Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [177]
They slept that night in a tent pitched on a carefully chosen dry spot, listening to the winds and the rain moaning and pelting down. Igraine woke once in the night to hear Gwenhwyfar whimper.
“What is the matter, child? Are you sick?”
“No—lady, do you think Arthur will like me?”
“There is no reason he should not,” Igraine said gently. “You certainly know you are beautiful.”
“Am I?” In her soft voice, it sounded only naïve, not the self-conscious or coy plea for compliment or reassurance that it would have been in another. “Lady Alienor said my nose was too big, and that I had freckles like a cowherd.”
“Lady Alienor—” Igraine reminded herself to be charitable; Alienor was not much older than Gwenhwyfar, and had borne four children in six years. “I think perhaps she is a little shortsighted. You are lovely indeed. You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.”
“I don’t think Arthur cares for beauty,” Gwenhwyfar said. “He did not even send to inquire if I were cross-eyed or one-legged or had a squint or a harelip.”
“Gwenhwyfar,” said Igraine gently, “every woman is wedded for her dowry, but a High King, too, must marry as his councillors bid him. Do you not think he is lying wakeful of nights, wondering what fortune the lottery has cast him, and that he will not greet you with gratitude and joy because you bring him beauty and good temper and learning as well? He was resigned to taking whatever he must, but he will be all the happier when he discovers that you are not—what was it?—harelipped or pockmarked or cross-eyed. He is young, and has not much experience with women. And Lancelet, I am sure, has told him that you are beautiful and virtuous.”
Gwenhwyfar let out her breath. “Lancelet is Arthur’s cousin, is he not?”
“True. He is son to Ban of Benwick by my sister, who is the Great Priestess of Avalon. He was born in the Great Marriage—know you anything of that? In Less Britain, some of the people call for the old pagan rites,” Igraine said. “Even Uther, when he was made High King, was taken to Dragon Island and crowned by the old rites there, though they did not demand of him that he marry the land; in Britain, that is done by the Merlin, so that he is sacrifice for the King if need be. . . .”
Gwenhwyfar said, “I did not know these old pagan rites were still known in Britain. Was—was Arthur crowned so?”
“If he was,” said Igraine, “he has not told me. Perhaps by now things have changed, and he is content that the Merlin should be only his chiefest of councillors.”
“Do you know the Merlin, lady?”
“He is my father.”
“Is it so?” Gwenhwyfar stared at her in the dark. “Lady, is it true that when Uther Pendragon came to you before you were wedded to him, he came to you by the Merlin’s arts in the magical disguise of Gorlois, so that you lay with him thinking he was Duke of Cornwall and you still a chaste and faithful wife?”
Igraine blinked; she had heard rumors of tales that she had borne Uther’s son with unseemly haste, but this story she had never heard. “They say that?”
“Sometimes, lady. There are bards’ tales about it.”
“Well, it is not true,” said Igraine. “He wore Gorlois’s cloak and bore Gorlois’s ring which he had taken when they fought—Gorlois was traitor to his High King and his life forfeit. But whatever tales they tell, I knew perfectly well that it was Uther and no other.” Her throat closed; even now, it seemed only as if Uther were still alive somewhere, away on campaign.
“You loved Uther? It was not, then, the Merlin’s magic?”
“No,” Igraine said, “I loved him well, though I think at first