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Synopsis

Young Morgan of Cornwall lives a happy life in Tintagel Castle until King Uther Pendragon, with the help of the sorcerer Merlin, murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage. Furious, brilliant, and vengeful, Morgan defies her brutal stepfather, taking up a secret education, discovering a lifelong affinity with the healing arts, and falling in love with a man far beneath her station. However, defiance comes at a cost. Used as a bargaining chip in her stepfather's war games, Morgan finds herself banished to a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, amidst the machinations of kings, sorcerers, and men.

But some desires are not easily forgotten, and the search for her independence is a quest Morgan cannot give up. As the era of King Arthur approaches, she must use all her wit, knowledge, and courage to fight against those who wish to deny her intelligence, crush her spirit, and control her body. But, in seeking her freedom, Morgan risks losing everything--her reputation, her loved ones, and her life.

Excerpt

I was born in the midst of a storm, when the waves rose so high up the cliffs of Tintagel it was feared the entire castle would be dragged into the sea. Though my mother never spoke of it, my nurse, Gwennol, often told the tale--how Lady Igraine's cries fought with the thunder, her pain carried off on the screaming wind, lightning illuminating her struggle and the dangerous labour she never had with my two sisters.

"For a while we were sure she would die," Gwennol would say, holding me rapt, over the music of Cornwall's swirling clifftop breeze. "Hours she lay there, howling like a banshee, bone-tired. We were about to lose the light when your lady mother sat up, staring at the window as if seeing the Angel Gabriel himself. 'The sea has come!' she cried. 'Risen up to bear us away!' And God strike me if it weren't true. There it was, waves crashing at the window, coming to claim us all. I ran to see, but by the time I got there, the water was exactly where it should be, and when I looked back, so were you: born, alive and open-eyed. Your mother insisted it was the sea that delivered you, and so you were named."

Morgan is my name, and its origin true at least--"sea-born" by way of the Welsh tongue. My mother bestowed it personally after the stormy circumstances of my birth, steadfast in her belief the ferocious Cornish waters had saved us both.

"You cried for an hour after she bore you," Gwennol told me. "Raging at the world until that storm blew itself out and the sea settled beneath us. Truly the name is yours by right."

I

"Why is Morgan 'Morgan'?"

My ten-year-old sister spread my hair across my back with orderly hands, proceeding to braid it neatly. "I mean," Elaine added, "it's quite obviously a boy's name."

"It isn't," I retorted, "since I'm not a boy." I had not long turned seven and was increasingly disinclined to endure insults.

"Father wishes you had been," Morgause said from across the room. Remote and beautiful, nine years my superior, our elder sister sat gazing out of the window, cloaked in disdain for childish things. "You're a liar," I snapped.

"Keep still," Elaine said. "How will you ever be a lady if you can't sit quietly?"

The three of us were alone in our mother's solar, awaiting her presence. It was a bright, pleasant room, full of well-cushioned chairs and good light, walls painted yellow beneath lively tapestries. The scent of roses, blooming early around the windows, warmed sweetly in the sun until the air was thick with it. Spring had blazed in long before Easter Day, heat seeping through Tintagel Castle's cool stone walls, pervading our chambers and defying the sea breeze.

Morgause rose and drifted across, regarding us down her delicate nose. "Morgana is neither a lady nor even a person. She's half fox cub, found by Sir Bretel under a blackberry bush and taken in as a kin-ness by Mother and Father."

"That is not my name! "

I flew at her, limbs alight with white heat. Morgause--older, stronger, experienced in confrontation--easily held me at bay, laughing. The suggestion I was not of my parents' begetting was not what brought forth my rage--she and I shared the blue eyes and night-black hair of my father, and were both lauded for echoing our mother's finely wrought features--rather it rose up at a single sound, the lilting errant a she always placed at the end of my name. My sister chose her weapons well and kept them sharp.

"What in the name of St. Petroc?" Strong as a moor pony, Gwennol grabbed me, containing my furious struggles. "Now, Lady Morgan, not again. Your temper will be the end of you if you let it rule you like this."

"She started it!" I cried. "Morgause called me a fox cub."

"Really, Madame Morgause. A young lady hoping to be presented at court ought to know better." Morgause's sneer quickly faded, her face tinged pink. Our nurse switched her gaze. "You're quiet, Lady Elaine, as usual. What was your part in this?"

Elaine, never a liar, spoke in cool tones. "I asked why she had a boy's name."

"What silliness," Gwennol tutted. "Fetch your work baskets, you two. Your lady mother will be along shortly." Guiding me into a secluded corner, she knelt and replaited my loosened tresses. "You shouldn't leap at your sister like that, my duck, no matter what she says. You're clever enough to know better."

"I can't help it." I sniffed. "When Morgause says those things, it gets hot in my belly, then up to my head, and... I just forget.""Aye, your mother's the same way, but she keeps her temper hidden for the most part, like a great lady should. You must learn it likewise."

I nodded, though it didn't seem very fair. It wasn't as if I knew when my fury was coming; I couldn't catch it in my hands, or even bury it deep, because it already lived there, slumbering in my core like a dragon waiting to be woken.

"Gwennol," I said in a small voice, "would Father have preferred a son to me?"

"What? Goodness, no!" My nurse spun me around to face her. "I was there when His Grace first saw you in your mother's arms. You only ceased squalling when he took you up, and he looked exactly as he should--happy as a piskie in mischief."

She waited for my smile, then ushered me into a sewing chair just as my mother glided in with her women. She beamed at her trio of now peaceful daughters, and settled gracefully into her seat.

"I hear the hot weather is set to continue," she said, accepting her sewing basket from Gwennol.

"Aye, my lady, so the fishermen say," Gwennol replied. "They claim it's a bad omen."

Constance, my mother's formidable chamber-mistress, gave a derisory snort. "If I had a gold piece for every one of your omens come to naught, the Duke would be fetching my wine."

I looked down at the kerchief I was hemming, listening to the soft, soothing murmurs of female company. The enveloping heat slowed my fingers until I could barely make another stitch.

Suddenly, my mother's hands slipped, ripping the stitch in the sleeve she was embroidering with my father's standard, drawing blood from her finger and a rare oath from her lips. My chin jerked up, and Elaine's hand went to her mouth. Morgause merely stared, aghast.

Our mother laughed and sucked the ruby bead from her fingertip. "Don't tell the Duke. I'll never hear the last of it."

As if summoned, my father strode in, regarding our amused faces with puzzlement. "Council has concluded for the day, my lady," he said to my mother. "If you are in need of me, I'll be out on the head-land with Jezebel.

"She was his favourite falcon, a large, glorious peregrine, perfect in line and colour: slate-blue back, breast cleanly barred in black and white, clear onyx eyes encircled with gold. My father had manned her himself after she was caught as an eyas on Tintagel's cliffs, and boasted to all who would listen of her beauty, intelligence and faultless recall. He had named her thus purely for the enjoyment of saying it in the presence of my mother, who never failed to tut and call him blasphemous.

And she did so then, crossing herself and shaking her head. "The things you say, and in front of your daughters," she said mildly. "You'll have much to answer for in Heaven, my lord.

"He laughed. "Say a Mass for me, my lady."

"If I thought for a moment it'd save you," my mother rejoined.

He gave her an affectionate look. "I commend your efforts to address my sins, as ever."

She inclined her head, the slightest hint of satisfaction playing across her lips.

I watched them with fascination, sparring in the sunlight. It was their game, and they played it often--she the saint and he the sinner. My mother was devoted to the chapel, but neither salvation nor damnation concerned my father much; his habits were informal, chancy even, harking back to his people in Ireland, who knelt to the gospels but whose hearts, oftentimes, still rode with the Tuath De´.

"My ladies," he said, bowing. "If there's nothing else, I bid you good day."

"There is!" I threw down my needlework and dashed after him.

He paused just inside the door, raising dark eyebrows above eyes of deep lapis. "Morgan of Cornwall. How may I be of service?""I want to go and see your falcon," I blurted out. Then, politely, "By your leave, my lord father."

"I see." He glanced at my mother, who gave a gentle shrug, then back at me with a slow-dawning smile. "Very well, loyal daughter. No harm in you learning to hawk a little early. As long as you pay attention and respect the authority of the bird. Yes?"

At my eager nod he started back down the corridor with his hands swinging loose. Beside him I was barely waist height, and took three strides to his every one, but within, I grew, foot upon foot, out through the courtyard and into the bird mews, until we reached the headland with the falcon on his fist, and I thought my head would scrape the very sky.

*

My father was Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. He had been born in the land of his dukedom, but his ancestors were Gaelic chieftains of old, who had frightened the Romans from attempting their shores and claimed to be descended from giants.

He met my mother not long after inheriting his title, while lending his banner to her father. They had a striking asymmetry: he a seasoned, raven-haired warrior and she a minor Welsh Princess ten years his junior, fair and delicate as May Day. But he asked for her hand, her father gave it, and it was a good match for them both.

They were married at Cardigan and returned immediately to Cornwall, where my father took his favourite place--the impressive, picturesque island of Tintagel--and rebuilt its fortress into his largest, most comfortable castle, a palace stronghold fit for his new Duchess. My mother always said she could have wanted for no better wedding gift.

Though we had other places, it was Tintagel where we spent most of our time. There, at the windblown, salt-drenched sanctuary my father had made for us, we were home.

*
I hardly dared presume such a treat would be repeated, but my father called for me most days thereafter, teaching me his way with birds, out there on the headland with the kittiwake cries and the sweet smell of seagrass burning under a late Cornish spring. I began to seek him out as a matter of course, until I arrived at his Great Chamber one morning to discover he and my mother had left in a hurry.

"They've gone north, to Carduel," Gwennol explained. "For the High King's court."

"Again?" I said, for they had been there at Advent, barely return-ing in time for the Christmas feast.

"How unfair!" Morgause complained. "Mother swore she'd have me presented at the next royal court."

"I wish they had taken her," Elaine muttered, making me giggle.

"Peace, my dears." Gwennol gave each of us a kiss on the fore-head, which even Morgause leaned into with a reluctant fondness. "It'll not be long till they're back, eight weeks at most. We're to meet them at Castle Dore for St. Swithin's.

"But they were back long before that, thundering into Tintagel on horses foaming at the bit, knightly retinue grim-faced with fatigue; they could not have been at Carduel but a few days before riding the considerable distance home. Afterwards, my parents kept mostly to themselves, appearing only at table, without laughter, as if a long, dark cloud had travelled with them.

One sweltering day, I was haunting a high corridor in the castle's South Tower, cooling my skin at an open embrasure, when I heard my father's voice, low and urgent, around the corner just beyond.

"Stay in Tintagel. You, the children and the women. You'll be safe here with ten knights. It's the best fortress we have. She'll not be breached.""Where will you go?" My mother's voice wavered, undercut by a note of fear that pricked my ears. "Surely we should all stay together?"

"I cannot risk it. I'll go to Dimilioc--it's the only other place we can hope to hold. If I can draw Uther Pendragon there and rout him..." He gave a heavy sigh. "It's the only way."

They were silent for a moment and I waited, hardly breathing.

"Gorlois," she said. Never in my life had I heard her call him by his first name, and the oddity of it, the absolute intimacy she con-veyed in its use, almost drove me away for fear of what I might hear next. "You know as well as I, it's not the only way. I caused this war--it's me he wants. I... I can save Cornwall."

"Good God, Igraine! It's not you who caused this, nor is it your cross to bear. Our so-called King, that godless, marauding wolf--" His voice dropped, earnest, desperate, thick in his throat. "I'd let him burn ten Cornwalls rather than make you lay eyes on him again, much less..." Another guttural sigh came forth. "He will not defeat us. Tintagel will not succumb, and neither will you-- I swear it."

My mother's response came as a sob, muffled but bone-deep, reverberating through my body. "My love," he said, tone low and soothing once again. In my mind's eye, he put a hand to her face--a strong hand, expert at bear-ing a falcon or wielding a sword. "Stay at Tintagel, keep our daugh-ters safe, and I will come back to you. Or the Devil take me."

"Don't say that, even in jest." But her voice was lighter, and he laughed in return, echoes of his confidence catching on the breeze and vanishing into the sea beyond me, before I balked and escaped on shuddering legs.

Copyright © 2022 by Sophie Keetch

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