Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [227]
“Ah, you loved her too,” he said. “Don’t trouble yourself about Balin, Lady, he will regain his reason in time. When he can think clear again, he’ll know that what you did was great mercy to our mother—” He broke off, slow red creeping up his heavy jowls. “Are you angry with me, Lady, that still I think of my mother as she who died but now?”
“It is no more than reason,” said Viviane, sipping at the hot wine, and caressing her son’s hardened hand. Once, she thought, it had been so little and tender that she could enfold it within her own, like a curled rosebud, and now her own hand was quite lost within his. “The Goddess knows, she was more mother to you than ever I was.”
“Aye, I should have known that you would understand that,” said Balan. “Morgaine said as much to me when I saw her last at Arthur’s court.”
“Morgaine? Is she at Arthur’s court now, my son? Was she there when you came away?”
Balan shook his head regretfully. “No, I saw her last—it was years gone, Lady. She left Arthur’s court, let me think . . . it was before Arthur had his great wound . . . why, ’tis three years come Midsummer. I thought she was with you in Avalon.”
Viviane shook her head and steadied herself against the arm of the high seat. “I have not seen Morgaine since Arthur’s wedding.” And then she thought, perhaps she is gone over the seas. She asked Balan, “What of your brother Lancelet? Is he at court or has he gone back to Less Britain?”
“He will not do that, I think, while Arthur lives,” Balan said, “though he is not often at court now . . .” and Viviane, with a fragment of the Sight, heard the unspoken words Balan bit back, unwilling to speak gossip or scandal: When Lancelet is at court, men mark how he never takes his eyes from Queen Gwenhwyfar, and twice he has refused Arthur when Arthur would have had him wedded. Balan went on hastily, “Lancelet has said he will set all things in order in Arthur’s kingdom, and so he is always out and about the lands, he has killed more marauding brigands and raiding bands than any other of Arthur’s Companions. They say of him that he is an entire legion in himself, Lady—” and Balan raised his head and looked ruefully at Viviane. “Your younger son, Mother, is a great knight, such a knight as that old Alexander of the legends. There are those who say, even, that he is a better knight than Arthur’s self. I have brought no such glory on you, my lady.”
“We all do such things as the Gods give us to do, my son,” Viviane said gently. “I am only glad to see that you do not bear malice toward your brother for that he is a better knight than you.”
Balan shook his head. “Why, that would be like bearing malice toward Arthur that I am not the King, Mother,” he said. “And Lancelet is modest and good to all men, and pious as a maiden too—knew you not that he had become a Christian, Lady?”
Viviane shook her head. “It surprises me not,” she said, with a trace of scorn she did not know would be in her voice until she had spoken. “Always your brother fears those things he cannot understand, and the faith of Christ is a fitting faith for slaves who think themselves sinners and humble—” Then she stopped herself and said, “I am sorry, my son. I meant not to belittle. I know it is your faith too.”
Balan blinked and smiled. “Now has a miracle come to pass, madam, that you ask pardon of any for any word you ever spoke!”
Viviane bit her lip. “Is that truly how you see me, my son?”
He nodded. “Aye, ever you have seemed to me the proudest of women—and it seemed to me right that you should be exactly as you are,” he said. And Viviane mocked herself that she had come to this, seeking a word of approval from her son! She cast about to find something new to speak of.
“You told me Lancelet has twice refused to marry? For what, do you think, is he waiting? Does he want more of a dowry than any maiden can bring him?”
Again it seemed that she heard Balan’s unspoken thoughts: He cannot have the one he would