Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [20]
It is my imagination, I have let the words of the Merlin make me imagine foolish things, she told herself, and when Gorlois yawned and stretched, saying that he was weary from riding, she went quickly to help him take off his clothes.
She hardly slept in the strange bed, turning and tossing as she listened to Gorlois’s quiet breathing; now and again he reached out for her in his sleep, and she soothed him against her breast as she would have done with her child. Perhaps, she thought, the Merlin and the Lady were frightened by their own shadows, perhaps Gorlois will indeed have time to grow old in the sun. Perhaps before he slept he had indeed planted in her womb the seed of the son they said he would never father. But toward morning she fell into fitful sleep, dreaming of a world in the mist, of the shoreline of the Holy Isle receding further and further in the mists; it seemed to Igraine that she was rowing on a barge, heavy and exhausted, seeking for the Isle of Avalon where the Goddess, wearing Viviane’s face, was waiting to ask her how well she had done what was required of her. But although the shoreline was familiar, as were the groves of apple trees which had grown on the shore when she came up to the temple, a crucifix stood in the temple of her dream and a choir of the black-robed nuns of the Christians was singing one of their doleful hymns, and when she began to run, looking everywhere for her sister, the sound of church bells drowned out her cries. She woke with a stifled whimper, a sleeper’s scream, and sat up to hear the sound of church bells everywhere.
Gorlois sat up in bed beside her. “It is the church where Ambrosius goes to mass. Make haste to dress yourself, Igraine, and we will go together.”
While she was winding a woven silk girdle around her linen overdress, a strange serving-man knocked at the door, saying he would like to speak with the lady Igraine, wife of the Duke of Cornwall. Igraine went to the door and it seemed to her that she recognized the man. He bowed to her, and now she remembered that she had seen him, years ago, rowing Viviane’s barge. It made her remember her dream, and she felt cold inside.
“Your sister sends you this from the Merlin,” he said, “and bids you to wear it and remember your promise, no more.” He gave her a small parcel wrapped in silk.
“What is this, Igraine?” asked Gorlois, frowning, coming up behind her. “Who is sending you gifts? Do you recognize the messenger?”
“He is one of my sister’s men from the Isle of Avalon,” said Igraine, unwrapping the package; but Gorlois said sternly, “My wife does not receive gifts from messengers unknown to me,” and took it roughly from her. She opened her mouth in indignation, all her new tenderness for Gorlois vanishing in a single breath; how dared he?
“Why, it is the blue stone you wore when we were wedded,” Gorlois said, frowning. “What is this of a promise? How did your sister, if it is truly from her, come by the stone?”
Gathering her wits quickly, Igraine lied to him deliberately for the first time in her life. “When my sister visited me,” she said, “I gave her the stone and its chain to have the clasp put right; she knows of a goldsmith in Avalon who is better than any in Cornwall. And the promise she spoke of is that I will care better for my jewels, since I am now a grown woman and not a heedless child who cannot take proper care of precious things. May I have my necklace, my husband?”
He handed her the moonstone, frowning. “I have smiths in my employ who would have put it right for you without reading you a lesson your sister no longer has a right to give. Viviane takes too much upon herself; she may have stood in a mother’s place to you