Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [292]
Morgaine’s voice sounded puzzled but tender, and she put out her arms and drew Gwenhwyfar to her. “Don’t cry, don’t cry—Gwenhwyfar, look at me, is it so much a sorrow to you that you have no child?”
Gwenhwyfar struggled to control her weeping. She said, “I can think of nothing else, day and night—”
After a long time, Morgaine said, “Aye, I can see it is hard for you.” It seemed she could actually hear Gwenhwyfar’s thoughts:
If I had a child, I would not think night and day of this love which tempts my honor, for all my thoughts would be given to Arthur’s son.
“I would that I could help you, sister—but I am unwilling to have doings with charms and magic. We are taught in Avalon that simple folk may need such things, but the wise meddle not with them, but bear the lot the Gods have sent them.” And as she spoke she felt herself a hypocrite; she was remembering the morning when she had gone out to find roots and herbs for a potion which would keep her from bearing Arthur’s child. That had not been surrendering herself to the will of the Goddess!
But in the end she had not done it, either—
And then Morgaine wondered, in sudden weariness: I who did not want a child, and who came near to death in bearing it, I bore my child; Gwenhwyfar, who longs night and day for one, goes with empty womb and empty arms. Is this the goodness of the will of the Gods?
Yet she felt compelled to say, “Gwenhwyfar, I would have you bear this in mind—charms often work as you would not that they would do. What makes you believe the Goddess I serve can send you a son when your God, who is supposed to be greater than all the other Gods, cannot?”
It sounded like blasphemy, and Gwenhwyfar was ashamed of herself. Yet she found herself thinking, and saying aloud in a voice that choked as she spoke, “I think perhaps God cares nothing for women—all his priests are men, and again and again the Scriptures tell us that women are the temptress and evil—it may be that is why he does not hear me. And for this I would go to the Goddess—God does not care—” And then she was weeping stormily again. “Morgaine,” she cried, “if you cannot help me, I swear I will go tonight to Dragon Island in the boat, I shall bribe my serving-man to take me there, and when the fires are lighted I too shall entreat the Goddess to give me the gift of a child . . . I swear it, Morgaine, that I will do this. . . .” And she saw herself in the light of the fires, circling the flames, going apart in the grip of a strange and faceless man, lying in his arms—the thought made her whole body cramp tight with pain and a half-shamed pleasure.
Morgaine listened in growing horror. She would never do it, she would lose her courage at the last moment . . . I was frightened, even I, and I had always known my maidenhead was for the God. But then, hearing the utter despair in her sister-in-law’s voice, she thought, Aye, but she might; and if she did, she would hate herself all her life long.
There was no sound in the room but Gwenhwyfar’s sobbing. Morgaine waited until it quieted a little, then said, “Sister, I will do for you what I can. Arthur can give you a child, you need not go to the Beltane fire, or seek one elsewhere. You must never say aloud that I have told you this, promise me that, and ask me no questions. But Arthur has indeed sired a child.”
Gwenhwyfar stared at her. “He told me he had no children—”
“It may be that he does not know. But I have seen the child myself. He is being fostered at Morgause’s court.”
“Why, then, he has already a son and if I do not bear him one—”
“No!” said Morgaine quickly, and her voice was harsh. “I have told you—you must never speak of this, the child is not such a one as he could acknowledge. If you give him no child, then must the kingdom go to Gawaine. Gwenhwyfar, ask me no more, for I will not tell you more than this—if you do not bear, it is not Arthur’s fault.”
“I have not even conceived since last harvesttime—and only three times in all these years—” Gwenhwyfar swallowed,