not yours. She will serve the Mother, not your Christian God.”
What?
I looked between their faces. Hers distorted with anger, Merlin’s anguished, Arthur’s horrified.
“I can’t leave her here,” Merlin said. “That witch isn’t fit to be a mother.”
Arthur shook his head. “Think about it, man. We can’t take her marching with the army.”
Torn, I looked back at Merlin, holding his daughter in his arms, head bent over her. If he knew her destiny, would he still be this loving? Or would knowing it bring it about, as he’d postulated? Perhaps, even, hedidknow it and that was why he wanted to take her.
Morgana sucked in her lips. “Please,” she said, her voice cracking. “Don’t take her from me. She needs her mother.”
This was a change of tune. But I was a mother too, and instinct told me her pain might be real. Just because she was wicked in some respects didn’t mean she didn’t love her child. And it had been her we’d found singing the child to sleep, not the nurse.
“I thought we only came for you to see your child?” I said to Merlin. “You never said you were thinking of taking her.” I paused, turning back to Arthur and jerking my head at Morgana. “And what about her? As soon as we leave, she’ll raise the alarm.”
“We’ll tie her up,” Arthur said, with untoward relish. “Right now.” He handed me the sword. “If she opens her mouth to say anything, kill her. I know you’ve done it before.” His eyes met Morgana’s. “You’d better stay silent. The Ring Maiden has become a warrior queen.”
From the bag he’d been carrying, he pulled out a length of rope and swiftly bound Morgana’s hands behind her back. He pushed her down onto the bench and tied her wrists to the back, then her ankles to one of the carved legs. All the time, I kept the sword’s tip against her throat, waiting for the moment she’d open her mouth. Luckily for me, she didn’t. Either she thought I looked sufficiently ruthless to do it, or she couldn’t think of anything to say.
Arthur produced a grimy rag from the bag and stuffed it into his sister’s mouth, by the look of him taking perverse pleasure at its state. She coughed and tried to spit it out, but he shoved it further in then bound a second rag around her face, holding the first firmly in place. That was her silenced. Her furious eyes flashed at us from above the gag, and I handed the sword back to Arthur.
Sheathing it, he turned to where Merlin stood engrossed in his child. He sighed and shook his head. “I’d love to let you bring her, old friend, but it would be taking her into needless danger. We have to leave her here, where she’s safe. You can’t argue that Morgana doesn’t love her and won’t keep her safe. You’ve seen her, held her, and now we have to go before someone comes looking for her mother and alerts the palace to intruders.”
I stepped closer to Merlin, smiling down at the chubby little girl in his arms. Her eyes flicked sideways to look at me, suddenly sharp and knowing, and her face screwed up in dislike. She opened her mouth to wail. I stepped back hurriedly. Her mouth shut, and she stared back up at her father, happy again.
My mouth hung open in shock. How weird was that?
“In a moment,” Merlin said, swinging around so his back was to us, shoulders squared, shutting us out.
A sound that might have been a strangled “no” erupted from Morgana, but I ignored her, with eyes only for Merlin.
