Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [30]
There was a little graveyard there, and behind it an apple orchard, the branches whitened with blossom, pale in the twilight. The scent of the apple trees was fresh and welcome to Igraine, who found the smells of the city intrusive; dogs, and men too, relieved themselves in the stone streets. Behind every door was a smelly kitchen midden with everything from dirty rushes smelling of urine and rotting meat, to the contents of night pots. At Tintagel there was kitchen refuse and night soil too, but she had it buried every few weeks, and the clean smell of the sea washed away everything.
She walked slowly through the orchard. Some of the trees were very old, gnarled, with low-bending boughs. Then she heard a slight sound, and saw that on one of the low branches a man was sitting. He did not see Igraine; his head was bent, and his face was covered with his hands. But she knew, by the pale hair, that it was Uther Pendragon. She was about to turn and steal quietly away, knowing he would not want her to see his grief, but he had heard her light step and raised his head.
“Is it you, my lady of Cornwall?” His face twisted and looked wry. “Now you may run to tell the brave Gorlois that the war duke of Britain has hidden away to weep like a woman!”
She went swiftly to him, troubled by his angry, defensive face. She said, “Do you think Gorlois does not grieve, my lord? How cold and heartless any man should be, not to weep for the king he has loved all his days! If I were a man, I would not wish to follow any leader into war who would not weep for the dead whom he had loved, for fallen comrades or even for brave enemies.”
Uther drew a long breath, wiping his face with the embroidered sleeve of his tunic. He said, “Why, that’s true; when I was a young man, I slew the Saxon chief Horsa in the field, after many battles where he had challenged me and then escaped, and I wept for his death, because he was a gallant man. Even though he was a Saxon, I felt sorrow that we must be foemen instead of brothers and friends. But in the years between I have come to feel that I am too old to weep for what cannot be mended. And yet—when I heard the holy father in there, prating of judgment and eternal damnation before the throne of God, and I remembered how good and how pious a man Ambrosius was, and how he loved and feared God, and never skimped to do a kind or an honorable thing—sometimes I find this God of theirs too much to endure, and I almost wish I could listen without damnation to the wise Druids, who talk of no judgment but what a man brings on himself by the way he lives. If the holy bishop speaks sooth, Ambrosius now lies in the fires of Hell, not to be redeemed until the end of the world. I know little of Heaven, but I could wish to think my king there.”
She said, reaching out her hand to him, “I do not think the priests of Christ know any more of what comes after death than do any other mortal men. Only the Gods know. They tell us, in the Holy Isle where I was reared, that death is always the gateway to new life and further wisdom, and although I did not know Ambrosius well, I like to think he is now learning, at the feet of his God, what true wisdom can be. What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?”
She felt Uther’s hand touch hers, and he said into the darkness, “Why, it is so. What is it their Apostle said—‘Now I see as in a glass, darkly, but then I shall see face to face.’ Perhaps we do not know, not even the priests, what will befall beyond death. If God is all-wise, why should we imagine he will be less merciful than men? Christ, they say, was sent to us to show God’s love, not his judgment.”
They sat in silence for some time. Then Uther said, “Where did you learn such wisdom, Igraine? We have holy ladies in our church, but they are not married, nor do they move among us sinners.”
“I was born in the Isle of Avalon; and my