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

real sword, for it felt heavy in my hands, and I needed both to lift it. Arthur did not notice that the sword I had carried easily in a single hand before I now lifted with difficulty in both. They would weigh the same to him, anyway. Arthur looked it over with a smile when I handed it to him.
    “You have cared for it well. Thank you.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. Oddly, it reminded me strongly of when we had been children. We had greeted each other always like that, the three of us, when we had been young. It was strange that he still did it, when so much had changed. Arthur turned as if to go, and then turned back to me. “Oh, Morgan. The scabbard.”
    The scabbard. Accolon had not copied the scabbard. The scabbard was the more powerful part. I was prepared to lie, to refuse to give it up, but Arthur had already seen it, the glint of its jewels peeping out from between my dresses, giving it away. He reached for it and buckled it around his waist before I could even speak. At least, I thought, I had not put the real sword in the true scabbard. Then I would have lost them both.
    “Morgan, many thanks for your safekeeping.” Arthur kissed me on the cheek again and, picking up the scabbard, buckling it on and sliding the fake Excalibur inside, led the way out. He did, after all, want to see his little nephew, and I stood, leaning against the doorway, as he picked up the little boy from his nurse’s lap and threw him playfully in the air until he giggled. Arthur had a son of his own whom he had tried to murder. He would be married soon, and have more children. I wondered if Mordred would have been safer if he had been born a girl. An older son would be a dangerous rival to the children Arthur would have with whoever he was about to take as his wife.
    “What is his name?” Arthur asked, interrupting my thoughts.
    “Ywain,” I told him. “Uriens named him; it’s some old family name of his.”
    Arthur nodded, and seemed pleased. I was relieved when the little boy began to cry and had to be handed back to his nurse, and we could leave. I was relieved, too, that Arthur had not noticed that I did not hold my own child.
    Because Arthur and his knights were staying overnight to avoid travelling the cold winter evenings, we all ate in the castle’s great hall. There was far more food than was necessary, and the sight of it all around us, all the roasted game, the apples, the bread, the vegetables from the stores, was sickening when I thought of Uriens’ excuse for killing the Breton woman. Clearly, we had plenty of food. I had to sit through their eating and drinking and tedious stories of the war. Every single man was the greatest fighter, the bravest knight, and all of their victories had been glorious. None of them mentioned how one of the sovereigns they had defeated had been a woman prisoner, bound and executed. No, they would not want that for their honour. I let my attention drift away. Accolon sat with Uriens’ men at the trestle tables in the main hall below the high table on the dais. When I caught his eye, he gave me the slightest of smiles, and I felt the warmth of secret knowledge at my centre, and I held it tight.
    Then talk turned to Arthur’s marriage. He said that he had received offers from the fathers of a few princesses, but he wanted to consult with Merlin before he sent for a wife. I thought he seemed reluctant. I supposed he was rather young, but he was the King, and he had a responsibility to secure peace. Besides, he had married me off to Uriens only a couple of years older than he was now, and he had had almost six more years of freedom than Morgawse when she had been sent away to be married.
    “Well, my Lord, they say Princess Isolde in Ireland is the most beautiful woman in Britain,” one of the knights with Arthur suggested, jovially.
    Arthur laughed. “So I have heard, but she is twelve years old. I don’t want to marry a girl; I want a woman my own age who will be