Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [110]
The Merlin bowed his head; he too lived under that law. “When that time comes, you will know; it is not yet, Viviane.”
“No,” she said, struggling against the sudden despair which had come, as it sometimes did now, a heat in her body, a torment in her mind, “when it comes, when I can no longer see what lies ahead, then I will know it is time to give over the rulership of Avalon to another. Morgaine is still young, and Raven, whom I love well, has given herself to silence and the voice of the Goddess. It has not yet come; but if it comes too soon—”
“Whenever it comes, Viviane, that will be the right time,” the Merlin said. He stood up, tall and unsteady, and Viviane saw that he leaned heavily on his stick. “I will bring the boy to Dragon Island then, at the spring thaw, and we will see whether he is ready to be made king. And then you will give him the sword and the cup, in token that there is an eternal link between Avalon and the world outside—”
“The sword, at least,” Viviane said. “The cup—I do not know.”
The Merlin bowed his head. “That I leave to your wisdom. You, not I, are the voice of the Goddess. Yet you will not be the Goddess for him—”
Viviane shook her head. “He will meet the Mother when he is triumphant,” she said, “and from her hand he will take the sword of victory. But first he must prove his own, and must meet first with the Maiden Huntress. . . .” A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “And no matter what happens after that,” she said, “we will take no such chance as we did with Uther and Igraine. We shall make certain of the royal blood, whatever comes of it later.”
When the Merlin had gone away, she sat for a long time, watching pictures in the fire, seeing into the past alone, not seeking to look through the mist of time toward the future.
She too, years ago, so many years that she could not now remember how many, had laid down her maidenhood to the Horned God, the Great Hunter, the Lord of the living spiral dance. She hardly spared a thought for the virgin who would take this part in the kingmaking which was to come, but she let her mind stray into the past, and the other times she had played the part of the Goddess in the Great Marriage . . .
. . . never had it been more to her than duty; sometimes pleasant, sometimes distasteful, but always bidden, possessed by the Great Mother who had ruled her life since first she had come here. Suddenly she envied Igraine, and a detached part of her mind wondered why she envied a woman who had lost all her children to death or fosterage, and now was to suffer widowhood and end her life behind convent walls.
What I envy her is the love she has known. . . . I have no daughters, my sons are strangers and alien to me. . . . I have never loved, she thought. Nor have I known what it is to be loved. Fear, awe, reverence . . . these have been given me. Never love. And there are times when I think I would give it all for one look from any human being such as Uther gave Igraine at their wedding.
She sighed bleakly, repeating half aloud what the Merlin had said. “Well, there is no use fretting after last year’s snowfall.” She raised her head, and her attendant came on noiseless feet.
“Lady—?”
“Bring me—no,” she said, changing her mind abruptly; let the girl sleep. It is not true that I have never loved or been loved. I love Morgaine beyond all measuring, and she loves me.
Now that, too, might come to an end. But that too must be as the Goddess willed it.
14
The palest splinter of new moon stood to the west of Avalon. Morgaine paced slowly upward, her bare feet treading out the spiral pathway, noiseless and pale as the virgin moon. Her hair was unbound, her single garment uncinctured. She knew that guards and priestesses watched her, silent, lest some unauthorized person disturb her silence with an unconsecrated word. Behind the dark curtain of her hair, her eyelids were lowered. She moved unerringly on the path, without need for sight. Raven moved