Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [211]
“Who is it? Stand, show yourself!” The voice was low and harsh; Lancelet’s voice. Suddenly, for all her exultation, Morgaine was afraid; her Sight had shown truly, but what now? Lancelet’s hand had gone to his sword; he looked very tall and thin in the shadows.
“Morgaine,” she said softly, and he let his hand fall from his sword.
“Cousin, is it you?”
She came out of the shadows, and his face, keen and troubled, softened as he looked at her.
“So late? Did you come to seek me—is there trouble within? Arthur—the Queen—”
Even now he thinks only of the Queen, Morgaine thought, and felt it like a tingling in her fingertips and the calves of her legs, anger and excitement. She said, “No, all is well—as far as I know. I am not privy to the secrets of the royal bedchamber!”
He flushed, just a shadow on his face in the darkness, and looked away from her. She said, “I could not sleep . . . how is it you ask me what I am doing here when you yourself are not in your bed? Or has Arthur made you his night watchman?”
She could sense Lancelet smile. “No more than you. I was restless when all around me slept—I think perhaps the moon has gotten into my blood.”
It was the same phrase she had used to Elaine, and somehow it struck her as a good omen, a symbol that their minds worked in tune and that they responded one to the call of the other as a silent harp vibrates when a note on another is struck.
Lancelet went on, speaking softly into the darkness at her side, “I am restless these nights, thinking of so many nights of battle—”
“And you wish yourself back in battle like all soldiers?”
He sighed. “No. Although perhaps it is unworthy of a soldier to dream early and late of peace.”
“I do not think so,” Morgaine said softly. “For what do you make war, except that peace may come for all our people? If a soldier loves his trade overmuch, then he becomes no more than a weapon for killing. What else brought the Romans to our peaceful isle, but the love of conquest and battle for its own sake?”
Lancelet smiled. “Your father was one of those Romans, cousin. So was mine.”
“Yet I think more of the peaceful Tribes, who wanted no more than to till their barley crops in peace and worship the Goddess. I am of my mother’s people—and yours.”
“Aye, but those mighty heroes of old we spoke of before—Achilles, Alexander—they all felt war and battle the proper business of a man, and even now, in these islands, it has come to be that all men think of battle first and peace as no more than a quiet and womanly interlude.” He sighed. “These are heavy thoughts—it is no wonder sleep is far from us, Morgaine. Tonight I would give all the great weapons ever forged, and all the gallant songs of your Achilles and Alexanders for an apple from the branches of Avalon. . . .” He turned his head away. Morgaine slipped her hand within his own.
“So would I, cousin.”
“I do not know why I am homesick for Avalon—I did not live long there,” Lancelet said, musing. “And yet I think it is the fairest place on all earth—if indeed it is on this earth at all. The old Druid magic, I think, took it from this world, because it was all too fair for us imperfect men, and must be like a dream of Heaven, impossible . . .” He recalled himself with a little laugh. “My confessor would not like to hear me say these things!”
Morgaine chuckled, low. “Have you become a Christian then, Lance?”
“Not a good one, I fear,” he said. “Yet their faith seems to me so simple and good, I wish I could believe it—they say: believe what you have not seen, profess what you do not know, that is more virtuous than believing what you have seen. Even Jesus, they