Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [222]
Then it was as if a burning flame passed through her, like the fires of hell, that she might offer herself to Lancelet and he might say to her no. Then, surely, she would die of shame. She did not know how she could ever bear to look at Lancelet again, or at Arthur, or at any of her ladies who had never been so tempted. Even to the priests she would think it shame to speak about this, for they would know Arthur was less a Christian than he ought to be. How could she ever bear to go out of doors again, or to leave the safe, protected space of this very room and this very bed? Here, nothing wrong could come to her or harm her.
She did feel somewhat ill. Tomorrow she would tell her ladies that, and they would think only, as Lancelet would think, that she was overwearied with nursing Arthur night and day. She would continue to be, as she was always, a good and virtuous queen and a Christian woman—she could never even think of being anything else. Arthur was distressed from his wound and his long inactivity, that was all; when he was well and sound he could never think such a thing, and no doubt he would be grateful to her that she had not listened to his folly and had saved them both from a fearful sin.
But just as she was about to drop into an exhausted sleep, she remembered something that one of her women had said, long ago—it was a few days before Morgaine left the court. She had said that Morgaine should give her a charm. . . . Well, and so she should; if Morgaine enchanted her so that she had no choice but to love Lancelet, then she would be freed of that fearful choice. . . . When Morgaine returns, she thought, I will speak of it to her. But Morgaine had not been at court now for almost two years, and it might be that she would never return.
9
I grow too old for these journeys, Viviane thought as she rode through the late-winter rain, head bowed, her cloak wrapped tight around her body. And then resentment surged through her: This should now be Morgaine’s task, it is she who was to be Lady after me in Avalon.
Taliesin had told her, four years ago now, that Morgaine had been in Caerleon for Arthur’s wedding, and had been given to Gwenhwyfar for one of her ladies, and had tarried there. The Lady of the Lake, waiting-woman to a queen? How dared Morgaine forsake her true and appointed path in this way? And yet when she had sent a message to Caerleon with word that Morgaine should return to Avalon, the messenger had returned to say that Morgaine had left the court . . . they thought for Avalon.
But she is not in Avalon. Nor is she in Tintagel with Igraine, nor yet at the court of Lot in Orkney. Where then has she gone?
Some harm could have come to her on one of her solitary journeys. She might have been captured by one of the marauders or masterless men who throng the country—she might have lost her memory or have been raped, murdered, flung into a ditch somewhere and her bones never been found. . . . Oh no, Viviane thought, if harm had come to her, I would surely have seen it in the mirror . . . or with the Sight. . . .
Yet she could not be certain. The Sight was erratic in her now, and often when she sought to see beyond, nothing came but a maddening grey fog before her eyes, the veil of the unknown which she dared not try to pierce. And Morgaine’s fate was concealed somewhere within that veil.
Goddess, she prayed as she had done so often before, Mother, I have given you my life, bring back my child to me while I yet live . . . but even as she spoke, she knew that there would be no answer, only grey rain like the veil of the unknown, the answer of the Goddess hidden in the unyielding sky.
Had it wearied her so much as this when last she made this journey, half a year ago? It seemed now to her that she had always ridden, before this, as lightly as a girl, and now the jolting of her donkey seemed to rattle every bone in her thin body, while the cold crept into her and gnawed at her with little icy teeth.
One of her escort