Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [100]
Morgaine felt herself blushing. She said low, reminding him, “I am a priestess like your mother—”
“Oh,” he said, “but you are as different from her as night from day. She is great and terrible and beautiful, and one can only love and adore and fear her, but you, I feel you are flesh and blood and still real, in spite of all these mysteries around you! You dress like a priestess, and you look like one of them, but when I look into your eyes I see a real woman there whom I could touch.” He was laughing and intense, and she thrust her hands into his, and laughed back at him.
“Oh, yes, I am real, as real as the ground under your feet or the birds in that tree. . . .”
They walked together down by the waterside, Morgaine leading him along a little path, carefully skirting the edges of the processional way.
“Is it a sacred place?” he asked. “Is it forbidden to climb the Tor unless you are a priestess or a Druid?”
“Only at the great festivals is it forbidden,” she said, “and you may certainly come with me. I may go where I will. There is no one on the Tor now except sheep grazing. Would you like to climb it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I remember once when I was a child I climbed it. I thought it was forbidden, and so I was sure that if anyone knew I had been there I would be punished. I still remember the view from the height. I wonder if it was as enormous as it seemed to me when I was a little lad.”
“We can climb the processional way, if you will. It is not so steep, because it winds round and round the Tor, but it is longer.”
“No,” he said. “I would like to climb straight up the slope—but"—he hesitated—"is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?”
She laughed and told him that she had climbed it often. “And as for the skirts, I am used to them,” she said, “but if they get into my way I will not hesitate to tuck them up above my knees.”
His smile was slow and delightful. “Most women I know would think themselves too modest to show their bare legs.”
Morgaine flushed. “I have never thought modesty had much to do with bared legs for climbing—surely men know that women have legs like their own. It cannot be so much of an offense of modesty to see what they must be able to imagine. I know some of the Christian priests speak so, but they seem to think the human body is the work of some devil, not of God, and that no one could possibly see a woman’s body without going all into a rage to possess it.”
He looked away from her, and she realized that beneath the outward assurance he was still shy, and that pleased her. Together they set off upward, Morgaine, who was strong and hardy from much running and walking, setting a pace which astonished him and which, after the first few moments, he found it difficult to match. About halfway up the slope Morgaine paused, and it was a definite satisfaction to her to hear him breathing hard when her own breath still came easily, unforced. She wound the loose folds of her skirt up around her waist, letting only a single drape hang to her knees, and went on along the steeper, rockier part of the slope. She had never before had the slightest hesitation in baring her legs, but now, when she knew he was looking at them, she could not keep from remembering that they were shapely and strong, and she wondered if he really thought her immodest after all. At the top, she climbed up over the rim of the hill and sat down in the shadow of the ring stones. A minute or two later he came over the edge behind her and flung himself down, panting.
When he could speak again, he said, “I suppose I have been riding too much and not walking and climbing enough! You, you are not even short of breath.”
“Well, but I am accustomed to coming up here, and I do not always stop to go round by the processional way,” she said.
“And on the priests’ Isle there is not even a shadow of the ring stones,” he said, and pointed.
“No,” she said. “In their world there is only their church and