I Am Morgan le Fay by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online

merely stared like the rude child I was. Nurse stood up, curtsied, and said in her flat country way, “Your servant, Lord Steward. You wish something?”
    â€œBah,” he growled, and he went away.
    Â 
    That night I could not sleep for thinking of Annie and Thomas, Thomas and Nurse, Nurse and the potent caution she had laid on me, and Redburke, and Uther Pendragon dead and Mother and Thomas again, round and round, a glimmering green eddy of thoughts swirling ever back to Thomas until I grew tired of lying still.
    But when I slipped from my bed to go wandering, my snoring nurse, without breaking the rhythm of her drone, reached up from her pallet and seized me by the arm to stop me. I was so surprised I squeaked.
    â€œShhh.” She sat up, and even in the dark I could see that she was not wearing her nightshirt. Instead of being a white blur, she looked like a shadow. Under her blanket she was wearing her daytime clothes. “Dress,” she whispered to me. Then she stood up and joggled my sister. “Morgause. Come, get up. Dress.”
    She reached into our chests of clothing and without searching, as if she had laid out everything earlier, she handed us what we were to wear: warm wool stockings, our plainest brown frocks, shawls, mantles, stout shoes. While we struggled to dress in the dark, she pulled out from under her bedclothes bags already packed full of we knew not what. She handed us each one to carry and took two herself. “Have you your stone?” she murmured to me.
    I pressed my hand to the front of my dress and nodded.
    â€œVery well. Follow me. Not a sound,” she cautioned, and she led us out of the chamber.
    By back ways, motioning us to tread softly, she led us through the kitchen and the scullery and the creamery and the mews to the stable. These were not places where we commonly went. Maids slumbered by the hearth in the kitchen. Hooded hawks slept erect, one foot pulled up to their breasts, on the perches in the mews. All was shadow and mystery, as always when I wandered the night, but this time I was not alone, and my heart pulsed hard with wonder: Where was Nurse taking us? Her silent power made me mind her for once, so that I walked like the others, slowly, slowly, careful not to knock into anything. Above the sound of our own breathing we could hear the footsteps of guards in the courtyard, but no one saw us as we slipped into the stable.
    It smelled warmly of straw and horse in there, and I heard the flutter of nostrils and the thud of a hoof as someone’s hot-tempered charger stirred in its stall. Dim orange light filtered in from torches burning in their sconces on the courtyard walls. In that light I saw—
    â€œThomas!”
    I did not say it loudly, but Nurse dropped her bags and clapped her hand over my mouth, pinching my shoulder hard with her other hand.
    â€œShh, Morgan,” breathed Thomas, his tone gentle. He picked up the bags, looped them together by the handles and slung them over Annie’s rump; there stood the little gray mare saddled and bridled and looking as fresh as morning. Waiting for us.
    â€œGirls on her?” Thomas whispered to Nurse.
    She must have nodded, because Thomas took my bag and set it aside, grasped me by the waist, lifted me and swung me onto Annie, seating me sideward in the saddle. “Swing one foot over her neck,” he whispered, and I did so, bunching my skirts around my knees, wide-eyed with the glory of being perched high and astride. Nurse helped him hoist my sister up behind me; Morgause clung to me around my waist as if I might somehow protect her from all this strangeness. Without a word Nurse picked up the bags we had been carrying and Thomas took Annie by the reins. Nurse and Thomas looked at each other.
    Nurse motioned with her head and walked out the big stable door. Thomas followed her, and Annie followed Thomas.
    My heart pounded, and I could not think. Riding Annie, astride, in the dark of