Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [184]
The Merlin looked at her sharply; his old eyes were as seeing as ever. “Oh, it is like that, is it? I have always thought our Lancelet had too much good looks and charm for his own welfare. Yet he is an honorable lad, after all; it may be nothing but youthful fancies, and when the bridal pair are wedded and bedded, they will forget it, or think of it only with a little sadness, as something that might have been.”
“In nine cases out of ten, I would say you were right,” Igraine said, “but you have not seen them, and I have.”
The Merlin sighed again. “Igraine, Igraine, I do not say you are wrong, but when all’s done, what can we do about it? Leodegranz would find it such an insult that he would go to war against Arthur, and Arthur has already enough to challenge his kingship—or have you not heard of yonder northern king who sent word to Arthur that he had skinned the beards of eleven kings to make himself a cloak, and Arthur should send him tribute or he would come and take Arthur’s beard too?”
“What did Arthur do?”
The Merlin said, “Why, he sent the older king word that as for his beard, it was scarce grown yet, and it would do him no good for his cloak; but that if he wanted it, he could come and try to take it, if he could find his way through the bodies of dead Saxons. And he sent him the head of one of the Saxons—he had just come back from a raiding party—and said its beard was better for lining a cloak than the beard of a friend at whose side he would rather be fighting. And finally he said he would send a fellow king a present, but he exacted no tribute from his friends, and paid none. So that all came to nothing; but as you can see, Arthur cannot afford more enemies, and Leodegranz would be a bad one. He’d better marry the girl, and I think I would say the same even if he’d found her in bed with Lancelet—which he hasn’t and isn’t likely to.”
Igraine discovered that she was twisting her hands together. “What shall we do?”
The Merlin touched her cheek, very lightly. “We will do what we have always done, Igraine—what we must, what the Gods order. We will do the best we can. We are none of us embarked on this course for our own happiness, my child. You, who were reared in Avalon, you know that. Whatever we may do to try and shape our destiny, the end is with the Gods—or, as the bishop would no doubt prefer me to say, with God. The older I grow, the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”
“The Lady would not be pleased to hear you speak such words,” said a dark, thin-faced man behind him, in dark robes which could have been those of a priest or a Druid. Taliesin turned half round and smiled.
“Nevertheless, Viviane knows they are true, as I do. . . . Igraine, I do not think you know our newest of chief bards—I have brought him hither to sing and play for Arthur’s wedding. Kevin, madam.”
Kevin bowed low. Igraine noticed that he walked leaning on a carven stick; his harp in its case was carried by a boy of twelve or thirteen. Many bards or harpers who were not Druids were blind or lamed—it was rare that any able-bodied lad would be given time and leisure to learn such arts, in these days of war—but usually the Druids chose among those who were sound of body as well as being keen of mind. It was rare for a man with any deformity to be allowed into the Druid teachings—it was felt that the Gods marked inner faults in this way. But it would have been inexcusably rude to speak of this; she could only imagine that his gifts were so great that he had been accepted in despite of all else.
He had diverted her mind from her purpose, but when she thought back, Taliesin was right. There was no way to stop this wedding without scandal and probably war. Inside the wattle-and-daub building that was the church, lights blazed and the bell had begun to ring. Igraine walked into the church. Taliesin knelt stiffly down; so did the boy carrying Kevin’s harp, but Kevin himself did not kneel—for a moment Igraine wondered if, not being a Christian, he was defying