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“The name, peregrine,” my father said. “It means ‘wanderer.’ ‘She that roams.’ ” He looked down at me, lines on his face drawn grave. “Do you know what her greatest strength is, Morgan?” “Yes. Her talons, for the crushing of skulls.” He had told me so on our very first flight—the beak is sharp and worth your caution, but never forget her talons: there death resides. But today, I was wrong. “Survival,” he said. “At any given moment she can fly away, knowing she can live. She doesn’t need me, the falconer, or the shelter of the mews. That is the greatest power of all.”
“I THINK SHE ought to marry him,” said Morgause. “It would make us all Princesses.” “Morgause!” Elaine exclaimed, in a rare loss of composure. “That’s no good reason to marry someone. She loved Father.” “It’s the only reason,” Morgause replied. “One cannot eat love, after all. He’s a King, and he wants her. She must do it if we are to live. There is no better way to assure our future.”
“Despite what you want, Mother isn’t going to marry him,” I said. “I’ve never heard her so furious.” “That doesn’t mean anything,” Morgause replied with an air of insufferable wisdom.
“WHAT YOU MUST do, Elaine, is play the part they want you to play. Be just afraid enough, the coy but loving maiden, and he’ll want to ease your way, rather than simply take what’s his. That is all you need to remember for a wedding night.”
“I could watch you read all day,” he would say. But for me, to look at him was to need him, my desire illuminating the restrictions of time, knowing that any day, any moment wasted, we could never have back.
“You can’t,” I said. “It’s war, not a hunting party. It’s not safe.” “Very little is,” he quipped, and I had to stop myself from slapping him.
“Love,” she continued, “is potent and powerful—it gives pleasure, meaning. But it also dominates, weakens, is a beast greedy and selfish, requiring constant sacrifice. To love is to cede our own power, an act of surrender we cannot guarantee will be returned. Perhaps in leaving you, your lover has bestowed a great favour. Isn’t it far better to choose a fate entirely on your own terms, in service of your deeper talents and wants of the mind, rather than be led by the weakness of the heart?”
“It’s not about you, Morgan,” Ninianne said. “It’s about them—men, their power, their battles, their pride. Everything they do is to provide them with what they need, no matter the cost.”
“Men don’t stay, you understand, not for women like you,” Uther said. “So he won’t be back.
The widows of St. Brigid’s told it true: there is nothing simpler than convincing a man of what he believes he already knows.
“Have you noticed, dear sister, that only we need worry about that? A man might be told to say a few more Hail Marys, or spend some weeks exiled from a bed or two. But only women burn.”
“There isn’t a law yet made that cannot be broken, given the correct skills, and enough courage.”
“Give your power its head, and those you want to love you will love you. Or, if you prefer, they will fear you. They will behold you at last, Morgan, and tremble before your greatness.”
“You are unnatural,” he growled. “A woman formed in the fires of Hell. I dread to think what your black maw will birth when the time comes, what demon spawn will spring from your vicious loins. God help us all.”
We smiled at the sleeping face. It was early to seek a resemblance, but something of the creased, contemplative brow whispered to me of my father. If I could only remember enough to teach my son to be like he was—but it was so long ago, my memories unspoken, and sometimes I wondered if I had known him at all.
I watched him go, wondering when in God’s name I had said I’d forgiven him.
“Don’t forget me, Urien,” I said. “Check the darkness and pray to God before you sleep at night, because one day, when you wake, alone and chilled to the bone, I’ll be standing there—without fear, and without mercy—and I will be the last thing you see. Or the Devil take me.”
