Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [201]
Gwenhwyfar chuckled. “True. He has a tongue near as waspish as your own, and no sweet temper—his wife will need more patience than the saintly Brigid, and you, Morgaine, are ever ready with a sharp answer.”
“And besides, if she should marry, she would have to spin for her household,” Meleas said. “As usual, Morgaine is shirking her share of the spinning!” Her own spindle began to twirl again, and the reel sank slowly toward the floor.
Morgaine shrugged. “It is true I had rather card wool, but there is no more to card,” she said, and reluctantly took up the drop spindle.
“You are the best spinner among us, though,” said Gwenhwyfar. “Your thread is always even and never breaks. Mine breaks if one looks at it.”
“I have always been neat-handed. Perhaps I am simply tired of spinning, since my mother taught me when I was so young,” Morgaine conceded, and began, reluctantly, to turn the thread in her fingers.
True—she hated spinning and shirked it when she could . . . twisting, turning the thread in her fingers, willing her body to stillness with only her fingers twisting as the reel turned and turned, sinking to the floor . . . down and then up, twist and twist between her hands . . . all too easy it was to sink into trance. The women were gossiping over the little affairs of the day, Meleas and her morning sickness, a woman who had come from Lot’s court with scandalous tales of Lot’s lechery . . . I could tell them much if I would, not even his wife’s niece escaped his lecherous hands. . . . It took me all my thought and sharp tongue to keep out of his bed; he cares not, maiden or matron, duchess or dairy maid, so it wears a skirt . . . twist the thread, twist again, watch the spindle turning, turning. Gwydion must be a great boy by now, three years old, ready for a toy sword and wooden knights such as she had made for Gareth, instead of pet kittens and knucklebones. She remembered Arthur’s weight on her lap when she was a little girl here at Caerleon in Uther’s court . . . how fortunate it was that Gwydion did not resemble his father; a small replica of Arthur at Lot’s court would have made tongues wag indeed. Soon or late, someone would still put together reel and spindle and spin the right thread to the answer. . . . Morgaine jerked her head up angrily. It was all too easy to fall into trance at the spinning, but she must do her share, there must be thread to weave this winter, and the ladies were making a cloth for banquets. . . . Cai was not the only man under fifty in the castle; there was Kevin the Bard, who had come here with news from the Summer Country . . . how slowly the spindle moved toward the floor . . . twist, twist the thread, as if her fingers had life of their own, apart from her own life . . . even in Avalon she had hated to spin . . . in Avalon among the priestesses she had tried to take more than her share of the work among the dye pots, to avoid the hated spinning, which sent her mind roaming as her fingers moved . . . as the thread turned, it was like the spiral dance along the Tor, round and round, as the world turned round the sun in the sky, though ignorant folk thought it was the other way. . . . Things were not always as they seemed, it might be that the reel went round the thread, as the thread went round itself over and over, spinning like a serpent . . . like a dragon in the sky . . . if she were a man and could ride out with the Caerleon legion, at least she need not sit and spin, spin, spin, round and round . . . but even the Caerleon legion went round the Saxons, and the Saxons went round them, round and round, as the blood went round in their veins, red blood flooding, flooding . . . spilling over the hearth—
Morgaine heard her own shriek only after it had shattered the silence in the room. She dropped the spindle, which rolled away into the blood which flooded crimson, spilling, spurting over the hearth. . . .
“Morgaine! Sister, did you prick your hand on the reel? What ails you?”
“Blood on the hearth—” Morgaine stammered. “See, there, there, just