Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [293]
Morgaine sighed. “It might be so. You must not go to Dragon Island. You can conceive, I know—perhaps a charm could help you to carry a child to birth. But I warn you again, Gwenhwyfar: charms do not their magic as men and women would have it, but by their own laws, and those laws are as strange as the running of time in the fairy country. Do not seek to blame me, Gwenhwyfar, if the charm acts other than you think it should.”
“If it gives me even a slight chance of a child by my lord—”
“That it should do,” Morgaine said, and turned, Gwenhwyfar following after her like a child being led by her mother. What would the charm be, Gwenhwyfar wondered and what would it do, and why did Morgaine look so strange and solemn—as if she were that Great Goddess herself? But, she told herself, taking a deep breath, she would accept whatever came, if it might give her what she desired most.
An hour later, when the trumpets were blown and Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar were sitting side by side at the edge of the field, Elaine leaned over to them and said, “Look! Who is that riding into the field at Gawaine’s side?”
“It is Lancelet,” said Gwenhwyfar breathlessly. “He has come home.”
He was handsomer than ever. Somewhere he had gotten a red slash on his cheek, which should have been ugly, but it gave him the fierce beauty of a wild cat. He rode as if he were part of the horse’s self, and Gwenhwyfar listened to Elaine’s chatter, not really hearing, her eyes fixed on the man.
Bitter, bitter, the irony of this. Why now, when I am resolved and pledged to think no more of him but to do my sworn duty by my lord and king . . . Round her neck, beneath the golden torque Arthur had given her when they had been wedded a full five years, she could feel the weight of Morgaine’s charm, sewn into a little bag between her breasts. She did not know, had not wanted to know, what Morgaine had put into it.
Why now? I had hoped that when he came home for Pentecost, I should be already bearing my lord’s child, and he would look no more on me, since it was so clear I was resolved to honor my marriage.
Yet against her will, she remembered Arthur’s words: Should you bear me a child, I would not question . . . do you know what I am saying to you? Gwenhwyfar had known what he meant all too well. Lancelet’s son could be heir to the kingdom. Was this new temptation offered her, now, because she had already fallen into grievous sin by meddling with Morgaine’s sorcery, and making wild and unchaste threats, hoping to force Morgaine into helping her . . . ?
I do not care, if so be it I can bear my king a son . . . if a God would damn me for that, what have I to do with him? She was frightened at her own blasphemy, yet it had been blasphemy, too, to think of going to the lighted Beltane fires. . . .
“Look, Gawaine is down, even he could not stand against Lancelet’s riding,” Elaine said eagerly. “And Cai, too! How could Lancelet strike down a lame man?”
“Don’t be more of a fool than you must, Elaine,” said Morgaine. “Do you think Cai would thank Lancelet for sparing him? If Cai went into these games, surely he is able to risk whatever hurt he could take! No one bade him compete.”
It had been foreordained from the moment Lancelet took the field who would win the prize. There was some good-natured grumbling among the Companions when they saw it. “There is no use in any of us entering the lists at all, while Lancelet is here,” Gawaine said, laughing, his arm around his cousin. “Couldn’t you have stayed away another day or so, Lance?”
Lancelet was laughing too, a high color in his face. He took the golden cup and tossed it in the air. “Your mother, too, besought me to stay in her court for Beltane. I came not here to defraud you of the prize—I have no need of prizes. Gwenhwyfar, my lady,” he cried, “take this, and give me instead the ribbon you wear about your neck. The cup may go to the altar or to the Queen’s high table!”
Embarrassed, Gwenhwyfar’s hand flew to her throat and the