Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [160]
“Sing again,” Gareth teased, but she shook her head.
“I am too short of breath now for singing,” she said. She put the harp down and took up her spindle, but after a moment or two put it aside and once more began pacing the hall.
“What ails you, girl?” Lot asked. “You’re restless as a caged bear!”
“My back aches with sitting,” she said, “and that meat my aunt would have me eat has given me a bellyache after all.” She held her hands again to her back and bent over suddenly as if with a cramp; then, suddenly, she gave a startled cry, and Morgause, watching, saw the too-long kirtle turn dark and wet, soaking her to the knees.
“Oh, Morgaine, you’ve wet yourself,” Gareth cried out. “You’re too big to wet your clothes—my nurse would beat me for that!”
“Hush, Gareth!” Morgause said sharply, and hurried to Morgaine, who stood bent over, her face crimson with astonishment and shame.
“It’s all right, Morgaine,” she said, taking her by the arm. “Does it hurt you here—and here? I thought as much. You are in labor, that is all, didn’t you know?” But how should the girl know? It was her first, and she was never one for listening to women’s gossip, so she would not know the signs. For much of this day she must have been feeling the first pains. She called Beth and said, “Take the Duchess of Cornwall to the women’s hall and call Megan and Branwen. And take down her hair; she must have nothing knotted or bound about her or her clothing.” She added, stroking Morgaine’s hair, “I would that I had known this sooner this day when I braided your hair—I will come down soon and stay with you, Morgaine.”
She watched the girl go out, leaning heavily on the nurse’s arm. She said to Lot, “I must go and stay with her. It is her first time, and she will be frightened, poor girl.”
“There’s no hurry,” Lot said idly. “If it’s her first, she’ll be in labor all this night, and you’ll have time to hold her hand.” He gave his wife a good-natured smile. “You are quick to bring our Gawaine’s rival into the world!”
“What do you mean?” she asked, low.
“Only this—that Arthur and Morgaine were born of one womb, and her son stands nearer the throne than ours.”
“Arthur is young,” Morgause said coldly, “and has time enough to father a dozen sons. Why should you think he has need of an heir?”
Lot shrugged. “Fate is fickle,” he said. “Arthur bears a charmed life in battle—and I doubt not that the Lady of the Lake had something to do with that, damn her—and Gawaine is all too loyal to his king. But fate may turn away from Arthur, and if that day should come, I would like to know that Gawaine stood closest to the throne. Think well, Morgause; the life of an infant is uncertain. You might do well to beseech your Goddess that the little Duke of Cornwall should not draw a second breath.”
“How could I do that to Morgaine? She is like my own daughter!”
Lot chucked his wife affectionately under the chin. He said, “You are a loving mother, Morgause, and I wouldn’t have you otherwise. But I doubt if Morgaine is so eager to have a child in her arms. I have heard her say that she wished she had cast forth her child—”
“She was ill and weary,” said Morgause angrily. “Do you think I did not say as much, when I was weary of dragging around a great belly? Any woman says such things in the last few moons of her pregnancy.”
“Still, if Morgaine’s child should be born without breath, I do not think she would grieve overmuch. Nor—this is what I am saying—should you.”
Morgause defended her kinswoman: “She is good to our Gareth, she has made him toys and playthings and told him tales. I am sure she will be just as good a mother to her own.”
“Yet, it is not to our interest or our son’s that Morgaine should think of her son as Arthur’s heir.” He put his arm around his wife. “Look, sweeting, you and I have four sons, and no doubt when they’re all grown, they’ll be at one another’s throats—Lothian is not so big a kingdom as all that! But if Gawaine were High King, then there would be kingdoms enough for them all.”
She nodded