Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [159]
Morgause took a slice of oatcake and sopped it in the meat juice in the dish. “Eat this, then—you will get the good of the meat so,” she said, “and I have made you some tea with the hips of roses; it is sour and will taste good to you. I remember how I craved sour things when I was breeding.”
Morgaine ate obediently, and it seemed to Morgause that a little color came into her face. She made a face at the sourness of the drink, but drank it down thirstily nonetheless. “I do not like it,” she said, “but how strange, I cannot stop drinking it.”
“Your child craves it,” said Morgause seriously. “Babes in the womb know what is good for them, and they demand it of us.”
Lot, sitting at his ease between two of his huntsmen, smiled amiably at his sister-in-law. “An old skinny animal, but a good dinner for late winter,” he said, “and I’m just as glad we didn’t get a breeding doe. We saw two or three of them, but I told my men to let them be, and even called off the dogs—I want the deer to drop their fawns in peace, and I could see that time is near, so many of them were heavy.” He yawned, taking up small Gareth, whose face was greasy and shining with the meat. “Soon you’ll be big enough to go hunting with us,” he said. “You and the little Duke of Cornwall, no doubt.”
“Who is the Duke of Cornwall, Father?” Gareth asked.
“Why, the babe Morgaine carries,” Lot replied, smiling, and Gareth stared at Morgaine. “I don’t see any baby. Where is your baby, Morgaine?”
Morgaine chuckled uneasily. “Next month at this time I shall show him to you.”
“Will the spring maiden bring it to you?”
“You could say so,” Morgaine said, smiling despite herself.
“How can a baby be a duke?”
“My father was Duke of Cornwall. I am his only child in marriage. When Arthur came to reign, he gave Tintagel back to Igraine; it will pass from her to me and to my sons, if I have any.”
Morgause, looking at the young woman, thought: Her son stands nearer the throne than my own Gawaine. I am full sister to Igraine, and Viviane but her half-sister, so Gawaine is nearer kin than Lancelet. But Morgaine’s son will be Arthur’s nephew. I wonder if Morgaine has thought of that?
“Certainly, then, Morgaine, your son is Duke of Cornwall—”
“Or Duchess,” said Morgaine, smiling again.
“No, I can tell by the way you carry, low and broad, that it will be a son,” said Morgause. “I have borne four, and I have watched my women through pregnancies. . . .” She grinned maliciously at Lot and said, “My husband takes very seriously that old writing which says that a king should be father to his people!”
Lot said good-naturedly, “I think it only right for my true-born sons by my queen to have many foster-brothers; bare is back, they say, without brother, and my sons are many. . . . Come, kinswoman, will you take the harp and sing for us?”
Morgaine pushed aside the remnant of gravy-soaked oatcake. “I have eaten too much for singing,” she said, frowning, and began to pace the hall again, and Morgause again saw her hands pressed to her back. Gareth came and tugged at her skirt.
“Sing to me. Sing me that song about the dragon, Morgaine.”
“It is too long for tonight—you must be away to your bed,” she said, but she went to the corner, took up the small harp that stood there, and sat on a bench. She plucked a few notes at random, bent to adjust one of the strings, then broke into a rowdy drinking song of the armies.
Lot joined in the chorus, as did his men, their raucous voices ringing up to the smoky beams:
“The Saxons came in dark of night,
With all the folk asleep,
They killed off all the women, for—
They’d rather rape the sheep!”
“You never learned that song in Avalon, kinswoman,” Lot