Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [163]
Morgause nodded. But there was no need to frighten the child. She wiped her eyes with her kirtle.
Gareth looked upward and said, “Please, dear Goddess, bring my cousin Morgaine a strong son, so we can grow up and be knights together.”
Against her will, Morgause laughed and stroked the chubby cheek. “Such a prayer I am sure the Goddess will hear. Now I must go back to Morgaine.”
But she felt Lot’s eyes on her as she left the hall, and remembered what he had said to her earlier—that it might be better for them all if Morgaine’s son did not survive.
I shall be content if Morgaine comes alive through this, she thought, and almost for the first time, she regretted that she had learned so little of the great magics of Avalon, now, when she needed some charm or spell that could ease this struggle for Morgaine. It had gone so hard, so frightfully hard with the girl, her own childbed had been nothing to this. . . .
She came back into the women’s hall. The midwives had Morgaine kneeling upright in the straw now, to help the child slip from the womb; but she was slumping between them like a lifeless thing, so that two of them had to hold her upright. She was crying out now in gasps, then biting her lip against the cries, trying to be brave. Morgause went and knelt before Morgaine in the blood-flecked straw; she held out her hands, and Morgaine gripped them, looking at Morgause almost without recognition.
“Mother!” she cried out. “Mother, I knew you would come—”
Then her face convulsed again and she flung back her head, her mouth squared with unvoiced screams. Megan said, “Hold her, my lady—no, behind her like that, hold her upright—” and Morgause, gripping Morgaine beneath the arms, felt the girl shaking, retching, sobbing as she fought and struggled, blindly, to get away from them. She was no longer capable of helping them or even letting them do what they must, but screamed aloud when they touched her. Morgause shut her eyes, unwilling to see, holding Morgaine’s frail convulsing body with all her strength. She screamed again, “Mother! Mother!” but Morgaine did not know whether she was calling on Igraine or on the Goddess. Then she slumped backward into Morgaine’s arms, all but unconscious; there was the sharp smell of blood in the room, and Megan held up something dark and shrivelled-looking.
“Look, lady Morgaine,” she said, “you have a fine son—” then she bent over him, breathing into the little mouth. There was a sharp, outraged sound, the cry of a newborn shrieking with fury at the cold world into which he had come.
But Morgaine lay collapsed in Morgause’s arms, utterly exhausted, and could not even open her eyes to look at her child.
The babe had been washed and swaddled; Morgaine had swallowed a cup of hot milk with honey in it, and herbs against the bleeding, and now she lay drowsing, weary, not even stirring as Morgause bent to kiss her lightly on the brow.
She would live and heal, though Morgause had never seen a woman struggle so hard, and yet live, with a living child. And the midwife said that after all they had had to do to deliver this one alive, it was unlikely Morgaine would ever bear another. Which, Morgause thought, was just as well. She realized now that her own birthings, which had not been easy, had been nothing to this.
She picked up the swaddled child, looking down at the small features. He seemed to be breathing well enough, though sometimes, when a child did not cry at once and it was necessary to breathe into his mouth, the breathing would fail again later and he would die. But he was a healthy pink, even the tiny nails rosy. Dark hair, perfectly straight, dark, fine down on the small arms and legs—yes, this one was fairy-born, like Morgaine herself. It might indeed be Lancelet’s son, and so doubly near to Arthur’s throne.
The child should be given to a wet nurse at once . . . and then Morgause hesitated. No doubt, when she was a little rested, Morgaine would want to hold and suckle her