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The Romans had a great empire, the learned men of the kingdom said, and brought people of many kinds to every part of the world. When they left, withdrawing from the lands they had conquered like the tide withdraws from the shore, they left people and customs behind them, as the waves leave ripples in the sand. The learned men pointed to the leavings of empire: the king's stark devotion to the soldiers' faith in the Light; Roman names, borne now by people who had never set foot out of Albion, like the king's physician, and all the myriad peoples of the empire, now scattered throughout the whole of the land. Morgana had never known a time she was not aware her mother did not caution her to discretion, for the king had changed after the death of his wife, and now only his personal legacy from the Romans was approved in his realm.
Her father was a tolerant man, indulging her mother as she lit the candles at the end of the week and encouraged Morgana's childish attempt at the prayers. What did it matter, after all, as long as it was kept decently at home? A daughter could not follow him in the soldier's faith.
"This is private," her mother whispered, helping her to trace the angular letters, showing her the Name too holy to be spoken aloud. "When the king's grief has lessened, he will allow other faiths once more. Do not speak of this till then."
Her parents were both dead within the year. Morgana stood, shivering with the effort of holding back her tears, before the king. Her nursemaid had warned her he was a stern man who did not like children, and that she must be as strong as the son her father had never had. The king stood up, which it seemed no one had expected, and crouched down before her, a tall man making himself less frightening to a child.
"Your father was very dear to me," he said, and tipped her chin up. "Poor child. I will be a father to you now." He embraced her, and Morgana felt her defences crumbling as she began to cry against his chest. He picked her up, holding her close. "The lady Morgana is as my own daughter," he said over her head, in the sort of voice her father had always used when he was telling people something important.
He was kind, she thought, sobbing as she held on tighter. She would be able to ask him what prayers her mother would have wanted.
"We'll find some followers of the old religion are responsible, no doubt," he said. "They will be punished."
"Sire, we must take natural causes into account," another voice said.
"Do not speak to me of women who die of natural causes," the king said, his voice hard. "Do you think the death of my best friend and his wife should go unpunished?"
"I just think there is little evidence that anyone of the old -"
"Some other sect, then, that isn't in your books, Gaius. They're all the same. They all need to be stamped out."
Morgana froze in his arms. She couldn't talk to him. She had to do as her mother said, and not tell anyone. She awkwardly curtsied when he put her down, and went with her nurse to the rooms they had been given.
Over the next several years, she forgot almost everything her mother had taught her.
