Chapter III:
Knights of Crownsville

I HAD INTENDED the enchantment to carry me to the year of Our Lord eighteen seventy-nine, for to waylay The Boss before he ever attempted the journey to my era, and mayhap prevent his sorcerous atrocities from plunging my realm into wrack and ruin. The land had to be set to rights; what choice had I else? ’Twas an ambitious desire, I confess, and yet I had possessed every confidence that I would achieve success.

Never had such a calamity of the arts befallen me.

More calamitous still, the mishap had robbed me of the volition to assay the invocation yet again, for I knew not how to correct my error. Mayhap ’twould send me far back unto the days of the conquest-thirsty Romans, the brutal Celts… or worse.

Mayhap ’tis my doom to spend my remaining days ever wandering from age unto age as punishment for my presumption.

“Good my lady queen,” said Lady Jane after her monarchs had moved some distance ahead, “let us hie ourselves to the feast. I mean no disrespect, but meseemeth thou standest in sore need of refreshment.”

She had the right of it. I allowed her to guide me to the open-air feast, surrounded by the folk of this realm, whom it suited me to ignore, such was the depth of my distress. I had no course but to ride the events to their conclusion and pray that I might be offered some other opportunity for redemption and revenge.

Meantime my body needed sustenance, and the feast offered it in plenty: seafood of which I was fondly familiar, such as shrimps, mussels, and oysters; well-spiced crabmeat cakes that were new to my taste and touted as a specialty of the realm; enormous legs of a smoked fowl called turkey; steak on a stake; and flavorful sausages that made me yearn for my beloved Sir Accolon’s… companionship.

Alas, Accolon, the comeliest of men and manliest of lovers! Now dead and lost to me forever, his dust has long since enriched the land wherein he lies; and no force on earth, magical or otherwise, could change this dolorous fact.

I pushed aside my trencher piled with the delicious fare and took a long pull of the pale beer which flowed in abundance at every table, high and low. Dark brown ale remains my lifelong preference, though Crownsville’s bitter brew seemed a fitting salute to my present estate.

I took another pull.

“Queen Morgan, is aught amiss with thy victuals?” asked Queen Anne from her place betwixt me and her husband the king.

I struggled to summon a courteous smile for this kind but unfortunate woman. Throughout the meal, King Henry had devoted his attention to Lady Jane, whom he had commanded to be seated at his right hand. It took no great feat of mind to imagine what the king must be doing with that dexterous hand when he was not using it to gesture toward some knight or noble he was addressing. Even through my flagging spirits I could see the queen making a valiant effort to overlook her husband’s behavior and cheerfully converse with the courtiers seated near her.

My heart lurched. ’Twas a picture, in reverse, of what others must perceive when observing my husband King Uriens and me together at table. My lord Uriens is—was—far older than I; and soon after our son’s birth, he ceased craving the pleasures I can and do offer men, as Sir Accolon can—could—attest.

This thrice-cursed shift in time was making my head throb.

In answer to the queen’s inquiry and in an attempt to dispel my mood, I shook my head, slightly, lest I worsen the throbbing. I pressed a hand to my temple. “My recent… travels have fatigued me, fair Queen Anne,” I said. I raised my tankard, and an attentive servant filled it. “This brew doth succor me.”

“Of a sooth,” said she, also lifting her vessel for refilling, and we drank deeply together, leaving each to her own private remembrances. I could almost see Queen Anne’s for a moment, reflected in the distant green pools of her gaze. Verily I could have seen them magically, had I wished to pry.

Lady Jane and the king shared some private jest.

“’Tis but a passing infatuation,” I whispered to Anne.

“And well I know it.” The queen nodded decisively, recalling upon whose brow sat the feminine crown.

“Have you given your lord husband an heir?” I asked.

Her smile turned bittersweet. “Aye, of a sort. We celebrated the first anniversary of the birth of Princess Elizabeth a fortnight and two days ago. The princess has no sisters or brothers—from my body—yet.” Queen Anne’s soft sigh could only mean there had to be at least one royal bastard boy to threaten her daughter’s claim to the crown. “I, and the king, of course remain hopeful that Our Lord shall see fit to bless us with a boy-child in the future.”

“Of course.” I turned my gaze toward the reportedly hopeful king, but read him to be hopeful of other sport.

In truth he appeared hopeful of the same sport, but with a different sparring partner.

Men of every era and every station of every realm are the same: they think with their lances, and what passes for brains in their skulls would make entire gardens bloom. At times I should like to round up the entire lot and rack them.

Feeling my disapproving glare upon him, King Henry gazed back at me, reached a decision, and crashed fist to table with a platter-rattling thud, drawing every gaze upon himself. In a voice modulated to carry over the deafening din of full-flowering battle, he said—

“Let the entertainment begin!”

His command was greeted by loud applause and shouts from those seated at the lower tables. Up till this moment, we had been entertained by musicians and dancers and singers and jugglers and acrobats, most of whom I had noted during my earlier sojourn through the village. Absent were hounds such as those that had frequented the feast hall of my castle, and whose growling, snapping scuffles over the occasional spent bone had provided an amusing ambience for each meal.

I did not miss the pigeons cavorting overhead or their annoying capacity to foul the food, although under the full leafy tree branches of this feasting area, their absence was a wonder; few birds of any ilk graced the skies of Revel Grove, though several tiny winged creatures pleased themselves to hop about our feet after dropped crumbs and took wing when startled by some reveler’s abrupt movement.

What revealed itself as “entertainment” by King Henry’s command proved not unlike the doings customary during the feasts hosted by myself and other queens and kings of my era: a parade of knights leading their noble prisoners, those other knights having been vanquished in battle. Each victorious knight regaled us with the story of his conquest, each battle sounding more fantastical than the last as the knights competed for royal favor.

Did I not already state that all men are the same? Strip them of their gleaming armor and adornments and eclipse the unique devices on their shields, and they descend into a tribe of club-wagging, chest-thumping monkeys indistinguishable and uncouth and good for naught save the pleasures they can deliver a woman in the bedchamber,—and many not even that much.

Believe me, gentle reader; I possess prodigious experience in such matters. Sir Accolon was simply the best. And, whether inside his armor or out, in the spirit of fairness and with great fondness, I must state that he is—was—no monkey.

Pray, forgive me; I digress.

All of the aforementioned parading and posturing and boasting, I expected. What I did not expect was for each knight’s name—as well as his shield’s device and the tale of his battle—to be familiar to me even though the men’s countenances bore no resemblance to any knight of my personal acquaintance.

Should you require more proof of this claim, I shall state for this chronicle that I heard, verbatim and in verifiable detail, the tale of how Sir Gareth Beaumains toughened his pretty hands against Sir Kay, Sir Launcelot, and six other knights, besting all save Sir Launcelot for the rescue and love of the Lady Lyonors; next, “Sir Launcelot” told us his tale of how he dressed as Sir Kay after delivering him from several attacking knights and journeyed on to defeat yet other knights while wearing Sir Kay’s armor, wielding his sword, riding his horse, and bearing his shield. Had I commanded these players to write the accounts of their tales herein, the details would not have varied one jot from the accounts scribed for preservation in Camelot’s Hall of Records.

Said hall and the precious parchments it housed doubtless did not in total survive the destruction of Camelot following the end of Arthur’s reign, owing to the observable fact that later chroniclers have confused the more intricate and obscure details of our lives, our exploits, our realms, yea, even unto the spelling of our very names. Arthur, they mostly got right, of course; but I have been variously named Morganna, Morgaine, Morriga, Morgu, and even Morghe.

“Morgaine” calls to mind a potion I later discovered in this era for the restoration of hair, and so I deem it an acceptable association with my healing arts. “Le Fay” wields insult enough, but “Morghe,” the sound of which is not unlike what they of this century call a repository for corpses… what could that author possibly have been thinking?

And yet it is not my intent herein to correct these conflicting records, else I would require at least a dozen volumes and an array of attendant scribes working for as many years to complete the nigh-impossible task.

Enough digression! Necessity demands that I forge onward with my account.

Lady Jane must have sensed my mounting confusion, for she begged leave of King Henry to remove herself from his side unto mine. The king was reluctant to grant her request, and yet, to his credit, he did so.

“Of a certitude, your Majesty,” said Lady Jane after she seated herself beside me, “these proceedings, with knights pretending to be King Arthur’s own, are not customary for King Henry’s court.” With one eyebrow arched, I bade her continue. “It was foretold that upon this auspicious day of the Autumnal Equinox, Crownsville would receive a certain visitor from King Arthur’s realm. And so these especial arrangements have been made for his”—she blushed again; this time not so prettily in my estimation—“that is to say, for your benefit, Queen Morgan, as our realm’s most honored guest.”

I had no time to respond to her statement, for at that moment, in strutted a man portraying Sir Kay the Seneschal, leading a bound, bedraggled, and oddly dressed—even for this era—stranger who could be none other than the sorcerous adversary I despised second only in magnitude to my brother: The Boss himself.

I felt the familiar, welcome tingle of my awakening power.