I Am Morgan le Fay - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nancy Springer has published forty novels for adults, young adults and children. In a career beginning shortly after she graduated from Gettysburg College in 1970, Springer wrote for ten years in the imaginary realms of mythological fantasy, then ventured on contemporary fantasy, magical realism, and women's fiction before turning her attention to children's literature. Her novels and stories for middle-grade and young adults range from contemporary realism, mystery/crime, and fantasy to her critically acclaimed novels based on the Arthurian mythos, I AM MORDRED: A TALE OF CAMELOT and I AM MORGAN LE FAY. Springer's children's books have won her two Edgar Allan Poe awards, a Carolyn W. Field award, various Children's Choice honors and numerous ALA Best Book listings. Her most recent series include the Tales of Rowan Hood, featuring Robin Hood’s daughter, and the Enola Holmes mysteries, starring the much younger sister of Sherlock Holmes.

Ms. Springer lives in East Berlin, Pennsylvania.

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chapter 9

That rough, dirty, greedy rascal of a horse trader was a gentleman compared to what lay ahead. Thanks to his warning, when next I heard the rhythm of hooves on stone, I turned aside from the track. If I had not lamed Annie, damn my stupidity, she could have carried me swiftly into the forest and away—but as it was, we did not have much time. I grabbed Annie by the forelock and whispered to her, “Hurry!” But she had not hobbled much more than ten limping steps off the path when, with his chain mail jangling and the saddle leather creaking under his armored weight, the knight rode past. All I could do was freeze like a rabbit, staring, and hope the knight did not look my way. Luck was with me. He rode with his visor down, so unless he turned his head he could see only straight before him. I noticed smears of brownish red on his shield and armor—at first I thought it was rust, but a moment later I knew better—then I had to choke back horror that would have made me cry out. At his knee, hanging by its hair, swung the severed, dripping head of what had once been a man.

He rode past, and I leaned against Annie’s solid warmth and took several deep breaths to keep from retching.

Then we went on. A small distance up the trail Annie shied; any horse will shy at the smell of fresh blood. Just off the path lay the beheaded body. I shuddered and passed by.

Later that same day I barely got Annie off the path before another knight passed by, this one with a squire riding behind him. The knight wore his visor, but it was just blind luck that the squire did not see us.

The next day luck turned against us.

That day for a wonder the sun shone golden through the green trees. The sunshine lifted my heart. But for years afterward I distrusted such green-gold days, as if they might mean a cruel trick of fate.

I remember how the sunlight gleamed on the black charger decked in scarlet as the knight rode up the path, as I watched him from between the trees with Annie by my side, as I kept silence, almost certain that he would pass by like the others. I remember how sun rays glistered on his hulking trunk draped in chain mail, his greaves, his gauntlets, his red-plumed helm, his visor behind which I could see only shadow. I remember how that golden light caught on his sword hilt and the device on his shield—a red griffin rampant. I remember how it glinted on the lance his squire carried—

I gasped. The squire was Thomas.

The knight heard my gasp and turned his head. “Oh ho,” he said, wheeling his charger and spurring it toward me.

I scarcely heard him or saw him, for Thomas’s wide-eyed gaze met mine, and time had stopped for me. Thomas. His shoulders broader, his jaw harder, and a shadow in his sky blue eyes that was new to me, but still that steady regard. True Thomas.

The knight halted his steed beside me, reached down and seized me above the elbow with a grasp of steel.

Shock made me scream and struggle even before I realized what was happening. With all my small strength I strove to wrench myself free from his rough grip, glimpsing his wintery eyes through his visor. My thrashings only made him scowl. “Stupid wench,” he growled, tightening his fingers. “Stop it. You’re mine.” Might meant right. Because he was stronger, he could take me and do what he would with me.

As if from another, kinder world I heard Thomas cry, “Annie!” and shout something I did not understand. Annie shrilled and reared, striking the knight full in his mailed chest with both forehooves.

She almost unseated him. Only the high cantle of his saddle kept him from toppling. He lost his grip on me, and let out a yell of anger. Off balance from pulling against him, I fell hard to the rocky ground, and there I lay with the breath knocked out of me, gawking up uselessly. I saw Thomas charging, riding low over his horse’s neck with lance couched, spurring the steed between trees, trying to save me. I saw Annie rear again—

The knight drew his broadsword and lopped off Annie’s head.

Just like that, like killing a rat.

My Annie.

I saw the sword flash like a brown trout leaping, saw the spurt of vivid red—heart’s blood, brighter than any flower that ever bloomed. Annie’s blood. I saw her head fly, her eyes still living and terrified for a moment as she died.

At the same time Thomas drove into the knight with the lance. But the knight wheeled, and Thomas’s blow slipped off his breastplate. The knight bellowed, “What! Traitor!” and his shield struck the lance aside. With his sword already reddened by Annie’s blood he turned on Thomas.

No. Please, no. I lurched to my feet. Thomas had no armor, no weapon, not even a leather jerkin to protect him. He threw up his arm to block the first blow and gave a shout more like a scream: “Morgan, run!”

I stood by Annie’s lifeless body. I saw blood, that reddest of all reds, well from Thomas’s arm and shoulder. The sword lifted again.

I snatched the milpreve out from under my dress; it blazed like blue fire, so bright it blinded me, so hot it burned my hand, but not as hot as the fire dragon inside me roaring, raging, rearing to smite. I shrieked, “Death to that knight! Kill him! Kill—”

The power knocked me off my feet, slammed me against an oak and drove me to the ground. I did not get to see the knight fall dead.

I awoke a few mo-ments later feeling as if his gauntleted fist had struck me down. Thomas crouched over me, clutching his wounded arm and panting with pain. Blood trickled between his fingers.

“Thomas!” Weak and dazed, I struggled to my knees beside him.

“You saved my life,” he whispered.

“Who saved whom?” I ripped at the frock I wore over my dress and managed to yank it off. Easing his hand aside, I started to wrap the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood.

“Morgan,” he murmured, and he leaned his head against my shoulder and fainted.

I piled on top of Annie’s body anything that I could find to keep the carrion birds off her: branches, stones, the dead knight’s shield and mail and armor.

I wrested all his warrior gear off him and left him sprawled in his woolens; the crows and ravens could have him. Let them feast on him soon; it galled me to see not a mark on him. His dead eyes staring out of his grizzled beard looked surprised, that was all. I wanted to put my heel to his cruel nose and cave his face in for hurting Thomas and killing Annie, but I didn’t do it; I knew the memory would sicken me later, and there was already enough to sicken me.

By the time I got Annie covered, I no longer noticed that I was crying. Sobs came out of me rhythmically, just a noise like the turning of a mill wheel. I kept an eye on Thomas lying wrapped in my mantle on a patch of moss under a gigantic tree. He had a deep cut in his shoulder and a long bloody gash in his arm. I had wrapped the wounds as tightly as I could and swaddled his arm against his body so that he would not move it, then laid him there. He had not stirred or moaned, and I hoped he was still unconscious of his pain, but as I finished building my makeshift cairn over Annie, he turned his head and whispered, “Morgan.”

I trotted over to him and knelt beside him. He looked up at me, his blue eyes narrow and clouded. His free hand wavered toward my face.

He murmured, “Don’t cry.”

Reminded that I was crying, I could barely hold back the sobs. Tears ran down my face. Thomas whispered, “Is it—Ongwynn?”

“No.” I rubbed my face dry with my blue...