Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [254]
Gwenhwyfar assured him that she had everything she could wish for—every day a basket of the finest provisions to be had reached her—though she did not tell him she had little wish for food.
She told him of Igraine’s death and that she lay buried in Tintagel, and that Igraine’s last act had been to tell her of her child. Of the Sight she said little, but she did ask, looking at the old man with troubled eyes, “Sir, do you know where dwells Morgaine, that she did not come even to her mother’s deathbed?”
He shook his head slowly. “I am sorry, I know not.”
“But this is scandalous, that Morgaine should not let her kin know whither she has gone!”
“It may be that—as some of the priestesses of Avalon do—she has gone on some magical quest, or secluded herself to seek vision,” Taliesin ventured, and he too looked troubled. “In that case I would not have been told, but I think, if she were in Avalon, where my own daughter dwells with the priestesses, I would have known. I know not.” He sighed. “Morgaine is a woman grown, and she need not seek leave of any man to come and go.”
It would serve Morgaine right, thought Gwenhwyfar, if she came to grief for her own stubbornness and the godless way in which she did her own will! She clenched her fists and did not answer the Druid, looking down so that he would not see her anger . . . he thought well of her, she would not have him think otherwise of her. Nor did he notice, for Elaine was showing him the banner.
“See, this is how we spend our prisoned days, good father.”
“It grows swiftly,” said the Merlin, smiling. “I see well that there is no time—what is it your priests say, the Devil finds work for the idle—you have left no place for the Devil to do his work here, you are as busy as a hive of bees, you two. Already I can see the beautiful design.”
“And as I wove it, I prayed,” said Gwenhwyfar defiantly. “With every stitch I wove a prayer that Arthur and the cross of Christ may triumph over the Saxons and their pagan Gods! Will you not rebuke me then, Lord Merlin, that I do this when you bid Arthur fight under their pagan banner?”
The Merlin said mildly, “Prayer is never wasted, Gwenhwyfar. Do you think we know nothing of prayer? When Arthur was given his great sword Excalibur, it was sheathed in a scabbard into which a priestess worked prayers and spells for safety and protection, and she fasted and prayed for five days all the time she worked upon it. And no doubt you have taken note that even though he is wounded, he sheds but little blood.”
“I would have him protected with Christ, not sorcery,” said Gwenhwyfar hotly, and the old man smiled and said, “God is one and there is but one God—all else is but the way the ignorant seek to put Gods into a form they can understand, like the image of your Virgin there, lady. Nothing befalls on this world without the blessing of the One, who will give us victory or defeat as God shall ordain. Dragon and Virgin alike are the signs of man’s appeal to what is higher than we.”
“But would you not be angry if the Pendragon banner was torn down and the standard of the Virgin raised over our legion?” asked Gwenhwyfar scornfully.
He stood close to her, reaching out a wrinkled hand to caress the brilliant silks. “Such a thing of beauty as this is,” he said gently, “and made with such love, how could I possibly condemn it? But there are those who love their Pendragon standard as you love the cross of Christ—would you deny them their holy things, madam? Those of Avalon—Druid, priest and priestess—would know that the banner is but a symbol, and the symbol is nothing, while the reality is all. But the little folk, no, they would not understand, and they must have their dragon as a symbol of the King’s protection.”
Gwenhwyfar thought of the little people of Avalon and the far hills of Wales who had come bearing bronze axes and even little arrows of flint, their bodies smeared crudely with paint. She shuddered in horror that a folk so wild and savage should fight at the side