The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff

quickly to my lady your mother, for she is set upon slaying the King your father, and has sent me to fetch his sword that she may do it while he sleeps in his bed!’
    ‘Go swiftly and do as she bids you,’ said Sir Uwaine. ‘I will see to the rest.’
    So in a little while the damosel brought the sword and gave it with shaking hands into the steady hands her mistress held out for it. And Morgan La Fay took the sword and unsheathed it, never seeing that Uwaine had come in behind the damosel and remained hidden in the shadows of the hangings by the chamber door. And she stood for three breaths of time looking down at the sleeping man and deciding which would be the best place to strike. But as she swung up the heavy blade for the death blow, Uwaine sprang from his hiding place and seized her sword-hand and wrenched it aside; and as she whirled round to face him, he stood there panting, with a face like one that had taken his own death blow. ‘Fiend!’ he shouted. ‘What would you do? If you were not my mother, and would God that you were not, I would plunge this sword now into your heart.’
    ‘Nay, but the fiends of Hell tempted me!’ cried his mother. ‘It was their doing, not mine – and see, the madness has passed from me. Oh, sweet son of mine, have mercy, and I promise that never again will I listen to their evil whisperings in my ear.’
    ‘Swear!’ said Uwaine.
    And shaking and shuddering under his merciless gaze, the Queen swore; and the young knight sheathed his father’s sword and turned and walked away.
    Towards the end of that day came the six knights with Sir Accalon’s body and the High King’s message.
    Then Morgan La Fay’s heart almost broke within her, for she had indeed loved Sir Accalon in her fashion, and it was more than her hopes of usurping the crown of Britain that lay dead upon his bier. But she hid her grief for her own safety; and knowing that if she were still at court when Arthur returned all the gold of the Hollow Hills would not buy her life, she contrived to learn from one of the knights where it was that her brother lay; and before full dawn next day she sent for her horse from the stables, and saying that she wanted none with her save certain of her ladies, she rode away.
    She rode all that day and part of the night, and by noon of the next day came to the abbey where Arthur lay not yet fully mended from his wounds.
    She asked of the Lady Abbess where the King might be, and was told that he was sleeping. ‘Then do not wake him,’ she said fondly. ‘But I am his sister, and have ridden far to be with him, hearing of his wounds. Therefore I will sit with him a while, and maybe wake him myself later.’
    And since she was his sister, neither the holy ladies of the abbey nor the knight who kept watch before his chamber door thought to deny her. So she went in.
    I cannot slay him, she thought, or only at the cost of my own life, with all these about him. But at least I can steal away Excalibur, and later maybe have him at my mercy. But when she crossed to the bed, she saw thatthough Arthur was indeed asleep, he lay with Excalibur gripped in his right hand. Only one hope of harming him remained to her. The blade in his hand was naked. She looked about and found the scabbard lying on a great carved chest at the foot of the bed. She knew the powers of the scabbard as well as Merlin had done; and she took it up and hid it in the folds of her mantle. It was less than she had hoped for, but it was better than nothing.
    Then she sat beside the bed for a while, lest any should look in. And presently she rose and went out, saying to those in the outer chamber that the King slept so sweetly it would be a sorry thing to wake him. And so she mounted her horse and rode away, her ladies following.
    Presently Arthur awoke and found his scabbard gone. He demanded in anger to know who had come beside him while he slept. And when they told him Morgan La Fay, he cried out on them, ‘Falsely have