Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [204]
He took her hand in his, unable to express his own disappointment in the face of his wife’s pain. “Well, well, we must certainly get Morgaine to give you a charm,” he said; but he watched, his face momentarily setting into grim lines, as Meleas welcomed Griflet with a wifely kiss, holding her young swollen body proudly forward. “We are not yet old folk, my Gwenhwyfar.”
But, Gwenhwyfar thought, I am not so young either. Most of the women I know, save for Morgaine and Elaine who are yet unwedded, have great boys and girls by the time they are twenty; Igraine bore Morgaine when she was full fifteen, and Meleas is fourteen and a half, no more! She tried to look calm and unconcerned, but guilt gnawed within her. Whatever else a queen might do for her lord, her first duty was to give him a son, and she had not done that duty, though she had prayed till her knees ached.
“How does my dear lady?” Lancelet bowed before her, smiling, and she held him out her hand to kiss. “Once again we return home and find you only more beautiful than ever. You are the only lady whose beauty never fades. I begin to think God has ordered it so, that when all other women age and grow old and thick and worn, you shall be ever beautiful.”
She smiled at him and felt comforted. Perhaps it was just as well that she was not pregnant and ugly . . . she saw that he looked on Meleas with a faint scornful smile, and she felt that she could not bear to be ugly before Lancelet. Even Arthur looked shabby, as if he had slept in the same crumpled tunic all through the campaign, and wrapped himself, in mud and rain and weather, in his fine, much-worn cloak; but Lancelet looked as crisp and new, his cloak and tunic as well brushed, as if he had dressed himself for an Easter feast—his hair trimmed and combed smooth, his leather belt polished, and even the eagle feathers in his cap standing up dry and unwilted. He looked, Gwenhwyfar thought, more like a king than Arthur himself did.
As the serving-maidens carried round platters of meat and bread, Arthur drew Gwenhwyfar to his side.
“Come sit here between Lancelet and me, Gwen, and we will talk—it seems long since I heard a voice that was not rough and male, or smelled the scent of a woman’s gown.” He passed his hand over her braid. “Come you too, Morgaine, and sit by me—I am weary of campaigning, I want to hear small gossip, not the talk of the camp!” He bit into a chunk of bread with eager hunger. “And it is good to eat new-baked bread; I am tired of hard-baked army bread, and meat gone bad by keeping!”
Lancelet had turned to smile at Morgaine.
“And you, how is it with you, kinswoman? I suppose there is no news from the Summer Country, or from Avalon? There is another here who is eager to hear it, if there is—my brother Balan rode with us.”
“I have no news from Avalon,” said Morgaine, feeling Gwenhwyfar watching her—or was she looking at Lancelet? “But I have not seen Balan for many years—I suppose he would have later news than mine?”
“He is there,” Lancelet said, gesturing toward the men in the hall. “Arthur bid him to dine here as my kinsman, and it would be a kindness in you, Morgaine, to take him a cup of wine from the high table. Like all men, he too is eager for a welcome from some woman, even if it be a kinswoman and not a sweetheart.”
Morgaine took one of the drinking cups, horn bound with wood, that sat on the high table, and beckoned a servant to pour wine into it; then she raised it between her hands and went around the table among the knights. She was pleasantly conscious of their regard, even though she knew they would look like this at any well-bred, finely dressed woman after so many months of campaign; it was not a particular compliment to her beauty. At least Balan, who was a cousin, almost a brother, would not eye her so hungrily.
“I greet you, kinsman. Lancelet, your brother, sent you some wine from the King’s table.”
“I beg you to sip it first, lady,” he said, then blinked. “Morgaine, is it you? I hardly knew you, you have grown so fine.