Page 97 of The Faerie Handmaid

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Morgana had not been sleeping well since returning to the Temple. She considered making a tincture for herself, something she never did, but decided it was better to let her sleeplessness run its course. After one particularly restless night, when she had twisted and turned under her blanket until the small hours, she finally fell into a thick, deep slumber that brought a disturbing dream. She saw the Blackbird on a boat by himself. He wasn’t rowing, only sitting very still, gazing into the distance while the boat bobbed under its own power toward the ring of mist around the Isle. She stood on the shore, calling to him, but he either didn’t hear her or chose not to respond. The boat was ridiculously small, barely big enough to hold him, and as she watched, it slipped into the fog, and both the boat and the mage disappeared.

She startled awake, feeling headachy and slow, and lay staring at the silver and rose dawn rising beyond her window. The early-morning calls of robins and doves were the only sounds. No one would be up yet except perhaps the cook. Quietly, Morgana rose from her bed and began to dress. She hoped a solitary walk would help her shake off the heaviness caused by too little sleep. The dream had put her in a bereft sort of mood, and she hoped to shed that as well.

The cool early-morning air was a refreshing break from the last heat of summer that had been baking the Isle. Morgana strolled down through the herb garden to her favorite spot, where she liked to sit on a boulder and listen to the idle lap of the waves against the shore. The rock was damp with dew, but she didn’t mind. She settled on it and gazed out at the water shimmering like old pewter in the growing light.

It was too early for dragonflies. They preferred the warmth of midday, so when one appeared, she knew it had something to tell her. She whispered, “Good morning, little brother.”

The dragonfly hovered in front of her, a delicate blue thread against the pale backdrop of mist. He was so close she could have touched him. “Is there something I need to know?” she asked softly.

The dragonfly trembled, holding his position. Morgana sighed, listening. Reluctantly, she said, “Thank you, little brother. I wish you had better news.”

For answer, the fragile creature dipped before her, as if in agreement, before he flew off toward the garden. Morgana, heavy-hearted, rose from her boulder and shook out her damp robe. She understood her dream now. As she climbed the slope to the Temple and made her way to the Blackbird’s little chamber at the back of the residence, she wished she had the comfort of Braithe’s company in this hard moment.

She found the Blackbird lying on his bed, his long white hair spread across his pillow and falling across his breast to mingle with his beard. He was still dressed in his robe. His hat and his staff lay on the floor, and his cloak hung empty and still from its peg.

Morgana knew he was gone, but even so, she did what healers do. She felt for the beat of his heart in his wrist and in his throat. She lifted his eyelids, but there was no response to the light. The spark of life was gone. She put her hand on his chest, but there was no movement, and his flesh was cold.

Morgana pulled a chair close to the bed and sat. She held one of the old mage’s wrinkled hands in hers, the chill of his fingers exaggerated by the warmth of her own. She bowed her head as she said her farewells. She had not wept in a very long time. Indeed, she couldn’t have said when she last shed tears. Even when Arthur died, although she wanted to weep, she had not.

But now, acknowledging the loss of her mentor, her teacher, the closest thing to a father she had ever had, Morgana cried, silently, achingly, the pent-up tears slipping over her cheeks to drip from her chin and stain the breast of her robe.

Dafne found her there. She opened the door to the chamber, took in the situation at a glance, and went to inform the elder priestess. Niamh arrived in due course, and the other priestesses, too, one at a time, coming to pay their respects. They bowed their heads over the Blackbird’s body and slipped away without disturbing Morgana’s mourning. Everyone knew what the Blackbird meant to her. Even Priestess Iffa did not remonstrate with her for sitting beside him until the time came to make arrangements.

At last, well into the afternoon, Morgana rose. She stretched her stiff muscles and splashed water from the Blackbird’s own basin over her face. Her tears had dried long before, but they left her face feeling sticky and rough. In her unerring way, she had relived her memories through the hours she sat beside the bed, recalling the years she and the Blackbird had spent together, the moments of learning they had shared, the challenges they had met. She finally achieved acceptance that their time together had come to an end. Gently, she pulled his blanket up to his chin and smoothed the coarse hair away from his wrinkled cheeks. With her hand still on his head, she whispered, “Thank you, sir. Thank you for everything.”

The priestesses met in their inner room to decide how to mark the passing of such an influential person as the Black Mage. They sat in their carved bogwood chairs, as solemn as they were when electing a new member of the Nine. Several put forth suggestions, but none of their ideas seemed dramatic enough, meaningful enough, to be a proper farewell to this man they had all known for so long.

The elder priestess said at last, “Priestess Morgana, did the Blackbird ever mention what he would like as his final ceremony?”

Morgana, who had said nothing until this moment, shook her head. “He did not. He spoke several times of being aware of how long he had lived, and how weary he was, but that was all.”

“You were the closest to him,” Priestess Olfreth said. “What do you think we should do?”

Morgana took her time in responding. She chose her words with care, being in no mood for argument. “The Blackbird was an unsentimental man on the surface, but his inner soul was one of passionate commitment. To the Lady. To Lloegyr.”

“And to the Temple?” Olfreth asked.

“Yes. And to the Temple. But,” Morgana added, “he was devoted to the true king. To Arthur, and after Arthur, to the boy king, because King Mordred is doing all he can to carry on Arthur’s legacy.”

Olfreth said, “Where will we have his funeral pyre?”

“I think,” Morgana said, “that he would like to lie beneath the lake. To join the Lady in her underwater rest.”

A shocked silence followed her statement. Niamh, always the practical one, finally blurted, “But how would we do that? I mean, he would… that is, his body would…”

“It would not be hard,” Morgana said. “A bogwood coffin, well weighted and sealed.”

“But who can carve bogwood in these times?” Olfreth asked. “Only the fae, and there are none here.”

“I will send to the White City,” Morgana said. “The councillor will provide it.”

Niamh frowned. “Why would she do that?”

“I must ask you to take my word for it,” Morgana said. She saw no purpose in revealing her connection to Emerlyn, nor in telling her sister priestesses of her own true nature. Some things, she had decided long ago, were better kept secret.

“But how will you get word to her?” Niamh asked, still scowling.