Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [218]
“Shall we send, then, for the Lady Viviane?” Gwenhwyfar asked.
“Only if you have a wish to see the Lady,” said Arthur, with a sigh. “I think now, all I need is a greater share of that patience to which the bishop counselled me when I spoke last with him. God was good to me indeed, that I lay not thus disabled when the Saxons first came, and if he goes on showing me his grace, I will be able to ride when they come again. Gawaine is off gathering the men to the north, is he not, for Lot and Pellinore?”
“Aye.” Lancelet laughed. “He has told Pellinore that his dragon must wait till we have dealt with the white horse . . . he must bring all his men and come when we summon him. And Lot will come too, though he grows old—he will not let pass any chance that the kingdom might still go to his sons.”
It will go to his sons indeed, if I give Arthur no son, Gwenhwyfar thought; it seemed that every word anyone spoke, of whatever matter, was an arrow, a taunt aimed into her heart for failing the first duty of a queen. Arthur liked her well, they could have been happy, could she only have felt free for one moment of the guilt of her childlessness. Almost, for a time, she had welcomed this wound, for he could not think of lying with any woman, and there was no reproach to her; she could care for him and cosset him, have him to herself as a wife could so seldom do when her husband belonged not to her but to a kingdom. She could love him, and not think always of her guilt; when he touched her, think of their love, not only of her fear and her desperate hope, This time will he at last get me with child; and if he does, will it go well with me or will I cast forth the precious hope of the kingdom? She had cared for him, nursed him night and day as a mother nurses a sickly child, and when he began to grow strong she had sat beside him, talked to him, sung to him—though she had not Morgaine’s sweet voice for singing—gone herself to the kitchens and cooked for him such things as a sick man might be tempted to eat, so that he would put on flesh after the ghastly sickness and wasting away of the early summer.
Yet what good is all my care if I do not ensure that there will be an heir to his kingdom?
“I would that Kevin were here,” Arthur said. “I would like to hear some music—or Morgaine; we have no fitting minstrels at court now!”
“Kevin has gone back to Avalon,” Lancelet said. “The Merlin told me he had gone for some priestly doings there, so secret he could tell me no more—I wonder the priests allow these Druid mysteries to go on in a Christian land.”
Arthur shrugged. “I command no man’s conscience, King or no.”
Gwenhwyfar said sternly, “God will be worshipped as he wills, Arthur, not as men choose, and therefore he sent the Christ to us.”
“But he sent him not to this land,” Arthur said, “and when the holy Joseph came to Glastonbury, and thrust his staff there in the earth and it bloomed, then the Druids welcomed him and he did not scorn to share their worship.”
“Bishop Patricius says that is an evil and heretical tale,” Gwenhwyfar insisted, “and the priests who worship in common with the Druids should be stripped of their priesthood and driven forth as he drove the Druids themselves!”
“He will not do it during my time,” said Arthur firmly. “I have sworn my protection to Avalon.” He smiled and stretched out his hand to where the great sword Excalibur hung in its crimson-velvet scabbard. “And you have reason to be grateful for that magic, Gwenhwyfar—had I not had this scabbard about me, nothing could have saved me. Even as it was, I came near to bleeding to death, and only its magic stanched the bleeding. Would I not be worse than an ingrate if I betrayed