Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [175]
“I am grateful that you came to escort me, lady—”
Igraine smiled. “I am all too worldly—I like a chance to travel beyond convent walls.” She made a long step to avoid a pile of horse dung which steamed in the mud. “Mind your step, there, child—look, your father has set aside these two fine ponies for us. Do you like riding?”
Gwenhwyfar shook her head, and whispered, “I thought I could ride in a litter—”
“Why, so you can, if you wish,” Igraine said, looking at her wonderingly, “but you will grow very weary of it, I should think. When my sister Viviane went on her travels, she used to wear men’s breeches. I should have found you a pair, though at my age it would hardly be seemly.”
Gwenhwyfar blushed scarlet. “I couldn’t,” she said, shaking, “it’s forbidden for a woman to put on the clothes of a man, so it says in Holy Writ—”
Igraine chuckled. “The Apostle seemed to know little of the North country. It is hot where he lived,” she said, “and I have heard that the men in that country where our Lord lived knew nothing of breeches, but wore long gowns as some Roman men did and do still. I think it meant only that women were not to wear the garb of some particular man, not that they were not to wear clothing fashioned in a man’s style. And certainly my sister Viviane is the most modest of women; she is a priestess of Avalon.”
Gwenhwyfar’s eyes were wide. “Is she a witch, madam?”
“No, no, she is a wise-woman, learned in herbs and medicines, and having the Sight, but she has sworn a vow never to hurt man nor beast. She does not even eat flesh food,” Igraine said. “She lives as austerely as any abbess. Look,” she said, and pointed, “there is Lancelet, Arthur’s chief Companion. He has come to escort us, and to bring back the horses and men—”
Gwenhwyfar smiled, feeling a blush spread to her cheeks. She said, “I know Lancelet, he came to show my father what he could do with the horses.”
Igraine said, “Aye; he rides like one of those centaurs the ancients used to speak of, half horse and half man!”
Lancelet swung down from his horse. His cheeks were as crimson with the cold as the Roman cloak he wore; the collar was turned high around his face. He bowed to the ladies.
“Madam,” he said to Igraine, “are you ready to ride?”
“I think so. The princess’s luggage is already loaded on that cart, I think,” Igraine said, looking at the bulky wagon loaded high and covered with skins: a bed frame and furnishings, a great carved chest, a large and a small loom, pots and kettles.
“Aye. I hope it does not get mired in all this mud,” Lancelet said, looking at the yoke of oxen hauling it. “It is not that wagon I am worried about, but the other—the king’s wedding gift to Arthur,” he added, without enthusiasm, looking at the second, much larger cart. “I would have thought it better to have a table built for the King’s house in Caerleon, if Uther had not left tables and furniture enough—not that I begrudge my lady her bride furniture,” he added, with a quick smile at Gwenhwyfar that made her cheeks glow, “but a table, as if my Lord Arthur had not enough furniture for his hall?”
“Ah, but that table is one of my father’s treasures,” said Gwenhwyfar. “It was a prize of war from one of the kings of Tara, where my grandsire fought him and carried off his best mead-hall table . . . it is round, you see, so a bard can sit at the center to sing to them, or the servants pass round to pour wine or beer. And when he entertained his fellow kings he need not set one higher than another . . . so my father thought it fitting for a High King, who must also seat his well-born Companions without preferring one above the other.”
“It is truly a king’s gift,” Lancelet said politely, “but it takes three yoke of oxen to haul it, lady, and God alone knows how many joiners and carpenters to put it together again when we have come there, so that instead of travelling at the pace of a company of horse we must plod