Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [170]
Only now she felt guilty; had she not been overquick to send her daughter away, so that she might give all her thought to Uther and his children? Against her will, an old saying of Avalon rang in Igraine’s mind: the Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them . . . in sending her own children away, one to fosterage (for his own safety, she reminded herself, remembering Arthur lying white as death after the fall from the stallion) and the other to Avalon—in sending them away, had she herself sown the seed of loss? Was the Goddess unwilling to give her another child when she had let the first go so willingly? She had discussed this with her confessor, more than once, and he had reassured her that it was just as well to send Arthur away, every boy must go for fostering sooner or later; but, he said, she should not have sent Morgaine to Avalon. If the child was unhappy in Uther’s court, she should have been sent to school in a nunnery somewhere.
She had thought, after hearing that Morgaine was not in Avalon, of sending a messenger to King Lot’s court, to find out if she was there; but then the winter settled in in earnest, and every day was a new battle against cold, chilblains, the vicious dampness everywhere; even the sisters went hungry in the depths of winter, sharing what food they had with beggars and peasants.
And once in the hard weeks of winter, she thought she heard Morgaine’s voice, crying—crying out for her in anguish: “Mother! Mother!” Morgaine, alone and terrified—Morgaine dying? Where, ah God, where? Her fingers clenched the cross which, like all the sisters of the convent, she wore at her belt. Lord Jesus, keep and guard her, Mary, Mother divine, even if she is a sinner and a sorceress . . . pity her, Jesus, as you pitied the dame of Magdala who was worse than she. . . .
In dismay, she realized that a tear had dripped down on the fine work she was doing; it might spot the work. She wiped her eyes with her linen veil and held the embroidery frame further away, narrowing her eyes to see better—ah, she was getting old, her sight blurred a little from time to time; or was it tears that blurred her vision?
She bent resolutely over her embroidery again, but Morgaine’s face seemed again to be before her, and she could hear in her imagination that despairing shriek, as if Morgaine’s soul were being torn from her body. She herself had cried out like that, for the mother she could hardly remember, when Morgaine was born . . . did all women in childbirth cry out for their mothers? Terror gripped her. Morgaine in that desperate winter, giving birth somewhere . . . Morgause had made some such jest at Arthur’s crowning, saying Morgaine was as squeamish with her food as a breeding woman. Against her will, Igraine found herself counting on her fingers; yes, if it had been so with her, Morgaine would have borne her child in the dead of winter. And now, even in that soft spring, she seemed to hear again that cry; she longed to go to her daughter, but where, where?
There was a step behind her and a tentative cough, and one of the young girls fostered in the nunnery said, “Lady, there are visitors for you in the outer room; one of them is a churchman, the Archbishop himself!”
Igraine put her embroidery aside. After all, it was not spotted; all the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world, she thought in bitterness. “Why does the Archbishop, of all men living, wish