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CHAPTER 3
My father, Uther Pendragon, had three wives. All of them were dead now.
A tragic accident befell my mother, Ygraine. She tripped and hit her head against a hard stone wall while my father was visiting with her in her tower rooms. He called for the healers and high priestess as quickly as he could, but they could not save her.
That was the official story.
My father’s second wife was Arthur’s mother. Her name was Ettarde. She was young and very beautiful, but her tongue was as bitter as wormwood and she had many enemies. She was not well-liked at court, especially not once she became queen. She loved to laugh and to flirt and to tease and she did all of these things too well, playing favorites with the noblewomen, and forming her own court around her. She called it the “Court of Love,” which I always found ironic because she showed no love to me.
Even so, she might have gotten away with that much, but she played favorites with men as well and that was too much for my father’s limited tolerance.
Ettarde was executed for committing adultery with one of my father’s best friends, Sir Pelleas.
He was executed, too.
After their deaths, it came to light that Ettarde had borne a child by my father, Uther, before their marriage.
Arthur.
My father brought Arthur to the Rose Court and after conferring with his advisors and the priestess proclaimed that his illegitimate son from the disloyal Ettarde was now legitimized.
Thus, Arthur became second in line to the throne of Camelot.
This was the beginning of my undoing, though I did not know it yet.
Perhaps I should have been angry. After all, Arthur had been born while my mother was still alive, while I was hardly a year old.
But I wasn’t.
As a small girl, I loved Arthur. I had always wanted a brother. And if Arthur was sometimes a little cruel and stole my toys or ripped apart my favorite books, well, that was to be expected. He had lost his mother. I could understand that. I thought I could understand his anger. And he could be very sweet when he wanted to be.
Enid was my father’s third and final wife. She was young like Ettarde, but her opposite in every other way. Enid was pretty and plump and gentle-hearted, and she did what Ettarde had not. For a time, she managed to bring peace to the Rose Court. Or as much peace as she could achieve with someone like my father as her husband.
Enid treated me as if I were her trueborn daughter. She was kind to me and kind to Arthur, no matter how badly he misbehaved, and I was grateful to her for that.
She died giving birth to Kaye.
After my mother died, my father was kind to me at first.
He never realized I had been lying under the bed that day.
But I suppose his guilt was as strong as if he had known, because for the first few months after my mother died he was unusually gentle. And Uther Pendragon had never been a gentle man.
Somehow, I managed not to push him away. Even as a small child, I knew I could not risk doing so. I could not risk the wrath of the king–even if he was my own father.
After Ettarde was executed, things grew worse.
And after Enid died giving birth to Kaye, Arthur and I began to live in a state of constant terror.
But I had been living in a precarious state long before then.
When my father legitimized Arthur, I suspect he realized then that he was going to pass me over.
By right, the throne was mine. I was first in line for the crown.
