Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [229]
“What is it, Lady?” he asked her softly.
“Nothing, my son—only promise to me that you will not break the peace with your brother Balin.”
He bent his head. “I will not, Mother. And I will tell him that you have said this, so he will not think you bear him any grudge, either.”
“By the Lady, I do not,” said Viviane, but still she felt icy cold, though the winter sun was warm on her back. “May she bless you, my son, and your brother too, though I doubt he wishes for the blessing of any God but his own. Will you take the Lady’s blessing, Balan?”
“I will,” he said, bending to kiss Viviane’s hand, and he stood looking after her as she rode away.
She told herself, as she rode toward Avalon, that surely what she had seen had come of her own weariness and fear; and in any case Balan was one of Arthur’s Companions, and it could not be looked for, in this war with the Saxons, that he should escape a wound. But the picture persisted in her mind, that Balan and his foster-brother should somehow quarrel in her name, until at last she made a stern banishing gesture and willed to see her son’s face no more in her mind till she should look on it again in the flesh!
She was troubled too about Lancelet. He was long past the age when a man should marry. Yet there were men enough who had no mind to women, seeking only for the companionship of their brothers and comrades under arms, and she had wondered often enough if Ban’s son were one of them. Well, Lancelet should take his own road; she had consented to that when he left Avalon. If he professed great devotion to the Queen, no doubt, it was only that his comrades should not mock at him as a lover of boys.
But she dismissed her sons from her mind. Neither of them was as near to her heart as Morgaine, and Morgaine . . . where was Morgaine? She had been disquieted before this, but now, hearing Balan’s news, she feared for Morgaine’s very life. Before this day was ended, she should send out messengers from Avalon to Tintagel, where Igraine dwelt, and northward to Lot’s court where Morgaine might have gone to be with her child. . . . She had seen the young Gwydion, once or twice, in her mirror, but had paid him little heed, as long as he grew and thrived. Morgause was kindly to all little children, having a brood of her own, and there would be time enough to look to Gwydion when he came of an age for fostering. Then should he come to Avalon. . . .
With the iron discipline of years, she managed to put even Morgaine from her mind and to ride home to Avalon in a mood befitting a priestess who had just taken the part of the Death-crone for her oldest friend—sobered indeed, but without great grief, for death was only the beginning of new life.
Priscilla was a Christian. She believed she would now be with her God in Heaven. Yet she too will be born again on this imperfect world, to seek the perfection of the Gods, again and yet again. . . . Balan and I parted as strangers, and so it must be. I am no more the Mother, and I should feel no more grief than when I ceased to be the Maiden for her . . . yet her heart was filled with rebellion.
Truly, the time had come for her to give up her rulership of Avalon, that a younger woman might be Lady of the Lake and she herself no more than one of the wise-women, offering counsel and advice, but carrying no more that fearsome power. She had long known that the Sight was leaving her. Yet she would not lay down her power until she could place it in the hands of that one she had prepared to take it from her. She had felt that she could wait until Morgaine had outgrown her bitterness and returned to Avalon.
Yet if anything has befallen Morgaine . . . and even if it has not, have I the right to continue as Lady when the Sight has left me?
For a moment, when she came to the Lake, she was so cold and wet that when the boat’s crew turned to her to call down the mists, she could not force herself to remember the spell. Indeed it is time and more than time that I should lay down