Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [228]
“So Balin too is a courteous and good knight?” Viviane said.
“Oh, yes, Mother, you must not judge my brother by tonight,” Balan said eagerly. “When he rode against Lancelet, truly I knew not which of them to cheer on. Lancelet offered him the prize, saying he had won it fairly, since he should not have lost control of his horse—so he said! But Balin would not take it, and they stood disputing with one another in courtesy like two heroes from the ancient sagas Taliesin used to tell us when we were lads!”
“So you can be proud of both your brothers,” Viviane said, and the talk passed to other things, and after a little time she said she should go and help with the laying-out. But when she went into the chamber, she saw that the women were all in awe of her, and a priest had come, too, from the village. He welcomed her courteously indeed, but Viviane could tell by his words that he thought her one of the sisters from the nunnery nearby—indeed, her dark travel dress made her look so, and she had no wish to confront him this night. So, when they entreated her to go to the best guest bed, she went, and at last she slept. But all that she had spoken of with Balan seemed to come and go in her head, through her dreams, and at one moment it seemed that she saw Morgaine through grey and thinning mists, running away into a wood of strange trees and crowned with flowers such as never grew in Avalon, and she said in her dreams, and again to herself when she woke, I must delay no longer, I must seek for her with the Sight, or what remains to me of the Sight.
The next morning she stood by while Priscilla was laid in earth. Balin had returned and stood weeping by the graveside, and after the burial was done and the other folk had gone into the house to drink ale, she approached him and said gently, “Will you not embrace me and exchange forgiveness with me, foster-son? Believe me, I share your grief. We have been friends all our lives, Dame Priscilla and I, or would I have given her my own son to nurse? And I am your foster-brother’s mother.” She held out her arms, but Balin’s face drew hard and cold, and he turned his back on her and walked away.
Gawan besought her to stay for a day or two and rest there, but Viviane asked for her donkey to be brought; she must return to Avalon, she said, and she saw that Gawan, though his hospitality had been sincere, was relieved—if someone had told the priest who she was, there might have been awkwardness he had no mind to, during his wife’s funeral feast. Balan, too, asked, “Will you have me to ride with you to Avalon, madam? There are sometimes brigands and evil folk on the road.”
“No,” she said, giving him her hand and smiling. “I look not as if I had gold about me, and the men who ride with me are of the Tribesmen—we could hide in the hills, should we be attacked. Nor am I any temptation to any man who might seek to take a woman.” She laughed and said, “And with Lancelet questing to kill all the brigands in this country, it will soon be as it was said once it was, that a virgin of fifteen bearing a purse of gold might ride from one end of the land to the other with no man to offer her insult! Stay here, my son, and mourn your mother, and make peace with your foster-brother. You must not quarrel with him for my sake, Balan.” And then she shuddered suddenly as if with cold, for a picture had come into her mind, and it seemed to her