Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [121]
He said in the dimness, drawing her close to him, “Since the God and the Goddess have known pleasure, should not the man and the woman know it also?” His hands were growing bolder, and she pulled him down to her. “It seems only fitting,” she said.
This time in full awareness she could savor it, the softness and hardness, the strong young hands and the surprising gentleness behind his bold approach. She laughed in delight at the unexpected pleasure, fully open to him, sensing his enjoyment as her own. She had never been so happy in her life. Spent, they lay, limbs twined, caressing each other in a pleasant fatigue.
At last, in the growing light, he sighed.
“They will be coming for me soon,” he said, “and there is much more of this—I am to be taken somewhere and given a sword, and many other things.” He sat up and smiled at her. “And I would like to wash, and have clothes befitting a civilized man, and free myself of all this blood and blue dye . . . how everything passes! Last night I did not even know I was all smeared with blood—look, you too are covered with the stag’s blood where I lay on you—”
“I think when they come for me, they will bathe me and give me fresh garments,” she said, “and you too, in a running stream.”
He sighed with a gentle, boyish melancholy. His voice was breaking, an uncertain baritone; how could he be so young, this young giant who had fought the King Stag and killed him with his flint knife?
“I do not suppose I will ever meet you again,” he said, “for you are a priestess and dedicated to the Goddess. But I want to say this to you—” and he leaned down and kissed her between her breasts. “You were the very first. No matter how many women I may have, for all my life I will always remember you and love you and bless you. I promise you that.”
There were tears on his cheek. Morgaine reached for her garment and tenderly dried the tears, cradling his head against her.
At the gesture he seemed to stop breathing.
“Your voice,” he whispered, “and what you just did—why do I seem to know you? Is it because you are the Goddess, and in her all women are the same? No—” He stiffened, raised himself, took her face between his hands. In the growing light she saw the boyish features strengthened into the lines of a man. Still only half aware of why she seemed to know him, she heard his hoarse cry. “Morgaine! You are Morgaine! Morgaine, my sister! Ah, God, Mary Virgin, what have we done?”
She put her hands up to her eyes, slowly. “My brother,” she whispered. “Ah, Goddess! Brother! Gwydion—”
“Arthur,” he muttered.
She held him tight, and after a moment he sobbed, still holding her. “No wonder it seemed to me that I have known you since before the world was made,” he said, weeping. “I have always loved you, and this—ah, God, what have we done—”
“Don’t cry,” she said, helplessly, “don’t cry. We are in the hands of her who brought us here. It doesn’t matter. We are not brother and sister here, we are man and woman before the Goddess, no more.”
And I never knew you again. My brother, my baby, the one who lay on my breast like a little child. Morgaine, Morgaine, I told you to take care of the baby, as she went away and left us, and he cried himself to sleep in my arms. And I did not know.
“It’s all right,” she said again, rocking him, “don’t cry, my brother, my beloved, my little one, don’t cry, it’s all right.”
But even as she soothed him, despair beat at her.
Why did you do this to us? Great Mother, Lady, why?
And she did not know whether she was calling to Viviane, or to the Goddess.
16
All the long road to Avalon, Morgaine lay in her litter, her head throbbing, and that question beating in her mind: Why? She was exhausted after the three days of fasting and the long day of ritual. She knew vaguely that the night’s feasting and lovemaking had been intended to release that force, and they would have done so, returning her to normal, except for the morning’s shock.
She knew herself well enough