Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [207]
“You say that, when you were yourself fostered as Lancelet of the Lake?” she asked quietly, and Lancelet turned round to her. He said, “There are times when that seems unreal to me—is it not so for you, sister?”
She said, “It is true indeed, but at times I am homesick for Avalon. . . .”
“Aye, and I too, kinswoman,” he said. Never since that night of Arthur’s marriage, by word or look had he implied that he had ever felt anything more for her than for a childhood companion and foster-sister. She had thought she had long accepted the pain of that, but it struck her anew as his dark, beautiful eyes met hers in such kindness.
Soon or late, it must seem even as Balan said: we are both unmarried, the King’s sister and his best friend. . . .
Arthur said, “Well, when the Saxons are driven away for good—and do not laugh as if that were a fabulous event! It can be done, now, and I think they know it—then I shall build myself a castle, and a great hall big enough for even this table. I have already chosen the site—it is a hill fort which was there long before Roman times, looking down on the Lake itself, and near to your father’s island kingdom, Gwenhwyfar. You know the place, where the river flows into the Lake—”
“I know,” she said. “When I was a small child I went there one day to pick strawberries. There was an old ruined well, and we found elf bolts there. The old folk who lived on the chalk had left their arrows.” How strange, Gwenhwyfar thought, to remember that there had been a time when she had liked to go abroad under the wide, high sky, not even caring whether there was a wall or the safety of an enclosure; and now she grew sick and dizzy if she went out from the walls, where she could not see or touch them. Sometimes now she felt the lump of fear in her belly even when she walked across the courtyard, and had to hurry to touch the safety of the wall again.
“It is an easy place to fortify,” Arthur said, “though I hope, when we are done with the Saxons, we may have leisure and peace in this island.”
“An ignoble wish for a warrior, brother,” said Cai. “What will you do in time of peace?”
“I will call Kevin the Bard to make songs, and I will break my own horses and ride them for pleasure,” Arthur said. “My Companions and I will raise our sons without putting a sword in every little hand before it is full grown to manhood! And I need not fear they will be lamed or slain before they are full grown. Cai—would it not be better if you need not have been sent to war before you were old enough to guard yourself? Sometimes I feel it wrong that it was you, not I, who was lamed, because Ectorius wanted me kept safe for Uther!” He looked with concern and affection at his foster-brother, and Cai grinned back at him.
“And,” said Lancelet, “we will keep the arts of war alive by holding games, as they did in the days of the ancients, and crown the winner of the games with laurel wreaths—what is laurel, Arthur, and does it grow in these islands? Or is it only in the land of Achilles and Alexander?”
“The Merlin could tell you that,” Morgaine said, when Arthur looked perplexed. “I know not either, but whether or no we have laurel, there are plants enough to make wreaths for the victors at your games.”
“And we will give garlands to harpers too,” Lancelet said. “Sing, Morgaine.”
“I had better sing for you now,” Morgaine said, “for I do not suppose, when you men hold your games, you will let women sing.” She took up the harp and began to play. She was sitting nearly where she had been sitting this afternoon when she saw blood spilled forth on the King’s hearth . . . would it truly come to pass, or was it fantasy? Why, indeed, should she think she still possessed the Sight? It never came upon her now save in these unwelcome trances. . . .
She began to sing