Free THE CURSE OF EXCALIBUR: a gripping Arthurian fantasy (THE MORGAN TRILOGY Book 2) by Lavinia Collins Page A

them out, through the courtyard, and to the great hall, where I could hear that the feast had begun already.

Chapter Eight
    When I saw the girl that Arthur had married, I felt a shock go through me. She was the woman in my dream. The same deep red hair and white face; the same small, angry red mouth twisted into a little tense knot that was still, somehow, unbearably beautiful. I did not think she would have looked so beautiful were she not so angry. It gave what might otherwise have been a placid face a kind of power. I could not tear my eyes from her. It seemed, as I had hoped, that she was angry and defiant as her mother had been. It did not, however, bode well for Arthur. I wondered why he had set his heart so firmly on her, until, when I came up to the table after my mother to greet Arthur with a kiss on the cheek, I felt the unmistakable feel of the Otherworld all about her. It was not how I had felt it before, though – not with the ladies of Avalon, or Kay. This was an Otherworld foreign in its quality to me. Something about it felt ancient, and portentous. I remembered, suddenly, what Merlin had said to Arthur about the witch-queen Maev. I didn’t entirely believe it, but there was some powerful destiny hanging about this strange, angry girl. She was in my dream. I would one day stand with her on the shores of Avalon, with Excalibur between us. We were all tangled together, all of us, around her, around Arthur, around the sword Excalibur. This was the beginning of it all.
    Uriens was already sitting in the seat beside the one meant for me, and I ignored him as I sat down. Morgawse was right behind me, and Arthur greeted her awkwardly. He did not want her there. He would not kiss her on the cheek. When she came to sit by my side, she leaned down and hissed in my ear.
    “I don’t fancy Arthur’s luck tonight.” Her eyes were on the new Queen. No, I did not either.
    I kept my eyes on her, and on Arthur. I could hear her speaking to my mother. She was definitely Breton; I could hear it in the rich tones of her accent when she spoke – thick, though her English was good. So, it was as I had suspected, and this girl, who had been meant for a simple life of happy marriage in her home country, in the wishes of her mother, had been summoned by Arthur across the sea to be his wife and protect him from his bad destiny. I wondered if she even knew how it was Arthur himself who had slain her brothers in battle.
    Her Breton accent was pretty enough; the English words sounded richer and crisper on her tongue than they did on native speakers’. Her English was very good, and she seemed very comfortable speaking it. I supposed that was a mercy since I knew that Arthur did not speak a word of Breton. She looked uncomfortable, still, though I could see my mother was trying to be kind. I noticed, too, that she drank a lot of wine, until a red flush came high on her cheeks. Perhaps Arthur would be luckier than Morgawse thought. As the evening wore on, and she became flushed and bright with anger and wine, she was all the more enrapturing. Half the men’s eyes around the table were on her.
    My gaze fell on Arthur. I had seen him look with desire before, as I had seen him look on our own sister, but the look he cast on his new bride was something else entirely. He looked at her as though there were nothing else in the room. Surely a dangerous way for a king to look on any woman, I thought. Especially one who was yet, it seemed to me, to look on him at all.
    Arthur left the feast early with his new wife, to the cheering of his men, especially Gawain. Gawain’s eyes followed Arthur and the Queen out of the room. He was the least able of the men around that table to hide the fact that they were all picturing themselves leading the new Queen to their own bedroom. I thought uncomfortably of Gawain’s wish for a fistful of her hair.
    “To Arthur the conqueror,” Gawain cheered, raising his cup. The men cheered lewdly and smashed