I watched her being carted in, her hands bound tightly behind her back. The crowd leaped forward and shied back like the tide, swallowing me up in the madness. We had gotten what they had screamed for; we had been given the compensation. But it was a teardrop in comparison to the injustice been given.
Women jutted through to spit at the girl, calling in scorned voices “Where’s your jewels milady? Where are your pretty garments? Would you share them with us?!”
The girl quaked where she stood, her knees bent as she rode the cart. I watched spittle land on her face, in her hair running in tangles around her face. I watched it all. I saw her body peaking behind the filthy shift, limbs white and pure like a doves wings. She glanced about her, her eyelashes like butterfly wings. Grime could not hide the shimmer of her amber hair or swollen bags under her mother’s stark green eyes. She stumbled and hissed as her bare arms scraped across the metal bars along the tops of the wagon, her blood trailing down the metal to the mud below. My heart leaped in fear and I stopped the gasp that threatened to fly. Blue blood wasn’t just a saying. But I knew that.
The princess did not weep when the hanging post came into view. Many brave men had before her, but not Morganica. Not beautiful Morganica with a voice of velvet and song of alabaster. She had been gaged with a part of the tapestry that portrayed the royal line, parts blotted out with her mother’s blood. She straightened from her pained stance, throwing her head back defiantly, regally. She cast her gaze down to the people below her, many carrying starving children in their arms. A tear of the purest crystal travelled down her cheek to splash onto her shift.
Oh Morganica. You weep for your people but not yourself?
I shoved through the hundreds of people, my solid boots kicking shins to get past. The cart rumbled closer and I started thrusting my hands out to push people to either side of my body, stirring the crowd to the ruckus I was causing. Princess Morganica stepped carefully onto the platform of the hanging dock, nodding her head to the people before her. She walked obediently to the rope, turning a sympathetic eye on the hooded man looping the cord around her neck.
“STOP!” I screamed, climbing up to the wooden platform.
They all knew my voice. They all recognised the resonating timber of the laugh I once boomed across the city. My city.
“You solve bloodshed with bloodshed?” I demanded, throwing aside my grey cloak. “Will her blue blood feed your children? Will her sacrifice produce you crops? No justice will be found in her death!”
I ran to Morganica, unfastening the rope around her neck, “child, you will be safe. I’ll protect you.”
I watched my daughter take a step back, a step away from me. The pain in her face mirrored the thousands around us. Not just pain and devastation, her collar bones jutting out beneath her throat – but rage.
She spat the cloth from her mouth, working her jaw.
“You may as well tighten the rope father, for it was you who forgot his people. Protection? You are the reason I need it.” She answered coldly, her tone colder then ice.
“Morganica…” What could I say? What could I say to the hundreds of eyes that cried “where were you?”
Nothing.
I walked over to the rope swinging innocently between us, grasping it in my hands. No one moved as I walked past and knelt before my daughter, her face pale and small in a world I had created. No father should see the bare hunger in his child’s eyes, a hunger that spoke for more than food – but warmth and protection. For love. Where had I been when my wife had stood before the rebellion armed with nothing but her screams? Where was I when my son and heir was murdered?
I knelt before her, the rough wood poking holes in my leggings and presented to her the royal crest.
Around us the people pulsed, their eyes fixed to us, “take it.”
She did, slipping the ring of office onto her finger.
“Oh Father,” she sighed, “I will promise you this. I will protect our lands from invaders, I will remember Arthur and set his name in timeless legend. Time skews all facts into myth and mystery. But you Uthor, no matter how the story is spun, will be scorned for his stubbornness, his cowardice and pride. You will be remembered as the man who deserved to die.”
I felt myself nod, a puppet on strings. She looked down at me for a moment before deftly jumping down off the stage. For indeed it had become one. Though only in rags, Morganica walked as though dressed in the finest silk. The crowd parted, the raging mob placated by her promises.
“Morganica!” I yelled as two men climbed onto the platform and dragged me towards the swinging rope.
“Yes?” She called without turning.
“Who will you be in this legend?”
She looked at me over her shoulder, eyes bright with mischief, “A true hero – one who bears her family’s wickedness and disaster. So the villain I suppose.” She flicked a hand in farewell and continued to pad through the crowd as though magic held them to parade.
“Ready Sir?” A voice called from beneath his black hood, his hands flexing on the lever.
“What’s your name boy?”
The young executioner pulled the hood off his head, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Everybody knows me Milord, I’m Merlin.”
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