Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [128]
“You must not talk this way, my child,” Viviane said, looking at her in astonishment. “You can hardly mean to be so insolent to me.”
If Viviane had responded to her words with arrogance, it would have hardened Morgaine’s anger into explosion; the gentleness baffled her. She said, “Viviane, why?” and felt, shamefully, that tears would rise again to choke her.
Now Viviane’s voice was cold. “Did I leave you for too long among the Christians, after all, with their talk of sin?” she said. “Think, child. You are of the royal line of Avalon; so too is he. Could I have given you to a commoner? Or, could the High King to come be so given?”
“And I believed you when you said—I believed it was the doing of the Goddess—”
“Why, so it was,” said Viviane gently, not understanding, “but even so, I could not give you to anyone unworthy of you, my Morgaine.” Her voice was tender. “He was so young when you parted—I thought he would never have recognized you. I regret that you recognized him, but after all, you would have had to know sooner or later. And he need not know for a long time.”
Morgaine said, tightening her body against rage, “He knows already. He knows. And he was more horrified, I think, than I was.”
Viviane sighed. “Well, there is nothing we can do about that now,” she said. “Done is done. And at this moment the hope of Britain is more important than your feelings.”
Morgaine turned away and did not wait to hear more.
17
The moon was dark in the sky; at this time, so the young priestesses were told in the House of Maidens, the Goddess veils her face from mankind, taking counsel of the heavens themselves and the Gods which lie behind the Gods we know. Viviane too kept seclusion at moon-dark, her privacy guarded by two young priestesses.
Most of that day she kept her bed, lying with closed eyes, and wondering if she was, after all, what Morgaine thought her—drunk with power, believing that all things were at her command to play with as she thought good.
What I have done, she thought, I have done to save this land and its people from rapine and destruction, a reversion to barbarism, a sacking greater than Rome suffered from of the Goths.
She longed to send for Morgaine, hungering for their old closeness. If indeed the girl came to hate her, it would be the heaviest price she would ever pay for anything she had done. Morgaine was the one human being she had ever wholly loved. She is the daughter I owed the Goddess. But, done is done and cannot be called back. The royal line of Avalon must not be contaminated by commoner blood. She thought of Morgaine with a sorrowful hope that one day the young woman would understand; but whether or no, Viviane knew she had done what she must, no more.
She slept little that night, sliding off into chaotic dreams and visions, thinking of the sons she had distanced from her, of the world outside into which the young Arthur had ridden at Merlin’s side; had he come in time to his dying father? For six weeks Uther Pendragon had lain ill in Caerleon, sinking, then rallying; but it seemed unlikely that he could live much longer.
As the dawn neared, she rose and dressed herself, so silently that neither of her attendant priestesses stirred. Did Morgaine sleep in the House of Maidens, or did she too lie awake with heavy heart, or weep? Morgaine had never wept before her, until that day when Kevin’s harp had stirred their hearts, and even then she had concealed her tears.
Done is done! I cannot spare her. But with all my heart I wish there had been some other way. . . .
She went out silently into the garden behind her dwelling. Birds were waking; apple blossoms, soft and sweet-scented, drifted from the trees which had given Avalon its name.
They will bear fruit in time to come, as what I do now will bear fruit in its own season. But I shall blossom nor bear fruit