Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [17]
She smiled at him now, gaily, and said, “No, not at all; I feel I could go on riding forever! But with so much mist, how do you know that we will not lose our way and never come to Londinium at all!”
“You need not fear that,” he said gravely. “My guides are very good, and they know every inch of the road. And before nightfall we will come to the old Roman road which leads into the very heart of the city. So we will sleep this night under a roof and in a proper bed.”
“I shall be glad to sleep again in a proper bed,” said Igraine demurely, and saw, as she had known she would see, the sudden heat rising in his face and eyes. But he turned his face away from her; it was almost as if he was afraid of her, and Igraine, having just discovered this power, delighted in it.
She rode on at his side, reflecting on the sudden kindness she felt for Gorlois, a kindness mixed with regret, as if he had become dear to her only now, when she knew she must lose him. One way or another, she knew her days at his side were numbered; and she remembered how she had first known that he would die.
She had had his messenger, warning her to prepare for his coming; he had sent one of his men, with suspicious eyes which peered everywhere, telling Igraine without words that if this man had had a young wife, he would have come home without warning, hoping to surprise some misconduct or extravagance. Igraine, knowing herself guiltless, her steward competent, her kitchen in order, had ignored the prying stares and bade the man welcome. Let him question her servants if he would, he would find that except for her sister and the Lord Merlin she had received no guests at Tintagel.
When the messenger had gone, Igraine, turning to cross the courtyard, had stopped, a shadow falling across her in full sunlight, stricken with causeless fear. And in that moment she saw Gorlois, wondering where was his horse, his entourage? He looked thinner and older, so that for a moment she hardly knew him, and his face was drawn and haggard. There was a sword cut on his cheek which she did not remember.
“My husband!” she cried. “Gorlois—” And then, stricken by the unspeakable grief in his face, she had forgotten her fear of him and the years of resentment, rushed toward him and spoken as she would have spoken to her child. “Oh, my dear, what has happened to you? What has brought you here like this, alone, unarmed—are you ill? Are you—” And then she stopped, her voice dying away among the echoes. For there was no one there, only the fitful light from clouds and sea and shadows, and the echo of her own voice.
She tried, all the rest of that day, to reassure herself that it was only a Sending, like the one that had warned her of Viviane’s coming. But she knew better: Gorlois had not the Sight, would not have used it or believed in it if he had had it. What she had seen—and she knew it even though she had never seen anything like it before—was her husband’s fetch, his double, the shadow and precursor of his death.
And when at last he arrived, whole and sound, she had tried to shrug away the memory, had told herself that it was only a trick of the light that made her see, behind him, the shadow she had seen, with the sword cut on his face and the unspeakable grief in his eyes. For Gorlois now was neither wounded nor disheartened; on the contrary, he was in high good humor, bringing gifts for her, and even a string of little coral beads for Morgaine. He had looked in the sacks of his Saxon plunder and given Morgause a red cloak.
“No doubt it belonged to some Saxon strumpet, some camp follower, or even one of the screaming swordswomen who fight alongside their men, half-naked on the field of war,” he said, laughing and chucking the girl under the chin, “so it is just as well